May 6, 2025 • 62 mins
The gang furthers their discussion about what Peanuts is and how it works, and then talks about the difference tools make in the life of an artist. In the strip, Rerun continues to show new aspects of his personality, Lucy isn’t slipping at all, and we bid a fond farewell to one of the oldest Peanuts cast members. Plus: Mutts
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.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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. 2 VO
Jimmy (00:19):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show.
This is Unpacking Peanuts, and today we're wrapping up good old 1996, and I'll be your host for the proceedings.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
And guess what?
I'm also a cartoonist.
I did things like Amelia Rules, seven reasons not to grow up, and the dumbest idea ever.
And joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts, and fellow cartoonists.
First, he's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast.
(00:43):
He's the co-creator of the original Comic Book Prize 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.
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 (01:05):
Hello.
Jimmy (01:05):
And making sure everything runs smoothly, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.
Liz (01:10):
Buonasera.
Jimmy (01:11):
Oh, nice.
Wow, this is a classy, people forget this is an international podcast.
Multiple continents coming together to give you your top quality peanuts content week in and week out.
All right.
So we're wrapping up another year coming here in the end run of a 50 year run.
(01:34):
And we were talking last time about the idea of rules for peanuts.
That's not the right word for it.
Liz (01:44):
Poetics is what you came up with.
Jimmy (01:46):
There you go.
I don't even know if that's the correct word either.
But that's what we're saying.
And I thought maybe we could continue a little bit today.
And if at any point this gets boring, that's why we have producer and editor Liz here.
She'll cut it out.
So you won't know how bad it actually gets.
But let's just start with something real simple.
What is peanuts?
(02:09):
Harold, why don't you go first?
What is peanuts to you?
Not to you even, just what is it?
If you were to define what we're talking about, when we say this is what peanuts is, what do you mean?
Harold (02:20):
It's cool that that's such a hard question to answer.
I think that's why we've been talking about it for all these years.
Yeah.
You know, what I've seen through the eyes of Michael and Liz and Jimmy, and then just my own thoughts about it.
It's a really big world that people live in with this.
(02:42):
I mean, if I do it, I'll spin it in probably my way, but it's a comic strip that is highly stylized in its art and design, highly appealing.
It has complex characters mixing in with the simplicity of the form of comics.
(03:02):
And it's funny and it's got, it's smart and it has a very rich world mixing.
Things you don't normally see together like competitiveness and spite and gentleness.
And it's just this huge world and it has to do with, I think, aspirations and how we keep trying in a world that often doesn't work out for us in each individual moment.
Jimmy (03:38):
Very nice.
What about you, Michael?
What do you think?
Michael (03:41):
Well, I would approach the question completely different.
I mean, first of all, my initial thought would be, well, it's Charles Schulz drawing these particular characters.
But the first question we'd have to answer are the Peanuts Comics Peanuts.
The Peanuts Comics from the 50s.
(04:02):
They're, it wasn't Schulz, but it's still the same characters.
Liz (04:09):
The comic books.
You're talking about the comic books?
Michael (04:11):
Yeah.
But is that Peanuts also?
Well, that's what I'm asking you.
Well, I would have to say yes.
So, that rules out it's anything by Charles Schulz.
Jimmy (04:21):
Oh, see, no, I would, why?
But we're defining it, you could roll, you couldn't, you could, yeah, you could absolutely roll those out and say that's not Peanuts by what we're talking about.
Michael (04:30):
But I consider that Peanuts.
I mean, we've talked about them on our show, and we only talked about Peanuts.
We never diverge into our history.
Jimmy (04:43):
No, it's absolutely true.
We never do that.
It reminds me of this REM interview I was reading this one time.
They said, they stay focused.
Michael (04:53):
Anyway, so basically, it's a vaudeville show.
It's a cast of characters.
You can't say Peanuts is Charlie Brown, Peanuts is Snoopy, because if you had a book of Jess, Linus and Lucy strips, that would be a Peanuts book.
(05:15):
I don't know.
I really can't define it more than that.
Peanuts has gone to places where I didn't think it would go.
It's not the Peanuts I liked or I grew up with.
It's still Peanuts.
I can't deny that.
(05:35):
Whatever he does with these characters is going to be Peanuts.
He's stuck essentially with the one to five panels with a punchline, but there are certain strips that don't fit that.
There are some strips that don't have punchlines.
(05:56):
They're all Peanuts.
It's not the format.
It's, I don't know, conceivably, if he would have let one of his children take over the strip and train them for their whole lives to draw like this, that would be Peanuts too.
Jimmy (06:16):
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
Michael (06:18):
You?
Jimmy (06:19):
I'm prepared only at this stage to say it is a comic strip by Charles Schulz.
I would actually eliminate all the other stuff and say it's not Peanuts, which is funny, because wouldn't you think that would go the other way, that Michael would say that and I wouldn't?
Harold (06:34):
Yeah, I would have thought that was the way it would have gone.
Jimmy (06:37):
Isn't that amazing?
That's what makes this show so darn interesting, people.
We are enigmas wrapped inside bacon.
Exactly.
Liz (06:52):
With a little water chestnut.
Jimmy (06:56):
All right.
Well, that is very interesting stuff.
I want to keep this conversation going over the couple months that we have of our regular going through the years episodes.
If you listeners out there want to contribute your definition of what peanuts is, you can always write to us over at unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com.
(07:18):
If you want to just keep this conversation going in any number of ways between episodes, you can certainly do that.
The first thing you're going to need to do is go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for that great peanuts reread.
It'll get you that one email a month that'll let you know what strips we are going to be discussing.
Then you will find them some way so that you can read them.
(07:40):
If you've been listening along, you know that gocomics.com now has a subscription.
So it'll cost you a couple bucks to finish out this run if you want to do it through gocomics.com.
It's like $5 a month.
You get access to all their other stuff, though, too, if that turns you on.
If not, be inventive.
It's the 21st century.
You can figure it out.
But we're going to go ahead.
(08:02):
I went out and called up the old Phanagraphics book.
So that's how I'm going to be finishing up this run.
So I'm excited.
Michael (08:11):
So I have a question.
When we're done, will it now be pronounced re-read?
Jimmy (08:21):
Yeah, that's amazing.
We don't have to do a thing about it.
It's the great Peanuts re-read.
I love it.
Harold (08:30):
I do have some more 1996 news of what was going on with Charles Schulz's life.
So there was a push by Joe Garagiola to get rid of tobacco, particularly like chewing tobacco, in sports.
And so he was going around to places where there was influence where people could make anti-tobacco ads, hoping kids would not take it up, which was a thing in the 90s.
(09:00):
And he went to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in Phoenix in 1996 and he made the pitch to them, trying to get them to maybe make an editorial cartoon that had to do with chewing tobacco.
And at that meeting, he mentioned that Charles Schulz had already done what he called a soon-to-run comic.
(09:21):
It was the July 7th strip where they're out on the mound and they have a conversation.
It's a Sunday.
Yeah, when I saw that, I was kind of, I don't know, I didn't think that it was a product placement kind of BSA kind of thing, but that's what it was.
Jimmy (09:38):
Amazing.
Harold (09:39):
The final piece of the gag is Snoopy is chewing gum and is blowing a bubble going back off the pitcher's mound.
But yeah, so Schulz often said he didn't like it when he felt pressure from people to put stuff in the strips, but this was one that he came up with something that he was happy to do.
I'm sure he was quite excited to hear from Joe Garagiola.
Jimmy (10:00):
Yeah, that's super cool.
My dad was a life-long tobacco chewer.
Oh, insane.
Harold (10:10):
And then there was Schenectady, New York, which is not the hugest town.
It had 2,300 reader responses, and Peanuts is number three.
So Sally Forth and Crank Shaft were the overall winners by reader count, but then they broke it out by demographics, which is really interesting.
(10:31):
Peanuts was listed not as favorite but most frequently read.
Baby Blues was a female favorite.
Dilbert was male favorite.
Foxtrot was a kid and teen favorite.
Roses Rose was a young adult, 18 to 24.
Dilbert was again, adults 25 to 54.
Surprise, surprise, Crankshaft.
(10:52):
For those of you who know this strip, was 55 to 64.
And Sally Forth was 64 and over.
Now that tells you something about readership in newspapers if the top two most favorite strips were those who were 55 and up.
So newspapers are already aging quite a bit, or at least the ones who have to take the time to fill out a poll.
(11:15):
But that's interesting.
You know, Schulz was not a favorite, but he was, so people were still reading him faithfully in 1996.
And then, boy, I don't know what's going on in New Jersey.
Jimmy (11:28):
Well, you could say that about any time.
I get moved by them.
Harold (11:32):
But this says something.
Peanuts is number two in the Atlantic City, New Jersey Press, with again almost 5,000 reader responses, followed by High and Lowes, Family Circus, and Hagar the Horrible.
Guess what number one is?
Jimmy (11:47):
In Atlantic City.
Frank and Ernest.
Liz (11:52):
Nope.
Harold (11:53):
The Lockhorns.
Jimmy (11:59):
The chewing tobacco of comic strips.
Harold (12:06):
Oh, boy.
And then here's another one.
There's a campaign for president going on 1996.
And they were going-
Jimmy (12:15):
Bill Clinton.
Harold (12:16):
The primaries were happening.
And there was an interesting question posed to the Republican presidential candidates, which again shows the power of comic strips in 1996.
They asked each of the candidates what their favorite comic was.
So Bob Dole and Pat McBuchanan chose Peanuts.
(12:37):
Lamar Alexander picked BC.
Robert Dornan picked Prince Valiant.
Steve Forbes opted for The Phantom.
Richard Luger went for Superman.
Phil Graham declined to make a comment.
Liz (12:51):
Oh, Phil.
Jimmy (12:53):
Wow.
Here's what I would be curious to see how they finished in those primaries related to what they're strip.
I think.
Michael (13:02):
Phil Graham was reading Mary Worth.
Harold (13:05):
He didn't want to.
Jimmy (13:06):
Yeah, I'm not mentioning it.
Harold (13:07):
He was not ready to divulge.
Then my last piece here is a nice bright little moment.
One of the up and coming strips of this particular era is The Wonderful Mutts by Patrick MacDonald.
He had a book coming out, and Schulz made it known that he was a fan of Mutts.
(13:31):
MacDonald said he was thrilled that Schulz liked his strip.
He says, I grew up reading Peanuts.
It's probably the comic that inspired me the most.
Schulz wrote an introduction to this Mutts collection, and I'd like to share it because it's cool.
He says, what's the highest compliment?
I can pay Patrick MacDonald.
He keeps coming up with ideas.
(13:51):
I wish I had thought of myself.
To me, Mutts is exactly what a comic strip should be.
It is always fun to look at, and the two main characters are wonderfully innocent.
It's hard to believe that after 100 years of comics, Patrick could come up with a new and perfect little dog.
I like everything about Mutts.
Jimmy (14:11):
Wow, that's something for your tombstone.
Harold (14:14):
Yeah, boy, can you imagine getting that kind of ringing endorsement from Charles Schulz?
Jimmy (14:19):
It took me a while to get into Mutts.
It was really until when I saw...
There was a big...
The Art of Patrick MacDonald book or whatever it is, where you saw all the Sundays collected.
And then I was like, oh boy.
I think he is one of the great, all-time great comic strip colorists.
(14:39):
They always look amazing, every single one of his Sundays.
Harold (14:43):
I was Mutts mad when it first came out, starting in 1994.
So it was in the newspaper where my in-laws were, and my mother-in-law faithfully cut the strip out every single day and collected them and would mail them to me in Virginia Beach.
Jimmy (15:00):
That's awesome.
Harold (15:01):
That era in particular is, it's just gold.
It's so sweet.
It's so funny.
It's so smart.
I can see why Schulz was a fan.
Jimmy (15:10):
Probably the last great comic strip of the 20th century.
And for you cartoonists out there listening along, he's being inked with a fountain pen, but not loaded with ink.
He dips the fountain pen in ink like it's, like a crow quill pen.
And that's how he inks Mutts.
I don't know many people who have done that approach.
Harold (15:31):
That's how I lettered some of my old comic book, Apathy Cat in the 90s.
I fell in love with the nib and there was, this was an ancient, ancient fountain pen.
So, you know, I was afraid I wasn't, for number one, you're going to clog it up with the permanent ink that you need to use.
Oh, okay.
Jimmy (15:48):
Try to go through the system.
That's what I was going to ask.
I see.
Harold (15:51):
Yeah.
And so they've created some fountain pens where you can kind of do it, but it doesn't quite give you that incredibly dense, rich black ink that cartoonists are, old school cartoonists in particular, once you love the way it was always done, which, I mean, Patrick McDonald of Mutts, he is absolutely into the history of comic strips.
Jimmy (16:12):
Wrote a great book on Crazy Cat, actually, yeah.
Harold (16:15):
Yeah.
So the only way you could use that pen and not just clog it up would be to dip it in a inkwell and have at it.
Jimmy (16:26):
That never occurred to me.
I always wondered why he did that.
Why didn't he just load it up?
Because it would be so much faster, but not if you're constantly cleaning or buying new pens, I guess.
Actually, before we move on to the strips, as long as we're talking about the craft side of cartooning, I want to ask you, because I have a pod.
I do another podcast, in case you don't know, over on my sub stack called Jimmy Gownley's Dumb Ideas.
