March 21, 2024 • 45 mins
Today is part II of our tribute to one of the most iconic pieces of American culture.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the Peanuts Cast. I'm Josh, there's
Chuck been sitting in and this is part two of
two the Deuce, as we call it sometimes, about stuff
you should know about Peanuts.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That's right. If you remember where we left off, Charlie
Brown had just murdered Snoopy and was on the run
from the law. No, of course not. We had made
up and surely no one's going to listen to this
one first, but just to catch you up, we covered
most of Charles Schultz's early life, the birth of Peanuts,
and we had gotten up to Snoopy character wise, and
(00:47):
here we go with that little black and white beagle
that is probably the weirdest comic character of all time.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, and we said before he was based on Schultz's
dog Spike, who apparently could eat razor blades without getting sick.
He had another dog, know that. I guess Spike ate
razorbikes And they were like, oh, okay, he's good. That's
what he was in Ripley's believe it or not, for
eating razor blades, yeah, not getting sick. He had another
(01:16):
another dog named Snooky. Snooky and then just like the
Jersey short character. And then apparently his mom suggested that
as she was dying that if the family ever got
another dog, they should name it Snoopy, like s n Upi,
which apparently is a term of endearment in Norwegian. So
you put all those together, you mix them up, put
(01:38):
him in a blender, blend it, and then regret that
immediately you've got Snoopy.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yes, Snoopy was a black and white beagle who slept
on top of a doghouse. Yeah, apparently that came around
in fifty eight. For the first few years, Snoopy actually
slept in the house and if you wonder why Snoopy,
he was on top of the house so you could
see Snoopy right. Very weird to have a cartoon drawn
(02:06):
inside of a doghouse, So it was just sort of
a utilitarian decision. Snoopy was, like I said, one of
the weirdest character in comics, I think, because Snoopy had
and my favorite thing about Snoopy was this weird fantasy
life that Snoopy lived where he had these alter egos.
(02:28):
I think there were more than one hundred Snoopy alter
egos that range from being a world famous it was
always world famous, usually a world famous tennis star. He
was a world famous surgeon, an attorney. The Fierce Vulture
is one of my favorite alter egos, a famous, world
famous author. Joe Cool was one I wasn't super into. Actually,
(02:49):
it was probably my least favorite altar.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
That's funny. My grandma called me Joe Cool because I
sent her a card once as a kid and identified myself.
I think I signed it as Joe Cool. It really
called me Joe Cool from that moment on.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
But the really weird one was the Flying Ace alter ego,
in which Snoopy was a was an air airplane fighter
pilot from World War Two that had an ongoing I
was about to say beef, but just ongoing battle with
the Red Baron fighter pilot from Germany, and that became
(03:23):
a big hit song in nineteen sixty six. It was
a novelty song by the Royal Guardsman that hit number
two in the United States, Which is I mean I
had this forty five that It was a time and
we've talked about some famous novelty songs in the past,
but it was a time when a novelty song could
be like a legit number one hit.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, or number two at least. Yeah. So that flying
Ace thing. One of the things that Peanuts is known
for is it was genuine, generally not political. It was
much more universal than that. It wasn't so narrow as
to like discourse on politics.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
But during the Vietnam War, and Charles Schultz, remember he
was a veteran of World War two, very proud veteran,
and during the Vietnam War he gave official approval for
the Air Force to use Snoopy as a mascot in Vietnam.
And at the same time, as it became clear that
(04:22):
the United States strategy and involvement in Vietnam was just
a catastrophe and disastrous and being led by people who
were completely amoral, even Charles Schultz became dissatisfied or against
the Vietnam War, and he used the World War one
Flying Ace to comment on the Vietnam War like there
(04:42):
was it went as it became as overt as there's
there's one where Snoopy as World War one Flying Ace
has cursed the stupid war, and eventually it even spilled
out from the flying Ace. There's there's strips where Lioness
and Charlie Brown are discussing the prospect of being drafted.
I mean, like he got pretty anti war as a
(05:04):
matter of fact during the Vietnam era, which was really
out of character for not just him but also for Peanuts.
But like that, I think that just kind of goes
to show how unpopular the Vietnam War was that even
Charles Schultz, this conservative methodist World War Two veteran, was
speaking out against it through his characters.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, I think Franklin's dad was in Vietnam during the
comic strip exactly. Yeah. And by the way, I think
I said world War two instead of World War One.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So in choke correction, Oh did you say too? I'm
sorry I didn't correct you. I really know that I
missed the chance. Hey, you mentioned Joe Cool. There was
an offshoot of Joe Cool from the nineties, wasn't there.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I don't know was here.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, you gotta gotta mention Joe Grunge.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I wouldn't run for Joe Grunge.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I wasn't either, But I mean, I'm aware he existed.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I wasn't aware he existed.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, now.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
That's good. Sounds like he rolled with the times. So
Snoopy had a family. We mentioned Spike. He had a
whole litter that he was born with, Spike, Bell, Marbles,
olaf Andy, Molly, and Rover, and Spike was the one
that I love. Spike became he became like arguably a
main character in the in the nineties basically, but he
(06:23):
debuted in nineteen seventy five and was you know, he
always had that hat on, and he had those whiskers
that sort of looked like a little beat nick mustache. Yeah,
and he lived alone in the California desert and he
was usually by his big cactus, and it was just
he was he was sort of an altar of Snoopy
like in demeanor.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, but Snoopy. It's not like Snoopy
was high strung or uptight. He was different. They were
very different, though, But I'm not sure how one was
a foil to the other. I think they were just different,
you know.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Oh, I don't think there were foils. I think yeah,
And I think Snoopy, I mean, I think he was precocious.
But again, it almost felt like a spin off within
the old thing, within the within its own thing, because
he and Woodstock were commonly you know, I mean He
would interact with the other characters, but he was often
doing his own thing, right.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, like you said with Woodstock, do you I have
a question for you. When you were going up? Did
you have the Snoopy snow cone machine?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I did you, lucky kid, I'm pretty sure either that
or a friend did. I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
That stuff was addictive, those those plays fun. Yeah, same here.
I had access to one, but I had to like
go play at somebody's house to get a Snoopy snow cone.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I don't think that. Maybe I didn't have one, or
if it was, it was a hand me down. I
know one thing for sure. My parents didn't go out
and buy me that thing new right.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
They got it out of the yard sale and it
hadn't been washed out from the last time. Probably, So
there's I got one other little piece of Snoopy trivia,
all right. Snoop Dog he was nicknamed by his mom
because she thought that he looked like Snoopy as a
young man.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I could see that totally on.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Once you hear it, you're like, oh my god, he
does kind of look like Snoopy.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, that's very cute. Yeah, I agree, And Snoopy the
Dog loved smoking some wheat.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I don't know. I think that might have been Woodstock,
who I say we talk about real quick, you want
to sure?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I mean Woodstock. We talked a little bit about Woodstock
in the Woodstock episode because Woodstock was named for Woodstock.
Because June twenty second, nineteen seventy is when Woodstock the
bird got its name. I think it he was around
in the cartoon before that but didn't have a name,
And there were other birds in the cartoon that preceded Woodstock.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, and when they finally debuted Woodstock's name, it's Snoopy
hanging out on the roof, and I guess Woodstock had
been around for a while. And he said, Harry thinks
I finally found out what that stupid birds name is.
You'll never believe it. And apparently it was absolutely based
on Woodstock.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And there is a an author named Michelle Abate who
wrote a book on Charlie Brown and like analyzing Charlie Brown, Blackheads, Beagles,
and sweet Baboos, New perspectives on Charles M. Schultz Peanuts,
where Michelle says like Woodstock represented the younger generation, like hippies,
(09:26):
like straight up hippies, that's what Woodstock represented. They were
Woodstock was a like innocent and naive and just kind
of childlike and having fun and doing doing their own thing.
And then like even more r Kinley, the fact that
when Woodstock spoke, the only person that could understand Woodstock
was Snoopy and the reader can't. It's just these little
(09:49):
kind of chicken scratch lines.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
You remember that, yeah, or Woodstock scratch.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So Michelle Obate makes the case that Charles Schultz, in
some way, shape or form, is making commentary on how
the older generation can't understand the younger generation. But for
him that was just kind of like an unusual, an
unusual nod, a kind nod to the younger generation to
a lot of people his age and from his his
(10:16):
his political bent, didn't think very highly of but apparently
he did.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
All right, that's one of those that's like what I
was taking English classes in college when I was like, okay, yeah,
if you say so.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
It's analysis, it's interpretation, like yeah, all that stuff. You
can make a pretty good case for it. You can
also you could also say like it's almost like a
fan theory.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, well I think it's for sure is. But that's
just what commentary is, right.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I think, well, it's a fan theory in an academic
book form.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, exactly. That's the only thing that separates fan theory
from just printing it in a book or typing right. Right.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
But suppose there's one other thing more than once Snoopy
refers to Woodstock as a hippie bird. Yeah, did that
persuade you even further?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
No? No, no, I didn't think he wasn't non hippie, but
the whole like the generational chicken scratch representing like I'm
just not sure about that.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Okay, I gotcha, But I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
I love talking about that stuff. I do too, So
do you like talking about Peppermint? Patty and Marcy love it?
