Perhaps the greatest comic strip ever, I hope it never stops re-running in the papers. The truly classic period of this strip was in the period of the late fifties on throughout the entire decade of the sixties, that was when it was at its most brilliant.

One nit from those earlier sequences: There was a storyline in which Snoopy's doghouse was threatened by an icicle dropping down on it and Snoopy was so petrified that he was afraid to leave his doghouse. The problem is that for this sequence Snoopy's doghouse is a small one which resides against the side of the house so the icicle can threaten it. In every other strip before or since this sequence, Snoopy's doghouse is a large one out in the middle of Charlie Brown's yard. Does Snoopy have two doghouses? (Of course, since his doghouse was destroyed in this sequence of strips, it would explain why we never see it again after this).

Yeah...I could be wrong here, but I seem to recall that the stand-alone doghouse (the one with the pool table and the Andrew Wyeth original) was built to replace the one destroyed in the icicle.

(BTW, Jim Toomey seems to have borrowed the concept of small house without/luxurious mansion within for his hermit crab character in Sherman's Lagoon.)

Anyway. I have adored Peanuts since about the fifth grade, when I discovered the local library had almost the complete set of the large-format reprint collections - does anybody else remember these? Titles included It's Great To Be the Super Star, It's Not Easy Being Crabby and (my favourite) Stop Snowing On My Secretary!

Seriously, if you want to really appreciate this strip - beyond the cute 'Happiness is...' catchphrases - skip the little commemorative hardcovers out now and pick up three or four of these older collections. You'll be amazed at how rich and varied a universe Schulz actually created.

(How 'bout a series in which Linus' blanket comes to life and terrorizes Lucy, for instance?
Or the one where Charlie Brown runs off to another neighborhood (I forget why, something to do with the kite-eating tree)...where he becomes such a big wheel that when his old gang finally finds him, he doesn't want to come home?
Or the various secret missions Snoopy went on for the 'Head Beagle'?
Or - another personal favourite - the series in which Harriet wants to join Woodstock, Bill and Oliver in Snoopy's Bird Scout troop, and is refused...until she whips out her secret weapon: 'angel-food cake with seven-minute frosting'.)

The best two collections to have are the two large hardbound volumes (Treasury and Classics) which reprint the stuff from most of the 1960's, the decade when the strip was at its creative and artistic height. Each volume reprints over five hundred classic strips from that decade. Both can be found in used bookstores or through online used book dealers with a little diligence. Although you'll definetely want to check out other decade collections as well, these two books serve as an absolutely essential collection as well as the best starting point. All of the truly great Peanuts strips and storylines are here.

I'd forgotten about the Treasury - you're right about it being obscure. I only saw it once in a library, long ago, and I can still remember the excitement I felt at having all those strips together in one place.

Personally I was disappointed in the more recent Golden Celebration collection/retrospective. Other than the truly gorgeous cover, it didn't really seem to contain much of substance - even from the artist himself. Charles Schulz (who as it turns out was probably already very ill at the time) just sounds very, very tired of the whole subject.

I did like the revelations about the most controversial strip in Peanuts history, though (presented without comment): It's the one where Sally comes home from school, cautiously drags brother Charlie behind the sofa, and whispers, "We prayed in school today!"

The local B&N had the Treasury on sale (for $9.99 -- cheap!) before the holidays. Should have picked it up, but I didn't.

As I was growing up, I collected the Peanuts Parade Books series. It was an enlarged version of the previous Peanuts hardbacks and was numbered (though not in order when all books came out). It contained all the main books that was published up to that point, EXCEPT the first one. It did not include any additional comics that were never included in the series (including stories such as the Little Red Haired Girl moving out of Charlie Brown's neighborhood and the birth of Rerun (when Lucy threw Linus out of the house, though parts of these stories are included in the hardback version of Snoopy Festival).

I had every book up to part 25, I think it was (Dr. Beagle and Mr. Hyde).

Okay, as for nits, I think there's some rules, i.e. any of the animated specials are not considered Canon for the strip, if I remember correctly (Shultz made such a comment, i.e. the little red haired girl was never supposed to appear and have a name, though she does appear in the special, "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown.")

Also, like any strips, there's ages-- Lucy was supposed to be younger than Charlie Brown, let alone Linus, her baby brother, and well, I guess some "Anti-growth hormones" were involved.

Nits can also only work in the Peanuts reality, i.e. a school is supposed to be conscious and commit suicide (unless all of it was in Sally's imagination).

Norman (Was a major Snoopy/Peanuts fan).