(16:49):
I have two questions people ask me about process, basically.
What's the most important thing for you two in choosing the tools you use?
Not just even cartooning, but any art you're making.
Do you have, if you thought of, what's the number one thing?
It's got to be blank for me to use it.
(17:11):
Because I think me, at this point in my life, I think the first most important thing is ease of use.
And the second thing is actually like vibe.
Like, do I have fun doing it?
Fun using it?
I mean, what's your criteria for like, whether you're using Clip Studio or you're using a sponge dipped in marmalade?
(17:33):
What is it that draws you to the tools you use?
Michael, why don't you go first?
Michael (17:39):
Okay.
Well, it depends what you're going for.
I have like two very, very different styles.
So I'm cartooning, but I'm not going to be drawing on paper anymore.
I just, I don't even have a desk.
So basically, I am drawing in Clip Studio.
And I take, I haven't really even experimented that much.
(18:04):
I mean, there's probably a lot of control you can have over the pressure and the types of tools you can use to draw these lines.
Yeah, I'm pretty much just grabbing what seems most natural and sticking with it.
(18:26):
I find in the other thing, which is something I hadn't done in a long time and I've gotten back to is doing these fantasy portraits and sort of photo realistic fantasy portraits using colored pencil.
And I found that it's actually the surface you're working on is critical because I tried doing one.
(18:50):
I always did it on this Copley gray matboard just because I had an art teacher who told us to do it.
So it's kind of a gray matboard.
It's got a little bite to it.
So I did a whole bunch of them and then 20 years go by and I try to do it again.
I didn't have the matboard and I tried doing it on a white board.
(19:13):
And using the exact same techniques, it looked just awful.
Jimmy (19:17):
Really?
Michael (19:17):
Yeah.
And I finally got a German friend who came down with, he knew some art dealers in Germany and he brought me the Copley gray and I was able to capture the feel of the old stuff.
Jimmy (19:33):
That's exactly what I'm looking for, what I'm interested in.
There's some mojo about it, whether it gives it an underpainting or whether it's the tooth quality, whatever of the paper, that's got to be part of it.
That's so interesting.
Michael (19:47):
So I don't know if you guys paid attention to smooth or rough texture on the paper you use?
Jimmy (19:57):
Yeah, I have to use smooth, yeah.
Michael (19:59):
Really?
Jimmy (19:59):
Yeah.
Harold (20:01):
Yeah, because I used the rougher texture for brush because you're loading a lot of ink in there and it's got to lie in there and kind of nestle in and dry.
Michael (20:10):
So you do use the rough sometimes?
Harold (20:12):
I did when I was focusing on brush.
Yeah, it's worked so much better.
Otherwise, I just have pools of ink sitting on top of the paper and I'm such a klutz.
I'm going to be spreading that all over with my palms and my hands.
Yeah.
Michael (20:27):
But of course, everyone thinks the secret is having the right tools.
Jimmy (20:31):
That's another thing I want to talk about in that podcast.
Absolutely.
Harold (20:34):
And you know what?
Michael (20:35):
I mean, you go up to one of your heroes in a con and you go, what kind of brush do you use?
And you assume as soon as you get that brush, you will be able to draw like them.
Harold (20:47):
It's yeah.
I mean, for me, the three factors and they all have to interrelate with one another in some sort of optimal balance is beauty.
Can I make it look really nice?
What does that tool let me do that?
And the second one is control, which is, again, I could have a tool that I know creates a beautiful line, but if I can't control it, it's worthless.
(21:13):
And then ease of use.
So those three, when I was doing App of the Cat, I was hopping from one, just within like four issues, from one tool to another to another, because I wasn't satisfied.
I was trying to go faster, so the ease of use was definitely a piece of it.
Second issue, I used a brush after having tried to make it look like a brush by drawing with just a fountain pen, which was like an off-the-rack, Walmart kind of pen that was popular for a while.
(21:43):
And then I'd have to fill in between the two lines, where I was trying to make the look of the thick and the thin.
It took me 10 hours a page.
I was like, I like the look of it.
I like the control of it.
But man, it takes forever and it was just too much.
And so I went in for the brush and that was a revelation.
I was afraid of the brush because of the control issue.
And then I started to learn some of the secrets of how that worked.
(22:05):
And it looked so nice.
But I did abandon it and then went into like a permanent magic marker thing where I could get picks and thins with one stroke.
And then the other thing, the fourth issue is toxicity.
Jimmy (22:22):
Yeah, yeah.
Harold (22:24):
That was the nastiest marker.
It was a new marker that conforms to these standards of being non-toxic.
But then I'm like, well, so why is whatever I'm sucking in, this sweet smelling, nasty permanent marker thing, it's sitting in my lungs and three days later, I still can smell it in my breath.
(22:45):
I'm like, I don't know.
Michael (22:46):
I can't do this anymore.
I've got it like 40 years later.
If I get one whiff of that old marker smell, I start coughing.
Wow.
Harold (22:53):
Yeah, those Sharpies.
I mean, I don't understand why people can work with Sharpies.
Michael (22:57):
No, Liz is going to open one.
Jimmy (22:59):
Oh, I love Sharpies.
Michael (23:00):
No, get it away from me.
A real artist, it doesn't matter.
I mean, Jaime Hernandez, you gave him a toothbrush and some jello.
Jimmy (23:08):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Michael (23:10):
He could do something beautiful with it.
Jimmy (23:12):
The thing is, I was thinking of you, Michael, and this is not just blown smoke.
I have eight guitars.
You have one guitar.
Who do you want to play guitar?
You or me?
You.
There's no question, right?
But I still, I've been an intermediate guitar player for 43 years.
(23:33):
I still think maybe if I had a telecaster, that would be it.
It's not the telecaster.
Harold (23:39):
Solve all my problems.
Michael (23:40):
Better.
Jimmy (23:43):
All right.
Well, thank you for indulging me on those couple of questions because I just wanted to talk to my pounds about it because I'm very interested in cartooning.
I'm not sure if you guys have ever picked that up.
All right.
We are in 1996.
We're at the end.
In September of this year, something extremely important happened.
(24:07):
Michael, you have to think about it between now and when we get to the October Strip.
See if you can remember what important event happened in September of 1996.
Okay.
No guessing until we get there.
Michael (24:20):
I was around, but I don't think I remember anything.
Did we meet?
No, we met earlier.
Jimmy (24:27):
Yes, it was.
That was it.
Michael (24:28):
Was it 1996?
Jimmy (24:29):
Yes, in September, September 20th or something, 1996.
Michael (24:33):
I would have thought it was a year or two earlier.
Jimmy (24:35):
No, 1996.
95, I was sitting next to the Boneyard people at Small Press Expo and then the next year I met you.
Michael (24:44):
Cool.
Jimmy (24:44):
Then the year after that, I met Harold.
There you go.
All right.
Enough trips down memory lane.
Let's just go ahead and get to these strips.
What do you guys say?
SPEAKER_2 (24:58):
All right.
Jimmy (24:59):
All right.
Here we go.
We are starting on August 31st.
Lucy is watching television and Linus comes up behind her and Linus says, I wonder if it's my imagination.
You don't seem to be as crabby as you used to.
To which Lucy zips around and yells, I'm not slipping.
Michael (25:18):
Jimmy, I actually think these are much funnier hearing you read them.
I think I'm getting used to that.
This is the voice of Peanuts.
Jimmy (25:29):
Thank you.
Well, this is Schulz directly addressing his critics, I feel.
Harold (25:37):
Yes.
Yeah.
Jimmy (25:40):
I thought I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do my least favorite thing of all time.
Is this the first time that he put the date in between the panels?
Harold (25:54):
I don't think so.
Jimmy (25:55):
Exactly.
It's not.
I knew that.
You passed the test, Harold.
September 11th, Rerun.
This is a little, it's an on-going sequence slash storyline where Rerun is finally going into kindergarten.
(26:16):
He is 30, almost 30, and he's going to kindergarten for the first day.
He takes the first week off because he hides under the bed, so I like that.
Now, here he is.
He's finally buckled down and he's going in the kindergarten.
He's at the teacher's desk and he comes up and he says, yes, ma'am, my name is Rerun.
(26:36):
I don't know.
That's what they all call me.
Yes, I know I should have been here last week.
Well, I'm here now.
Then he sits down next to a little girl with pigtails, who is going to be very important in Rerun's life and says, I hope we don't have to read War and Peace the first day.
Harold (26:51):
Well, that's Pepper McPatty's class.
Jimmy (26:52):
Yes, exactly.
You're in the right side of town.
You got easier things going on over here.
Michael (26:57):
I find it really odd that he doesn't name her, because he's clearly a main character at this point.
Jimmy (27:04):
Yeah, she's just always called like the little, or she's not called anything, but she's like the girl with pigtails.
Michael (27:11):
Yeah.
I mean, his other unnamed character never appears.
So, this is weird.
I mean, are there any other comic strip characters who do never get a name?
Do we know the BC?
Do we know all those characters?
Jimmy (27:26):
Well, BC is called BC.
Michael (27:27):
Yeah.
But there's another, the other guy, there's another one.
Yeah, the other guy, I don't know what his name is.
Harold (27:33):
There's Wiley, and yeah.
Jimmy (27:35):
And of course we know there's that famous Tater Tot over in Funny Google.
Names are important.
Harold (27:41):
So in the drawing of Rerun, at least in this particular strip, it looks like, you know, to make him look younger than Linus, there seems to be more of the back of the head.
Now part of it's because he's covering Linus' back of his head with more hair, but that's quite a lower cranium there.
Jimmy (28:08):
Yeah.
And you see later on, it comes at, you start seeing, he has a real struggle with it.
It's a big round curve and it's going underneath, like the snoopy curve is on top, which is easier.
And you'll start seeing it gets real jagged in places.
Harold (28:23):
It's interesting.
Yeah.
Michael (28:25):
I found that for me, at least, the best way to indicate youth is to have the chin closer to the mouth.
Jimmy (28:34):
Oh, yeah.
Michael (28:35):
I was going to differentiate even a couple of years different.
I haven't noticed if he's done that.
Harold (28:41):
That's interesting.
Jimmy (28:42):
Drawing children is hard.
I mean, you know, Schulz has his codified style down.
But like if you look at people who are considered great artists in comics, like particularly realistic artists, I think of Neil Adams.
Look at a Neil Adams child and you will swear that this unbelievably talented person has never seen a child before.
(29:04):
Might be drawing with his teeth.
It's weird.
It's like they just look monstrous.
Harold (29:09):
It's like a lot of people are self-taught or they're taught in their genre.
Jimmy (29:14):
Yeah.
Harold (29:15):
And it seems like if you're doing superheroes and all of that, it's not one of the lessons on how to draw kids.
If you look at animated cartoons, there are all sorts of rules that they teach you if you want to have a young, small, or cute character.
They say make wide-set eyes, have a high forehead, all that sort of stuff.
So it's kind of baked into the person who grows up through the animation ranks.
(29:38):
But if you're learning superhero art, yeah, that lesson may never happen.
SPEAKER_2 (29:43):
Yeah.
Michael (29:43):
Unless you're doing super baby, you're not going to be drawing babies.
SPEAKER_2 (29:47):
Yeah.
Harold (29:48):
There's a thing about Rerun that I haven't been able to put into words, that's unique to his character.
And you see it in the second panel, talking to the teacher.
And he doesn't seem to be intimidated talking to this adult.
And he seems to be very matter of fact.
He says, yes, I know I should have been here last week.
(30:09):
Well, I'm here now.
There's something about that.
He's not afraid to go up, knock on someone's door and ask for something or just speak to somebody and say, look, I want to play with your dog.
He's not intimidated by whatever the teacher was saying for him being gone the entire first week of school.
(30:30):
He's just like, let's move on.
What is that about Rerun?
Because I like it.
It is a unique attribute, but I don't exactly know what to call it.
Jimmy (30:42):
I think, I really do believe that Rerun is a very subtle character that in some ways is the most realistic kid in Peanuts.
But yet, he has a sophistication to him, even though his sophistication isn't about psychology like Lucy, or he's not reading the Old Testament and quoting it like Linus or whatever, but he's okay with who he is.
(31:18):
Like you say, he's not intimidated by an authority figure, he's not intimidated by the world, he's going to find his way.
Harold (31:25):
And yet, he was hiding under his bed for a week before going to school.
The complexity of the Peanuts character.
Jimmy (31:31):
Yeah, and that seems completely reasonable, right?
But yeah, it's quite a trick to do in a comic strip.
But seeing that second panel, you could really see how rough the bottom of his head is.
Harold (31:44):
Yes, yeah.
And definitely this year, just looking at the dailies in the fanographics books, particularly the Sundays, I'm not sure if he's working smaller in the Sundays now.
And that's why you see it.
But the strips, they don't hold together without you just taking in all of the shake.
(32:08):
He seems to control the dailies much, much better.
And maybe that's because he's working larger with the dailies.
Jimmy (32:14):
September 15th, Sally gets some paper out of a, I think, either a big old, oh, I guess it's like a little a buffet unit.
Michael (32:22):
I thought it was an elephant.
Jimmy (32:24):
It could be an elephant.
So she gets a little piece of paper from her little, you know, piece of furniture.
And then she brings it to her big brother, Charlie Brown, and says, Grandma wants us to write her a letter.
