Understanding Snoopy Episode 4 - As You See Him, You Will Draw Him

The gang takes on the epic task of discussing Snoopy’s many visual changes and go on a few cartooning-related side quests as well… discussing Leonard Starr, Stan Drake, Hal Foster, Harold Gray and more.

Link to Snoopy image:

https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/Snoopy?file=Image_2022-06-02_120907435.png

Link to Scott McCloud's pyramid:

https://www.scottmccloud.com/4-inventions/triangle/index.html

Preorder 25th Anniversary Amelia Rules: https://bookshop.org/shop/Gville

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.
This is Unpacking Peanuts, and today we're continuing our look at everyone's favorite Beagle, Snoopy.
I'll be your host for the proceedings.
My name is Jimmy Gownley.
Guess what?
I'm also a cartoonist, and you can find all my work over there on Substack at GVIL Comics.
Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts and fellow cartoonists.

(00:39):
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 and the original editor for Amelia Rules.
He's also the cartoonist of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
It's Michael Cohen.

Michael (00:55):
Say hey.

Jimmy (00:56):
And he's the executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Leader 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics and the creator of the Instagram sensation, Sweetest Beasts.
It's Harold Buchholz.

Harold (01:07):
Hello.

Jimmy (01:08):
And making sure we stay out of trouble, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.

Liz (01:12):
Howdy.

Jimmy (01:14):
Guys, we're taking a look at Snoopy.
We're back here.
Our season, it was a little, what would you call it?
Season interruptus.
We had a few episodes and we were just so lucky to have such amazing guests that we had to take advantage of that opportunity.
And now we're back here talking about Snoopy.
So I was slated to pick some strips to talk about.

(01:38):
And when I did, I went looking to see what I could find.
I went on the old Peanuts Wiki and I happened to find something very, very cool that we have been talking about for a long time, wishing someone had done.
And it turns out someone had done it.
And it is a chart or it's in what would you call it?
It's a graphic of all the variations on Snoopy, including even the pre-Snoopies from like little folks and wherever else he was doing cartoons Saturday Evening Post, all the way up to the very last appearance of Snoopy in 2000.

(02:15):
And it's really cool because it gets to see, you get to see the changes that happen over 50 years in just one little graphic.

Harold (02:22):
What do you guys think of this?

SPEAKER_6 (02:24):
I think it's great.
I hope they can see it when we're talking about it.
Yeah, I've been thinking about doing this, but I'm glad somebody else took the time.
They're all profiles, so it makes it easy to compare.
Yeah, I mean, generally you would talk about this as in terms of the evolution of a character.

(02:44):
But I don't see this as in evolution.
I mean, it's definitely a morphing of the character, but it's not like he reaches his ideal state at the end.
I mean, to me, if you just look at it, there's a little panel dead center.
To me, that is the ideal platonic Snoopy.

(03:08):
So I see it evolving towards that, and then kind of a devolution for all you Devo fans from there.

Jimmy (03:17):
Well, what don't you like about the later ones other than you are older?

SPEAKER_6 (03:21):
He looks dumb to me.

Jimmy (03:23):
Okay.

Harold (03:24):
Harold, how about you?
You mean like he's not a smart, doesn't look like a smart character because of the way he's drawn?

SPEAKER_6 (03:29):
He looks like a very simple minded character.
I mean, he's not, but the look doesn't imply intelligence in any way.

Harold (03:38):
And so when your favorite drawing, what is it about the drawing that gives him some intelligence, you think?

SPEAKER_6 (03:45):
Well, he does have a huge cranium.

Harold (03:48):
Okay.

SPEAKER_6 (03:49):
Yeah, it's funny.
I mean, it's really hard to talk about these because it's not that the changes are that subtle, but I don't think there was a point in the changes.
I think it just happened.
I don't think he was striving for something.
I mean, some of my favorite Snoopy is still the Banana Nose Snoopy.

Harold (04:11):
Which is remarkably short period when you look at through all of these.
It's like, there are almost no Banana Noses.

Jimmy (04:17):
Well, it's also the thing that stands out the most from the one before it to the one after it.
Like if that's second one from the right on the second tier, it looks like it's wild, and then it goes back to what it was previous.
But never quite, never quite.

Harold (04:36):
Well, that's second to the right on the second tier, and then you just move up northwest of that, to this little cute, snaring Snoopy, and just go back and forth between those, and then have your head explode.

SPEAKER_6 (04:48):
And that's like five years difference.

Harold (04:50):
But I think, you know, we need to do a five episode season on Snoopy's collar.
No, we probably could, but no, I'm just joking.
So-

Jimmy (05:03):
Just three episodes, come on.

Harold (05:05):
Three, yeah, we could do that.

SPEAKER_6 (05:07):
I don't know how random his selection, his or her selection was of these Snoopys, but there's almost none with a mouth.

Harold (05:16):
Yeah.

Jimmy (05:17):
By the way, this was posted by Disgruntled Filament.

SPEAKER_6 (05:20):
Okay.

Jimmy (05:21):
All credit to them.

Harold (05:22):
Thank you, Disgruntled Filament, yes.
But it's remarkable how consistent Snoopy gets in the last 15 or so images.
Given how crazy the movement was in the first half of Peanuts.
No wonder that's what people remember as the Snoopy, because that's the Snoopy that was around the longest.

Jimmy (05:48):
Yeah, and you will see some mid-60s and 70s Snoopys as well.
But especially Hallmark will often, someone I think just really likes that period, because you'll see some 60s and 70s Snoopys.

Harold (06:03):
Yeah.
Jimmy, as you look across this, do you have any favorite drawings that pop out to you for those who could get to look at this alongside us?

Jimmy (06:13):
Well, I do like that center one as well.
I mean, that's great.
I like the Banana Nose one on the second tier too, where he looks angry that has a lot of personality.
But I love the last 15 years.
I think that's great.
If you think about it, 1972 I was born, so I was already well into the third tier, I would say before I was even seeing Peanuts.

(06:40):
I didn't see the early ones until probably I was like 12 or 13.
So yeah, I would say it's probably the third and fourth tier that is the stuff I like the best.
It would have been great if we could complain about this.
Sorry, disgruntled filament.

(07:00):
It would have been great to have all of them facing the same direction.
There actually is a sculpture like that at the museum that it's like a modernist sculpture that shows the morphing of Snoopy.

Harold (07:14):
I certainly love a lot of the stuff that's going on in the, particularly in that third tier.
There's interesting art there.
But I have to say that first tier, fourth from the left, the little, when he started, instead of just doing the dot for the eye, but he started kind of making the eye a little taller than the width.

(07:36):
And little staring, cute staring Snoopy from the early 50s is pretty, pretty irresistible.

Jimmy (07:42):
Although I guess what we're seeing the first actual Snoopy is one, two, three, four, five, it's the seventh one from the left on the first tier.
The rest are all little folks, I believe.

Harold (07:54):
I think that's right.
Yeah.

Jimmy (07:57):
Or whatever it was beforehand.
And you really see him trying to like draw a dog in that first one.

Harold (08:03):
I will say I am not a fan of the second tier first drawings when the ear turned into this massive.

Liz (08:12):
Yeah, pocket phone.

Harold (08:14):
Jackie Kennedy, I don't know what's going on.

Jimmy (08:17):
It's a pocket.

Harold (08:21):
He's ahead of his time here.
Heads on look as well, yeah.
But it runs for quite a while.
You go pretty deep in that second tier and it's still there.
But it's crazy what happens around 1958, which these aren't years on here.
But for those of us who have the banana nose, the elongated version and still some walk in the years.

Liz (08:45):
It's almost years because there's 52 of them.

Harold (08:50):
Yeah, so that probably was the exercise.
Yeah, there was one a year.
Wow.

Jimmy (08:57):
Okay, Michael, as someone who is completing a work that they started a long time ago and also redoing a bunch of that work, do you see that type of shift in your work as you go back and relook at it?

SPEAKER_6 (09:13):
Oh, yeah.

