Understanding Snoopy: Episode 2 - A Few Lines Expressing Joy

Our season-long look at the world famous beagle continues. This week we discuss Snoopy’s metamorphosis from cute puppy to banana nose anarchist to doghouse philosopher. Along the way, we discuss evolving art styles, Ninja High School, and Jeff Smith’s Bone. 

The Buzzfeed quiz we talk about: https://www.buzzfeed.com/appletv/this-quiz-will-determine-which-peanuts-character-you-are

Transcript available at UnpackingPeanuts.com

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

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

Thanks for listening.

Episode Transcript

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

Jimmy (00:18):
Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Understanding Snoopy season here on Unpacking Peanuts, and I'm so glad you're here to review the Beagle with us, and I'll be your host for the proceedings.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
I'm also am a cartoonist.
I do things like Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up, and The Dumbest Idea Ever, and you can find all my comics, my new comics anyway, right now over there on Substack on Gville Comics.

(00:43):
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 Rules, and the creator of such great strips, Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
It's Michael Cohen.

Michael (01:01):
Say hey.

Jimmy (01:02):
And he's the executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation, Sweetest Beasts, it's Harold Buchholz.

Harold (01:12):
Hello.

Jimmy (01:13):
And making sure everything runs smoothly and keeping us out of trouble, it's producer and editor, Liz Sumner.

Liz (01:18):
Howdy.

Jimmy (01:19):
Well, guys, here we are.
We're in our second episode of Snoopy.
It's been a little bit of a whiplash going back to the beginning.
After having read all through, you know, 17,897 of these comic strips.
My question to you guys is, we were talking about, you know, is Snoopy the greatest cartoon character of all time?

(01:41):
Obviously, this whole season is about us deconstructing it, trying to figure out what makes it work.
So, here we are, you know, we looked at about 10 years worth of strips last episode.
If we were to define what Snoopy's personality is at this point, what words would you guys use to describe who Snoopy is at this stage of the game?

VO (02:03):
It's Snoopy watch.

Michael (02:04):
Hmm, interesting question.
He's frantic, he's nutty.
He, I think he likes making people laugh, but he also likes annoying people.
It's, and certainly there's a lot of anger still in the strip at this point.
The 50s Snoopy seems to really resent the fact that he's a dog and he's not being treated the same as everybody else.

(02:30):
So I think that's the source of a lot of his problems.
But he does seem to be pretty manic.
He, he'll be doing his happy dance and then he'll get depressed about something.
And as opposed to other cartoon animals, he seems to have more of an internal life.

(02:51):
I mean, obviously, he's not talking, but he's also really analyzing his existence.
And I think that's the source of a lot of the humor, is him thinking about his life as a dog.
And sometimes he's angry about it, and sometimes he's okay with it.

(03:13):
Harold, what about you?

Harold (03:15):
Yeah, just looking back at the strips that Michael picked for the 50s, he's very sensitive, you know that, and he's artistic, he's judgmental, neurotic, creative and playful.
Those are the terms I used to describe him.
It's a really interesting mix, and I don't think we'd ever seen a character like this before.

(03:39):
So a very interesting collection of traits in this dog and the fact that he's changing so fast just in this first decade.
But those pieces are coming out in the 50s.
It's really fascinating to see, instead of us reading incrementally, day by day, jumping forward in leaps in the strips, certain things really do stand out.

(04:08):
And of course, these are also Michael's picks.
So, the aspects of Snoopy might be also reflective of what you're choosing, Michael.
And what you see in Snoopy, what are the strongest pieces of art there.

Michael (04:20):
Well, one thing that came to mind is we're seeing him alone.
And I think other cartoon newspaper strip animals, you see them doing things and interacting.

Harold (04:34):
Yeah.

Michael (04:34):
A lot of Snoopy is him sitting alone pondering.

Harold (04:40):
Yeah.

Michael (04:40):
Which, I don't think you'd see any of the other animals doing that.

Harold (04:44):
No, I can't think of that.

Jimmy (04:46):
You would barely see any other cartoon characters doing that, let alone an animal.

Harold (04:52):
I mean, I think of some of the famous animal characters that led up to peanuts in strips.
I think of, yeah, we talked about Daisy and Blondie is really just an aesthetic addition to the strip.
The dog is something to watch reacting to Dagwood.

(05:14):
Of course, Sandy's hanging out with little orphan Annie so that she can philosophize and try to make sense of what happened yesterday in the strip.
Then Sandy's very supportive and loyal and gets to say, Arf.

Michael (05:29):
We don't get any internal things going on on these other ones.
It seems to me they're either people, essentially people like Pogo.
They're just animals who are people or they're actual animals and we just can't get into their head.

Harold (05:47):
It seems in a way that the animal cartoons that were pushing things forward the most were animated.
People in the strip world would then sometimes adapt those characters to comics like Felix the Cat, Bugs Bunny, and Tom and Jerry and all of that.
But it seemed like a lot of the creativity that was happening with animal characters came out of animation and Schulz was making a very strip oriented character and what the strengths of the strip are.

(06:19):
It's a little more literary, a little less active, a little more focused on thought and yeah, he's pioneering something here and it is kind of interesting.
We're this deep into the comic strip and really, I can't think of an animal character who is anywhere near the depth of this.
We know the appeal of the animal characters.
It's like Schulz was tapping into something that for whatever crazy reason other cartoonists really didn't take advantage of until he did and he showed us the way.

Liz (06:49):
How about you, Jimmy?

Jimmy (06:51):
I agree with all of those things.
I think that's great.
I think the magic somehow is that it's not an animal strip and he's interacting with these kids.
The whole strip is unique because if there was an adult in it, that would change Snoopy's relationship with everything, but it's this contained world that just lets Snoopy shine.

(07:15):
He's off on his own, but he can be a part of the gang, but he's separate from the gang.
It's a little bit like an artist in some ways.
What I marvel is that he's extremely inconsistent in a lot of ways, which is funny when you see what our first comic strip that we picked was.
But he looks different.

(07:36):
He changes more than any other character.
He loves Charlie Brown, but he also forgets his name later.
All of that stuff, I think, makes him seem really real and really rich.
We're talking about this now for 10, 15 minutes or whatever.
We're talking about it for.
If I said, hey, what are the traits of little Abner?

(07:59):
You'd say, well, he's stupid, but he's nice.
If you said Popeye, well, he's crude, but he's nice.
Basically, you have one major character trait for your character, and then possibly a secondary character, which is usually, but he's nice, but they have a heart of gold.

(08:24):
Snoopy has a lot more than that going on.

Harold (08:27):
Yeah.

Jimmy (08:28):
We're going to look at a bunch of other comic strips.
If you want to figure out what we're going to be covering, the way you do that is you go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, and sign up for our newsletter.
You get one newsletter a month, and it'll let you know what we're going to be covering.
With that said, let's get to these comic strips.
I do have another little treat we're going to do before the break.

(08:50):
The four of us are going to do a Peanuts Reddit Personality Test.
We're going to find out which Peanuts character we all are.
I know you guys can play along at home, so it'll be a lot of fun.

Michael (09:01):
Once again, I was the one who picked these strips from the 60s.
And I'm leaning into what I like.
I'm not speaking for the other guys.
I'm not speaking for the readers.
It was really tough.
There's so many good ones.
And I just had to pick the ones that I liked the best.
I never really liked the Red Baron stuff.

(09:25):
I think it was very easy for him to come up with those, once he had the concept to come up with those jokes.
And they didn't seem like really brilliant humor.

Harold (09:35):
Why do you say those would be easy for Schulz?

Michael (09:39):
I think they'd be easy for Schulz because he'd do a little scenario, a Red Baron scenario, and then in the last panel, Snoopy, usually sitting on the dog house with his goggles on, would look at the reader and make a comment.

