Sidekicks and Second Bananas Episode 4 - Shermy: Just A Guy Standing There

The straight man of all straight men gets an episode all to himself. Will the gang finally crack the code on this beloved figure of Peanuts past?

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.

Episode Transcript

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

Jimmy (00:18):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
This is Unpacking Peanuts, and I'll be your host for the proceedings.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
Today, we're wrapping up our season of Sidekicks and Bananas with a look at everybody's favorite straight man, everybody's favorite background guy, Shermy.

Liz (00:39):
Yay.

Michael (00:40):
Yay.

Jimmy (00:43):
Joining me as always will be 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 prize guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
It's Michael Cohen.

Michael (01:03):
Say hey.

Jimmy (01:04):
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, Harold Buchholz.

Harold (01:14):
Hello.

Jimmy (01:15):
And making sure everything runs smoothly and keeping us out of trouble, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.

Liz (01:21):
Howdy.

Jimmy (01:22):
So, guys, we are wrapping up Sidekicks and Second Bananas.
We're finally looking at Shermy.
I picked these strips, and I got to tell you, so here's what I did.
The Peanuts Wiki has a Shermy section that'll allow you to read all of the Shermy strips.

Liz (01:39):
Wow.

Jimmy (01:39):
So I did that.
I don't really care for Shermy.
Trying to pick these strips, 80% it feels like, and that's not an actual number, but it's what it felt like, is just him standing there as people say things to him.

Michael (01:58):
Yeah.
He's a catalyst.
Catalyst.

Jimmy (02:02):
He's not even, he's the opposite of the catalyst.

Michael (02:05):
He's a dogalyst.

Harold (02:07):
He's a dogalyst, yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.

Jimmy (02:12):
So it's no surprise to me, like, I mean, Peppermint Patty has more personality in the first strip she is introduced in, than Shermy has in his nine years or whatever, his 18 years in this comic.

Michael (02:27):
Yeah, but Schulz uses him wisely.
He's a set up man, and he really needs that.
He's the gravitas.

Liz (02:35):
We never find out why he hates Charlie Brown.

Jimmy (02:39):
No, well, because he's a hypocrite.
Before we go through this, should we, no, let's at the end, let's revisit the Shermometer.
Because if you guys don't remember, way back when Shermy was still in the strip, every year we tried to find something we could say about Shermy that would constitute an actual character trait.

(03:00):
We'll run through them again at the end because I think we did a good job.
I think some of them are a little fancy full.
But, well.

Michael (03:09):
Well, he can't pitch.

Jimmy (03:10):
So what have you guys, so we've looked at these sidekicks and the side characters and all this sort of stuff for a few episodes now.
What are you guys thinking at the end of it?
Have you learned anything about peanuts or about comedy or about life in general?

Harold (03:25):
Always.

Michael (03:27):
Yeah.
I mean, generally, the jokes are very character driven.
So that Linus with Sally is going to act differently than Linus with Lucy.
We thought that was very important.
Shermy seems to be himself with everybody.
She's an admirable trait.

Harold (03:50):
She's a hypocrite with everyone.
Yeah.

Michael (03:54):
Well.

Liz (03:55):
Well, looking back over the episodes we chose to do, we got Sally had a different personality with Eudora, and Snoopy has a different personality with the Beagle Scouts.
Who was the third one we did?

Harold (04:10):
Well, we had Eudora.
Also, we had Eudora.
And Eudora as well.

Liz (04:19):
Never forget Eudora.

Harold (04:21):
Don't forget her.

Liz (04:22):
Who was the other one we did?

Jimmy (04:24):
Well, we did the Beagle Scouts, and we did Eudora.

Harold (04:29):
And then there was good old Roy.

Jimmy (04:31):
Oh, Roy.

Liz (04:32):
Yes, thank you.
Roy.

Jimmy (04:36):
Well, the reason good old Jeremy doesn't have a different personality with all the different characters is he doesn't have a personality with anybody.

Michael (04:43):
Except in the first trip.

Liz (04:45):
Yeah, except in the first trip.

Jimmy (04:47):
Except the first trip, yeah.
Well, in the very, very earliest ones, he has a little crush on Patty, and there's this little romantic tension that kind of plays out.
But then he quickly just becomes a guy standing there, which actually maybe he's the most realistic character in Peanuts.
Because most people you meet are Shermys, right?

(05:10):
You don't meet a lot of Peppermint Patties.
You don't meet a lot of Snoopies.

Harold (05:16):
No.

Jimmy (05:16):
But I've met my fair share of Shermys.

Michael (05:19):
I might have been a Shermy.
Come on, don't insult.

Liz (05:23):
No.

Michael (05:24):
Shermys to the world.

Harold (05:26):
Why would you think you're a Shermy?

Michael (05:28):
Well, I wasn't in school.
I was just trying to be invisible and not offend anyone.

Harold (05:35):
Is that just a survival mechanism in a cruel world?

Michael (05:38):
Yeah.

Harold (05:39):
Yeah.
I mean, Schulz is so good at deadpan as well.
Shermy's deadpan a lot.
He is deadpan a lot.

Jimmy (05:48):
So I put a group of these strips together, but you will find that in many of them, because I also wanted to pick funny comic strips, many of them Shermy just stand in there.
So let's take a look at Shermy just stand in there, and we'll figure out what we can talk about.
If you want to watch Shermy stand in there, a couple of things you should do is, first thing you need to do is go over to unpackingpeanuts.com and sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread, and that'll get you one email a month that'll let you know what we're up to, and they'll be able to read along with us.

Harold (06:20):
Does that sound good?

Jimmy (06:21):
That sounds good.

Harold (06:21):
That sounds good.
All right.

Jimmy (06:24):
So, we're starting off with April 19th, 1953, and it's Sunday and a beautiful one.
It's the baseball field, but guess what?
Charlie Brown's the catcher and Shermy is the pitcher.
That's how early it is.

Harold (06:37):
What?

Jimmy (06:38):
And Charlie Brown is giving Shermy the signals, and he's like, and two fingers will mean a draw, and three fingers will mean an up shoot, and then Charlie Brown walks back behind the plate and says, we'll never remember all those signals, but it won't make any difference, because he can't throw any of those pitches.
Okay, and then we see the game happening, and Patty is up to bat.

(07:01):
Wham, she slugs it.
The next kid up is Schroeder.
Wham, he slugs it.
And then Charlie Brown walks out to the pitcher's mound, saying, that makes the score 93 to nothing.
I've come out to have another conference with you, he says to Shermy, and Shermy who's sweating profusely, says, what do you think we ought to do?
And then Charlie Brown says, well, the way I see it, there's not too much to worry about.

(07:24):
I've got a feeling that they won't be hitting him so far anymore.
And Shermy says, we're catching on to their weaknesses, huh?
And then Charlie Brown says, no, the cover is about to come off the ball.

Harold (07:35):
And we see that is in fact true.

Michael (07:37):
Interesting.

Harold (07:38):
I love the details in this.

