As I said earlier, “[Schulz’s] level of involvement varied, depending on the show in question.”
This is borne out by examining the credits on the TV specials. Many merely carry the credit “Created by Charles Schulz” and make no mention of writing credits.
Others, including the special we’re discussing, carry the credit “Written by Charles Schulz.” So Schulz apparently did have input into the story line of this one — though from all we know it would appear that there was a certain amount of pressure involved in getting him to accede to showing the Little Red-Headed Girl.
And, as I said earlier, “He’s the only credited writer for several of those, primarily stories which originally appeared in the strips.” NB: Charlie Brown’s All-Stars, which started this tangent, originally appeared in strip form.
Now that you’ve evidently took a look at the writing credits, perhaps you’d like to acknowledge that “[a]nything [beyond the strips] does not have any direct involvement with Charles Schulz” wasn’t correct?
Yes, my statement as quoted above was incorrect — although my overall point that anything that did not appear in the strip is not “canon” remains. Hope you feel better now.
Your “primarily” saves you in your first paragraph, since the story in which Charlie Brown meets (and is ultimately kissed by) the Little Red-Headed Girl — which has been the primary focus of our discussion — did not originally appear in the strip.
I’ll hold as ‘canon’ anything on display at the Peanuts Museum in Santa Rosa, California.
Thus, Christo and Otani are canon, too.
Charles Schultz was a rather nice fellow who gave much money to the community both openly and anonymously. I gather he cared more about ice shows than canonicity.
That strip is one of my favorites, too. One thing I especially like is how Schulz juxtaposes Snoopy’s thought bubbles with the spoken lines so that it seems like dialogue, even though the human characters ostensibly can’t hear Snoopy’s thoughts.
Snoopy: “Touched the dog”?!!
Sally: Stay away from me!! My hands are clean!
Snoopy: Look out! I’m covered with disease! I’m filthy dirty!
Sally: Stay away, I said!
Sally’s lines aren’t actually responses to what Snoopy is thinking, but they sound like they could be. Schulz did this sort of thing a lot; it gives the reader a sense of Snoopy interacting with the human characters while still maintaining a boundary between them. Compare this with Garfield, which treats the human/animal interaction inconsistently (Jon can’t hear Garfield’s thoughts, except when the punchline of a strip demands it).
IIRC the very first strip closed with a kid saying, “Good old Charlie Brown. How I hate him.” Dark start.
But even without Snoopy I think Schulz would have taken the strip in the direction it went anyway. Otherwise it would just end up on the last page of City Paper.
