1994 Part 2 - Nude Beagle Descending a Staircase

44 years into his career and Schulz is still breaking new creative ground as a cartoonist. The gang discusses some of the formal innovations Schulz has made, react to a bunch of great strips, and then answer a Sopwith camel’s worth of listener mail. Plus: Kato Kaelin

Graphic Novels recommended: Michael: Finder by Carla Speed McNeil Harold: The Dumbest Idea Ever by Jimmy Gownley Liz: Fun Home - A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel Jimmy: Death of Speedy by Jaime Hernandez

Transcript available at UnpackingPeanuts.com

Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz, and Liz Sumner. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark. 

For more from the show follow @unpackpeanuts on Instagram and Threads, and @unpackingpeanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.  

Thanks for listening.

 

Episode Transcript

VO (00:02):
Welcome to Unpacking Peanuts, the podcast where three cartoonists take an in-depth look at the greatest comic strip of all time, Peanuts by Charles M.
Schulz.

Jimmy (00:19):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
This is 1994 part 2 here on Unpacking Peanuts, and I'll be your host for the proceedings.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
I'm also a cartoonist.
I do things like Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up, and The Dumbest Idea Ever.
You can find my new comics over there on gvillecomics.substack.com.
Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts and fellow cartoonists.

(00:41):
He's a playwright and a composer both for the band, Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast.
He's the co-creator of the original comic book Price Guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells, and Tangled River.
It's Michael Cohen.

Michael (00:59):
Say hey.

Jimmy (01:00):
And he's the executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation, Sweetest Beasts.
It's Harold Buchholz.

Harold (01:10):
Hello.

Jimmy (01:11):
So guys, we are here in 1994.
We're about to start the second run of strips.
Does anyone have anything they'd like to talk about up front?
I have something 1994 I want to discuss at some point, but it doesn't have to be right now.
Harold, do you got anything?

Harold (01:27):
No, I think we'll save it for our third installment.

Jimmy (01:30):
Okay.
Michael, how about you?

Michael (01:32):
No.
No preamble.

Jimmy (01:34):
Okay.
Well, I have something that I was thinking about the most 1994 thing that ever 1994'd.
And I honestly think we're still swimming in the wake of it.
This was the year of the OJ.
Simpson murders.
I think that, like, if you know good old From Hell by Alan Moore.

Michael (01:54):
Yeah.

Jimmy (01:54):
And he talks about how all the bad stuff in the 20th century, you could trace back to Jack the Ripper.

Michael (02:01):
Okay.

Jimmy (02:01):
I think all the bad stuff in the 21st century, you could chase back to the OJ.
Simpson.

Michael (02:05):
I love the OJ.
Simpson.
So Snoopy is going to be the lawyer.

Jimmy (02:11):
Johnny Cochran.
Johnny Cochran.

Michael (02:13):
Snoopy is Johnny Cochran.

Jimmy (02:15):
It's just, it's so strange.
I happened, David Lynch passed away.
And as I mentioned, I'm a big David Lynch fan.
So I was just watching old interviews and stuff.
And he talked about how the OJ.
Simpson trial really influenced him because it was just such a media circus.
And I just thought, this is the world we were in in 1994.
Like that is what people were swimming in from basically the middle of this year till the end or the beginning of the next year.

Harold (02:44):
I just had a chilling thought.
What if the OJ thing had happened like two years later when the internet had exploded?

Jimmy (02:51):
Oh, it is a chilling thought.

Michael (02:53):
Yeah.
Now the universe could not contain that much.

Harold (02:56):
It's like the last big, big thing kind of before the internet reshaped and redefined how we discussed these things and learned about them and talked about them.

Jimmy (03:08):
But it's the first point, well, probably not the first point, but it's the first, the biggest point in my lifetime where it really felt like, oh, people are just choosing their own reality.

Harold (03:17):
Yeah.

Jimmy (03:18):
It was the point that nothing mattered except what you wanted to matter.

Harold (03:23):
That's true.
You could see how people were looking at it through various filters and could see the same thing.
180 degrees opposite.
Yep.

Michael (03:34):
Yep.

Jimmy (03:35):
Well, just a fun thought to start off a comic podcast talking about a cartoon dog and his friend, the Happy Bird.
Just I'd throw that out there.

Michael (03:44):
Who is Woodstock?
Oh, he's got to be Kato Kaelin.

Jimmy (03:47):
Kato Kaelin, yes, of course.
I knew it was worth bringing up.
All right, how about we just hit the old strips?

Michael (04:04):
Let's do that.

Jimmy (04:05):
March 2nd, a little girl, as I'll say for now, comes up to Snoopy, who is lying atop his doghouse, and she says to him, wake up, it's a perfect day for chasing rabbits.
Then the little girl runs away, because apparently Snoopy has left, and she says, what are you doing?
And then we see Snoopy standing on the sidewalk, holding out sheets of paper.

(04:26):
And the little girl says, you don't catch rabbits by handing out literature.

Michael (04:32):
So I have some theories here.

Jimmy (04:34):
All right, lay it on me.

Michael (04:35):
Okay, number one, this is Patty with Zip-A-Tone hair, which we've never seen before.
B, it's Frida with a Patty wig.
Or it's Charlie Brown in drag.

Jimmy (04:53):
That's the one I like.
That's the one I'm picking.
Now the Peanuts Wiki even doesn't know.
It lists this strip as possible appearance of Patty.
Harold, what do you think?
Do you think this is Patty or no?

Harold (05:07):
Without any introduction of this character just kind of showing up in the strip, that seems so unlike Schulz.
So I'm assuming he thinks it's Patty.

Jimmy (05:16):
It's, what is it?
Other than the Zip-A-Tone, there's other difference.
I mean, Michael, can you pinpoint what the difference is?
Could it just be attributed to him not having drawn her for so many years?

Michael (05:27):
Well, I noticed, I always assumed Patty was blonde.
But I noticed in the Sundays, she's got red hair.

Jimmy (05:34):
And sometimes brown.

Michael (05:36):
Or brown, which would mean, which means, you know, you can zip-a-tone it.
Yeah.
I think it's Patty.
But then again, I compared that face in Panel 3 with a Charlie Brown and a strip coming up on March 20th.
They're virtually exactly the same.

(05:57):
Wow.

Harold (05:59):
Yeah, I can see that.

Jimmy (06:01):
Yeah, it's really strange.
Like I just blew it up huge.
And if you just cut out the hair entirely, it's a very Charlie Brown face.
One of the worst specials, by the way, a very Charlie Brown face.

Harold (06:15):
Well, I prefer it to the girl with the Zip-a-Tone hair.

Michael (06:19):
That was a whole other character.

Jimmy (06:22):
That's right.
We already did have the girl with the Zip-a-Tone hair.

Michael (06:25):
Yeah.
My other question here is, what is the content of this literature he's handing out?
Is it pro-rabbit?
Is it pro-chasing rabbits?
I don't understand.

Jimmy (06:38):
Well, I think he's looking at it in the sense of like, he's chasing rabbits to join whatever he's looking to have them join.
And she's, of course, looking at it like a sane person, a dog would chase rabbits.
I'm not sure though.
Maybe Snoopy is into Scientology at this point.