Michael (07:40):
I have a question, panel six, you see the, Shermy's on the mound, but you'll see out in the outfield there.
Whose shortstop is a blonde kid?
I would say that was Schroeder, but he's just hit the ball.

Jimmy (07:56):
That is, I think you found, well, who's the kid behind Charlie Brown on that same panel, holding the bat?

Michael (08:06):
It's Charlie Brown.

Jimmy (08:08):
No, Charlie Brown's the catcher.

Michael (08:09):
I know, but he's also holding the bat.

Jimmy (08:12):
Guys, I think we found the glitch in the Matrix.

Michael (08:18):
No, we see in the panel one, the guy with the blue cap and the yellow shirt.

Jimmy (08:23):
But that really just looks like Schroeder.

Michael (08:28):
Yeah, I think it's definitely double-ganged.

Harold (08:32):
Different color shirt, but the details in this are so different.

Michael (08:37):
If the Peanuts kids are having a game, there's got to be 18 of them.
If they're splitting up.

Harold (08:43):
When you play pick-up baseball, you can play with as few as five on the side.

Michael (08:49):
Yeah, I suppose you're right.

Harold (08:50):
Yeah, just running out of characters.

Liz (08:52):
Well, the last characteristic that we noted on the shermometer was that he was a good hitter, so maybe we should add that he's a bad pitcher.

Jimmy (09:01):
There you go, the bad pitcher.

Harold (09:03):
Yeah, this is the origin of Charlie Brown taking over.
Taking over his pitcher.

Jimmy (09:09):
You'll see though that clearly Charlie Brown is a bad manager because or Shermy is an atrocious worse than Charlie Brown level, because the kids that are beaten the heck out of them in this game are normally on Charlie Brown's team.

Harold (09:32):
Yeah, well, Shermy's got a little smile there in the next to last panel.
He's showing a little personality, a little hope, thinking he's doing some good work.

Jimmy (09:41):
He is not.

Harold (09:42):
Where Charlie Brown lays it on him.
But yeah, so Shermy is the oldest, so I guess he got to pick being pitcher, right?

Jimmy (09:49):
Yeah, probably.
It's a nice looking Sunday, Shermy.

Michael (09:54):
I'm getting suspect that there's some other kids from the neighborhood playing.

Jimmy (09:59):
Very fun.

Harold (09:59):
Yeah, it's a big, vast, vast field they're playing in.
I'm usually thinking they're in some lot.
They got to move and forced into some little suburban lot with short fences.

Jimmy (10:09):
Yeah, it looks like that goes off into a pasture.

Harold (10:15):
Yeah.
This would have been when he was still in Minnesota, so that's kind of interesting.
I love the board, which is home plate.
There's all these nice little touches in this.

Jimmy (10:24):
Oh, I didn't even notice that.
That's great.
Yeah, because you could never have, you never had real bases, so you always had to just use something else as the home plate or the different bases.

Harold (10:33):
That's fun.

Jimmy (10:35):
December 13th, 1961.
Charlie Brown and Shermy are standing around outside.
It's coming up on Christmas and Shermy says to Charlie Brown, I've got this whole Santa Claus a bit licked, Charlie Brown.
If there is a Santa Claus, he's going to be too nice not to bring me anything for Christmas no matter how I act, right?

(10:57):
Right.
An elated Shermy says, and if there isn't any Santa Claus, then I haven't really lost anything, right?
Then Charlie Brown, sitting at the thinking wall alone says, wrong, but I don't know where.

Harold (11:14):
Where is Shermy wrong here?

Jimmy (11:16):
Well, I'll tell you where.

Michael (11:17):
We have to update the Shermometer.
He's totally pragmatic.

Harold (11:21):
Yeah, but he's wrong.

Jimmy (11:23):
Because whether or not Santa is real is not what is, according to his little theory here, makes it dependent or not whether he'll get that toy, right?
So he's saying if Santa Claus is real, he would definitely give me a toy.
If he's not real, I haven't lost anything.
Yeah, you've lost the toys that whoever is Santa Claus would have given you.

(11:46):
You still don't get the toys no matter who gives them to you, if the reason behind getting the toys is being good, right?

Michael (11:53):
Theology makes my head.

Jimmy (11:55):
So maybe we should add that he's stupid.

Michael (12:00):
Charlie Brown is stupid with Cougars.
He can't do what you just-

Jimmy (12:04):
He can't figure that out?

Michael (12:06):
Everyone's stupid.

Harold (12:07):
Well, they're all hanging in there with Santa Claus.
If Santa Claus is real, he's right, right?

Jimmy (12:14):
Oh, yeah, Santa Claus is real.
He's right.

Harold (12:16):
Yes, right.

Liz (12:18):
It's December and they're in short sleeves.

Harold (12:23):
Yeah, they moved to Sebastopol.
The whole gang just got up and moved to Sebastopol.

Jimmy (12:30):
It's sort of amazing that the Peanuts shorts don't read as skirts.
Because there's really like absolutely no differentiation between the different legs.

Harold (12:42):
That's true.
Yeah.

Jimmy (12:45):
Just a band of black ink.

Harold (12:47):
Yeah.
Well, Shermy here, I'm happy to see that Shermy has at least got some confidence in his own thinking ability, his own processing.
He's got things going for him there.
But he depresses Charlie Brown.
He's well.
Charlie Brown gets to call it.
Of course, Shermy's whole Santa Claus bit, he's most famous to most people right through the Christmas special.

(13:15):
Yeah.
In that one, I think Schulz nailed his personality because he's complaining that they always make him the shepherd in the Christmas play.

Jimmy (13:26):
Which is a very Shermy thing.

Harold (13:29):
Basically, yeah, looking back on these, that's a very Shermy thing.
He's the one who's going to get typecast as the non-speaking role of a shepherd.

Jimmy (13:37):
Standing in the background holding the staff.

Harold (13:40):
He's not going to be chewing the scenery or taking all the attention away from the sheep.

Jimmy (13:49):
August 3rd, 1962, this is the middle of a little sequence here.
Charlie Brown is now fully the manager of the baseball team.
And Shermy comes up, tosses the bat to the ground and says, I'm sorry, Charlie Brown, but I guess I'll quit too.
It's hard to play on a team that always loses.
It's depressing.
I'm the kind who needs to win now and then.
With you, it's different.

(14:10):
Shermy walks away saying, I think you get sort of a neurotic pleasure out of losing all the time.
And Charlie Brown left alone, looks out at us and says, Little League Psychiatry.

Michael (14:22):
But it's free.
It's not five cents.

Jimmy (14:24):
Sure.

Harold (14:25):
It's better than Lucy's, right?

Liz (14:28):
Would it have been nicer or less loaded if Shermy said, I think you get a sort of a pleasure out of losing all the time?
If we didn't have neurotic, is that?

Jimmy (14:38):
No, I think neurotic makes it nicer.
Oh, I think you get sort of a pleasure out of losing.
I don't like that at all.

Harold (14:49):
Oh, wow.
Really?
Yeah.
To me, neurotic is just that sounds so ultimately dismissive because he's just labeled and put them in a box.