A lot of people love it because a lot of
people it's sort of, you know, has become one of
these burdon or anythings where they're like, hey, listen, Peppermint,
Patty and Marcy are clearly gay young girls who just
maybe don't know it yet, and there's always been you know,
(11:45):
fan speculation about about that. And I think you know,
that's fine, that's all well and good. Charles Schultz himself
was interviewed in nineteen ninety seven and said that, you know,
he understood that people talk a lot about that, but
he said sexuality to him just wasn't relevant to the
comic because they were just children. And that's not to
(12:07):
say that a child, you know, can't be gay, but
he was like it was the kind of thing that
didn't enter his mind. I don't think he was like
offended or thought it was weird that people would speculate
about that, But it doesn't sound like that was his
bent when he drew this very sort of classic tomboy
character who was very good in athletics, who was called
(12:28):
sir By Marcy, which was always very funny to me.
But either way, two great characters. One of the favorite
things for me with Peppermint Patty was how she would
invert names. She called Charlie Brown Chuck. She did the
opposite for Lucy. She called Lucy Lucille. I think at
(12:49):
one point maybe it Schroeder calls her Patricia, which was
a little spin on that. But that's just a fun
little character thing that I always really enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I always loved Peppermint Patty's voice in the TV specials.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, same, it was perfect.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, So there was a little strip or a little
period of strips where Charles Schultz, who had by this
time befriended Billy Jean King, as Title nine was being
passed or was being discussed whether it should be passed
or not. Which was which allowed equal or demanded equal
funding for women's sports? And I guess just college, right.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I'm pretty sure it was just college and there was
more to it, but I think it was about equal
opportunities and funding for college athletics.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Right, which is nuts because we're talking about the nineteen
late nineteen seventies. Isn't that crazy? But anyway, Billy Jan King,
who was a champion tennis star, was also a champion
of Title nine, and being her friend and supporter, Charles
Schultz drew some Peanuts strips basically using Peppermint Patty as
a stand in. And a lot of people are like, see,
(14:01):
Billy Jean King was gay. She came out in nineteen
eighty one, so of course Peppermint Patty was and that's
what Charles Schultz meant. But no, he was using her
as a stand in for a woman athlete, as Billy
Jean King was. And in that strip they're talking about
how Peppermint Patty is going to show all the men
that she can do anything they can do, and maybe
(14:22):
even better, and she's great at sports. And then I
think somebody asks Lucy, who's standing there, what she's going
to do because she's no good at sports, and Lucy
goes speak out so loud that Charlie Brown is doing
like a summrsault mid air. And that was just perfect
because you had Peppermint Patty, you had Lucy doing her thing,
and then you had Charlie Brown kind of standing in
(14:43):
for the bystanding rest of us, who are now going
to be moved by the by the arguments in favor
of title nine.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Pretty cool, amazing, So some more Peppermint Patty stuff. She
was one of three characters who did not go to
the same school as the rest of the Peanuts gang.
Peppermint Patty and Marcy and Franklin lived unquote at the
other side of town, so they sort of represented They
never came out and said it, but they represented not
(15:15):
poor children, but it was definitely the other side of
town type of situation, like they had broken homes, they
were they didn't get to go to the same school.
I remember when Franklin visits visits Charlie Brown's neighborhood for
the first time, he sees the psych booth, he sees
(15:36):
snoopy on the house, and the great Pumpkin has talked
about and he leaves the neighborhood and say to go home,
and said, this neighborhood has me shook. So it was
definitely like a demarcation line for Marcy and Franklin and
Peppermint Patty. And also Peppermint Patty her mom was, I
(15:57):
guess dead, like they never said, she said, but she said,
my mom's not around. Oh really she lived. Yeah, she
lived with her father only, which was a very different
thing for a comic back then. And one of my
favorite things is even though we never hear parents speaking
to things, there are references to things parents say. And
Peppermint Patty's father always called her a rare gem, which
(16:20):
I thought was very sweet. It is sweet because she
wasn't very smart.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So yeah, Peppermint Patty was. She was groundbreaking in a
lot of ways in that. So, yeah, she was a tomboy.
She her she was the daughter of a single parent,
her child of a single parent, and then on top
of that, she was one of the first comic strip
females who didn't who like made her own way, Like
(16:46):
she didn't need a man. She wasn't there to support
the man like Blondie did, Dagwood or anything like that.
She was just her own person, making her own way
by her own terms. And that was another groundbreaking thing.
I think she came along in nineteen sixty six and
people hadn't done that before.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, she had a crush on Charlie Brown, as did Marci.
Marci was very soft spoken and shy. She was very smart.
In fact, she's the one I think that points out,
like I feel kind of bad for Peppermint Patty because
she was written so unintelligently. Yeah, like her teacher gave
her a plaque at one point for being in the
D minus Hall of Fame. Yeah, and she didn't realize
(17:23):
Snoopy was even a dog until nineteen seventy four. What
when Marcy pointed out She used to say he was
a funny looking kid with a big nose. So they
write her really like not very intelligent. And I always
felt bad for Peppermint Patty, but Marcy was always her
loyalist friend. I don't know if I said, but also
had a crush on Charlie Brown and my favorite cute
(17:46):
thing ever because Marcie was the opposite of Peppermint Patty.
You know, she was smart and she was not good
at sports, whereas Peppermint Patty was the jock, and Marci
called the Super Bowl in one comic the Splendid Bowl.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
She is pretty great. She didn't have a last name.
Peppermint Patty's last name was Reichardt. Marcy never had a
last name, and some people said that the reason why
is because that allowed her to be just kind of
this whatever Charles Schultz needed her to be or say
or do. But I think very quickly Marcy's character took
(18:24):
over and probably constrained Charles Schultz in a lot of
ways because she was just a weird little kid who
had just her own set of understanding of the world
that didn't really fit with anybody else's. It was just
totally hers. And like I said, Charles Schultz was once
asked like, why does Marcy call Patty Peppermint Patty, sir?
(18:47):
And apparently his response was, I have no idea. Marcy's
a very strange little girl.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Again, he's a condo it I mean, it wouldn't surprise
me that just popped into his head.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, for sure. And I hadn't realized this, but a
lot of Asian American kids took Marci to be Asian American.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Weird.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Why, I don't know. I'm not sure. I guess, I
don't know. Maybe I don't know. I have no idea,
but I saw that in several places.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
All right, well, that feels like a good time for
a break. Oh yeah, sure, all right, Well we'll come
back and pick up with Franklin, one of my favorite characters,
right after this.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Softly jaw.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Soft all right. We mentioned Franklin before is when it
being one of the only three that didn't go to
the same school, lived in a different neighborhood. Franklin is
very famous, obviously for being the first black Peanuts character,
and that happened for a very purposeful reason. In nineteen
(20:06):
sixty eight, there was an LA school teacher named Harriet
Glickman who wrote a letter to Charles Schultz. This was
just after Martin Luther King Junior had been assassinated, and
she said, you know, we need to overcome quote the
vastie of misunderstanding, fear, hate, and violence, and I think
you should you should draw a black character for Peanuts.
I think that would be a big step forward, in
(20:29):
a big move. And Chultz initially declined, and it wasn't
because he didn't want to, but he said that he
thought it might be sort of to patronizing a move,
but then thought the better of it after you know,
a little bit more thought and some advice from Glickman's
neighbor who was a black man. His name was Kenneth Kelly,
(20:50):
and he said, you know what, I see what he's
saying about being patronizing. So if you're gonna do it,
just do it in a very casual way. Don't make
it some big revel lutionary stand. Just all of a sudden,
have this black kid in there. And that's what he did.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, And doing that like that would have this twofold effect.
One it would keep Charles Schultz from having to make
like a big social statement, but two, it would also
just show how utterly normal black kids and white kids
commingling was that there wasn't even any commentary about it.
It's just this new character who Charlie Brown met happened
(21:24):
to be black. That was it, and that's how it happened.
They met at the beach when Charlie Brown was on
vacation with his family and.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Can I read the comic strip? Yeah, go ahead, all right,
it's four panels. Charlie Brown's on the beach shirt off.
He's got a shirt off. You gotta take your shirt off.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was already off.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Okay. So Franklin comes up with a beach ball and says,
is this your beach ball? Second panel, Charlie says, hey, yeah,
thank you very much. Franklin says, I was swimming out
there and it came floating. By third panel, my silly
sister threw it in the water, and Franklin says, I
see you're making a sand castle. And it's kind of
a crooked tower. And in the last panel, Franklin says
(22:02):
it looks kind of crooked, and Charlie said, I guess
maybe it is where I come from. I'm not famous
for doing things right, just quintessential Charlie Brown.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I acted all that up. By the way, you guys
just couldn't see it.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It was great, but it was a very sweet way
to meet. And then Charlie invited Franklin over to his
side of town, and that's where Franklin got shook.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
These are the strips that we learned Franklin's dad is
off fighting in Vietnam. Yeah, and Charlie Brown. We learned
Charlie Brown's dad as a barber. I don't know if
that was the first time or not, but he mentions
this in response to Franklin talking about his dad, which,
if you'll remember, Charles Schultz's dad was a barber. So
I think that's pretty sweet.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I love it. And you know what, at the end,
we ad met at the beginning to read the very
first ever strip. Let's save that for the end.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Okay, sadly, as we can attest, when you do the
right thing and promote social unity and harmony, oftentimes ugly
people will say ugly things about it. And Charles Schultz
was no exception. He got, he said, he didn't get
like a huge amount of hate mail, but it was
very vehement and that included some of the editors of
(23:13):
the papers that his column was syndicated in. He could
have lost like a significant amount of money by had
the had the wrong vibe been struck and like a
push against him been you know, really kind of founded
and carried out among especially Southern newspapers, like he was
(23:33):
getting letters from editors saying things like, I don't appreciate seeing,
you know, black kids and white kids being portrayed in
the same school. What universe do you live in? Essentially,
like where are you getting these kind of far out ideas?