Harold (09:57):
So you're saying basically that he found a way to have a formula with something visually interesting and so he wouldn't maybe work his heart on a gag, you think?

Michael (10:05):
Well, he used it a lot and it was popular, so it makes sense he used it a lot.
But then again, I think he didn't have to stretch too far to find jokes because it was always Snoopy.
Basically, he had to be talking to the reader in the last panel because he'd be looking out and make a comment.

Harold (10:26):
Yeah, isn't it weird that you're seeing this as, this is something easy for Schulz and yet it's so crazy unique at the same time.
Yeah, no one else would have done it.
You're saying it kind of came easily to him the way he approached the Red Baron.

Michael (10:41):
I could see if he was stuck for an idea, he might do a Red Baron shirt.

Harold (10:45):
Huh, that's interesting.

Michael (10:47):
That's just me.
So basically, I was trying real hard to at least put one in, but I ended up having to pare down from 35 to 20, and my one pick was gone.
So there are no Red Baron shirts.

Harold (11:03):
Well, I understand.
I'm not a massive fan either.

Jimmy (11:06):
So this is our episode of Understanding Michael.

Michael (11:10):
Well, that's what it turned out to be.

Harold (11:12):
Yeah.
These were your calls.

Jimmy (11:16):
Ask a baby boomer to do everything.
It'll be about them.

Harold (11:24):
But no, I kind of agree with you, Michael, on that.
Those strips didn't stand out to me either.
At the same time, I was like, this is incredibly unique and it's so Snoopy and people talk about it a lot.
But I don't know.
Yeah, there was something about the strips that didn't strike me.

Jimmy (11:40):
Anyway, I think you're both out of your friggin mind.

Harold (11:43):
Well, there you go.

Jimmy (11:46):
January 2nd, 1960, Snoopy is lying, devastated, tired, in the snow, right on his belly and he thinks to himself, so here I am starting a new year.
Then he walks along and he thinks, but am I any different?
Nope.
I'm the same old dog.
He stands outside his dog house thinking, day after day and year after year, never a change.

(12:10):
Then he lies on top of the dog house and smiles to himself as he thinks, sometimes I marvel at my consistency.

Michael (12:19):
This is a case where the setup looks like he's unhappy about it.

Harold (12:23):
Yeah.

Michael (12:24):
Then you find out he's actually quite satisfied.

Harold (12:28):
Yeah.

Michael (12:29):
But it's ironic being the most changeable character in comics history probably because this 50 Snoopy has very little relationship to later on.
So yeah.
So am I any different?
No.
I mean, I'm thinner, my snout is shorter, my ears are smaller, my feet are bigger.

Harold (12:52):
And I see him on top of the dog house, which we did not see in 1950s.
Did you say that this started right around here?

Michael (13:01):
Yeah, it was late 50s.

Jimmy (13:03):
1959, I believe he gets.

Michael (13:04):
And his name was on it.

Harold (13:07):
Yeah.
And he feels obligated here on the third panel to show the dog house in perspective.
So you can see the little Snoopy name over his entrance.
And you can see the snow and how it's draped over the V-shaped roof.
And then, so then when he's lying on his back on top of the snow, well, it doesn't feel painful.

(13:34):
Because he's got a nice little bed of snow there.

Michael (13:36):
And look how skinny he is.

Harold (13:39):
Long too.
He's covering almost the whole dog house.

SPEAKER_2 (13:41):
Yeah.

Harold (13:43):
But yeah, visually, you're right.
You have the little peanut head in the second panel for Snoopy is getting closer to what we'll know him for for the rest of the run.
But he's got that really interesting back, that when the paws are going backward when they're walking, I don't does anyone else draw paws like that?

(14:07):
Where?
Because he has those really long kind of Hanna Barbera did this a lot with like characters like Huckleberry Hound, where the paw was super long.
So the pad is hitting the ground is going to be looking very substantial versus an average dog, which would, you know, it's basically just an extension of your leg that splays out a little bit.

(14:34):
But then he has to come up with something to do with the back legs.

Michael (14:36):
And they don't understand those back legs at all.

Liz (14:39):
Well, it's sort of like a horse galloping.
It's there up in the air.

Harold (14:43):
Yeah, it's like they're it's like a little paws are somehow curving backward, like 90 degrees more than they would.
But it's interesting.
Yeah, it's a very interesting look.
And again, Schulz is always trying to find something that's visually appealing.
And he kind of messes around with us for such a long time until he gets what he sticks with for the rest of it.

(15:04):
But it's it's an appealing Snoopy.
I think if you showed this Snoopy to people who know 90s Snoopy, at least that second panel would look like, OK, that's that's pretty.

Michael (15:14):
Yeah, that's to me that that's kind of classic Snoopy look there.

Jimmy (15:18):
Yeah.
So those first 10 years where he's really used using a variety of different looks for Snoopy, starts out with a tiny little puppy and he ends up with the big banana nose.
It goes all over the place in the first 10 years.

Harold (15:35):
Definitely.
And you said he felt really weird about looking back in late 50s Snoopy with the super long snout.

Jimmy (15:41):
He said he was appalled at how he drew Snoopy.

Harold (15:46):
It is pretty crazy that he went that extreme.
And it's all in the same decade, the extremes.

Jimmy (15:53):
You don't even notice when you're doing that stuff.
We've talked about this before, but you're drawing something day in and day out, and you're just drawing it.
And then you look back over two or three years worth of work and you're like, oh my God, look how much it's changed.
I went through a really weird experience of having to redraw or not redraw, having to draw new Amelia stories, Amelia Rule stories for the 25th Anniversary Editions, which by the way, you can now preorder wherever books are sold in the first two.

(16:26):
So not only just draw Amelia again, but draw Amelia again like I drew Amelia in 2001 and 2002.
And that's a real trick.

Harold (16:35):
Yeah, right?
What stands out to you the most?
I mean, those probably look as close to Peanuts, the early Amelia looks as close to Peanuts as it's gonna get, right?
Or would you say otherwise?

Jimmy (16:46):
Oh no, definitely.
And it's remembering that I wasn't drawing shapes so much as I was trying to draw the strokes that make up the character.
Cause I really felt that was Peanutsy or just comic strippy in general.
So it was hard to get back into that mindset.
Because partly, the other thing, and part of your style we've talked about is the sum of your mistakes.

(17:09):
And you don't want to have those mistakes after 25 years, right?
You want to do something.

Michael (17:13):
People tend to simplify after a while.
And so they might forget some details that they used to put in.

Harold (17:20):
Yeah.

Michael (17:20):
For me, I drew Strange Attractors for several years in the 90s.
And there's this little robot character called Roshi.
And I hadn't really drawn robots or anything before.
So, I basically just stole a Hernandez brother.
Haimi robot made a few changes.

(17:41):
But anyway, years later, I started digitizing it thinking that I wanted to put it up as a webcomic.
I had to go back and redraw every Roshi because over the course of the thing, he just totally changed shape.
And luckily, it's an easy character to draw.
It's very cartoony.

Harold (18:02):
Yeah.
Do you find anything satisfying in going back?
When you're creating it, you're doing your best, and hopefully, you're reasonably happy enough with it, at least to share it with the public.
But then you go back a decade later, and a character that maybe you have drawn since.
And it's like, oh my gosh, I've come to a new place as an artist, and I like what I'm doing more than I was doing then.

(18:28):
Like you say, you don't see it as you're going, because it's so incremental.
But do you find some satisfaction in going back and looking at it from the earlier years and saying, oh my gosh, I really have developed?

Michael (18:40):
I've redrawn so much.
And where do you stop?
You can either, you know, George Lucas went back and, oh God, I have to fix this.

Jimmy (18:50):
General loves all those.

SPEAKER_2 (18:52):
No, no, Mr.
Starr.

Harold (18:56):
I got to come up with those mediclorians.