Jimmy (14:59):
Yeah, but it sounds like a perv if he's just getting pleasure out of it.
No, I think you mean neurotic.
I mean, what kind of pleasure?
That's my issue there.

Harold (15:09):
Okay.
Okay.

Jimmy (15:11):
But I also don't think this quitting the team and tossing, I don't think this is particularly cruel.

Harold (15:19):
You just, right?

Jimmy (15:20):
Is this cruel?

Harold (15:21):
I think labeling him a neurotic and just leaving him and just deserting him is pretty cruel.

Michael (15:27):
A nice guy would have just left after panel two.
You don't have to put down the other guy.

Harold (15:34):
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Sherby's being a little hard.
You're not, again, oldest kid we think in the Peanuts verse, so he gets to be doing the Freud bit on Charlie Brown.
So that's something for him, something maybe a little bit more sophisticated.

(15:54):
That's coming out of Sherby here, maybe.
I'm trying.

Jimmy (15:59):
Well, I'm just sort of struck, like I'm just reeling here thinking about my own childhood and what would register as cruel.
I think possibly by that standard, the nicest things that ever happened to me in my childhood.
I would read as cruel.

Harold (16:16):
Wow.
So you had a tough crowd.
Yeah.

Liz (16:19):
Jaradville rules are different.

Jimmy (16:21):
Yeah.
I understand that.

Harold (16:25):
So people are leaving your team and you're a bad pitcher.
What are they saying to you in Jaradville?

Jimmy (16:29):
Hey, you piece of s***.
That's what they would say in Jaradville.

Michael (16:35):
Wow.
What a town, man.

Jimmy (16:38):
Okay.
No, but we talk to each other like the bad news bears talk to each other.
And I wonder, seriously, and obviously I don't want you to put that other stuff in there, but that is truthfully, those are quotes.
How bad is that relative to what normal people serve?

(16:58):
Like, I'm legitimately asking this.

Harold (17:01):
Yeah, that did not happen in my Rochester, New York, Columbia, and Missouri neighborhoods for the most part.
We had a little bit of that.
I didn't get it that I was like Michael, I was like hiding out sometimes in the neighborhood because there were some tough kids, kids that almost got kicked out of school and this and stuff, for just doing things they shouldn't be doing.

(17:21):
So you didn't always want to be around for when it went down.
But it wasn't terrible.
The language thing for some reason, where I was, you could avoid it.

Jimmy (17:34):
Anyway, my point being, my childhood was pretty rough apparently.

Harold (17:38):
Yeah.

Liz (17:40):
My Quaker boarding school, we didn't have this experience.

Harold (17:43):
It's Quaker boarding.

Jimmy (17:45):
Anyway, we don't need to talk about little league psychiatry.
Holy cow.

Harold (17:52):
So you're saying Shermy would be shredded weed in Gerardville.

Jimmy (17:56):
I think Charlie Brown would, the poor kid, I can't imagine.

Liz (18:00):
Lucy might make it.

Jimmy (18:02):
Charlie Brown.

Harold (18:02):
Yeah, Lucy would, Peppermint Patty would make it.

Liz (18:05):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Jimmy (18:08):
September 21st, 1962.
Charlie Brown and Shermy are walking down the old sidewalk or whatever, and Shermy says, nothing makes me more mad than a wasting a good haircut.
Then he continues, last Saturday, I got a haircut, so I'd look nice for school Monday morning.
Then on Monday, I got sick, and I couldn't go to school for three days.

(18:31):
He leans on the thinking wall and says, I wasted a good haircut.

Harold (18:36):
Now, does your hair look the best in the first three days of a haircut?

Jimmy (18:39):
I do not think so.
I think you're right, Harold.
You need the time.
I mean, this is a deep memory for me.
Because this has not been an ongoing concern for me for quite some time.
But I remember back in the day that you would be right.
You need the time for the haircut to settle.

Harold (18:56):
But Charles Schulz is the son of a barber, and so maybe back in the day that was, you leave looking the best you can, and they put in whatever greasy stuff is going to go in your hair, and that's as good as you're going to look for another four, six, eight weeks, whatever it is.

Michael (19:15):
It's kind of weird here if you think about it, because Schulz's father was a barber, Charlie Brown's father was a barber, and this is his bald kid.
Right?

Harold (19:29):
And did Shermy go to Charlie Brown's dad or did he go to someone else?
Is he griping about losing the good hair cut off of Charlie Brown's dad?

Jimmy (19:39):
I think he had to have gone to Charlie Brown's dad.
Even Shermy would not be so dense as to flagrantly mention going to a different barber.

Liz (19:48):
Shermy looks pretty darn good in that fourth panel.

Harold (19:51):
Yeah, the second panel is not bad either.
Yeah, so he's probably the most fashion conscious of the guys in Peanuts, right?
Schroeder, nah.
You know, I'd say Shermy's got the most interest in personal appearance.

Jimmy (20:08):
Yeah, his hair actually changes.
He really starts, well, first off, he starts with that almost like grill cream slick down dude.

Harold (20:16):
Then it goes to a buzz cut.

Jimmy (20:18):
And now it's a little more, a little shaggier for the 60s.

Liz (20:21):
It's got a little product in it, I think.

Jimmy (20:24):
It does have a, it does feel like he has a little product.

Harold (20:27):
You know, when I think of Shermy, I think of those, those male leads, young male leads in their early 20s or teens from the 50s and 60s, whose you don't remember any of their performances in movies, but they were always there, like the tab hunters and the, you know, there's like not a whole lot of personality coming through.

Michael (20:48):
Yeah.
Well, that hair reminds me of the, like the Dolby Gillis types who were.

Harold (20:54):
Yeah.

Michael (20:55):
They weren't hip by any means, but they weren't, they didn't have a good kid look.
This is sort of in between.

Jimmy (21:04):
What would have been the 1962, like, hip look for like a young person?

Harold (21:13):
It would have been kind of, hip look, yeah.

Jimmy (21:16):
I mean, no.

Michael (21:17):
Seventy-seven sunset strip, Kookie Burns.

Harold (21:22):
So what does Kookie's hair look like, Michael?

Michael (21:26):
Well, he was kind of a proto beatnik.

Liz (21:32):
Well, but it was Kookie lend me your comb, but it was slick back.

Harold (21:40):
Not a greaser thing, though.

Liz (21:41):
No, but maybe some bril cream.

Harold (21:45):
Okay.

Michael (21:45):
Little dabble, too.

Harold (21:46):
So yeah, because I think for maybe the more square, good-looking kids, it seems like Shormy is kind of following that look.
And again, he's just slightly older.
He seems to be aware of things on a different level.

Liz (22:04):
This is the podcast where we discuss the hair of the cartoon character.

Jimmy (22:08):
Haircuts in my childhood trauma.

Harold (22:11):
That's right.
It's come to this.

Jimmy (22:15):
All right.
Let me ask this question, because this is something I find interesting.
As opposed to the normal things I bring up, which I find completely uninteresting.

Harold (22:26):
Feigning interest for the audience.