And he just basically he just shook it off. He
was like, whatever, some people are gonna they're gonna hate
it at first, but they're gonna get used to it
(23:54):
because I'm not stopping. And he didn't. Yeah, and he
was there's the He's looked two different ways for this
one that Franklin was never fully fleshed out to the
satisfaction of a lot of readers. And then there's another
vein where Charles Schultz has looked at is really putting
his reputation in his entire comic on the line by
(24:17):
doing this because he thought it was the right thing
and that it was groundbreaking and open the gates for
other comic strip artists, particularly black ones, to follow in
his footsteps.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, he threatened to quit at one point. There were
some papers that said they were gonna either not run
those strips or have them redone and he said, you're
gonna print my comics as drawn, or I'm done or
you lose me for everything, And this was to the
actual syndication company, and so they backed down and allowed
(24:50):
him to keep going. But one of the cartoonists that
was certainly inspired by them that you mentioned was a
guy named Rob Armstrong who did the comic strip Jumpstart,
And we mentioned that Marcy didn't have a last name.
Franklin was another character that didn't have a last name
for a while and eventually got the last name Armstrong,
(25:11):
named after Rob Armstrong the cartoonist, which was just a
great tribute. Chultz came to him, they became friends, and
he said, he asked him first, you know, if you
don't mind, can I use your last name? And of
course Armstrong, what do you say to that? You're just
floored and was very very touched and honored that he
became his last name.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
It's a great story. And by the way, there's a
great article about Harry Glickman and her neighbor Kenneth Kelly.
There's a great article in Las just from a few
years ago about this story and it shows them still
friends today, hanging out and there's a great picture of
them with a little Franklin holding a Franklin stuffy.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
That's sweet. I think Harry Rickman passed in the last
couple of years, but that's sweet that they were friends
till the end.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah. Yeah, this is in twenty twenty. Very cute.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
So who else? Can we talk up a little bit
about a couple more slightly minor characters I still think
are worth mentioning.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, I mean we definitely need to mention pig Pen,
who was a very beloved character even though he almost
does nothing.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, he was another kid who had a great, perfect
voice in the in the TV specials, it was kind
of raspy and yeah, I can't describe it any other
way but raspy. But it fit him perfectly.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah. He can always dirty, always had that, the flies
and the dust around him. And I think everyone, especially
these days, kids are cleaner. But I remember in the
seventies there were I remember the dirty kids. It just
always seemed to be covered in film.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, and there was a strip. So he was introduced
in a series of strips starting in nineteen fifty four,
so pretty early on. And he says that he hasn't
got a name. He says, people just call me things,
real insulting things. Yeah, and I guess they never changed that, Like,
his name is always pig Pen. But in one of
the strips somebody's like, you know, they just presume that
(27:04):
he hates baths and he goes, No, I really like baths.
I just like getting dirty more, all right. So he's
like a cool little kid who also I've seen him
described as like maybe the most the one that's closest
to like self fulfillment and satisfaction and contentment of any
of the characters is pig Pen, which is pretty great.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
He seems like he's never pining for something like the
rest of them are.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
He just goes and does it or gets it yeah
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
And he was in Dave Did the Math. Zero point
five of the comic strips featured pig Pen. Yeah, a
little over one hundred out of almost eighteenth thousand.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
There's also that Grateful Dead connection. One of the founding
members of The Grateful Dead was Ron mcnernan, whose nickname
was pig Pen. Apparently because he's a little smelly himself.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Is that way he got the name.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah. And then Sally Man we got to talk about
Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, with their naturally early hair, she was always proud
of that hair. Like I mentioned earlier, it might have
been the previous episode. Lucy was always jealous because Sally
Charlie got this sweet little sister and she wanted a
little sister and not Linus. They all had little crushes,
which is sweet. You know. We mentioned Lucy and Schroeder,
but Sally had a big crush on Linus, which is
(28:18):
very sweet.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah. And one of the other things about Sally that
was great was that she when she was upset, she
would go talk to the school building.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, and it would talk back.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, it would. It would have thought bubbles, just like
Snoopy does in response to her stuff. Like one time,
I can't remember what she was talking. Oh, she said
she was scolded by her teacher for talking in class,
but the teacher was mistaken. She hadn't been talking at all,
and she was really upset about this, and the school thinks,
poor sweet baby.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, just sweet and.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Stuff like that. Like Sally just kind of attracted that
kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Well, and the school thing kind of brings up the fact.
And I know we talked a little bit about the
minimalist style in the first episode, but so many of
his panels were just them in front of a brick wall,
or them at that psychiatrist stand or Snoopy's doghouse or
just the picture's Matt right. It was all just very
sort of spartan, sparse stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, but it worked.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I saw it described as that that universes. It's it's
bounded by those four panels and connected by the gutters
the spaces between the four panels. But somehow it just
seems like boundless. There's no there's no geography to it.
You just are where you're where that that moment is
taking place. But you couldn't possibly imagine the Peanuts universe
(29:36):
in some mapped out way.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah. I wonder if that's why it never occurred to
me to wonder where they were from. Yeah, yeah, I
mean have you ever thought about, like where was Peanuts based?
I like, I never even wondered that.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I never thought that or wondered that. But I saw
in a number of the essays that they presumed that
it was in the Midwest because the seasons like there
was there were there were definite seasons and Peanuts and
I think as a kid that was one of the
things that really got to me because I love the
seasons too. So to see the Peanuts gang like hanging
out in a pile of leaves, or ice skating or
(30:11):
something like that, or it was summer and there was
like an apple on a tree or something like. Yeah that,
even like you said, even though it's minimalists and you
can't even begin to imagine where they're from, it it
would evoke like how those kids were feeling. Like it
it added an extra layer to the dialogue or the
action or something like that, because you, as a kid,
(30:33):
knew how you felt when you were standing next to
a pile of leaves and it was chilly out and
Thanksgiving and Christmas were just you know, coming right down
the pike.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
So we know it's not Peanuts is anywhere USA except Florida,
southern California, and Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, and I think we said right, Charles Schultz is
from the Minneapolis Saint Paul area.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, I'm sure it was just sort of that.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, So I mean that's that's generally where it was set.
He eventually, I think, I think, not too long after
getting married the first time, moved to Santa Rosa, California
or northern California. Santa Rose is where the Charles Schultz
museum is and never never looked back. But even still,
he never the Peanuts gang never suddenly ended up in
(31:16):
California like they were still where they were.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
You know that's funny. All right, let's do our final
break and finish up with part two of Part two
of Peanuts. Right for this, we'll be.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Right back in two and two.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Softly jaw.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Soft so chuck. If I can remember all the way
back to part one, the first episode in this pairing.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I think minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I think I mentioned, how do you know that I.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Got a little ticker on my I got a timer.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I want one of those.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I got an egg timer?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Is it a snoopy egg timer?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
It is?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Uh? So? I mentioned that there's no adults in the
Peanut world and that if they're if an adult is
is around, it's they're either being mentioned like a real
life adult or an adult in the Peanuts universe like
somebody's parent, or in the TV specials. You can hear them,
but they're off camera. You don't see them, and the
only way you hear them is that muted trombone sound effect.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, there is one strip in the Peanuts pantheon in
the eighteen thousand comic strips. There's one where adults are shown,
and even then it's just their legs.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, and even that, I think kind of like Franklin
was shook. I think Peanuts people were shook.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
For sure, for a number of reasons. One this whole
series where Lucy is participating in an adult golf tournament
for some weird reason, there's way more scenery, way more
stuff going on in all the panels, right.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's not a four panel. Was
it from one of the books.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
I don't know. It's from nineteen fifty four, so no,
it would have been before the books.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
All right, I know. Oh, it's a Sunday strip. So
the Sunday's were more than four panels from May sixteenth,
nineteen fifty four. And in that they're playing golf and stuff.
She and Charlie Brown are Lucy was famously a bad
athlete as well, because she was always screwing up in
center field or in right field. But Charlie said she
played center field for some reason. And in the last
(33:47):
panel it shows them with three or four pair of
adult legs standing around, and it's just it's almost surreal
and disconcerting to see human legs and peanuts. Yeah, it's
just odd to see it is.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
They're wearing pants with crisism and everything. It's just it's
not it ain't right, and I guess it ainate right.