Michael (18:59):
If you've got, when you started out, you weren't good and then you get a lot better real fast.
You have a real problem, especially if you're doing like a long graphic novel.

Harold (19:09):
Yes, that's true.

Liz (19:10):
Or a podcast.

Michael (19:12):
So yeah, well, yeah, but something like Cerebus is a really difficult sell.
You've got this 300-issue story, and you've got to start at the beginning, but it's really badly drawn for years, and he's somehow resisted the temptation of going back and fixing it.

Jimmy (19:39):
So he's actually redone like issue one and two even now.

Michael (19:43):
Really?

Harold (19:43):
Oh, he has?

Jimmy (19:44):
Yeah.

Michael (19:46):
To what degree does he redraw it?

Jimmy (19:49):
Totally, complete redrawing.

Michael (19:50):
Really?

Jimmy (19:50):
Yeah.

Harold (19:51):
Oh, that's weird.
So then does that mean issue three is like, whoa?

Jimmy (19:56):
I think it was more as an experiment.
I don't think it was ever actually published in the book.
I think it was published as a standalone, because yes, it would have been like, whoa.
Yeah.

Harold (20:07):
At what point do you meld it all together?

Jimmy (20:10):
Yeah.
And then would you do the whole thing over again?
And then when you get to the end of that, do you start over again?

Harold (20:16):
Well, yeah.
That would be madness.
Of course, cartooning is soft.

Michael (20:23):
Very few people have done that, but the temptation is pretty strong, especially if you consider it as a graphic novel.

Harold (20:32):
Yeah.

Michael (20:32):
I mean, Schulz was never going to go back and redraw his 50 Snoopys.

Harold (20:37):
So the secret is to never get better.

Jimmy (20:40):
Yeah.

Michael (20:41):
Well, that's the beauty of Nancy.

Jimmy (20:44):
Oh.

Michael (20:46):
It looks exactly the same.

Harold (20:48):
All right.
Well, we're just gunning for some letters in the mailbox.

Jimmy (20:51):
I will say, yeah, oh, God help us.
I will say this, you know, the other example of this is Bone.
Because Bone, you know, he started, he had already owned an animation studio.
Like, the one thing he could draw was animated type characters.
Like, not the one thing he could draw, but he knew he could certainly, he could draw any of these excellent arts.

(21:12):
But, you know, he could draw animated characters consistently.
And I think that's one of the reasons Bone feels like a big unified work.

Harold (21:22):
Yes.
Yeah.
I think you're absolutely right about that, Jimmy.
Yeah, because you have model sheets and it's ingrained in an animator.
You create a model sheet and then you animate to that model sheet because multiple artists are working on it in particular.
You don't have the freedom of your own odd expression to go into the work, to go off model so much that it's like, what happened to this character?

Jimmy (21:48):
Yeah.

Harold (21:48):
And so I think it's a strength and a weakness.
I think in Jeff Smith's case, it's no weakness at all just because of how good he is.
And he kind of nailed those designs so beautifully from the start.
But what happens if you could make it better and then you just don't allow yourself because you've got the mindset, that's the character and that's the way the character will be.

Jimmy (22:10):
Yeah.
Well, then you don't allow yourself that freedom like Schulz has to just explore.

Harold (22:15):
Yeah.
I'm so grateful that you didn't have the animation background.

Jimmy (22:21):
January 17th, 1960.
It's a lovely snowy day and Snoopy and Charlie Brown are out enjoying it.
Charlie Brown is making a snowman and Snoopy is just running around helping him.
Then it's Sunday Strip, so the second tier is where things really get going.
Charlie Brown says to Snoopy, I'm going home to eat lunch Snoopy and I want you to guard my snowman.

(22:41):
Don't let anyone harm it.
Snoopy jumps up and stands on top of the snowman's head and says, one thing I'm good at is guarding things.
It's a point of distinction with my particular breed.
In the next panel, we see him looking every direction at once and saying, I'll guard this snowman against enemies from the north, south, east and west.
I'll guard this snowman against enemies from below and from.

(23:04):
Then he looks up at the bright shining sun and says, above and of course over the next four panels.
The snowman slowly melts as Snoopy tries to beg and plead and protect it from, shield it from the sun's rays.
But by the time Charlie Brown comes back, it's just a big puddle with Snoopy lying in it.

(23:28):
Charlie Brown says, you just can't do anything, can you?

Harold (23:35):
Oh, man.
Charlie Brown, that's harsh, especially after we've seen all Snoopys gone through.
But talk about a strip, if you'd never read any peanuts before or after, that this was just the one.
What a masterful way to build your empathy toward this little dog.

(23:56):
He's got personality, he's got loyalty, he's claiming these things in the nature of who he is as a dog.
And then he's just totally decimated by the sun there.
And I didn't see that last pail coming, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
He did everything he could possibly do.

(24:18):
And Charlie Brown missing all of that, but we didn't.
Because you just can't do anything, can you?
That's, this is like one of the best peanut strips ever.
Amazing.
Fantastic.
Art is great.

Liz (24:33):
And that little up above.

Harold (24:35):
Yeah, lowercase above as he's looking.
I guard the snowman against enemies from below and from above.
Yeah, and he sees that sun.
Great artwork, great expressions.
Again, he gives himself the freedom to make Snoopy's ears look ragged and this desperation by drawing rougher lines.

(25:00):
And it's masterful.

Jimmy (25:05):
July 5th, 1960.
This is a sequence where Snoopy is protesting.
And we see him on top of his doghouse, standing on his head.
And he thinks to himself, the people of this world have gone mad.
I'm going to stand on my head as a public protest.
He's continuing to do this since Charlie Brown comes up from behind and carrying his supper dish.
And Snoopy is thinking, I will become symbolic of the little man, crying out in anguish against the world's madness.

(25:32):
And but then he sniffs twice.
He senses the supper is there.
And then he jumps down and eats his dinner and says, after supper.

Michael (25:43):
Well, we all know that feeling basically.
You don't want to protest what's going on in the world, but.

Harold (25:53):
You have to live to protest another day.
Really great art.
He's already doing the craziness of the top of the doghouse.
And now he's standing on his head on top of the doghouse.
Those little ears curving around the back.
It's like every choice he makes are aesthetically is just classic cartooniness.

(26:15):
It's great.
I love it.

Jimmy (26:17):
So yeah, this is an example, though, I think, like there, what's the difference between this and the Red Baron in the sense that, you know, oh, I'm stuck for an idea.
I'm going to do one where Snoopy wants to eat.

Michael (26:31):
Yeah, but the idea is he's protesting the world.

Jimmy (26:34):
Well, yes, I understand that, but that's not like no.
But if you were to classify these strips, you wouldn't say these are strips of Snoopy protesting, you know, over 50 years.
It's Snoopy eating strips.
The eating the food is the same as the Red Baron, in that it gives you a structure.

Michael (26:51):
No, I disagree.
Eating and sleeping are Snoopy's only real joys in dancing.

Jimmy (26:57):
My point is...

Liz (26:58):
It's not a character.

Jimmy (26:59):
It's a format.

Harold (27:02):
Yeah, I'm with you, Jimmy.
I know what you're saying.
You say, why would this be any harder to do than a Red Baron?

Jimmy (27:08):
Yeah, it wouldn't be any harder.

Michael (27:09):
Yeah, but he didn't do that with the pirates.
He had a few pirate strips and then he dropped it.
That easily could have been a Red Baron thing, a formula.

Harold (27:19):
So your argument is because we see so much of it, you still think it's something that...

Michael (27:24):
Yeah, if there were three Red Barons, I don't think anybody would have...

Harold (27:29):
So it's like Chuck Jones when he was doing a Bugs Bunny after spending too much time on it, he'd do a Roadrunner.

Jimmy (27:34):
None of this is refuting what I said though, which is this type of thing is the same as the Red Baron.

