June 9, 2026 • 54 mins
Finally, it’s come to this: The Roy episode. Roy befriends both Charlie Brown and Linus at camp. And if that’s not exciting enough, old people talk about how neat telephones were. But maybe his main raison d'être is to introduce the world to the swinging-est character ever - Peppermint Patty.
Transcript available at UnpackingPeanuts.com
Jimmy’s, Michael’s, and Harold’s books are available at UnpackingPeanuts.com/store.
Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz, and Liz Sumner. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
For more from the show follow @unpackpeanuts on Instagram and Threads, and @unpackingpeanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Thanks for listening.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
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.
Schulz.
Jimmy (00:18):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Unpacking Peanuts.
Today, we're continuing our look at sidekicks and second bananas with our focus on Roy.
We're all the way down to focusing on Roy.
That's what happens after four years.
I'll be your host for the proceeding.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
I'm also a cartoonist.
You can find all my new work over on Givo Comics on Substack and you can order the Amelia Roles 25th anniversary editions that are out right now.
(00:46):
Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts, and fellow cartoonists.
He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People as well as for this very podcast.
He's the co-creator of the original comic book price guide, the original editor for Amelia Roles, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
It's Michael Cohen.
Michael (01:05):
Say hey.
Jimmy (01:07):
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 (01:18):
Hello.
Jimmy (01:19):
Well, I am keeping.
Liz (01:22):
Almost.
Harold (01:23):
Almost.
Jimmy (01:26):
Keeping us out of trouble, making sure everything runs nice and smooth, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.
Liz (01:31):
Howdy.
Jimmy (01:33):
Well, guys, we're talking about Roy.
Harold (01:36):
Roy.
Jimmy (01:38):
I mean, we've always built towards it.
We knew that one day, we would focus on Roy.
Michael (01:43):
Where can one buy the Roy merch?
Jimmy (01:48):
I bet there is Roy merch.
Michael (01:49):
There is.
Jimmy (01:51):
I mean, if they have Olaf merch, they've got to have a Roy shirt out there somewhere.
Liz (01:56):
If they have a Mr.
T.
Snoopy, then they've got to have Roy.
Jimmy (02:02):
Now, Michael, do you relate to Roy's look?
I can see that being your look as a kid, not the sailor hat, of course, but I think he has like a Michael look.
He's got the curly hair.
Liz (02:12):
Did you ever wear a sailor hat?
Michael (02:14):
God, no.
Liz (02:15):
But your dad had an Army Navy store.
Michael (02:18):
No, I didn't have any of that, but I did have Army jackets.
All my clothes were supplied by Value Center, so I had lots of Army gear, but no, it never went for the hats.
So I had my Giants cap.
Jimmy (02:33):
I have to admit, I did when I was very little, wear a sailor's hat around like an idiot.
Harold (02:38):
It looks like an upside down dog dish.
I was thinking Snoopy would like this.
Jimmy (02:45):
Is it even a thing at camp that people wear sailor hats?
I don't know that there's an official camp hat.
Harold (02:51):
That's a good point.
Yeah.
Why are they wearing these?
I guess it's a thing.
Will he make that up?
Liz (02:58):
I think he made it up to make it look like they were some place away from home.
Harold (03:03):
Somewhere else.
Jimmy (03:04):
Yeah.
Liz (03:06):
As the camp expert on this podcast, Noah never wore hats.
Michael (03:11):
Well, I think looking over this sequence, this might be the first time they went out of the neighborhood.
Harold (03:19):
Really?
In 15 years, that's something.
Michael (03:22):
I mean, the Marcy and Peppermint Patty stuff is much later than this.
Jimmy (03:29):
It's next year, I guess, yeah.
Michael (03:30):
Oh, it's much later.
Harold (03:31):
Wow.
Jimmy (03:32):
Yeah, that actually, and that is the important really of Roy, is he's the bridge between the Charlie Brown universe and the Peppermint Patty universe.
Obviously, I don't think Schulz had any inkling that he was going to expand the Roy verse.
Harold (03:51):
Right.
Michael (03:52):
Earth are, we call it.
Jimmy (03:54):
Yeah, Earth are.
Liz (03:56):
For any of our listeners who haven't done the entire reread, please explain who Roy is.
Jimmy (04:04):
Every summer, well, not every summer, but many summers, Charlie Brown has to go to camp and he often does not have a good time there.
But in good old 1965, the sequence we're going to be looking at today, he meets a friend, a kid named Roy, who is one of the straightest straight men who ever straighted.
(04:27):
His basic function is to be someone that Charlie Brown can be a good friend to, which is an interesting way to create a character.
Harold (04:37):
So he's the Shermie of the Peppermint Patty verse?
Sort of, yeah.
Wow.
Jimmy (04:44):
Unless we could come up with some sort of unified Roy theory that makes it so that everything revolves around Roy.
Harold (04:51):
Well, I do like the Roy-mometer, the idea of the Roy-mometer.
Roy-mometer.
If we did the Sher-mometer, why can't we do the Roy-mometer?
Okay.
Jimmy (05:00):
So before we get into these strips, I want to just have a general discussion.
What makes a good straight man?
Michael (05:09):
Well, Carl Reiner, who's critical in the history of comedy on TV, realized that he had a place to just pitch to Mel Brooks, pitch softballs to Mel Brooks.
He never tried to get out of it because he was so good at it.
I mean, it was like a real talent.
Jimmy (05:32):
If you guys aren't familiar with what Michael's talking about, there's comedy recordings of it called Two Thousand Year Old Man.
Basically, that's exactly what it was.
Carl Reiner would just lob these softball questions to Mel Brooks about anything in the last 2,000 years, and Brooks would just improv and riff on it.
It was brilliantly funny.
Harold (05:51):
Yeah.
They become the best of friends all through the rest of Reiner's life.
They'd hang out and watch Wheel of Fortune together.
Yeah.
They were just buddies.
Carl Reiner also, he started on your show of shows with Sid Caesar in the 50s and created the Dick Van Dyke show and was on it.
So yeah, quite a long, long run.
(06:12):
Yeah.
Jimmy (06:12):
And then directed movies like The Jerk with Steve Martin.
Harold (06:16):
And he could be quite funny in his own right.
We've certainly seen him play characters, but he's usually like an anchor, and everyone else goes crazy around him.
But I think that is what makes a good straight man, right?
Is that it gives him gravity to what's happening and reality to it, so that the zany person just doesn't seem annoying.
Jimmy (06:35):
Right.
Liz (06:36):
Sincerity and not tongue-in-cheek, not anticipating the joke, just allowing the other person to really take off.
Michael (06:47):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Jimmy (06:48):
And it's such an important aspect of these comedies, I mean, if you're doing comedy this way.
And I think of Seinfeld where Seinfeld was clearly the least talented and experienced actor on the show, right?
But that his presence is what makes the rest of the stuff palpable.
Harold (07:08):
It all revolves around him.
Jimmy (07:10):
When they would do things like give Michael Richards a TV show, where he's the star, but he's really playing the Kramer character again.
Well, that's like, oh, you like salt on French fries?
Well, how about a plate of salt?
Harold (07:23):
Yeah.
Or Jerry Lewis without Dean Martin.
Some people can't take it and some people just love it, because it's just so non-stop insane.
But yeah, it's hard to maintain that without some anchor to keep you focused and like, okay, I can see myself in this sane person in this insane world.
Jimmy (07:44):
Now, the other weird thing or interesting thing I should say, I guess, about what Schulz does here with this first sequence with Roy, is he basically gives a straight man a straight man.
It's not that Charlie Brown is 100 percent straight man, but he is certainly the sane hub around which everything else wobbles.
Harold (08:03):
He has to leave his own neighborhood in order to find that person.
Yeah.
Jimmy (08:10):
Charlie Brown is not without honor saving his own land or whatever.
Harold (08:17):
Right.
Well, all right.
Jimmy (08:20):
With that out of the way, how about we decide to look at this first 1965 sequence featuring good old Roy and Charlie Brown.
If you characters want to follow along with us, there's a couple of things you should do.
First, go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for the great Peanuts reread.
That'll get you one email a month, which is our newsletter letting you know what shenanigans will be up to, and what strips we're going to be covering so you can follow along with us.
Harold (08:44):
I want to do that.
Jimmy (08:45):
Come on back here, and we could just start right now with June 10th, 1965.
Charlie Brown is already off at camp, and this is just a setup to explain where he is.
He gets a letter from Linus that says, a letter from Linus will all be.
Dear Charlie Brown, this is the letter.
How are you enjoying camp?
(09:06):
I suppose you are worried about your baseball team.
The letter continues, well, don't worry, we're doing fine.
In fact, yesterday, we won the first game we've won all season.
Which leaves Charlie Brown on the edge of the dock, and he just sighs to himself.
So this is baseline Charlie Brown at camp.
Harold (09:27):
Right.
Jimmy (09:28):
You know, and I think it's so funny because you can imagine Linus being a good friend and going, I'm going to write to my pal Charlie Brown and tell him the good news that we won our baseball game.
Liz (09:42):
Yeah.
Jimmy (09:43):
And of course, it has the exact opposite effect on Charlie Brown.
Harold (09:47):
Yeah.
Jimmy (09:49):
June 11th, 1965, here's where things heat up, people.
The first appearance of Roy.
Roy is sitting there on a stump and he's sniffing.
He seems to have just finished crying a little bit.
Charlie Brown comes up behind him and kind of has a question mark, going, Oh, what's going on with this poor sad kid?
And then he says to Roy, Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing you crying.
(10:13):
What's the matter?
And Roy stands up and says, I don't know.
I guess I'm just lonesome.
Which Charlie Brown juts out his hand for a handshake and yells, Friend!
Harold (10:25):
Sending Roy's hat into the air.
I love this.
Jimmy (10:31):
I do too.
Harold (10:33):
What a breakthrough, 15 years into this trip.
Charlie Brown has found somebody who maybe needs him.
Yeah.
And he can't wait to take on that role.
It's just really, really cool given what we've been through with him up until now.
Jimmy (10:53):
Because Charlie Brown seems to want to be some sort of caretaker or leader.
Harold (10:59):
Or hero.
Jimmy (11:01):
Yeah.
And he never has that opportunity.
Well, he has millions of opportunities, but they all fall flat.
So it's very nice to just see this moment.
Liz (11:13):
I just keep thinking, is it Son of Frankenstein?
Where he goes, friend.
Jimmy (11:19):
Friend.
That is some big lettering in that lack panel, and I love it.
It looks really good.
He's obviously got the old, whatever it is, C5 lettering pen that he uses, the big thick one, and he's doubling it up.
Harold (11:37):
The C1.
Jimmy (11:38):
C1, there you go.
Harold (11:39):
Massive.
He's probably doubling up, though, right?
Jimmy (11:42):
Yeah, he's definitely doubling up.
You can see that on the F, right?
Definitely.
Harold (11:46):
Yeah, he does an outline, fills in the blacks.
He wants to get it right.
Jimmy (11:50):
Now, what do we think about the way he's done the very light pen work for the background of trees?
Harold (11:57):
Beautiful.
It is beautiful.
Jimmy (11:59):
Michael, you know what that inking reminds me of?
This is like outside the box.
Michael (12:04):
Yeah.
Harold (12:05):
Reminds me of Chick Stone.
Michael (12:07):
You think it's Chick Stone inking?
Jimmy (12:10):
It has a Chick Stone vibe.
He had an almost clear line style in some background.
Michael (12:15):
Yeah, thick outlines was his trademark.
Jimmy (12:20):
But more in the front, in the foreground figures, it seems like.
Michael (12:23):
Yeah.
Jimmy (12:23):
It seemed like he would be able to do.
Yeah.
Michael (12:25):
Well, that was kind of a rule is, yeah, the foreground figure should be thicker, which I don't think too many people actually follow up on.
But.
Jimmy (12:35):
Yeah, I don't think so.