Charles Schultz realized immediately that it ain't right. I can't
believe it even got out, you know, but he never
did it again.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, he got death threats.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
How dare you show leg Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was
a very weird thing. I mean, I remember one thing
I remember was because I was close to my one grandfather,
my mom's dads before he died, and Charlie Brown and
Franklin are always talking about their granddads, which I always
thought was really great. Yeah, that is very sweet. We
did mention the movie the TV specials. We went in
(34:42):
depth into the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and do you
remember what year it was, what Christmas episode that was?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It was either December fifth or ninth, nineteen sixty five
when it first seme.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
No no I met ours when we recorded our Christmas
special where we talked in detail about the christ Special.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, December fifth or ninth, nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
We had a podcast in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah, we have the way back Machine. They're all over
the place. We have an episode from seven twenty CE.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Oh wow, yeah, Goody Clark and Goodie Bright.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah that was a wild wild ride. Uh.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I don't remember which Christmas special we had it in,
but in one of them we we detailed Charlie Brown
Christmas and so we don't have to go over here.
But the one sort of surprising thing if you didn't
listen to that app was that they thought it was
going to be a big failure.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Right, yeah, so there was no laugh track. But this
is a cartoon featuring kids, ostensibly four kids, and there's
no laugh track to the jokes? How are the dumb
little kids going to know when to laugh? And then
it has like like one of the best jazz soundtracks
of all time. Yeah, but that's not exactly like what
(35:51):
the what the eight year olds are into? Right in
nineteen sixty five? Right, so yeah, the TV executives were like,
this is going to go no, and boy were they wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Oh man, I mean is there aren't many more iconic
Christmas records than that one.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
No, and not just Christmas records. The Great Pumpkin Waltz
is in there, which is just, for my money, the best,
the best one of the whole album, and that whole
album is great, from the first note to the last.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I shouldn't restrict that to Christmas listening. No, I don't
know if it can. That would be weird. But I
mean I probably listened to that full record at least
twenty times over the month of December. Yeah, maybe more,
probably more than once a day. Yeah, if I'm thinking about.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
It, I'm really almost religious about it because I don't
I don't ever want to get sick of it, so
I'm really careful, like how often I listen to it.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Oh, I just pound it. I'd never get to it.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
It also has a song that has nothing to do
with Christmas, Linus and Lucy, which is what most people
who are generally aware of Peanuts and aren't like hardcore
fans consider like the Peanuts theme.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Oh interesting. Yeah, and the uh, you know, the the
cultural icon that is the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and
that's become part of the lexicon for a sad little
Christmas tree.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, and you can buy a Charlie Brown Christmas tree
too and put it on your tabletop, which we've done.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Oh, like a recreation or just a sad little tree.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
It's well, you could do that and just call your
sad little tree Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But you can
buy one and it's.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Like like the actual Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
It's got like a wooden X that it connects. It
has like a little blue blanket. Linus is blanket that
you put around the bottom like he does. It comes
with a single red ornament. It's it's wonderful. You know what, buddy,
I know what you're getting for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Oh, I can put it next to the leg lamp.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
That'd be perfect.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Actually, wow, that's great. Yeah, all right, I mean cheese.
We could sit around talk about peanuts all day long
if we're not careful, but we should wrap it up
and talk a little bit about the end of peanuts. Sadly,
Schultz said he was retiring. Announced it in December of
nineteen ninety nine. He was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer.
(38:08):
I don't even think we mentioned that he had a
disease throughout most of his career, right, that was like
had hand tremors.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yes, So in nineteen eighty one, he was diagnosed with
essential tremor, which is a tremor that affects you when
you try to do something with your hands, most specifically,
and he I could draw it, yeah, like drawing seven
comic strips a week, all the every week, and you
can actually see very clearly it's a progressive illness as well,
progressive neurological disorder. So it just gets worse with time,
(38:40):
and you can see through the progression of peanuts the
line started getting much more squiggly. But if you look
at tests of people with hand tremors, I think the
most prevalent test is it's like draw like a circle
from the inside out.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
What the hell is that called spiral?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
A spiral? Thank you? You started to center and go outward
with the spiral, and they'll put that next to somebody
who doesn't have an essential tremor and what that looks like,
and it's just like night and day. So the fact
that he can even continue on for twenty years is amazing.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, jeez, unbelievable. So, yeah, ninety nine diagnosed with cancer.
He had a big backlog of comic strips that he
had drawn, so they were able to keep publishing through
his illness until the day the day after he died. Actually, yeah,
February twelfth, two thousand, he was seventy seven.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Isn't that remarkable, Like they both died at the same time,
or they both expired at the same time, Peanuts and
Charles Schultz.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Like they had that he had that many backlogs that
it just worked out like that.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, and he had that many days left.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, pretty amazing unless a family was like there were
one hundred more and they just shoved him in a
drawer and said, it's really kind of a great story
this way.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I'm hoping that's not the case me too.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
His family was smart though, because they said, you know what,
we don't think anyone else should ever draw this, like
Peanuts should should stop because he's not around anymore. And
that's what happened. That syndication company, unbelievably almost honored that request.
When you see new Peanuts stuff now, whether it's like
(40:20):
movies and you know, the brand is still a thing,
but those those comic strips, if you see them, are
all reprints.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, supposedly it's a billion dollar brand.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
I believe it.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And I read a quote from Bill Waterson from Calvin
and Hobbes, who basically was like, like merchandising cartoons and
stuff you can thank Charles Schultz for that.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah, And then we mentioned one more thing before we
finished that. There was a tribute to Charles Schultz and
Peanuts among basically all the working comic strip artists on
November twenty six, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Very emotional.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, And you can go to the Charles Schultz Museum website.
They have links to all of them, and just some
of them are amazing, but a few stood out to me.
We talked about the Gilthorpe one, which, now that you've
heard these two episodes, go look up that Gilthorpe November
twenty six, twenty twenty two, comic strip tribute to Peanuts
(41:17):
because finally Charlie Brown gets to kick the football and
it's just the sweetest, sweetest thing. I can't believe that
they thought of doing that. It was just so perfect.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Great.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
There was one from Curtis. You remember we talked about
how a lot of black comic strip artists credited Charles
Schultz with introducing Franklin is kind of breaking that ceiling
for them. Sure, Curtis has one where Curtis, the comic
strip character, asks Charlie Brown to hang out and or
he goes, hey, Charlie Brown, what you do? And Charlie
(41:48):
Brown goes just chilling, Homie, let's hang out. And as
they're walking away, Curtis turns to you, the viewer and
is like that Charlie Brown's a lot cooler than you'd think.
When he's away from that Peanuts strip, Thatch Garfield has
Snoopy bringing out like one hundred year birthday cake.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, that one's surreal looking.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
And then to me, it is to me the one
I give it like the most appropriately awkwardly formal award.
Mary Worth was that Merriworth.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Okay, I thought it was so.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Maryworth is like the most bone dry soap opera and
comic strip around to begin with, and just in total
Merriworth's style. Merriworth is sitting on the couch and it
just explains how this is Charles Schultz's hundredth birthday and
they're all celebrating it. So, happy hundredth birthday, Charles Schultz.
It's just so.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
It was very Yeah, it was very dry. And then
family Circle, I think Jeffy tripped over Snoopy's dead.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Body, which Charlie Brown was on the run from.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So I promised i'd read that very first comic strip,
because it's really emblematic of like what Charles Schultz was
going after, Like his debut comic strip for his baby
was this, And it's very a little more crudely drawn obviously.
But panel one, these two kids are sitting on the
sidewalk and you see Charlie Brown in the distance walking up,
and the kid on the sidewalk goes, well, here comes
(43:14):
old Charlie Brown. And then Charlie Brown is kind of
walking in front of him. Good old Charlie Brown, Yes, sir.
And then he walks by and they're watching him pass,
and he goes good old Charlie Brown. And then the
kid on the sidewalk in the last panel says, how
I hate him. That's the debut through the world.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
That's really amazing, pretty amazing, everybody. That was a great
way to end it, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Hey, thanks.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
If you want to know more about Peanuts, just go
start reading Peanuts comic strips. Even if you didn't appreciate him,
you'll probably learn to like him more just by forcing
yourself to. And since I said that, it's time for listener, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Short and sweet one. Here. Hey, guys, hope you're well,
your podcast, it's been a steady presence in my life
for almost four years, has got me through one many
study sessions and kitchen cleaning weekends over the years. My
friend and now partner introduced me to your show, and
I'm so thankful she did. Being long distance, it's nice
to have something to talk about and learn a few
things along the way. Of course, whenever we do see
(44:18):
each other, we make it a habit to put on
an episode and listen together. So I just wanted to
say thank you guys for everything you do. You make
learning about the common to the obscure exciting and fun,
and I look forward to many more years listening to you.
Have a wonderful day. This is a course for my
Canadian our new friend, Olivia c and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
(44:40):
North America, Planet Earth.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Very nice, Thanks Olivia, that was very kind of you.