Jimmy (09:14):
But not conscious of it at all during it, right?

SPEAKER_6 (09:18):
No, no.
And it also, you like to think of it as, again, the evolution of the character, but I find the middle period is like what I consider nailing it.
And then some of the later ones are, I look, I have to redraw them because this is kind of deviating a little too much.

Harold (09:42):
So wild.
And Jimmy, you were just talking about that.
You had to go through that by revisiting for the 25th anniversary of Amelia Rules.
You had to do some covers that kind of reflected what was on the inside.
Whole stories.
Whole stories.

Liz (09:58):
Wow, wow.

Harold (10:01):
And you said it was really hard to get back into where your head was 25 years ago, drawing a character, even though that's your character through and through, you drew it.
You have the 25-year muscle memory of whatever it was, but then everything's come since then.

Jimmy (10:18):
Yeah.
Well, that's what ultimately muscle memory is exactly right.
I almost had to just not try.
You know, just go, OK, I know that I was thinking about the strokes more than I was about the shapes, and I was using this tool, and now we're just going to try to go for it.
Because the problem is when you start, how can you not try to improve it?

Harold (10:42):
Right?

Jimmy (10:43):
Like you're trying to go back to draw like you used to draw, but the reason you don't draw like that is because you've been trying to improve for all these years, right?
So you have to go back and like unimprove.
And the thing is, no one else would even not or not no one, but many people would not consider it an improvement.

Harold (11:00):
Right?

Jimmy (11:01):
Like we're talking about here with Shultz.

Harold (11:03):
I mean, Shultz would probably have said he's happier with the end.
I mean, we know he said that.
Right.
Than the beginning.
Otherwise, he wouldn't be drawing it that way, right?
It's just illogical.
Why would he be drawing a Snoopy he doesn't want to be drawing when he can draw whatever Snoopy he wants to draw.
But, yeah, looking at it as a fan and seeing it out of time and picking and choosing, you come to different conclusions.

SPEAKER_6 (11:28):
Another big factor is time constraints.
Yeah.
When you're starting out as a cartoonist, you're doing it, you're probably still in school.
Yeah.
There's no pressure.
Later on, if you have some success and you've got, okay, got a monthly schedule, and the faster you work, the more things are going to vary from exactly the way you want them.

Harold (11:55):
But you also get better in that time, right?
Because you have to be creating, creating, creating.

SPEAKER_6 (12:00):
Yeah.

Harold (12:01):
That's also like a fertile time to-

SPEAKER_6 (12:03):
You might have less time to actually go back and fix things.

Harold (12:07):
Right.

Jimmy (12:08):
And which sometimes could work to your advantage.
Because you can overwork things.
I think if there's one thing like, when I was starting and doing like Shades of Grey and stuff, my-
well, my problem.
That could be an entire another podcast we do.
One of my problems as an artist was that I would overwork things because I would think it would get better.

(12:34):
And it didn't get better, it just got wonkier.
So sometimes like having time can be a downside too.

SPEAKER_6 (12:42):
Yeah.
I tended to way overwork everything because I was hoping it would distract from the fact that I couldn't draw.

Jimmy (12:47):
Oh, me too.
That's exactly what.

Harold (12:51):
Although something to that, was it Mark Twain?
I'd be badly paraphrasing, but he said I would have written you a shorter letter if I didn't have the time.
Yes.
Frank Camusso mentioned to me at a Baltimore Comic-Con, his theory that the nature of cartooning, for it to genuinely be great cartooning, it has to be done quickly.

(13:17):
He said that was just part of what cartooning is.
I think I know what he's talking about, but it's hard to get there because you really have to boil something down to its essence and know what all of the pieces are that come together to get the thing that's dashed off that you can't hide behind anything.
It's just there because there's so few lines, if that's the style of cartooning you're doing.

(13:40):
It's true for the cartooning that I really like.
Somebody has managed to figure out their style so well that they can put it off really quickly.
I mean, I look at that upper left version, that very first drawing in this section.
Is there an artist that makes you think of other than Schultz when you see that upper left drawing?

SPEAKER_6 (14:01):
That dog?

Harold (14:02):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_6 (14:03):
I don't know, something like Freddie the Pig or something.

Harold (14:06):
Jimmy, does anybody stand out to you that they think, oh, that's the style of?

Jimmy (14:10):
Not really.

Harold (14:12):
Okay.
Well, I was thinking Thurber.

Jimmy (14:14):
Oh my gosh.
Absolutely.
The round is not filled in nose.
The shakiness of the line that feels like it's not describing something as much as it's holding something in.

Harold (14:28):
Yeah.
I'm guessing based on what we know about Schulz, he was so well read.

Jimmy (14:33):
Oh, he loved Thurber and loved the cartoons of Thurber, which is really funny actually.

Harold (14:39):
So yeah, it's interesting to see, but to be able to turn something out so quickly and in a way that just feels right.
You can't fake it.
But once you're there, if you're in that zone, that is part of what makes cartooning really special.

SPEAKER_6 (14:59):
Somebody's been posting a lot of odd stage, the Leonard Starrs, beautiful work, and then they're also posting, he started drawing Annie, Little Orphan Annie, in a completely simplified style.

Harold (15:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_6 (15:19):
To me, it's like, what a waste.
I don't know, how do you feel about that?

Harold (15:25):
Well, being a fan of Little Orphan Annie and a fan of many of the artists who worked on Little Orphan Annie, after Harold Gray as artists and cartoonists, it's just one of those things where the person who created it as strange.
Let me put it this way, if Harold Gray, the original artist and writer of Little Orphan Annie, if Harold Gray had been the guy who took over Little Orphan Annie from somebody else, he'd be like, what the heck is this?

(15:54):
Since he's the original, he just goes with the work and it just fits.
Again, that's maybe how we first all experienced Snoopy.
I'm sure we have people who are listening.
They didn't experience Snoopy until after Schulz had stopped drawing Snoopy.
There's other people that all came in at different times.

(16:15):
How we relate to that, it's really strange.
But Leonard Starr's version, as talented as he is, I don't think anybody ever did justice to the concept of L'Oreal Fanny except for the creator.
It was just so uniquely his signature, including all of his flaws and it's him.

(16:39):
I do like the musical.
I will say that.
I'm glad it's in the public mind, even if it's not what the guy originally created.
I don't think he would have liked the musical.

Jimmy (16:51):
Well, the Leonard Starr thing is interesting.
I think that also reminds me a little bit of Dick Tracy, where it's like, everybody who came after Chester Gould did a really good Dick Tracy, really.
But it's not Dick Tracy.
The further thing with the Leonard Starr thing is, what a weird choice.
Do you think they picked them, leaving aside the facility, he could do it, which is hard enough.

(17:16):
But do you think they picked them as like, this guy is such a good artist, he could probably do it in any style?
Because you also have the exact same thing happening with part of Juliet Jones, where Stan Drake ends up drawing Blondie.

Harold (17:33):
And did a darn good job of it.
Yeah.

Jimmy (17:36):
That's probably more successful.

Harold (17:38):
And amazing, both of them amazing, amazing artists and versatile, obviously.
I mean, did we talk about this?
Is there anybody you can think of who took over something that somebody else created and made it their own where-

Jimmy (17:51):
I think Fred Laswell or whoever it was that did Barney, Google and Snuffy.
So that became like a different strip from Billy DeBec.

Harold (17:58):
Right.
Although, I mean, I'd still would pick Billy's version over.
Right.
But you're right, it's a very-
Fred Laswell made that his own for sure.
Yeah.
But I'm trying to think of other cartoonists.

SPEAKER_6 (18:12):
Well, no.
Clearly, the Disney characters found artists who very much from the originals and where Carl Bark in particular.
Same with Archie.
You should know about that.

Harold (18:26):
Sure.
Yeah.
But in the world of comic strips, it's harder to think.
There's so many people have taken over strips.

SPEAKER_6 (18:34):
Yeah.
But we don't necessarily think of Donald and Mickey and Archie as comic strips, but they were.