Liz (22:27):
But will our audience find this interesting?

Jimmy (22:30):
So 1962, this is, all right.
But let's say in 1973, American Graffiti comes out with the tagline, Where Were You In 62, which is just 10 years in the past.
It's like a time machine movie.
It's like, can you remember these days?
It is so like, you know what I mean?
It's radical.

(22:50):
If you did that-

Harold (22:51):
Right.
So much happens in a decade.

Jimmy (22:52):
Yeah.
Not so much happens in a decade anymore, even though things happen so much faster.
It's very strange.
It's like this micro stuff happens all the time, and we barely register it and it's gone.
But yet, Taylor Swift's been famous for 15 years now or longer.

(23:13):
It just goes on forever and endlessly and nothing changes.

Harold (23:17):
Isn't that weird?
Well, yeah.
It's like, what is nostalgia to a younger person now?
If it's always there, always on the Internet, always accessible.
Things had their cycle and then it disappeared, or a TV show went off the air, you don't see it again.
It's weird now that things are almost always accessible.

(23:38):
If you want to revisit something, you revisit it because it's there.

Jimmy (23:41):
Yeah.

Harold (23:42):
What does that do to nostalgia in pop culture?
Maybe your nostalgia is always for personal things now because it's not so much an issue with pop culture because it's just ubiquitous.
You start to feel a pang, you go satisfy the urge to see something again.

Jimmy (23:59):
Yeah, sure.
I remember the big nostalgia things that when I was in college would have been like Schoolhouse Rock because it was 15, 20 years or whatever.
But it would be like, do you remember Schoolhouse Rock?
Maybe you could go find a VHS somewhere, but you don't have it in your pocket 24-7.

Harold (24:16):
Yeah, and you talk to your friends so that they could pull it up in their memories.
You have this spark of connection because it's only between you.
You don't go and watch the thing together again.
You actually have to bring it up out of your memories and share your delight in something with another person through talking about it.
Because that's all you got.
Yeah, right.

Jimmy (24:37):
I have had that argument with multiple editors.
They say, it cannot be nostalgic.
You can use that.
This is like a law at Scholastic.
This is like, they believe this with every piper they're being, and it's just absurd.
Because I mean, at least I felt nostalgic as a kid.

Harold (24:58):
Maybe you can have it actually as a conversation so that someone argues for it, and then you can have a Shermy editor character going, that never happens.
That's actually a really good idea.

Jimmy (25:06):
Hang on, writing that one down.
Because I mean, it's like you're crazy.
It's like, well, I felt this.
I remember when Empire Strikes Back was coming out, and I'm like, oh my God, I thought, I'll never see Star Wars again.

Harold (25:20):
How will I ever see Star Wars again?
Right?
It's gone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Whenever Christmas specials would roll around, you know, you remember seeing it a year ago, and it was like, oh, it's brutal.

Jimmy (25:34):
God forbid you miss that air.

Harold (25:36):
Oh, yeah.

Jimmy (25:37):
Which is then.

Harold (25:39):
Got to hold on to the air.

Jimmy (25:42):
All right, how about we take a break here and come back.
We'll see if we got an email and then wrap up.
Sure me.

Liz (25:51):
All righty.
Hi, everyone.
You've heard us rave about the Estabrook Radio 914, and one episode would be complete without mention of the Fab Four.
Now you can wear our obsessions proudly with Unpacking Peanuts t-shirts.
We have a Be of Good Cheer pen nib design, along with the four of us crossing Abbey Road, and of course, Michael, Jimmy, and Harold at the thinking wall.

(26:17):
Collect them all, trade them with your friends.
Order your t-shirts today at unpackingpeanuts.com/store.

Jimmy (26:26):
And we're back.
We're hanging out in the mailbox here, Liz.
Do we got anything?

Liz (26:30):
We do.
We heard from King Zilch on Spotify, who's talking about a comment we made on the Family Van Pelt part 2, and King Zilch says, guys, the animated Scott Pilgrim is most definitely not faithful to the graphic novels.
Watch all the way through the first episode, and the difference will become pretty clear.

Jimmy (26:54):
All right.
I don't remember us talking about Scott Pilgrim at all.

Liz (26:59):
Oh, Michael talked about Scott Pilgrim in like two episodes.
He went on and on about how much it was the greatest work of his life.

Jimmy (27:06):
But I don't remember the TV show.

Michael (27:08):
Well, the TV show, I watched the first episode thinking it was going to be like reliving the comic.

Harold (27:14):
Yeah.

Michael (27:16):
I felt guilty afterwards because I didn't want to watch anymore.
I mean, it was as good as it could possibly be, yet it's reading the comic is so much better.

Harold (27:27):
Why do you think he's saying at the end of that first episode, you'll understand why it's not faithful to the comic?
Do you remember something changing?

Michael (27:35):
Well, I've gone back and re-read the comic since then again.
No, I thought everything in the TV show was straight from the comic, but apparently I'm wrong.

Harold (27:46):
Interesting.

Liz (27:46):
I think King Zilch has to explain to us what's the difference between.

Michael (27:50):
Oh, hell.
No, don't argue with the king.

Jimmy (27:53):
That's right.
It's the king.
I have not seen the animation.
I should check it out though.
Yeah, I do like Scott Pilgrim, particularly those color volumes.

Harold (28:05):
Well, thanks for writing.
Yeah.

Liz (28:07):
We also heard from Jason Bullitt in regard to our Weird Strips episode where we talk about the series where the school building collapses and Sally tells her class that the school building committed suicide.
Jason writes, while peanuts is a comic strip that brings joy to millions around the world, even to this day, there are likely some who turn to Sparky's humor in times of personal turmoil.

(28:34):
Also, I write this email at the start of Mental Health Awareness Month, May 2026, and thus want to mention that those in crisis can call 988, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Jimmy (28:48):
Well, Jason, yeah, I'm one of those people.
This whole podcast, honestly, I was in a really bleak, bleak head space.
And I just had, I wanted to do something that would jump start me out of it.
And I thought, well, could I flood my brain with that would be positive?
And peanuts was it.
And then it was peanuts and talking about peanuts with Michael and Harold.

(29:12):
And you know what?
It worked.

Michael (29:14):
Yay.
So there you go.

Jimmy (29:16):
100%.

Michael (29:16):
How do we monetize this thing?

Jimmy (29:18):
You got to monetize it somehow.

Michael (29:21):
Better than a tranquilizer.

Liz (29:24):
So that's it for the mail.

Jimmy (29:26):
All right.
Well, if you want to get in touch with us, there's a couple ways you could do it.
First, you know, you could call the Peanuts Hotline, the Unpacking Peanuts Hotline, 717-219-4162.
You can email us.
We're unpackingpeanutsatgmail.com.
You could also just go over to that website, unpackingpeanuts.com, and sign up for the great Peanuts reread.