Harold (06:56):
It's little mini bios of Helen Sweet's story.

Jimmy (07:00):
I like that.
March 10th.
Okay, now we're in the middle of a little sequence here where our friend's good old Royann Hobbs has come back and she has just sold Lucy her great grandfather, Roy Hobbs, bat.
And Lucy is standing on top of the mound with Charlie Brown and Royann's there.

(07:21):
And Lucy's holding the bat and she says to Charlie Brown, Hi, Charlie Brown, this is the weird kid who sold me the bat used by Roy Hobbs.
Then Lucy whispers to Charlie Brown, I only paid her a dollar and I got a real collector's item.
To which Charlie Brown says Roy Hobbs was a fictional character.
This shoots Lucy's hat right off her head.
And then it ends in a big brawl between Lucy and Royann.

(07:43):
And to which Charlie Brown says, Be careful, you're messing up my pitcher's mound.

Harold (07:48):
Looking at the second panel of Lucy, that is a rough drawing.
I mean, that is, he's fighting here with that ink line.
It's a little hard to look at there.
But it just looks like he's really, he's got a really heavy, and as large as he's drawing Lucy here too, it's kind of surprising to me how that, just every single line except for that swoop of the front of the face that he can get in like a single stroke.

(08:19):
It always looks so clean.

Jimmy (08:20):
It really does.

Harold (08:22):
Which is amazing to me, given what we know he must be up against here with this hand tremor.

Jimmy (08:29):
Well, and we see he starts leaning into more expressionistic stuff like the fight at the end there, you know, and you'll see that coming up in the war too.

Harold (08:37):
Yeah, masterfully used as Zip-A-Tone scraps.

Jimmy (08:40):
By the way, they are doing an exhibit at the Schulz Museum.
It's about Schulz and Zip-A-Tone, right?

Liz (08:48):
Yep.
It's a different kinds of shading.

Jimmy (08:51):
Right.
Well, what's the, what's the, what's it called?

Liz (08:53):
Just a moment, I will tell you.
Nice Shades, it's called.
Beyond the Lines in Peanuts.

Jimmy (09:00):
Oh, that's very cool.
Very cool.

Harold (09:02):
So let's see how long it's running.

Liz (09:04):
Through July 13th.

Jimmy (09:05):
All right.
So if you're out there in the Northern California ways, go out and see what we're talking about when we mention all this Zip-A-Tone stuff.
March 11th.
All right.
So now Lucy still wants the bat.
So she is in a tug-of-war with Royanne trying to get the bat back.
And Charlie Brown and Snoopy are watching.
And this is how the argument back and forth goes.

(09:27):
This is one big word balloon and it's both of them yelling back and forth.
You sold me a worthless bat.
I did not.
I want my dollar back.
Try and get it.
Let go of that bat.
Let go yourself.
Give me my dollar.
Let go.
Let go yourself.
And in the next panel, Snoopy just comes up and saws the bat in half.

Harold (09:45):
He's kind of channeling King Solomon.

Michael (09:47):
Yeah, it's the biblical solution to this problem.

Jimmy (09:50):
I love the look on the annoyed look on Snoopy's face.

Harold (09:53):
Yeah, he's like, I'm going to finish this.

Michael (09:57):
I don't know about his idea of them sharing the balloon because it's clearly two people saying different things.

Jimmy (10:05):
Yeah.

Michael (10:06):
It kind of violates the rule that it would have to be both of them saying this.

Liz (10:11):
Yeah, but it's at the same time.

Jimmy (10:12):
But it does work.
Like, here's, yeah.

Harold (10:14):
Because you know who's saying what, right?

Jimmy (10:16):
Yeah.
I tried to do, I'll tell you exactly when I tried to do something like this.
It was the second issue of Emilia.
So it's the second chapter in the first trade paperback where they go to school and Emilia and Ronda are yelling at each other over top of each other.
And I did it with two different color lettering.
And I have to say it didn't work.
I think this works better.
I like this.

Harold (10:36):
Yeah, it works for me just because I know who's saying what.
And it looks like it's an argument that's heated with lots of fast back and forth.
And they're all kind of, they're 50 50 in terms of what giving and getting.

Jimmy (10:48):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, it's cool again that here we are 44 years into his career and he's trying something he never did before.

Harold (10:57):
That's cool.
Yeah.
And not to keep talking about the tremor, but I'm going to keep talking about the tremor just because it's so noticeable that hat on Lucy in the second panel.
I don't think I've seen it like that before.
That's kind of a new level of tremor on the strip.

Liz (11:17):
Why is hers tremory but Charlie Brown's is not?

Harold (11:21):
It's a good question.
I think it's really hard to know what he was dealing with.
It seemed like it was a steady thing, but I think there was some talk of it kind of coming and going.

Jimmy (11:33):
Yeah, I think so.

Harold (11:35):
I don't know if he knew what brought it on.
It doesn't seem like it because he could have tried to time his drawing.
Maybe he did to when it was minimized, if it had to do with day to day things, a certain time after you wake up or after you eat.
I don't know or it was just one of those things he couldn't tell what it was going to hit.
He was a professional that had to plow on because he's got to do this every day.

Jimmy (11:59):
Let me ask you guys a question.
Let's start with Michael.
When you're drawing, does the way you draw change based on the emotion of the scene?
For instance, if you're drawing a dramatic scene with like Sophie running away from danger, do you draw that faster?
Do you press harder?

(12:21):
Is there any difference?

Michael (12:23):
For me, no.

Jimmy (12:24):
Harold.

Harold (12:26):
I can't say I go faster.
I'm definitely one of those people that when I'm signing books at these conventions, I'm seeing it and feeling it in my face.
If I got a big smile on a character or whatever, I'm doing the emotion physically.
But in terms of actually doing it at a different pace or with a different level of emphasis with the tool because I'm feeling the emotion, I don't think so.

(12:59):
How about you, Jimmy?

Jimmy (13:00):
I do.
Yeah, I absolutely do.
I noticed it recently because I'm working on this in the Real Dark Night book.
There's a scene where, well, there's lots of scenes like this, but a monster is attacking one of our heroes.
I was trying to erase it and I'm like, my Lord, I was pressing so hard and this pencil drawing is almost violent.

(13:23):
I happen to have a couple of other Amelia pages around and stuff, and I looked at a page of Amelia in a tussle and it's the same way.
You could still see all the pencil lines because I was pressing so hard.
My point being about this is maybe that's also how Schulz works, and maybe that affects it to the point there.
What made me think of this is Liz saying, why is Charlie Brown's hat not that way and Lucy's that way?

(13:47):
Well, one thing that's different is what he's trying to convey.

Harold (13:51):
That could be.

Jimmy (13:52):
Yeah.

Harold (13:54):
Yeah.
I mean, you see Charlie Brown and Snoopy in their three drawings look more like 1994 Peanuts that I've been seeing strip to strip.
And the other two characters definitely look much, much more tortured, I guess is a tough way to say it.

Michael (14:16):
Well, it is the grungier.