Harold (18:45):
And some really good comic strips too.

Jimmy (18:47):
Yeah.
Well, here, I want to ask another question about the art style and what is cartooning and all that sort of stuff.
So like, okay, Prince Valiant.
Everybody at least knows what Prince Valiant is out and where, even if you've never read it, you know what it looks like.
Prince Valiant is a comic.
You would have to say because it was written and drawn by Hal Foster.

(19:09):
Hal Foster is a cartoonist, but the art is not cartoony.
So I don't know if there's an end to this thing.

Harold (19:18):
No word balloons, no dialogue.

Jimmy (19:21):
And the draftsmanship is real, like he's trying to go for pure realism.

Harold (19:28):
Yeah.
As a kid who loved comics, we had Prince Valiant in the back page of the comics.

Jimmy (19:34):
Always on the back page.

Harold (19:36):
It was this kind of stunning artwork.
And I remember as a little kid, when I was really into the comic strips, and of course, I'm going to read every single comic.
And maybe five, eight times, I forced my way through Prince Valiant reading it.
I'm like, this is not what I'm here for.

SPEAKER_6 (19:57):
There was no easy on-ramp to Prince Valiant.
You just had to jump in the middle.

Jimmy (20:03):
But I'm just saying, that style of art, is that cartooning?

Harold (20:11):
Yeah, I guess it is.
It's definitely, I always think of that pyramid thing that Scott McCloud created in his Understanding Comics book that represented the different styles of art.
And he has the heads of all these famous cartoon characters and on the top of the pyramid, you've got the abstract version where there's almost nobody because there's not a whole lot of Picasso characters in comics.

(20:35):
And then you on the left hand side, lower left corner of the triangle, you've got realistic and Prince Valiant is like right there.
And then you go off to the far right and there you've got Mickey Mouse and Snoopy and all the characters that I kind of gravitate toward that are what he calls iconic.
And then he takes a sliver of that pyramid to the right going down and he calls that the word, which is the ultimate icon.

(21:02):
And that just is fascinating to me.
I brought it up before, but the idea that the word, that my favorite stuff with comics is when the word is as close to an image as possible, which I would say is like poetic writing, or very succinct writing, like Haikyuu kind of writing, which is what comics are.

(21:22):
I think, like comic strips, let's say.
And then the characters that are as close to the word as a drawing can be.
And that's where the magic happens for me with comics.
But that's not to deny the Prince Valiant doesn't belong to you.

SPEAKER_6 (21:36):
No, I'm totally a lower left guy.
I mean, that's the stuff that gets me excited.

Harold (21:42):
So how does Peanuts, is Peanuts like, it's not the exception because you like Blum County and other stuff, right?

SPEAKER_6 (21:47):
Yeah.
But if we were talking, and we have talked to, you guys have talked about it being an influence, I'd say no, not at all.

Harold (21:56):
Right.

SPEAKER_6 (21:57):
It was those lower left guys who were the people I would have wanted to have been able to draw like.

Harold (22:05):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_6 (22:05):
But still a cartoonist.
I mean, unfortunately, we don't have the right vocabulary.

Jimmy (22:12):
Right.

SPEAKER_6 (22:12):
I mean, sequential illustrator might be a better word, but no one's going to say that.

Jimmy (22:16):
The worst.

SPEAKER_6 (22:20):
All right.

Jimmy (22:20):
Well, before we go off this, I have one other question about, I just thought it was the coolest thing.
I thought it would inspire a lot of conversation, and I think it has here because we're 26 minutes into recording.
Hey, so here's my question.
If in 1995, Charles Schulz wanted to do a thing where he introduced a time travel element, and he brought in Banananoes, Snoopy and Beethoven ears, Snoopy, somehow interacted with the modern Snoopy, would you recognize them all as Snoopy?

(22:55):
Or would they look like different characters if you saw them together?
Because I think it seems like no matter what version of Snoopy you see out in the wild, whoever you are, you accept it as Snoopy.

Harold (23:06):
Yeah.

Jimmy (23:06):
Even though they are so different from each other.

SPEAKER_6 (23:09):
Yeah.
Well, I think everyone who likes this strip probably has some collection that has all the variance in it.

Harold (23:19):
Right.

SPEAKER_6 (23:21):
Just because there have been so many reprints.

Jimmy (23:23):
Right.

Liz (23:24):
But when you're talking about bringing them back in 1995, would they be together in a strip or would one panel have one?

Jimmy (23:33):
Well, that's where my analogy breaks down.
Or how about even this?
Let me put it a different way.
Let's say he just started drawing Banana and a Snoopy in 1995 or whatever.
Would people accept that as Snoopy?

SPEAKER_6 (23:48):
No, because it's not cute in any way.
It had to do with his personality was different too.
And I think that that look fit what Snoopy was like in those days.

Jimmy (24:01):
Well do you think that has an influence?
Like do you, what do you think works?
Do you think Snoopy changed in Schulz mind and therefore it translated into a changing in his art?

Harold (24:13):
Or, that's a great way to put it.
Yeah.
As you see him, you will draw him.

SPEAKER_6 (24:20):
Yeah, he was a chaos agent.
He was chaotic, neutral.

Liz (24:26):
And what did he become after that?

SPEAKER_6 (24:30):
He was kind of an adult figure.

Jimmy (24:33):
Yeah, he was an adult figure.

SPEAKER_6 (24:34):
Very sedate.

Harold (24:35):
Looking after the birds.

SPEAKER_6 (24:37):
Yeah.

Harold (24:37):
Yeah.
But he's like a big brother.

Jimmy (24:40):
Well, one of the things I want to talk about, and we believe it or not, we are going to talk about some comic strips today.
But the one of the things I want to talk about next time is just Snoopy and Woodstock.
Because I do think that changes Snoopy so much.
I think that changes Snoopy more than anything else in the course of the strip.

Harold (24:59):
I agree.
I agree.
As somebody who, yeah, I started out with my little loner lion, who was philosophical.
There's this one version of himself.
As soon as you introduce another character, his role changes, absolutely changes.
It's the same character, but being around somebody else brings out a different piece of you for sure, and in a fairly consistent way.

(25:30):
If that's all we've experienced is Snoopy is like Michael saying, he's this agent of chaos in the world, the suburban landscape of these kids, and then all of a sudden he becomes kind of the elder statesman author.
The very last strip we see that Schulz chose to use is him at the typewriter, speaking for Schulz, the creator of 50 years, and that's a very different Snoopy than 1958.

Jimmy (26:03):
It explains why Andrew Farago was able to do a life story.
Yeah.
You know, because he does behave like a, it does behave like a life, which is amazing.

Harold (26:15):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (26:15):
Yeah.

Jimmy (26:17):
All right.
Well, you know what?
I think we have covered one graphic as much as we possibly can.
One more shout out to good old disgruntled filament.
Thank you for doing this.

Harold (26:30):
It's very good.
Yeah.
And that was a good 344 dog years, Snoopy.
That's all I'll say.

Jimmy (26:39):
Well lived.
All right.
Well, listen, we're going to take a quick break and then come back on the other side and actually talk about some strips I picked.

Liz (26:46):
Sounds good.
Hi, everyone.
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(27:12):
Podcasts and the people who create them.

Jimmy (27:18):
All right.
So how about we look at some Snoopy comic strips, guys?
So here I picked these, but here's how I picked them.
I wanted to try to get myself out of it as much as possible, so I just Googled my favorite Snoopy comics.
Literally my favorite.
And I just went on the image search and I found some ones that I liked and the ones that I don't think we talked about before, although maybe one or two we have.

(27:45):
And they're from all over the latter half of the of the run of the strip.
So why do you say we just get to it?
And it's going to be pure anarchy, chaos here on Unpacking Peanuts.
And we are going to start with November 26, 1999.
It's a Sunday and Woodstock is sitting in his nest.