What a great one to add to the Peanuts episode. Chuck, Yeah, yeah, Well,
if you want to be like Olivia and get in
touch with this and just say that you appreciate us,
we really love to hear that kind of thing once
in a while, you can wrap it up ghenttly caress
it on the bottom and send it off to stuff
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
(45:07):
a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the Peanuts Cast. I'm Josh, there's
Chuck been sitting in and this is part two of
two the Deuce, as we call it sometimes, about stuff
you should know about Peanuts.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
That's right. If you remember where we left off, Charlie
Brown had just murdered Snoopy and was on the run
from the law. No, of course not. We had made
up and surely no one's going to listen to this
one first, but just to catch you up, we covered
most of Charles Schultz's early life, the birth of Peanuts,
and we had gotten up to Snoopy character wise, and
(00:47):
here we go with that little black and white beagle
that is probably the weirdest comic character of all time.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, and we said before he was based on Schultz's
dog Spike, who apparently could eat razor blades without getting sick.
He had another dog, know that. I guess Spike ate
razorbikes And they were like, oh, okay, he's good. That's
what he was in Ripley's believe it or not, for
eating razor blades, yeah, not getting sick. He had another
(01:16):
another dog named Snooky. Snooky and then just like the
Jersey short character. And then apparently his mom suggested that
as she was dying that if the family ever got
another dog, they should name it Snoopy, like s n Upi,
which apparently is a term of endearment in Norwegian. So
you put all those together, you mix them up, put
(01:38):
him in a blender, blend it, and then regret that
immediately you've got Snoopy.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yes, Snoopy was a black and white beagle who slept
on top of a doghouse. Yeah, apparently that came around
in fifty eight. For the first few years, Snoopy actually
slept in the house and if you wonder why Snoopy,
he was on top of the house so you could
see Snoopy right. Very weird to have a cartoon drawn
(02:06):
inside of a doghouse, So it was just sort of
a utilitarian decision. Snoopy was, like I said, one of
the weirdest character in comics, I think, because Snoopy had
and my favorite thing about Snoopy was this weird fantasy
life that Snoopy lived where he had these alter egos.
(02:28):
I think there were more than one hundred Snoopy alter
egos that range from being a world famous it was
always world famous, usually a world famous tennis star. He
was a world famous surgeon, an attorney. The Fierce Vulture
is one of my favorite alter egos, a famous, world
famous author. Joe Cool was one I wasn't super into. Actually,
(02:49):
it was probably my least favorite altar.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
That's funny. My grandma called me Joe Cool because I
sent her a card once as a kid and identified myself.
I think I signed it as Joe Cool. It really
called me Joe Cool from that moment on.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
But the really weird one was the Flying Ace alter ego,
in which Snoopy was a was an air airplane fighter
pilot from World War Two that had an ongoing I
was about to say beef, but just ongoing battle with
the Red Baron fighter pilot from Germany, and that became
(03:23):
a big hit song in nineteen sixty six. It was
a novelty song by the Royal Guardsman that hit number
two in the United States, Which is I mean I
had this forty five that It was a time and
we've talked about some famous novelty songs in the past,
but it was a time when a novelty song could
be like a legit number one hit.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, or number two at least. Yeah. So that flying
Ace thing. One of the things that Peanuts is known
for is it was genuine, generally not political. It was
much more universal than that. It wasn't so narrow as
to like discourse on politics.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
But during the Vietnam War, and Charles Schultz, remember he
was a veteran of World War two, very proud veteran,
and during the Vietnam War he gave official approval for
the Air Force to use Snoopy as a mascot in Vietnam.
And at the same time, as it became clear that
(04:22):
the United States strategy and involvement in Vietnam was just
a catastrophe and disastrous and being led by people who
were completely amoral, even Charles Schultz became dissatisfied or against
the Vietnam War, and he used the World War one
Flying Ace to comment on the Vietnam War like there
(04:42):
was it went as it became as overt as there's
there's one where Snoopy as World War one Flying Ace
has cursed the stupid war, and eventually it even spilled
out from the flying Ace. There's there's strips where Lioness
and Charlie Brown are discussing the prospect of being drafted.
I mean, like he got pretty anti war as a
(05:04):
matter of fact during the Vietnam era, which was really
out of character for not just him but also for Peanuts.
But like that, I think that just kind of goes
to show how unpopular the Vietnam War was that even
Charles Schultz, this conservative methodist World War Two veteran, was
speaking out against it through his characters.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, I think Franklin's dad was in Vietnam during the
comic strip exactly. Yeah. And by the way, I think
I said world War two instead of World War One.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So in choke correction, Oh did you say too? I'm
sorry I didn't correct you. I really know that I
missed the chance. Hey, you mentioned Joe Cool. There was
an offshoot of Joe Cool from the nineties, wasn't there.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I don't know was here.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, you gotta gotta mention Joe Grunge.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I wouldn't run for Joe Grunge.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I wasn't either, But I mean, I'm aware he existed.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I wasn't aware he existed.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, now.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
That's good. Sounds like he rolled with the times. So
Snoopy had a family. We mentioned Spike. He had a
whole litter that he was born with, Spike, Bell, Marbles,
olaf Andy, Molly, and Rover, and Spike was the one
that I love. Spike became he became like arguably a
main character in the in the nineties basically, but he
(06:23):
debuted in nineteen seventy five and was you know, he
always had that hat on, and he had those whiskers
that sort of looked like a little beat nick mustache. Yeah,
and he lived alone in the California desert and he
was usually by his big cactus, and it was just
he was he was sort of an altar of Snoopy
like in demeanor.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, but Snoopy. It's not like Snoopy
was high strung or uptight. He was different. They were
very different, though, But I'm not sure how one was
a foil to the other. I think they were just different,
you know.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Oh, I don't think there were foils. I think yeah,
And I think Snoopy, I mean, I think he was precocious.
But again, it almost felt like a spin off within
the old thing, within the within its own thing, because
he and Woodstock were commonly you know, I mean He
would interact with the other characters, but he was often
doing his own thing, right.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, like you said with Woodstock, do you I have
a question for you. When you were going up? Did
you have the Snoopy snow cone machine?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I did you, lucky kid, I'm pretty sure either that
or a friend did. I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
That stuff was addictive, those those plays fun. Yeah, same here.
I had access to one, but I had to like
go play at somebody's house to get a Snoopy snow cone.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I don't think that. Maybe I didn't have one, or
if it was, it was a hand me down. I
know one thing for sure. My parents didn't go out
and buy me that thing new right.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
They got it out of the yard sale and it
hadn't been washed out from the last time. Probably, So
there's I got one other little piece of Snoopy trivia,
all right. Snoop Dog he was nicknamed by his mom
because she thought that he looked like Snoopy as a
young man.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I could see that totally on.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Once you hear it, you're like, oh my god, he
does kind of look like Snoopy.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, that's very cute. Yeah, I agree, And Snoopy the
Dog loved smoking some wheat.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I don't know. I think that might have been Woodstock,
who I say we talk about real quick, you want
to sure?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I mean Woodstock. We talked a little bit about Woodstock
in the Woodstock episode because Woodstock was named for Woodstock.
Because June twenty second, nineteen seventy is when Woodstock the
bird got its name. I think it he was around
in the cartoon before that but didn't have a name,
And there were other birds in the cartoon that preceded Woodstock.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, and when they finally debuted Woodstock's name, it's Snoopy
hanging out on the roof, and I guess Woodstock had
been around for a while. And he said, Harry thinks
I finally found out what that stupid birds name is.
You'll never believe it. And apparently it was absolutely based
on Woodstock.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And there is a an author named Michelle Abate who
wrote a book on Charlie Brown and like analyzing Charlie Brown, Blackheads, Beagles,
and sweet Baboos, New perspectives on Charles M. Schultz Peanuts,
where Michelle says like Woodstock represented the younger generation, like hippies,
(09:26):
like straight up hippies, that's what Woodstock represented. They were
Woodstock was a like innocent and naive and just kind
of childlike and having fun and doing doing their own thing.
And then like even more r Kinley, the fact that
when Woodstock spoke, the only person that could understand Woodstock
was Snoopy and the reader can't. It's just these little
(09:49):
kind of chicken scratch lines.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
You remember that, yeah, or Woodstock scratch.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So Michelle Obate makes the case that Charles Schultz, in
some way, shape or form, is making commentary on how
the older generation can't understand the younger generation. But for
him that was just kind of like an unusual, an
unusual nod, a kind nod to the younger generation to
a lot of people his age and from his his
(10:16):
his political bent, didn't think very highly of but apparently
he did.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
All right, that's one of those that's like what I
was taking English classes in college when I was like, okay, yeah,
if you say so.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
It's analysis, it's interpretation, like yeah, all that stuff. You
can make a pretty good case for it. You can
also you could also say like it's almost like a
fan theory.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, well I think it's for sure is. But that's
just what commentary is, right.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
I think, well, it's a fan theory in an academic
book form.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, exactly. That's the only thing that separates fan theory
from just printing it in a book or typing right. Right.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
But suppose there's one other thing more than once Snoopy
refers to Woodstock as a hippie bird. Yeah, did that
persuade you even further?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
No? No, no, I didn't think he wasn't non hippie, but
the whole like the generational chicken scratch representing like I'm
just not sure about that.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Okay, I gotcha, But I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
I love talking about that stuff. I do too, So
do you like talking about Peppermint? Patty and Marcy love it?