It'll be from both of us as they both sit down at the table and Charlie Brown starts writing as Sally dictates, Dear Grandma, and Charlie Brown, Dear Grandma, writes it really smeared.
(32:48):
Then she says, How have you been?
Charlie Brown, How have you been?
It's just even worse.
It just smeared across, We miss you, in complete abstraction, love Charles.
And then he smearily writes his last name, or his name, loves Charles.
And then Charlie Brown asks Sally, Love Charles.
And Sally says, I think maybe she'd rather just hear from you.
Liz (33:13):
And he has ink all over his face.
Jimmy (33:14):
All over his face.
Speaking of John, with the fountain pen.
Harold (33:19):
The comics, yes.
Jimmy (33:22):
1996, he is sticking with whatever pen he is using.
I mean, we are 50 years into the big revolution at this point.
What is he doing?
Harold (33:33):
I don't know, but boy, boy, boy, it's just like he just lets the shake go whenever he's doing cursive.
I guess there's no way to fight it when you're doing cursive, because you have to have a continue.
Basically, cursive is a continuous line, right?
Jimmy (33:46):
Yeah.
Harold (33:47):
For a whole word.
How do you hide your tremor in that?
Jimmy (33:51):
Well, luckily in this too, it works because the whole premise is him not being able to write with a pen, so it's perfect.
Harold (33:58):
Yeah.
But in the strips where it's just Charlie Brown writing and he's writing it.
Wow.
Jimmy (34:04):
You know what?
This cursive thing, it struck me recently.
There was a graphic novel that came out about four or five years ago by Barry Windsor Smith called Monsters and a lot of it is hand-lettered in cursive.
This took him like 30 years to draw this comic book.
(34:28):
People in their 20s can't read cursive.
Harold (34:31):
Well, yeah.
He's going to appeal to the crankshaft readers.
Jimmy (34:34):
The crankshaft readers, right?
Exactly.
But in 10, 15 years, I think they'll have to, assuming that's still an issue and people want to read that book, honestly, I think they'll have to re-letter it.
Harold (34:45):
Yeah.
It's like going to the opera and having the translation on the screen.
SPEAKER_2 (34:50):
Yeah.
Jimmy (34:52):
September 28th.
Snoopy and Woodstock are atop the doghouse and Snoopy says, I don't know when my birthday is and I don't know how old I am.
Now he's kind of upset as he says to Woodstock, and the Daisy Hill puppy farm isn't there anymore.
Everything's gone.
Woodstock asks the question, Snoopy says, no, I'm still here.
Harold (35:12):
It's another Charles Schulz comment strip about himself.
It seems like that's what you're thinking about, right?
At this point in your life, things are starting to fall away that you grew up with, that where your contemporaries are a little older than you.
It's a sobering thing that nobody escapes.
Jimmy (35:34):
Yeah.
The Daisy Hill puppy farm being gone, that goes back at this point almost 30 years in the strip.
You know, it's a three-story parking garage was the joke or whatever.
Harold (35:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and I have to put my vote in for the strangest Snoopy Tale ever.
Jimmy (35:56):
Oh, boy.
Michael (35:58):
It's pretty funny.
Harold (36:00):
It looks like it was made of Silly Putty or something.
Jimmy (36:02):
Yeah, it really does.
Yeah, that's...
SPEAKER_2 (36:04):
Wow.
Jimmy (36:05):
I mean, yeah, it really looks like...
That's exactly what it looks like.
It looks like it got stepped on a flat.
Harold (36:10):
It's going to pick up all that Zip-A-Tone.
Jimmy (36:15):
Let's take a break.
We'll come back, we'll talk about more comic strips, we'll read the mail, and we'll just have a good time in general.
Sound good?
Harold (36:24):
Sounds great.
Liz (36:25):
Hi, everyone.
I just want to take a moment to remind you that all three hosts are cartoonists themselves, and their work is available for sale.
You can find links to purchase books by Jimmy, Harold, and Michael on our website.
You can also support the show on Patreon, or buy us a mud pie.
Check out the store link on unpackingpeanuts.com.
Jimmy (36:48):
All right, everybody, break's over.
Back to work.
Got anything in the mailbox, Liz?
Liz (36:54):
We do.
We heard from Colin Heaney, who writes, Hey guys, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'm in the middle of an REM binge.
Jimmy (37:02):
Oh, that's exciting.
Liz (37:04):
I just recently made my way up to New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
Jimmy (37:08):
Underrated masterpiece.
Liz (37:09):
Which almost matches perfectly with this stage of the show.
Jimmy (37:13):
Yeah.
Liz (37:14):
Anyway, I was wondering what your thoughts were in the oh-so-brief appearance of Joe Grunge in April 1993.
It's actually April 26th of 1993.
Should we have had more of him?
Could he have worn a Zero T-shirt?
SPEAKER_2 (37:33):
Oh, yeah.
Liz (37:35):
Snoopy in the Seattle Grunge scene?
Or was he a monstrous abomination that Schulz quickly regretted?
Jimmy (37:43):
No.
Liz (37:44):
I find it hilarious that this was even a persona and didn't initially believe it was real.
The idea of Grunge even existing in the Peanuts World is crazy to me.
Jimmy (37:56):
Yeah, it really shows how long this thing has been running.
It was pre-rock and roll, or well, just the very early, early, earliest days of rock and roll.
And now here we are in like rocks like sixth and one of its last iterations.
Yeah.
Wow.
First off, though, New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
How good is that 1996 album?
(38:16):
Tragically, until I realized the person in the song is a complete monster, I totally related to The Wake Up Bomb.
I thought, yeah, I relate to that guy.
And then I heard, oh, he's a terrible person.
And I was like, oh yeah, I agree.
Right?
Harold (38:32):
When you said that REM was lining up with where we were in Peanuts, I was thinking, what, you turn it on, like Dark Side of the Moon with Wizard of Oz while you read the scripts.
It goes perfectly.
It's amazing.
Liz (38:47):
And Colin adds, PS, I've decided for no reason in particular, that Charlie Brown's favorite REM album is automatic for the people.
Jimmy (38:55):
For the people, of course it is.
No, there's no question.
That's complete logic.
I agree.
Liz (39:01):
And he says, Lucy is his monster.
Jimmy (39:05):
We're best friends.
I agree with all of that.
Liz (39:09):
Be of good cheer and thanks for making the best pod on the Internet.
Colin from Ireland.
Jimmy (39:14):
It's Colin.
Thank you so much.
We also heard from Shaylee.
She actually just wanted to write and let us know that the Charlie Brown marbles episode was in fact turned into that animated special.
Like Joshua also told us.
And she's very happy that my eye surgery went well.
(39:34):
Our Peanuts listeners don't know.
I had double cataract surgery, but now I can see fine.
So all is well.
Yeah.
So that's what we heard from Shaylee.
And I think that is the end of the mailbox.
If you characters out there want to talk to us, we love to hear from you.
You can shoot us an email over there at unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com.
Or you could call the hotline or leave a text message like Shaylee did on the hotline.
(39:59):
It's 717-219-4162.
And remember, I love hearing from you because when I don't hear, I worry.
And while we're here outside the strips, Harold, do you have any information about where people might be able to come see you if they're out and about in the world?
Harold (40:15):
Yeah, so if you go to heraldbuchholz.com, you can find my events list.
I'm starting to populate that and you can see where I'll be showing up.
My 8th through 10th of May will be for all of you who happen to be homeschoolers in Pigeon Forge, Genesee.
(40:36):
I have to teach them diligently, conference.
Jimmy (40:41):
Pigeon Forge?
Harold (40:42):
Pigeon Forge, Pigeon Forge, Dollywood, you know.
Oh, okay.
It looks like I will be also on Park Avenue at the Artists' Stroll on the 17th of May, which will be a lot of fun.
It's just artists and there's hundreds of us.
Then let's see what's happening.
The Brooklyn has the fabulous 5th Street Fair on the 18th.
(41:05):
It's just a Sunday.
Then if anyone's going to be at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, I'm going to be just walking the floor to the 22nd, but you can reach me through my website if you want to meet up there.
Then I will be at the Queen's Night Market on the 31st, which is where they have a wonderful food from all over the world, six bucks or less, I think.
(41:30):
That runs from four to midnight near the grounds of the Old World's Fair.
That should be a lot of fun.
Jimmy (41:36):
Okay.
All right.
Let's go back to the strips.
October 3rd, Charlie Brown is sitting on the pitchers mound.
He looks forlorn and Schroeder comes up to him in his catcher's gear and says, come on, Charlie Brown, the game is starting.
You're supposed to be pitching.
Charlie Brown is completely dazed and he says, I can't pitch knowing that Lucy is in right field.
(41:59):
She's out there just waiting to do something stupid.
She drives me crazy.
And Schroeder walks back behind the plate saying, I'll get you a drink of water.
And Charlie Brown says, I know she's out there.
I can't look.
She's out there, isn't she?
Michael (42:13):
You're the manager.
Jimmy (42:16):
Yeah, you can solve this, Charlie Brown.
Harold (42:18):
So what is that dynamic?
Why is Lucy still on their team?
There's obviously a bond between these two that goes usually unspoken.
But well, yeah, why is she still on the team?
Why does she still show up?
And why does he still have her?
Jimmy (42:33):
Oh, this is the type of manager I would be.
I would be, you know, like, if I picked a kid and that kid that way I'd be stuck.
That would be just the way it was going to go, you know.
Liz (42:44):
She should just know that he wishes that she were gone and she should make the decision for herself.
Jimmy (42:51):
Exactly.
Hey, Charlie Brown just start acting distant.
Harold (42:56):
Well, she's probably just noting his pitching skills and saying, you know, I belong here.
Jimmy (43:01):
Right.
He does that thing where he makes the hat sad.
Harold (43:10):
I love that.
Jimmy (43:11):
I do, too.
October 22nd, Charlie Brown and Linus are sitting in class, and Linus says to Charlie Brown, girls like compliments.
He leans over and kind of whispers to Charlie Brown, if you want to impress that little red-haired girl, say something nice to her.
And Charlie Brown yells, you look really cute today.
(43:32):
And then in the last panel, Linus says, that impressed her, Charlie Brown.
She fell right out of her desk.
Harold (43:38):
So Charlie Brown has now spoken to the little red-haired girl.
Michael (43:41):
I can't believe this character we've known for 47 years would actually have the guts to do that.
Harold (43:50):
The only reason I can believe it is because of the suggestibility of Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football.
All it takes is someone when you're a little off your guard, whispering in your ear, and you do it.
Jimmy (44:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, what's really crazy too?
I don't know if I'm projecting, but Charlie Brown's head in this strip is so clean and crisp.
Harold (44:17):
Especially that one where he's yelling.
Jimmy (44:19):
Especially the one where he's yelling, right?
It looks like it's pasted in from like a 60s strip.
I mean, it's not.
But look at, right?
I mean, look at how shapeless and shaky the body is.
And then that head is wham, wham, wham.
Perfect.
Wild.
Harold (44:38):
Yeah.
Again, you know, you said you have the sad hat in the last strip.
It's like Schulz is living through the characters and somehow he pulls it out of himself, this super clean, bold drawing of a bold Charlie Brown.
SPEAKER_2 (44:51):
Yeah.
Jimmy (44:53):
November 8th, Rerun comes home from school and says, boy, what a time we had in kindergarten today, as he's taking his jacket and hat off.
And he sits next to Lucy and says, we had some wooden blocks, see?
And we take one block and put another block right on top of it.
I'm telling you, it was really something.
He leans back and smiles with his eyes closed.
Then he says, it never occurred to me to put one block on top of another.
(45:17):
And he leans back, puts his hands behind his head and says, yes, sir, that was really something.
What a day.
Harold (45:24):
I love the strip.
Michael (45:27):
I remember that feeling.
I guess I was like first grade or something.
And I remember the teacher was reading us from a book.
I remember coming home and thinking like, I felt sorry for my parents because we were so cool and people like read to us.
Harold (45:49):
Well, my new favorite drawing of Reruns is in the strip, the very first panel.
Jimmy (45:54):
Oh, it's a good one.
I love that.
You know, Rerun, I think he looks good in all of these.
I like the middle one.
It's a really nice looking, well-composed strip.
And there we're seeing some of those patterns, those zippotones on the pillows, you know.
So if you're still wondering what I'm talking about, we're talking about zippotones.
That pattern behind Lucy's head was all on an adhesive sheet of film that was cut out and pasted behind her.
(46:19):
And so were the dots behind Rerun.
Harold (46:21):
You know, again, Schulz, we have these characters who are struggling.
They want something.
They never seem to get it.
And then every once in a while, Schulz will throw in a little win.
And they just stand out to me so brightly because of the contrast.
Love the strip.
SPEAKER_2 (46:38):
Yeah.
Jimmy (46:40):
November 9th, Snoopy and Woodstock are atop the doghouse, both of them smiling away quite pleasantly at each other.
Snoopy says, Have a nice trip.
Take care of yourself.
And Woodstock launches himself into the air.
And then he arrives on the other side of the doghouse.
And Snoopy says, That was good.
Now you can tell everyone you flew south for the winter.
Michael (47:02):
So now we know what direction he's always facing.
Let's see if that's...
Jimmy (47:09):
North.
Michael (47:09):
He's always facing north.
Jimmy (47:12):
When he's riding, he's facing north, right?
He sleeps facing south.
Harold (47:18):
The cat's south of him.
Liz (47:20):
The red baron is facing south.
