Peanuts

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by Adrienne Furness

Charles Schulz's famed comic strip, Peanuts, had rather modest beginnings. Originally marketed for its flexible size and format (four squares that allowed it to be run horizontally, vertically, or in two rows), it premiered on October 2, 1950, in only seven United States newspapers. United Features Syndicate chose the title; a title, Schulz says in Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me, he has never liked. Sales of the strip climbed slowly at first, worrying United Features Syndicate management. But, by 1960, the strip appeared in over 400 newspapers worldwide. In 1984, The Guinness Book of Records listed Peanuts as the world's most widely syndicated comic strip, and by its fortieth anniversary in 1990, Peanuts was running in over 2,000 newspapers in dozens of countries. Through the years, the Peanuts characters have appeared in print, animation, and even on stage, making them some of the most popular cartoon characters of the twentieth century.

Charlie Brown, Schulz's main character, first appeared in a panel cartoon called L'il Folks that Schulz sold to a St. Paul, Minnesota, newspaper in 1947. Charlie Brown was not named until the first Peanuts strip, where he quickly took the lead role. Charlie Brown is insecurity itself. He cannot fly a kite, his baseball team never wins, he receives no valentines on Valentine's Day, and he gets rocks instead of candy on Halloween. The things we fear will happen to us are the types of things that do happen to Charlie Brown. Even so, Charlie Brown displays a plucky spirit. He keeps trying to fly kites, keeps managing the baseball team, keeps sending valentines to his friends, and keeps going out for tricks-or-treats. Faced with continual depression and the torment of his peers, he tends to be friendly and kind. Charlie Brown is a character people identify with because, as Schulz says in Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me, "Who hasn't felt like Charlie Brown after a bad day?" Evidence of the empathy people feel for Charlie Brown came after the first airing of the Peanuts animated Halloween and Valentine's Day television specials, when hundreds of people sent Schulz candy and valentines to give to Charlie Brown.

Snoopy, Charlie Brown's exuberant beagle, acts as Charlie Brown's foil. Snoopy is one beagle who does not let being a dog get in the way of his ambitions. He often imagines himself as a writer, a World War I flying ace, an attorney, or the impressive Joe Cool. He plays hockey and baseball. He likes eating and sleeping and picking on the neighbor's cat, his truly dog-like traits, and he particularly likes chocolate chip cookies. He is confident and has an overactive imagination. He is a strange, quirky character who may embody childlike qualities more than the actual children do in this strip. Snoopy is everything Charlie Brown is not, and Snoopy may even exceed his owner's popularity.

The neighborhood children are not quite as depressed as Charlie Brown, but they all have their own insecurities and vulnerabilities. Lucy Van Pelt, Charlie Brown's next door neighbor, is a bossy fussbudget. Generally she is loud and mean-spirited, and is best known for annually coaxing Charlie Brown into kicking the football she has every intention of pulling away at the last minute. Seemingly invulnerable, she has a crush on the musical Schroeder and continually suffers his insults just to be around him. Linus Van Pelt, Lucy's brother, carries a security blanket in spite of the rather loud protests of his sister and grandmother. Sally, Charlie Brown's little sister, worries constantly about her school work. The other neighborhood children are much the same, worrying about school, unrequited crushes, and sports--typical childhood worries. Children and adults see themselves and their own insecurities in these characters.

The Peanuts characters, however, are not typical children. They do torment each other (making them some of the first realistic children in comics) and play games, much as other children do, but the Peanuts characters are somewhat more serious and intelligent than the average child. Lucy says she would like real estate for Christmas, Linus can philosophize about life's problems while sucking his thumb, and Schroeder's hero is Beethoven. They quote the Bible and have incredible vocabularies. Not only are these children intelligent, they are independent. Adults only appear "off stage," and rarely at that. The Peanuts characters seem to go through most of their activities with little adult supervision or interference, and they manage just fine. The characters tend to be a bit less fun-loving than the children we know. They are all somewhat depressed, and when they laugh, they tend to be laughing at each other rather than something innocent that simply strikes them as funny. As Schulz says in Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me, "Strangely enough, pleasant things are not really funny. You can't create humor out of happiness." Charlie Brown himself is the apex of this philosophy. The Peanuts characters have enough childlike qualities to keep children interested, but much of this is adult humor.