Michael (27:40):
Well, that's your opinion.

Jimmy (27:42):
No, it's not.
It's what it is.
You have a structure of things.
I could use this and the end will always be Snoopy wants to eat.

Harold (27:50):
Yeah.
I agree with you, Jimmy.
I wouldn't personally feel, just because I don't necessarily like the jokes that he's coming up with, with the Red Baron and I don't think it was a simpler process for him to do Snoopy and the Red Baron.
It's just a go-to that he did because he needed a gag and he's got to work his hard on it, I guess, as any other.

Michael (28:16):
Well, someone wrote a song about it, a hip-hop song, so that had to have an effect on Schulz going like, wow, everybody's singing about the Red Baron.

Jimmy (28:28):
There was a simpler time when I think they thought they could put that out on the radio.

Harold (28:33):
They're not consumed.

Liz (28:36):
There you go, dissing boomers again.

Jimmy (28:39):
Well, you know, actually no.

Harold (28:41):
I don't know, less litigious, that's not a bad thing.

Jimmy (28:46):
Well, they did eventually get sued.

Michael (28:48):
Well, they did, but there was a second song.

Jimmy (28:51):
Yeah, then they had to cut them in on it.

Harold (28:56):
Wow.
Yeah, that sounds like the music business to me.
Yeah.
I think it's very interesting what Michael, what you brought up about your sense that certain gags come faster or maybe don't have as much value because they were easier to get to.
Jimmy, is there anything you've done that are recurring elements in the stories that you do, that you do find it's just easier to flow into them and get content?

Jimmy (29:25):
The one that I did that was really easy for me, that I just eliminated from Amelia, which was a stupid decision because everyone likes it, is Reggie's big, gigantic scientific definitions of stupidity.

Harold (29:38):
It's funny, that was the first thing I thought of when I was asking you that question, is if you found those just flowed more quickly.

Jimmy (29:44):
Yeah, I could do those, well, I would do them extemporaneously to entertain my kids and stuff like that.

Harold (29:52):
So you had practiced, right?

Jimmy (29:53):
Yeah, Doritos Maximus, like whatever, you know, the common Dorito.
I do think there's a thing, well, if you don't sweat over something, could it be any good?
They don't actually have any correlation, except in your own mind.

Harold (30:13):
That's what I've noticed too, yeah.
If it comes easily, that may be actually a good sign.

Jimmy (30:19):
Yeah, that's a strength.
Yeah.
The song yesterday, I mean, you know?

Harold (30:24):
Yesterday came easily.

Jimmy (30:25):
Yeah.
Tomorrow, who knows?
No, but yesterday the song in a dream, so he doesn't trust it.

Harold (30:31):
Tomorrow never knows.

Jimmy (30:31):
Tomorrow never knows.

Michael (30:33):
Yeah, I've dreamt songs, woke up.
Generally, I still have to work a lot on them to get them to sound good.
But basically, you wake up with a little tune in your head and a couple of lyrics.
That's not the whole song.

Liz (30:46):
Linus' theme song is called Morning Dream Song, and that's one that Michael dreamt.

Harold (30:55):
That's really interesting.
I think I've told the story of this picture book that, in night, I was trying to sleep and a different rhyme would come.
I'd wake up, turn on the light, write it down, then another one would come and another one.
I wrote, I'd say, 85 percent of that book.
It just came in spite of myself.

(31:18):
Also, I think the favorite sketch I did that I never got into Mystery Science Theater literally came as I was waking up.
I just had to run to write it down.
It's really special when you get this block of creativity that's all of a piece.
It's like being handed a gift.

Jimmy (31:37):
Well, I remember the issue of Emilia that got the most acclaimed was the issue 17, I think it was, or 18.
It's the Iraq War issue where the girls...
Yeah.
And I knew I wanted to do that because my friend was stationed in Iraq and I deployed direct, but I didn't have an ending.

(31:58):
But I had to have the book out.
So I wrote a false ending that I knew I was not going to get to.
It was just...
But I had to write something and I'm writing and writing and writing.
And I have no idea what the ending is.
And I have like three days left.
And I was like, well, I'm just going to go to bed.
It's not going to get there.
So tonight I laid down and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I got the ending and I had to get up and go down and just write it in a notebook, you know, so that I didn't forget it by the next morning.

Harold (32:28):
Because you ever make the mistake, of course I'm going to remember.
Yeah, it's just gone.
You just have this memory of genius.
It's just this fleeting.

Jimmy (32:39):
Yeah, you can never recapture it.

Harold (32:41):
But yeah, there is something so special when something comes to you.

Jimmy (32:48):
Well, that's what Robert Crumb says about cartooning though, is the best cartooning is, it's revealing itself to you as you're working on it.
And the end will appear as you work on it.

Michael (33:01):
Yeah, but Crumb is unusual.
Essentially, his stories are all like two or three pages.

Jimmy (33:08):
Well, yeah.

Michael (33:09):
Yeah, his one long work, it doesn't really count as a long work.

Harold (33:13):
Yeah.

Michael (33:13):
Genesis, I mean, he-

Jimmy (33:14):
Yeah, but he won Best Writer Artist for that, which is what you think rewards matter.

Harold (33:22):
Maybe best adaptation would have been a little better.

Jimmy (33:25):
Just best artist.
My God.
Anyway.
All right, guys.
Well, we have managed to talk quite a bit about Snoopy, and only done a few strips now, but I think let's take a break.
But before we take our break, here's what we're going to do.
We're going to do our Buzzfeed, Which Peanuts character are you test?

(33:47):
There'll be a link in the show notes, and so you can take it at home.
We're going to take the test now, and then when we come back from the break, we will reveal what Peanuts characters each of us are.
Okay?
So here we go.
Is everybody ready?

Michael (34:02):
Ready.
What if we don't like the question?

Jimmy (34:06):
It's a Saturday afternoon.

Michael (34:09):
What's the weather like?

Liz (34:09):
I can't answer these questions.

Harold (34:11):
Why does it have to be such torture?

Michael (34:13):
What's the weather?
If it's sunny, I'll do one thing, if it's rainy, I'll do something else.

Jimmy (34:17):
It's a Saturday afternoon.
How do you spend your day?
Reading a book, by going on an outdoor adventure, by throwing a party, by filling up my schedule with lots of activities.
All right, so Harold, why don't you start?
It's Saturday afternoon.
How do you spend your day?

Harold (34:34):
I'd have to say reading a book.

Jimmy (34:36):
All right, Liz?

Liz (34:37):
Reading a book.

Jimmy (34:38):
Michael?

Michael (34:39):
Depends on the weather.
But I'll say filling up my schedule with lots of activities.

Jimmy (34:45):
All right, and I'm reading a book.
Question two, when it comes to group projects, you are the person who always follows along, the person who entertains everyone, the person who makes thoughtful suggestions, or the person who takes the lead.

Michael (35:00):
Oh, man.
That depends on who I'm doing a project with.
Yeah, with you, I'd have to go, well, I'll just follow along.
But with other people, I will take the lead.

Jimmy (35:11):
So you're going to say the person takes the lead?
Yeah.
Okay, Liz?

Liz (35:18):
I think I'm going to go with person who makes thoughtful suggestions.

Jimmy (35:22):
Harold?

Harold (35:23):
I'm with you, Liz.

Jimmy (35:25):
I too, I'm going to be the person who takes the lead.

Michael (35:27):
That's why we can't work together.

Harold (35:29):
Makes sense.
Of course, you can't help but think of this podcast.

Liz (35:34):
True.

Jimmy (35:34):
In your friend group, you are the lovable one, the life of the party, the goofball, or the trusted confidant.

Harold (35:42):
Oh, my.

Jimmy (35:43):
I'll tell you, I am the trusted confidant, whether I want to be or not.

Harold (35:47):
Huh.