Jimmy (14:17):
Yeah, it's absolutely the grungier.
I am so shocked at how Peanuts looks, how 90s Peanuts looks, you know, the zip of town, the grungy aesthetic quality of the line.
It's really fricking 90s, which is really strange because so much of it is just based on just pure physicality.

(14:38):
The man's older.
He's been doing this a long time, but it does it is the it is reflecting the grunge era.

Harold (14:45):
Well, I will say the lettering is masterful.
Again, he knows every little stroke of the lettering and he seems to be able to get every single one of them in before there's a tremor hit.
Yeah, that's incredible.
How do you do that?

Jimmy (15:01):
You're a master who does this every day, I guess, that's the only possible answer.

Harold (15:08):
But when he signs his name now, he lets the tremor live in his signature, even though you don't see it in the lettering.
I think it's fascinating.

Michael (15:17):
Yeah.

Jimmy (15:19):
March 19th, Charlie Brown is asleep in his beanbag chair.
And then the next panel, he wakes up and shouts, the ball was right over the plate.
Why didn't I swing?
And then the next panel, he goes right back to sleep.
I picked this just because I relate to it.
I mean, this could be me twice a week.

Michael (15:40):
Yeah, it could be you.
It's something that happened two years ago.

Jimmy (15:44):
Oh, yes, easily.
Or 20 years ago, more likely, probably.
Does that ever go away?
Do you still have things that, you know, moments from childhood that even the decades have passed, they still give you that cringe feeling?

Michael (16:00):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
We're talking 60 years past.
Like, oh, my God, so stupid.

Jimmy (16:07):
And it's so funny because it's so universal.
You think we'd all be able to laugh at it easier.
But when it's your thing, it's not funny.
It's just just pure pain and awkwardness.

Harold (16:18):
Yeah.

Liz (16:18):
Speaking of my pain and awkwardness is that I didn't do it, but I might have done it and I still feel the shame.

Jimmy (16:26):
Oh, yeah.

Harold (16:27):
Wow.
The thing that didn't happen.
Yes.
Just like you're seeing with Charlie Brown, why didn't I swing?

Liz (16:34):
Well, no, it's more like.

Jimmy (16:37):
I could have done something bad.
I thought about doing something bad, but I didn't.
But I still feel guilt.

Liz (16:43):
Yeah.
I might have said something when that person could have overheard me.
I didn't, but I could have, and it would have been so awful.
And I just feel such shame that that didn't happen.

Jimmy (16:59):
That you get the Adam McGownley Award for unnecessary guilt.

Liz (17:06):
Thank you.

Harold (17:07):
Thank you.

Liz (17:07):
I'm so honored.

Jimmy (17:10):
That is amazing.

Harold (17:12):
That is I'll say one thing I've noticed when I was reading the strips for this episode was how many strips feature resting.
And it's a lot.
There are so many, we now see Snoopy often resting on Charlie Brown or over his leg.

(17:37):
But there's lots and lots of moments where people are in bed, they're asleep, their eyes are closed.
More so than I think ever has been in the strip.

Michael (17:48):
Being in a comic strip is hard work.

Jimmy (17:51):
Especially 44 years.
Right?
I think the older he gets, the more you do see direct one-to-one, this happened in my life, it's now in the strip.
The dog on the lap and he doesn't want to wake him.
The dog's obsession with the cookies strikes me as something that came from his relationship with his dog.

(18:15):
It seems like he's less interested in hiding the fact that it's just him talking directly into the strips.

Harold (18:22):
Yeah, I could see that.

Jimmy (18:23):
Yeah.
March 20th.
It's Sunday, Charlie Brown's on his pitcher's mound and he says, My pitcher's mound looks great.
Then Linus comes up with a rake and says, It's going to be a good season, Charlie Brown.
Then Charlie Brown and Linus go back and we see the backstop behind home plate.
And Charlie Brown says, Our old backstop seems to be in good shape.

(18:47):
How about the outfield?
Linus looks out and says, Almost Charlie Brown.
It's beautiful.
And we've raked the infield so it looks better than ever.
They look over it as they walk through it.
And Charlie Brown says to Linus, Then all we have to worry about is the sound system.
Which Linus says, The sound system?
And then we see Lucy out there in right field yelling, This year let's try to get the ball over the plate you blockhead.

(19:12):
And Charlie Brown says, The sound system is still working.
I really like, I think that we have not added anything to the gallery of 20th century objects, but I would like to add the backstop.
Because that is a perfect thing to draw when you have a hand tremor, is a little league backstop.

(19:36):
That looks exactly like our rickety old little league backstop.

Harold (19:43):
So I have to ask from sheer ignorance, all these years, we've seen Charlie Brown standing on his pitchers.
I have no recollection of ever seeing a field that where kids are playing, where there's a pitcher's mound.
I mean, is this a physical thing where, I mean, this is way up high.

(20:06):
I mean, this is over half of Charlie Brown's height that he's standing on.
Do these exist?

Jimmy (20:12):
I mean, only if you had like, yeah, like we had the little league field in Gerardville and you were able to, it was just part of the park.
So any, as long as there wasn't a game there, you could play, you could take your family and play a softball game or kids could go and play.
And everything was still there except the first, second and third base.
Those, because they don't want people to steal them because they're, they come off.

(20:36):
But there was the pitcher mound was there, the backstop and home plate.
So yeah.

Harold (20:40):
I mean, is there, is it literally a mound?
Is it like a foot or a foot over?

Jimmy (20:44):
I'm not sure how, yeah, it doesn't look like, it doesn't look like that.
It's higher in the back and it slopes down in the front so that the pitcher is throwing from the top of the mound and gets that extra juice going into it.
Yeah.

Harold (20:56):
Okay.
Yeah.

Jimmy (20:57):
You don't pitch from the flacking round.
You have to be up in the mound.
Not sure all of the physics of why, but yeah.
So I think the backstop should be in the good old gallery of 20th century objects, which by the way, you can find on our website, unpackingpeanuts.com.
There's all kinds of great stuff.
First, you should go over there.

(21:17):
I should have told you this at the beginning.
If you want to follow along with this, first you go over to our website, you sign up for the old great peanuts reread.
That's on unpackingpeanuts.com.
That'll get you one email a month where you hear what we're going to be covering, and then you can follow along with us.
But the website's great anyway, because Liz puts a lot of work into it.
All our peanuts' obscurities that we planned are up there.
It's fun.

(21:37):
It transcripts the whole deal.
It's a good time.
March 22nd, Peppermint Patty is lying on the floor in her house, talking on the phone, and she says, Hey Chuck, I need your help with the school assignment.
We have to interview a businessman.
What does your dad do?
A barber?
Ask him if that's a business.
Apparently Charlie Brown does this, and then Peppermint Patty answers in the last panel.

(22:01):
An art?
Well, I guess that'll be all right.

Harold (22:05):
Hey, you go Charlie Brown's dad.

Jimmy (22:07):
I like this little sequence, because, you know, I guess they forget that they've already met at this point 14 years ago, when he cut her hair like a little boy.
But I like the little sequence where she goes to visit Charlie Brown's dad, and that continues here.
March 24th, Pepper and Patty is at the barber shop.