I loved the 'Sally talks to the school' strips so much I used to flip through collections looking for them. The school - and believe me, I feel weird just typing this - had such a cool attitude: proud of his status, yet world-weary, and not above braining especially annoying moppets with a brick (cartoon bricks, of course, which as everyone knows don't hurt as much as real ones ).

As for ages, as far as I can make out Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Franklin and Violet are supposed to be around eight; Lucy, Schroeder and Marcie six or seven; Linus and Sally five or six (yeah, I realize that makes Charlie two when Sally was introduced, but I can't help it); and Rerun four or five.
(Never liked Rerun, incidentally, after he got off the back of his mom's bike. He got too be too 'Family Circus'-esque cute.)

The high school in "Funky Winkerbean" was also sentinent.

I have a theory about the Peanut's kids ages . . . they all live on Miri's planet from the Star Trek episode "Miri", and that expalins why they stay children for decade after decade and why we never see any adults . . .

But that don't explain why the adults sound like mute trumpets. (Wak Wak Wak Wak)

Side-effect of the disease.

The Peanuts strip has had several characters disappear unexplainedly over the years. Perhaps the most notable of these is the original Patty (who bears no resemblance to Peppermint Patty, who came along several years later). Another mainstay of the early days who inexplicably vanished by the 1960's was Charlie Brown's friend Shermy. Perhaps they both moved out of Charlie Brown's neighborhood. Maybe Schultz thought these characters were a little bland and he decided to replace them with more colorful ones. Other characters have been introduced only to disappear. Frieda, she of the naturally curly hair, dropped out of sight somewhere down the line. I believe that the same fate eventually befell Violet who for the longest time was one of the mainstay characters as Lucy's best friend. And anyone remember "five"?
And then of course there's one of the most notable cases: Linus and Lucy's little brother. Shortly after bringing Rerun onto the scene, Schultz felt that he had made a mistake and Rerun went the way of Happy Days' Chuck Cunningham. However, Schultz did decide to bring him back in the very latest years of the strip, I don't think his long hiatus was ever explained.

Sequential Tart has an interview with Jeannie Schulz, Charles' widow, & I was surprised to discover that, apparently, with over 400 Peanuts books out there, some Peanuts strips have never been collected in book form. I'd have figured that every strip would have appeared in a book at least once.

In re-reading some of the old paperbacks I've acquired recently, I noticed this nit: We all know Snoopy has a sister named Belle, and brothers, Olaf, Andy and Spike, right? Except in 1959, when Sally was born, Snoopy claims to have been an "only pup".

And anyone remember "five"?

That would be 555-95472, or 5 for short, IIRC. He has two younger sisters, 3 and 4. Nice guy.

Maybe Schultz thought these characters were a little bland and he decided to replace them with more colorful ones.

Got it in one. I forget the source, but Schulz is on record as admitting that Shermy and Patty - and later Violet - were just plain uninteresting. Frieda, meanwhile, was a one-joke character her creator tired of writing variations on pretty quickly.
(He did make an attempt to give her a second - remember that cat of hers, the one she carried around draped over her arm? It was intended as a foil for Snoopy, but never worked out to Schulz' satisfaction - I think he said something about not knowing how to draw cats well.)

But no, Rerun was never explained...except that he was most likely the one avenue Schulz had never explored before, character-wise. There was a nice surrealism to the Rerun strip at times - a lot like big bro Linus in his heyday - but overall they just made it way too obvious that Schulz had flat-out hit the end of the creativity road.

Yeah, I remember Schulz saying he couldn't draw cats. That's why the Cat-Next-Door was never shown. All we saw was the results of its claw marks attacks on Snoopy's doghouse.

It wasn't just that Shermy, Patty and Violet were uninteresting, I think. They added nothing new. There was little these characters did that Lucy, Linus and Schroeder didn't do. Schulz never quite gave them any real personalities or character quirks.

The cat's name, incidentally, was Faron, after country singer Faron Young. My favorite cartoon with him was near Faron's first appearance. Snoopy saw the cat draped over Frieda's arm and thought, "What do know? They finally invented the boneless cat."

These days I read comic strips off the Internet. Monday's (January 6th) had a nit. Each "Peanuts" tells when it was originally published. The current run have been from 1971. According to www.snoopy.com Monday's strip was originally published "6-Jan-2003". It has since been corrected.

I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special this year. It's nice that they expanded it to an hour to show an uncut version of it. Was this the first time they had the added vignettes? It's a little jarring to hear the changes in the voices. But all I could think of when somebody talked to Rerun was, "Who the heck is Rerun, and why does he look exactly like Linus?"