But I do think it gives depth to the page.
Michael (12:37):
Yeah, it certainly does.
Jimmy (12:38):
That's something I struggle with, is drawing deep into a page.
You know what I mean?
Well, I struggle with perspective.
But even just getting things in the distance versus things that are very close.
Michael (12:49):
Yeah.
Jimmy (12:49):
I think that's hard to do.
Harold (12:50):
Yeah.
Yeah, I was thinking Vince Coletta.
No, I'm just kidding.
Jimmy (12:54):
He was just raising trees entirely.
Michael (12:56):
Yeah, six dollars and the anti-Corona.
Jimmy (12:59):
Yeah.
Liz (13:01):
A nice aloha shirt.
Harold (13:03):
Right.
Yeah, we got a nice Hawaiian shirt there on Roy.
It certainly draws you to him with his dark jet black hair and busy shirt.
I like Roy's design a lot.
Yeah, I think it's just really cool.
This to me predates that meeting with Franklin about six years later, where you got, because it's interesting.
(13:30):
Yeah, it's like two straight men hanging out with each other.
Yes.
Yeah.
I like that vibe given what peanuts usually is.
I think it was all the time, but it's a nice seasoning, strangely to be bland.
Yes.
Jimmy (13:44):
Yes.
Harold (13:45):
To have the characters who are normal, more or less for peanuts normal or being normal with one another.
They're not making each other crazy or whatever.
They are just figuring out how to be friends together, and to see Schulz navigating that in his strip is refreshing.
Jimmy (14:04):
So Michael found an old ad, and we talked about this on one of our new shorts.
So if you're on any of those evil apps like TikTok or YouTube shorts or whatever, you're going to be able to see us do, see us live in video talking about these things.
But in one of those, we were talking about an ad Michael found where, what did they compare peanuts to, a tranquilizer?
Liz (14:27):
Better than a tranquilizer, The Peanuts Books by Charles M.
Schulz.
Jimmy (14:33):
Which really implies that these are sedate, calm strips, which a lot of them are.
Maybe it was more calm-seeming in context with all the crazy stuff around.
Michael (14:44):
But saying, this book is going to put you to sleep is not a good ad for it.
Jimmy (14:50):
Yeah.
Really weird ad.
Harold (14:54):
So a tranquilizer, I'm assuming people would have thought in 1953, today, makes you tranquil, right?
Michael (15:02):
Mother's little comfort.
Harold (15:03):
That's the idea.
But through artifice, through something that's artificial.
Michael (15:09):
Right.
You know what drug was popular in the 20s, to keep your little baby quiet and sleeping through the night?
Harold (15:16):
What?
Michael (15:17):
Heroin.
Harold (15:19):
Uh-oh.
Michael (15:19):
It was the brand name of a tranquilizer for babies.
Harold (15:24):
Well, Michael, are you saying that heroin was made with heroin?
Liz (15:28):
Yes.
Michael (15:28):
And he created it.
Oh my God.
Wow.
Harold (15:32):
That's so awful.
Jimmy (15:34):
All right.
So then this continues the next day.
And Charlie Brown and Roy are still out in the woods.
And Charlie Brown says to Roy, because Charlie Brown is now in just, you know, life coach mode, Roy, you've got to snap out of it.
A camp like this is the best place for someone like you.
It helps you to break those old apron strings.
Roy has just taken this in and Charlie Brown says, life is full of experiences that have to be faced alone.
(16:00):
And Roy says, but you said you were lonesome too.
To which Charlie Brown responds, I talk a good camp.
Michael (16:08):
Roy is clearly depressed.
Harold (16:10):
Rolling his eyes a little like, oh, I've been found out.
Michael (16:12):
Schulz was suffering through this greatly.
And you'd say Charlie Brown was too.
But him meeting another depressed person was kind of a revelation, I think.
Jimmy (16:26):
Yeah.
And again, not something you're going to be seeing in any other strips of 1965, I can't imagine, you know?
And I also think this is real.
I mean, if you take the time to really think about this particular strip, right?
I mean, it's very human.
And it's such an insight.
(16:46):
It's like, yeah, Charlie Brown knows what has to be done.
He can articulate it perfectly.
But he can't really do it himself, which I relate to 100 percent.
Like sometimes you'll find some pattern in your life or some behavior that you want to change.
Like, I know what I want to do.
I know what I need to do.
Doing it is an entirely different thing.
Liz (17:08):
Or when you see it in somebody else, you know exactly what advice to give them.
You can't do it for yourself.
Harold (17:15):
Right.
Yes.
Oh, just get it together.
Jimmy (17:18):
Come on, snap out of it.
Harold (17:20):
All right.
There's another thing that hasn't aged terribly well, the term of breaking apron strings.
Because you just don't hear anybody saying it anymore.
Jimmy (17:30):
Yeah, well, that seems like it would have been an old saying in 1965.
Harold (17:36):
Right.
Well, I guess aprons were still happening.
It's on the tail end of aprons.
As in the pop culture, the happy wife in the kitchen.
Jimmy (17:46):
Yeah.
I guess this is something that does need to be explained.
That would just be a relatively common saying for a little kid that's too attached to his mother, basically, a mama's boy or something like that.
Now, this is what I chose from Roy's first appearance.
What I find interesting also about this is that Schulz sets up this world with Roy and Charlie Brown at the camp.
(18:14):
They're having a nice time.
Charlie Brown meets his friend, and then Roy goes away for a year.
He really is a camp friend that we don't see in the strip outside of it, at least originally.
Can you think of anything like that, that someone would do basically a seasonal character in a comic strip, someone that you know is only going to show up in the summer or whatever?
Harold (18:39):
Like an annual character?
Jimmy (18:41):
It's like the old Justice League, Justice Society team-ups.
You always knew that July would come around and you'd get one of those.
Michael (18:47):
Well, there is Santa Claus.
He seems to be seasonal.
Harold (18:51):
That's true.
He'll show up now and again.
Liz (18:55):
Well, as a person who went to camp, there were people, I mean camp seemed really, really far away.
It was actually like in the same telephone exchange.
It was like 20, 25 minutes away from my home.
Jimmy (19:11):
Yeah, but it felt like the other side of the world, right?
Liz (19:13):
There were other campers that I was friends with at camp, and maybe visited once, but they lived on the other side of town, another 20 minutes away, and I never saw them except at camp.
Harold (19:30):
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, even sometimes school, you'd have your school friends, but for some reason, there were certain school friends that you would even dream, even though you liked hanging out with them, but they were not the outside of school friends.
You would just see them in school, and that seemed right.
Jimmy (19:50):
Yeah, and even that continues even in adult life, if you're unfortunate enough to have to work in an office, you'll have work friends that are directly over your house for Thanksgiving dinner or anything.
Harold (20:01):
Right.
Yeah.
Jimmy (20:02):
Some of them are, in case any of my old work friends happen to be listening, I wasn't talking about you.
Harold (20:10):
Yeah, these separations in our lives, and we're here, Roy is gone, like you said, for a year.
Nice character.
How did it end in 65?
Did it end successfully?
I remember Charlie Brown and Roy, they had a good time, they say their goodbyes, and Charlie Brown is satisfied with that.
How it ended in 65?
Jimmy (20:29):
Then Roy says, he's the kind of person that makes a good temporary friend.
Oh.
Harold (20:36):
Well, it's a small victory.
It's a small victory.
Jimmy (20:40):
All right.
So that's the first sequence of Roy's strips from 1965.
We're going to come back and see his next appearance, which takes another little twist after this break, and we'll come back to the mail and talk about more Roy.
See you after this.
Liz (20:55):
Okay.
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 (21:18):
All right.
I'm hanging out in the mailbox, Liz.
Do we got anything?
Liz (21:21):
No.
It's empty.
Jimmy (21:23):
Oh, no.
Well, let's go see if we got anything on the hotline.
You know what we did?
We heard from good old Captain Billy.
You could always count on Captain Billy.
He says, hi, super fan Captain Billy here.
Jimmy, you will be happy to know that in the latest Apple TV special, Snoopy presents a summer musical.
The original design of the characters appear in a flashback.
(21:47):
You're right, they are adorable.
Keep up the good work, guys, and Liz.
That's good.
This is referring to episode a few weeks back where I said, they should do something with those very, very early Peanuts character designs and animation, because they're adorable, and apparently they have.
Yay.
Harold (22:07):
That's great.
I'm glad they found a way to do that.
I'd love to see that animated, not to go into Apple.
Jimmy (22:13):
Yes.
Harold (22:13):
You're going to get that Apple subscription.
Jimmy (22:14):
A summer musical, I'm not sure.
It's the latest Apple TV special, so there you go.
And that's it.
That's all we got.
We got one thing on the hotline.
So now, I'll only be semi-worried, because when I don't get from you guys, I do worry.
But if you want to make for a more robust mailbag section next time, you can write to us.
(22:35):
We're unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com, and you can call or leave a message on the hotline.
We are 717-219-4162.
So yeah, give us a call or send us an email.
We would love to hear from you.
Harold (22:49):
Let us know what you want us to cover next.
Jimmy (22:52):
We're doing all sorts of interesting things here in the post-re-read era.
I have an idea, because how about we do the reread again?
Harold (23:01):
Backwards.
Backwards.
Jimmy (23:03):
That's exactly what I was going to say.
All right.
Well, with the mail out of the way, let's go back to these strips.
Now, we're going to skip ahead an entire year to June 20th, 1966.
Now, instead of Charlie Brown at camp, Roy has met a new friend.
What we have here is Linus sitting on the edge of a dock, and Roy comes up behind him and says, Hi, my name is Roy.
(23:28):
How are you doing?
Linus, without turning around, says, Oh, I'm doing all right, I guess.
Roy sits down next to him and says, You'll get to like this camp after a few days.
I was here last year and I thought I'd never make it, but I did.
Linus says, Oh, and Linus is looking a little forlorn at that point and then Roy says, You know what happened?
(23:49):
I met this funny roundheaded kid.
I can't remember his name.
He sure was a funny kid.
Linus is taking this in and then Roy continues with, He was always talking about this peculiar dog he had back home and some nutty friend of his who dragged a blanket around.
Linus' reaction indicates that he has figured out exactly who he's talking about.
(24:14):
What do you think of this?
I think it's amazing.
You see panel two with Linus and then panel four with Linus.
In the last panel, panel four, you can see that he has a reaction to what Roy is saying.
But the reaction is so unbelievably minimal.
(24:34):
The only change is a little bit that the line for the mouth is slightly smaller, and the parentheses that he draws around Linus' eyes are slightly larger.
That's it, and it reads a totally different emotion.
Harold (24:50):
And the eyes.
Michael (24:51):
He's also looking at the audience.
Liz (24:54):
Yeah.
Jimmy (24:55):
Yes, he is looking out at the audience too, right.
Reacting to, I can't believe what this guy is saying.
Harold (25:00):
This is my pal Charlie Brown.
Liz (25:02):
And because his face is slightly bigger, it sort of pops.
It's like he's reacting after he hears the words.
Jimmy (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Almost like it's a minor zoom in on just how it happened.
Yeah.
Liz (25:18):
Exactly.
Harold (25:19):
This whole strip feels like you've got a drone that starts on one side of the dock, and it's just following around the front and over to the side.
Jimmy (25:25):
Yeah, it is like a tracking shot.
Yeah.
If he had included the background in the second and fourth panel, you would really have that feel.
And Cerebus, they would do that a lot because Cerebus was created by one guy who wrote and drew the characters, and the other guy drew the backgrounds.
And when I say drew the backgrounds, like the level of craft that he put into these backgrounds was insane.
(25:47):
And they did one whole issue that was just a tracking shot like this, except for the fact that Gerhard put the backgrounds in photorealistically in every panel.
So it really does feel like you're going around like a drone, like you say.
Harold (26:01):
Wow.