(22:27):
She's taken notes for her project, and she says, Yes, sir, I'm supposed to interview a businessman, so I have these questions.
How did you get started as a barber?
Is there room for advancement?
What about health care?
Is it a good career for women?
Then Pepper and Patty, noticing someone has left, finished his haircut, says, Y'all come back now, you hear?

(22:48):
And then Pepper and Patty says to Charlie Brown's dad, he did a nice job on that guy.

Michael (22:55):
It's kind of funny because it isn't funny.
Right.
There's no gag here.

Jimmy (22:59):
No.

Harold (23:00):
Except unless the y'all come back now, you hear it.

Jimmy (23:02):
Who is that?

Michael (23:03):
So I didn't know she was from the South.

Jimmy (23:06):
What's that from?
Y'all come back.

Harold (23:08):
Beverly Hillbillies.

Liz (23:09):
Oh, I thought it was Petticoat Jones.

Jimmy (23:10):
So it's not from the 90s, though.

Liz (23:12):
No, no, no.

Harold (23:13):
No, it makes our references not sound not so old.
And he's coming back 30 years.
But it's so funny.
I mean, this, of course, could have been something that government patty was watching in syndication.

Jimmy (23:26):
Oh, absolutely.

Harold (23:27):
It influenced her speech.

Jimmy (23:29):
Well, I think about, you know, Gen X and maybe the oldest millennials, but probably not even them, are really, you know, our childhood media was awash in the previous generation's childhood media.
And even some things that weren't for children became retrofitted to be our childhood media.

Harold (23:49):
You know what I mean?

Jimmy (23:50):
And now things are made so directly for kids.
You know, you know, it's just something inside of morning TV is there's 24-hour cable channels and streaming service dedicated to kids.
The other thing I just want to say about this, to Michael's point of like, there's not a gag.
There's just like this little moment.

(24:11):
He does this in five panels as a daily.
And I think that's an advantage to him now that he's changed this, the format, because if he did this as a Sunday, and you would feel that you would need a gag, I think.
A Sunday is such a bigger enterprise.
These little quiet moments, I don't think he could do as well.

(24:32):
So it's nice that he was able to.

Harold (24:33):
And as a sequence, if you're doing it in order, you know, he very rarely would go daily, daily, daily Sunday, daily, daily in a, in a ongoing story line.
Because he was doing it out of order, he would have to have done that Sunday a couple weeks before those days, unless he held the dailies until he could line it up with a Sunday.
So yeah, there's some weird dynamics going on here.

SPEAKER_2 (24:57):
All right.

Jimmy (24:57):
Listen, guys, how about we take a break right now?
Come back on the other side and check the mail.

Liz (25:02):
Sounds good.

SPEAKER_2 (25:03):
All right.

Jimmy (25:04):
We'll be right back.

Liz (25:05):
Hi, everyone.
You've heard us rave about the Estabrook Radio 914.
And what episode would be complete without mention of the Fab Four?
Now you can wear our obsessions proudly with Unpacking Peanuts T-shirts.
We have a BF Good Cheer pen nib design, along with the four of us crossing Abbey Road.

(25:26):
And of course, Michael, Jimmy and Harold at the Thinkin Wall.
Collect them all.
Trade them with your friends.
Order your T-shirts today at unpackingpeanuts.com/store.

Jimmy (25:39):
And we are back hanging out in the old mailbox, Liz, do we got anything?

Liz (25:44):
We do.
Okay, we heard from super listener, Debbie Perry, who says, you've suggested that the 1990s have brought about a decline in the quality of peanuts, suggesting that Charles Schulz may have been consciously aiming it at what kids would enjoy.
I would respectfully disagree with that assessment.

Jimmy (26:07):
No need to be respectful around here, Debbie.

Liz (26:12):
Schulz may no longer have been writing an intellectual strip, something he would have denied anyways.
But he was still writing an intelligence strip.
She goes on to give several examples of that, but continues.
He's also turning out some of the most ambitious visuals he's drawn in the strip since the early 1950s.

(26:36):
Then she concludes with, even a simplified Peanuts that increasingly returns to old themes, is still ahead of many other strips of its time for the variety and range the strip still shows all these years later.

Jimmy (26:52):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I agree.

Harold (26:54):
Or we wouldn't be doing this.
No, seriously, even if we're looking at this through the lens of previous Peanuts.
I think you're right.
I mean, that's the thing, even even these kids versions of the Saturday morning version of Peanuts was way more intellectual and thoughtful than anything else on Saturday morning, for example.

Jimmy (27:17):
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.

Harold (27:19):
But I guess I mean, Debbie, I'm sure you got what we were saying, that there seems to be a conscious awareness that downstream when he's making some of these things, it may have to be retrofitted for other use.
And that may not be a fair thing to say.
And obviously you disagree with that, but it kind of feels like that might be in his head because it's a piece of his life that he has to deal with all the time.

(27:46):
He's constantly at demand for more specials.
There's a TV series and all of that.
I don't know.
What do you guys think?

Jimmy (27:53):
Yeah, you know, the other thing that's a part of just the general change of anything is simply the passage of time and he is much older now.
And it might just be nothing he could articulate or even is aware of.
He's just a slightly different person, maybe in many ways a very different person than he was when he started out.

(28:14):
One thing, this is not exactly the same thing, but I'm drawing some new Amelia stories for the 25th Anniversaries that are coming out.
And I'm drawing them in the style that I drew those books in, which is next to impossible.
And Michael, you're going through something very similar to this, drawing Strange Attractors.
I mean, do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Like, it's really difficult to draw how you used to draw, even though you didn't make a conscious change to draw differently.

Michael (28:41):
No, no, everyone evolves.
It's just stylistically, it's just part of continuing to do creative things, you're going to change.
And I don't think anybody consciously changes their style.

Jimmy (28:55):
Yeah.

Michael (28:55):
It just, you can't stop it.

Harold (28:58):
Yeah.

Jimmy (28:59):
And I think that works as well with the stories, you know, or the jokes or whatever, the, you know, the written part of cartooning is.

Michael (29:08):
Yeah.

Jimmy (29:09):
No, I just think that that's something that we really have to just take into account.

Harold (29:14):
This is a long time.
I'm wondering what Debbie would think of just the idea that, you know, Schultz would respond to what people responded to.
And back in the 50s, it was super hard and pretty much all the way through his run of doing these strips, he wouldn't get the instant gratification or the instant feedback, say that anybody who's doing a strip on the internet, who will know within a couple of hours of the time they get published, whether something struck a nerve, you'd hear about Psychiatrist Booth, how long afterward, that somehow that was something people were responding to.

(29:53):
And again, I'm just thinking of it from that perspective, and it may just be me placing this on top of Schulz because of what I know about the animation and all of that.
But yeah, not just that he needs content, but that he knows that Peanuts works with that audience, the audience that he said he never was shooting for.
He can see the demographics on these specials.

(30:17):
He can see how many women and men and children watched the specials when they came out.
He knows that Dolly Madison is running their ads for cupcakes, and it's really kid-oriented in terms of who these are for.
And so he's getting feedback that kids are getting a lot out of his strip, and maybe more so than he ever knew.