(29:47):
Make sure that you get that one email a month, so you're hip to what's going on over here at the Thinking Law.
With all that said, though, I will remember, though, because if I don't here, I worry.
You don't want to make me worry.
No.
All right.
Well, with that out of the way, let's get to the good old comic strips.
March 22nd, 1966, Charlie Brown and Shermy are sitting on the school bench.

(30:12):
It's lunchtime out in the recess yard.
They're sharing their lunch together, a paper sack between them.
And Charlie Brown says, you know what?
And Shermy says, what?
And Charlie Brown says, a peanut butter sandwich is just a sandwich to be eating when you're looking across the playground at a little red-haired girl you admire, but know you haven't a chance of ever meeting.

(30:33):
And Shermy says, why is that?
And Charlie Brown says, if you have to ask, you'll never understand.

Harold (30:42):
So why did Schulz choose Shermy for this strip?

Jimmy (30:47):
I think because Linus would say something interesting.
And then Charlie Brown wouldn't, it wouldn't be as easy for Charlie Brown to get to that, to a punchline even, right?
Because Charlie Brown doesn't even necessarily have to be like clever here, because we don't know what the real, you know, why the, we don't know the answer to Shermy's question.

(31:09):
But I think Linus...

Harold (31:10):
Why couldn't Linus have asked, why is that?
That's, anybody could have asked that, right?

Jimmy (31:16):
Oh, I think in some instances, honestly, he, it's like, well, I haven't used Shermy in a while.

Liz (31:21):
Well, but I also think it's, Shermy is a tall, kind of perfectly okay guy who probably has no problem getting the girl, and he wouldn't understand.
Linus would understand.

Harold (31:38):
Yeah, I kind of think there's something to that, Liz.
I think the fact that he's, again, he's taller in that third panel in particular than Charlie Brown when he's asking, why is that?
I get the sense that maybe in the back of Schulz's mind, Shermy still is the older kid, and the older kid with the most experience in life, as far as it goes, and if he doesn't get it, it adds just an extra little punch to what Charlie Brown is saying.

(32:08):
He's, you know, basically the older kid doesn't get it because Charlie Brown is so unique in his experience.

Jimmy (32:14):
Yeah.

Harold (32:14):
Yeah, I like that.

Jimmy (32:16):
Yeah, it does make a difference.
And like, if it was Lucy, I mean, that's absurd.
That could never happen.
She'd just yell it.
September 6th, 1956.
Charlie Brown and Shermy are hanging out in Charlie Brown's house, and Charlie Brown is showing Shermy a package of Snickers Snack cereal.

(32:41):
And he says, somebody at the Snickers Snack factory slipped up.
There was supposed to be a marble in this box of Snickers Snacks.
And then Charlie Brown takes Shermy to a different room of the house saying, look what happened.
And we see a giant pile of marbles, and Charlie Brown says, 400 marbles and one Snickers Snack.

(33:01):
I don't know why.

Michael (33:02):
I would think it's just a good thing.

Jimmy (33:03):
It is a good thing, right?

Michael (33:05):
Yeah, man.
400 marbles.

Harold (33:08):
Think of the value ratio.

Liz (33:09):
They still slipped up.

Harold (33:11):
Yeah, that's true.
It was not what he was wanting.

Jimmy (33:14):
The famous Captain Crunch thing, right?
Oops, nothing but Crunch Berries.

Harold (33:18):
Yeah.

Jimmy (33:19):
Or they actually, that's what did happen.
They had batches that were nothing but Crunch Berries, but they put them out that way.

Harold (33:24):
Oh, is that an urban?

Jimmy (33:27):
I think it's the truth.

Harold (33:28):
I believe it's the truth.
Really?
Wow.

Liz (33:30):
You can Google it.

Jimmy (33:31):
I mean, I'm not going to stake my life on it, but I believe it's the truth.

Harold (33:34):
Snopes is like coming down hard on you.

Liz (33:39):
So what characteristic would we give Shermy in this strip?

Harold (33:43):
Present.
Yes, and accounted for.

Jimmy (33:51):
Does Shermy have his hands in his pockets in the second panel?

Harold (33:55):
Yes.

Jimmy (33:55):
Okay.

Harold (33:56):
All right.
Maybe the third too?
I can't tell.

Jimmy (33:58):
No, the third one, I think they're out.

Harold (34:02):
I can't see the little fingers.
And this is, again, we're heading toward the big jaw era of peanuts here.
So Shermy, like everyone else in that profile, the jaw kind of juts out.

Liz (34:14):
Charlie Brown's doesn't.

Harold (34:17):
Well, it happens when...
Yeah, Charlie Brown's never does, because he's got the round head, but certainly Lucy and Linus and apparently Shermy.
It's a look that, I don't know, it has a...
Michael, when you see this kind of larger jaw, obviously, this is what you...
This is peak peanuts for you, right?

(34:38):
In terms of look, what you're used to.
Does it feel weird to you at all to see it?
Or is that just to say that is the way they should look to have this kind of the larger jaw?

Michael (34:48):
So much that it reads to me, it's like, they don't really care anything he's gonna say will not interest them.
He's just like existing.

Harold (34:57):
Okay, I can see that.

Jimmy (34:58):
I'd be curious to see how long that era...
Someone should do a podcast where they read all of them, but like how long can that era last?
Because if we see this in 1956, we're going back in time for our next strip, which is December 28th, 1955.
And if you notice in this one, the jaws are nowhere near that protruding.

(35:18):
But Charlie Brown and Schroeder are standing outside in the snow and Schroeder says, here comes Shermy, ask him.
Shermy strides up and Schroeder says again, go ahead Charlie Brown, ask him.
Charlie Brown says, you ask him.
Schroeder, no, you ask him.
And then Charlie Brown asks Shermy, whatever happened to Davy Crockett?

Harold (35:38):
So Shermy has some gravitas in the neighborhood, right?

Jimmy (35:42):
Right.

Liz (35:43):
He's the one who knows about Davy Crockett.

Harold (35:46):
And they're like, neither one wants to be the one to ask, because there's something about asking Shermy that there's, I don't know, it's almost like a rules of, Robert's Rules of Order or something with the older kid.

Jimmy (36:01):
Well, I think he doesn't, they don't want to seem stupid.
Like there's an obvious reason no one's talking about Davy Crockett that they don't know.
And I think that's why they don't want to be the one that asks him.

Harold (36:14):
And yet, they're doing it in front of him.

Jimmy (36:16):
Classic kid, right?
Classic.

Harold (36:18):
Right.
And what's that little line on his brow?
Is Sermy a little annoyed?
Yeah, he does look a little annoyed.
Yeah.
I wonder what's going on here.
I can't be bothered with these childish questions.

Liz (36:37):
Or maybe he's wrinkling his brow to try to remember about Davy Crockett.

Jimmy (36:42):
Well, yeah, it could be.

Harold (36:42):
Davy who?

Jimmy (36:44):
Now, okay, Michael, so going back and forth between 1956, the previous trip and 1955, this is some micro stuff.
But if you were going to pick between these two years, just visually, and going by these two strips, which do you prefer, 56 or 55?