Jimmy (26:01):
Nothing I would have drawn.
Harold (26:03):
I mean, that's setting yourself up for some hard work.
Beautiful backgrounds.
Michael (26:09):
As long as somebody else is doing the hard work.
Jimmy (26:12):
Yeah, right.
That's why you got to get one of those assistants.
Yeah, I like the background here.
Grassy kind of area that goes into the lake.
That's very kind of unshultsy grass, more textured.
Harold (26:25):
Looks great.
I like how it has a white outline around their faces so they really pop in front of that, in front of the pylons, I guess, in the dock or whatever they are.
It's nice.
Jimmy (26:37):
Roy sticking with the Hawaiian shirt.
Harold (26:40):
Yeah.
Jimmy (26:41):
You only get one shirt in the Peanuts universe.
Harold (26:45):
He has a dog, a banjo, and a shirt.
Yeah.
Jimmy (26:50):
You're the striped kid shirt.
Harold (26:51):
You're the Hawaiian kid shirt.
Jimmy (26:54):
June 21st, 1966, Roy figures out what's going on.
He says, that blanket, because Linus is standing there in classic thumb and blanket position.
Roy continues, you're the one that round-headed kid was telling me about.
Boy, you'd better put that blanket away.
If the other kids see it, they'll tease you right out of camp.
Then Linus does his classic maneuver, eating the blanket like a whip, a rack, and he actually breaks a branch off a living tree.
Michael (27:22):
That is so classic.
Jimmy (27:24):
Then Linus says, they won't tease me more than once.
Roy is holding the severed branch, which is like smoking, actually.
Harold (27:38):
I love how, again, he draws for effects.
The smoke is floating not above where the branch was cut off, but to the right of where we see Roy.
And then the place where it was cut, Roy is examining very closely.
It's in front of his face.
And Schulz is absolutely fine with, you know, there's a smoke.
(28:01):
You have to almost think that it was in the space to his right.
And then he moved it closer to examine it, but the smoke remains.
Liz (28:09):
Or it continues.
Harold (28:11):
That's right.
Jimmy (28:13):
Or it's like an abstract representation of the branch's last breath.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's like, ugh.
Harold (28:20):
Yeah.
It just works.
I'm just fascinated looking at these choices Schulz makes that I don't think other artists would make and they're better choices.
Jimmy (28:33):
It's funny.
I decided, so we were talking weeks ago.
I'm like, oh boy, if I did, the character is walking down the street and they're not actually on the street.
They're hovering above the street, which is how Schulz draws it when the character is walking.
I'm like, that wouldn't work at all.
Harold (28:48):
And Harold said, well, maybe it would.
Jimmy (28:50):
So I tried it because I'm doing this new Amelia Ruehl story for the 25th anniversary.
I tried it.
I had a bunch of the characters walking out of school and down the steps.
I don't know if I could do it all the time, but in that one instance, it's like, oh, it's magic.
It's like they're bouncing down the steps.
It's not that they're leaving school, it's that they're joyfully bouncing down the steps.
Harold (29:12):
That's cool.
Yeah.
Jimmy (29:13):
Really, it might be the only time, one of those things that you do it and try it again, it will never work.
Harold (29:19):
I think one of the secrets of it is you're looking head-on, eye-level with them.
For some reason, that's what you got to do to get away with it.
Jimmy (29:30):
Yeah.
So now, Roy has arrived back home and it's now August.
We're looking August 22nd in 1966.
This is where Roy really makes his big impact because we meet his new friend or not his new friend, his old friend, our new friend, Peppermint Patty.
(29:53):
That's what we see.
We see Roy sitting there writing a letter at a table probably in his house and Peppermint Patty comes up to him.
First time we've ever seen her and says, Hi, Roy.
Who are you writing to?
Roy says, I'm writing to a little kid named Linus that I met at camp several weeks ago.
Then Peppermint Patty leans in and says, Is he cute?
If he is, tell him you're very good friend.
(30:13):
Peppermint Patty says, Hello.
Then she leans on her forearms, holds her head in her hands and says, Tell him what a real swinger I am.
Then she walks away saying, Put in a good word for me, Roy, and the next time we Indian wrestle, I'll try not to clobber you.
This is amazing because it's like, here's her personality.
Harold (30:36):
Yeah.
We learned so much in Four Panels.
Jimmy (30:39):
Yes, and use of unnecessary quotation marks, which is always funny.
Harold (30:47):
It's only the peppermint of Peppermint Patty that she is finding quotes here.
Another Patty, why does he do another Patty just because he likes Peppermint Patty?
Michael (30:58):
Yeah, that breaks out all the rules of chemistry.
Jimmy (31:02):
Yeah, it does.
Harold (31:02):
Right?
Jimmy (31:04):
Yeah, and it's because he saw the candy bowl, saw Peppermint Patty and it clicked that that's the name for a character.
He famously said, I knew if I didn't use it, Mort Walker would.
Harold (31:17):
He couldn't have that.
Jimmy (31:18):
Yeah.
Harold (31:22):
I love Roy without the hat.
Jimmy (31:24):
Yeah.
Harold (31:24):
He's got the really curly, chunky hair with the sheen of light on top of it, kind of like what you see in Lucy's hair.
But in that second panel where Peppermint Patty's just leaning slightly in on him and he's leaning slightly back, like he's intimidated by her strong personality.
Jimmy (31:48):
Yeah.
I mean, it's just by her strong personality because she's smiling.
She's leaning and invading his personal space, but she is definitely not threatening to him.
She's just a lot.
Liz (31:58):
Yes.
Yes.
Harold (32:01):
Then swinger, that's such an odd term for Schulz to give Peppermint Patty in that first panel, because that's got a lot of connotations, right?
Even in 66.
Michael (32:10):
No, there's Frank Sinatra in 1966.
Well, yeah, it's a little.
Liz (32:15):
But also the Polaroid Swinger probably came out at about that time.
Harold (32:20):
Yeah, I think there was an Anne Margaret movie that was called The Swinger came out around that time and it would have suggested, yeah, pretty lively stuff.
Jimmy (32:31):
Yeah, there's no way where any version of swinger is like a stay-at-home buddy-duddy.
Harold (32:39):
And certainly not a child.
A child would not usually call themselves a swinger.
Jimmy (32:48):
I love that drawing of Peppermint Patty.
I love all these drawings of Peppermint Patty, but I love the third one.
I don't know, it just feels really real to me.
She feels like a fully fleshed out character immediately.
Harold (33:01):
Yeah, and you just get the idea that she's imagining herself as she's holding her head in her hands.
What version of her she is that she's going to sell to the roundheaded kid.
This is Linus, sorry, she's writing to Linus.
Yeah, yeah.
I love that Roy is holding up his paper like, can I fit this in?
(33:24):
Yeah.
He's contemplating whether this is a possibility.
Yeah, am I going to do this or is this a lot to write Peppermint Patty?
Jimmy (33:35):
Let's try to just speculate wildly based on nothing.
Do you think, what's the process?
He has Roy, he obviously likes Roy enough to bring him back.
Is the process, this is just a guess, I'm guessing.
We don't have any info, but is the process, I have this character Peppermint Patty, how could I introduce her?
(33:59):
Oh, I know, she'll be Roy's friend and that'll explain why she's not in the strip before this.
Or is he like, let's bring Roy back, and then this just happens.
Michael (34:11):
I would guess because she does seem pretty developed.
Dad, he just started playing around in the sketchbooks, and he went like, yeah, I like this girl character a lot.
Maybe because all the other girls, maybe not Sally, but are basically are evil.
Harold (34:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I like the idea.
Now, of course, Schulz probably didn't have any idea whatsoever that Peppermint Patty would become such a major part of the strip.
I mean, the fact that it is another Patty almost suggests that that dilemma isn't even a thing.
She lives in another neighborhood, and she's just a fun character that he thought up.
(34:52):
It seems like maybe jumped out whole cloth to him, and he's like, wow, what a fun character, but maybe a little too overpowering or a little different than what Peanuts has been up till now.
So what safer way to do it than, well, he's setting up the idea that she's an outsider, and then that remains the rest of the strip.
(35:17):
She's popping in and out of the neighborhood.
I guess, how do you guys feel about Peppermint Patty toward the end?
Does she seem like she's another neighborhood, or does she seem to be really just part of their world, even if she's walking a couple streets over to say hi?
Jimmy (35:37):
I don't think the general readership thinks about her as living in a different neighborhood.
But I think, for me personally, because I'm so familiar with the strip at this point, she has to be in another neighborhood.
Because for me, it keeps, even if it's not acknowledged in later years or whatever, it keeps the integrity of the original neighborhood completely intact.
(36:03):
Because the Peppermint Patty, like I said this before, it's like it's happening in another strip sometimes.
I think it would, whether you wanted it or not, if she moved into Charlie Brown's neighborhood, if just by her force of personality becomes the Peppermint Patty strip and that would be bad.
Harold (36:21):
Going back to Roy, he design-wise is a really interesting character.
He just looks really good in the strip.
I do get the feeling, I don't know when Roy comes and goes.
I don't know.
There was not a whole lot of them.
The fact that he's attached to Peppermint Patty, who becomes a huge character in the strip, gives me the thought that he very well could have been an ongoing character.
(36:51):
Just like Marcy comes into that world, he's not as far away as anyone else.
He could have been there.
I do get that vibe though that by five years later anyway, Franklin takes on that role of the level-headed friend who if they want to go to the thinking wall and talk about granddads or whatever.
(37:16):
Franklin's close enough.
He's certainly unique, but it seems like he fits that key on the keyboard for Schulz to the point where unless he had played with Roy and given him some quirks and traits that we never really get to see.
What's the quirkiest thing we ever learn about Roy?
Is it just that he happened to be sad about going to camp?
Jimmy (37:39):
I think the quirkiest thing is that tomorrow, he will still be wearing his camp sailor hat at home.
Harold (37:47):
That's really interesting.
Yeah.
He likes the look there.
I do like the look of the curls popping out from under the white hat.
I love the curls.
Jimmy (37:58):
I drew a character in Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up that has black curly hair, and I can't get that with the white highlight.
Mine just looks unfinished and sloppy, but I saw I didn't do it.
But I wish I could have because I think that looks really good.
Harold (38:15):
Well, it's interesting to look at the black outlines when there's so much white around it that they make sense on their own.
If you take away the white outline, his hair would look pretty fine, right?
Jimmy (38:29):
Yeah.
Harold (38:30):
And then he goes crazy on the outside with this extra loopy outline of white, which if you took away the black, also would work.
I think that's maybe the secret to it, is that they work individually as well as a unit.
Jimmy (38:50):
I think you're right.
That's interesting.
And it gives it that backlit effect, you know?
Harold (38:55):
Very much so, yeah.
Real nice.
Jimmy (38:59):
August 23rd.
So Peppermint Patty is just hanging out with Roy.
Now they're sitting in the chair talking and Patty says, You say you met this Linus kid at camp?
And Roy says, Yes.
And the year before, I met a friend of his named Charlie Brown.
Roy continues, He was a strange roundheaded kid who never talked about anything except baseball and this awful team of his that always loses.
(39:22):
Now they're up and Peppermint Patty is pushing Roy towards the phone and she says, I love baseball.
Get on the phone quick.
Tell them your friend Peppermint Patty has volunteered to help.
She's already into it, taking over the strip.
In the last panel, she says, I really love baseball.
I'll take over this kid's team and show them how to win.
Michael (39:40):
Well, that's like a cliffhanger there.
First of all, why would Roy have Charlie Brown's phone number?
Jimmy (39:50):
Maybe put it on the letter to make Charlie Brown send them a letter.
Harold (39:54):
Yeah.
If you think about it, it's sweet.
Charlie Brown wants to continue the relationship.
He's writing with Linus, interestingly.
Of course, he was the most recent one he met, but we don't know that Charlie Brown and Roy ever met because he couldn't remember his name.