(30:38):
And again, maybe he's responding to that.
Maybe he's leaning into that because he sees that there's something in his strip that people are pulling out of it and enjoying it, and they happen to be children.

Michael (30:49):
I don't know.
Yeah, it's also, you know, getting back to Debbie's comment.
It's totally subjective.

Harold (30:56):
Well, right.

Michael (30:56):
Here are the three of us.
I mean, we're going through the same process.
And here we are in mid 1994.
And our picks, there's, like I picked very few in this, for this episode, Jimmy picked more than he's ever picked before.
So, you know, what's not working for me is working for Jimmy.

Harold (31:19):
Right.
Well, I was left with two of you guys strips, I think, from the set.
So it's not like we're all going, oh, there's, there's, there's genius right there.
That's the one, you know, sometimes I'm surprised the one I picked, oh, everyone's going to pick this and no, it's just me.

Jimmy (31:34):
Well, and it's further complicated by the fact that sometimes you're picking something to discuss, not because you like it, but because it doesn't work.
Right.
So that skews it or you're just curious about it.
You know, like, well, like the party one I picked because I wanted you guys to tell me, what do you think this person is?

Harold (31:52):
And not that it's the best comic strip, but it's the interesting comic strip.

Jimmy (31:55):
It's the interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, it's bottom line is we love them.
That's why we're doing it.
We know you love them, which is why you're writing in.
And we appreciate it.
That'd be thank you so much.

Harold (32:08):
Thank you.

Liz (32:09):
And a bunch of people wrote in this week.
Paul Castiglia writes that in the 1993 part three episode, he thought it was great that Harold brought up how the public's consumption patterns of entertainment in the past were different in their own times than they are now.
He continues, This extends to live action comedy shorts that were released theatrically too.

(32:33):
There were a lot of sight gags and jokes repeated in Laurel and Hardy shorts and Three Stooges shorts to the point that when people watch them on TV now, all bunched together one after another, they can get the false impression that these comedy acts were limited trick ponies.
These shorts were never meant to be watched this way.

(32:55):
And he adds, to Michael's point about the syndicates expecting the reading audiences to be recycled every few years, from my time at Archie Comics, there used to be a rule that stories published in the then current year couldn't be reprinted in a digest until about five years later.

Harold (33:14):
That was true when I was there, yep.

Liz (33:16):
The audience would have been refreshed by then with newer younger readers who'd be unfamiliar with the story.
And he concludes with, I think Schulz polishing off an old hit, and if possible, seeing if he can give it a new spin, had to come internally from both a fondness for the individual strips he chose to repurpose and the belief that their messages were still relevant in some way.

Harold (33:42):
Yeah.

Jimmy (33:42):
Yeah, makes sense to me.

Harold (33:43):
I agree.
I agree, Paul.

Liz (33:46):
And Anne from Pennsylvania writes that she's listening to 1992 part one.
And on January 8th, there's a three panel strip that I immediately imagined as a four panel strip.
We're teaching people to improve on genius.

(34:06):
She writes, Charlie Brown is reading Alice in Wonderland to Snoopy.
In panel two, Snoopy vanishes, leaving only a smile and reappears in the final panel.
Because the Cheshire Cat is described as disappearing, beginning with the end of his tail, I imagined a panel between one and two where Snoopy was missing his tail.

(34:29):
Not sure if it would be better, but that's where my mind went.

Jimmy (34:33):
Nice.
Well, you know, that is one of the great arts of cartooning, is deciding the moment to show and what not to show.
And sometimes it comes down to like, I don't feel like drawing another panel today.

Harold (34:48):
So yeah, that's interesting.
As you read these, and if someone hears your reading of it, it used to be with the Daily, you knew the beats.
Yeah.
Not so easy anymore to visualize what Schulz might actually have done with the strip you're describing because he had all of these variations going on.

Jimmy (35:10):
Yeah, he could have really subdivided it if he wanted to, gotten crazy with it.

Liz (35:15):
And then last week, we talked about Charlie Brown whether or not he wanted to get out of going to school.
And a few people voted on our poll asking listeners what they thought.
And Troy Wilson writes, Here's my theory on Charlie Brown's attempt to leave school and see Snoopy.
Maybe Sally's attitude towards school is finally rubbing off on him after all these years.

(35:40):
Maybe her influence has corrupted him just a teeny tiny bit.
So he makes this attempt in the most honest, authentic, and caring way he can.
Snoopy would indeed be interested in this subject matter.
And Charlie Brown does indeed care enough about his dog to want to pass along the info while it's fresh in his mind.

(36:00):
And when he sinks down in the end, he's disappointed for two reasons.
A, he's disappointed that he failed.
And B, he's disappointed in himself for uncharacteristically doing this.

Harold (36:14):
Oh, wow.
That's very well argued.
And this is the kind of strip that could have those layers all baked in, even if the creator didn't know.
Oh, for sure.
That's what he was thinking, you know?

Jimmy (36:25):
For sure.

Liz (36:26):
And Shayna Hickey writes, I think Jimmy is right.

Jimmy (36:30):
Yeah.
This has been Unpacking Peanuts.
Be of good cheer, everybody.

Liz (36:36):
Charlie Brown was just trying to get out of school.
However, this is a newer behavior for him.
And she adds, thanks for this awesome podcast.
It truly is a bright spot in my week that I look forward to every week.

Harold (36:49):
Oh, thank you.

Jimmy (36:50):
Oh, that's wonderful to hear.

Liz (36:52):
That's it for the mail.

Jimmy (36:53):
If you guys are out there and you want to contact us and hear your voice in the show, you can give us a call at 717-219-4162, or you can leave a text.
We got some of both.
We heard from super listener Jim Meyer, who writes, My vote for Lord of the Rings casting is Lucy Asgaladriel.

(37:16):
She would show the hobbits a vision in her mirror of her saying, instead of a dark lord, you would have a queen, a Christmas queen.
Then when the vision fades, she would say, five cents, please.
That's pretty good, man.

Michael (37:35):
That's good.

Jimmy (37:36):
Yeah.
Well, she'd need a wig.

Michael (37:37):
I was thrown by her dark hair.

Jimmy (37:39):
She would definitely need a wig, but that's a pretty good bit.
We heard from a super listener, Captain Billy.
Hi, Captain Billy here, referencing 1993 part two.
One, thank you for dubbing me a super fan.
The greatest thing that has ever happened to me since becoming a wee blow.

(38:01):
Two, Liz saying, I love you, Captain Billy is my new ringtone.
I made her laugh again, didn't I?
All right, so he also has a tidbit for our listeners.
The easiest way to get a text read in the show is to pay someone a compliment.
Captain Billy gets it.

(38:22):
And he concludes with Unpacking Peanuts is the greatest podcast in the universe.
Awesome.
And then we heard from super listener Joshua Stauffer, who says, worry no more, Jimmy, here I am.
I've got two things for exactly.
First of all, 1 2 94.
I do believe Charlie Brown was trying to get out of class.

(38:45):
Thank you, Joshua.
Because A, I don't recall Snoopy being overly interested in astronomy.
I could be wrong though.
That's a good point.
And B, it's very possible that Sally's constant rebellious attitude towards school is rubbing off on her big brothers.
So it's true for that.
Plus, we actually did see Peppermint Patty and Pigpen going to a dance together in February 19th.