IMHO, the cutest part of Rerun's whole character was how he got his name (nickname? I was never quite sure.)
Remember when he was born, Lucy went around for an entire week growling variations of this at Linus: 'I wanted a little sister, but nooooooo! What do I get instead? Another brother - a rerun!'

So finally Linus has the inevitable epiphany: 'That's IT! That's what we'll call him! 'Rerun' Van Pelt!'
Lucy: 'Oh, good grief...'

Influx, the added vignettes were not a part of A Charlie Brown Christmas originally. To be honest, I'm not sure of their pedigree. Does anyone know when they were made?

Kerrie, Rerun is officially his name, I believe. AFAIK, he has no other name.

To me, the best bit with Rerun occured when Charlie Brown's baseball team had a winning season. The championship had to be forfeited, however, when it was learned that bets had been made on the games. Who was gambling on the games? Snoopy and Rerun.

I believe the vignettes were new. They had an article in the paper about how they needed to fill time if they were to show the original show uncut.

Yeah, and at the time the original was made it hadn't yet become 'The Rerun Strip'. Nobody but dedicated fans would've recognised the little guy prior to, say, 1990.

I thought Rerun was "born" in the mid- to late-Seventies?

Well, it's happened again. Today's online version of "Peanuts" (http://www.luannsroom.com/comics/peanuts/archive/index.html) says it was originally published on 02-Mar-2003. Unless the strip is now being ghosted or someone's found a stash of previously unpublished strips by Sparky (wouldn't that be interesting?), that's not possible. (It wasn't a bad cartoon, btw.)

It also says copyright 2003 at the bottom of it. VERY interesting...

I didn't notice that. But in one of the gutters of the actual cartoon is a 1971 copyright notice. The current run of strips have been from `71, so I'm sure that's correct. There must be some legal reason for the different copyright notices. Perhaps one pertains to the online printing. However, the date of "original" publication is strange (and surely wrong).

And today's online strip claims it was originally published on 03-March-2003. Except, I know it wasn't. I've read it before, years ago.

Strange.

If they changed one tiny thing in it, then it can be called the "original" publication date, right?

Huh. Today's strip gives the date of original publication as "09-March-1971", which should be the correct date. Interesting. Or as Alice put it, "Curiouser and curiouser."

>IMHO, the cutest part of Rerun's whole character >was how he got his name (nickname? I was never >quite sure.)
>Remember when he was born, Lucy went around for >an entire week growling variations of this at >Linus: 'I wanted a little sister, but nooooooo! >What do I get instead? Another brother - a >rerun!'

>So finally Linus has the inevitable >epiphany: 'That's IT! That's what we'll call >him! 'Rerun' Van Pelt!'
>Lucy: 'Oh, good grief...'

Proof of the lack of power the invisible adults have in the Peanutsverse that the parents had to go along with this name.

>To me, the best bit with Rerun occured when >Charlie Brown's baseball team had a winning >season. The championship had to be forfeited, >however, when it was learned that bets had been >made on the games. Who was gambling on the >games? Snoopy and Rerun.

This is an ongoing nit in the strip. Occasionally Charlie Brown's team wins a game as a result of some gag in the storyline, and each time it is said to be the first game they've ever won.

Hey, I just learned something I thought was kind of cool. Remember how Snoopy's novel would almost invariably begin, "It was a dark and stormy night"? Turns out there really was a book that started with those very words. The novel was Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, written in 1830. I learned this from this quiz I just took found here: http://encarta.msn.com/quiz/quiz.asp?QuizID=61

(For the record, I got 9 out of 13 right. Two of my correct answers were guesses. I have actually read five of the books that are correct answers.)

Yep, and there's an annual Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest, too.

Yeah, I missed that question. When the correct answer was given, it mentioned that there's an annual Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest. I wonder if Snoopy ever wonn?

As I think I happened to mention on another board a long time ago, I'm pretty sure the young adult novel "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'Engle also begins with the line. No doubt there are other writers who have purposely employed it as well

Snoopy actually finished the book and got published.

I've entered that contest a couple of times.

Never won though. *sniff* *sniff*

Maybe I should enter some of my LICC stuff?

I used to have a copy of that book - it reprints the series where snoopy types his novel.
On a related note to the discussion, go back and read my first post way back on board 010502 - "Drabblemania" under the Kitchen Sink 1998-2001 topic archive board.