Now, he remembers his name.
That's interesting.
(40:15):
I guess Linus is drawing it into him.
Michael (40:17):
He's not looking at it up.
He just goes right and dials.
Harold (40:19):
Yeah.
Maybe he's got one of those really memorable.
Michael (40:21):
That's the first trait.
That's the first Roy-mometer.
He's got an amazing memory for phone numbers.
Harold (40:28):
They're in the same area code, so maybe Charlie Brown's phone number spells welcome.
Jimmy (40:34):
Well, look, at the risk of talking about one of the things we talk about too much, there's a great moment in the Dick Van Dyke show where he hears a song that he wrote in the Army on the radio, and he's outreached, so he goes over to call the radio station.
But the actor, Dick Van Dyke, forgets that he's supposed to look it up in the phone book.
So he just goes over, picks up the phone, and dials a bunch of numbers.
(40:56):
Then as he's standing there, he opens up the phone book to a random page and looks at it and goes, right.
Harold (41:05):
Oh, that's great.
Jimmy (41:06):
The look on his face, he just barely stays in character because the audience goes nuts because they know what's happening.
Harold (41:13):
Really fun.
Jimmy (41:13):
I have to find it for it's so good.
Harold (41:18):
They'd seen a couple takes already, I guess.
Jimmy (41:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Harold (41:22):
That's great.
It's so fun to go to.
Have you guys ever been to a live taping of a comedy show or anything?
Jimmy (41:28):
Not a sitcom, but the three of us went, along with Karen Gownley, went to Colbert years ago, but that was the one we went to Colbert before.
Harold (41:36):
Yeah, that's fun.
Jimmy (41:39):
August 24th, 1966.
Charlie Brown receives a call from Roy.
He says, Hello, Roy.
Well, what a surprise.
How have you been?
Roy just goes right to it.
Charlie Brown, he's given Peppermint Patty the side-eye, by the way, while he's saying this to Charlie Brown.
It's almost like he's a hostage and is doing this again to Roy.
Roy goes, Charlie Brown, I have a friend here who wants to meet you.
(42:02):
She loves baseball and wants to play on your team.
Her name is Peppermint Patty.
Patty grabs the phone and just goes, Hi, Chuck.
To which Charlie Brown responds, Chuck.
He has his tongue out like it's literally disgusted him.
Harold (42:20):
Oh, man.
Look at that little smile on Peppermint Patty in the second panel and then that gigantic, gigantic grin in the third panel.
Jimmy (42:30):
He's a master of expression.
Harold (42:31):
She's just full blown.
Yeah.
This is a great looking strip.
Yeah.
All the characters really look good and the expressions are great.
Even from 65 to 66 when we jumped from the camp scenes with Charlie Brown to the camp scenes with Linus in here, now at the end of the summer in 66, it just seems like his art style is loosening as quickly and Peppermint Patty is the perfect match for a loose art style.
Michael (43:05):
Oh, absolutely.
Jimmy (43:07):
Now, this little black blobby thing that Charlie Brown has on a pedestal up to his ear, that is what the telephone used to be.
Harold (43:14):
What do you know about that?
Jimmy (43:15):
You couldn't even take video on it or be outraged at the government.
Liz (43:21):
But you could slam it pretty well.
Jimmy (43:24):
Oh, yeah, I guess that.
Harold (43:27):
Yes.
You could also double it as like a fidget spinner because it was a rotary dial.
I don't know if some of our younger listeners have ever had the joy of sticking your finger into this disk and turning it to the end where it had a little finger sized stop and then letting it go and hearing going.
(43:47):
So nice.
Jimmy (43:48):
So I grew up in a very, very small company, like a coal mining house in Pennsylvania.
So there was not a lot of room.
So my idea of having privacy on the phone was, I would take the phone off the wall and then go into the laundry.
It's basically a closet where we had our laundry in and I would sit on top of the laundry and the washer and close the door as if this was privacy.
(44:13):
But I also would leave the door open a little bit so I could spin the cord.
Now if you get one of those coiled cords.
Like a jump rope.
Harold (44:20):
Oh yeah, those things.
Jimmy (44:22):
Yeah.
I remember one.
Harold (44:24):
Another joy of having a phone.
Yeah.
I think of all these things we've lost.
Jimmy (44:27):
Oh, totally.
I was talking to a lovely young lady in high school on the phone, and I hear this knock on the door and I open it up.
I'm spinning the crap out of this cord and my dad just goes, Hi, Jimmy.
Harold (44:40):
Hi, Dad.
Jimmy (44:41):
I'm going to murder you.
They're like, oh.
Liz (44:49):
They also didn't make any noise when you press the, I mean, because you're not pressing buttons.
All you get is that, you don't hear that beep, beep, beep.
Jimmy (45:00):
Yeah.
Harold (45:02):
Right.
Because the phone line, the system was listening to how many clicks there were to know what number you dialed.
Has anybody thought of creating a device for your cell phone to plug in with this twisty cord that would go into some physical thing?
Yeah.
Jimmy (45:22):
Why not?
The twisty cord.
Harold (45:24):
Bluetooth.
Jimmy (45:25):
Is very satisfying.
Harold (45:28):
Well, so Roy, back to Roy.
This poor guy is about to be muscled out of the strip after just barely getting to get a little finger hold.
Peppermint Patty is not going to be denied here.
He served his purpose, it looks like.
Liz (45:44):
Maybe he's happy to pass her off to somebody else.
Maybe she's a little too much.
Harold (45:49):
Oh, that's true.
Yeah, Roy might have had a full life.
He's probably hanging out with Marcy on the off days.
Jimmy (45:58):
Yeah.
She makes everyone call her Peppermint.
Hi.
August 25th, 1966.
This continues.
Roy, his entire job in this panel, it's just to give Peppermint Patty the side eye.
As Peppermint Patty continues, now listen Chuck, I'm going to solve your baseball problems.
(46:21):
You need a take charge guy, don't you Chuck?
Coach Charlie Brown says, Chuck, I'm heading across town right now, so you get your team together.
Tell them Peppermint Patty is on her way.
So long, Chuck.
Coach Charlie Brown responds, hanging up the phone, Chuck.
Yeah, he got muscled out.
That was amazing.
Harold (46:42):
So how much more Roy do we get to see after this?
Jimmy (46:45):
Fourteen more strips.
Harold (46:47):
Wow.
That's not a big rhyme.
Well, it's not a lot, right?
We know that.
Jimmy (46:53):
Wow.
But how many times do you think Roy has been animated?
Liz (47:00):
We have listeners who would know.
Jimmy (47:01):
This goes all the way up to Summer Musical.
Harold (47:05):
So you're in love, Charlie Brown.
He's in that.
We know that.
My listeners will know how many times Roy gets to be in the world.
Jimmy (47:13):
According to this, you're in love, Charlie Brown is not listed.
Harold (47:18):
Oh, I'm literally looking on the wiki and it says this strip in the.
What?
Here's what I see on the wiki.
Okay.
Jimmy (47:25):
He's your dog, Charlie Brown.
It was a short summer, Charlie Brown.
I don't remember seeing either of those.
Snoopy come home.
He's silent in most of these.
You're a good sport, Charlie Brown.
Race for your life, Charlie Brown.
Is this goodbye, Charlie Brown?
Now, he has been silent in all of these except one.
Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show Season 2, also silent.
(47:47):
He's a bully, Charlie Brown, 2006.
Snoopy presents It's the Small Things, Charlie Brown, Lucy's School, and Snoopy presents A Summer Musical.
Yeah, so according to that, it's 11.
Harold (47:59):
Okay.
Well, maybe this is even more sad because it does say in the Wiki that the last two strips you just read are adapted in You're in Love, Charlie Brown, and he was written out of his own strips.
If that's true.
Jimmy (48:16):
It's unbelievable.
Harold (48:18):
If that's true, our listeners will know.
I know we've got some real peanut special experts, so they can let us know the extent of Roy's voice acting anyway.
Boy, that's interesting.
Poor Roy.
But I do like Roy.
Michael (48:37):
Poor Roy.
Harold (48:39):
Poor Roy.
Jimmy (48:40):
Well, it goes to show you though, that anytime you're working on something, you have no idea really where it's going to take you.
I do not think he ever meant for Roy to be the bridge to an entire another aspect of the strip, but it's very, very cool.
This is completely unrelated.
But I want to wrap.
(49:01):
So I was looking up Roy Things Online for this.
One of the things I came across was actually a model sheet for the Bill Melendez production studios.
What it is, is it shows the relative heights of all the characters and animation.
Now, each of you give a guess who, I'll tell you right now, Roy is closer to the short end, is slightly above five and pig pen.
(49:26):
Who, though, is the tallest character in Peanuts?
Harold (49:31):
I would guess Shermie.
Jimmy (49:34):
Michael, you have a guess?
Michael (49:36):
Snoopy, when he's dancing with his head up.
Jimmy (49:43):
Shermie, two Shermies and a Snoopy.
No, Shermie is the third tallest.
The tallest, according to the Bill Melendez character sheet, is Patty.
Michael (49:55):
With the ponytail count.
Harold (49:56):
Wow.
Michael (49:58):
Oh, Patty.
Jimmy (49:59):
Ponytail violet is almost as tall as Patty, yes.
Harold (50:04):
Is she second?
Jimmy (50:05):
She is.
Then Shermie and Charlie Brown.
Michael (50:07):
Girls are taller than boys at that age, generally.
Liz (50:10):
At that age, yeah, definitely.
Jimmy (50:13):
Yeah.
Harold (50:14):
They are the older kid bully characters, as far as Melendez is concerned.
When would this have existed, do you think?
When would this model sheet have been made?
This was written.
Okay.
That's really interesting.
They are considered older kids by the end of their major run in this strip.
Jimmy (50:34):
Then there are actual little, it's actually very interesting because there's little notes that says when Lucy is with Charlie Brown, she can be more noticeably smaller.
When Linus is with Lucy, he can be more noticeably shorter.
They'll actually adjust it depending on who they're in frame with.
Liz (50:53):
But that's only true in the animation or is it also-
Jimmy (50:56):
Yeah, this is for the, I mean, as far as I know.
I don't know if it's Schulz.
Harold (51:00):
But I think it, Liz, is because that is what Schulz did.
I love that Melendez was the kind of animator who would be willing to throw out a rule that some animators would not allow themselves to do because those model sheets are the consistency.
Since Schulz broke the consistency in so many different ways of how he drew these characters, creating all sorts of insane problems for Melendez, he does do an amazing job of just keeping the strip, the flat strip that it was and whatever those ineffable things are.
(51:40):
If you change it, you don't know what you're losing.
He just leans into Schulz's eccentricities and just tries to teach them to his animators and say, yeah, I know.
Jimmy (51:50):
Right.
Harold (51:51):
I'm sure.
Jimmy (51:52):
I love that they included Roy in the lineup of characters.
They thought, he's 68, Roy could be making a comeback anytime here.
We could be making a comeback too.
As a matter of fact, we will in two weeks.
We will be back where we're going to wrap it up actually on the sidekicks and second bananas season with possibly the quintessential, the goat of sidekicks and second bananas.
(52:18):
That's right.
We've heard your cries.
You wanted a Shermie episode, you're getting an all Shermie episode.
Come back for that.
In the meantime, if you want to keep this conversation going, there's a couple of different ways you can do it.
First thing you got to do is you got to go over to unpackingpeanuts.com and sign up for the old great peanuts reread.
(52:39):
That'll give you one email a month that will let you know what shenanigans we're up to on the podcast, what strips we're going to be covering.
You can also email us at unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com, or you can call our hotline, which is 717-219-4162, leave a message or a voicemail.
If you do leave a voicemail, make sure you identify yourself.
(53:03):
Of course, as always, on good old social media, we are at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads, and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
That's it for this week.
It's always fun hanging out with you guys.