(39:07):
That's right.
We did.
So while they may not have played in the mud together, they did have a short-lived relationship, which was really cute.
Be of good cheer, Joshua Stauffer.

Liz (39:17):
Thank you, Joshua.

Jimmy (39:18):
Thank you for writing and yeah, that is true.
That was a great sequence.
Well, we got stuff from the old voicemail.

Sawyer (39:29):
Hi, my name is Sawyer Honeycutt.

Michael (39:32):
I just recently found your podcast about two weeks ago.

Sawyer (39:36):
I just finished listening to the conclusion of season three, the 1960 through 64.
And I just have to say, I love your podcast.
Best podcast I've ever listened to.
And I have a question for Charlie Brown.
Which shirt color do you like best?

(39:59):
The yellow, the red or the orange?
Okay.
Have a good rest of your day and be of good cheer.

Jimmy (40:06):
And then he has a PS.
What one graphic novel would each of us recommend?
So first off, what color Charlie Brown shirt and what graphic novel?
Let's start with Michael.

Michael (40:18):
Any graphic novel?

Jimmy (40:20):
Any graphic novel.

Michael (40:21):
Well, I'm going to pick one that probably most of you haven't seen.
I'm going to pick Finder by Carla McNeil.

Jimmy (40:27):
All righty.

Michael (40:28):
I think there's like 10 volumes of this.
It's fantastic.
Really interesting, well thought out fantasy world she's created.
And it's not like anything else you've ever read.

Jimmy (40:41):
And you get 10 volumes of it.
So get to work, man.
That's a lot of reading.
And yellow, red or orange, Charlie Brown shirt.

Michael (40:49):
I've never seen these in color, but I think it would be yellow.

Jimmy (40:52):
Yellow.

Michael (40:54):
Harold.

Harold (40:55):
Yellow and the Dumbest Idea Ever by Brown Noser.

Jimmy (41:04):
Liz?

Liz (41:07):
Oh, well, yellow and the one about the funeral home.
Fun Home.

Jimmy (41:12):
Fun Home.
All right.
So I'm going to make it a clean sweep here with yellow.
And I'm going to recommend the dumbest.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm going to recommend Death of Speedy by Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets.
It's only 64 pages.
I'm astounded by that every time I read it.
In my mind, it's 500 pages.

(41:33):
And that's it.
I think that's all we got right now.
We might have one or two, but we'll save those for the next time.
And that wraps up the old mailbox.
So if you want to get in touch with this, go over to our website, Unpacking Peanuts.
Sign up for the Great Peanuts reread.
You can email us, unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com and call us at 717-219-4162.
And we love hearing from you because when I don't hear, I worry.

(41:56):
But I'm not worried this week.
Thanks, guys.
All right, let's go back to the strips.
March 27th, Snoopy is leading the Beagle Scouts off on a hike across a long fallen tree.
Very beautiful drawing.
This is a Sunday.
And we see him lead them over a hill and then up a rocky slope and then really climbing up a very steep slope where we actually see a few birds hanging out in a nest in a tree because it seems as if they're actually ascending above the timber line.

(42:33):
And then we get to the top of this hill, which is just a peak.
It's barely bigger than Snoopy.
And he says, this has been a long uphill climb.
And all the Beagle Scouts are up there with him.
And, you know, he's level with the clouds.
And he says, but it was worth it, wasn't it?
Of course, now we have that little problem of getting down.

(42:53):
But it's not a problem for the other Beagle Scouts who apparently leap off the top of the cliff.
And like skydivers who link hands in a big circle as they go down.
That's that's the Beagle Scouts getting off the cliff.

Harold (43:10):
Snoopy rolling his eyes.

Jimmy (43:12):
Yeah, the rolling his eyes is actually what makes it for me.
Well, the drawing of all the birds linking wings is brilliant, too.
Would any of you, either all three of you, would you skydive if you could?

Michael (43:26):
I actually had booked it.

Jimmy (43:30):
Really?

Michael (43:31):
And thank God it rained.

Jimmy (43:34):
Wow, that's surprising.
So why did when was this?
And you just it was the weather you gave you a second thought.
So you like forget it.

Michael (43:41):
I was trying to impress somebody with my bravery.
Oh, Evie Wick, because she was going to do it.
So I was going to show her what a man.
But that's when it rained.
I said, OK, there's no way I'm ever going to do this.

Harold (43:57):
Yeah, this is the side.

Jimmy (43:59):
How about the other two guys?
You guys want to ever jump out of a plane for no reason?

Liz (44:03):
Nope, not anymore.
But there might have been a time in my life when I would have.

Jimmy (44:08):
Yeah, you could not pay me any amount of money to jump out of an airplane.

Liz (44:13):
No, but isn't this a repeat of a strip in the past where the birds fly when when Snoopy has to?

Jimmy (44:21):
Yeah, they don't do of course, the little synchronized air ballet.
But yes, there is another one.

Harold (44:28):
Yeah, you get some angles on these birds you've never seen before because he has to do a complete circle of them, which is pretty cool.

Jimmy (44:36):
Yes, yes, I really I mean, mostly I picked it for just that last drawing.
It's so cute.
April 2nd, Snoopy and Woodstock are atop the dog house, and it is windy as heck.
Some leaves are blowing by and Snoopy says, what?
Because Woodstock is talking, but we see all of the little hash marks.
I moved to the left side of the word balloon.

(44:58):
And then in the next panel, we see the little hash marks of Woodstock's speech have left the word balloon completely.
And Snoopy says, sorry, I can't hear you when the wind is blowing.

Liz (45:07):
That's brilliant.

Michael (45:08):
Well, this is a good advertisement for cartooning, because you can't do this in any other media.

Jimmy (45:15):
No.

Harold (45:16):
Yeah.

Liz (45:17):
God, that's good.

Jimmy (45:18):
I mean, when you think so, like, okay.
So we have the innovation of the character sitting on top of the doghouse.
That's purely peanuts.
We have the fact that Snoopy is communicating via thoughts to his animal friends.
That's purely peanuts.

Harold (45:34):
Yeah.

Jimmy (45:35):
The graphic depiction of a bird chirping is just hash marks in a word balloon.
That's purely peanuts.
He invented all of this stuff.
And now he's playing with it with this formal joke of the, like Michael said, is you can only do it in a comic strip could not be done anywhere else.
It's amazing.

Harold (45:53):
Yeah.
I was looking at that second panel of Snoopy.
And another thing that he does in cartooning, we always talked about the pose that Schultz will go for the pose that looks the best, even if it doesn't make anatomical sense.
And Snoopy is we're seeing him in profile looking at Woodstock on this very tight plane of the top of the doghouse.

(46:22):
Then you see a like a three quarter view of his body that's facing away from Woodstock.
And then if you look at his two paws, the paws are straight on.
So there's no way that his one leg would be as long as it is here, except for the sake of just an interesting design.

(46:48):
This is just a classic example of Schulz fighting something that looks most interesting, not what's anatomically correct.