(28:09):
It's raining on him and he just has a little umbrella over his head.
And then we cut to Inside the Brown Household and Charlie Brown's in his chair reading that same book he's never finished.
Sally is with him and Snoopy is kind of reading the book over Charlie Brown, but by resting on Charlie Brown's head while Charlie Brown reads.
And they're all looking off panel at something and Sally says, listen to the thunder.

(28:35):
And then in the next tier, we see them at the window looking outside and it's pouring rain.
And Sally says, I'm glad we're inside.
This is the worst storm I've ever seen.
And then we see a reverse shot with them looking out into the darkness.
And Charlie Brown says, I always think about all the animals who have to be outside.
And Sally says, and the birds.

(28:55):
And Charlie Brown says, that's right.
Birds and deer and squirrels and rabbits.
And Sally and stray cats.
And Charlie Brown and horses and cows and little bugs.
And Snoopy is listening to all of this.
And in the next panel, he walks away and then when he comes back, he's in full rain gear holding a giant policeman's flashlight.

(29:16):
And Charlie Brown says to him, no, I don't think we can go out and rescue all of them.
Now, this talks a little bit about we're seeing the later Snoopy be much more of like a dad figure.
You know, I think you could see the like 1958 Snoopy saying, like, oh, it stinks to be a bug or whatever it is, you know.

(29:41):
But Snoopy wants, you know, who's been Woodstock's friend for all these years now, he wants to go out and rescue all the little helpless creatures.

Harold (29:49):
Well, and yet Charlie Brown is the parent to Snoopy in a way.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's the one giving the reality of the situation to Snoopy.
Snoopy, yeah, I don't know, maybe Snoopy the Eagle Scout or whatever, you know, he's the big brother.
Would you consider Snoopy parental toward Woodstock or big brotherly to Woodstock?

(30:14):
Yeah, big brotherly is a good way to put it.

Jimmy (30:16):
You know, just very protective.

Harold (30:19):
Friend to friends, you know, really the older good friend.

Jimmy (30:23):
Yeah.

Harold (30:23):
The charmy, if you will.

Jimmy (30:27):
I love the shots of them looking out into the black night sky.
I think it looks very wet and electric.

Harold (30:33):
Lightning strikes.
Yeah.

Liz (30:35):
And the way the rain sort of stops like fringe from the outside.

Harold (30:42):
Yeah.
It's beautiful.

Jimmy (30:45):
June 2nd, 1969.
Snoopy is atop the dog house, and Charlie Brown is standing next to him, and reading the newspaper.
And Charlie Brown reads it and says, it says here that they're having a dog show.
And Charlie Brown looks up at Snoopy and says, have you ever thought of entering a dog show?
And then Snoopy is alone on the dog house, and he thinks, how could I?

(31:06):
And then he lies down in his classic pose and says, I don't even own a dog.
Now, that's very Snoopy.

Harold (31:15):
Yeah.

Jimmy (31:16):
What do you think of this one, Michael?

SPEAKER_6 (31:18):
Yeah.
I remember this one from the days when I was buying all the books.
Yeah.
I mean, it's clever because it's a little ambiguous.
I mean, there's a joke there, the dog, owning a dog, but he's actually misunderstanding what Charlie Brown was asking him.

Jimmy (31:40):
Yeah.
And I love that Snoopy just doesn't really think of himself as a dog all the time.
Sometimes he certainly does, but not in this moment.
He's certainly not a dog that would be in the dog show.
Here's we see another example of that, of Schulz going for the iconic pose and not worrying about anything else.
The neck on Snoopy in Panel 1 versus the neck on Snoopy in Panel 4.

Harold (32:05):
Yeah.
It's crazy.
I would feel so guilty as a cartoonist doing this.
And I think Schulz kind of gives us some permission to go for that iconic pose.
What looks great, Snoopy will be Snoopy.
We're not going to forget it's Snoopy.
We're not going to judge him.

(32:25):
We really aren't.
You know?
If it looks good, it's right.
It looks good, yep.
And that's a good thing for a cartoonist to remember.
If you're that style of cartoonist.
Obviously, more realistic people, artists would maybe not want to deviate from their model.
But boy, that's a lot of license he gives other artists.

(32:46):
Look what he did.
A master of the form.

Jimmy (32:48):
Yeah.
And I'll tell you what.
If you try to, in quotes, fix it, which I'm doing right now on the iPad and like make that, you know, it looks almost painful because it looks like he's balanced.
No, it's really disturbing looking.
It looks less like Snoopy even though it looks more like the first drawing.

(33:11):
It's very strange.

Liz (33:13):
Does it need to have the bolding on own?

Harold (33:18):
I think in later years, he probably wouldn't have done that.
I think he really got away from a lot of emphasis as he went along.
I don't know if it's in part because he trained us how to read.
We were talking about how Schulz somehow knew how to get us to read things where we didn't lose the punch line or the humor even if we don't have the sense of humor or what he's thinking.

(33:45):
It's so hard to write something where the humor can't be lost by a good chunk of the people reading it because it involves timing.
You can't control the timing and reading of a comic.
I think that's why Chris Duffy, who worked on Nickelodeon Magazine, among other things, he was asking on Facebook years ago.

(34:05):
He said, think of a comic book series that was genuinely funny.
And he was like, genuinely funny, laugh out loud, funny, and people were struggling to think of something.
And I think that's part of why, because how do you make people think something is funny when you don't control the timing beyond some really rudimentary things like panel breaks and balloon lines and maybe a little bit of emphasis here and there?

(34:39):
It's really, really hard.
And it's remarkable that I guess he's successful.
Maybe he's no more successful than anyone else other than having that really good haiku writing style that has less room for interpretation.
But I think maybe it's because we relate to peanuts on many levels other than humor, that even if you're not the kind of mind that can turn something into humor, with timing, with dialogue, you still get something out of it.

(35:09):
I don't know.

Jimmy (35:11):
Well, to the lettering thing, the other way, if there was no bold on the last panel, it could be, I don't even own a dog.

Harold (35:19):
I don't even own a dog.

Jimmy (35:21):
Or I don't even own a dog.
Like, I'm not convinced that I don't even own a dog isn't just as funny as I don't even own a dog.

Harold (35:34):
But yeah, I mean that's it.
And maybe that was Schulz thinking, subconsciously or consciously.
Yeah.
He preferred one over the other and he could be ready either way.
He was going to lean in on his version so that people would land where his attention was.
Yeah.

Jimmy (35:51):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's probably right.
Great.
Great pen and ink artwork at this stage, obviously.

Harold (36:00):
Yeah.

Jimmy (36:00):
If we've ever, I don't know if we've ever mentioned that before, but.

Harold (36:05):
And those W's.

Jimmy (36:06):
They're gorgeous W's.
January 22nd, 1967.
Snoopy, in his tattered, biblical looking clothes, is wandering around in the dirt, thinking to himself, unclean, unclean, unclean, unclean.
And then we cut to inside the Brown House where Sally says, Mom says to wash your hands for dinner.

(36:31):
And Charlie Brown then does so.
And then after watching his hands, he gives Snoopy his buddy a good little pat in the head and says, Excuse me, Snoopy, I have to go eat dinner.
And Sally, who sees this, says, And you have to wash your hands again because you touched the dog.
And Charlie Brown walks away annoyed, saying, Oh, good grief, because he used to wash his hands again.

(36:53):
And this shocks Snoopy, sending his ears skyward.
Touch the dog, he thinks.
Touch the dog.
He's staring, glaring at Sally.
And Sally's like, Stay away from me.
My hands are clean.
Now he's chasing her like the Frankenstein monster or something.
Look out.
I'm covered with disease.
I'm filthy dirty.

(37:14):
Stay away, I said.
Says Sally as she runs.
She's cornered by Snoopy, who's stalking her, saying, Here comes the bubonic plague.
Pat my head and get a handful of germs.
Here comes the walking disease carrier.

SPEAKER_6 (37:27):
Beware, beware.

Jimmy (37:29):
Now he chases her up to the top of the back of the chair.
And he's saying, Look out for me.
I'm diseased.
I'm contaminated.
And Sally screams, Help.
And then Snoopy walks away on all fours, looking completely annoyed, saying, Touch the dog.
Good grief.