Jimmy (47:23):
One of the strangest things and just coincidences in life is that Harold's wife and I both had the same teacher.
In different states and different years.
And she always said, she was a nun, sister Regina Alma, you need to sleep at night, head north, toes south, so that the magnetic lines of the earth flow through you.
(47:44):
You don't want them slamming up against you.
That's the kind of thing you learn in Catholic school.
Wow.
That's good science and good religion.
Harold (47:56):
That's part of the dogma.
You are going to find that in the catechism.
I don't think so.
Jimmy (48:00):
You don't want to fly eastward.
Harold (48:03):
This is the apocrypha of the apocrypha.
Michael (48:07):
Dogma and catechism.
I never got that.
That would be a good comic strip.
Jimmy (48:12):
Oh my God.
Wait, we need to trademark that immediately.
How did no one ever do that?
I think it's a limited audience, but that's amazing.
Harold (48:23):
My whole Teach Them Diligently group in Pigeon Forge will be equaling that audience.
Jimmy (48:29):
Isn't that the story though, being a cartoonist one day or on Park Avenue the next day, or on Pigeon Forge?
Harold (48:36):
I'm not sure which is the most prestigious either anymore.
I'm all confused now.
Jimmy (48:40):
That's a tough question.
Harold (48:42):
But you look at Snoopy's snout in the last panel and Woodstock's beak in the second panel, you're getting that weird double curve on the bottom that's started to show up, particularly this year.
It's like he doesn't complete the full roundness of the line.
He just gives it a secondary swoop.
(49:05):
Kind of unusual.
Jimmy (49:07):
I really like, I just like Woodstock flying.
Even as a little kid, I love the wobbly half upside down sometimes.
Shaky Woodstock flying.
Harold (49:17):
Yeah, Woodstock, it's funny.
I mean, a character like Woodstock really can't get overlooked.
The small little character.
Jimmy (49:24):
Yeah.
Harold (49:24):
But he adds something incredibly special to this strip.
Jimmy (49:29):
November 12th.
It's a whole gang of them and they're all standing in line, waiting for the school door to open for them to go in and start their day.
It's Sally, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Rerun, Violet and Snoopy.
Sally says, why is your dog standing in line?
(49:50):
Then Linus says, dogs can't go to school.
Lucy says, they'll never let him in the door.
Violet says, so why is he standing in line?
Actually, we're waiting for the school bus, I guess.
Snoopy then says, the driver promised I could sit in her lap and stare.
Harold (50:08):
Big smile.
Michael (50:10):
It's kind of sad that one of my favorite characters just doesn't have anything to do.
Jimmy (50:15):
Well, she really doesn't have anything to do because the reason I picked this is this is the last appearance of-
Michael (50:21):
Is it really?
SPEAKER_2 (50:23):
Goodbye, Violet.
Jimmy (50:28):
Now, she will appear-
Once next year, but it's a rerun from-
Because he was on a sabbatical and he-
So he did-
You see her again in the strip, but this is the last original appearance of her.
I feel so sad.
I know.
Harold (50:43):
It's a big deal.
Jimmy (50:44):
It is.
Harold (50:45):
Well, and then one other super minor thing is I don't think I've ever seen Linus with wearing the baseball cap backward.
Jimmy (50:53):
Is this the first time?
Harold (50:58):
Leave it to our listeners.
Jimmy (51:01):
December 26th, Spike is out in the desert, of course, and he looks and he sees his Christmas stocking hanging off the cactus.
And he looks forlorn.
It is an empty Christmas stocking.
He then takes it off the cactus and walks it to the edge of a cliff where he throws it into a ravine.
Harold (51:20):
This is like that Olaf strip.
Yeah, not quite as dark.
Liz (51:25):
How can you tell that Spike is looking forlorn?
Jimmy (51:29):
You know what?
I just...
Harold (51:30):
You can't lose if you say that.
Yeah, right.
Jimmy (51:32):
Exactly.
Harold (51:32):
You'll be right every time.
Michael (51:35):
I swear.
I saw both of you pick this one.
So I read this like 20 times, trying to figure out what the joke was.
Jimmy (51:43):
Oh my God.
This made me laugh out loud so hard that Spike expected there to be something in his stocking.
There wasn't.
He makes essentially no reaction and then just throws the stocking into a ravine.
That cracks me up.
Harold (51:59):
That third panel.
Yeah.
I mean, to me it was kind of movingly sad.
Jimmy (52:04):
Oh, it's really sad.
It's really sad and it's really funny.
Like, that's a, it's a really interesting strip, I think it's either really sad, really funny, or it makes no sense at all, depending on which Unpacking Peanuts.
Harold (52:21):
That is the genius of Charles M.
Schulz.
Jimmy (52:23):
Boom, right?
There you go.
In one strip, in one strip.
And he doesn't care that Michael doesn't think this one makes any sense because he knows he'll get one that Michael will like it.
We won't like it.
He really, even at this stage, has quite a lot of gas left in the tank.
Michael (52:42):
Maybe I didn't realize at 1226 it made it something to do with Christmas.
Harold (52:47):
Yeah, that's the downside of reading these, just random, well, at least in that internet world, there is no time, there is no space.
Jimmy (52:57):
But Michael, it's not like you grew up putting your stockings.
Michael (53:00):
I never had a stocking on the chimney.
Liz (53:02):
Why is he throwing away a sock?
Harold (53:04):
Right, why is he throwing away a sock?
Jimmy (53:07):
Actually, I kind of like that version too.
Let's try that.
Michael (53:10):
Perfectly good sock.
Jimmy (53:12):
Let's try that.
Spike's in the desert and he looks at a sock.
He throws the perfectly good sock away.
That's good too.
Harold (53:19):
It's a little too large for his feet.
Liz (53:21):
How come you don't get it?
Jimmy (53:24):
It's fantastic.
I don't know how.
You look at it.
All right.
December 30th, wrapping up the year, Charlie Brown is at, I guess it's like a mall sports memorabilia show.
He is talking to a guy behind the counter and says, yes, sir, is this where you're selling athletes' autographs?
I'd like a baseball with Josh Lobotnik's autograph.
(53:46):
Who is he?
He's my hero.
Is he here?
Well, just ask him to sign a ball and I'll pay for it.
Snoopy's with Charlie Brown this whole time and then Snoopy thinks, I used to have a Lassie dog dish, but she never signed it.
Michael (54:00):
So strange that Josh Lobotnik's in the shop and Charlie Brown doesn't go over and talk to him.
Jimmy (54:07):
Just ask him to sign a ball.
Harold (54:09):
As a guy who sets up at shows all the time, I will say, Jimmy, that I do believe this is a card show because you never see tablecloths in stores.
But you always see tablecloths.
Michael (54:21):
This was the year when trading cards sort of took over.
Harold (54:27):
Yeah, it was a big collectible era right after the black and white comic boom and bust.
Yeah.
Jimmy (54:35):
Yeah.
Trading cards of all types were available.
And it's funny because you aren't actually trading them.
I mean, you didn't even buy them in packs.
A lot of times you're able to buy just the whole set, right?
Or am I mistaken?
Harold (54:47):
Well, if somebody is shorted at 40, right?
They had to go through it and then pull out the stuff.
And there was a way to make money doing it.
Jimmy (54:55):
Yeah, I guess.
Harold (54:56):
Wow.
Jimmy (54:56):
That's crazy.
Also, yeah, just in the 90s and in the 80s, I actually remember they would have these shows at malls all the time where it would be, you know, sports, comic books, whatever records.
Once a month, they would have at Schuylkill Mall, one of these, and there was a comic shop that would come.
And I got a lot of my like alternatives, like the Black and White Boom Harold's talking about.
(55:18):
I got a lot of those comics there because there was no comic book store anywhere near me.
Harold (55:22):
Yeah, you go to the mall and unfortunately, there's probably some guy sitting at one of the tables at Orange Julius signing Joe Garagiola and Josh LeBlattnick on baseballs.
Feeding them out.
Jimmy (55:36):
I did a signing at the Schuylkill Mall once and there was one little ad in the paper that just said, Jim Gownley will be there.
No, it doesn't have to be just Jim Gownley.
It was not well attended.
Harold (55:46):
No, it had that Pigeon Forge attendance level.
Liz (55:49):
Yeah.
Jimmy (55:51):
Well guys, that brings us to the end of another year.
It is always exciting to go through these strips with my pals.
And if you want to keep this conversation going, well gosh, there's a couple different ways you could do it.
The first thing you could do, go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for that great Peanuts reread, get on our mailing list.
You can also just email us.
We're unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com.
(56:13):
Or you can follow us on the good old social media.
We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
And we're at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube.
And of course you can call the hotline 717-219-4162.
When I don't hear, I worry.
That's all.
All I need from my pals now is your picks for MVP and your pick for strip of the year.
Liz (56:38):
And your anger and happiness index.
Jimmy (56:40):
And the good old anger and happiness.
Harold (56:42):
Anger and happiness index.
All right, why don't you do that first?
All right, so refresh your memory.
We had all time low happiness in 1995.
We had 71 strips out of 365 where a character showed some happiness and there was more anger, 83.
But this, if you go on to obscurities, Liz has been keeping in a beautiful chart that she's been updating with every episode or every year, I should say.
(57:09):
And take a look at the trajectory of anger and happiness in the strip.
Even though it's up and down, there is a decided through line.
It's over the years, it's down.
It's like this strip is getting more and more subdued in Stoic as Schulz does the strip.
So I'm wondering if you guys think this year was an anomaly.
(57:30):
Did we had 83 anger strips in 95?
Do you think we had more or less or the same in 96?
Jimmy (57:37):
I think we had exactly 85.
Michael (57:42):
I think they're both down slightly.
Harold (57:47):
Well, you're both super, I would say you're both right.
It was 79 down four in 1996 for anger.
So yeah, this is on the downward trend.
But for happiness.
Jimmy (57:59):
I said 85.
That's nice of you, Harold, but I was clearly wrong.
Harold (58:04):
86 out of 365.
I'm giving that to you.
Michael (58:07):
2%.
Harold (58:08):
All right, I'll take it, thank you.
That's amazing.
So happiness, I said all time low 71.
What do you think is happening in 96?
I'm looking at this with spike and dropping that sock off of the...
I think it's up.
You think it's up?
What do you think, Michael?
Michael (58:27):
Slightly down.
Harold (58:28):
Liz, any thoughts?
None.
Okay.
It's bounced up to 82.
So it's slightly higher than anger, which is usually the trend.
You'll have a few more happy than sad or angry strips, I should say.
And it's back to that normal thing, but still low for the overall run of the strip.
So there you go.
Jimmy (58:48):
All right.
Well, who wants to go first for their MVPs and strip of the year picks?
Harold (58:52):
Hey, Michael, why don't you go?
Michael (58:54):
I shall go.
Harold, help me out here.
Harold (58:57):
Yeah.
Michael (58:58):
Strip of the year.
I'm going back to the first strip I picked, February 4th.
Harold (59:02):
Okay.
Michael (59:04):
And I remember that it struck me that, I think Peanuts has been getting less and less neurotic.
But this was a classic neurotic strip from the Golden Age of Neurosis.
Maybe give a little recap of the strip, so I don't have it in front of me.
Harold (59:21):
Sure.
Let me flip through my Fandagraphics books.
February 4th is a Sunday and it's a psychiatric booth.
Yeah, Lucy is hanging out and Charlie Brown, really, yeah, total neurotic.
Said, I just had a terrible thought.
What if I finally meet that little red-haired girl and what if she really likes me?
It turns out that I didn't like her as much as I thought I was going to.
(59:44):
How could I tell her?
How could I break up with her?
How could I leave her?
Lucy's like, you're worried about leaving someone you haven't even met?
Hopeless, completely hopeless.
Then Charlie Brown says, maybe I could leave her now and meet her later.
Classic.
Jimmy (01:00:00):
That's a good pick.
Michael (01:00:01):
Okay.
I like that one and maybe I did this last year, but reruns finally come into his own.
He's got his very own character and his strips are good.
He's even got a cohort, a pal.
Anyway, so I will give it to the most valuable peanut to rerun this year also.
(01:00:24):
All right.
Jimmy (01:00:26):
Harold, how about you?
Harold (01:00:28):
I agree, Michael.
I'm going to give this to rerun.
He continues to unfold before us and he's a really cool character.
I was almost going to give this to a Woodstock strip this year, that was my favorite, but I really do like that November 8th strip of rerun coming back from kindergarten after being so concerned about having to go to school and boy, he is stacking blocks like nobody's business.
Jimmy (01:00:56):
Professional blocks.
Harold (01:00:57):
I love that strip.
Yeah.
Like you say, even though he's speaking with some level of sophistication, like Schulz's characters always do, he does feel like a little kid, probably more than any other kid, I agree.
It's just great seeing this little guy having a good day.
Jimmy (01:01:15):
Absolutely.
I'm going to pick rerun for MVP as well.
I'm going to pick December 26th, Spike throws away a perfectly good sock.
Michael (01:01:26):
No.
Jimmy (01:01:28):
That is my strip.
I love it.
What else I love?
Hanging out with my pals and talking about my favorite comic strip and having you guys join us.
If you want to join us, come back next week where we're going to do this all over again, starting with 1997.
Can that be true?
That's not true.
(01:01:48):
All right.
Find out next week if that's true.