Jimmy (46:59):
I read an essay once about Jack Kirby's art and talking about how his anatomy was so wonky.
But the person writing the essay was saying, well, you're sort of judging it incorrectly.
Kirby is actually showing you moments of motion in one drawing.
Exactly what you're describing here.

(47:20):
He is, you know, this is the drawing of Snoopy in the wind turning his head.
And even though this would have been, if it was animation, say, whatever, it would have been like 12 drawings.
Parts of those 12 drawings in, he was saying in like Kirby's work, are combined in one drawing to make this like meta-drawing.

Michael (47:41):
So this is nude descending a staircase.
Right.

Jimmy (47:44):
Yeah.
Something like that.

Harold (47:45):
Yeah.
Except Snoopy's sitting stationary on top of a doghouse.

Jimmy (47:49):
A dog sitting on a doghouse.
Yeah.
And I don't know, I read, it's probably in the comics journal or something, but I thought, you know, it made a lot of sense to me.

Harold (47:57):
Yeah.
I mean, it's one of the things you can do in cartooning.
That he's proven just by reading through all of these, that he's chosen the better path, you know, you break the rules if the rules serve the emotion or the appeal.
Because everybody knows it's Snoopy, right?

(48:18):
Yeah.
There's no question it's Snoopy.
So how does he draw this in a way that is most interesting?
And he's absolutely fine.
He knows how to draw.
He knows perspective, right?
But that isn't the important thing here.
And I think that's helpful for us as cartoonists, especially ones who are trying to boil things down into such simplicity like he does.

(48:41):
But you've got a lot of leeway to play with.

SPEAKER_2 (48:44):
Yeah.

Jimmy (48:46):
There's a lot to talk about in this ridiculous art form.
April 3rd, it's a Sunday, a symbolic panel of Sally's Head Between Quotation Marks.
And then she's at the family table doing some homework.
And then we see she has drawn a bunch of commas.
And Charlie Brown is watching her.
She says to Charlie Brown, These are commas.

(49:07):
If a comma works hard, it can become an apostrophe.
See?
And she writes, The dogs moan, the cats whiskers.
She continues saying to Charlie Brown, If a comma finds a partner, it can go into pairs.
They can become quotation marks.
Ah, he said, Charlie Brown says to her, Aren't the ones on the left upside down?

(49:28):
And Sally says, To become a real quotation mark, they have to learn to do a backflip.
And Charlie Brown walks away saying, I'd better go.
I have some writing to do for homework.
And then Sally calls after him.
Watch those quotation marks when they do a backflip.

Harold (49:45):
So we learn in this year that Sally, at least for one semester or quarter of school, is a straight-A student.
And this is a really good example of her creative thinking showing her brilliance.
You know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
You know, every once in a while you just see Sally, who seems to be out of touch with everything that's going on in some of these strips, really has something going for herself in her unique way of seeing the world that is actually incredibly creative.

(50:20):
You definitely see it in this strip.

Jimmy (50:21):
You know, I had an issue when I saw that, like, Sally is talking to Charlie Brown.
She's like, why?
I'm a straight A student.
Of course I am.
I'm a good student.
I do my work.
I show up, whatever.
Right.
I thought, well, gosh, that's so unsally.
But then I thought, or is it?
I could see her just choosing to be a straight A student for a semester and then gaslighting everyone around her like, what are you talking about?

(50:43):
I've always been a great student.
I love school.
I could absolutely see that in her personality.

Liz (50:50):
But wait a second.
That last panel, is that really necessary?

Harold (50:57):
Where would you leave it?

Liz (50:59):
I'd better go.
I have some writing to do for Homer.
I mean, I just watch those quotation marks when they do a backflip.
It seems like not a great punchline.

Harold (51:09):
What if you cut out the last two panels, Liz, would that work better for you?
Where she says, did you get a little bit of fish?

Jimmy (51:13):
That does work better.
Yeah, cut out the last two.

Liz (51:15):
Yes.
You're absolutely right.

Harold (51:17):
There you go.

Jimmy (51:17):
We fixed it for you, Sparky.

Harold (51:20):
It's interesting because it has so much to do with how he views his characters in the context of his strip.
Virtually any other cartoonist who had thought up this clever way of looking at punctuation marks, would be very satisfied where, okay, I'm going to hit the homer at the end by putting the joke about the backflip.

(51:42):
Then there would be an exclamation point at the end of the backflip.
That's your punchline, that's your strip, and that's not Schulz.
It's interesting that he de-escalates the strip in those last two panels, and in a way you could say he doesn't stick the landing, but he already stuck the landing two panels ago.

Jimmy (52:01):
He's doing this on purpose.

Harold (52:04):
Yeah, very interesting.

Jimmy (52:06):
April 5th, Peppermint Patty and Marcy are at a Tiny Tots concert, and Marcy says, I wonder how the composer could write something so beautiful.
She continues, I wonder how the violinist can remember all those notes.
Peppermint Patty looks up into the ceiling and says, I wonder how they change those light bulbs way up there in the ceiling.

Harold (52:29):
I love this strip.
You talk about character-based humor, that tells you just volumes about these two friends.

Jimmy (52:38):
Yeah.
I love the drawing of Marcy holding her hand over her heart.
She's so moved.
Even though her expression is so neutral for the most part, all the way through.

Harold (52:49):
And yet somehow you really do feel it in the drawing.
It's so true to the two characters, and Peppermint Patty is is in some ways so incredibly practical, so interested in the physicality of the world, that I think that's just that's such a perfect counterpoint to Marcy.

Jimmy (53:13):
April 6th, Charlie Brown is out there with one of his doomed kites, and Marcy and Peppermint Patty come up.
Peppermint Patty is looking a little bit disheveled, and Marcy says to Charlie Brown, Hi, Charles, we've just been to a long symphony concert.
To which Charlie Brown says, What's wrong with Patty?
And Marcy says, she was maulered.

Michael (53:36):
This is something he hasn't been doing lately.
I mean, this is really wouldn't make absolutely no sense to kids.
Or half the population.

Harold (53:49):
Right.
I really like this one.
But Michael, I think you and I both nominated this one.
It is unusual.
And again, it's Schulz takes us to these places of surreality that we accept because we've just bought in and he just takes us a little further out on a limb and further on the limb and further on the limb.
And now you're in a world that only you can share with Charles Schulz because it's his world with his rules.

(54:15):
And here you've got it's a pun, right?
It's just a pun gag, but it's still tied in with the characters and goes back to the idea of the physicality of Peppermint Patty, that she's interested in how light bubbles are fixed way up in a ceiling.
And you've got to get on a ladder.
And how do you do that versus Marcy responding to the beauty of this music?

(54:41):
And it just seems totally to make sense in Schulz's world than that Marcy's coming out fresh as a daisy from this concert.
And Peppermint Patty is disheveled from the music.
There's a physicality again of how she experienced this music that you can't really explain.
It's a funny pun.

(55:01):
And yet it makes sense.

Jimmy (55:02):
Yeah.

Harold (55:03):
It's wild.

Jimmy (55:04):
Yeah, it is wild.
And to Michael's point too, there is such a great aspect of Schulz where he is still willing to do something even if he knows it's not going to be received or understood by a big percentage of the audience.