Come back soon and we'll talk more about this great comic strip from Michael, Harold, and Liz.
This is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
Michael (53:25):
Yes.
Liz (53:25):
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 Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
(53:47):
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.
Jimmy (53:58):
They won't tease me more than once.
Welcome to Unpacking Peanuts.
The podcast where three cartoonists take an in-depth look at the greatest comic strip of all time, Peanuts by Charles M.
Schulz.
Jimmy (00:18):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Unpacking Peanuts.
Today, we're continuing our look at sidekicks and second bananas with our focus on Roy.
We're all the way down to focusing on Roy.
That's what happens after four years.
I'll be your host for the proceeding.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
I'm also a cartoonist.
You can find all my new work over on Givo Comics on Substack and you can order the Amelia Roles 25th anniversary editions that are out right now.
(00:46):
Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts, and fellow cartoonists.
He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People as well as for this very podcast.
He's the co-creator of the original comic book price guide, the original editor for Amelia Roles, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
It's Michael Cohen.
Michael (01:05):
Say hey.
Jimmy (01:07):
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 (01:18):
Hello.
Jimmy (01:19):
Well, I am keeping.
Liz (01:22):
Almost.
Harold (01:23):
Almost.
Jimmy (01:26):
Keeping us out of trouble, making sure everything runs nice and smooth, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.
Liz (01:31):
Howdy.
Jimmy (01:33):
Well, guys, we're talking about Roy.
Harold (01:36):
Roy.
Jimmy (01:38):
I mean, we've always built towards it.
We knew that one day, we would focus on Roy.
Michael (01:43):
Where can one buy the Roy merch?
Jimmy (01:48):
I bet there is Roy merch.
Michael (01:49):
There is.
Jimmy (01:51):
I mean, if they have Olaf merch, they've got to have a Roy shirt out there somewhere.
Liz (01:56):
If they have a Mr.
T.
Snoopy, then they've got to have Roy.
Jimmy (02:02):
Now, Michael, do you relate to Roy's look?
I can see that being your look as a kid, not the sailor hat, of course, but I think he has like a Michael look.
He's got the curly hair.
Liz (02:12):
Did you ever wear a sailor hat?
Michael (02:14):
God, no.
Liz (02:15):
But your dad had an Army Navy store.
Michael (02:18):
No, I didn't have any of that, but I did have Army jackets.
All my clothes were supplied by Value Center, so I had lots of Army gear, but no, it never went for the hats.
So I had my Giants cap.
Jimmy (02:33):
I have to admit, I did when I was very little, wear a sailor's hat around like an idiot.
Harold (02:38):
It looks like an upside down dog dish.
I was thinking Snoopy would like this.
Jimmy (02:45):
Is it even a thing at camp that people wear sailor hats?
I don't know that there's an official camp hat.
Harold (02:51):
That's a good point.
Yeah.
Why are they wearing these?
I guess it's a thing.
Will he make that up?
Liz (02:58):
I think he made it up to make it look like they were some place away from home.
Harold (03:03):
Somewhere else.
Jimmy (03:04):
Yeah.
Liz (03:06):
As the camp expert on this podcast, Noah never wore hats.
Michael (03:11):
Well, I think looking over this sequence, this might be the first time they went out of the neighborhood.
Harold (03:19):
Really?
In 15 years, that's something.
Michael (03:22):
I mean, the Marcy and Peppermint Patty stuff is much later than this.
Jimmy (03:29):
It's next year, I guess, yeah.
Michael (03:30):
Oh, it's much later.
Harold (03:31):
Wow.
Jimmy (03:32):
Yeah, that actually, and that is the important really of Roy, is he's the bridge between the Charlie Brown universe and the Peppermint Patty universe.
Obviously, I don't think Schulz had any inkling that he was going to expand the Roy verse.
Harold (03:51):
Right.
Michael (03:52):
Earth are, we call it.
Jimmy (03:54):
Yeah, Earth are.
Liz (03:56):
For any of our listeners who haven't done the entire reread, please explain who Roy is.
Jimmy (04:04):
Every summer, well, not every summer, but many summers, Charlie Brown has to go to camp and he often does not have a good time there.
But in good old 1965, the sequence we're going to be looking at today, he meets a friend, a kid named Roy, who is one of the straightest straight men who ever straighted.
(04:27):
His basic function is to be someone that Charlie Brown can be a good friend to, which is an interesting way to create a character.
Harold (04:37):
So he's the Shermie of the Peppermint Patty verse?
Sort of, yeah.
Wow.
Jimmy (04:44):
Unless we could come up with some sort of unified Roy theory that makes it so that everything revolves around Roy.
Harold (04:51):
Well, I do like the Roy-mometer, the idea of the Roy-mometer.
Roy-mometer.
If we did the Sher-mometer, why can't we do the Roy-mometer?
Okay.
Jimmy (05:00):
So before we get into these strips, I want to just have a general discussion.
What makes a good straight man?
Michael (05:09):
Well, Carl Reiner, who's critical in the history of comedy on TV, realized that he had a place to just pitch to Mel Brooks, pitch softballs to Mel Brooks.
He never tried to get out of it because he was so good at it.
I mean, it was like a real talent.
Jimmy (05:32):
If you guys aren't familiar with what Michael's talking about, there's comedy recordings of it called Two Thousand Year Old Man.
Basically, that's exactly what it was.
Carl Reiner would just lob these softball questions to Mel Brooks about anything in the last 2,000 years, and Brooks would just improv and riff on it.
It was brilliantly funny.
Harold (05:51):
Yeah.
They become the best of friends all through the rest of Reiner's life.
They'd hang out and watch Wheel of Fortune together.
Yeah.
They were just buddies.
Carl Reiner also, he started on your show of shows with Sid Caesar in the 50s and created the Dick Van Dyke show and was on it.
So yeah, quite a long, long run.
(06:12):
Yeah.
Jimmy (06:12):
And then directed movies like The Jerk with Steve Martin.
Harold (06:16):
And he could be quite funny in his own right.
We've certainly seen him play characters, but he's usually like an anchor, and everyone else goes crazy around him.
But I think that is what makes a good straight man, right?
Is that it gives him gravity to what's happening and reality to it, so that the zany person just doesn't seem annoying.
Jimmy (06:35):
Right.
Liz (06:36):
Sincerity and not tongue-in-cheek, not anticipating the joke, just allowing the other person to really take off.
Michael (06:47):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Jimmy (06:48):
And it's such an important aspect of these comedies, I mean, if you're doing comedy this way.
And I think of Seinfeld where Seinfeld was clearly the least talented and experienced actor on the show, right?
But that his presence is what makes the rest of the stuff palpable.
Harold (07:08):
It all revolves around him.
Jimmy (07:10):
When they would do things like give Michael Richards a TV show, where he's the star, but he's really playing the Kramer character again.
Well, that's like, oh, you like salt on French fries?
Well, how about a plate of salt?
Harold (07:23):
Yeah.
Or Jerry Lewis without Dean Martin.
Some people can't take it and some people just love it, because it's just so non-stop insane.
But yeah, it's hard to maintain that without some anchor to keep you focused and like, okay, I can see myself in this sane person in this insane world.
Jimmy (07:44):
Now, the other weird thing or interesting thing I should say, I guess, about what Schulz does here with this first sequence with Roy, is he basically gives a straight man a straight man.
It's not that Charlie Brown is 100 percent straight man, but he is certainly the sane hub around which everything else wobbles.
Harold (08:03):
He has to leave his own neighborhood in order to find that person.
Yeah.
Jimmy (08:10):
Charlie Brown is not without honor saving his own land or whatever.
Harold (08:17):
Right.
Well, all right.
Jimmy (08:20):
With that out of the way, how about we decide to look at this first 1965 sequence featuring good old Roy and Charlie Brown.
If you characters want to follow along with us, there's a couple of things you should do.
First, go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for the great Peanuts reread.
That'll get you one email a month, which is our newsletter letting you know what shenanigans will be up to, and what strips we're going to be covering so you can follow along with us.
Harold (08:44):
I want to do that.
Jimmy (08:45):
Come on back here, and we could just start right now with June 10th, 1965.
Charlie Brown is already off at camp, and this is just a setup to explain where he is.
He gets a letter from Linus that says, a letter from Linus will all be.
Dear Charlie Brown, this is the letter.
How are you enjoying camp?
(09:06):
I suppose you are worried about your baseball team.
The letter continues, well, don't worry, we're doing fine.
In fact, yesterday, we won the first game we've won all season.
Which leaves Charlie Brown on the edge of the dock, and he just sighs to himself.
So this is baseline Charlie Brown at camp.
Harold (09:27):
Right.
Jimmy (09:28):
You know, and I think it's so funny because you can imagine Linus being a good friend and going, I'm going to write to my pal Charlie Brown and tell him the good news that we won our baseball game.
Liz (09:42):
Yeah.
Jimmy (09:43):
And of course, it has the exact opposite effect on Charlie Brown.
Harold (09:47):
Yeah.
Jimmy (09:49):
June 11th, 1965, here's where things heat up, people.
The first appearance of Roy.
Roy is sitting there on a stump and he's sniffing.
He seems to have just finished crying a little bit.
Charlie Brown comes up behind him and kind of has a question mark, going, Oh, what's going on with this poor sad kid?
And then he says to Roy, Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing you crying.
(10:13):
What's the matter?
And Roy stands up and says, I don't know.
I guess I'm just lonesome.
Which Charlie Brown juts out his hand for a handshake and yells, Friend!
Harold (10:25):
Sending Roy's hat into the air.
I love this.
Jimmy (10:31):
I do too.
Harold (10:33):
What a breakthrough, 15 years into this trip.
Charlie Brown has found somebody who maybe needs him.
Yeah.
And he can't wait to take on that role.
It's just really, really cool given what we've been through with him up until now.
Jimmy (10:53):
Because Charlie Brown seems to want to be some sort of caretaker or leader.
Harold (10:59):
Or hero.
Jimmy (11:01):
Yeah.
And he never has that opportunity.
Well, he has millions of opportunities, but they all fall flat.
So it's very nice to just see this moment.
Liz (11:13):
I just keep thinking, is it Son of Frankenstein?
Where he goes, friend.
Jimmy (11:19):
Friend.
That is some big lettering in that lack panel, and I love it.
It looks really good.
He's obviously got the old, whatever it is, C5 lettering pen that he uses, the big thick one, and he's doubling it up.
Harold (11:37):
The C1.
Jimmy (11:38):
C1, there you go.
Harold (11:39):
Massive.
He's probably doubling up, though, right?
Jimmy (11:42):
Yeah, he's definitely doubling up.
You can see that on the F, right?
Definitely.
Harold (11:46):
Yeah, he does an outline, fills in the blacks.
He wants to get it right.
Jimmy (11:50):
Now, what do we think about the way he's done the very light pen work for the background of trees?
Harold (11:57):
Beautiful.
It is beautiful.
Jimmy (11:59):
Michael, you know what that inking reminds me of?
This is like outside the box.
Michael (12:04):
Yeah.
Harold (12:05):
Reminds me of Chick Stone.
Michael (12:07):
You think it's Chick Stone inking?
Jimmy (12:10):
It has a Chick Stone vibe.
He had an almost clear line style in some background.
Michael (12:15):
Yeah, thick outlines was his trademark.
Jimmy (12:20):
But more in the front, in the foreground figures, it seems like.
Michael (12:23):
Yeah.
Jimmy (12:23):
It seemed like he would be able to do.
Yeah.
Michael (12:25):
Well, that was kind of a rule is, yeah, the foreground figure should be thicker, which I don't think too many people actually follow up on.
But.
Jimmy (12:35):
Yeah, I don't think so.
But I do think it gives depth to the page.
Michael (12:37):
Yeah, it certainly does.
Jimmy (12:38):
That's something I struggle with, is drawing deep into a page.
You know what I mean?
Well, I struggle with perspective.