Until then, from Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
Liz (01:01:57):
Yes, be of good cheer.
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 Unpacked Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
(01:02:18):
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
Michael (01:02:30):
This is The Voice of Peanuts.
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. 2 VO
Jimmy (00:19):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show.
This is Unpacking Peanuts, and today we're wrapping up good old 1996, and I'll be your host for the proceedings.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
And guess what?
I'm also a cartoonist.
I did things like Amelia Rules, seven reasons not to grow up, and the dumbest idea ever.
And joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts, and fellow cartoonists.
First, he's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast.
(00:43):
He's the co-creator of the original Comic Book Prize 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.
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 (01:05):
Hello.
Jimmy (01:05):
And making sure everything runs smoothly, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.
Liz (01:10):
Buonasera.
Jimmy (01:11):
Oh, nice.
Wow, this is a classy, people forget this is an international podcast.
Multiple continents coming together to give you your top quality peanuts content week in and week out.
All right.
So we're wrapping up another year coming here in the end run of a 50 year run.
(01:34):
And we were talking last time about the idea of rules for peanuts.
That's not the right word for it.
Liz (01:44):
Poetics is what you came up with.
Jimmy (01:46):
There you go.
I don't even know if that's the correct word either.
But that's what we're saying.
And I thought maybe we could continue a little bit today.
And if at any point this gets boring, that's why we have producer and editor Liz here.
She'll cut it out.
So you won't know how bad it actually gets.
But let's just start with something real simple.
What is peanuts?
(02:09):
Harold, why don't you go first?
What is peanuts to you?
Not to you even, just what is it?
If you were to define what we're talking about, when we say this is what peanuts is, what do you mean?
Harold (02:20):
It's cool that that's such a hard question to answer.
I think that's why we've been talking about it for all these years.
Yeah.
You know, what I've seen through the eyes of Michael and Liz and Jimmy, and then just my own thoughts about it.
It's a really big world that people live in with this.
(02:42):
I mean, if I do it, I'll spin it in probably my way, but it's a comic strip that is highly stylized in its art and design, highly appealing.
It has complex characters mixing in with the simplicity of the form of comics.
(03:02):
And it's funny and it's got, it's smart and it has a very rich world mixing.
Things you don't normally see together like competitiveness and spite and gentleness.
And it's just this huge world and it has to do with, I think, aspirations and how we keep trying in a world that often doesn't work out for us in each individual moment.
Jimmy (03:38):
Very nice.
What about you, Michael?
What do you think?
Michael (03:41):
Well, I would approach the question completely different.
I mean, first of all, my initial thought would be, well, it's Charles Schulz drawing these particular characters.
But the first question we'd have to answer are the Peanuts Comics Peanuts.
The Peanuts Comics from the 50s.
(04:02):
They're, it wasn't Schulz, but it's still the same characters.
Liz (04:09):
The comic books.
You're talking about the comic books?
Michael (04:11):
Yeah.
But is that Peanuts also?
Well, that's what I'm asking you.
Well, I would have to say yes.
So, that rules out it's anything by Charles Schulz.
Jimmy (04:21):
Oh, see, no, I would, why?
But we're defining it, you could roll, you couldn't, you could, yeah, you could absolutely roll those out and say that's not Peanuts by what we're talking about.
Michael (04:30):
But I consider that Peanuts.
I mean, we've talked about them on our show, and we only talked about Peanuts.
We never diverge into our history.
Jimmy (04:43):
No, it's absolutely true.
We never do that.
It reminds me of this REM interview I was reading this one time.
They said, they stay focused.
Michael (04:53):
Anyway, so basically, it's a vaudeville show.
It's a cast of characters.
You can't say Peanuts is Charlie Brown, Peanuts is Snoopy, because if you had a book of Jess, Linus and Lucy strips, that would be a Peanuts book.
(05:15):
I don't know.
I really can't define it more than that.
Peanuts has gone to places where I didn't think it would go.
It's not the Peanuts I liked or I grew up with.
It's still Peanuts.
I can't deny that.
(05:35):
Whatever he does with these characters is going to be Peanuts.
He's stuck essentially with the one to five panels with a punchline, but there are certain strips that don't fit that.
There are some strips that don't have punchlines.
(05:56):
They're all Peanuts.
It's not the format.
It's, I don't know, conceivably, if he would have let one of his children take over the strip and train them for their whole lives to draw like this, that would be Peanuts too.
Jimmy (06:16):
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
Michael (06:18):
You?
Jimmy (06:19):
I'm prepared only at this stage to say it is a comic strip by Charles Schulz.
I would actually eliminate all the other stuff and say it's not Peanuts, which is funny, because wouldn't you think that would go the other way, that Michael would say that and I wouldn't?
Harold (06:34):
Yeah, I would have thought that was the way it would have gone.
Jimmy (06:37):
Isn't that amazing?
That's what makes this show so darn interesting, people.
We are enigmas wrapped inside bacon.
Exactly.
Liz (06:52):
With a little water chestnut.
Jimmy (06:56):
All right.
Well, that is very interesting stuff.
I want to keep this conversation going over the couple months that we have of our regular going through the years episodes.
If you listeners out there want to contribute your definition of what peanuts is, you can always write to us over at unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com.
(07:18):
If you want to just keep this conversation going in any number of ways between episodes, you can certainly do that.
The first thing you're going to need to do is go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for that great peanuts reread.
It'll get you that one email a month that'll let you know what strips we are going to be discussing.
Then you will find them some way so that you can read them.
(07:40):
If you've been listening along, you know that gocomics.com now has a subscription.
So it'll cost you a couple bucks to finish out this run if you want to do it through gocomics.com.
It's like $5 a month.
You get access to all their other stuff, though, too, if that turns you on.
If not, be inventive.
It's the 21st century.
You can figure it out.
But we're going to go ahead.
(08:02):
I went out and called up the old Phanagraphics book.
So that's how I'm going to be finishing up this run.
So I'm excited.
Michael (08:11):
So I have a question.
When we're done, will it now be pronounced re-read?
Jimmy (08:21):
Yeah, that's amazing.
We don't have to do a thing about it.
It's the great Peanuts re-read.
I love it.
Harold (08:30):
I do have some more 1996 news of what was going on with Charles Schulz's life.
So there was a push by Joe Garagiola to get rid of tobacco, particularly like chewing tobacco, in sports.
And so he was going around to places where there was influence where people could make anti-tobacco ads, hoping kids would not take it up, which was a thing in the 90s.
(09:00):
And he went to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in Phoenix in 1996 and he made the pitch to them, trying to get them to maybe make an editorial cartoon that had to do with chewing tobacco.
And at that meeting, he mentioned that Charles Schulz had already done what he called a soon-to-run comic.
(09:21):
It was the July 7th strip where they're out on the mound and they have a conversation.
It's a Sunday.
Yeah, when I saw that, I was kind of, I don't know, I didn't think that it was a product placement kind of BSA kind of thing, but that's what it was.
Jimmy (09:38):
Amazing.
Harold (09:39):
The final piece of the gag is Snoopy is chewing gum and is blowing a bubble going back off the pitcher's mound.
But yeah, so Schulz often said he didn't like it when he felt pressure from people to put stuff in the strips, but this was one that he came up with something that he was happy to do.
I'm sure he was quite excited to hear from Joe Garagiola.
Jimmy (10:00):
Yeah, that's super cool.
My dad was a life-long tobacco chewer.
Oh, insane.
Harold (10:10):
And then there was Schenectady, New York, which is not the hugest town.
It had 2,300 reader responses, and Peanuts is number three.
So Sally Forth and Crank Shaft were the overall winners by reader count, but then they broke it out by demographics, which is really interesting.
(10:31):
Peanuts was listed not as favorite but most frequently read.
Baby Blues was a female favorite.
Dilbert was male favorite.
Foxtrot was a kid and teen favorite.
Roses Rose was a young adult, 18 to 24.
Dilbert was again, adults 25 to 54.
Surprise, surprise, Crankshaft.
(10:52):
For those of you who know this strip, was 55 to 64.
And Sally Forth was 64 and over.
Now that tells you something about readership in newspapers if the top two most favorite strips were those who were 55 and up.
So newspapers are already aging quite a bit, or at least the ones who have to take the time to fill out a poll.
(11:15):
But that's interesting.
You know, Schulz was not a favorite, but he was, so people were still reading him faithfully in 1996.
And then, boy, I don't know what's going on in New Jersey.
Jimmy (11:28):
Well, you could say that about any time.
I get moved by them.
Harold (11:32):
But this says something.
Peanuts is number two in the Atlantic City, New Jersey Press, with again almost 5,000 reader responses, followed by High and Lowes, Family Circus, and Hagar the Horrible.
Guess what number one is?
Jimmy (11:47):
In Atlantic City.
Frank and Ernest.
Liz (11:52):
Nope.
Harold (11:53):
The Lockhorns.
Jimmy (11:59):
The chewing tobacco of comic strips.
Harold (12:06):
Oh, boy.
And then here's another one.
There's a campaign for president going on 1996.
And they were going-
Jimmy (12:15):
Bill Clinton.
Harold (12:16):
The primaries were happening.
And there was an interesting question posed to the Republican presidential candidates, which again shows the power of comic strips in 1996.
They asked each of the candidates what their favorite comic was.
So Bob Dole and Pat McBuchanan chose Peanuts.
(12:37):
Lamar Alexander picked BC.
Robert Dornan picked Prince Valiant.
Steve Forbes opted for The Phantom.
Richard Luger went for Superman.
Phil Graham declined to make a comment.
Liz (12:51):
Oh, Phil.
Jimmy (12:53):
Wow.
Here's what I would be curious to see how they finished in those primaries related to what they're strip.
I think.
Michael (13:02):
Phil Graham was reading Mary Worth.
Harold (13:05):
He didn't want to.
Jimmy (13:06):
Yeah, I'm not mentioning it.
Harold (13:07):
He was not ready to divulge.
Then my last piece here is a nice bright little moment.
One of the up and coming strips of this particular era is The Wonderful Mutts by Patrick MacDonald.
He had a book coming out, and Schulz made it known that he was a fan of Mutts.
(13:31):
MacDonald said he was thrilled that Schulz liked his strip.
He says, I grew up reading Peanuts.
It's probably the comic that inspired me the most.
Schulz wrote an introduction to this Mutts collection, and I'd like to share it because it's cool.
He says, what's the highest compliment?
I can pay Patrick MacDonald.
He keeps coming up with ideas.
(13:51):
I wish I had thought of myself.
To me, Mutts is exactly what a comic strip should be.
It is always fun to look at, and the two main characters are wonderfully innocent.
It's hard to believe that after 100 years of comics, Patrick could come up with a new and perfect little dog.
I like everything about Mutts.
Jimmy (14:11):
Wow, that's something for your tombstone.
Harold (14:14):
Yeah, boy, can you imagine getting that kind of ringing endorsement from Charles Schulz?
Jimmy (14:19):
It took me a while to get into Mutts.
It was really until when I saw...
There was a big...
The Art of Patrick MacDonald book or whatever it is, where you saw all the Sundays collected.
And then I was like, oh boy.
I think he is one of the great, all-time great comic strip colorists.
(14:39):
They always look amazing, every single one of his Sundays.
Harold (14:43):
I was Mutts mad when it first came out, starting in 1994.
So it was in the newspaper where my in-laws were, and my mother-in-law faithfully cut the strip out every single day and collected them and would mail them to me in Virginia Beach.
Jimmy (15:00):
That's awesome.
Harold (15:01):
That era in particular is, it's just gold.
It's so sweet.
It's so funny.
It's so smart.
I can see why Schulz was a fan.
Jimmy (15:10):
Probably the last great comic strip of the 20th century.
And for you cartoonists out there listening along, he's being inked with a fountain pen, but not loaded with ink.
He dips the fountain pen in ink like it's, like a crow quill pen.
And that's how he inks Mutts.
I don't know many people who have done that approach.
Harold (15:31):
That's how I lettered some of my old comic book, Apathy Cat in the 90s.
I fell in love with the nib and there was, this was an ancient, ancient fountain pen.
So, you know, I was afraid I wasn't, for number one, you're going to clog it up with the permanent ink that you need to use.
Oh, okay.
Jimmy (15:48):
Try to go through the system.
That's what I was going to ask.
I see.
Harold (15:51):
Yeah.
And so they've created some fountain pens where you can kind of do it, but it doesn't quite give you that incredibly dense, rich black ink that cartoonists are, old school cartoonists in particular, once you love the way it was always done, which, I mean, Patrick McDonald of Mutts, he is absolutely into the history of comic strips.
Jimmy (16:12):
Wrote a great book on Crazy Cat, actually, yeah.
Harold (16:15):
Yeah.
So the only way you could use that pen and not just clog it up would be to dip it in a inkwell and have at it.
Jimmy (16:26):
That never occurred to me.
I always wondered why he did that.
Why didn't he just load it up?
Because it would be so much faster, but not if you're constantly cleaning or buying new pens, I guess.
Actually, before we move on to the strips, as long as we're talking about the craft side of cartooning, I want to ask you, because I have a pod.
I do another podcast, in case you don't know, over on my sub stack called Jimmy Gownley's Dumb Ideas.
(16:49):
I have two questions people ask me about process, basically.
What's the most important thing for you two in choosing the tools you use?
Not just even cartooning, but any art you're making.
Do you have, if you thought of, what's the number one thing?