A lot of people love it because a lot of
people it's sort of, you know, has become one of
these burdon or anythings where they're like, hey, listen, Peppermint,
Patty and Marcy are clearly gay young girls who just
maybe don't know it yet, and there's always been you know,
(11:45):
fan speculation about about that. And I think you know,
that's fine, that's all well and good. Charles Schultz himself
was interviewed in nineteen ninety seven and said that, you know,
he understood that people talk a lot about that, but
he said sexuality to him just wasn't relevant to the
comic because they were just children. And that's not to
(12:07):
say that a child, you know, can't be gay, but
he was like it was the kind of thing that
didn't enter his mind. I don't think he was like
offended or thought it was weird that people would speculate
about that, But it doesn't sound like that was his
bent when he drew this very sort of classic tomboy
character who was very good in athletics, who was called
(12:28):
sir By Marcy, which was always very funny to me.
But either way, two great characters. One of the favorite
things for me with Peppermint Patty was how she would
invert names. She called Charlie Brown Chuck. She did the
opposite for Lucy. She called Lucy Lucille. I think at
(12:49):
one point maybe it Schroeder calls her Patricia, which was
a little spin on that. But that's just a fun
little character thing that I always really enjoyed.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I always loved Peppermint Patty's voice in the TV specials.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, same, it was perfect.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, So there was a little strip or a little
period of strips where Charles Schultz, who had by this
time befriended Billy Jean King, as Title nine was being
passed or was being discussed whether it should be passed
or not. Which was which allowed equal or demanded equal
funding for women's sports? And I guess just college, right.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I'm pretty sure it was just college and there was
more to it, but I think it was about equal
opportunities and funding for college athletics.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Right, which is nuts because we're talking about the nineteen
late nineteen seventies. Isn't that crazy? But anyway, Billy Jan King,
who was a champion tennis star, was also a champion
of Title nine, and being her friend and supporter, Charles
Schultz drew some Peanuts strips basically using Peppermint Patty as
a stand in. And a lot of people are like, see,
(14:01):
Billy Jean King was gay. She came out in nineteen
eighty one, so of course Peppermint Patty was and that's
what Charles Schultz meant. But no, he was using her
as a stand in for a woman athlete, as Billy
Jean King was. And in that strip they're talking about
how Peppermint Patty is going to show all the men
that she can do anything they can do, and maybe
(14:22):
even better, and she's great at sports. And then I
think somebody asks Lucy, who's standing there, what she's going
to do because she's no good at sports, and Lucy
goes speak out so loud that Charlie Brown is doing
like a summrsault mid air. And that was just perfect
because you had Peppermint Patty, you had Lucy doing her thing,
and then you had Charlie Brown kind of standing in
(14:43):
for the bystanding rest of us, who are now going
to be moved by the by the arguments in favor
of title nine.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Pretty cool, amazing, So some more Peppermint Patty stuff. She
was one of three characters who did not go to
the same school as the rest of the Peanuts gang.
Peppermint Patty and Marcy and Franklin lived unquote at the
other side of town, so they sort of represented They
never came out and said it, but they represented not
(15:15):
poor children, but it was definitely the other side of
town type of situation, like they had broken homes, they
were they didn't get to go to the same school.
I remember when Franklin visits visits Charlie Brown's neighborhood for
the first time, he sees the psych booth, he sees
(15:36):
snoopy on the house, and the great Pumpkin has talked
about and he leaves the neighborhood and say to go home,
and said, this neighborhood has me shook. So it was
definitely like a demarcation line for Marcy and Franklin and
Peppermint Patty. And also Peppermint Patty her mom was, I
(15:57):
guess dead, like they never said, she said, but she said,
my mom's not around. Oh really she lived. Yeah, she
lived with her father only, which was a very different
thing for a comic back then. And one of my
favorite things is even though we never hear parents speaking
to things, there are references to things parents say. And
Peppermint Patty's father always called her a rare gem, which
(16:20):
I thought was very sweet. It is sweet because she
wasn't very smart.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So yeah, Peppermint Patty was. She was groundbreaking in a
lot of ways in that. So, yeah, she was a tomboy.
She her she was the daughter of a single parent,
her child of a single parent, and then on top
of that, she was one of the first comic strip
females who didn't who like made her own way, Like
(16:46):
she didn't need a man. She wasn't there to support
the man like Blondie did, Dagwood or anything like that.
She was just her own person, making her own way
by her own terms. And that was another groundbreaking thing.
I think she came along in nineteen sixty six and
people hadn't done that before.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, she had a crush on Charlie Brown, as did Marci.
Marci was very soft spoken and shy. She was very smart.
In fact, she's the one I think that points out,
like I feel kind of bad for Peppermint Patty because
she was written so unintelligently. Yeah, like her teacher gave
her a plaque at one point for being in the
D minus Hall of Fame. Yeah, and she didn't realize
(17:23):
Snoopy was even a dog until nineteen seventy four. What
when Marcy pointed out She used to say he was
a funny looking kid with a big nose. So they
write her really like not very intelligent. And I always
felt bad for Peppermint Patty, but Marcy was always her
loyalist friend. I don't know if I said, but also
had a crush on Charlie Brown and my favorite cute
(17:46):
thing ever because Marcie was the opposite of Peppermint Patty.
You know, she was smart and she was not good
at sports, whereas Peppermint Patty was the jock, and Marci
called the Super Bowl in one comic the Splendid Bowl.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
She is pretty great. She didn't have a last name.
Peppermint Patty's last name was Reichardt. Marcy never had a
last name, and some people said that the reason why
is because that allowed her to be just kind of
this whatever Charles Schultz needed her to be or say
or do. But I think very quickly Marcy's character took
(18:24):
over and probably constrained Charles Schultz in a lot of
ways because she was just a weird little kid who
had just her own set of understanding of the world
that didn't really fit with anybody else's. It was just
totally hers. And like I said, Charles Schultz was once
asked like, why does Marcy call Patty Peppermint Patty, sir?
(18:47):
And apparently his response was, I have no idea. Marcy's
a very strange little girl.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Again, he's a condo it I mean, it wouldn't surprise
me that just popped into his head.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, for sure. And I hadn't realized this, but a
lot of Asian American kids took Marci to be Asian American.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Weird.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Why, I don't know. I'm not sure. I guess, I
don't know. Maybe I don't know. I have no idea,
but I saw that in several places.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
All right, well, that feels like a good time for
a break. Oh yeah, sure, all right, Well we'll come
back and pick up with Franklin, one of my favorite characters,
right after this.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Softly jaw.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Soft all right. We mentioned Franklin before is when it
being one of the only three that didn't go to
the same school, lived in a different neighborhood. Franklin is
very famous, obviously for being the first black Peanuts character,
and that happened for a very purposeful reason. In nineteen
(20:06):
sixty eight, there was an LA school teacher named Harriet
Glickman who wrote a letter to Charles Schultz. This was
just after Martin Luther King Junior had been assassinated, and
she said, you know, we need to overcome quote the
vastie of misunderstanding, fear, hate, and violence, and I think
you should you should draw a black character for Peanuts.
I think that would be a big step forward, in
(20:29):
a big move. And Chultz initially declined, and it wasn't
because he didn't want to, but he said that he
thought it might be sort of to patronizing a move,
but then thought the better of it after you know,
a little bit more thought and some advice from Glickman's
neighbor who was a black man. His name was Kenneth Kelly,
(20:50):
and he said, you know what, I see what he's
saying about being patronizing. So if you're gonna do it,
just do it in a very casual way. Don't make
it some big revel lutionary stand. Just all of a sudden,
have this black kid in there. And that's what he did.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Yeah, And doing that like that would have this twofold effect.
One it would keep Charles Schultz from having to make
like a big social statement, but two, it would also
just show how utterly normal black kids and white kids
commingling was that there wasn't even any commentary about it.
It's just this new character who Charlie Brown met happened
(21:24):
to be black. That was it, and that's how it happened.
They met at the beach when Charlie Brown was on
vacation with his family and.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Can I read the comic strip? Yeah, go ahead, all right,
it's four panels. Charlie Brown's on the beach shirt off.
He's got a shirt off. You gotta take your shirt off.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was already off.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Okay. So Franklin comes up with a beach ball and says,
is this your beach ball? Second panel, Charlie says, hey, yeah,
thank you very much. Franklin says, I was swimming out
there and it came floating. By third panel, my silly
sister threw it in the water, and Franklin says, I
see you're making a sand castle. And it's kind of
a crooked tower. And in the last panel, Franklin says
(22:02):
it looks kind of crooked, and Charlie said, I guess
maybe it is where I come from. I'm not famous
for doing things right, just quintessential Charlie Brown.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I acted all that up. By the way, you guys
just couldn't see it.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It was great, but it was a very sweet way
to meet. And then Charlie invited Franklin over to his
side of town, and that's where Franklin got shook.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
These are the strips that we learned Franklin's dad is
off fighting in Vietnam. Yeah, and Charlie Brown. We learned
Charlie Brown's dad as a barber. I don't know if
that was the first time or not, but he mentions
this in response to Franklin talking about his dad, which,
if you'll remember, Charles Schultz's dad was a barber. So
I think that's pretty sweet.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I love it. And you know what, at the end,
we ad met at the beginning to read the very
first ever strip. Let's save that for the end.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Okay, sadly, as we can attest, when you do the
right thing and promote social unity and harmony, oftentimes ugly
people will say ugly things about it. And Charles Schultz
was no exception. He got, he said, he didn't get
like a huge amount of hate mail, but it was
very vehement and that included some of the editors of
(23:13):
the papers that his column was syndicated in. He could
have lost like a significant amount of money by had
the had the wrong vibe been struck and like a
push against him been you know, really kind of founded
and carried out among especially Southern newspapers, like he was
(23:33):
getting letters from editors saying things like, I don't appreciate seeing,
you know, black kids and white kids being portrayed in
the same school. What universe do you live in? Essentially,
like where are you getting these kind of far out ideas?