Harold (37:49):
This is one of the funniest peanut strips ever.
It's so funny.
I love, and this looks like one he loved.
And he always said, you know, when he was working on a strip that he thought was really good, he would, he just want to get it done.
He wanted to rush through it.
And this one seems to have, talk about off model Snoopy.

(38:13):
Almost every drawing here is some funny, wonky version of Snoopy that isn't exactly what you would expect, which I think adds to the humor of it.
It's like the unclean thing on the little throwaway panel.
It's just amazing.
And Charlie Brown petting Snoopy, his forehead is sloping backward to go along with the pet of the hand.

(38:40):
And then the surprise on Snoopy feels, yeah, just feels very quickly drawn.
And the very next panel where he's like looking with these raised eyebrows like touch the dog with this big sad smile.
Big sad mouth.
Everything and then every single one.

(39:02):
And then all of a sudden he's this monster chasing her.
It's, and especially the second to last drawing, to me looks crazy, crazy rough.
I mean, I don't know if this is on purpose, but he doesn't bother to have a tail on Snoopy in profile in the bottom left panel or the second to last panel.

(39:26):
Now, he seems to think things through.
I don't know why he didn't draw that.
Maybe he knows he doesn't have to and doesn't think about it, and he just wants to get it done.
But it just seems like he's, talk about working fast as a cartoonist and getting something.
This just feels like a brilliantly rushed drawing, that he just gets the essence of the emotion of what he's trying to do down, because he's so darn good.

Jimmy (39:50):
I think you could really see that in the first panel, like the foot, the foot that's coming towards us, that's just an oval with some lines in it.

Harold (40:00):
Yeah, and the lettering suggests he's also just speeding through this.
Mom says to wash your hands for dinner is some of the loosest peanuts lettering you're ever going to see.

Jimmy (40:10):
Yeah.

Liz (40:12):
I think the second panel on the second tier has interesting perspective.

Jimmy (40:18):
Yeah, you don't see that very often.

Harold (40:22):
Yeah, you're seeing Sally partially, I don't know what you call that in terms of a quarter's view, whatever they say, but it's like a rear view where her ear.

Jimmy (40:32):
Three-quarters rear view.

Liz (40:33):
And she's larger in the foreground.

Harold (40:36):
Yes, you don't see that a lot.
It works really well.

Liz (40:41):
But Michael, you didn't think this looked like 60s?

SPEAKER_6 (40:44):
Well, I think you've explained it pretty well.
Yeah, it's rush 60s because I would have thought this was a 90s strip.

Harold (40:53):
I will say one thing that looks absolutely gorgeous to me, is Charlie Brown washing his hands in the bathroom.

Jimmy (40:59):
Oh my God, it's a great drawing.

Harold (41:01):
That is so, so nice.
And that, apart from the rest of it, that seems like that was done with a lot of care.
I don't know if that's weird.

Jimmy (41:11):
Well, I think it's the feeling he has.
This is expressive because he is writing it from Snoopy.
Snoopy's angst and emotion is the point of view of the strip, and it carries forward in the art.
Not that he was sitting there thinking that consciously, but he felt it because he's feeling Snoopy's perspective.

Harold (41:37):
He is feeling Snoopy here.
You just get goosebumps almost looking at it because it's like, yeah, he's going off model and it works.
It's like he's doing what we see in manga all the time, where the chibi character takes over.
A character is super emotional, and yet it's still in the realm of traditional Snoopy.

(42:00):
I do think the chibi character concept is pretty brilliant and so true to comics.

Liz (42:04):
I don't know what that is.
Can you tell me what it is?

Harold (42:07):
Yeah, I might have been using the wrong terminology, but anybody who's read manga, and I'm not a manga reader, but I absolutely do admire this.
Whoever invented this is a genius, where you have a character who's drawn a certain way, maybe more realistic, and then when they are super emotional, they're feeling embarrassed or greedy or whatever.

(42:28):
There's this little version of them, and Jimmy, maybe you can describe this better than I can, but essentially, the character becomes this little icon of greed or avarice or fear or embarrassment that is not the traditional drawing.
It's just saying, this is a little emoji almost to represent how strongly this character is feeling in this moment.

Liz (42:53):
Thank you.

Jimmy (42:54):
Yeah.

Harold (42:54):
That explains it perfectly.
Yeah.

Jimmy (42:58):
Really, really good.
Let me ask you this question, guys.
When you're drawing a character, are you sitting there making the expressions the character is making, or are you feeling the emotions?

SPEAKER_6 (43:08):
Probably unconsciously.

Harold (43:10):
Yeah.
I catch myself when I'm signing and drawing little sketches.
When I'm at my booth, I constantly, you know, you catch yourself and at first, you feel self-conscious and you're like, what the heck?
You know, I'll just draw a version that is him smiling.
So, I won't do anything goofy.

(43:31):
You know, I won't draw something where I'd be like, whoa.

Jimmy (43:35):
It's like a guitar face.

Harold (43:37):
When you're playing guitar, you're making a face.
Right?

Jimmy (43:40):
But there's a great meme that went around years ago where someone just Photoshopped, took the guitars out of the guitarist's hands and made them into giant slugs.
I'll have to say, it's so funny.

Harold (43:56):
Oh, what a great idea.

Jimmy (44:02):
May 3rd, 1970.
Snoopy's atop the dog house having a little siesta.
Then he wakes up in the second panel and he says, I'm hungry.
Then he rolls over in his stomach and says, my head was sound asleep, my stomach was wide awake.
It's midnight and I'm starving to death.
There's no way for me to get a little snack.

(44:25):
He looks back towards the house saying, if I were a stupid cat, I could go out and catch a mouse.
He's laying on his back again.
My stomach needs a sleeping pill.
No, my head needs a sleeping pill and my stomach needs a snack.
Then as if by magic, Charlie Brown appears with a full bowl of dog food, and then walks back to the house, Charlie Brown in his jammies.

(44:47):
Then Snoopy looks down at the food and says, Now, how in the world did he know I was hungry?
Then Charlie Brown tucked back in bed in his room, says, Who can sleep with all that mumbling going on?
I love that Snoopy who is out there having all these kinds of adventures and fantasies and going on hikes and doing all the stuff, but he can't figure out how to get in and get his food.

(45:14):
If that is the one thing Charlie Brown has, if the Charlie Brown doesn't bring the food, he's not eating.
Just can't figure out how to do it.
Now, what do you guys think about the 70s Snoopy look?
I love it.
I think this is like probably.

SPEAKER_6 (45:30):
It's still 60ish, not that far off.

Jimmy (45:36):
Getting a little bit fatter nose.
I love the third panel in the second tier there.

Harold (45:41):
Snoopy's against the black.
Yeah.
I say, Schulz doesn't get a lot of comment on the coloring choices he did.
He's all over the place with this and making it a really interesting strip.
It's late at night and he's using a couple of different blues and solid black sometimes for the background.

(46:04):
Then it turns into this halo of, oh, yes, that's exactly what it is, yeah.
Where there's basically this aura around the arrival of the food.
Yes.
That is so beautiful.
I love that wonky talk about, again, it's like sometimes the wonkiness is what makes it most special for emotion in the second to last panel.

(46:29):
You got Snoopy's ears going almost straightforward, like a profile flopped over.
But the eyes are like almost facing us.
I love that drawing.
I agree, I probably love that middle drawing that you mentioned, Jimmy Moore.
But that particular drawing, it captures an emotion again where I feel like he's drawing quickly, and he knows this is not typical Snoopy, but he's capturing something in his emotion and that's what he wants.

Jimmy (47:01):
And here's like, okay, one of the things that is supposed to be very important is the eyes have to be like on the correct plane of the head.
But this is obviously not because not only are these on the same side of the head, they're not even angled the way they would be if they were actually on the side.
You know what I mean?

(47:21):
Like they would have to be 60 degrees.