It's got to be blank for me to use it.
(17:11):
Because I think me, at this point in my life, I think the first most important thing is ease of use.
And the second thing is actually like vibe.
Like, do I have fun doing it?
Fun using it?
I mean, what's your criteria for like, whether you're using Clip Studio or you're using a sponge dipped in marmalade?
(17:33):
What is it that draws you to the tools you use?
Michael, why don't you go first?
Michael (17:39):
Okay.
Well, it depends what you're going for.
I have like two very, very different styles.
So I'm cartooning, but I'm not going to be drawing on paper anymore.
I just, I don't even have a desk.
So basically, I am drawing in Clip Studio.
And I take, I haven't really even experimented that much.
(18:04):
I mean, there's probably a lot of control you can have over the pressure and the types of tools you can use to draw these lines.
Yeah, I'm pretty much just grabbing what seems most natural and sticking with it.
(18:26):
I find in the other thing, which is something I hadn't done in a long time and I've gotten back to is doing these fantasy portraits and sort of photo realistic fantasy portraits using colored pencil.
And I found that it's actually the surface you're working on is critical because I tried doing one.
(18:50):
I always did it on this Copley gray matboard just because I had an art teacher who told us to do it.
So it's kind of a gray matboard.
It's got a little bite to it.
So I did a whole bunch of them and then 20 years go by and I try to do it again.
I didn't have the matboard and I tried doing it on a white board.
(19:13):
And using the exact same techniques, it looked just awful.
Jimmy (19:17):
Really?
Michael (19:17):
Yeah.
And I finally got a German friend who came down with, he knew some art dealers in Germany and he brought me the Copley gray and I was able to capture the feel of the old stuff.
Jimmy (19:33):
That's exactly what I'm looking for, what I'm interested in.
There's some mojo about it, whether it gives it an underpainting or whether it's the tooth quality, whatever of the paper, that's got to be part of it.
That's so interesting.
Michael (19:47):
So I don't know if you guys paid attention to smooth or rough texture on the paper you use?
Jimmy (19:57):
Yeah, I have to use smooth, yeah.
Michael (19:59):
Really?
Jimmy (19:59):
Yeah.
Harold (20:01):
Yeah, because I used the rougher texture for brush because you're loading a lot of ink in there and it's got to lie in there and kind of nestle in and dry.
Michael (20:10):
So you do use the rough sometimes?
Harold (20:12):
I did when I was focusing on brush.
Yeah, it's worked so much better.
Otherwise, I just have pools of ink sitting on top of the paper and I'm such a klutz.
I'm going to be spreading that all over with my palms and my hands.
Yeah.
Michael (20:27):
But of course, everyone thinks the secret is having the right tools.
Jimmy (20:31):
That's another thing I want to talk about in that podcast.
Absolutely.
Harold (20:34):
And you know what?
Michael (20:35):
I mean, you go up to one of your heroes in a con and you go, what kind of brush do you use?
And you assume as soon as you get that brush, you will be able to draw like them.
Harold (20:47):
It's yeah.
I mean, for me, the three factors and they all have to interrelate with one another in some sort of optimal balance is beauty.
Can I make it look really nice?
What does that tool let me do that?
And the second one is control, which is, again, I could have a tool that I know creates a beautiful line, but if I can't control it, it's worthless.
(21:13):
And then ease of use.
So those three, when I was doing App of the Cat, I was hopping from one, just within like four issues, from one tool to another to another, because I wasn't satisfied.
I was trying to go faster, so the ease of use was definitely a piece of it.
Second issue, I used a brush after having tried to make it look like a brush by drawing with just a fountain pen, which was like an off-the-rack, Walmart kind of pen that was popular for a while.
(21:43):
And then I'd have to fill in between the two lines, where I was trying to make the look of the thick and the thin.
It took me 10 hours a page.
I was like, I like the look of it.
I like the control of it.
But man, it takes forever and it was just too much.
And so I went in for the brush and that was a revelation.
I was afraid of the brush because of the control issue.
And then I started to learn some of the secrets of how that worked.
(22:05):
And it looked so nice.
But I did abandon it and then went into like a permanent magic marker thing where I could get picks and thins with one stroke.
And then the other thing, the fourth issue is toxicity.
Jimmy (22:22):
Yeah, yeah.
Harold (22:24):
That was the nastiest marker.
It was a new marker that conforms to these standards of being non-toxic.
But then I'm like, well, so why is whatever I'm sucking in, this sweet smelling, nasty permanent marker thing, it's sitting in my lungs and three days later, I still can smell it in my breath.
(22:45):
I'm like, I don't know.
Michael (22:46):
I can't do this anymore.
I've got it like 40 years later.
If I get one whiff of that old marker smell, I start coughing.
Wow.
Harold (22:53):
Yeah, those Sharpies.
I mean, I don't understand why people can work with Sharpies.
Michael (22:57):
No, Liz is going to open one.
Jimmy (22:59):
Oh, I love Sharpies.
Michael (23:00):
No, get it away from me.
A real artist, it doesn't matter.
I mean, Jaime Hernandez, you gave him a toothbrush and some jello.
Jimmy (23:08):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Michael (23:10):
He could do something beautiful with it.
Jimmy (23:12):
The thing is, I was thinking of you, Michael, and this is not just blown smoke.
I have eight guitars.
You have one guitar.
Who do you want to play guitar?
You or me?
You.
There's no question, right?
But I still, I've been an intermediate guitar player for 43 years.
(23:33):
I still think maybe if I had a telecaster, that would be it.
It's not the telecaster.
Harold (23:39):
Solve all my problems.
Michael (23:40):
Better.
Jimmy (23:43):
All right.
Well, thank you for indulging me on those couple of questions because I just wanted to talk to my pounds about it because I'm very interested in cartooning.
I'm not sure if you guys have ever picked that up.
All right.
We are in 1996.
We're at the end.
In September of this year, something extremely important happened.
(24:07):
Michael, you have to think about it between now and when we get to the October Strip.
See if you can remember what important event happened in September of 1996.
Okay.
No guessing until we get there.
Michael (24:20):
I was around, but I don't think I remember anything.
Did we meet?
No, we met earlier.
Jimmy (24:27):
Yes, it was.
That was it.
Michael (24:28):
Was it 1996?
Jimmy (24:29):
Yes, in September, September 20th or something, 1996.
Michael (24:33):
I would have thought it was a year or two earlier.
Jimmy (24:35):
No, 1996.
95, I was sitting next to the Boneyard people at Small Press Expo and then the next year I met you.
Michael (24:44):
Cool.
Jimmy (24:44):
Then the year after that, I met Harold.
There you go.
All right.
Enough trips down memory lane.
Let's just go ahead and get to these strips.
What do you guys say?
SPEAKER_2 (24:58):
All right.
Jimmy (24:59):
All right.
Here we go.
We are starting on August 31st.
Lucy is watching television and Linus comes up behind her and Linus says, I wonder if it's my imagination.
You don't seem to be as crabby as you used to.
To which Lucy zips around and yells, I'm not slipping.
Michael (25:18):
Jimmy, I actually think these are much funnier hearing you read them.
I think I'm getting used to that.
This is the voice of Peanuts.
Jimmy (25:29):
Thank you.
Well, this is Schulz directly addressing his critics, I feel.
Harold (25:37):
Yes.
Yeah.
Jimmy (25:40):
I thought I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do my least favorite thing of all time.
Is this the first time that he put the date in between the panels?
Harold (25:54):
I don't think so.
Jimmy (25:55):
Exactly.
It's not.
I knew that.
You passed the test, Harold.
September 11th, Rerun.
This is a little, it's an on-going sequence slash storyline where Rerun is finally going into kindergarten.
(26:16):
He is 30, almost 30, and he's going to kindergarten for the first day.
He takes the first week off because he hides under the bed, so I like that.
Now, here he is.
He's finally buckled down and he's going in the kindergarten.
He's at the teacher's desk and he comes up and he says, yes, ma'am, my name is Rerun.
(26:36):
I don't know.
That's what they all call me.
Yes, I know I should have been here last week.
Well, I'm here now.
Then he sits down next to a little girl with pigtails, who is going to be very important in Rerun's life and says, I hope we don't have to read War and Peace the first day.
Harold (26:51):
Well, that's Pepper McPatty's class.
Jimmy (26:52):
Yes, exactly.
You're in the right side of town.
You got easier things going on over here.
Michael (26:57):
I find it really odd that he doesn't name her, because he's clearly a main character at this point.
Jimmy (27:04):
Yeah, she's just always called like the little, or she's not called anything, but she's like the girl with pigtails.
Michael (27:11):
Yeah.
I mean, his other unnamed character never appears.
So, this is weird.
I mean, are there any other comic strip characters who do never get a name?
Do we know the BC?
Do we know all those characters?
Jimmy (27:26):
Well, BC is called BC.
Michael (27:27):
Yeah.
But there's another, the other guy, there's another one.
Yeah, the other guy, I don't know what his name is.
Harold (27:33):
There's Wiley, and yeah.
Jimmy (27:35):
And of course we know there's that famous Tater Tot over in Funny Google.
Names are important.
Harold (27:41):
So in the drawing of Rerun, at least in this particular strip, it looks like, you know, to make him look younger than Linus, there seems to be more of the back of the head.
Now part of it's because he's covering Linus' back of his head with more hair, but that's quite a lower cranium there.
Jimmy (28:08):
Yeah.
And you see later on, it comes at, you start seeing, he has a real struggle with it.
It's a big round curve and it's going underneath, like the snoopy curve is on top, which is easier.
And you'll start seeing it gets real jagged in places.
Harold (28:23):
It's interesting.
Yeah.
Michael (28:25):
I found that for me, at least, the best way to indicate youth is to have the chin closer to the mouth.
Jimmy (28:34):
Oh, yeah.
Michael (28:35):
I was going to differentiate even a couple of years different.
I haven't noticed if he's done that.
Harold (28:41):
That's interesting.
Jimmy (28:42):
Drawing children is hard.
I mean, you know, Schulz has his codified style down.
But like if you look at people who are considered great artists in comics, like particularly realistic artists, I think of Neil Adams.
Look at a Neil Adams child and you will swear that this unbelievably talented person has never seen a child before.
(29:04):
Might be drawing with his teeth.
It's weird.
It's like they just look monstrous.
Harold (29:09):
It's like a lot of people are self-taught or they're taught in their genre.
Jimmy (29:14):
Yeah.
Harold (29:15):
And it seems like if you're doing superheroes and all of that, it's not one of the lessons on how to draw kids.
If you look at animated cartoons, there are all sorts of rules that they teach you if you want to have a young, small, or cute character.
They say make wide-set eyes, have a high forehead, all that sort of stuff.
So it's kind of baked into the person who grows up through the animation ranks.
(29:38):
But if you're learning superhero art, yeah, that lesson may never happen.
SPEAKER_2 (29:43):
Yeah.
Michael (29:43):
Unless you're doing super baby, you're not going to be drawing babies.
SPEAKER_2 (29:47):
Yeah.
Harold (29:48):
There's a thing about Rerun that I haven't been able to put into words, that's unique to his character.
And you see it in the second panel, talking to the teacher.
And he doesn't seem to be intimidated talking to this adult.
And he seems to be very matter of fact.
He says, yes, I know I should have been here last week.
(30:09):
Well, I'm here now.
There's something about that.
He's not afraid to go up, knock on someone's door and ask for something or just speak to somebody and say, look, I want to play with your dog.
He's not intimidated by whatever the teacher was saying for him being gone the entire first week of school.
(30:30):
He's just like, let's move on.
What is that about Rerun?
Because I like it.
It is a unique attribute, but I don't exactly know what to call it.
Jimmy (30:42):
I think, I really do believe that Rerun is a very subtle character that in some ways is the most realistic kid in Peanuts.
But yet, he has a sophistication to him, even though his sophistication isn't about psychology like Lucy, or he's not reading the Old Testament and quoting it like Linus or whatever, but he's okay with who he is.
(31:18):
Like you say, he's not intimidated by an authority figure, he's not intimidated by the world, he's going to find his way.
Harold (31:25):
And yet, he was hiding under his bed for a week before going to school.
The complexity of the Peanuts character.
Jimmy (31:31):
Yeah, and that seems completely reasonable, right?
But yeah, it's quite a trick to do in a comic strip.
But seeing that second panel, you could really see how rough the bottom of his head is.
Harold (31:44):
Yes, yeah.
And definitely this year, just looking at the dailies in the fanographics books, particularly the Sundays, I'm not sure if he's working smaller in the Sundays now.
And that's why you see it.
But the strips, they don't hold together without you just taking in all of the shake.
(32:08):
He seems to control the dailies much, much better.
And maybe that's because he's working larger with the dailies.
Jimmy (32:14):
September 15th, Sally gets some paper out of a, I think, either a big old, oh, I guess it's like a little a buffet unit.
Michael (32:22):
I thought it was an elephant.
Jimmy (32:24):
It could be an elephant.
So she gets a little piece of paper from her little, you know, piece of furniture.
And then she brings it to her big brother, Charlie Brown, and says, Grandma wants us to write her a letter.
It'll be from both of us as they both sit down at the table and Charlie Brown starts writing as Sally dictates, Dear Grandma, and Charlie Brown, Dear Grandma, writes it really smeared.
(32:48):
Then she says, How have you been?
Charlie Brown, How have you been?
It's just even worse.