Liz (35:47):
Me too.

Michael (35:49):
I'm surely not the lovable one.

Jimmy (35:52):
I think you're the life of the party.

Michael (35:55):
I am.
All right, I'll do trusted confidant.

Harold (35:59):
Yeah, these are weird to say publicly.

Jimmy (36:04):
Well, listen, if it makes you feel any better, these actually aren't scientifically accurate.

Harold (36:09):
But it's a Buzzfeed quiz.

Jimmy (36:12):
So it really doesn't matter.
There are no stakes to this.

Harold (36:15):
Yeah, except for your reputation for madness.

Jimmy (36:19):
Well, none of these are bad.
No one's like you're the murderer.

Harold (36:23):
Right.

Michael (36:23):
Oh, he's lovable.

Harold (36:25):
I'm the lovable, adorable one.

Jimmy (36:26):
All right, you're the lovable one.
What's your greatest strength?
Your charisma, your self-confidence, your intelligence, or your optimism?

Michael (36:35):
These are embarrassing.

Jimmy (36:36):
I got self-confidence as I confidently answer.

Michael (36:40):
Self-confidence.

Harold (36:41):
You got self-confidence in spades.

Jimmy (36:43):
That's right, baby.

Liz (36:45):
I'll say my optimism.

Jimmy (36:47):
Nice.

Harold (36:49):
I'll say intelligence.

Jimmy (36:52):
At a party, you are the person who invites 10 other people, the person who helps set up, the person who dominates the dance floor, or the person who leaves early.

Michael (37:01):
Well, I have to put leave early because I wouldn't even go.

Liz (37:05):
Me too.

Harold (37:07):
I'm probably heading out.

Jimmy (37:08):
Yeah, me too.
Four leave-in-earlies.

Harold (37:12):
And yet this podcast continues.
It's so strange.

Jimmy (37:14):
Well, it's a party with just the four of us.

SPEAKER_2 (37:17):
That's true.

Jimmy (37:18):
How does being in the spotlight make you feel?
It makes me feel energized.
I'm indifferent to it.
It makes me feel in control.
It makes me feel self-conscious.

Michael (37:30):
Self-conscious.

Jimmy (37:31):
In control.

Liz (37:33):
It depends on if I'm like on stage and singing, it makes me feel energized, but otherwise it makes me feel self-conscious.

Harold (37:42):
Yeah.
I used to be self-conscious, but after I've been out under a tent for some so long, I'm going to be, say, energized.

Jimmy (37:50):
Nice.
How do you deal with burnout?
I delegate work to other people.
I retreat from the public eyes.
I stay optimistic and push forward.
I never burn out.
Retreat.

Michael (38:03):
Retreat.

Jimmy (38:04):
Never burnout.

Michael (38:05):
If it said take a nap, I did pick that.

Harold (38:08):
Retreat.

Michael (38:08):
Yeah.

Jimmy (38:09):
Retreat is a nap.
That counts.

Harold (38:10):
Yeah.
They say that introverts, the best way to describe whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, is how you recharge your batteries.

Jimmy (38:20):
Finally, which statement is true about you?

Michael (38:24):
Solitude.

Jimmy (38:25):
I love being the leader.

Liz (38:26):
Gosh, I like all of these.
All of these things are true about me.
No.
Well, I'd less like being the leader.
I like making people laugh.

Harold (38:38):
Making people laugh.

SPEAKER_2 (38:39):
All right.

Jimmy (38:41):
We got them?

SPEAKER_2 (38:41):
All right.

Jimmy (38:42):
If you guys out there did your choices, keep them to yourself, but you can also just shoot them to our email unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com.
Let's know what you got.
Then we're going to come back after the break and let you know who we got.
Be right back.

Liz (38:55):
Hi, everyone.
We love it when you write or call to tell us how much you enjoy the show.
But don't just tell us, tell your friends, tell complete strangers, share your appreciation in a review.
It doesn't have to be on Apple Podcasts.
60 percent of you listen on other apps.
Some of those apps have review sections.

(39:15):
Think of all the poor Peanuts fans out there who haven't found us yet.
There are review instructions on our website at unpackingpeanuts.com/spread the word.
Thank you for your support.

Jimmy (39:29):
All right, we are back.
So guys, what do you think?
Who wants to go first?
Should I go first?

SPEAKER_2 (39:37):
Yes.

Jimmy (39:38):
I am Lucy.
That fits.
An extrovert.
Yeah, I'm assertive.
You know exactly what you want and you make the moves to get it.
When it comes to your opinions, you make your voice heard and you're not afraid to be fully and completely honest, which is exactly what your friends need.

Harold (39:59):
Wow.
All right.

Jimmy (40:02):
No surprises there.
What else do we got?
Harold?

Harold (40:05):
I got Marcy.

Jimmy (40:07):
Marcy.
That's a good one.

Liz (40:09):
I'm Marcy too.

Michael (40:10):
A podcast full of Marcy's.
I'm Marcy too.

Jimmy (40:13):
Oh, my God.
Three Marcs.
Well, maybe that this was a flawed test.
Who wants to read?

Harold (40:21):
It says, you're Marcy, an introvert, you're unassuming, sweet and intelligent, a bookworm.
You're super insightful and you're usually the voice of reason within your friend group.
Sure, you love your solitude, but you're not afraid to step up to the plate when it comes to helping your friends and family.

Jimmy (40:38):
You love your salad too?

Harold (40:40):
Sure.
Don't you like salad?

Liz (40:41):
I love salad too, food.

Harold (40:42):
It's like, I like a good cob with hard-boiled egg and bacon bits.

Liz (40:51):
Caprese.

Jimmy (40:52):
Sure, you love your salad too, but.
That's a funny line.

Harold (41:00):
Sorry.
Looking at some other options in the comments, you can be an ambivert, which is Charlie Brown or an extreme extrovert, Snoopy.

Jimmy (41:10):
Full disclosure, I took this test myself before we did this, and I guess I answered one or two of the questions wrong, or differently this time, I got Charlie Brown the first time.

Harold (41:20):
Interesting.
Well, we must say as a disclaimer that Apple TV has published this, and they just so happen to have Snoopy presents one-of-a-kind Marcy.
That's a pretty smart little move there, Apple.
They have Snoopy in the title and Marcy can't carry it, huh?
Is that what you're saying?

(41:42):
But yeah, it makes you wonder if they are waiting this any toward Snoopy and Marcy, so that you'll want to go see the special.

Jimmy (41:51):
Could be.
Well, anyway, that's fun.
I thought we would just goof around a little bit.
Since we're free now of having to read 17,897 scripts, we can enjoy our salads freely.
All right.
So, oh, it's that time of the show, Liz.
Do we got anything in the mailbox?

Liz (42:12):
We do.
We got one message from Jason Bullitt, who writes, after listening to the last two episodes of The Great Peanuts reread, I recall the day after Charles Schulz passing.
We had a snow day from school, so I listened to Paul Harvey.
He started his newscast by stating his wish for an editorial cartoon with Tom Landry, who passed hours earlier, holding a football, waiting for Sparky to kick it.

(42:41):
Thanks for the great episodes and as always be of good cheer.

Jimmy (42:45):
Thank you for writing.
Yeah, I remember that now.
Yes.

Harold (42:49):
Wow.
So Tom Landry and Charles Schulz passed.

Jimmy (42:53):
I always felt bad for Farrah Fawcett, because she died the same day as Michael Jackson.

Liz (42:58):
That's it for the mail.

Jimmy (43:00):
All right.
If you want to reach out, you can email us or unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com, or you can follow us on social media.
I'll give you that rundown at the end of the episode.
So let's get back to the strips.
November 18th, 1960.
It's a Sunday page and Charlie Brown has got himself some boxing gloves, and Snoopy has one too right on his snout as opposed to his paws.