Hm. This could be good news to "Peanuts" fans everywhere. It is to me. Fantagraphics Books is going to publish an ambitious and comprehensive reprint series of Charles Schulz' beloved strip. Beginning April 1^st of next year, Fantagraphics will begin reprint every one of the "Peanuts" strips from the first one to the last. This will include the so-called "lost strips". The books will be 320 pages in hardback form in a 8" by 6½" format. The books will be a bit pricey ($28.95 each). The company will be publishing two volumes a year for the next 12 and a half years. Personally, I'm looking forward to it. To read more about the project go to http://www.fantagraphics.com/

Started reading the first collection of The Complete Peanuts (I would have read the second collection, but that's not out until September).
Interesting (and funny, of course).

While Charlie Brown appears & is named in the first strip Patty actually appears in more of the early strips.

Patty comes off a lot like Lucy & scenes of her & Shermy seem like later strips between Lucy & Schroeder (except Shermy doesn't play the piano).

Snoopy appears in the third strip and seems to be everyone's dog, in one strip Patty tells Charlie Brown where Snoopy lives.

It takes a long time before Snoopy & Shermy are given names.

NANJAO. The first time Charlie Brown fails to kick the ball was an accident. Violet held the ball and was afraid he would kick her fingers and shrank away.

Looked through Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings today. This is a collection of his Li'l Folks strips that preceeded Peanuts. Very interesting (& funny).

The book prints all the Li'l Folks cartoons (takes up a page with 3-5 toons on it) & has some discussion of the gags & trivia therein & sometimes reprints a Peanuts cartoon when Schulz recycled, rewrote, or expanded on a Li'l Folks gag. One problem with the set-up though, is that the Li'l Folks is on the right page & the annotations, comments, & occasional Peanuts reprint is on the left page, which I tend to read first. The Li'l Folks page should have been on the left page & the rest of the stuff on the right.

NANJAO. Charlie Brown actually appeared & is named in Li'l Folks.

One interesting thing about the cover is that they reproduce a Li'l Folks logo on the cover so it would seem that the book is titled Li'l Folks, but apparently the official title is Charles M. Schulz: Li'l Beginnings.

It's put out by the Charles M. Schulz museum although Fantagraphics is allowed to sell some copies as well.

After poring my way through the first volume of the complete Peanuts, here are some random observations:


CHARACTERS AND THEIR DEBUTS
October 2, 1950: The very first strip ever introduces Charlie Brown, Patty and Shermy. While Charlie Brown is called by name in this strip, we will not learn Patty’s name until the strip for October 26 and Shermy’s until that for December 18.
October 4, 1950: Snoopy’s first appearance in the third-ever strip, although he is not named until January 30 of the following year.
February 7, 1951: Violet, the first new human character, makes her debut. Charlie Brown immediately gets a bit of a crush on her (and who can blame him, seeing as how she’s the first new girl he’s seen in months?) In the early years, Violet is known primarily for her gourmet skill at making mud pies.
May 30, 1951: Schroeder’s first appearance. He is initially a baby. Charlie Brown will teach him his first words, “bye-bye”, in the July 11 strip.
March 3, 1952: Lucy arrives on the scene. She too is much younger at first than the Lucy we will come to know, although not as little as Schroeder and Linus in their debuts. Her favorite pastime in the early strips is thinking up ways to terrorize her father after being put to bed.
July 14, 1952: The first mention of Lucy’s baby brother (Lucy offers to trade him for Charlie Brown’s tricycle). We will meet Linus in the July 19 strip and he will be first called by name on July 22.

As I noted in a much earlier post, many of the earlier characters will eventually disappear after several years. Charlie Brown is the only one of the “original” characters to survive throughout the entire run of the strip (not counting Snoopy). Patty, Shermy and Violet will all eventually go by the wayside. It will be interesting as future volumes in this series emerge to attempt to pinpoint exactly when the last appearance for each of them is.

OTHER NOTABLE FIRSTS AND EVENTS:
December 21, 1950: Charlie Brown first wears the shirt with the famous zig-zag black stripe.
March 6, 1951: Charlie Brown is seen playing baseball for the first time.
September 4, 1951: First appearance of Snoopy’s doghouse.
September 24, 1951: Charlie Brown introduces Schroeder to the piano, and a classic love affair is born. Earlier strips had Charlie Brown attempting to play Beethoven compositions on a cigar-box banjo, so perhaps Charlie Brown also installed the seeds for Schroeder’s devotion to Beethoven,
January 6, 1952: The first Sunday strip.
January 11, 1952: Charlie Brown’s birthday is said to be close to this date.
March 21, 1952: Charlie Brown attempts to fly a kite for the first time.
November 11, 1952: Lucy pulls away the football from Charlie Brown for the first time. As mentioned before, it was Violet who originally did this to Charlie Brown a year earlier, beginning an annual tradition. Lucy actually LETS Charlie Brown kick the football a second time, but holds it too tight for him so that he trips over it.