And he just basically he just shook it off. He
was like, whatever, some people are gonna they're gonna hate
it at first, but they're gonna get used to it
(23:54):
because I'm not stopping. And he didn't. Yeah, and he
was there's the He's looked two different ways for this
one that Franklin was never fully fleshed out to the
satisfaction of a lot of readers. And then there's another
vein where Charles Schultz has looked at is really putting
his reputation in his entire comic on the line by
(24:17):
doing this because he thought it was the right thing
and that it was groundbreaking and open the gates for
other comic strip artists, particularly black ones, to follow in
his footsteps.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, he threatened to quit at one point. There were
some papers that said they were gonna either not run
those strips or have them redone and he said, you're
gonna print my comics as drawn, or I'm done or
you lose me for everything, And this was to the
actual syndication company, and so they backed down and allowed
(24:50):
him to keep going. But one of the cartoonists that
was certainly inspired by them that you mentioned was a
guy named Rob Armstrong who did the comic strip Jumpstart,
And we mentioned that Marcy didn't have a last name.
Franklin was another character that didn't have a last name
for a while and eventually got the last name Armstrong,
(25:11):
named after Rob Armstrong the cartoonist, which was just a
great tribute. Chultz came to him, they became friends, and
he said, he asked him first, you know, if you
don't mind, can I use your last name? And of
course Armstrong, what do you say to that? You're just
floored and was very very touched and honored that he
became his last name.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
It's a great story. And by the way, there's a
great article about Harry Glickman and her neighbor Kenneth Kelly.
There's a great article in Las just from a few
years ago about this story and it shows them still
friends today, hanging out and there's a great picture of
them with a little Franklin holding a Franklin stuffy.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
That's sweet. I think Harry Rickman passed in the last
couple of years, but that's sweet that they were friends
till the end.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Yeah. Yeah, this is in twenty twenty. Very cute.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
So who else? Can we talk up a little bit
about a couple more slightly minor characters I still think
are worth mentioning.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, I mean we definitely need to mention pig Pen,
who was a very beloved character even though he almost
does nothing.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, he was another kid who had a great, perfect
voice in the in the TV specials, it was kind
of raspy and yeah, I can't describe it any other
way but raspy. But it fit him perfectly.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah. He can always dirty, always had that, the flies
and the dust around him. And I think everyone, especially
these days, kids are cleaner. But I remember in the
seventies there were I remember the dirty kids. It just
always seemed to be covered in film.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, and there was a strip. So he was introduced
in a series of strips starting in nineteen fifty four,
so pretty early on. And he says that he hasn't
got a name. He says, people just call me things,
real insulting things. Yeah, and I guess they never changed that, Like,
his name is always pig Pen. But in one of
the strips somebody's like, you know, they just presume that
(27:04):
he hates baths and he goes, No, I really like baths.
I just like getting dirty more, all right. So he's
like a cool little kid who also I've seen him
described as like maybe the most the one that's closest
to like self fulfillment and satisfaction and contentment of any
of the characters is pig Pen, which is pretty great.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
He seems like he's never pining for something like the
rest of them are.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
He just goes and does it or gets it yeah
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
And he was in Dave Did the Math. Zero point
five of the comic strips featured pig Pen. Yeah, a
little over one hundred out of almost eighteenth thousand.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
There's also that Grateful Dead connection. One of the founding
members of The Grateful Dead was Ron mcnernan, whose nickname
was pig Pen. Apparently because he's a little smelly himself.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Is that way he got the name.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah. And then Sally Man we got to talk about
Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, with their naturally early hair, she was always proud
of that hair. Like I mentioned earlier, it might have
been the previous episode. Lucy was always jealous because Sally
Charlie got this sweet little sister and she wanted a
little sister and not Linus. They all had little crushes,
which is sweet. You know. We mentioned Lucy and Schroeder,
but Sally had a big crush on Linus, which is
(28:18):
very sweet.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah. And one of the other things about Sally that
was great was that she when she was upset, she
would go talk to the school building.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, and it would talk back.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, it would. It would have thought bubbles, just like
Snoopy does in response to her stuff. Like one time,
I can't remember what she was talking. Oh, she said
she was scolded by her teacher for talking in class,
but the teacher was mistaken. She hadn't been talking at all,
and she was really upset about this, and the school thinks,
poor sweet baby.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah, just sweet and.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Stuff like that. Like Sally just kind of attracted that
kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Well, and the school thing kind of brings up the fact.
And I know we talked a little bit about the
minimalist style in the first episode, but so many of
his panels were just them in front of a brick wall,
or them at that psychiatrist stand or Snoopy's doghouse or
just the picture's Matt right. It was all just very
sort of spartan, sparse stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, but it worked.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I saw it described as that that universes. It's it's
bounded by those four panels and connected by the gutters
the spaces between the four panels. But somehow it just
seems like boundless. There's no there's no geography to it.
You just are where you're where that that moment is
taking place. But you couldn't possibly imagine the Peanuts universe
(29:36):
in some mapped out way.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah. I wonder if that's why it never occurred to
me to wonder where they were from. Yeah, yeah, I
mean have you ever thought about, like where was Peanuts based?
I like, I never even wondered that.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I never thought that or wondered that. But I saw
in a number of the essays that they presumed that
it was in the Midwest because the seasons like there
was there were there were definite seasons and Peanuts and
I think as a kid that was one of the
things that really got to me because I love the
seasons too. So to see the Peanuts gang like hanging
out in a pile of leaves, or ice skating or
(30:11):
something like that, or it was summer and there was
like an apple on a tree or something like. Yeah that,
even like you said, even though it's minimalists and you
can't even begin to imagine where they're from, it it
would evoke like how those kids were feeling. Like it
it added an extra layer to the dialogue or the
action or something like that, because you, as a kid,
(30:33):
knew how you felt when you were standing next to
a pile of leaves and it was chilly out and
Thanksgiving and Christmas were just you know, coming right down
the pike.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
So we know it's not Peanuts is anywhere USA except Florida,
southern California, and Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, and I think we said right, Charles Schultz is
from the Minneapolis Saint Paul area.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, I'm sure it was just sort of that.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, So I mean that's that's generally where it was set.
He eventually, I think, I think, not too long after
getting married the first time, moved to Santa Rosa, California
or northern California. Santa Rose is where the Charles Schultz
museum is and never never looked back. But even still,
he never the Peanuts gang never suddenly ended up in
(31:16):
California like they were still where they were.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
You know that's funny. All right, let's do our final
break and finish up with part two of Part two
of Peanuts. Right for this, we'll be.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Right back in two and two.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Softly jaw.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Soft so chuck. If I can remember all the way
back to part one, the first episode in this pairing.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I think minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
I think I mentioned, how do you know that I.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Got a little ticker on my I got a timer.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I want one of those.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I got an egg timer?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Is it a snoopy egg timer?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
It is?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Uh? So? I mentioned that there's no adults in the
Peanut world and that if they're if an adult is
is around, it's they're either being mentioned like a real
life adult or an adult in the Peanuts universe like
somebody's parent, or in the TV specials. You can hear them,
but they're off camera. You don't see them, and the
only way you hear them is that muted trombone sound effect.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, there is one strip in the Peanuts pantheon in
the eighteen thousand comic strips. There's one where adults are shown,
and even then it's just their legs.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, and even that, I think kind of like Franklin
was shook. I think Peanuts people were shook.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
For sure, for a number of reasons. One this whole
series where Lucy is participating in an adult golf tournament
for some weird reason, there's way more scenery, way more
stuff going on in all the panels, right.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's not a four panel. Was
it from one of the books.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
I don't know. It's from nineteen fifty four, so no,
it would have been before the books.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
All right, I know. Oh, it's a Sunday strip. So
the Sunday's were more than four panels from May sixteenth,
nineteen fifty four. And in that they're playing golf and stuff.
She and Charlie Brown are Lucy was famously a bad
athlete as well, because she was always screwing up in
center field or in right field. But Charlie said she
played center field for some reason. And in the last
(33:47):
panel it shows them with three or four pair of
adult legs standing around, and it's just it's almost surreal
and disconcerting to see human legs and peanuts. Yeah, it's
just odd to see it is.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
They're wearing pants with crisism and everything. It's just it's
not it ain't right, and I guess it ainate right.
