Prior
to creating Peanuts, widely regarded
as the world’s most popular comic strip, Shulz served in World War II as a staff
sergeant with the 20th Armored Division in Europe. After being honorably discharged
from the service in 1945, he returned to his hometown of Minneapolis and took a
teaching job with his alma mater, the Art Instruction School.
Schulz
also worked for a Roman Catholic magazine called Topix (previously Timeless
Topix), lettering comic strips that had already been drawn by other
cartoonists. He was good at his job, as he explained to San Diego Comic-Con
International co-founder Shel Dorf in Comics
Interview #47 (1987): “I could letter very fast. I eventually would letter
the entire comic magazine in English, French, and Spanish…for this [I earned]
$1.50 an hour—I was just to submit my time—and I was always very efficient.”
To
reward Schulz for his speed and efficiency, Roman Baltes, his boss at Topix, let the future multi-millionaire
draw a four-page adventure strip and two editions of a strip called “Just Keep
Laughing..”, which was a large single panel subdivided into four smaller
one-panel gag cartoons. Schulz signed these early works “Sparky,” which was the nickname
his uncle gave him when he was just a baby. Fittingly, the sobriquet, which
Schulz maintained throughout his life, was inspired by the name of Barney
Google’s horse, “Sparkplug.”
While
honing his craft during the late 1940s, Charles “Sparky” Schulz sent samples of
his work to comics markets across the country, selling 17 one-panel cartoons to
The Saturday Evening Post and convincing
the editors at the St. Paul Pioneer Press
to publish his L’il Folks strip, which
ran from June 1947 to January 1950.
Veteran
editor Jim Freeman with United Feature Syndicate picked up L’il Folks, signed Schulz to a five-year contract,
and suggested that the cartoonist alter the structure of the comic from a
single-panel cartoon to the now-familiar four sequential panels, a comic strip format
that would become the industry standard. Since Shulz had already been
contemplating such a change, he gladly agreed.
Schulz
was much less enthused by Freeman’s insistence that he change the name of the
strip from L’il Folks to Peanuts (after the peanut gallery from
the Howdy Doody TV show), which was
enacted due to legal concerns regarding the fact that two other strips had
similar names: “Little Folks” and “L’il Abner.” In a 1987 interview, Schulz said
the name “Peanuts” is “totally ridiculous” and that it “has no meaning, is
simply confusing, and has no dignity—and I think my humor has dignity.”
The
first Peanuts strip, which revolves
around precocious children in a world where adults are never seen, debuted Monday
Oct. 2, 1950 in nine newspapers: The Washington
Post,
The Chicago Tribune, The Minneapolis Tribune, The Allentown Morning Call, The Bethlehem Globe-Times, The Denver Post, The Seattle Times, The New
York World-Telegram & Sun, and The
Boston Globe. It featured Charlie Brown and Shermy, both from L’il Folks. As Charlie walks by, Shermy
says, “Well! Here comes ol’ Charlie Brown. Good ol’ Charlie Brown…yes sir! Good
ol’ Charlie Brown…how I hate him!”
This
admission by Shermy that he hated Charlie Brown was highly unusual for the day
as kids in comic strips (and in literature in general) rarely expressed hatred
for one another.
During
the next two-and-a-half decades of Peanuts,
which at its peak during the 1960s was published in 75 countries, in 21
different languages, and in 2,600 newspapers (reaching 355 million readers), Shulz
introduced the robust, now-iconic kid cast, including: Violet (Feb. 1951), an
uppity snob; Schroeder (May 1951), a Beethoven wannabe; Lucy (March 1952), a
loud-mouthed bully; Linus (Sept. 1952), a smart, sensitive type who carries a security
blanket; Pig-Pen (July 1954), who creates a cloud of dust when he walks; Sally
(Aug. 1959), Charlie’s Linus-loving little sister; Frieda (March 1961), who is
super proud of her naturally curly hair; “Peppermint” Patty (Aug.1966), a
tomboy who loves “Chuck” (as she calls Charlie Brown); Woodstock (April 1967,
named in 1970), Snoopy’s feathered friend; Franklin (July 1968), the strip’s
first African-American character; Marcie (July 1971), “Peppermint” Patty’s bespectacled
pal; and Rerun (March 1973), Linus and Lucy’s baby brother.
Snoopy,
who was carried over from L’il Folks
and is loosely based on a black-and-white dog named Spike that Schulz had as a
teenager, made his first Peanuts
appearance on Oct. 4, 1950, the third strip. Snoopy is, of course, Charlie
Brown’s anthropomorphic beagle, who lives in the backyard, spending most of his
time lying atop his doghouse, “speaking” in thought bubbles, hanging out with
Woodstock, and living out a fantasy life as a famous author, an advice columnist,
a college student named “Joe Cool,” and, most dramatically, a WWI flying ace,
using his doghouse is an airplane.
A
favorite among fans, Snoopy typically fails during his fantasies (he gets shot
down by book publishers, and by the Red Baron), giving him something in common
with Charlie Brown, who rarely succeeds at anything. Snoopy remains cool and
confident for the most part (though he does get angry at times) while Charlie
Brown struggles with self-doubt, self-loathing, and a general feeling of
inadequacy.