NITS AND ODDITIES:
On the strip for November 11, 1950; an adult is heard speaking as a speech balloon coming from off-picture (Charlie Brown’s mom calling him). Although adults will continue to exist offstage in the Peanuts universe, this is one of the few times we actually “hear” one speak.
On December 27, 1950, Charlie Brown makes a confusing reference to his grandmother living in the apartment above his family. It has been established even this early in the strip that the kids all live in a suburban development and the Charlie Brown apparently lives in a townhouse. Perhaps the Browns let grandma have her own quarters upstairs.
February 2, 1951: Snoopy doesn’t appear to be Charlie Brown’s dog at this point in the strip. In this edition, Charlie Brown yells at Snoopy to stop following him only to realize that they both live in the same direction.
May 10, 1951: A reference is made to a girl named “June” who lives in the neighborhood, however she is never seen and never mentioned again.
July 2, 1951: Charlie Brown is seen dressed up in a sheet attempting to scare people. Halloween in July?
Later that year on actual Halloween, Snoopy scares the other kids by saying “Boo!” Snoopy shows the ability to speak!
April 4, 1952: And Snoopy speaks again! Although it just turns out to be a dream he is having, the fact that he has it presages Snoopy’s human intelligence, although he hasn’t yet started his thought balloons.

I finally picked up The Complete Peanuts: 1950 to 1952.

A changed premise I had never realized before: although Charlie Brown was most often colored as bald except for a few (dark) hairs, it is clear in the early strips that he is just blond, like Patty and Schroeder (and hence has uncolored hair except for the outline of his forelock).

The May 18, 1951 strip completely breaks the fourth wall. I don't remember any other Peanuts strip that did that.

Charlie Brown is a very fast learner. In the September 18, 1951 strip Patty rushes frantically off to school but Charlie Brown pauses, recalling that he is too young to go to school. Two months later, on November 15, Charlie Brown has apparently not only entered school but caught up to Patty's grade, since he sits right behind her in class!

NANJAO: The November 3, 1950 strip has Patty asking Charlie Brown to read the bottom line of her vision chart. He can't, and she concludes that he needs glasses. I, on the other hand, can easily read it, but from that I infer that I need glasses---on the basis of being a nerd. The text? "there exists,x,unique,rho"

(Of course, if I were an employable nerd I would have read the third character as "bang".)

The name Charlie Brown is used four times in Li'l Folks, for at least three different characters (the fourth time Charlie Brown is covered in dirt & only his eyes are visible, so he could be one of the previous three or a completely different one.)

The third Charlie Brown is the one that most resembles the Peanuts one.

Forget which Peanuts strip (I think one of the June or July '52 Sunday strips) but Schroeder is suddenly as tall as Charlie Brown, but in a later strip is shorter than him again. I've heard of a growth spurt, but a shrink spurt???

NAN just a bit o' trivia. Schulz' favorite composer was Brahms, but he thought the name Beethoven sounded funnier.

The second volume of The Complete Peanuts, covering the years 1953 and 1954, is out. Here are my notes and observations and historical "firsts" and introductions from these years:

2/8/53
This is a watershed breakthrough strip for Snoopy as he expresses fully humanlike, intelligent thought for the first time in the series."She doesn't trust me!" are Snoopy's first-ever "words", as Lucy leaves him alone with a boxful of chocolates but counts them all first. Schultz is drawing his thought balloons slightly different from the way he will later on, here they look almost like speech balloons.

4/4/53
Violet is given a last name in this strip, "Gray" (meaning that both her first and last names are colors!)

5/12/53
Snoopy moves into a "duplex", meaning his doghouse aquires a birdhouse built on top. This arrangment doesn't seem to have suited him, however, as we never see it again.

10/24/53
Linus says his first word, "Dottie". Charlie Brown and Lucy debate what it means.

1/17/54
Now Linus is fully speaking, or at least fully thinking. Speech balloons are used here even though Linus is alone and expressing his thoughts to himself.

5/9/54
This is one of the earliest instances of Peanuts continuing a running storyline from one strip to the next. The unusual feature in this case is that the story is carried continuing from Sunday strip to Sunday strip for four consecutive weekends beginning with today's entry. Also, Schulz gives a "To Be Continued" blurb at the end of each strip, something I don't think he ever did again.
But the most notable event in this series happens in the strip for May 23, when we - prepare yourself for this - actually see real live ADULTS in a Peanuts strip! On the May 23 entry they are just legs which tower about Lucy and Charlie Brown, but in next week's comic they are seen as full figures . . . and spookily faceless. So grown-ups, at least on this one occasion, did appear in Peanuts.