It just smeared across, We miss you, in complete abstraction, love Charles.
And then he smearily writes his last name, or his name, loves Charles.
And then Charlie Brown asks Sally, Love Charles.
And Sally says, I think maybe she'd rather just hear from you.
Liz (33:13):
And he has ink all over his face.
Jimmy (33:14):
All over his face.
Speaking of John, with the fountain pen.
Harold (33:19):
The comics, yes.
Jimmy (33:22):
1996, he is sticking with whatever pen he is using.
I mean, we are 50 years into the big revolution at this point.
What is he doing?
Harold (33:33):
I don't know, but boy, boy, boy, it's just like he just lets the shake go whenever he's doing cursive.
I guess there's no way to fight it when you're doing cursive, because you have to have a continue.
Basically, cursive is a continuous line, right?
Jimmy (33:46):
Yeah.
Harold (33:47):
For a whole word.
How do you hide your tremor in that?
Jimmy (33:51):
Well, luckily in this too, it works because the whole premise is him not being able to write with a pen, so it's perfect.
Harold (33:58):
Yeah.
But in the strips where it's just Charlie Brown writing and he's writing it.
Wow.
Jimmy (34:04):
You know what?
This cursive thing, it struck me recently.
There was a graphic novel that came out about four or five years ago by Barry Windsor Smith called Monsters and a lot of it is hand-lettered in cursive.
This took him like 30 years to draw this comic book.
(34:28):
People in their 20s can't read cursive.
Harold (34:31):
Well, yeah.
He's going to appeal to the crankshaft readers.
Jimmy (34:34):
The crankshaft readers, right?
Exactly.
But in 10, 15 years, I think they'll have to, assuming that's still an issue and people want to read that book, honestly, I think they'll have to re-letter it.
Harold (34:45):
Yeah.
It's like going to the opera and having the translation on the screen.
SPEAKER_2 (34:50):
Yeah.
Jimmy (34:52):
September 28th.
Snoopy and Woodstock are atop the doghouse and Snoopy says, I don't know when my birthday is and I don't know how old I am.
Now he's kind of upset as he says to Woodstock, and the Daisy Hill puppy farm isn't there anymore.
Everything's gone.
Woodstock asks the question, Snoopy says, no, I'm still here.
Harold (35:12):
It's another Charles Schulz comment strip about himself.
It seems like that's what you're thinking about, right?
At this point in your life, things are starting to fall away that you grew up with, that where your contemporaries are a little older than you.
It's a sobering thing that nobody escapes.
Jimmy (35:34):
Yeah.
The Daisy Hill puppy farm being gone, that goes back at this point almost 30 years in the strip.
You know, it's a three-story parking garage was the joke or whatever.
Harold (35:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and I have to put my vote in for the strangest Snoopy Tale ever.
Jimmy (35:56):
Oh, boy.
Michael (35:58):
It's pretty funny.
Harold (36:00):
It looks like it was made of Silly Putty or something.
Jimmy (36:02):
Yeah, it really does.
Yeah, that's...
SPEAKER_2 (36:04):
Wow.
Jimmy (36:05):
I mean, yeah, it really looks like...
That's exactly what it looks like.
It looks like it got stepped on a flat.
Harold (36:10):
It's going to pick up all that Zip-A-Tone.
Jimmy (36:15):
Let's take a break.
We'll come back, we'll talk about more comic strips, we'll read the mail, and we'll just have a good time in general.
Sound good?
Harold (36:24):
Sounds great.
Liz (36:25):
Hi, everyone.
I just want to take a moment to remind you that all three hosts are cartoonists themselves, and their work is available for sale.
You can find links to purchase books by Jimmy, Harold, and Michael on our website.
You can also support the show on Patreon, or buy us a mud pie.
Check out the store link on unpackingpeanuts.com.
Jimmy (36:48):
All right, everybody, break's over.
Back to work.
Got anything in the mailbox, Liz?
Liz (36:54):
We do.
We heard from Colin Heaney, who writes, Hey guys, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'm in the middle of an REM binge.
Jimmy (37:02):
Oh, that's exciting.
Liz (37:04):
I just recently made my way up to New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
Jimmy (37:08):
Underrated masterpiece.
Liz (37:09):
Which almost matches perfectly with this stage of the show.
Jimmy (37:13):
Yeah.
Liz (37:14):
Anyway, I was wondering what your thoughts were in the oh-so-brief appearance of Joe Grunge in April 1993.
It's actually April 26th of 1993.
Should we have had more of him?
Could he have worn a Zero T-shirt?
SPEAKER_2 (37:33):
Oh, yeah.
Liz (37:35):
Snoopy in the Seattle Grunge scene?
Or was he a monstrous abomination that Schulz quickly regretted?
Jimmy (37:43):
No.
Liz (37:44):
I find it hilarious that this was even a persona and didn't initially believe it was real.
The idea of Grunge even existing in the Peanuts World is crazy to me.
Jimmy (37:56):
Yeah, it really shows how long this thing has been running.
It was pre-rock and roll, or well, just the very early, early, earliest days of rock and roll.
And now here we are in like rocks like sixth and one of its last iterations.
Yeah.
Wow.
First off, though, New Adventures in Hi-Fi.
How good is that 1996 album?
(38:16):
Tragically, until I realized the person in the song is a complete monster, I totally related to The Wake Up Bomb.
I thought, yeah, I relate to that guy.
And then I heard, oh, he's a terrible person.
And I was like, oh yeah, I agree.
Right?
Harold (38:32):
When you said that REM was lining up with where we were in Peanuts, I was thinking, what, you turn it on, like Dark Side of the Moon with Wizard of Oz while you read the scripts.
It goes perfectly.
It's amazing.
Liz (38:47):
And Colin adds, PS, I've decided for no reason in particular, that Charlie Brown's favorite REM album is automatic for the people.
Jimmy (38:55):
For the people, of course it is.
No, there's no question.
That's complete logic.
I agree.
Liz (39:01):
And he says, Lucy is his monster.
Jimmy (39:05):
We're best friends.
I agree with all of that.
Liz (39:09):
Be of good cheer and thanks for making the best pod on the Internet.
Colin from Ireland.
Jimmy (39:14):
It's Colin.
Thank you so much.
We also heard from Shaylee.
She actually just wanted to write and let us know that the Charlie Brown marbles episode was in fact turned into that animated special.
Like Joshua also told us.
And she's very happy that my eye surgery went well.
(39:34):
Our Peanuts listeners don't know.
I had double cataract surgery, but now I can see fine.
So all is well.
Yeah.
So that's what we heard from Shaylee.
And I think that is the end of the mailbox.
If you characters out there want to talk to us, we love to hear from you.
You can shoot us an email over there at unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com.
Or you could call the hotline or leave a text message like Shaylee did on the hotline.
(39:59):
It's 717-219-4162.
And remember, I love hearing from you because when I don't hear, I worry.
And while we're here outside the strips, Harold, do you have any information about where people might be able to come see you if they're out and about in the world?
Harold (40:15):
Yeah, so if you go to heraldbuchholz.com, you can find my events list.
I'm starting to populate that and you can see where I'll be showing up.
My 8th through 10th of May will be for all of you who happen to be homeschoolers in Pigeon Forge, Genesee.
(40:36):
I have to teach them diligently, conference.
Jimmy (40:41):
Pigeon Forge?
Harold (40:42):
Pigeon Forge, Pigeon Forge, Dollywood, you know.
Oh, okay.
It looks like I will be also on Park Avenue at the Artists' Stroll on the 17th of May, which will be a lot of fun.
It's just artists and there's hundreds of us.
Then let's see what's happening.
The Brooklyn has the fabulous 5th Street Fair on the 18th.
(41:05):
It's just a Sunday.
Then if anyone's going to be at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, I'm going to be just walking the floor to the 22nd, but you can reach me through my website if you want to meet up there.
Then I will be at the Queen's Night Market on the 31st, which is where they have a wonderful food from all over the world, six bucks or less, I think.
(41:30):
That runs from four to midnight near the grounds of the Old World's Fair.
That should be a lot of fun.
Jimmy (41:36):
Okay.
All right.
Let's go back to the strips.
October 3rd, Charlie Brown is sitting on the pitchers mound.
He looks forlorn and Schroeder comes up to him in his catcher's gear and says, come on, Charlie Brown, the game is starting.
You're supposed to be pitching.
Charlie Brown is completely dazed and he says, I can't pitch knowing that Lucy is in right field.
(41:59):
She's out there just waiting to do something stupid.
She drives me crazy.
And Schroeder walks back behind the plate saying, I'll get you a drink of water.
And Charlie Brown says, I know she's out there.
I can't look.
She's out there, isn't she?
Michael (42:13):
You're the manager.
Jimmy (42:16):
Yeah, you can solve this, Charlie Brown.
Harold (42:18):
So what is that dynamic?
Why is Lucy still on their team?
There's obviously a bond between these two that goes usually unspoken.
But well, yeah, why is she still on the team?
Why does she still show up?
And why does he still have her?
Jimmy (42:33):
Oh, this is the type of manager I would be.
I would be, you know, like, if I picked a kid and that kid that way I'd be stuck.
That would be just the way it was going to go, you know.
Liz (42:44):
She should just know that he wishes that she were gone and she should make the decision for herself.
Jimmy (42:51):
Exactly.
Hey, Charlie Brown just start acting distant.
Harold (42:56):
Well, she's probably just noting his pitching skills and saying, you know, I belong here.
Jimmy (43:01):
Right.
He does that thing where he makes the hat sad.
Harold (43:10):
I love that.
Jimmy (43:11):
I do, too.
October 22nd, Charlie Brown and Linus are sitting in class, and Linus says to Charlie Brown, girls like compliments.
He leans over and kind of whispers to Charlie Brown, if you want to impress that little red-haired girl, say something nice to her.
And Charlie Brown yells, you look really cute today.
(43:32):
And then in the last panel, Linus says, that impressed her, Charlie Brown.
She fell right out of her desk.
Harold (43:38):
So Charlie Brown has now spoken to the little red-haired girl.
Michael (43:41):
I can't believe this character we've known for 47 years would actually have the guts to do that.
Harold (43:50):
The only reason I can believe it is because of the suggestibility of Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football.
All it takes is someone when you're a little off your guard, whispering in your ear, and you do it.
Jimmy (44:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, what's really crazy too?
I don't know if I'm projecting, but Charlie Brown's head in this strip is so clean and crisp.
Harold (44:17):
Especially that one where he's yelling.
Jimmy (44:19):
Especially the one where he's yelling, right?
It looks like it's pasted in from like a 60s strip.
I mean, it's not.
But look at, right?
I mean, look at how shapeless and shaky the body is.
And then that head is wham, wham, wham.
Perfect.
Wild.
Harold (44:38):
Yeah.
Again, you know, you said you have the sad hat in the last strip.
It's like Schulz is living through the characters and somehow he pulls it out of himself, this super clean, bold drawing of a bold Charlie Brown.
SPEAKER_2 (44:51):
Yeah.
Jimmy (44:53):
November 8th, Rerun comes home from school and says, boy, what a time we had in kindergarten today, as he's taking his jacket and hat off.
And he sits next to Lucy and says, we had some wooden blocks, see?
And we take one block and put another block right on top of it.
I'm telling you, it was really something.
He leans back and smiles with his eyes closed.
Then he says, it never occurred to me to put one block on top of another.
(45:17):
And he leans back, puts his hands behind his head and says, yes, sir, that was really something.
What a day.
Harold (45:24):
I love the strip.
Michael (45:27):
I remember that feeling.
I guess I was like first grade or something.
And I remember the teacher was reading us from a book.
I remember coming home and thinking like, I felt sorry for my parents because we were so cool and people like read to us.
Harold (45:49):
Well, my new favorite drawing of Reruns is in the strip, the very first panel.
Jimmy (45:54):
Oh, it's a good one.
I love that.
You know, Rerun, I think he looks good in all of these.
I like the middle one.
It's a really nice looking, well-composed strip.
And there we're seeing some of those patterns, those zippotones on the pillows, you know.
So if you're still wondering what I'm talking about, we're talking about zippotones.
That pattern behind Lucy's head was all on an adhesive sheet of film that was cut out and pasted behind her.
(46:19):
And so were the dots behind Rerun.
Harold (46:21):
You know, again, Schulz, we have these characters who are struggling.
They want something.
They never seem to get it.
And then every once in a while, Schulz will throw in a little win.
And they just stand out to me so brightly because of the contrast.
Love the strip.
SPEAKER_2 (46:38):
Yeah.
Jimmy (46:40):
November 9th, Snoopy and Woodstock are atop the doghouse, both of them smiling away quite pleasantly at each other.
Snoopy says, Have a nice trip.
Take care of yourself.
And Woodstock launches himself into the air.
And then he arrives on the other side of the doghouse.
And Snoopy says, That was good.
Now you can tell everyone you flew south for the winter.
Michael (47:02):
So now we know what direction he's always facing.
Let's see if that's...
Jimmy (47:09):
North.
Michael (47:09):
He's always facing north.
Jimmy (47:12):
When he's riding, he's facing north, right?
He sleeps facing south.
Harold (47:18):
The cat's south of him.
Liz (47:20):
The red baron is facing south.
Jimmy (47:23):
One of the strangest things and just coincidences in life is that Harold's wife and I both had the same teacher.
In different states and different years.