Harold (47:26):
I mean, put your finger over the right eye and eyebrow.
And that could just be a profile.

Jimmy (47:36):
Yes.

Harold (47:36):
And the eye is looking ahead.
Yeah.
And it's just totally different once he adds that extra eye.

SPEAKER_6 (47:42):
Yeah, this is the Picasso character.

Jimmy (47:45):
It's in his blue period.
All right, we couldn't get Gatsby in, but we got Picasso in.
That's something.

SPEAKER_6 (47:56):
Yeah.
That panel bugs me.
But yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Is it a mistake?
I mean, he could put one ear on the other side of the head and it would look right.

Jimmy (48:08):
Yeah, but I don't think it would look as good.

Harold (48:10):
Do you think it has an-
why would he do that emotionally?
Why would he twist one side to one side?

SPEAKER_6 (48:17):
I don't know.
What you're talking about the eye is, the joke works just as good with if that was a side view of the head.

Harold (48:26):
I disagree on that and it is hard to put into words why I feel that way, but it's almost like his mind has been twisted by how did this happen, and it's represented visually somehow.
I don't know.
It does work for me and it is hard to put into words why I think it does.

Jimmy (48:47):
Let me ask you guys this.
Compare that, the second to last panel, to the second to the left panel on tier two.

Harold (48:56):
Right.

Jimmy (48:57):
Which one of those do you think is more effective or is there a difference?

Harold (49:03):
Do you have a?

SPEAKER_6 (49:04):
Well, that one, the one you just mentioned is, I don't see any problems with.

Liz (49:09):
It could have worked for the second to last panel.

SPEAKER_6 (49:13):
Yeah.

Jimmy (49:14):
I think he's trying to almost duplicate the head of space, but kind of getting it wrong.
But I agree, I like the really abstract next to last one, but I would never do it.
I would erase it, it would just be a mess by the time I got done.

SPEAKER_6 (49:30):
Well, look, you place the ear on the other side, like in that second panel, and that works.

Harold (49:37):
Yeah.
The one thing that would keep it from, again, if you took your hand and just our finger and just covered the right eye and eyebrow, the one thing that he doesn't do is he doesn't have the smooth arc on the back of the head.
He's giving it this angle, almost like a Linus head that suggests it's facing the same direction as the eyes are.

(50:02):
It is a genius bit of Picasso stuff going on, but the emotion of the two drawings, I mean, that first one you mentioned, Jimmy, is a really good drawing, and it's also not a typical drawing of Snoopy.
I think it works for his being thoughtful, but also out of sorts.

(50:24):
But that second to last panel, based on him being absolutely baffled.
He's surprised.

Jimmy (50:32):
Yeah.
The reason the ears are that way is good.
They're indicating part of the emotion.
He's down in the second tier because he's hungry.
In the last tier, he's surprised because how did Charlie Brown know this?

Harold (50:47):
Yeah.
I think both of them work.
But I agree that that second to last one is crazy wonky.

Liz (50:56):
It shows more surprise to have both ears on the same side.

Jimmy (51:01):
Yeah.
And I do like the color in this one.
Even Charlie Brown's, I like his patchwork quilt.

Harold (51:08):
Yeah.
I love that patchwork quilt.
Looks very cozy, huh?

Jimmy (51:12):
All right.
Well, you know what?
All this talk about Snoopy being hungry has made me a little peckish.
So how about I'm going to go and get a nice big bowl of dog food, and then we'll come back, answer the mail or something like that, and do more strips.

Harold (51:27):
Sounds great.

Liz (51:28):
Sounds good.

Harold (51:29):
Alpo beef chunks dinner.
There's no better dog food in the world.
No better dog food.
And we're back.

Jimmy (51:38):
Hey Liz, we're hanging out in the mailbox.
Do we got anything?

Liz (51:41):
We do.
We heard from a bunch of people.
Rob Zverina wrote to make sure that we saw the Library of America article about the Peanut 75th anniversary, and it has some interesting links, including their book, The Peanuts Papers, writers and cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang, and the meaning of life.

Harold (52:02):
That's cool.
Cool.
That is a good book, The Peanuts Papers.
If you guys have not heard of that one, it is a bunch of essays by some pretty amazing people who have thought a lot about peanuts from a lot of different perspectives.
I picked it up at the museum shop for the Society of Illustrators in Manhattan, and it's a really good read and very thought-provoking.

(52:25):
If you like this podcast, I think you're going to like The Peanuts Papers.

Liz (52:28):
I will link to the link he sent.
I will put that in social media because it has some links to some YouTube videos with people talking about peanuts that I think our listeners would really like.

Harold (52:42):
Cool.
Thank you.

Jimmy (52:43):
Awesome.

Liz (52:46):
John Marullo sent us his 10 strips back when we were talking about our top 10, and there was definitely some overlap, but he also had some very interesting suggestions.
He also responded to Harold's question from our last Snoopy Episode, and he writes, I don't know that any peanuts character would be the greatest character in Western literature, but I would say that it has the four greatest comic strip characters ever.

(53:15):
In order of first appearance, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, and Linus.
I would be hesitant to say any of them are above the other in this respect because the four of them formed the core of the ensemble for nearly the entire run.
I will add that it is true that Linus appeared less in later years, but he had cemented his presence.

(53:38):
Ultimately, every major character in Peanuts is at least part defined by their relationship to another character.
Even Peppermint Patty, who stood on her own so well, was partly defined by her complicated relationship with Charlie Brown.
The sole exception there is Charlie Brown himself.
Ultimately, Snoopy is Charlie Brown's dog in an existential sense, more than Charlie Brown is Snoopy's owner.

Jimmy (54:05):
That's a great point.
That's really interesting that Charlie Brown sort of stands alone, which makes sense since he's sort of the hub.

Harold (54:12):
Yeah.
Well, thank you for that, John.
That's super thoughtful.
And I like where you're coming from.
And okay, Western literature, well, that's all debatable, right?

Jimmy (54:23):
Well, you know what?
I actually, I was listening to a Ulysses podcast the other day, and they were talking about how Joyce wanted Bloom, the character in Ulysses, to be the complete man, the one literary character that really showed a complete human being.
And in the podcast, they're like, and nobody's done better since.

(54:43):
Maggie in Love and Rockets is actually probably the greatest comic character of all time in a literary sense, because it's a real life in real time.
And I don't think anything has touched that, you know?

SPEAKER_6 (54:57):
Yeah, but it was only one day.
I mean, come on.

Jimmy (55:00):
Yeah, come on.
How much can you show in one day?
What a hackneck I was.

Liz (55:06):
And super listener Deb Perry responded to Jimmy's commentary on Snoopy Come Home with, Snoopy Come Home is a fun movie, but if you followed Peanuts in the newspaper every day, you just knew that Snoopy wasn't going to leave.

SPEAKER_6 (55:21):
No, you're five!

Harold (55:23):
You're mostly on your five!

Liz (55:27):
That would have tanked the whole franchise.
You can get rid of Shermie or Patty or Violet.
No one would care except Michael.
But not Snoopy.
The music was a strange choice, like Schulz was trying to make something more in line with a Disney feature.
The Sherman Brothers wrote lots of music for Disney films, yet it feels off-brand here.

(55:48):
As much as I like the animated Peanuts shows and films, I think they lose something in the translation from a comic to an animated cartoon.
By the time of this film, the shows were getting a lot more cartoony and less Schulz-y.
The animation is pretty lively for limited TV budgets, yet when the characters move, they pull away from Schulz meticulously minimalist style.

(56:13):
All those familiar poses and expressions just become in-between drawings as part of something that is constantly moving.
That said, I can't hear Vince Giraldi's music without seeing those walk cycles in my head.

Harold (56:29):
Yeah, this was a genuine challenge to animate Peanuts.
And hats off to Bill Melendez for being the kind of guy who was, he didn't try to put his ego in front of it and put a massive stamp.
He was kind of a chameleon when it came to animating other people's work.
He was trying to make something that was not designed to move an animation, look like it was true to the original.