But even just getting things in the distance versus things that are very close.
Michael (12:49):
Yeah.
Jimmy (12:49):
I think that's hard to do.
Harold (12:50):
Yeah.
Yeah, I was thinking Vince Coletta.
No, I'm just kidding.
Jimmy (12:54):
He was just raising trees entirely.
Michael (12:56):
Yeah, six dollars and the anti-Corona.
Jimmy (12:59):
Yeah.
Liz (13:01):
A nice aloha shirt.
Harold (13:03):
Right.
Yeah, we got a nice Hawaiian shirt there on Roy.
It certainly draws you to him with his dark jet black hair and busy shirt.
I like Roy's design a lot.
Yeah, I think it's just really cool.
This to me predates that meeting with Franklin about six years later, where you got, because it's interesting.
(13:30):
Yeah, it's like two straight men hanging out with each other.
Yes.
Yeah.
I like that vibe given what peanuts usually is.
I think it was all the time, but it's a nice seasoning, strangely to be bland.
Yes.
Jimmy (13:44):
Yes.
Harold (13:45):
To have the characters who are normal, more or less for peanuts normal or being normal with one another.
They're not making each other crazy or whatever.
They are just figuring out how to be friends together, and to see Schulz navigating that in his strip is refreshing.
Jimmy (14:04):
So Michael found an old ad, and we talked about this on one of our new shorts.
So if you're on any of those evil apps like TikTok or YouTube shorts or whatever, you're going to be able to see us do, see us live in video talking about these things.
But in one of those, we were talking about an ad Michael found where, what did they compare peanuts to, a tranquilizer?
Liz (14:27):
Better than a tranquilizer, The Peanuts Books by Charles M.
Schulz.
Jimmy (14:33):
Which really implies that these are sedate, calm strips, which a lot of them are.
Maybe it was more calm-seeming in context with all the crazy stuff around.
Michael (14:44):
But saying, this book is going to put you to sleep is not a good ad for it.
Jimmy (14:50):
Yeah.
Really weird ad.
Harold (14:54):
So a tranquilizer, I'm assuming people would have thought in 1953, today, makes you tranquil, right?
Michael (15:02):
Mother's little comfort.
Harold (15:03):
That's the idea.
But through artifice, through something that's artificial.
Michael (15:09):
Right.
You know what drug was popular in the 20s, to keep your little baby quiet and sleeping through the night?
Harold (15:16):
What?
Michael (15:17):
Heroin.
Harold (15:19):
Uh-oh.
Michael (15:19):
It was the brand name of a tranquilizer for babies.
Harold (15:24):
Well, Michael, are you saying that heroin was made with heroin?
Liz (15:28):
Yes.
Michael (15:28):
And he created it.
Oh my God.
Wow.
Harold (15:32):
That's so awful.
Jimmy (15:34):
All right.
So then this continues the next day.
And Charlie Brown and Roy are still out in the woods.
And Charlie Brown says to Roy, because Charlie Brown is now in just, you know, life coach mode, Roy, you've got to snap out of it.
A camp like this is the best place for someone like you.
It helps you to break those old apron strings.
Roy has just taken this in and Charlie Brown says, life is full of experiences that have to be faced alone.
(16:00):
And Roy says, but you said you were lonesome too.
To which Charlie Brown responds, I talk a good camp.
Michael (16:08):
Roy is clearly depressed.
Harold (16:10):
Rolling his eyes a little like, oh, I've been found out.
Michael (16:12):
Schulz was suffering through this greatly.
And you'd say Charlie Brown was too.
But him meeting another depressed person was kind of a revelation, I think.
Jimmy (16:26):
Yeah.
And again, not something you're going to be seeing in any other strips of 1965, I can't imagine, you know?
And I also think this is real.
I mean, if you take the time to really think about this particular strip, right?
I mean, it's very human.
And it's such an insight.
(16:46):
It's like, yeah, Charlie Brown knows what has to be done.
He can articulate it perfectly.
But he can't really do it himself, which I relate to 100 percent.
Like sometimes you'll find some pattern in your life or some behavior that you want to change.
Like, I know what I want to do.
I know what I need to do.
Doing it is an entirely different thing.
Liz (17:08):
Or when you see it in somebody else, you know exactly what advice to give them.
You can't do it for yourself.
Harold (17:15):
Right.
Yes.
Oh, just get it together.
Jimmy (17:18):
Come on, snap out of it.
Harold (17:20):
All right.
There's another thing that hasn't aged terribly well, the term of breaking apron strings.
Because you just don't hear anybody saying it anymore.
Jimmy (17:30):
Yeah, well, that seems like it would have been an old saying in 1965.
Harold (17:36):
Right.
Well, I guess aprons were still happening.
It's on the tail end of aprons.
As in the pop culture, the happy wife in the kitchen.
Jimmy (17:46):
Yeah.
I guess this is something that does need to be explained.
That would just be a relatively common saying for a little kid that's too attached to his mother, basically, a mama's boy or something like that.
Now, this is what I chose from Roy's first appearance.
What I find interesting also about this is that Schulz sets up this world with Roy and Charlie Brown at the camp.
(18:14):
They're having a nice time.
Charlie Brown meets his friend, and then Roy goes away for a year.
He really is a camp friend that we don't see in the strip outside of it, at least originally.
Can you think of anything like that, that someone would do basically a seasonal character in a comic strip, someone that you know is only going to show up in the summer or whatever?
Harold (18:39):
Like an annual character?
Jimmy (18:41):
It's like the old Justice League, Justice Society team-ups.
You always knew that July would come around and you'd get one of those.
Michael (18:47):
Well, there is Santa Claus.
He seems to be seasonal.
Harold (18:51):
That's true.
He'll show up now and again.
Liz (18:55):
Well, as a person who went to camp, there were people, I mean camp seemed really, really far away.
It was actually like in the same telephone exchange.
It was like 20, 25 minutes away from my home.
Jimmy (19:11):
Yeah, but it felt like the other side of the world, right?
Liz (19:13):
There were other campers that I was friends with at camp, and maybe visited once, but they lived on the other side of town, another 20 minutes away, and I never saw them except at camp.
Harold (19:30):
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, even sometimes school, you'd have your school friends, but for some reason, there were certain school friends that you would even dream, even though you liked hanging out with them, but they were not the outside of school friends.
You would just see them in school, and that seemed right.
Jimmy (19:50):
Yeah, and even that continues even in adult life, if you're unfortunate enough to have to work in an office, you'll have work friends that are directly over your house for Thanksgiving dinner or anything.
Harold (20:01):
Right.
Yeah.
Jimmy (20:02):
Some of them are, in case any of my old work friends happen to be listening, I wasn't talking about you.
Harold (20:10):
Yeah, these separations in our lives, and we're here, Roy is gone, like you said, for a year.
Nice character.
How did it end in 65?
Did it end successfully?
I remember Charlie Brown and Roy, they had a good time, they say their goodbyes, and Charlie Brown is satisfied with that.
How it ended in 65?
Jimmy (20:29):
Then Roy says, he's the kind of person that makes a good temporary friend.
Oh.
Harold (20:36):
Well, it's a small victory.
It's a small victory.
Jimmy (20:40):
All right.
So that's the first sequence of Roy's strips from 1965.
We're going to come back and see his next appearance, which takes another little twist after this break, and we'll come back to the mail and talk about more Roy.
See you after this.
Liz (20:55):
Okay.
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 (21:18):
All right.
I'm hanging out in the mailbox, Liz.
Do we got anything?
Liz (21:21):
No.
It's empty.
Jimmy (21:23):
Oh, no.
Well, let's go see if we got anything on the hotline.
You know what we did?
We heard from good old Captain Billy.
You could always count on Captain Billy.
He says, hi, super fan Captain Billy here.
Jimmy, you will be happy to know that in the latest Apple TV special, Snoopy presents a summer musical.
The original design of the characters appear in a flashback.
(21:47):
You're right, they are adorable.
Keep up the good work, guys, and Liz.
That's good.
This is referring to episode a few weeks back where I said, they should do something with those very, very early Peanuts character designs and animation, because they're adorable, and apparently they have.
Yay.
Harold (22:07):
That's great.
I'm glad they found a way to do that.
I'd love to see that animated, not to go into Apple.
Jimmy (22:13):
Yes.
Harold (22:13):
You're going to get that Apple subscription.
Jimmy (22:14):
A summer musical, I'm not sure.
It's the latest Apple TV special, so there you go.
And that's it.
That's all we got.
We got one thing on the hotline.
So now, I'll only be semi-worried, because when I don't get from you guys, I do worry.
But if you want to make for a more robust mailbag section next time, you can write to us.
(22:35):
We're unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com, and you can call or leave a message on the hotline.
We are 717-219-4162.
So yeah, give us a call or send us an email.
We would love to hear from you.
Harold (22:49):
Let us know what you want us to cover next.
Jimmy (22:52):
We're doing all sorts of interesting things here in the post-re-read era.
I have an idea, because how about we do the reread again?
Harold (23:01):
Backwards.
Backwards.
Jimmy (23:03):
That's exactly what I was going to say.
All right.
Well, with the mail out of the way, let's go back to these strips.
Now, we're going to skip ahead an entire year to June 20th, 1966.
Now, instead of Charlie Brown at camp, Roy has met a new friend.
What we have here is Linus sitting on the edge of a dock, and Roy comes up behind him and says, Hi, my name is Roy.
(23:28):
How are you doing?
Linus, without turning around, says, Oh, I'm doing all right, I guess.
Roy sits down next to him and says, You'll get to like this camp after a few days.
I was here last year and I thought I'd never make it, but I did.
Linus says, Oh, and Linus is looking a little forlorn at that point and then Roy says, You know what happened?
(23:49):
I met this funny roundheaded kid.
I can't remember his name.
He sure was a funny kid.
Linus is taking this in and then Roy continues with, He was always talking about this peculiar dog he had back home and some nutty friend of his who dragged a blanket around.
Linus' reaction indicates that he has figured out exactly who he's talking about.
(24:14):
What do you think of this?
I think it's amazing.
You see panel two with Linus and then panel four with Linus.
In the last panel, panel four, you can see that he has a reaction to what Roy is saying.
But the reaction is so unbelievably minimal.
(24:34):
The only change is a little bit that the line for the mouth is slightly smaller, and the parentheses that he draws around Linus' eyes are slightly larger.
That's it, and it reads a totally different emotion.
Harold (24:50):
And the eyes.
Michael (24:51):
He's also looking at the audience.
Liz (24:54):
Yeah.
Jimmy (24:55):
Yes, he is looking out at the audience too, right.
Reacting to, I can't believe what this guy is saying.
Harold (25:00):
This is my pal Charlie Brown.
Liz (25:02):
And because his face is slightly bigger, it sort of pops.
It's like he's reacting after he hears the words.
Jimmy (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Almost like it's a minor zoom in on just how it happened.
Yeah.
Liz (25:18):
Exactly.
Harold (25:19):
This whole strip feels like you've got a drone that starts on one side of the dock, and it's just following around the front and over to the side.
Jimmy (25:25):
Yeah, it is like a tracking shot.
Yeah.
If he had included the background in the second and fourth panel, you would really have that feel.
And Cerebus, they would do that a lot because Cerebus was created by one guy who wrote and drew the characters, and the other guy drew the backgrounds.
And when I say drew the backgrounds, like the level of craft that he put into these backgrounds was insane.
(25:47):
And they did one whole issue that was just a tracking shot like this, except for the fact that Gerhard put the backgrounds in photorealistically in every panel.
So it really does feel like you're going around like a drone, like you say.
Harold (26:01):
Wow.
Jimmy (26:01):
Nothing I would have drawn.
Harold (26:03):
I mean, that's setting yourself up for some hard work.
Beautiful backgrounds.
Michael (26:09):
As long as somebody else is doing the hard work.
Jimmy (26:12):
Yeah, right.