7/13/54
Pig-Pen makes his debut.

10/17/54
The introduction of Linus' "security blanket".

11/30/54
The introduction of another new character, an apparently short-lived one. This is a loud-mouthed girl named "Charlotte Braun" whose name's resemblance to his own causes Charlie Brown considerable dismay. The feelings are mutual.

In the punchline to the June 6, 1959 strip, Snoopy claims to be an "only dog". However, in the '70s, we learn that Snoopy has at least three other siblings - Olaf, Spike and Belle. (I think there was one more, but I can't think of his name. Was it "Andy"?)

"Good grief!"

Yep. Andy and Olaf were always together IIRC.

Unseen Peanuts (Fantagraphics)
Technically they were seen, they just hadn't been reprinted since their original publication.

Page 4, 4th strip. The editor's caption says that 60 years from the date the strip ran would be 2006.
Wow! A Peanuts strip from 1946???

My favorite strip is the one where Charlie Brown & Lucy are walking down the sidewalk and Lucy flips out when she sees a piece of fuzz on the sidewalk.

Just finished reading The Complete Peanuts 1965-1966. Noticed a couple of things. In the January 24th, 1965 strip, Snoopy is skating on ice. He slips and falls. In the final panel, he thinks, "I think my feet need sharpening." In the December 20, 1966 strip, Snoopy is skating on ice. He slips and falls and once again thinks, "I think my feet need sharpening." Really surprising that Sparky recycled that joke (hell, that entire cartoon) so quickly.

In December of '65, Sally Brown begins to wear an eyepatch for "amblyopia ex anopsia". The patch is worn over her left eye. Look carefully at the last panel of the December 6th strip. Sally is looking into a mirror. The patch is clearly on the wrong side. In the mirror reflection it's on the same side as her unpatched eye. It should be on the opposite eye. (Schulz clearly drew the mirror image of Sally as if it were the "real" Sally, rather than the image. If that makes sense.)

Couple of noteworthy events happened in this volume of The Complete Peanuts series. It was on Sunday, October 10th, 1965 that Snoopy first donned goggles and a leather helmet and on his "Sopwith Camel" (his doghouse), fought the Red Baron. It'll take roughly a month before Schulz brings back the "Famous World War I Flying Ace" (Sunday, November 7th) to fight the Baron again.

August 22, 1966 marked the debut of "Peppermint" Patty. (For her first several appearances, her nickname, "Peppermint" would appear in quotation marks.) Patty was a friend of Roy's, a boy first Charlie Brown, then Linus, would befriend at summer camp. Peppermint Patty first met the Peanuts kids when she came across town to try to coach the kids into better baseball players. Her attempts failed, of course.

It was also in 1965 (July 12, to be exact), that Snoopy would first sit on top of his doghouse, a typewriter at his feet and type out the immortal words, "It was a dark and stormy night..." Astonishingly, he sold the first three stories that began that way.

"I gave up trying to understand people long ago. Now, I just let them try to understand me." - Snoopy, from the May 11, 1963 strip. I tend to live by that philosophy.

Benn (or anyone else),

There's a Peanuts cartoon in which three of the characters are laying outside looking at the clouds, describing the what images they suggest, and the first two give these really educated, intellectual answers, after which Charlie Brown says something to the effect of, 'Gee, I just see a horsey.'

As you can see, my memory is pretty spotty. In fact, I'm not sure I've even seen or just remember someone telling it to me. Can anybody help me track it down?

Kevin, that was a scene written in a strip, then
it was filmed in a Boy Named Charlie brown!

I was 8 or 9 when I saw this in san Francisco, a long time ago in a city far far away.

Many of the scenes in Peanuts cartoons and movies have their origins in the comic strips. In this case, Kevin, the scene you're thinking of was the Sunday, August 14th, 1960 strip. In it, Lucy, Linus and Charlie Brown are lying on a mound watching the clouds. Lucy asks Linus what he sees in the clouds. The younger Van Pelt sibling responds, "Well, those clouds up there look to me like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean. That cloud looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eaking, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen... I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side..."

Lucy then asks Charlie Brown what he sees. Chuck replies, "Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind!"

The strip, if you're interested, Kevin, is available in The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960. Just thought you'd like to know.

"I gave up trying to understand people long ago. Now, I just let them try to understand me." - Snoopy, from the May 11, 1963 strip.