Michael (37:04):
Boy, I don't think in one year you're going to see any.
That's the thing with Schulz.
It's invisible in small time lumps.
You don't see the changes on anything.

Jimmy (37:19):
Look, Charlie Brown's head is completely round in 56, like the chin and everything.
Then in 55, it comes down and goes in at a sharp angle.
I really like the 55 look.

Michael (37:32):
I don't know about that.
I don't see that.

Harold (37:38):
I see what you're saying, Jimmy.

Jimmy (37:40):
Panel two is what I'm looking at.

Harold (37:42):
I prefer 55, 56, because this is the beginning of peak jaw.
I'm not a huge fan of the look, but I do agree with what you're describing it as someone's kind of set their face against somebody.
There's like a flinty kind of...
I think he even did some strips on that where you're supposed to grit your teeth.

(38:05):
Yeah, and that seems to be from that era where they just seem to be a little hardened toward one another with that.
That's so weird.
Just that little curve of the jaws jutting out makes it look like they're being hardened toward their neighbors.
I don't know.
It's weird.

Jimmy (38:23):
July 18th, 1956, Charlie Brown's outside working on a project and Shermy comes up and says, building a bird house, eh, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown's pounding away with a hammer and Shermy's picked up the directions and says, the directions say you're supposed to glue the joints together before you nail them.
Charlie Brown stands up, looks totally annoyed and says, I know that.

(38:46):
Then Shermy says, how come you're not following the directions?
Then Charlie Brown yells, I've never done anything right in my life and I'm not going to start now.
Yeah.

Harold (39:00):
Again, is Shermy slightly annoyed?
I mean, we're seeing a slight, I'm seeing like a kind of a pixelated version of it.
I can't tell if that eyebrow is-

Jimmy (39:08):
Yeah, he looks annoyed in the third and fourth panel.
Well, there are people, like the version in my childhood of this would be, you'd get a new Atari game and there were people who would read the manual and people who despise people who read the manual.

Harold (39:23):
What would you learn reading the manual to an Atari game?

Jimmy (39:27):
Nothing, like press up to go up, press down to go down.
But sometimes there was a nifty little backstory, and sometimes people just enjoyed getting their full value for money and shouldn't be made fun of for reading the manual.
That's all I'm saying.

Liz (39:45):
Were you a manual reader?

Jimmy (39:47):
I was a manual reader.

Liz (39:50):
Michael is not a manual reader.

Harold (39:54):
Look at Shermy's hair in panel one.
That's a nice look there.

Michael (39:59):
Flat top.

Harold (40:00):
It's a little more.

Jimmy (40:01):
It's a real flat top.

Harold (40:03):
Yeah.
He's got like a widow's peak thing there going.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Again, Shermy's the voice of reason here.
He's the older kid.
He knows what should be done.
And Charlie Brown's having none of it.
Yep.
Shermy, the voice of reason.

(40:25):
And Shermy's thinking, now I remember how I hate him.
Right.

Liz (40:32):
But I like Charlie Brown owning himself.

Jimmy (40:37):
Oh, yeah.

Harold (40:37):
Absolutely.

Jimmy (40:40):
Know thyself.

Liz (40:41):
Yeah.

Harold (40:44):
Know thyself, and then do something about it.
That's the one.

Jimmy (40:51):
March 25th, 1969.
We're just skipping all over the place.
Willy nilly, devil may care.
Charlie Brown's pitching and Shermy comes up.
A shaggy looking Shermy.

Harold (41:01):
Really?

Liz (41:01):
He looks like five.

Harold (41:02):
Yeah.

Jimmy (41:03):
Yeah.
Charlie Brown, I've been wanting to ask you something.
Speaking from the pitcher's point of view, has the lowering of the mound affected the game very much?
Charlie Brown says, oh yes, definitely.
He looks around and then he says to Shermy, it's easier to walk up onto it.

Michael (41:21):
I have a question about this one.
If the Major League passes a rule, does that suddenly automatically apply to every little league game and every little kid's game?

Jimmy (41:35):
No, the Major League, like a little kid, the distance between home play and the pitcher's mound is only like over 40 feet, and the distance is 60 feet, six inches in Major Leagues, and the mound's much higher in Major League.
But it also is just sort of funny that it seems like Charlie Brown definitely would have read about that rule change and went out to his field and made the necessary adjustments, even though it's totally unnecessary.

Harold (42:03):
And why does it look like such a gigantic mound when he's asking that they've lowered the mound?

Jimmy (42:09):
Although I think he did try to draw it a little lower than he normally does.
Because in peanuts, it gets pretty rounded.

Harold (42:17):
I've got a weird question that's, well, it's only relevant to a weird podcast like Unpacking Peanuts.
But the little dots that are on the mound, because you have these lines, right?
But they're also little dots.
But they look like they are in an arc.
The dots are like there's random pebbles that aren't random.
It's like fairy lights have been strung along the mound.

(42:41):
I wonder why he does that in such a, instead of randomizing them, it looks like he's got a couple lines.

Jimmy (42:47):
Could it be that those are holes from the rake that would have been used to rake?
Because those lines, I assume, are from the mound being raked to get rid of rock and stuff.
Could it be like...

Harold (42:59):
So you'd know this better than me.
I wouldn't know the ins and outs of mound raking.

Jimmy (43:04):
Oh yeah, we'd have to rake.
We'd have to set up the field before our little league games ourselves.

Harold (43:10):
I mean, I didn't even know that there was genuinely a mound, even in Major League Baseball, I did how he was up in the air.

Jimmy (43:15):
Oh really?

Harold (43:16):
It just looks flat to me.
Until this podcast?

Jimmy (43:19):
But you've heard the term.

Harold (43:20):
Until this podcast.

Jimmy (43:21):
But what did you think Carly Brown was doing?

Harold (43:24):
Well, the home plate's not a dish.
You know, I don't know what a mound is.

Jimmy (43:30):
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes it's a frisbee.

Harold (43:35):
But yeah, I mean, and Shermy just went, man, we just went 13 years and he's a different kid.

Jimmy (43:41):
Yeah, he looks totally different.

Harold (43:43):
In his look.
And why again, is Shermy the one to do this question?
Why is he the one that pops up and asks about it?

Jimmy (43:54):
But it really does feel like this is a joke joke.
And so Shermy is a straight man.
Like, it seems like when he legitimately needs a true straight man, that's what he does is he picks Shermy.
Shermy comes in and just talks about something bland.
So the interesting person can say something funny or do something funny.

Harold (44:17):
So in other words, if you've got a character on a joke that he probably knows is not particularly strong, that you've got to be as deadpan as possible, or you oversell the joke, would that be a reasonable way to put it?

Jimmy (44:30):
I do think that's very true because overselling a joke, especially a B-tier joke, is a mistake, yeah.

Harold (44:39):
Yeah, which a lot of cartoonists make.

Jimmy (44:42):
I've certainly made it.
Yeah.

Harold (44:44):
It's so easy to do as a cartoonist trying to do humor, where you think, oh, man, this wing is weak, I've got to punch it up with the characters' reactions, and it's the absolutely wrong thing to do.