(43:28):
Charlie Brown says to Linus, this is going to be a new experience for me.
I've never fought a dog with a boxing glove on his nose before.
And Snoopy, who is dancing around warming up, says, boy, I feel sharp today.
Jab, jab, jab, whap.
Linus is now trying to help Charlie Brown by tying up his boxing gloves.
And Linus says, all I can tell you, Charlie Brown, is to look out for him.

(43:51):
He's tricky.
And Charlie Brown says, I can believe that.
And then they start sparring, and Snoopy with the glove again on his nose says, okay, fella, here we go.
Watch yourself.
And then Snoopy races around Charlie Brown like a dog with the zoomies, just circles, totally confusing Charlie Brown.
And he's then behind him.

(44:12):
And when Charlie Brown notices him, he's shocked out of his mind to find him, Snoopy behind him.
And Snoopy says, the Cobra strikes.
And then headbutch Charlie Brown right in the face with the boxing glove, sending him flying and knocking him to the ground.
And Linus helps Charlie Brown up and says, Don't feel bad, Charlie Brown.
I fought him twice and lost both times.

(44:32):
I guess we just can't beat him.
I wonder what happens now.
And then Snoopy lies on top of his dog house with the boxing glove on his nose and says, I retire undefeated.
What else?

Michael (44:46):
Classic strip.
Rare example of the top tier actually being kind of important.

Jimmy (44:52):
Yeah, it flows in pretty clearly.
Yeah, now I remember doing these strips with Snoopy with the thing on his nose the first time through.
It's a very silly and fun design.

Harold (45:05):
And his style just keeps loosening and loosening.
He has some fast lines.
You can just tell he's drawing these fast, I think, to try to get this sense of the danger in it.
Look at Snoopy's shoulder in the second panel up there up top.
It's like a little angle.
He's like all bony.

Michael (45:27):
Look at that, Charlie Brown's shoes flying off on the bottom tier panel one.

Liz (45:34):
And the little socks.

Harold (45:36):
Yeah, a little reinforced toe and heel.
It's great.

Liz (45:40):
And they match his shirt.

Harold (45:42):
That's a really, I mean, talk about a beautiful art, the Snoopy hitting Charlie Brown in an arc over him.
Like, of all the ways to draw this, I don't know anybody who would have drawn it the way Schulz draws it here.
And it's gorgeous.
So Snoopy's kind of got a little arc flying over him with, with paws backwards.

(46:06):
So it's talking about the line of action in the animation.
This looks like the classic line of action system, an arc that goes all, all the way across the panel essentially.
And then I think what makes Charlie Brown really special is how straight-backed he is.
It's like he's so stiff.

(46:27):
And we've talked about this before with Snoopy and the kids.
You know, the kids are very squat and hard to have lots of action and motion.
And Snoopy is, particularly in this era, is so flexible.
And it's the fact that he's hitting Charlie Brown and Charlie Brown is, his back and his legs are just like as straight as can be.

(46:50):
As opposed to Snoopy, it's like there's personality in someone getting hit.
That is really, really well done.
And he makes it so clear, you don't see the point of contact.
You see Snoopy floating over Charlie Brown.
And the only way you know he was hit really is that there's a gigantic pow with stars coming out the sides above it.

(47:13):
And it's like a little three tiers of pow, Snoopy and Charlie Brown, all going horizontally in thirds over the panel.
And it's, yeah, if I drew it, I can't imagine how muddy it would look.

Jimmy (47:26):
Muddy is a great way to say, that's what I was thinking.
I would add all kinds of detail.
I wouldn't have had the ability to do those just iconic figures that are so...
Even though, you know, there's something about the fact that it's as action packed as a peanuts panel can get, and yet, it still looks calm.

(47:48):
You know, Charlie Brown isn't reeling and in shock.
He's just Charlie Brown who got punched by his dog, and he has that same semi-stoic reaction to it, you know?

Harold (48:02):
Yeah, and it's like different cartoonists...
They'll usually use blur when there's motion.
You certainly see it when Charlie Brown...
There's four Charlie Brown heads looking around him as Snoopy is...
Zooming around him, and you can't see Snoopy at all in that panel.
It's just motion lines and beautifully drawn motion lines too.

(48:25):
They feel super three-dimensional, but there's no Snoopy there, and so talk about the ultimate blur done with really just pen and ink lines.
But here in that panel where Snoopy's punching Charlie Brown, it's almost like you got one of those cameras that can film 120 frames per second.

(48:48):
And as fast as the motion is, you get a crisp, completely crisp image of what's happening.
And it just works incredibly well, but it's not at all, and intuitively, what I would have done in that panel.

Jimmy (49:01):
It's great to look at, though.
That's the kind of thing you can really learn from.

Harold (49:06):
Absolutely.

Jimmy (49:08):
December 15th, 1960.
It's another Sunday page.
Snoopy is sliding across the ice for three panels.
First on his belly and then on his hind legs like an ice skater.
And then he does that for three more panels, just sliding around beautifully on the ice as the strip really starts on tier two.
And then Lucy comes in and says, Hold it!

(49:30):
Is this all you have to do?
Are you going to spend the whole day sliding back and forth on a piece of ice?
Snoopy looks just, you know, embarrassed by this.
And she continues yelling at him as he pads away.
Do you think these days were given to you to waste?
Doesn't life mean more to you than this?
And then Lucy, as Snoopy walks away, looks around and then does a little slide on the ice herself.

(49:54):
But Snoopy comes back and catches her.
And Snoopy has a very smug knowing look on his face.

Michael (50:02):
So he was faking looking humiliated.
Right?

Harold (50:07):
No, I don't think so.

Jimmy (50:08):
I don't think so either.
No, I think he looked back and saw Lucy doing it and was like, Aha.

Michael (50:14):
I think it works too if he's saying, oh, yeah, I'm not going to listen to you.
I read this as he's looking like totally depressed about the fact that she's telling him he's wasting his life.
I think he's faking that.

Harold (50:31):
Oh, really?
Oh, it looks about as he's...

Jimmy (50:35):
Yeah, well, I mean, there's nothing in the script.

Harold (50:36):
Give him the Emmy, give him the Oscar.

Jimmy (50:38):
That he's faking it.

Liz (50:39):
Yeah, that's just how you're interpreting it.
There isn't anything in the art that explains that.

Michael (50:46):
Yeah, but Lucy does this all the time.
I think he's learned that she is not to be taken seriously.

Liz (50:53):
I don't think you'd have sweat drips if he was faking it.

Michael (50:57):
In a comic, you would.

Jimmy (50:59):
Michael is not going to agree.

SPEAKER_2 (51:00):
Just spoiler alert.

Michael (51:03):
Why would I agree?
I'm right.

Liz (51:06):
Welcome to my world.

Harold (51:10):
Those are two amazing.
Well, there's a lot of really amazing drawings in this.
I love seeing Snoopy.
I love it when you can get a strip where some character is just expressing joy.
In cartooning, that to me is one of the, it's just a few lines, but you can just capture the essence of the purity of a moment.
That upper right panel of Snoopy with his paws out in the top tier is just great, great cartooning.

(51:39):
And then to have that interrupted by Lucy's brief tirade.
Two also amazing drawings of Snoopy looking incredibly dejected and humiliated after being so happy.
And then getting the turnaround at the end is another great strip.
Schulz takes you, he rubber bands you, boomerangs you emotionally.

Liz (52:03):
I like Lucy's decision moment and the way that they did the color different.
The sky sort of sets it off.

Harold (52:11):
Yeah, it goes from light blue to a pastel yellow around her head there.
Yeah, Liz, that's great.
I love that it really does help the strip.
You see something changing.

Jimmy (52:23):
What do you think of that second panel?
Like the white in his ears, like it's supposed to look like a blur, I think, but it looks like a misprint.

Michael (52:31):
Yeah, it's weird.