(56:56):
And Peanuts is particularly hard.
We've talked about this before, how Snoopy is different in every pose.
How do you morph from these little tiny legs to a big leg, to the small stomach, to a big stomach when he's going lying down, sitting, walking, running, jumping, dancing.
It is not easy because Schulz only drew him in an X number of poses and the animators are forced to draw him in way more poses.

(57:21):
At least, if only like you're saying in the in-betweens to get to the next pose, it is not easy and particularly that CG film they did.
How do you do Peanuts' CG?
2D with 3D off-story, yeah.
Yeah.
I think they did a very good job given some hard choices that they had to make and I think they made some pretty wise ones.

(57:42):
But yeah, it's tough.
Peanuts is specifically tough because it's so minimalist and yet it has to move and Schulz didn't make it move.
Somebody had to put that stamp on top of his work.
I think that's why some people like Michael, maybe don't want to mess with it because it's not Schulz, right?

(58:02):
It's Schulz plus and maybe you don't want to deal with Schulz.
Why have the plus when you got 17,897 Schulz?

Jimmy (58:11):
Yeah.
I will say this, I think we're lucky that it got, that Schulz ended up with Bill Melendez because when you think of, when something goes from being a work of art to being a pop culture franchise or whatever, most likely the artist's original vision is going to be trampled.

(58:32):
I really think those guys just tried to translate his vision as much as possible.

Harold (58:38):
And some very odd choices that only exists in the Peanuts shows, like how they'll just do a four-panel strip after a while, and they'll leave it as a four-panel strip and then they'll just dissolve into the next strip.
It's like, forget it, we're not going to try.
Or what wrong?

Jimmy (58:55):
The iconic voice of the adults to show there's no adults.
A lot of people would have just put adult voices in and who cares?
But just to let our listeners know what they'll be talking about here, I got a text from a listener, Ryan, who was on a date and said they were watching Unpack, or what was it called?
Snoopy Come Home.

(59:16):
And what do I think about the strange color of the doghouse?
Because it was really popped, like psychedelically colored.
So I had nothing to do, so I popped it on and just did a commentary.
I just sat and watched along with me.
And it was a lot of fun.
I'm going to do it again.

Liz (59:31):
Jimmy did them for our Patreon listeners.

Jimmy (59:34):
Yeah.
So if you want to cough up a couple bucks of cool Finsky, you can have that.

Harold (59:40):
And I will say, there are some pieces of animation that I absolutely love.
Let's say the Christmas special, some of Snoopy dancing.
You know, it's in the strip and we see it represented here, but there's some beautiful, beautiful animation of Snoopy that I'll never forget that does fill in the gaps between the panels in a way that I find really satisfying.

(01:00:07):
I don't know if it was Bill Littlejohn or who was animating.
They had some really amazing veteran animators working on that in 65 who'd been working in theatrical cartoons, dating back years and you see it in certain spots of that special where there's just something that enhances.

(01:00:28):
If you have to bring it to life, that is an amazing way to bring it to life and I love seeing peanuts come to life in certain aspects that just Schulz never got to do and somebody was a wonderful extension of his creativity in those specials.

Liz (01:00:49):
Longtime listener Sarah Wilson writes, hey, Liz and the gang, it's your old pal Sarah currently hanging out in St.
Paul, Minnesota, and I have a request slash proposal for you all.
I noticed as I was wrapping up the Great Peanuts reread, how many Gatsby references there are in the last few years.
I'm not sure what put it back on Schulz's radar, but then again, he and Scott Fitzgerald were both sons of St.

(01:01:15):
Paul.
St.
Paul remembers both proudly.
So, the request slash proposal on the more modest end, how about an episode on the Gatsby strips in Peanuts with discussion of the two St.
Paul artists who struck gold in the American artistic universe?
And on the more expansive end, how about hosting the Great Gatsby reread?

Michael (01:01:39):
See what I wrote there?

Liz (01:01:42):
Casting all the Gatsby characters as Peanuts characters.
And she offers to help if we want to do all of that.

Jimmy (01:01:51):
I don't think, I think I'm the only one that likes that book of everybody on this show, right?

SPEAKER_6 (01:01:56):
I'm not a fan.

Harold (01:01:57):
I'm not a fan.

Jimmy (01:01:58):
Yeah, I love it.
So, it'll just be me and you, Sarah.

Harold (01:02:03):
Sorry, Sarah.
Let it in college.
It's always when you have to read a book in school.
Oh, yeah.
So often, it just kills it for you.
I don't know if that's why.
I don't know.

Liz (01:02:16):
Sigh.
And we got a five-star review on Apple podcasts from a listener whose handle is Kong Husker, who writes, great show, just discovered this podcast.
The guys do a tremendous job at breaking the strips down and having a peaceful, relaxing atmosphere during the conversation.

(01:02:39):
Keep it up, you blockheads.

Harold (01:02:41):
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you, Kong Husker.

Liz (01:02:45):
I love the fact that people seem to think we're peaceful.
More than two people have said that.

Jimmy (01:02:54):
Yeah, it's a good, well, you know, we're just hanging out talking about comics.

Harold (01:02:59):
Yeah, and something we all love.
It's a nice place to be.
I'm happy to show up here every time just to settle in and enjoy something we all love.

Jimmy (01:03:09):
Now, moments after we finish recording, we do go out and rumble.
But, you know, we find other podcasts talking about comics and we take care of business.

Harold (01:03:22):
We're going to mess with Nancy tonight.

Liz (01:03:32):
So, that's it for the mail.
Do you have anything from the hotline?

Jimmy (01:03:36):
Oh my gosh, we got two calls.
We got one from Marcia, Super Listener Marcia, and what she says is this.

SPEAKER_1 (01:03:46):
Hello, wonderful Unpacking Peanuts people.
This is Marcia Hepp's long-time listener, one-time Snoopy.
And I've been thinking since you've been doing this wonderful, intensely beautiful look into Snoopy.
When you asked me when I played Snoopy, where I got my inspiration from, I honestly looked at all of the strips that the lines came from, to see what Schulz wanted to tell me.

(01:04:23):
There was a lot there.
I would personally love to do a deep dive on You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
Anyway, just thought I'd warm up the old hotline and give a good cheer.

Liz (01:04:39):
And that inspired me to reach out to our listeners because I know that more than one of them have told me that they played parts in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown when they were in school.
And so I put on social media and I want to put out to our listeners, who else has been a character in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown at some point in their life?

(01:05:04):
I'd love to know where.
And maybe we can at some point do something with that.

Harold (01:05:10):
Well, that would be kind of interesting.
Yeah.
Especially you have to kind of get into that character.
If you're performing it and you have to learn the lines and really feel like, okay, method acting Snoopy or Linus or whatever, what people got out of that.
You know, if they had a new appreciation for the characters by having to live with them and become them.

Jimmy (01:05:31):
I do think that we could probably do an episode or two even on Your Good Man Charlie Brown, much like we did the Christmas special, finding strips that were adapted or have been adapted over the years.

Harold (01:05:46):
That could be a lot of fun.

Jimmy (01:05:47):
And it's a great way to do extra comic strip peanuts material without having to make Michael sit through a TV show or something.

SPEAKER_6 (01:05:57):
You know what I mean?

Liz (01:05:58):
And also the way that it changed over the years, because the version that I was in is completely different from the one that's currently, I mean, that...

Harold (01:06:07):
Really?

Liz (01:06:08):
One of the people that wrote on social media was in it in 2024, which was like 55 years after I was in it.

Harold (01:06:19):
Well, yeah.
Who was the creative force behind that musical?

Liz (01:06:24):
Clark Gesner was the person who put it together, and he came to one of my performances.

Jimmy (01:06:29):
That's so cool.

Liz (01:06:32):
But I'm sure that different people have made it what it is today.
So he created it in the 60s, and I don't know the history of what happened since then.
Anything else on the hotline?

Jimmy (01:06:47):
We also heard from Andrew Cadell.