Jimmy (44:57):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Harold (44:58):
Yeah.

Jimmy (45:01):
It's the siren song of cartooning though.
You can definitely imagine a version of this with Jeremy flying backwards with his feet up in the air.

Harold (45:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Clunk.
I'd like to see that.
That takes me back to Condorito.
Have you ever seen Condorito?
It's a condor.
It's a funny animal comic.
It's like a peanut strip.
Usually, most of them are like four, five, six panels.

(45:33):
But every single punchline, the legs are up, someone's falling out of the panel because of some of the things somebody said, and the sound effect is plop.

Jimmy (45:44):
They actually do the sound effect too.

Harold (45:46):
Oh my gosh.
Oh man.
It's over.
It goes beyond being not funny into being funny.
You have to look at just one half to the other because it's oh my gosh.
It's like the crazy cat of oversold gags, where it's the same thing over and over and over again.

Jimmy (46:07):
What do you guys think of Shaggy Haired Shermy?

Liz (46:11):
It's wrong.

Michael (46:12):
It's wrong.
There's something wrong with that third panel.

Jimmy (46:15):
It's really something wrong with the third panel.
Yeah.

Michael (46:18):
Yeah.
I think it's too low.

Harold (46:21):
It's very bushy.
This is 69.
Early, yeah.
Yeah.
This is almost Woodstock era, Shermy.
I guess that's growing your crew cut long, and it just goes straight up in the air further.
That's his rebellion.

Liz (46:39):
It's a little too early for him to have had a perm.
No, I don't know.

Jimmy (46:47):
We could have got.
That would be amazing.
Do you remember that era in the 70s where George Harrison got a perm?

SPEAKER_2 (46:56):
What?

Jimmy (46:57):
That was unfortunate.

SPEAKER_2 (46:58):
What?

Jimmy (47:00):
Oh, you don't remember?
Look it up.

Liz (47:01):
No, no.
It's an abomination.

Jimmy (47:04):
If we were really 1974 Beatles, wow.

Liz (47:10):
Well, many of us made mistakes with perms.

Michael (47:14):
Yeah.
I didn't understand John with the sweaters.
That just didn't seem to fit the John Lennon I knew.

Jimmy (47:21):
We all had the little soul patch and David Riven mustache and a mullet.
What is that?

Michael (47:31):
What?

Jimmy (47:34):
Remember when we were the hippest people in the world?
It was 36 months ago.
February 23rd, 1958.
It's a Sunday.
Charlie Brown is just trying to enjoy a nice day walking around, and he runs across Shermy and Pigpen, and Shermy unleashes his rapier-like wit.

(47:57):
Hi, Charlie Brown.
How's the friend of all mankind?
This cracks Pigpen right up.
Charlie Brown, good grief, and they are doubled over.
They just thought that was amazing.
Then Charlie Brown walks past the real pros, Patty and Violet, and Patty says, well, if it isn't Charlie Brown, and Violet and Patty possibly says, good ol wishy-washy Charlie Brown.

SPEAKER_2 (48:23):
Ha ha ha ha.

Jimmy (48:25):
And then there's the goat, Lucy.
Hi, Charlie Brown.
Is that your head or are you hiding behind a balloon?
And that's why she's the goat.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Everyone is making Charlie Brown just a little bit more wounded.
And then just looking defeated, Michael's home turns his little tiny radio on, and the voice coming out of the radio says, And what in all this world is more delightful than the gay wonderful laughter of little children?

(48:55):
To which Charlie Brown kicks the radio across the room.

Michael (48:59):
Yeah, I put this in amongst the greatest of strips.

Jimmy (49:03):
It's a good one.

Harold (49:05):
Yeah.

Liz (49:05):
It explains Schulz's point of view.
Yeah.

Harold (49:09):
Yeah, for sure it does.

Jimmy (49:10):
Okay, now here's where I'm seeing this era.
Okay, if we look at Charlie Brown on the second tier, first panel, look at his chin there.
It comes straight down at the nose and then comes off at a 45 degree angle to meet his neck.
Then if you go back to the last one, 1969, it's a complete sphere, not sphere, it's a complete circle.

(49:33):
And that happens again in 1956, but in 1955, we're back to the angle.

Harold (49:39):
Hmm.
Okay.

Jimmy (49:42):
That's all I have to say about that.

Harold (49:44):
All right then.
So the cruelty, you know, Linus wouldn't be in on this, I guess, so that's why Linus is not in the mix here.
You have two boys doing it, two girls and then Lucy.

Jimmy (49:57):
I think Pigpin's the real knife in the back, like what do you have?
Oh.
Come on.

Harold (50:03):
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's the butt of so many jokes.
And then Charlie Brown being laughed at by Pigpin.
That's rough.
And yeah, this is kind of the Shermy that started the strip, like we were saying.
He was super hating Charlie Brown.
We never really knew why, but he's being, he's starting it off here.

(50:24):
He's kicking it off.
The friend of all mankind, which also, I mean, that's hard.
Well, then this is so, I think the genius of Schulz, because it's like he wants you so badly to identify with the one who's being made fun of.
And I just think of where comic strips were.

(50:45):
We've talked about this before, but like the cats and jammer kids, you know, they're just going around causing, making life a living hell for the captain.
And it's like you're asked to laugh with the one who's doing the practical joke and someone being the butt of that.
Was anyone else doing this, let's say, in 1958, where the character who is being laughed at is the one that he wants you to settle in with and really feel that, that...

(51:13):
Well, I do think that's Crazy Cat.

Jimmy (51:15):
You're supposed to identify with Crazy Cat.
I don't know that you're supposed to identify with, you know, one or the other of Mutt and Jeff, but there's something like that.
But I do think that's Crazy Cat, yeah.

Harold (51:27):
And yet Crazy Cat, I mean, I'm not a Crazy Cat expert by any, but I think the difference with Crazy Cat is Crazy Cat usually will take the thing and say, well, this is love, you know, versus, oh man, they're just destroying me, right?

Jimmy (51:42):
Yeah, but when I read it, I still feel pity for Crazy Cat because whatever-

Harold (51:49):
Maybe that's why I don't enjoy Crazy Cat enough, because I just, yeah.
This seems like a delusional character who wants to be hit in the back of the head with bricks.

Michael (51:56):
Wait a minute.
Crazy Cat is a girl, right?

Jimmy (51:59):
Crazy Cat is both.

Michael (52:01):
Yeah, because Harold just said he.
Yeah, I never quite accepted that Crazy Cat was a girl.
Oh.

Harold (52:09):
Yeah, it was both ways in this strip.

Jimmy (52:12):
Also, by the way, we were talking about strips that ended, and we had already talked about this.
Yeah, Crazy Cat dies and is kind of resurrected in the last Crazy Cat strip.
She drowns, and they just take her out of the water holding the cat's lifeless body, but then there's this little drawing at the bottom of the cat alive someplace else.

(52:35):
Nine lives.
Yeah, or in heaven.
It's really, really moving and strange, especially considering that Herman died while that was in the mail.
Wow.
Very, very strange stuff.