Liz (52:34):
Maybe it says genuine leather.

Michael (52:36):
It looks like he used some white out in the speed lines.

Harold (52:39):
Yeah, but the dejected Snoopy in the panel right below it looks like there's stuff that was drawn that's gotten somehow removed.

Jimmy (52:49):
So do we think it might be just some sort of...
Yeah, because it also looks like the lines on the first panel are broken up in a way that they normally aren't.

Harold (52:59):
Yeah, this looks like this is not from a pristine original source.
So who knows?
I'd love to see the original of this one.
And look how tall Snoopy is in relationship with Lucy in the last panel.
Yeah, he's like almost as tall as she is.
Again, you know, emotion changes the art.

(53:19):
He's not following the model sheet in relationships of characters.
It's the emotion that rules in his cartooning, which I love.
Very much like a manga these days, you know, where you can totally change the look of a character if they're embarrassed or whatever, the little chibi version of them.
I do think that's an incredible strength of cartooning that we don't, few cartoonists take advantage of.

SPEAKER_2 (53:46):
Right.

Jimmy (53:48):
March 16th, 1961.
It's good old Freida.
And she says to Snoopy, It's disgraceful the way you hang around all day doing nothing.
Now you get out there and chase some rabbits.
And then Snoopy takes right off, Arf, arf, arf.
And as he runs, Freida smiles after him.
But then in the next panel, Snoopy comes bounding back, doing an imitation of the rabbit he is supposedly chasing.

(54:16):
And then Freida yells after him, You're not fooling anybody but yourself.

Michael (54:24):
Look how small he is compared to Freida in that panel, panel one.

Harold (54:27):
In the first panel, yeah.
Then he's gigantic later.
Again, you know, yeah, what Schulz does, what he needs to do.

Michael (54:35):
Well, there's all those word, all that word balloons kind of scrunching him down.

Liz (54:39):
That's true.

Harold (54:40):
Yeah, yeah, he had to cram a lot in that little tiny panel.
Now, talking about Snoopy's intentions, Michael, when I see panel two, you know, we know he's doing this not with sincerity, right?
And something about the arf arf arf that Snoopy does that's in serif, it's like the serif thought, it almost feels like this is an act, this is a formal thing I'm doing for somebody else.

(55:08):
Which again, that's genius, you know, that he didn't have to do that, but it looks like he's accentuating something in the cartooning by making the thought look like something Snoopy's never does thought-wise.
So he looks like he's just, you know, he's putting on an act.
That's a great bunny.

Jimmy (55:32):
June 14th, 1961.
We see Snoopy standing with Lucy and he's making a ridiculous face.
You have to just look at it to get the feel of it.
That's what happens in the second panel as well.
Then the third panel, Lucy says, if you think those are funny faces you're making, then you're sadly mistaken.
Then as she's gone and Snoopy's alone, and he thinks to himself, nobody appreciates good humor anymore.

Harold (55:58):
Editorial cartooning there.
Great drawings.
There's something about his line work right now in the early 1960s.
It's just really, really cool, particularly for Snoopy.
He's getting a little bit of a thick and thin with his pen line, and it just looks super nice.

Jimmy (56:19):
Absolutely.
Really beautiful.

Harold (56:22):
And it looks like he's still connecting his little balloon lines together, pretty much like most cartoonists do.
He's getting a little wonky right now, because normally you get just the point, and he does this weird thing where he swoops in the bottom of the word balloon, and it just gets crazier and crazier as he goes on.

Jimmy (56:47):
April 17th, 1962, Charlie Brown is reading a comic magazine, and Snoopy is sitting there staring up at him, and Charlie Brown says, No, not tonight.
And then Snoopy sniffs, he looks so sad, and Charlie Brown rolls his eyes, and then tosses his comic book aside and says, Oh, all right, but it's so ridiculous.

(57:07):
And then in the last panel, we see Charlie Brown carrying Snoopy in piggyback style to his doghouse, as he says, other dogs go to bed without having a piggyback ride.
Why did you pick this one, Michael?

Michael (57:22):
I love that last panel.
He's so happy.
You really see Snoopy that happy.
He got his way.

Harold (57:31):
I can't tell.
Does he have like the little contented eye?
Or is it?
It's a little blurry.
Yeah, I can't tell.
I guess he doesn't if I zoom in on it.
But yeah, he's incredibly cute.
It's not easy to draw piggyback with a giant head, Charlie Brown.
He had to be a little creative.

(57:54):
But every drawing of Snoopy here is amazing and adorable and full of emotion.
Well, the first one doesn't have motion.
He's just staring, the old dog stare.

Liz (58:07):
I like the second panel, the Charlie Brown rolling his eyes, knowing that Snoopy's putting it on.

Harold (58:15):
Yeah.
How do you even describe Snoopy's emotion there?
The little mouth.
Because Schulz was famous for that squiggly-lined mouth.
Charlie Brown's got it and Snoopy's got it as well in panel two.

Liz (58:30):
Isn't that crocodile tears?
Is that what it is?

Harold (58:34):
And again, it's interesting, he puts the fonts, like a serif fonts on Snoopy's, like you say, putting it on.
He's embellishing if he puts a serif on any of the sound effects.

Jimmy (58:44):
I'm hand lettering a serif font through my new book In The Real Dark Night for one of the narratives.

Harold (58:51):
How's it going?

Jimmy (58:52):
Fun.
Once it finally clicked in, I'm so happy with the way it looks, but it takes a while to get there.
You know what I mean?
My first thought was, I'm just going to use a font, and then it really looked just like text glued to the page.
I'm like, I got to do it.
But I'm able to letter it by hand on the iPad, which changes everything, you know, that you can just double click and it goes away.

Harold (59:18):
If you don't like the line.
Yeah, you know, that that does make a lot of difference.

Jimmy (59:26):
May 11th, 1962, Snoopy's atop the doghouse.
Charlie Brown comes out with the baseball and says, You don't want to play ball, huh?
Snoopy thinks, nope.
But somehow Charlie Brown understands that and goes, All right, I'll go find someone else.
And Snoopy watches them walk away and say, Sorry.
And then he pulls out the old squeeze box and starts playing polkas, shodishes and waltzes, polkas, shodishes and waltzes again.

(59:51):
And then he says, All I care about is my music.

Liz (59:55):
Where did this come from?

Jimmy (59:58):
So weird.

Michael (01:00:00):
Yeah, there was a bunch of these.
This is part of a series where he's playing polkas on his accordion.

Harold (01:00:06):
I mean, what is Schulz thinking that that is the sound effect, other than the little musical notes of what's happening, is him writing out polkas, shodishes and waltzes twice.
That's so funny.
And as a kid, I remember reading this and it's like one of those moments when you're watching the Bugs Bunny cartoon and they're talking about rationing during World War II and you don't really get it, but you get it.

Michael (01:00:34):
Well, I did not know what a shodish is.
I'm sure Jimmy's uncle, the accordion player uncle would have told him.

Jimmy (01:00:42):
I mean, I know a little bit about them.
It's like a polka.
It's from Bavaria, I think.
No, it's from Bohemia.
But it's not something that was popular and where I grew up.
But the polka scene is still, as we know, thriving.

Harold (01:00:59):
I think I want to do this more in my comics, where I just use the incredible amounts of text to describe the sound effect of whatever's going on.
Because it's so fun.

Jimmy (01:01:10):
It is funny.

Harold (01:01:11):
It's not done much.

Jimmy (01:01:13):
No, there was a guy...
Well, he's still around named Ben Dunn, who did like...
Yeah.
Yeah, created and art.

Harold (01:01:20):
Ninja High School and all that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jimmy (01:01:22):
He used to do a Ninja High School.
I remember someone pointing at someone and yelling, and the sound effect would be accuse.