Charles Schultz realized immediately that it ain't right. I can't
believe it even got out, you know, but he never
did it again.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, he got death threats.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
How dare you show leg Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was
a very weird thing. I mean, I remember one thing
I remember was because I was close to my one grandfather,
my mom's dads before he died, and Charlie Brown and
Franklin are always talking about their granddads, which I always
thought was really great. Yeah, that is very sweet. We
did mention the movie the TV specials. We went in
(34:42):
depth into the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and do you
remember what year it was, what Christmas episode that was?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It was either December fifth or ninth, nineteen sixty five
when it first seme.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
No no I met ours when we recorded our Christmas
special where we talked in detail about the christ Special.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, December fifth or ninth, nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
We had a podcast in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah, we have the way back Machine. They're all over
the place. We have an episode from seven twenty CE.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Oh wow, yeah, Goody Clark and Goodie Bright.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah that was a wild wild ride. Uh.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I don't remember which Christmas special we had it in,
but in one of them we we detailed Charlie Brown
Christmas and so we don't have to go over here.
But the one sort of surprising thing if you didn't
listen to that app was that they thought it was
going to be a big failure.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Right, yeah, so there was no laugh track. But this
is a cartoon featuring kids, ostensibly four kids, and there's
no laugh track to the jokes? How are the dumb
little kids going to know when to laugh? And then
it has like like one of the best jazz soundtracks
of all time. Yeah, but that's not exactly like what
(35:51):
the what the eight year olds are into? Right in
nineteen sixty five? Right, so yeah, the TV executives were like,
this is going to go no, and boy were they wrong.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Oh man, I mean is there aren't many more iconic
Christmas records than that one.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
No, and not just Christmas records. The Great Pumpkin Waltz
is in there, which is just, for my money, the best,
the best one of the whole album, and that whole
album is great, from the first note to the last.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I shouldn't restrict that to Christmas listening. No, I don't
know if it can. That would be weird. But I
mean I probably listened to that full record at least
twenty times over the month of December. Yeah, maybe more,
probably more than once a day. Yeah, if I'm thinking about.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
It, I'm really almost religious about it because I don't
I don't ever want to get sick of it, so
I'm really careful, like how often I listen to it.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Oh, I just pound it. I'd never get to it.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
It also has a song that has nothing to do
with Christmas, Linus and Lucy, which is what most people
who are generally aware of Peanuts and aren't like hardcore
fans consider like the Peanuts theme.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Oh interesting. Yeah, and the uh, you know, the the
cultural icon that is the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and
that's become part of the lexicon for a sad little
Christmas tree.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, and you can buy a Charlie Brown Christmas tree
too and put it on your tabletop, which we've done.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Oh, like a recreation or just a sad little tree.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
It's well, you could do that and just call your
sad little tree Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But you can
buy one and it's.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Like like the actual Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
It's got like a wooden X that it connects. It
has like a little blue blanket. Linus is blanket that
you put around the bottom like he does. It comes
with a single red ornament. It's it's wonderful. You know what, buddy,
I know what you're getting for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Oh, I can put it next to the leg lamp.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
That'd be perfect.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Actually, wow, that's great. Yeah, all right, I mean cheese.
We could sit around talk about peanuts all day long
if we're not careful, but we should wrap it up
and talk a little bit about the end of peanuts. Sadly,
Schultz said he was retiring. Announced it in December of
nineteen ninety nine. He was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer.
(38:08):
I don't even think we mentioned that he had a
disease throughout most of his career, right, that was like
had hand tremors.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yes, So in nineteen eighty one, he was diagnosed with
essential tremor, which is a tremor that affects you when
you try to do something with your hands, most specifically,
and he I could draw it, yeah, like drawing seven
comic strips a week, all the every week, and you
can actually see very clearly it's a progressive illness as well,
progressive neurological disorder. So it just gets worse with time,
(38:40):
and you can see through the progression of peanuts the
line started getting much more squiggly. But if you look
at tests of people with hand tremors, I think the
most prevalent test is it's like draw like a circle
from the inside out.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
What the hell is that called spiral?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
A spiral? Thank you? You started to center and go outward
with the spiral, and they'll put that next to somebody
who doesn't have an essential tremor and what that looks like,
and it's just like night and day. So the fact
that he can even continue on for twenty years is amazing.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, jeez, unbelievable. So, yeah, ninety nine diagnosed with cancer.
He had a big backlog of comic strips that he
had drawn, so they were able to keep publishing through
his illness until the day the day after he died. Actually, yeah,
February twelfth, two thousand, he was seventy seven.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Isn't that remarkable, Like they both died at the same time,
or they both expired at the same time, Peanuts and
Charles Schultz.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Like they had that he had that many backlogs that
it just worked out like that.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, and he had that many days left.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, pretty amazing unless a family was like there were
one hundred more and they just shoved him in a
drawer and said, it's really kind of a great story
this way.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
I'm hoping that's not the case me too.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
His family was smart though, because they said, you know what,
we don't think anyone else should ever draw this, like
Peanuts should should stop because he's not around anymore. And
that's what happened. That syndication company, unbelievably almost honored that request.
When you see new Peanuts stuff now, whether it's like
(40:20):
movies and you know, the brand is still a thing,
but those those comic strips, if you see them, are
all reprints.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, supposedly it's a billion dollar brand.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
I believe it.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
And I read a quote from Bill Waterson from Calvin
and Hobbes, who basically was like, like merchandising cartoons and
stuff you can thank Charles Schultz for that.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah, And then we mentioned one more thing before we
finished that. There was a tribute to Charles Schultz and
Peanuts among basically all the working comic strip artists on
November twenty six, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Very emotional.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, And you can go to the Charles Schultz Museum website.
They have links to all of them, and just some
of them are amazing, but a few stood out to me.
We talked about the Gilthorpe one, which, now that you've
heard these two episodes, go look up that Gilthorpe November
twenty six, twenty twenty two, comic strip tribute to Peanuts
(41:17):
because finally Charlie Brown gets to kick the football and
it's just the sweetest, sweetest thing. I can't believe that
they thought of doing that. It was just so perfect.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Great.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
There was one from Curtis. You remember we talked about
how a lot of black comic strip artists credited Charles
Schultz with introducing Franklin is kind of breaking that ceiling
for them. Sure, Curtis has one where Curtis, the comic
strip character, asks Charlie Brown to hang out and or
he goes, hey, Charlie Brown, what you do? And Charlie
(41:48):
Brown goes just chilling, Homie, let's hang out. And as
they're walking away, Curtis turns to you, the viewer and
is like that Charlie Brown's a lot cooler than you'd think.
When he's away from that Peanuts strip, Thatch Garfield has
Snoopy bringing out like one hundred year birthday cake.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah, that one's surreal looking.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
And then to me, it is to me the one
I give it like the most appropriately awkwardly formal award.
Mary Worth was that Merriworth.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Okay, I thought it was so.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Maryworth is like the most bone dry soap opera and
comic strip around to begin with, and just in total
Merriworth's style. Merriworth is sitting on the couch and it
just explains how this is Charles Schultz's hundredth birthday and
they're all celebrating it. So, happy hundredth birthday, Charles Schultz.
It's just so.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
It was very Yeah, it was very dry. And then
family Circle, I think Jeffy tripped over Snoopy's dead.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Body, which Charlie Brown was on the run from.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So I promised i'd read that very first comic strip,
because it's really emblematic of like what Charles Schultz was
going after, Like his debut comic strip for his baby
was this, And it's very a little more crudely drawn obviously.
But panel one, these two kids are sitting on the
sidewalk and you see Charlie Brown in the distance walking up,
and the kid on the sidewalk goes, well, here comes
(43:14):
old Charlie Brown. And then Charlie Brown is kind of
walking in front of him. Good old Charlie Brown, Yes, sir.
And then he walks by and they're watching him pass,
and he goes good old Charlie Brown. And then the
kid on the sidewalk in the last panel says, how
I hate him. That's the debut through the world.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
That's really amazing, pretty amazing, everybody. That was a great
way to end it, Chuck.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Hey, thanks.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
If you want to know more about Peanuts, just go
start reading Peanuts comic strips. Even if you didn't appreciate him,
you'll probably learn to like him more just by forcing
yourself to. And since I said that, it's time for listener, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Short and sweet one. Here. Hey, guys, hope you're well,
your podcast, it's been a steady presence in my life
for almost four years, has got me through one many
study sessions and kitchen cleaning weekends over the years. My
friend and now partner introduced me to your show, and
I'm so thankful she did. Being long distance, it's nice
to have something to talk about and learn a few
things along the way. Of course, whenever we do see
(44:18):
each other, we make it a habit to put on
an episode and listen together. So I just wanted to
say thank you guys for everything you do. You make
learning about the common to the obscure exciting and fun,
and I look forward to many more years listening to you.
Have a wonderful day. This is a course for my
Canadian our new friend, Olivia c and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
(44:40):
North America, Planet Earth.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Very nice, Thanks Olivia, that was very kind of you.
What a great one to add to the Peanuts episode. Chuck, Yeah, yeah, Well,
if you want to be like Olivia and get in
touch with this and just say that you appreciate us,
we really love to hear that kind of thing once
in a while, you can wrap it up ghenttly caress
it on the bottom and send it off to stuff
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
(45:07):
a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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