Peanuts: Search and Destroy

Sentimentalist that I am, I look for the good even in the later years, though certainly things were scattershot. So I'm useless when it comes to destruction. In terms of search? Jesus, where to begin? Snoopy as empowered Walter Mitty, to be sure. The fact that often what seems funny when younger seems totally and completely harrowing now, all without anything about the original strips themselves being different. The extended storylines (Peppermint Patty training for a skating competition, the various camping trips, Charlie Brown choosing between taking care of baby Sally and a baseball game, tons of others). Joe Shlabotnik, natch.

I have to slightly disallow the 'wah-wah' adults in that they were an invention for the animations, but since those were always written by Schulz anyway and are inextricably tied up with all my memories growing up with Peanuts, I can't really complain. ;-) So many of the TV shows were a kick, as were all four movies, actually, some songs aside -- Bon Voyage was great, and A Boy Named Charlie Brown< /I> survived even Rod McKuen theme songs.

The one I identified with the most -- Linus. But Snoopy wasn't too far behind.

Check out Aaron McGruder's great tribute to Schulz when he retired, originally published a couple of months before he passed on.

Also destroy: big Peanuts figures littering the sidewalks of St. Paul, MN.

Search: all the strips between 1955 to 1970. Some of the most melancholy and downright bleak 'funnies' ever produced; childhood as a time of pain, confusion and rejection.

Destroy: The Red Baron, Woodstock, all of the sports gags, the diminishing of Charlie Brown's existential angst, and the gradual decline of Schulz's wonderful linework and lettering. But almost to the end, Schulz could still produce a poignant picture, a funny gag.

Well that's my search - the annual CB vs. Lucy trust betrayal that goes beyond the running gag into the realms of true tragedy.
Destroy: Most of Snoopy's fantasy sequences, esp. involving the Red Baron.

Also, I love the mwah-mwah-mwah of the out of view adults in the TV shows. When I was a sullen teen, the absolute best way to wind up my mother (besides doing baby-voiced 'I love you, Mommie Dearest' while brandishing a wire hanger) was to block out irritating chore requests/ other nagging with Uberparent noises.

I will put up that article again though Ned, thanks for reminding!

My first evah mail-order purchase (w.money I won on premium bonds, aged 10 or 11) = 40 Peanuts booXoR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I guess at one time I luvd em. Mum was upset when he died, I think becoz she was excited with and for me when Big Box o'Peanutz arrived all those years ago.

Eek.

I suspect neither are as bad as The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet

Peanuts is a classic, I even like the past 5 years' worth.

Search: The seam of tragedy which runs through Charlie Brown's entire existence.

Destroy: Repitition of gags (although kind of unavoidable in a 50 year run).

Peanuts = def. CLASSIC. Surprised no-one mentioned the "Snoopy Come Home" movie, where Snoopy leaves Charlie Brown for his original owner (Leila, was it?) only to come back. Even after all these years and having grown up, it still touches a nerve.

Schulz is also notable as one of very few daily cartoonists who gets much funnier in large doses.

DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY

As far as "Peanuts" is concerned, I wouldn't have learned to read so quickly had it not been for Charles M. Schultz, so CLASSIC. Search: Linus, Peppermint Patty, Franklin (WOEFULLY UNDERUSED BROTHER), Marcie, Sally. Destroy: Snoopy's ugly-ass brother, Spike. And Violet, because she was the poor man's Lucy.

Josh, alas, is confused, poor man. ;-)

Lately I've noticed that a lot of the Peanuts anthology books have slowly become completely unavailable, perhaps even out of print. Hopefully this and the Chip Kidd book are the prelude to the release of a Compleat Peanuts collection of books where every strip Sparky ever did is reprinted, in chronological order and in color (where applicable).

The 70's, 80's and 90's Peanuts strips are nowhere near as bad as anybody says they are. The humor is awfully dry, I admit, but it's there.

I'll have to stick up for the Red Baron sequences, at least the original ones in the '60s. Yes the emphasis on Snoopy and Woodstock in later years and downplaying of Charlie Brown (and Lucy, who pretty much became a nonentity except for the football episodes) was depressing. But, I still think the idea of a dog pretending to be a World War I Flying Ace (flying a SOPWITH CAMEL, yet, and somehow knowing the names of all the French towns he's flying over) is the most bizarre idea ever to hit the comics. It makes Calvin and his pseudo-Buck Rogers fantasies look positively normal.

Wasn't the message of the show A Charlie Brown Christmas about "the true meaning of Christmas" as opposed to commercialism--that is, shopping, for example? Of course, with all the Snoopy dolls, and comic strip collections and games and greeting cards and everything else, we must realize that the "true meaning" is to go out and buy!

I think the strip also began to quit emphasizing the holiday at that time as well.

But the writer (or writers) went through the same plots of Lucy yanking the football from Charlie Brown, of Charlie Brown losing ballgames, etc. even as Snoopy got lost in the desert with his brothers. The new stories didn't make sense and the old ones were worn out. Worse, one wonders if any of the newspapers actually had the guts to drop the strip in favor of newer strips.