Harold (52:47):
Wow.
That's nuts.
But yeah, I mean, the identification, Schulz just takes you deeper and deeper and deeper into the identification with Charlie Brown here.
Everyone else is saying funny stuff.
Well, that's the other thing.
Schulz doesn't let them be that funny.

Michael (53:07):
Right.

Harold (53:08):
So that you really are like, well, that's kind of cruel.

Jimmy (53:13):
I feel like the internet is really like internet bullying, right?
Where it's not even clever.
It's just...

Michael (53:19):
Yes, this is like total cruelty.
I love this.

Liz (53:22):
I disagree.
I don't think it's, I think it's insensitivity.
I don't think it's cruel.
I think it's just, I don't care about you.

Harold (53:33):
That's pretty cruel.

Michael (53:35):
Well, this happens every day.
This isn't like one day.

Jimmy (53:39):
Yeah, now see, I, okay, going back to my Gerardville trauma, this, it would be way more cruel and traumatizing to me than the stuff I described because, like, I'm just walking down the street.

Liz (53:54):
Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy (53:55):
And they're just telling you, we don't like you.
I can't admit, that would be awful.

Harold (54:02):
And this was a part of growing up where you would get those situations where somebody just chooses to be casually cruel to you.

Michael (54:12):
Well, but if you're invisible, then they don't even laugh.

Liz (54:17):
I just, I see a difference between, I actively want to be mean to you, and I don't care about your feelings.

Harold (54:28):
Do you see, you don't think they want to actively be mean to him?
I think it is.

Jimmy (54:33):
Oh, I think this is the instances, though, when they're actively being mean.

Liz (54:37):
Well, I think Lucy's being mean.

Harold (54:38):
They're proactively doing this.

Liz (54:41):
Well, but it definitely makes Schulz's point about the wonderful laughter of little children.

Harold (54:47):
Yeah.

Michael (54:48):
But think about, Schulz made a conscious decision, who would be laughing?
Because you mentioned the pig pen, questionable.
He needed enough characters to make this seem like this is his life.
But he didn't put in Schroeder, which I think is a good, Schroeder would not be laughing, Linus would not be laughing, Snoopy wouldn't be laughing.

(55:14):
So he found the cast members who could conceivably be cruel like that.
But I wouldn't have thought Takeden was one of them.

Harold (55:23):
No, that's a surprise.

Jimmy (55:25):
I think that's what makes it meaner.

Harold (55:27):
Yeah.
And then the friend of all mankind at the very beginning, I know those are the two throwaway panels that he knew some people wouldn't see.
But the idea that that's what makes you the butt of a joke, is that you're trying to be a friend to all mankind in your own mind.
That really, I think that instantly pulls you in.

(55:49):
Like, oh wow, this is a world where that's ridiculed, killed, and laughed at.
That's just genius.
You just, how can you not get sucked into Charlie Brown's, what he's feeling there?
And yeah, it does seem, to me, it does seem unique in strips.
And this is like, to me, one of the things that Schulz did in the comics that nobody had seen before, and it hit people so hard.

(56:12):
Like, why am I not doing that?
Let's see other cartoonists.
Why don't I side with the person who's actually being kicked, who's down?
And I think that's part of the genius of Schulz, and why he, all these years later, is still being remembered and celebrated and loved.

Michael (56:33):
Yeah, but he would not have used it.
If he had this idea 10 years later or 20 years later, he wouldn't have used it.

Jimmy (56:41):
No, I don't think so.
I think, you know, going back to work on Amelia after all these years, there's just something about youth that is just different.
And like, I got a very, very nice text message from a college friend whose son is reading Amelia.

(57:02):
And they tell me, oh, their favorite one is the gym class story.
And I'm like, oh, but I can't say that.
Oh, that's wonderful.
That's great.

Harold (57:14):
But I couldn't.

Jimmy (57:14):
It's, I think it's mean.
I think it's cynical.
Is it funny?
Yeah, I do know it's really, really funny.
But I couldn't do it now, even though I recognize that people like it and it's good.
I'm not going to go back and chant.
I'm not going to do a George Lucas and deny what I did in the past.

(57:35):
But I can't do it now just because that's just not who I am.
Even though, you know what I mean?
It's so strange.

Harold (57:43):
Yeah.
There's a matter of factness to it that I don't remember being cruel toward characters.
I think there's this discomfort.
I remember reading it.
But you're not necessarily citing.
You're not asking.
Maybe you feel differently, but you don't feel like you're asking people to side with the ones who are the underdogs or the ones who are being cruel.

(58:04):
The way they see the underdogs, it's different.

Michael (58:10):
But you can see Pig Pen probably liking the fact that they're laughing at someone else.
He's joining in because they're not laughing at him.

Jimmy (58:20):
Yeah, right.
Yep.
That's a real good point.
Yes, because actually that's a great point because Pig Pen isn't every other one, every other person is saying something.

Harold (58:32):
Pig Pen is just laughing.

Jimmy (58:35):
That's a subtle difference, but it is a difference.

Harold (58:39):
Yeah.
Great strip.

Jimmy (58:41):
Amazing that we can still find all this to talk about in a comic strip from 1958.

Harold (58:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Michael (58:49):
All right.

Jimmy (58:50):
Well, that brings us to the end of our season.
Next season, are we doing Mean Girls?
Is that what we're doing finally?

Michael (58:56):
I hope so.

Liz (58:58):
We're going to do a couple of special episodes after this.

Jimmy (59:01):
Right.
All right.
Well, we got a couple of special episodes coming up.
We definitely want you to be there for that.
If you'd like to keep this conversation going, there's a couple of great ways you could do it.
The first thing is you could go over to our website, unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for the great Peanuts reread.
If you want to reach out to us, you can email us at unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com.

(59:22):
You can follow us on social media.
We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
Okay.
Well, guys, that brings us to the end of our season and brings us to the end of discussing Shermy.
I promised we would go back to the Shermometer.
Do we have added a few things?

Liz (59:43):
We have.
He is a bad pitcher.
He's pragmatic.
He's stupid.
He's a shepherd.
He is unnecessarily cruel.
He's good with girls.
He's present.
He's knowledgeable, and he's the voice of reason.

Jimmy (01:00:00):
Amazing, and that is all in addition to being a good-hitting, inquisitive, shaggy, expository, cool, straggling, bystanding, cynical, philosophical, history-loving, empathetic, aggressive, compassionate, patient, pedantic, emotional, good-listening, vain, friendly, and of course, at the core of it all, Shermy is a hypocrite.

Liz (01:00:21):
Yay, Shermy.

Jimmy (01:00:23):
Thanks for listening.
This was so much fun.
For Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

Liz (01:00:29):
Yes.

Harold (01:00:30):
Be of good cheer.

Liz (01:00:32):
Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz, and Liz Sumner.
Produced and edited by Liz Sumner.
Music by Michael Cohen.
Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
For more from the show, follow Unpacked Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.

(01:00:55):
For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

Jimmy (01:01:03):
I wasted a good haircut.