Yeah...I could be wrong here, but I seem to recall that the stand-alone doghouse (the one with the pool table and the Andrew Wyeth original) was built to replace the one destroyed in the icicle. - kerriem

I know Kerrie no longer posts here, but I thought I'd point out that originally, Snoopy's doghouse had a Van Gogh painting in it. After the house was destoyed by fire in a series of strips in September of 1966, it was replaced by the new doghouse that had the Andrew Wyeth painting. (Schulz was an admirer of Wyeth, and thus chose to honor him with a mention in the strip.)

"Good grief!"

I am interested, Benn. Thanks. I've been wanting to pick up a Peanuts book so I guess that one's it.

Not sure if I've ever seen A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Peanuts is one of those things I appreciate more as an adult than I did as a child.

You're welcome, Kevin. Quite honestly, I would recommend all eight volumes of the series so far. I've enjoyed them all. I'm not sure how far I'll go in collecting them. I mean, to me, the comic strip took a nosedive in the mid-70s. So I figure that after the 1975-1976 volume, I'll be done with them.

Except...

The completist in me will want to get the rest of them. Just to have them all. Sigh. Oh well. I've got about three more years to decide what I'm going to do. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy reading these collections.

You blockhead!"

What if Charles Schultz created the Watchmen?

What if Frank Miller drew "Peanuts"?

Excelsior!

So when will will Snoopy say, "I'm the gosh-darned WWI Flying Ace!" ;-)

The complete Peanuts 1969:

The strip for March 18 anticipates Douglas Adams. Except it's "42", not "5".

In early 1969, Miss Othmar left Linus' school. Strangely, in the September 11^th, 1973 strip, Miss Othmar is back as his teacher. Even stranger is the fact that Charlie Brown is now apparently one of her students. Either Chuck flunked a grade or Linus got bumped up in age (again).

Beginning with the September 24^th, 1973 and ending with the October 19^th strip, Peppermint Patty goes to stay at Charlie Brown's house while her father is away. Specifically, she stays in Chuck's cottage house. Or what Patty is mistakingly thinks is a cottage house. In reality, it is, of course, Snoopy's doghouse. What's strange is that throughout the history of the "Peanuts" strip, Snoopy's doghouse has been shown to be larger inside that it appears on the outside. Yet, for some reason for this series of strips, Peppermint Patty is shown sleeping with her head sticking out of the entrance to the doghouse. Of course, the doghouse had been destroyed a couple of times prior to this, so I suppose that by the time Patty slept in it, it has lost its extra-dimensional qualities and was a "normal" doghouse.

"Good grief!

Snoopy's doghouse is a Tardis (?)

I remember some of the Peanuts strips from wayback...the failure for Chuck to get the red headed girl, and kicking Lucy's football!

Snoopy's doghouse is a Tardis (?) - John A. Lang

Apparently. At one point, we know Snoopy's doghouse had a pool table, room for a card table, a basement (IIRC) and at least one Van Gogh painting.

Snoopy probably knows how to hide his downstairs (like a trap door or something like that). His place was robbed at least once, remember.

In the July 9th, 1978 strip (reprinted in The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978), Marcie and Peppermint Patty are hiking through the neighborhood with backpacks. Marcie asks if she should be looking for relics, then asks Patty, "How about this, sir? Could be a piece of armor from the suit of an Inca Warrior." Peppermint Patty responds, "That's a pull tab from a diet cola can, Marcie." Amazing that Patty was able to make that distinction. As I recall, all pull tabs looked alike. For all Peppermint Patty knew, the tab could've come from a Budweiser can.

Good grief!

I seem to recall that there were different shapes to some pull tabs*, although it would probably take a can collector to make such an identification.

* A Google search did reveal some shots of different can openings, but I couldn't find a handy site showing pull-tab comparisons.

That being said I believe that companies tended to use the same type of cans so a company that produced diet cola, cola, root beer, etc. would probably use the same type of pull tab on all their cans, so your nit stands.

Peppermint Patty probably had diet cola on her mind when she said it.

That's like Sherlock Holmes being able to tell the brand of a cigar from the ashes.

That was tobacco in general, not just cigars. And while different companies did use different tabs, like KAM, I doubt any one company used a different tab for for their diet drink than for their regular ones. (The drink Tab was made by Pepsi, wasn't it?)

But somehow, the word 'diet' does make it a tad funnier, presumably because of the added rhythm.

Tab was by Coca-Cola, before they had Diet Coke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_%28soft_drink%29

Tab is still around, though, isn't it?

Did you think they would "pull Tab"? :-D

*ducks as people throw rotten tomatos at their computer screens*

Tab is still around, though, isn't it?
Yes, although it's tough to find. I stumbled onto a (sort-of buried) six-pack or two at the Edison, N.J. A&P about a week and a half ago. Apparently, it's not sold by the case any more, or displayed prominently, since Coke products were on sale that week. Most of which were displayed very prominently.