That's why you got to get one of those assistants.
Yeah, I like the background here.
Grassy kind of area that goes into the lake.
That's very kind of unshultsy grass, more textured.
Harold (26:25):
Looks great.
I like how it has a white outline around their faces so they really pop in front of that, in front of the pylons, I guess, in the dock or whatever they are.
It's nice.
Jimmy (26:37):
Roy sticking with the Hawaiian shirt.
Harold (26:40):
Yeah.
Jimmy (26:41):
You only get one shirt in the Peanuts universe.
Harold (26:45):
He has a dog, a banjo, and a shirt.
Yeah.
Jimmy (26:50):
You're the striped kid shirt.
Harold (26:51):
You're the Hawaiian kid shirt.
Jimmy (26:54):
June 21st, 1966, Roy figures out what's going on.
He says, that blanket, because Linus is standing there in classic thumb and blanket position.
Roy continues, you're the one that round-headed kid was telling me about.
Boy, you'd better put that blanket away.
If the other kids see it, they'll tease you right out of camp.
Then Linus does his classic maneuver, eating the blanket like a whip, a rack, and he actually breaks a branch off a living tree.
Michael (27:22):
That is so classic.
Jimmy (27:24):
Then Linus says, they won't tease me more than once.
Roy is holding the severed branch, which is like smoking, actually.
Harold (27:38):
I love how, again, he draws for effects.
The smoke is floating not above where the branch was cut off, but to the right of where we see Roy.
And then the place where it was cut, Roy is examining very closely.
It's in front of his face.
And Schulz is absolutely fine with, you know, there's a smoke.
(28:01):
You have to almost think that it was in the space to his right.
And then he moved it closer to examine it, but the smoke remains.
Liz (28:09):
Or it continues.
Harold (28:11):
That's right.
Jimmy (28:13):
Or it's like an abstract representation of the branch's last breath.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's like, ugh.
Harold (28:20):
Yeah.
It just works.
I'm just fascinated looking at these choices Schulz makes that I don't think other artists would make and they're better choices.
Jimmy (28:33):
It's funny.
I decided, so we were talking weeks ago.
I'm like, oh boy, if I did, the character is walking down the street and they're not actually on the street.
They're hovering above the street, which is how Schulz draws it when the character is walking.
I'm like, that wouldn't work at all.
Harold (28:48):
And Harold said, well, maybe it would.
Jimmy (28:50):
So I tried it because I'm doing this new Amelia Ruehl story for the 25th anniversary.
I tried it.
I had a bunch of the characters walking out of school and down the steps.
I don't know if I could do it all the time, but in that one instance, it's like, oh, it's magic.
It's like they're bouncing down the steps.
It's not that they're leaving school, it's that they're joyfully bouncing down the steps.
Harold (29:12):
That's cool.
Yeah.
Jimmy (29:13):
Really, it might be the only time, one of those things that you do it and try it again, it will never work.
Harold (29:19):
I think one of the secrets of it is you're looking head-on, eye-level with them.
For some reason, that's what you got to do to get away with it.
Jimmy (29:30):
Yeah.
So now, Roy has arrived back home and it's now August.
We're looking August 22nd in 1966.
This is where Roy really makes his big impact because we meet his new friend or not his new friend, his old friend, our new friend, Peppermint Patty.
(29:53):
That's what we see.
We see Roy sitting there writing a letter at a table probably in his house and Peppermint Patty comes up to him.
First time we've ever seen her and says, Hi, Roy.
Who are you writing to?
Roy says, I'm writing to a little kid named Linus that I met at camp several weeks ago.
Then Peppermint Patty leans in and says, Is he cute?
If he is, tell him you're very good friend.
(30:13):
Peppermint Patty says, Hello.
Then she leans on her forearms, holds her head in her hands and says, Tell him what a real swinger I am.
Then she walks away saying, Put in a good word for me, Roy, and the next time we Indian wrestle, I'll try not to clobber you.
This is amazing because it's like, here's her personality.
Harold (30:36):
Yeah.
We learned so much in Four Panels.
Jimmy (30:39):
Yes, and use of unnecessary quotation marks, which is always funny.
Harold (30:47):
It's only the peppermint of Peppermint Patty that she is finding quotes here.
Another Patty, why does he do another Patty just because he likes Peppermint Patty?
Michael (30:58):
Yeah, that breaks out all the rules of chemistry.
Jimmy (31:02):
Yeah, it does.
Harold (31:02):
Right?
Jimmy (31:04):
Yeah, and it's because he saw the candy bowl, saw Peppermint Patty and it clicked that that's the name for a character.
He famously said, I knew if I didn't use it, Mort Walker would.
Harold (31:17):
He couldn't have that.
Jimmy (31:18):
Yeah.
Harold (31:22):
I love Roy without the hat.
Jimmy (31:24):
Yeah.
Harold (31:24):
He's got the really curly, chunky hair with the sheen of light on top of it, kind of like what you see in Lucy's hair.
But in that second panel where Peppermint Patty's just leaning slightly in on him and he's leaning slightly back, like he's intimidated by her strong personality.
Jimmy (31:48):
Yeah.
I mean, it's just by her strong personality because she's smiling.
She's leaning and invading his personal space, but she is definitely not threatening to him.
She's just a lot.
Liz (31:58):
Yes.
Yes.
Harold (32:01):
Then swinger, that's such an odd term for Schulz to give Peppermint Patty in that first panel, because that's got a lot of connotations, right?
Even in 66.
Michael (32:10):
No, there's Frank Sinatra in 1966.
Well, yeah, it's a little.
Liz (32:15):
But also the Polaroid Swinger probably came out at about that time.
Harold (32:20):
Yeah, I think there was an Anne Margaret movie that was called The Swinger came out around that time and it would have suggested, yeah, pretty lively stuff.
Jimmy (32:31):
Yeah, there's no way where any version of swinger is like a stay-at-home buddy-duddy.
Harold (32:39):
And certainly not a child.
A child would not usually call themselves a swinger.
Jimmy (32:48):
I love that drawing of Peppermint Patty.
I love all these drawings of Peppermint Patty, but I love the third one.
I don't know, it just feels really real to me.
She feels like a fully fleshed out character immediately.
Harold (33:01):
Yeah, and you just get the idea that she's imagining herself as she's holding her head in her hands.
What version of her she is that she's going to sell to the roundheaded kid.
This is Linus, sorry, she's writing to Linus.
Yeah, yeah.
I love that Roy is holding up his paper like, can I fit this in?
(33:24):
Yeah.
He's contemplating whether this is a possibility.
Yeah, am I going to do this or is this a lot to write Peppermint Patty?
Jimmy (33:35):
Let's try to just speculate wildly based on nothing.
Do you think, what's the process?
He has Roy, he obviously likes Roy enough to bring him back.
Is the process, this is just a guess, I'm guessing.
We don't have any info, but is the process, I have this character Peppermint Patty, how could I introduce her?
(33:59):
Oh, I know, she'll be Roy's friend and that'll explain why she's not in the strip before this.
Or is he like, let's bring Roy back, and then this just happens.
Michael (34:11):
I would guess because she does seem pretty developed.
Dad, he just started playing around in the sketchbooks, and he went like, yeah, I like this girl character a lot.
Maybe because all the other girls, maybe not Sally, but are basically are evil.
Harold (34:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I like the idea.
Now, of course, Schulz probably didn't have any idea whatsoever that Peppermint Patty would become such a major part of the strip.
I mean, the fact that it is another Patty almost suggests that that dilemma isn't even a thing.
She lives in another neighborhood, and she's just a fun character that he thought up.
(34:52):
It seems like maybe jumped out whole cloth to him, and he's like, wow, what a fun character, but maybe a little too overpowering or a little different than what Peanuts has been up till now.
So what safer way to do it than, well, he's setting up the idea that she's an outsider, and then that remains the rest of the strip.
(35:17):
She's popping in and out of the neighborhood.
I guess, how do you guys feel about Peppermint Patty toward the end?
Does she seem like she's another neighborhood, or does she seem to be really just part of their world, even if she's walking a couple streets over to say hi?
Jimmy (35:37):
I don't think the general readership thinks about her as living in a different neighborhood.
But I think, for me personally, because I'm so familiar with the strip at this point, she has to be in another neighborhood.
Because for me, it keeps, even if it's not acknowledged in later years or whatever, it keeps the integrity of the original neighborhood completely intact.
(36:03):
Because the Peppermint Patty, like I said this before, it's like it's happening in another strip sometimes.
I think it would, whether you wanted it or not, if she moved into Charlie Brown's neighborhood, if just by her force of personality becomes the Peppermint Patty strip and that would be bad.
Harold (36:21):
Going back to Roy, he design-wise is a really interesting character.
He just looks really good in the strip.
I do get the feeling, I don't know when Roy comes and goes.
I don't know.
There was not a whole lot of them.
The fact that he's attached to Peppermint Patty, who becomes a huge character in the strip, gives me the thought that he very well could have been an ongoing character.
(36:51):
Just like Marcy comes into that world, he's not as far away as anyone else.
He could have been there.
I do get that vibe though that by five years later anyway, Franklin takes on that role of the level-headed friend who if they want to go to the thinking wall and talk about granddads or whatever.
(37:16):
Franklin's close enough.
He's certainly unique, but it seems like he fits that key on the keyboard for Schulz to the point where unless he had played with Roy and given him some quirks and traits that we never really get to see.
What's the quirkiest thing we ever learn about Roy?
Is it just that he happened to be sad about going to camp?
Jimmy (37:39):
I think the quirkiest thing is that tomorrow, he will still be wearing his camp sailor hat at home.
Harold (37:47):
That's really interesting.
Yeah.
He likes the look there.
I do like the look of the curls popping out from under the white hat.
I love the curls.
Jimmy (37:58):
I drew a character in Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up that has black curly hair, and I can't get that with the white highlight.
Mine just looks unfinished and sloppy, but I saw I didn't do it.
But I wish I could have because I think that looks really good.
Harold (38:15):
Well, it's interesting to look at the black outlines when there's so much white around it that they make sense on their own.
If you take away the white outline, his hair would look pretty fine, right?
Jimmy (38:29):
Yeah.
Harold (38:30):
And then he goes crazy on the outside with this extra loopy outline of white, which if you took away the black, also would work.
I think that's maybe the secret to it, is that they work individually as well as a unit.
Jimmy (38:50):
I think you're right.
That's interesting.
And it gives it that backlit effect, you know?
Harold (38:55):
Very much so, yeah.
Real nice.
Jimmy (38:59):
August 23rd.
So Peppermint Patty is just hanging out with Roy.
Now they're sitting in the chair talking and Patty says, You say you met this Linus kid at camp?
And Roy says, Yes.
And the year before, I met a friend of his named Charlie Brown.
Roy continues, He was a strange roundheaded kid who never talked about anything except baseball and this awful team of his that always loses.
(39:22):
Now they're up and Peppermint Patty is pushing Roy towards the phone and she says, I love baseball.
Get on the phone quick.
Tell them your friend Peppermint Patty has volunteered to help.
She's already into it, taking over the strip.
In the last panel, she says, I really love baseball.
I'll take over this kid's team and show them how to win.
Michael (39:40):
Well, that's like a cliffhanger there.
First of all, why would Roy have Charlie Brown's phone number?
Jimmy (39:50):
Maybe put it on the letter to make Charlie Brown send them a letter.
Harold (39:54):
Yeah.
If you think about it, it's sweet.
Charlie Brown wants to continue the relationship.
He's writing with Linus, interestingly.
Of course, he was the most recent one he met, but we don't know that Charlie Brown and Roy ever met because he couldn't remember his name.
Now, he remembers his name.
That's interesting.
(40:15):
I guess Linus is drawing it into him.
Michael (40:17):
He's not looking at it up.
He just goes right and dials.
Harold (40:19):
Yeah.
Maybe he's got one of those really memorable.