The strip had become a narcotic. Had it not been there, perhaps more newspaper editors and readers would have demanded change. But they remained set in their ways--and too many still do. We should be thankful that a few papers have dropped the Peanuts comic strip, but that number is too few.

They are great because they are lame! They make the other ones seem funny.

yeah, the music and voices on those specials are so nostalgic for me, but I could see kids finding them dull & musty

i think they've aged well, as someone whos 20 years younger than them. kids finding old stuff boring is not really an indictment

I do understand how the extended conversations about the meaning of Christmas might be dull for kids raised on YouTube.

Dunno man the Thanksgiving and Christmas shows were 15-20 years old when I was watching them and I loved them. I agree that difference between a gap of 15-20 years and nearly 60 may be to far to overcome though. Children’s entertainment is a lot louder and fast paced now. Mr. Rogers was still the king of kid’s TV when I was a child.

Haha, and weirdly enough I thought Mr. Rogers was boring af when I was a kid. As a parent, I have a deep appreciation for what he was trying to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzu8aLpzIKw

HBD

Still a lodestar.

very nice

February 20, 1973 pic.twitter.com/tFZoLQnRkj

— Peanuts On This Day (@Peanuts50YrsAgo) February 21, 2023

(the two week lead up to that worth reading too)

So many of these are stuck in my head forever, today I was thinking about the Sunday one where Charlie Brown goes to a baseball game, and it beautifully sets up all the anticipation and excitement, with no dialogue.

https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Peanuts-Original-Sunday-Page/AE3A5AC94B002B1B

ha! at both of those. and on the latter one MaresNest just posted, i also remember that one well.

so good

this is from 2015, most of you have probably read it. but i first read it last week, enjoyed it, and maybe you will too

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/selling-newspaper-comic-strip/

it's about Schulz, Watterson, and how they thought about art and commerce in the context of their strips

Oooh, I want to read that. I've never read much (or really anything) about Watterson. His work has always spoken for itself.

in the essay he probably comes across as taking things a weeeee bit too seriously, ha! but i enjoyed reading it all the same

Just as long as he hasn't descended into right wing politics. He is imho the GOAT.

haha, no right wing politics, thank god

and yeah, probably better left for a watterson thread but calvin and hobbes towered above a lot of the rest of my reading as a child (along with peanuts). i adored calvin and hobbes. curious how that new book is

Schultz and Kelly the only ones who came close.

*Schulz

The strip for Super Bowl Sunday: It's the last sports strip in "Peanuts" (from January 2, 2000). A little more than a month after it was published, Charles Schulz would pass away, and I've always considered this one to be about mortality, about realizing the end is drawing near. pic.twitter.com/ZdHtPYk1f9

— Luke Epplin (@LukeEpplin) February 12, 2023

Such finality in those last two panels...

Really the whole last row.

kind of the perfect ending, really.

oof

That 1973 storyline starts here, got to be one of the best examples of Schulz going fully dark, but still with jokes:

https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/01/29

In an introduction to the 1975 compilation Peanuts Jubilee, he wrote: “Just as I have resented the size that I have been forced to work in, I have resented the title Peanuts that was forced upon me. I still am convinced that it is the worst title ever thought of for a comic strip.”

from zs's link. amazing! i never knew this.

Wow @ that 2000 strip

xpost Oh yeah he was very vocal over the years about never liking the title at all. But it was essentially too late to change it by the time it was as successful as it became and he had more clout. But there's a reason why none of the animated specials or movies had 'Peanuts' in the title, for instance. (At least, when he was alive.) My copy of that Jubilee book is one of my home library cornerstones.

https://www.peacock-panache.com/2013/01/charlie-brown-on-gun-contro.html

https://attitudeofgratitude.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c62a69e2017ee7b2d375970d-pi

That gun strip is such an oddity. The first time I saw it was in one of the Complete Peanuts books, after I was surprised to find "AK-47" (iirc) in the index.

“Li’l Folks” is perhaps an even worse title, though.

it really is. was thinking about this yesterday, trying to think of what is unambiguously a better title than Peanuts. it's surprisingly difficult!

“Snoopy”

Snoop Troop

"Charlie Brown's World"

"Peanuts and his dog"

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

"Peanuts and his dog"

this changes everything!

Jan 2000 strip has officially ended me

depression team

good game, good game!

ended

Funky Winkerbean

Moby-Dick

August 16, 1972 pic.twitter.com/mLFQGFY3pD

— Peanuts On This Day (@Peanuts50YrsAgo) August 17, 2022

that's a great one

50 years today since Rerun's first appearance!

Today in Comics History: The Little Red-Haired Girl, the unseen and unrequited secret crush of Charlie Brown, was first mentioned in "Peanuts" on November 19, 1961. (It’s also among the most brutally poignant strips Charles Schulz produced.) pic.twitter.com/urL84d0V9L

— Tom Heintjes (@Hoganmag) November 19, 2023

Chat gpt insists that charlie brown had hoes