KAM, I'm not going to wreck my screen... I'm going to track you down and throw rotten tomatoes at *YOUR* computer screen.

Oops. Forgot the

Though still around, Tab is the only soft drink drunk by characters in current tv shows set a few decades ago. Swingville and Ashes to Ashes both used it in their very first episode.

In a sort of reverse of that, in Back To the Future, which was released in the '80s, when Tab was still generally available, '80s kid Marty asked the '50s diner owner first for a "Pepsi free" ("We don't give out Pepsi for free.") and then a Tab ("You haven't ordered anything yet, and we don't give credit to strangers.")*

*The diner owner's responses are paraphrased because it's been a while since I saw the movie.

Here's something of interest. Peanuts strips with the Cthulhu Mythos injected into them.

http://scifi.icanhascheezburger.com/2011/11/02/sci-fi-fantasy-charlie-brown-meets-cthulhu/

Snoopy And The Red Baron (Fawcett Crest)

Cover reads "Color on every page"
It should read "Printed on colored paper". ;-)

Oops, Part II Unseen Peanuts (Fantagraphics Books)

Kim Thompson writes, "Embarrassing at this may have been".
As, not at.

I've never heard of the "Unseen Peanuts" book, Keith. When did it come out?

And I have "Snoopy And The Red Baron" as well as "It Was A Dark And Stormy Night: The Collected Works Of Snoopy". I bought both of them years ago at various used bookstores while traveling in and around Maine. There are still a few good ones here, at least for now!

It was a Free Comic Book Day offering in 2007.

It contained 150 cartoons that hadn't been reprinted in books until Fantagraphics The Complete Peanuts project.

Picked up A Good Caddie Is Hard To Find at a book sale (fill up a bag for $2). Not sure how much this tiny little hardcover originally went for, but I imagine that when someone realized this thing contained maybe 8 cartoons they might have been a might annoyed at how much they spent.

I read that Peanuts creator
Charles M. Schulz didn't even like the name "Peanuts" for his comic strip , so why didn't he get a lawyer and sue or go to court to change the name of his comic strip ?

And what are your thoughts on that Jeff? Is the source you read that from reliable?

Well it is true. He wanted, if I recall correctly, Li'l Folk, but there already was a comic or something with that name, so the publisher changed it to Peanuts.

Now why a lawsuit should be the default action for a young person just starting out and attaining his dream of having this work syndicated, I have no idea.

Schulz had a comic called Li'l Folks. IIRC the paper that carried it cancelled it.

He found a syndicate willing to take the revised idea (Li'l Folks didn't have a continuing cast, just random kids, more or less). The syndicate bought the idea, which means they owned it, so they could call it whatever they liked. This was normal procedure back then.

Later when he had more... power, for lack of a better word, he did get them to agree to add the "featuring Good Ol' Charlie Brown" to the Sunday comics logo so he sort of renamed it while still retaining the well-known name of Peanuts.

Schulz could not lawyer up when he started out because lawsuits are expensive and suing the people who have bought your comic doesn't usually result in staying employed by the people you sued.

Just something that popped up on my FB feed, not even from a group I'm a member of (as happens so much on FB now).

https://scontent-ssn1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/396874728_10211057543391600_5357757012219710097_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=LrYcHUOwyBsAX9hqDWP&_nc_ht=scontent-ssn1-1.xx&oh=00_AfDcATt1oU50KcnN9litscbPcufM6RcmUPxlYvRORG0qGA&oe=654A672A

Can't get the img tag to work, so ugly link it is.

I believe the img tag was disconnected years ago when a poster posted some icky content.

Some people...

The infamous Peter.

So I was looking for Christmas presents and noticed a nice Peanuts sweatshirt, with the characters walking from right to left-- Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Sally...wait a minute!
I couldn't help but notice that Lucy and Sally were drawn a little different-- they were no longer in their signature dresses, but rather sweaters and pants.
At first I thought, "Oh, right, here we go! Politically-correct non-gender-specific clothing for the girls! How DARE they not draw Lucy and Sally correctly!"
And then I thought, but THAT'S what young girls wear now! Even 40 years ago in the '80's, Lucy and Sally's dresses would have been a little anachronistic, because girls weren't wearing such things on a daily basis to school, the playground, to movies, let alone 2023.

Did you buy the sweatshirt.

No, it wasn't for anybody-- I just noticed it in the women's/girl's section of Walmart while I was looking for something for my sister. And although she used to watch 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' with me as kids, she's probably not much of a fan now, and is way too old to wear something like that now.

Right.