Michael (40:21):
That's the first trait.
That's the first Roy-mometer.
He's got an amazing memory for phone numbers.
Harold (40:28):
They're in the same area code, so maybe Charlie Brown's phone number spells welcome.
Jimmy (40:34):
Well, look, at the risk of talking about one of the things we talk about too much, there's a great moment in the Dick Van Dyke show where he hears a song that he wrote in the Army on the radio, and he's outreached, so he goes over to call the radio station.
But the actor, Dick Van Dyke, forgets that he's supposed to look it up in the phone book.
So he just goes over, picks up the phone, and dials a bunch of numbers.
(40:56):
Then as he's standing there, he opens up the phone book to a random page and looks at it and goes, right.
Harold (41:05):
Oh, that's great.
Jimmy (41:06):
The look on his face, he just barely stays in character because the audience goes nuts because they know what's happening.
Harold (41:13):
Really fun.
Jimmy (41:13):
I have to find it for it's so good.
Harold (41:18):
They'd seen a couple takes already, I guess.
Jimmy (41:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Harold (41:22):
That's great.
It's so fun to go to.
Have you guys ever been to a live taping of a comedy show or anything?
Jimmy (41:28):
Not a sitcom, but the three of us went, along with Karen Gownley, went to Colbert years ago, but that was the one we went to Colbert before.
Harold (41:36):
Yeah, that's fun.
Jimmy (41:39):
August 24th, 1966.
Charlie Brown receives a call from Roy.
He says, Hello, Roy.
Well, what a surprise.
How have you been?
Roy just goes right to it.
Charlie Brown, he's given Peppermint Patty the side-eye, by the way, while he's saying this to Charlie Brown.
It's almost like he's a hostage and is doing this again to Roy.
Roy goes, Charlie Brown, I have a friend here who wants to meet you.
(42:02):
She loves baseball and wants to play on your team.
Her name is Peppermint Patty.
Patty grabs the phone and just goes, Hi, Chuck.
To which Charlie Brown responds, Chuck.
He has his tongue out like it's literally disgusted him.
Harold (42:20):
Oh, man.
Look at that little smile on Peppermint Patty in the second panel and then that gigantic, gigantic grin in the third panel.
Jimmy (42:30):
He's a master of expression.
Harold (42:31):
She's just full blown.
Yeah.
This is a great looking strip.
Yeah.
All the characters really look good and the expressions are great.
Even from 65 to 66 when we jumped from the camp scenes with Charlie Brown to the camp scenes with Linus in here, now at the end of the summer in 66, it just seems like his art style is loosening as quickly and Peppermint Patty is the perfect match for a loose art style.
Michael (43:05):
Oh, absolutely.
Jimmy (43:07):
Now, this little black blobby thing that Charlie Brown has on a pedestal up to his ear, that is what the telephone used to be.
Harold (43:14):
What do you know about that?
Jimmy (43:15):
You couldn't even take video on it or be outraged at the government.
Liz (43:21):
But you could slam it pretty well.
Jimmy (43:24):
Oh, yeah, I guess that.
Harold (43:27):
Yes.
You could also double it as like a fidget spinner because it was a rotary dial.
I don't know if some of our younger listeners have ever had the joy of sticking your finger into this disk and turning it to the end where it had a little finger sized stop and then letting it go and hearing going.
(43:47):
So nice.
Jimmy (43:48):
So I grew up in a very, very small company, like a coal mining house in Pennsylvania.
So there was not a lot of room.
So my idea of having privacy on the phone was, I would take the phone off the wall and then go into the laundry.
It's basically a closet where we had our laundry in and I would sit on top of the laundry and the washer and close the door as if this was privacy.
(44:13):
But I also would leave the door open a little bit so I could spin the cord.
Now if you get one of those coiled cords.
Like a jump rope.
Harold (44:20):
Oh yeah, those things.
Jimmy (44:22):
Yeah.
I remember one.
Harold (44:24):
Another joy of having a phone.
Yeah.
I think of all these things we've lost.
Jimmy (44:27):
Oh, totally.
I was talking to a lovely young lady in high school on the phone, and I hear this knock on the door and I open it up.
I'm spinning the crap out of this cord and my dad just goes, Hi, Jimmy.
Harold (44:40):
Hi, Dad.
Jimmy (44:41):
I'm going to murder you.
They're like, oh.
Liz (44:49):
They also didn't make any noise when you press the, I mean, because you're not pressing buttons.
All you get is that, you don't hear that beep, beep, beep.
Jimmy (45:00):
Yeah.
Harold (45:02):
Right.
Because the phone line, the system was listening to how many clicks there were to know what number you dialed.
Has anybody thought of creating a device for your cell phone to plug in with this twisty cord that would go into some physical thing?
Yeah.
Jimmy (45:22):
Why not?
The twisty cord.
Harold (45:24):
Bluetooth.
Jimmy (45:25):
Is very satisfying.
Harold (45:28):
Well, so Roy, back to Roy.
This poor guy is about to be muscled out of the strip after just barely getting to get a little finger hold.
Peppermint Patty is not going to be denied here.
He served his purpose, it looks like.
Liz (45:44):
Maybe he's happy to pass her off to somebody else.
Maybe she's a little too much.
Harold (45:49):
Oh, that's true.
Yeah, Roy might have had a full life.
He's probably hanging out with Marcy on the off days.
Jimmy (45:58):
Yeah.
She makes everyone call her Peppermint.
Hi.
August 25th, 1966.
This continues.
Roy, his entire job in this panel, it's just to give Peppermint Patty the side eye.
As Peppermint Patty continues, now listen Chuck, I'm going to solve your baseball problems.
(46:21):
You need a take charge guy, don't you Chuck?
Coach Charlie Brown says, Chuck, I'm heading across town right now, so you get your team together.
Tell them Peppermint Patty is on her way.
So long, Chuck.
Coach Charlie Brown responds, hanging up the phone, Chuck.
Yeah, he got muscled out.
That was amazing.
Harold (46:42):
So how much more Roy do we get to see after this?
Jimmy (46:45):
Fourteen more strips.
Harold (46:47):
Wow.
That's not a big rhyme.
Well, it's not a lot, right?
We know that.
Jimmy (46:53):
Wow.
But how many times do you think Roy has been animated?
Liz (47:00):
We have listeners who would know.
Jimmy (47:01):
This goes all the way up to Summer Musical.
Harold (47:05):
So you're in love, Charlie Brown.
He's in that.
We know that.
My listeners will know how many times Roy gets to be in the world.
Jimmy (47:13):
According to this, you're in love, Charlie Brown is not listed.
Harold (47:18):
Oh, I'm literally looking on the wiki and it says this strip in the.
What?
Here's what I see on the wiki.
Okay.
Jimmy (47:25):
He's your dog, Charlie Brown.
It was a short summer, Charlie Brown.
I don't remember seeing either of those.
Snoopy come home.
He's silent in most of these.
You're a good sport, Charlie Brown.
Race for your life, Charlie Brown.
Is this goodbye, Charlie Brown?
Now, he has been silent in all of these except one.
Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show Season 2, also silent.
(47:47):
He's a bully, Charlie Brown, 2006.
Snoopy presents It's the Small Things, Charlie Brown, Lucy's School, and Snoopy presents A Summer Musical.
Yeah, so according to that, it's 11.
Harold (47:59):
Okay.
Well, maybe this is even more sad because it does say in the Wiki that the last two strips you just read are adapted in You're in Love, Charlie Brown, and he was written out of his own strips.
If that's true.
Jimmy (48:16):
It's unbelievable.
Harold (48:18):
If that's true, our listeners will know.
I know we've got some real peanut special experts, so they can let us know the extent of Roy's voice acting anyway.
Boy, that's interesting.
Poor Roy.
But I do like Roy.
Michael (48:37):
Poor Roy.
Harold (48:39):
Poor Roy.
Jimmy (48:40):
Well, it goes to show you though, that anytime you're working on something, you have no idea really where it's going to take you.
I do not think he ever meant for Roy to be the bridge to an entire another aspect of the strip, but it's very, very cool.
This is completely unrelated.
But I want to wrap.
(49:01):
So I was looking up Roy Things Online for this.
One of the things I came across was actually a model sheet for the Bill Melendez production studios.
What it is, is it shows the relative heights of all the characters and animation.
Now, each of you give a guess who, I'll tell you right now, Roy is closer to the short end, is slightly above five and pig pen.
(49:26):
Who, though, is the tallest character in Peanuts?
Harold (49:31):
I would guess Shermie.
Jimmy (49:34):
Michael, you have a guess?
Michael (49:36):
Snoopy, when he's dancing with his head up.
Jimmy (49:43):
Shermie, two Shermies and a Snoopy.
No, Shermie is the third tallest.
The tallest, according to the Bill Melendez character sheet, is Patty.
Michael (49:55):
With the ponytail count.
Harold (49:56):
Wow.
Michael (49:58):
Oh, Patty.
Jimmy (49:59):
Ponytail violet is almost as tall as Patty, yes.
Harold (50:04):
Is she second?
Jimmy (50:05):
She is.
Then Shermie and Charlie Brown.
Michael (50:07):
Girls are taller than boys at that age, generally.
Liz (50:10):
At that age, yeah, definitely.
Jimmy (50:13):
Yeah.
Harold (50:14):
They are the older kid bully characters, as far as Melendez is concerned.
When would this have existed, do you think?
When would this model sheet have been made?
This was written.
Okay.
That's really interesting.
They are considered older kids by the end of their major run in this strip.
Jimmy (50:34):
Then there are actual little, it's actually very interesting because there's little notes that says when Lucy is with Charlie Brown, she can be more noticeably smaller.
When Linus is with Lucy, he can be more noticeably shorter.
They'll actually adjust it depending on who they're in frame with.
Liz (50:53):
But that's only true in the animation or is it also-
Jimmy (50:56):
Yeah, this is for the, I mean, as far as I know.
I don't know if it's Schulz.
Harold (51:00):
But I think it, Liz, is because that is what Schulz did.
I love that Melendez was the kind of animator who would be willing to throw out a rule that some animators would not allow themselves to do because those model sheets are the consistency.
Since Schulz broke the consistency in so many different ways of how he drew these characters, creating all sorts of insane problems for Melendez, he does do an amazing job of just keeping the strip, the flat strip that it was and whatever those ineffable things are.
(51:40):
If you change it, you don't know what you're losing.
He just leans into Schulz's eccentricities and just tries to teach them to his animators and say, yeah, I know.
Jimmy (51:50):
Right.
Harold (51:51):
I'm sure.
Jimmy (51:52):
I love that they included Roy in the lineup of characters.
They thought, he's 68, Roy could be making a comeback anytime here.
We could be making a comeback too.
As a matter of fact, we will in two weeks.
We will be back where we're going to wrap it up actually on the sidekicks and second bananas season with possibly the quintessential, the goat of sidekicks and second bananas.
(52:18):
That's right.
We've heard your cries.
You wanted a Shermie episode, you're getting an all Shermie episode.
Come back for that.
In the meantime, if you want to keep this conversation going, there's a couple of different ways you can do it.
First thing you got to do is you got to go over to unpackingpeanuts.com and sign up for the old great peanuts reread.
(52:39):
That'll give you one email a month that will let you know what shenanigans we're up to on the podcast, what strips we're going to be covering.
You can also email us at unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com, or you can call our hotline, which is 717-219-4162, leave a message or a voicemail.
If you do leave a voicemail, make sure you identify yourself.
(53:03):
Of course, as always, on good old social media, we are at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads, and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
That's it for this week.
It's always fun hanging out with you guys.
Come back soon and we'll talk more about this great comic strip from Michael, Harold, and Liz.
This is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
Michael (53:25):
Yes.
Liz (53:25):
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 Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
(53:47):
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.
Jimmy (53:58):
They won't tease me more than once.
Popular Podcasts
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.