Despite
his failures, Charlie Brown rarely gives up. He manages and pitches for a
horrible baseball team, but keeps on playing. Lucy always pulls the football
away at the last second, but he keeps trying to kick it. He can’t bring himself
to speak to the little red-headed girl, but remains hopeful. In short, Charlie
Brown is an “everyman,” beaten down, but not completely defeated by life, by friends,
by a kite-eating tree, and even by his disrespectful dog, who frequently
forgets his name, calling him “that round-headed kid.”
Schulz,
who saw much of himself in Charlie Brown, named the character after one of his fellow
students at the Art Instruction School. He based other characters on people he
knew as well, including the little red-headed girl, who Charlie Brown talks
about, but readers never actually see. During his time at the Art Instruction
School, Shulz dated Donna Mae Johnson, a cute young red-head. Sadly, when Schulz
proposed marriage, she turned him down, leaving the cartoonist heartbroken.
Many
Peanuts fans relate to the characters
in a personal way as well, including Mistee Clepper, a first grade school teacher
at Keller Harvel Elementary near Fort Worth, Texas. “My favorite is Charlie
Brown,” she said. “He resonates with so much of my spirit! He never gives up,
but always seems to get the brunt of everything. People are mean to him, but he
continues to do what he’s always done!”
Clepper,
who “doesn’t ever remember a time when there wasn’t Peanuts” in her life, grew up watching the animated TV specials
from a very young age, including the Emmy and Peabody Award-award winning A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), which
focuses on the “true meaning” of the holiday, and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973), which features a rather
unconventional Thanksgiving feast.
Her
favorite is It’s the Great Pumpkin,
Charlie Brown (1966). “I have always loved Halloween, and the Peanuts special brings out the best of the
holiday,” she said. “And no one ever wants a bagful of rocks, like Charlie
Brown received! And his costume was the absolute worst! A ghost with 20 eyes!”
As
she got older, Clepper began “looking forward to reading the comic strip in the
paper,” a habit she maintains to this day. “Peanuts
reminds me of simpler times,” she said. “All of the characters remind us of
what happens in real life. If you grew up watching the specials and reading the
comic strip, it’s a great reminder of childhood. Then we pass it down to our kids, which is
why I feel like it’s so popular today.”
In
Nov. of 1999, Charles Schulz, who wrote, drew, inked, and lettered every
installment of Peanuts, even after he
got famous, suffered several small strokes and found that he had a blocked
aorta. His doctors discovered that he had colon cancer and that it had
metastasized. Because of his poor health—in addition to the chemo making him
sick, his eyesight was failing—Schulz announced his retirement on Dec. 14, 1999.
“I
was so sad when Charles Schultz retired,” said Clepper, who decorates her
classroom with Peanuts characters. “But
it wasn’t the end of Peanuts! They re-ran the strip and still do.”
Cute
and simple, yet frequently profound, Peanuts
does indeed live on in reprints, but the Shulz family agreed that the strip
would never be written or drawn by any other creator (though the animated
specials and merchandise are another story). In a 2000 issue of Priorities Magazine, Shulz said, “They
came to me a long time ago and said no one should ever do Peanuts except me. I was somewhat surprised by how strongly they
felt about their decision.”
Sadly,
the Priorities Magazine interview
turned out to be one of Schulz’ last as the disease that robbed him of his
passion also took his life. He passed away Feb. 12, 2000 at his
California home, surrounded by his loving family. The last new daily Peanuts strip appeared in papers Jan. 3,
2000 while the last new Sunday strip ran Feb. 13, 2000, just a day after its
creator’s death. In total, Schulz had created 17,897 published Peanuts strips, an amazing total by an
incredible talent.
In
addition to reprinted strips and the new movie, Peanuts remains relevant in terms of mass market memorabilia, which
fans, including Clepper, love to display in their homes, and, in some cases, on
their bodies. “I collect anything and everything Peanuts,” she said. “I have
about 25 different Peanuts shirts,
from Christmas, Halloween, and just everyday attire as well. I also collect the
plastic figurines that Target sells. When my son was born 11 years ago, they
had a lot of them, ranging from Charlie Brown with his kite in the tree to
Linus with his blanket. I also have the whole set of Great Pumpkin figurines.”
The
first Peanuts merchandise was paperback book reprints of the strips, beginning
in 1952. Comic books reprinting the strips began around the same time, with
early issues commanding hundreds of dollars in near mint condition. In 1958, Hungerford
marketed plastic toy figures based on Snoopy and the gang, and these are now
worth anywhere from $50 to $300 each, depending on the condition and the rarity
of the character.
An
avalanche of products from a variety of companies followed, including games,
puzzles, Hallmark cards, musical instruments, ceramic dishes, lunch boxes, coffee
cups, plush dolls, posters, Christmas ornaments, video games, a Snoopy Says See
’n Say (1964, $90), a Wilson baseball (1969, $200 new in the box), a Snoopy
astronaut figurine (1969, $300 in the box), a 15-volume encyclopedia set called
Charlie Brown's ’Cyclopedia (1980,
$40), and tens of thousands of other items.
At
the Charles M. Schulz Museum & Research Center in Sonoma County,
California, the town where the cartoonist lived and worked for forty years, visitors
can view vintage Peanuts memorabilia,
along with Schulz’ letters, photographs, personal items, and original strips.
Clepper
would love to visit the museum someday (it’s on her bucket list), but for now
she’s content to read the strips, collect the memorabilia, and venture down to
her local theater to see The Peanuts
Movie.
“The
new movie is beyond exciting to me,” she said. “Even my first graders are
pumped—we are planning on seeing it as a class. I think it will open up Peanuts to a whole new generation!”
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