Peanuts: Search and Destroy

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A Charlie Brown Christmas has been a source of controversy in my house for years. I have loved it since I was a kid (it is as old as I am). My wife can't stand it, and my kids just think it's talky and boring.

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!