Peanuts (Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Charles M. Schulz)

Does anyone know what year the 'Snoopy's at the vet' strips were? All I remember is the finale, or close to it, was a wordless panel series of Charlie Brown dancing and finally saying "My dog is home!"

Yeah, I can't say I can feel the Peanuts charm in these. And the office gender relations sure dates it a lot more than any given Peanuts comic.

I'd heard of Young Pillars, which I believe only ever ran in a church newspaper or newsletter (though I think they were collected into a book at one point), and It's Only a Game too, but I'd never heard of Hagemeyer before. Just as well it never got picked up.

Edited by Robbery on Jun 1st 2021 at 5:01:39 AM

Apparently Apple+ is producing it's first Peanuts special since acquiring the Peanuts catalog. "It's to be called Snoopy Presents: For Auld Lang Syne. It's plot is described thusly:

"After finding out her grandmother won't be visiting for Christmas, Lucy decides to cheer herself up by throwing the ultimate New Year's Eve party. Meanwhile, Charlie Brown tries to fulfill one of his resolutions before the clock strikes midnight." — From Wikipedia.

Another Christmas special? I feel like there are loads of those already at this point.

...It's a New Year's special.

You can tell because the synopsis mentions New Year's Eve, and For Auld Lang syne are lyrics from a song famously and historically connected to New Year's Eve.

Oh, you're right. It's clearly still too early for my brain.

That does sound more fun. Not too many of those around.

Even then, there actually already is a Peanuts New Year's special. It's "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!" from 1986.

Yes, I think I've seen that one.

Edited by Redmess on Jan 15th 2022 at 12:14:06 PM

The premise sounds off, though. It's hard to imagine Lucy being really upset by her grandmother's inability to visit, or that she would throw herself a party to cheer herself up. Hope this doesn't mean they're screwing with her character.

Is it me, or is Truffles particularly poorly drawn here?

Also, "Truffles", really?

Edited by Redmess on Mar 31st 2022 at 7:02:21 PM

Well, she's not especially visually appealing, but if I remember correctly Schulz draws her that way consistently, so we can only assume that's how he wants her to look.

"Truffles" is a nickname her grandfather gave her because he thinks she's rare and precious, like a truffle. It's a bit insufferable, but then, if you continue to read this storyline, you'll learn that Truffles is a bit insufferable herself.

Schultz seems to have a knack for that sort of insufferable character details, though they do work quite well sometimes, like with Patty.

True. Most of the characters are relatable even if they aren't likeable all the time.

Reading 1975, and first Snoopy steals Linus' love interest, then he ruins Patty's air race... Snoopy is suddenly being much more of a jerk, it seems.

Also, how long has Rerun been around now? All he seems to do is sit around on his mom's bicycle. It feels like Charles introduced him but didn't really know what to do with him for a long time.

Also, the pitcher's mound has started to talk too now, after the school. This feels like Charles running out of ideas somewhat.

Rerun first appeared in 1973. I never really saw much point to him myself, and Schulz didn't use him that frequently. The two big storylines with him that I remember are one where Charlie Brown's baseball team had a rare victory taken away because Rerun and Snoopy bet a nickel on it (probably a sports betting scandal going on at the time) and another where Rerun was hustled out of his marbles and Charlie Brown, being downright forceful and heroic, won them back for him (depicted in the animated special He's a Bully, Charlie Brown!). Aside from riding on the back of his mom's bicycle, he'd also later frequently try to get Snoopy to come out and play with him.

Fun Fact: the minor character who appeared the longest in Peanuts was 5 (the kid whose father changed his family's name to numbers in response to the preponderance of numbers in modern life). He first appeared in '63, and his last appearance was in '83, and he's a minor or background character in a number of the animated specials. He and his sisters 3 and 4 are the characters people usually can't identify from the dance scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Edited by Robbery on Jul 9th 2022 at 12:37:17 PM

I just read Spike's debut comics. It's nothing special, really. Spike is talked up a lot, but turns out to be a scrawny, meek little wimp. He doesn't even talk or do anything, he's pretty much a prop for Snoopy and Lucy to build up gags around.

Hard to imagine that this is going to be the Scrappy of later years.

I never cared for Spike either, but as with Peppermint Patty and Marcie, he gave Schulz an opportunity to get away from his usual cast and setting. I recall Bill Watterson saying once that he used Calvin's fantasy alter-egos (Tracer Bullet, Spaceman Spiff) to the same purpose. If you're doing a long-lived comic strip, you've got to come up with stuff to keep yourself interested (hard to believe he found Spike all that interesting, though).

It may have been more the American Southwest setting that was appealing.

Wow, I never expected a gag about Santa being too fat, with Sally wondering if he's going to have a coronary in some poor kid's living room, and whether it will be theirs.

I wonder what readers were thinking of that one back in the day.

Oh, and on Beethoven's birthday, Lucy is daydreaming about her and Schroeder going to a piano concert in Moscow, which doesn't seem all that likely in 1975.

Edited by Redmess on Jul 10th 2022 at 2:22:58 PM

Wow, 1976 opens in a weird mood. First Sally muses over the usefulness of the phrase "drop dead", then the Sunday strip opens with Snoopy wishing someone would just shoot him and get it over with because of his New Year party hangover. And then the school commits suicide by collapsing. And yes, a later comic explicitly calls it suicide. It's... weird.

What's going on here? Was Schultz going through a rough patch or something?

Edited by Redmess on Jul 10th 2022 at 2:37:53 PM

His roughest time, personally speaking, was between '70 and '72, when his first marriage was falling apart and he had an affair. He remarried in late '73, and he and his second wife stayed together until he died. He said that he felt Peanuts was "as good or better" as it had ever been during that rough period, which he thought was odd given all he was going through. Then again in '81 he had heart bypass surgery.

In the 70's they weren't quite as sensitive to expressions like "just shoot me," or to the notion of Snoopy being hung over. I believe the strip where the school is described as "committing suicide" even makes a joke about whether or not that's the correct term to use.

Edited by Robbery on Jul 10th 2022 at 7:17:51 AM

I don't mind it, it's just that it is a notable shift in tone.

And yes, the sotrylines are still good. It was amusing to see how Patty can't stand actually being around Charlie for long amounts of time.

Concerning the Lucy/Schroeder relationship, I have to say in the vast majority of cases, my sympathy is with Schroeder. Lucy is, of course, Lucy (loudmouthed, crabby, bossy, intrusive, and often a bully), and Schroeder does nothing to invite her company, yet she insists on inflicting herself on him and then essentially demanding that he pay attention to her. Still, then there are cases like the Sunday strip from November 21, 1965, where she's been reading about Beethoven and listening to Beethoven music and calls up Schroeder to talk about it, given that she knows he's into that kind of thing, and all he can say to her is "It's not proper for a girl to call a boy on the telephone," which results in her screaming "Augh!" in the last panel. It's rare to see Lucy in a sympathetic light, but this is definitely one of those rare instances.

Schultz is an interesting author in that regard in that it is always the girl badgering and chasing the boy, never the other way around.