Harold (01:01:30):
Yes.
It's great.
And he was definitely hybridizing manga there in really fun ways.
And I'm not familiar enough with Japanese language to know how much is going on in the wording in manga.
But it's so freeing to be able to go to these emotional extremes, and sometimes more so than the story actually deserves, which is what makes it so crazy funny.

(01:02:02):
And especially Ben Dunn's Ninja High School, it's basically very cartoony high school stories.
And in a strange way, they're a slice of life, like you did with Shades of Grey, Jimmy.

Jimmy (01:02:16):
Yeah, yeah.

Harold (01:02:16):
Except it's got this comic element where everything is heightened.
And that's, I think, what manga has done so incredibly well and something that Western cartoonists have not taken full advantage of with what you can do with cartooning.

Jimmy (01:02:32):
Yeah, it's so funny.
You know, manga is like the biggest influence on cartoonists these days, you know, on cartoon, but all they seem to be able to swipe is the surface.
They think that's what manga is.
It's the surface of the character design and like maybe like the big expressions and all that sort of stuff.
But it's not looking at the structure of manga and trying to figure out how to make it work.

Liz (01:02:58):
Is that something that will come in time as they learn it?

Jimmy (01:03:02):
Well, it's been 30 years now.
I would have assumed it would have happened by now.

Harold (01:03:06):
Yeah.
I have to admit, I'm kind of blind to what you're describing.
I mean, I'd love to know more about what you see in structure in manga that's not translating by people that are not from that country.

Michael (01:03:18):
The only manga I ever was able to read is actually an American manga, Omega Tokyo, which I actually got seriously into.

Harold (01:03:27):
Well, the favorite thing I've done like Snoopy does here with the Polkas, Shadishes and Waltzes that I actually sell quite a few of my art prints.
It's Wild Lion.
Instead of having the Apple logo on the back of his laptop, he's got a little heart and when he's typing, the sound effect is Hanta Pekka, Hanta Pekka.

Jimmy (01:03:51):
It's very good.
All right.
Let's say we do one more this week and then we'll save the rest for another time.
Sure.
Who knows how many episodes of the Snoopy thing we're going to do.
All right.
A book into the first strip.
This is December 31st, 1962, and Snoopy's lying on his belly on the first panel.

(01:04:14):
He says, so this is the last day of the year.
Another complete year gone by and what have I accomplished this year that I haven't accomplished every other year?
Nothing.
Then Snoopy gets on top of his doghouse, looks completely satisfied and says, how consistent can you get?

Michael (01:04:30):
I can't remember him referring to another strip like this.
It's really parallel.

Harold (01:04:36):
It's like three, almost three years apart.

Michael (01:04:39):
Yeah, even the panel layout is the same.
So he actually went back and-

Harold (01:04:43):
Isn't that wild?

Michael (01:04:44):
Responded to it.

Jimmy (01:04:46):
You think or did he just forget about it and just did it rip off?

Michael (01:04:49):
Look at the panel layout.
He's lying on the ground, he's walking.

Harold (01:04:53):
Yeah, it looks like he's remembering and look, okay, I'm going to zoom back here.
So the first panel is, we don't see Snoopy doing this a ton, where he's like laid flat out with his front paw kind of lying back on the ground.
And he's basically kind of stretched out with his snout just kind of flat on the ground at an angle.

(01:05:18):
That's, yeah, he's got to be referring back.

Liz (01:05:22):
But it doesn't have the dog house.
And the panel where he just says nothing is better because there isn't anything in the back.
I mean, there's nothing in the background.

Harold (01:05:33):
Well, that's fascinating because here's a chance to see Schulz approaching the same idea almost three years apart.
And what does he do?
He seems to find a way in the last two panels to make the haiku of the text a little bit sharper.

(01:05:54):
That's the thing that stands out for me.
And he's changed.
It's also fun watching.
He's got the big stomach Snoopy with the shorter snout.
You can really see the change there too.

Jimmy (01:06:07):
That's a big gut.

Harold (01:06:11):
Yeah, that's something that has been also developing over the three years we've been reading here.
That's cool.

Liz (01:06:19):
Lots of dinners.

Harold (01:06:20):
Yeah.

Jimmy (01:06:21):
You know, going back to that first panel, that's such a brilliant, a dog doesn't lay that way, right?
I mean, but-

Harold (01:06:28):
It's impossible, right?

Jimmy (01:06:30):
Right, but it gives the impression of a, do you know what I mean?
Like, I've seen dogs that emote that or that seemed to emote that way while they're laying around on like, you know, a lazy day.
And if he would have done it so it was more anatomically kind of correct, it wouldn't have had the, it would have looked more like he was just curled up for a little nap or something, as opposed to just, you know, lying there lost in his existential thought.

Harold (01:07:00):
Yeah, yeah, he just constantly breaks rules in his favor over and over again as a cartoonist.
And it's a joy to behold.
It's, and you know, I noted last time over and over again, I was just marveling at how tiny that back paw was.

(01:07:21):
Panel 3, oh my gosh.
It is like, it's like just an annoyance that it has to be there.
It seems like.

Jimmy (01:07:29):
Yeah, wow.
He's like a bowling pin.

Harold (01:07:32):
But you know, I didn't realize until we were looking at it last time that Schulz, his own personal rule is obviously he's drawing probably the front of Snoopy from the collar down to wherever he's going to hit with the paw.
And notice that you don't see the line of the paw that's behind him on the front.

(01:07:53):
It's just an extra extraneous stuff he doesn't have to have.
And then he's going to draw the line of the back.
And doesn't matter where that back paw needs to be if he's just like sitting around.
It's not going to mess up the line of that back.
He's going to fill in whatever he needs to fill in to make there some suggestion that he does have a back leg.

(01:08:20):
But he'll break the rules like crazy if he needs to.

Jimmy (01:08:24):
Look how thick the line is on that back of panel three.

Harold (01:08:29):
Yeah.
And again, it seems like that's something that maybe he, yeah, he lost that ability to be thick and thin later.
And as he was, he had other things to worry about when he had his hand tremor.
I mean, another thing about Snoopy, when you see him at like a, what do you call it, a three-quarter angle or whatever, how wide the nose is, it's so oval.

(01:08:52):
And then if you're looking at it from the side, it's more like a circle.
And he adds a shine to the nose for some reason.
And it's not there from the front.
Why does he make those choices?
I don't know, but he sure makes it look beautiful.

Jimmy (01:09:06):
It looks great.
I'm drawing a dog for In The Real Dark Night for one of the later episodes.
It is hard to come up with a new cartoon dog.
You know, like you don't want to look like you ripped off something, you know, but you kind of want to rip off the best ones too.
It's hard.

(01:09:28):
You know what else is difficult?
Saying goodbye at the end of an episode.
But alas, we must do that.
But we'll be back where we're going to, you know, have another episode because that's what this is.
It's a podcast.

Michael (01:09:42):
It's one episode and then another.

Jimmy (01:09:44):
And another.

Michael (01:09:45):
That's all it is.

Jimmy (01:09:48):
Piece of cake.
But in between now and then, if you want to reach out to us, you can give us a call on the old hotline.
We're 717-219-4162.
And you can call and leave a voicemail or text and just leave a message that way.
Just make sure you identify yourself.
You can also find us on social media.
We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.

(01:10:14):
And of course, you could just email us, unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com.
That's it for this week.
Come back in two weeks for more of this nonsense because it's just not a party without you.
And remember, when I don't hear from you, I worry.
So for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be a good cheer.

Michael (01:10:33):
Yes.

Liz (01:10:33):
Yes.

Jimmy (01:10:34):
Be a good cheer.

Liz (01:10:35):
Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted by Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner.
Produced and edited by Liz Sumner.
Music by Michael Cohen.
Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube.

(01:10:58):
For more about Jimmy, Michael and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

Jimmy (01:11:06):
You love your salad too?