(55:24):
If it's a good comic, he's going to put it in there one way or the other.

Harold (55:28):
Yeah.
And it makes me think of Mystery Science Theater 3000 or more than any other television show.
There are more jokes in that show per episode, I think, than anything I've ever seen.
And because of that, you're just rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, and there are a bunch of them that you won't get, and you're not expected to get them.
Now, in another TV show, you'll be frustrated to no end.

(55:50):
And some people are, I guess, when they watch Mystery Science Theater, I don't get the jokes.
I don't get that.
I didn't get that.
What was that?
What was that?
But once you get into the rhythm, I'm in a world where I don't know everything.
It's like being a child again, right?
As you grow up in a world, we've talked about this before, where you don't know what's going on.
You're used to being a child in a world where not everything makes sense.

(56:12):
That's part of the interest of art that's oriented toward children.
Should you make art where they get everything, or you just edge them a little bit further into knowledge, because you have some didactic thing that teaches them something?
Or do you just throw this wild, crazy world that you know they don't get, and they figure out, oh, I don't get this either, but I'm in this strange world, just like the world I live in.

(56:37):
And it's kind of cool to be in this space where I don't get everything.

Jimmy (56:41):
Well, I will tell you what, one of the things I liked about Peanuts when I was little is that I did not get all the jokes.
I felt like I was reaching for something.

Harold (56:48):
Yeah, it was like, or the Bugs Bunny cartoons, they had all those World War II references, like now you're cooking with gas, and you know, they're references to old slogans and-

Liz (56:57):
Rocky and his friends.

Jimmy (56:59):
Yeah, right.

Harold (57:00):
Yeah, and that is, I wish, I'm seeing a little bit more of that, I guess, in kids' literature now, kids' graphic novels.
But that's something that I think there are different schools of thought on how you're supposed to experience art and what you expect of a child, in particular, when they're experiencing art, you don't want to get them lost.
But there's a way to create a world that you feel like you're living in there because you get the characters, you get the emotion, but you don't always get the facts or the references.

(57:30):
And that could be an incredibly exhilarating experience.

Jimmy (57:32):
This is where I, when I have impasses with editors, it's usually in a realm like this.
I could use an example.
And it was a great editor at SNS.
So it's not a problem.
But I remember her going, we, I guess we were re-releasing the books in 2008.
And the first issues came out in 2001.
And she's like, well, there's this joke about Leaf Garrett.

(57:56):
And she goes, well, the kids won't get it now.
I'm like, well, kids didn't get it in 2001.
And we're just like staring at each other.
And neither one of us understands what to do about this.
Yes, I'm writing a joke I know the audience won't get.
And no, I'm not changing it.
And I understand there's no way you can understand that.
And it completely contradicts what you need to do in your job.

(58:18):
And yet I'm not changing it.
And I'm sorry about that.
But, but that's, it's hard.

Harold (58:25):
It's hard to explain.

Jimmy (58:26):
It is hard.

Harold (58:26):
It's impossible.
It's a felt thing as a creator.

Jimmy (58:29):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_2 (58:30):
Yeah.

Jimmy (58:31):
April 12th, Charlie Brown is watching TV in the good old beanbag chair.
And Sally comes up and says, What's that supposed to mean?
That's my new philosophy.
She continues, Whenever someone says something to me, I just say, What's that supposed to mean?
Charlie Brown, without looking away from TV, says to her, I'm glad you told me.
Now I won't say anything to you.
To which Sally replies, What's that supposed to mean?

(58:54):
And Charlie Brown sinks into the beanbag, his little feet shooting up into the air.

Michael (59:00):
Charlie Brown Sally's definitely my favorite philosopher.

Jimmy (59:03):
Oh, absolutely.

Michael (59:04):
Yeah, I mean, each time she just adds more and more to it.
Yeah, well, we need to publish a book on the philosophy of Sally.

Jimmy (59:15):
Oh, I bet there is one.
I bet there has been there is one.
But we should publish a book.
I tell you that much.

Harold (59:23):
I wonder if you could just pick a whole bunch of Sally strips and then just tack one extra panel on where she's saying one of those things.
And that would be the entire book.

Jimmy (59:33):
That would be amazing.
So Michael, are you still loving Sally overall?
And now in this reread, you know, you've said Linus is your, you know, your goat, your favorite of all time.
But leaving that aside, it seems as if Sally is your favorite on this reread.

Michael (59:51):
Yeah.
I mean, in the last 20 years.
Definitely.
Yeah.
I wasn't crazy about the apostrophe joke, but this one definitely, I think is more the Sally I like.

Jimmy (01:00:02):
Well, that's where you're wrong.
The apostrophe joke was the greatest joke.
No, I'm just kidding.
They can't all be winners.
Which I often say to myself as I finish a page, well, they can't all be winners.

Harold (01:00:17):
That's your new philosophy.

Jimmy (01:00:18):
That is my new philosophy.

Harold (01:00:20):
Exactly.

Jimmy (01:00:22):
April 29th, Charlie Brown and Linus are hanging out under the tree, just philosophize and Snoopy is there too.
Charlie Brown says to Linus, I wonder what it would be like to be a dog and not have to do anything.
Linus says, maybe they think of barking as being work.
To which Snoopy replies, woof.
Then he thinks to himself, that was exhausting.

Michael (01:00:45):
He is old, he is an old puppy.

Harold (01:00:48):
I know there's that resting and sleeping stuff is just all over this year.

Jimmy (01:00:54):
I do find it interesting that he really is allowing his age to be shown mostly through Snoopy, who was also in some ways the most childlike and energetic.
But now he likes to sleep and have some cookies.

Harold (01:01:11):
Well, I'd like to make a nomination for the fanciest little word balloon pointy thing in the history of Peanuts here next to Charlie Brown.

Jimmy (01:01:22):
Oh, yeah.

Harold (01:01:23):
That is, I don't know.
That's a John Hancock, I think, took over.

Jimmy (01:01:29):
That's so strange.
I don't like looking too closely at the word balloon pointers.
I have to be honest.
Yeah, make me feel uncomfortable.
Okay, so that is the end of another episode.
We're going to come back next week and tackle more 1994 strips.
And we, of course, would love for you to keep this conversation going throughout the week.

(01:01:53):
So the first thing we would love for you to do is go over to our good old website, unpackingpeanuts.com.
There, you're going to sign up for the great Peanuts reread, and that will give you one email a month where we tell you what's coming up in the podcast.
Then, you can also, if you want, you could write us an email to unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com, or you can call us at 717-219-4162 or leave a text.

(01:02:18):
There's all kinds of ways to see us.
You can also hang out with us on social media where we're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
And we would love to hear from you there because when I don't hear, I worry.
So come back next week for more from 1994.
Until then, from Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

All (01:02:41):
Yes.
Be of good cheer.

Liz (01:02:44):
Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted by Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz, and Liz Sumner.
Produced and edited by Liz Sumner.
Music by Michael Cohen.
Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads.
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.

(01:03:07):
For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day, and thanks for listening.

Jimmy (01:03:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.