And she always said, she was a nun, sister Regina Alma, you need to sleep at night, head north, toes south, so that the magnetic lines of the earth flow through you.
(47:44):
You don't want them slamming up against you.
That's the kind of thing you learn in Catholic school.
Wow.
That's good science and good religion.
Harold (47:56):
That's part of the dogma.
You are going to find that in the catechism.
I don't think so.
Jimmy (48:00):
You don't want to fly eastward.
Harold (48:03):
This is the apocrypha of the apocrypha.
Michael (48:07):
Dogma and catechism.
I never got that.
That would be a good comic strip.
Jimmy (48:12):
Oh my God.
Wait, we need to trademark that immediately.
How did no one ever do that?
I think it's a limited audience, but that's amazing.
Harold (48:23):
My whole Teach Them Diligently group in Pigeon Forge will be equaling that audience.
Jimmy (48:29):
Isn't that the story though, being a cartoonist one day or on Park Avenue the next day, or on Pigeon Forge?
Harold (48:36):
I'm not sure which is the most prestigious either anymore.
I'm all confused now.
Jimmy (48:40):
That's a tough question.
Harold (48:42):
But you look at Snoopy's snout in the last panel and Woodstock's beak in the second panel, you're getting that weird double curve on the bottom that's started to show up, particularly this year.
It's like he doesn't complete the full roundness of the line.
He just gives it a secondary swoop.
(49:05):
Kind of unusual.
Jimmy (49:07):
I really like, I just like Woodstock flying.
Even as a little kid, I love the wobbly half upside down sometimes.
Shaky Woodstock flying.
Harold (49:17):
Yeah, Woodstock, it's funny.
I mean, a character like Woodstock really can't get overlooked.
The small little character.
Jimmy (49:24):
Yeah.
Harold (49:24):
But he adds something incredibly special to this strip.
Jimmy (49:29):
November 12th.
It's a whole gang of them and they're all standing in line, waiting for the school door to open for them to go in and start their day.
It's Sally, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Rerun, Violet and Snoopy.
Sally says, why is your dog standing in line?
(49:50):
Then Linus says, dogs can't go to school.
Lucy says, they'll never let him in the door.
Violet says, so why is he standing in line?
Actually, we're waiting for the school bus, I guess.
Snoopy then says, the driver promised I could sit in her lap and stare.
Harold (50:08):
Big smile.
Michael (50:10):
It's kind of sad that one of my favorite characters just doesn't have anything to do.
Jimmy (50:15):
Well, she really doesn't have anything to do because the reason I picked this is this is the last appearance of-
Michael (50:21):
Is it really?
SPEAKER_2 (50:23):
Goodbye, Violet.
Jimmy (50:28):
Now, she will appear-
Once next year, but it's a rerun from-
Because he was on a sabbatical and he-
So he did-
You see her again in the strip, but this is the last original appearance of her.
I feel so sad.
I know.
Harold (50:43):
It's a big deal.
Jimmy (50:44):
It is.
Harold (50:45):
Well, and then one other super minor thing is I don't think I've ever seen Linus with wearing the baseball cap backward.
Jimmy (50:53):
Is this the first time?
Harold (50:58):
Leave it to our listeners.
Jimmy (51:01):
December 26th, Spike is out in the desert, of course, and he looks and he sees his Christmas stocking hanging off the cactus.
And he looks forlorn.
It is an empty Christmas stocking.
He then takes it off the cactus and walks it to the edge of a cliff where he throws it into a ravine.
Harold (51:20):
This is like that Olaf strip.
Yeah, not quite as dark.
Liz (51:25):
How can you tell that Spike is looking forlorn?
Jimmy (51:29):
You know what?
I just...
Harold (51:30):
You can't lose if you say that.
Yeah, right.
Jimmy (51:32):
Exactly.
Harold (51:32):
You'll be right every time.
Michael (51:35):
I swear.
I saw both of you pick this one.
So I read this like 20 times, trying to figure out what the joke was.
Jimmy (51:43):
Oh my God.
This made me laugh out loud so hard that Spike expected there to be something in his stocking.
There wasn't.
He makes essentially no reaction and then just throws the stocking into a ravine.
That cracks me up.
Harold (51:59):
That third panel.
Yeah.
I mean, to me it was kind of movingly sad.
Jimmy (52:04):
Oh, it's really sad.
It's really sad and it's really funny.
Like, that's a, it's a really interesting strip, I think it's either really sad, really funny, or it makes no sense at all, depending on which Unpacking Peanuts.
Harold (52:21):
That is the genius of Charles M.
Schulz.
Jimmy (52:23):
Boom, right?
There you go.
In one strip, in one strip.
And he doesn't care that Michael doesn't think this one makes any sense because he knows he'll get one that Michael will like it.
We won't like it.
He really, even at this stage, has quite a lot of gas left in the tank.
Michael (52:42):
Maybe I didn't realize at 1226 it made it something to do with Christmas.
Harold (52:47):
Yeah, that's the downside of reading these, just random, well, at least in that internet world, there is no time, there is no space.
Jimmy (52:57):
But Michael, it's not like you grew up putting your stockings.
Michael (53:00):
I never had a stocking on the chimney.
Liz (53:02):
Why is he throwing away a sock?
Harold (53:04):
Right, why is he throwing away a sock?
Jimmy (53:07):
Actually, I kind of like that version too.
Let's try that.
Michael (53:10):
Perfectly good sock.
Jimmy (53:12):
Let's try that.
Spike's in the desert and he looks at a sock.
He throws the perfectly good sock away.
That's good too.
Harold (53:19):
It's a little too large for his feet.
Liz (53:21):
How come you don't get it?
Jimmy (53:24):
It's fantastic.
I don't know how.
You look at it.
All right.
December 30th, wrapping up the year, Charlie Brown is at, I guess it's like a mall sports memorabilia show.
He is talking to a guy behind the counter and says, yes, sir, is this where you're selling athletes' autographs?
I'd like a baseball with Josh Lobotnik's autograph.
(53:46):
Who is he?
He's my hero.
Is he here?
Well, just ask him to sign a ball and I'll pay for it.
Snoopy's with Charlie Brown this whole time and then Snoopy thinks, I used to have a Lassie dog dish, but she never signed it.
Michael (54:00):
So strange that Josh Lobotnik's in the shop and Charlie Brown doesn't go over and talk to him.
Jimmy (54:07):
Just ask him to sign a ball.
Harold (54:09):
As a guy who sets up at shows all the time, I will say, Jimmy, that I do believe this is a card show because you never see tablecloths in stores.
But you always see tablecloths.
Michael (54:21):
This was the year when trading cards sort of took over.
Harold (54:27):
Yeah, it was a big collectible era right after the black and white comic boom and bust.
Yeah.
Jimmy (54:35):
Yeah.
Trading cards of all types were available.
And it's funny because you aren't actually trading them.
I mean, you didn't even buy them in packs.
A lot of times you're able to buy just the whole set, right?
Or am I mistaken?
Harold (54:47):
Well, if somebody is shorted at 40, right?
They had to go through it and then pull out the stuff.
And there was a way to make money doing it.
Jimmy (54:55):
Yeah, I guess.
Harold (54:56):
Wow.
Jimmy (54:56):
That's crazy.
Also, yeah, just in the 90s and in the 80s, I actually remember they would have these shows at malls all the time where it would be, you know, sports, comic books, whatever records.
Once a month, they would have at Schuylkill Mall, one of these, and there was a comic shop that would come.
And I got a lot of my like alternatives, like the Black and White Boom Harold's talking about.
(55:18):
I got a lot of those comics there because there was no comic book store anywhere near me.
Harold (55:22):
Yeah, you go to the mall and unfortunately, there's probably some guy sitting at one of the tables at Orange Julius signing Joe Garagiola and Josh LeBlattnick on baseballs.
Feeding them out.
Jimmy (55:36):
I did a signing at the Schuylkill Mall once and there was one little ad in the paper that just said, Jim Gownley will be there.
No, it doesn't have to be just Jim Gownley.
It was not well attended.
Harold (55:46):
No, it had that Pigeon Forge attendance level.
Liz (55:49):
Yeah.
Jimmy (55:51):
Well guys, that brings us to the end of another year.
It is always exciting to go through these strips with my pals.
And if you want to keep this conversation going, well gosh, there's a couple different ways you could do it.
The first thing you could do, go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for that great Peanuts reread, get on our mailing list.
You can also just email us.
We're unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com.
(56:13):
Or you can follow us on the good old social media.
We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
And we're at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube.
And of course you can call the hotline 717-219-4162.
When I don't hear, I worry.
That's all.
All I need from my pals now is your picks for MVP and your pick for strip of the year.
Liz (56:38):
And your anger and happiness index.
Jimmy (56:40):
And the good old anger and happiness.
Harold (56:42):
Anger and happiness index.
All right, why don't you do that first?
All right, so refresh your memory.
We had all time low happiness in 1995.
We had 71 strips out of 365 where a character showed some happiness and there was more anger, 83.
But this, if you go on to obscurities, Liz has been keeping in a beautiful chart that she's been updating with every episode or every year, I should say.
(57:09):
And take a look at the trajectory of anger and happiness in the strip.
Even though it's up and down, there is a decided through line.
It's over the years, it's down.
It's like this strip is getting more and more subdued in Stoic as Schulz does the strip.
So I'm wondering if you guys think this year was an anomaly.
(57:30):
Did we had 83 anger strips in 95?
Do you think we had more or less or the same in 96?
Jimmy (57:37):
I think we had exactly 85.
Michael (57:42):
I think they're both down slightly.
Harold (57:47):
Well, you're both super, I would say you're both right.
It was 79 down four in 1996 for anger.
So yeah, this is on the downward trend.
But for happiness.
Jimmy (57:59):
I said 85.
That's nice of you, Harold, but I was clearly wrong.
Harold (58:04):
86 out of 365.
I'm giving that to you.
Michael (58:07):
2%.
Harold (58:08):
All right, I'll take it, thank you.
That's amazing.
So happiness, I said all time low 71.
What do you think is happening in 96?
I'm looking at this with spike and dropping that sock off of the...
I think it's up.
You think it's up?
What do you think, Michael?
Michael (58:27):
Slightly down.
Harold (58:28):
Liz, any thoughts?
None.
Okay.
It's bounced up to 82.
So it's slightly higher than anger, which is usually the trend.
You'll have a few more happy than sad or angry strips, I should say.
And it's back to that normal thing, but still low for the overall run of the strip.
So there you go.
Jimmy (58:48):
All right.
Well, who wants to go first for their MVPs and strip of the year picks?
Harold (58:52):
Hey, Michael, why don't you go?
Michael (58:54):
I shall go.
Harold, help me out here.
Harold (58:57):
Yeah.
Michael (58:58):
Strip of the year.
I'm going back to the first strip I picked, February 4th.
Harold (59:02):
Okay.
Michael (59:04):
And I remember that it struck me that, I think Peanuts has been getting less and less neurotic.
But this was a classic neurotic strip from the Golden Age of Neurosis.
Maybe give a little recap of the strip, so I don't have it in front of me.
Harold (59:21):
Sure.
Let me flip through my Fandagraphics books.
February 4th is a Sunday and it's a psychiatric booth.
Yeah, Lucy is hanging out and Charlie Brown, really, yeah, total neurotic.
Said, I just had a terrible thought.
What if I finally meet that little red-haired girl and what if she really likes me?
It turns out that I didn't like her as much as I thought I was going to.
(59:44):
How could I tell her?
How could I break up with her?
How could I leave her?
Lucy's like, you're worried about leaving someone you haven't even met?
Hopeless, completely hopeless.
Then Charlie Brown says, maybe I could leave her now and meet her later.
Classic.
Jimmy (01:00:00):
That's a good pick.
Michael (01:00:01):
Okay.
I like that one and maybe I did this last year, but reruns finally come into his own.
He's got his very own character and his strips are good.
He's even got a cohort, a pal.
Anyway, so I will give it to the most valuable peanut to rerun this year also.
(01:00:24):
All right.
Jimmy (01:00:26):
Harold, how about you?
Harold (01:00:28):
I agree, Michael.
I'm going to give this to rerun.
He continues to unfold before us and he's a really cool character.
I was almost going to give this to a Woodstock strip this year, that was my favorite, but I really do like that November 8th strip of rerun coming back from kindergarten after being so concerned about having to go to school and boy, he is stacking blocks like nobody's business.
Jimmy (01:00:56):
Professional blocks.
Harold (01:00:57):
I love that strip.
Yeah.
Like you say, even though he's speaking with some level of sophistication, like Schulz's characters always do, he does feel like a little kid, probably more than any other kid, I agree.
It's just great seeing this little guy having a good day.
Jimmy (01:01:15):
Absolutely.
I'm going to pick rerun for MVP as well.
I'm going to pick December 26th, Spike throws away a perfectly good sock.
Michael (01:01:26):
No.
Jimmy (01:01:28):
That is my strip.
I love it.
What else I love?
Hanging out with my pals and talking about my favorite comic strip and having you guys join us.
If you want to join us, come back next week where we're going to do this all over again, starting with 1997.
Can that be true?
That's not true.
(01:01:48):
All right.
Find out next week if that's true.
Until then, from Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
Liz (01:01:57):
Yes, be of good cheer.
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 Unpacked Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
(01:02:18):
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
Michael (01:02:30):
This is The Voice of Peanuts.
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