Earlier Peanuts was a lot more edgy. I’m 46 so I saw sort of the middle era and then gave it up after it jumped the shark.
Could you explain the joke? 
Do you mean the joke in the strip? You can read it as absurdist. (Though a look at the rest of the site in which the strip is situated may explain things a little.)
-FrL-
About a month ago I drove up to Santa Rosa and visited the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center. I had not read “Peanuts” in years, but I saw an article about the Museum and thought it would be an interesting (and yes, nostalgic) place to visit. As soon as I got into the exhibit hall and started reading the displayed comics, I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. I found most of those strips as funny today as when I first saw them years ago. And, as the displays explained, there was a lot of personal meaning in all of the comics Sparky drew. (Everyone who works at the Museum refers to Schulz as “Sparky”; it’s kind of a thing with them.) I think that’s a big reason for the appeal: because there was so much personal meaning in them, so much reflection of Schulz’s own personality and life in them, it gave the comics a sense of being very real–something the reader could relate to as having some context within the world beyond the newspaper page. They had a dimension that shit like “Beetle Bailey” never could.
This is really apparent in the part of the exhibition where they’ve set up displays of comic panels or strips that other cartoonists drew in reference to or in tribute to Schulz. “Peanuts” became so much a part of the cultural zeitgeist back in the day, just the appearance of Snoopy or Charlie Brown in any context would give the reader instant symbolic recognition of what the artist was trying to convey. They became almost archetypal figures. When you see an editorial cartoon where a politician is introducing a new appointee, and the appointee is represented as Charlie Brown, you know we’re talking wishy-washiness, if not downright incompetence. Those characters became cultural shorthand, used everywhere in society. If you get the chance to visit the Museum, you’ll know what I mean the moment you see those comics.
I’d like to get my hands on those Complete Peanuts books, starting with Vol. 1, and re-experience the delight from the start. I think I know what to put on my Christmas list…
I’ve never been there myself, but I’ve heard that the planetarium show is quite impressive.
“Billions of years ago, Charles M. Schulz was formed when gravity condensed a huge cloud of ionized gas…”
My favorite Peanuts was published on the day of the 1974 Rose Bowl Parade:
Linus: What are you watching?
Lucy: The Rose Bowl Parade. The floats are really beautiful
Linus: Has the Grand Marshall passed by?
Lucy: Yes. But he wasn’t anyone you ever heard of.
That was the only personal reference Grand Marshall Schultz ever made in the strip.
Dude, did you hear what happened in Mary Worth a little while ago? Seriously - she had a stalker, and then he died, and now he has all these fans and a MySpace page and all. And then she had some sort of psychic dream and went to Vietnam! I have a coworker who tells me all about it. Can you believe it? Unfortunately, evidently it’s gone back to normal lately. Our theory is that whoever draws it went on vacation and let some giggling stoners have a shot for a while.
Og help us, they run Beetle Bailey and Prince Valiant (!) up here in the Sunday paper. The only comics I can stand at this point are Tundra and Get Fuzzy.
I like Prince Valiant. I used to carry an especially meaningful panel in my wallet, one that depicted men giving up their power of reason, in return for peace of mind. Very powerful stuff.
You allude to another thing that was special about Peanuts: Unlike many other strips, it was a one-man show. Peanuts was written and drawn by the same person throughout its entire run, and so it reflected that one person’s sensibilities: what he found funny or interesting or meaningful.
:eek: I always miss the good stuff.
I would like to see the strips intermingle. Have Cathy visited by Doonsebury or have Dennis let loose within the Family Circus. Hi and Lois could add a certain something to Dick Tracy, and Beetle Bailey’s Sarge could whomp Dagwood.
Can’t think of anymore strips–oh, how about Boondocks messes with Nancy’s head and infiltrates Brenda Starr’s newspaper? create your own comic strip mash ups!
The Grand Marshal that was year was Charles Schulz?
Cite.
Cool! I missed it.
OMG, I read this strip as a child in one of the dozens of Fawcett compilation books my mom bought me and my sister. And I never knew the story behind this joke! I thought the gag was just Lucy being smug and assuming Linus didn’t know someone just because she didn’t (which is silly, considering Linus is so much more well-read and intelligent than she is). Now it makes sense, thirty years later. Thank you, Annie-Xmas!
Anyway. Peanuts, not relevant any more? That’s crazy talk. As long as we have insecurity, loneliness, unrequited love, delusions of grandeur, crabbiness, obsessiveness, competitiveness, creativity, love of music, fear of failure, laziness, sarcasm, imagination, neediness, sibling rivalry, egocentrism, indecisiveness, and hopefulness, Peanuts will continue to be relevant. To me, the strips from the mid-1950s through 1978 are smarter and funnier, certainly more consistent, than any other strip ever.
Here’s my favorite Peanuts strip.
By Francesco Marciuliano, the writer of the Sally Forth Strip. Apparently he’s launching a new site for his web comic Medium Large, although it seems like it’ll take until the next Ice Age before we see anything new.
Looking at other cartoonist’s renderings of Charlie Brown and the others always makes me stop and realize that, as simple as the drawings are, they are uniquely Schulz’s. Nobody else ever gets it quite right.
To this day, when my dogs are collar-less, they are streaking, a-la Snoopy.
Don’t we all secretly fear our dogs ARE flying aces?
And really bad writers?
I love Peanuts for all the reasons stated here. The one reason that I have not seen metioned, that I appreciate, is Schultz’s promotion of hockey through the strip. As a hockey fan and a fan of Peanuts, I think Schultz has did more for hockey than any NHL media or marketing campaign ever has.
I think the appeal for me was that Charlie Brown was a loser, but he was such a cool loser. Like when he’d get smacked with a line drive from his first pitch, the power of the ball would cause him to flip and sometimes he’d lose his clothes. It’s like the jobber in wrestling who does a flip when he’s hit with a clothesline.
Or the time when he was so distraught about receiving a chain letter. He spent a week obsessing over it, then in the last strip, decided the chain letter wasn’t going to rule his life. So he tore it up, declared I’M FREE, and in the last panel it rains. The look on his face is priceless, like he’s saying Aw hell, did I just piss off God?
Also the time he and Lucy were playing checkers. He tells her, “Well, you win again.” She says, “Is that all you got to say? I’m so tired of playing checkers with you, Charlie Brown. Beating you is like beating nothing.” He turns to the camera and says, “I can’t even lose right.”