SPEAKER_7 (01:06:49):
Hey guys.
My name is Andrew Cadell.
I'm a long time listener of the show.
Just thought I'd give you guys a call.
I went to Cooperstown, New York last month.
This is the base for Whole of Fame.
As I was driving, I drove past the Cinnabar Cooper Art Museum, and they had a big banner outside the museum.
It was a big picture of Calvin and Hobbes.

(01:07:11):
I couldn't believe it.
I parked it in my car, and I went inside, and on the second floor, it just opened.
It's a new exhibit called Exploring Calvin and Hobbes, and it's pretty amazing.
They have over, I would say, maybe 50 originals from Bill Watterson.
They have the first one, and they also have the last comic strip in 1995.

(01:07:32):
I think it's the 30th anniversary of the comic strip ending, so that's why they have the exhibit.
But anyway, if you're in Coombaustown, New York or in the upstate New York area, please go.
It's a fantastic exhibition with all these originals.
It's pretty amazing.
It's like the whiteout and everything that Bill Watterson used and whatnot.
But anyway, just go ahead and tell you guys that.

(01:07:54):
Anyway, keep up the good work and see you soon.
All right.
Take care.
Be a good student.

Harold (01:07:58):
Bye-bye.
I have a question because of Charlie Brown.
Is he also in the exhibit somehow?
Is Charlie Brown represented?
I have to go to Cooperstown.
I live in New York.
That sounds like, to see Walt Watterson's original art, I've never seen that in person.
That would be cool.
Thank you for telling us about that.

(01:08:19):
Yeah, very cool.

Jimmy (01:08:21):
And we also heard from Captain Billy.
Okay.
Now, this is extremely important.
I actually agree with Captain Billy on this one, guys.
We dropped the ball.

SPEAKER_7 (01:08:34):
Oh, no.

Liz (01:08:35):
What did we do?

Jimmy (01:08:36):
Hi, Captain Billy here.
Re the mailbag episode.
You guys dropped the ball.

Harold (01:08:42):
You block heads.

Jimmy (01:08:43):
And the question he wants answered, what costume did Liz wear when she was on Let's Make a Deal?
How could we not ask that?

Liz (01:08:55):
Right?
Oh, my.
Okay.
So when we went there, we waited in line for a good long time, and everybody was in strange costumes.
My sister wore a hula outfit, and she looked really good.
And her husband was a fisherman, and I, who was visiting in LA at the time, who didn't have access to much in the way of costumes, wore her cap and gown from graduation and a Harpo Marx wig.

(01:09:36):
Oh, that's not cool.
No, it was not cool.
So we waited in line, and the people in charge said, we are only going to pick the people who behave themselves, and so we want you to stand here quietly.
So I followed the rules and I stood there quietly, and the people who said, pick me, pick me, pick me, Monty.

(01:10:01):
They all got on the show.

Harold (01:10:05):
So we want rule breakers is what they wanted.

Liz (01:10:07):
Yeah, they really did.
So her husband and I got seats in the nosebleed section, and Hillary, my sister who was wearing the hula girl outfit was in the first row of the audience.

Harold (01:10:21):
Did she say, pick me, pick me, or was she also?

Liz (01:10:23):
No, she just looked really good in the hula girl outfit.

Harold (01:10:29):
It didn't matter.
She was getting on the front row.

Liz (01:10:31):
Yeah.
So we were not on the trading floor.
But thank you, Captain Billy, for asking.

Jimmy (01:10:38):
We also heard from Shaylee Robson, who did the Peanuts personality quiz with us, and she got Charlie Brown.
So it's not 100% weighted towards Marcy like we suggested.

Liz (01:10:51):
You were a Charlie Brown too, weren't you?

Jimmy (01:10:53):
No, it was Lucy.

Liz (01:10:54):
Oh, you were Lucy.

SPEAKER_1 (01:10:55):
Oh, okay.

Liz (01:10:56):
All right.
We almost have a strip.

Jimmy (01:10:59):
Yep.
Yeah.
And that's it.
But thanks to everybody for writing.
If you want to get in touch with this, you can write us at unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com, or you can give us a call on our hotline or text the hotline [phone].

(01:11:19):
And remember, when I don't hear, I worry.
So please reach out to us.
All right.
So what do you think?
Should we actually talk about some comic strips finally?

Liz (01:11:27):
Okay.

Jimmy (01:11:28):
All right.
September 19th, 1963.
Okay.
This is a great one.
This Charlie Brown is just sitting there, Snoopy is lying on the ottoman of Charlie Brown's chair.
Charlie Brown says, how would you like to go for a walk, Snoopy?
And then Snoopy is just dancing wildly.
And Charlie Brown says, I knew you would.
All dogs like to go for walks.
And Snoopy is doing his complete happy dance.

(01:11:51):
And then we see in the last panel, Charlie Brown pushing a very delighted Snoopy in what I assume is Sally's baby stroller.
And Charlie Brown saying, this isn't exactly what I had in mind.
You know, this is another, is Snoopy a dog?

(01:12:11):
Is he father figure?
Is he a baby?
He can be all these different things.
You all off of Snoopy.

SPEAKER_6 (01:12:17):
But you know, up until this point, except for some imitations, all his fantasies were animals.
And I think the pilot, the World War I flying ace was the start of him wanting to be a person.
And then in the future, you didn't do animals very much.

(01:12:38):
It was, you know, it would be a-

Jimmy (01:12:39):
Yeah, they would just be call backs.

SPEAKER_6 (01:12:41):
Check out Claire.
Yeah.
So here, this is kind of an in-between phase where he wants to be a baby.

Harold (01:12:48):
Yeah, that's weird.

Jimmy (01:12:49):
That is weird because he looks so happy in that last panel.

Liz (01:12:53):
When I first read it, I thought that it was Snoopy who was saying, this isn't exactly what I had in mind.

Jimmy (01:13:01):
That would have been funny too, actually.
And I have to say, this is a shout out to my dear neighbor, Leanna and Kyle Waldron, who walked their dog, Mia Wallace, in his stroller.
Mia is getting up there, so she needs a little extra help.

Harold (01:13:21):
Yeah.
I love how Schulz sets up this gag with the first panel, where Snoopy is looking very much like a dog.

Jimmy (01:13:29):
Yes, very much.

Harold (01:13:30):
On the Ottoman of the chair, where Charlie Brown is still reading that same book.

Jimmy (01:13:41):
I love that.
Boy, that dancing Snoopy in panel three, that could be like the dancing Snoopy.

Harold (01:13:46):
You can't go wrong with dancing Snoopy.

Jimmy (01:13:50):
Cannot.

Harold (01:13:51):
He's so tall, too.
He's almost as tall as Charlie Brown.

Jimmy (01:13:54):
Yeah, he's giant.
Yeah, yeah.
I guess that's also supposed to be a little perspective too though, right?
He's in front of Charlie Brown.

Harold (01:14:00):
A little bit, yeah.

Jimmy (01:14:03):
And here's the last one I picked for this week's show.
September 12th, 1997.
Snoopy's atop the dog house and this time he's typing away on his Smith Corona.
And he types, as she said goodbye and ran up the steps, he knew he would never see her again.
He was heartbroken.
Snoopy continues to type, Oh, well, he thought, I still have my dog.

(01:14:26):
And in the last panel, Snoopy types, little did he know his dog had been planning to leave him.
I wonder if this is a Romana Clef of Snoopy.

Harold (01:14:43):
He is planning to leave Charlie Brown.

Jimmy (01:14:46):
That just made me laugh.
I just thought that was one of the other things that we did a whole episode about, which is why I didn't really include any specifically.
But we did a whole episode about all Snoopy's personas.
And if we are trying to understand Snoopy, one of the big things has to be all the different personas.

(01:15:07):
And I really, really like the writer.
And I love the fact that someone was able to put all the writer strips together to make it seem like it's one actual big book.
That's an amazing, amazing thing.
Yeah.
Now, of those, since we're not covering the personas and leaving aside the animal imitations, do you guys have a favorite of the Snoopy personas or one that you like slightly more?

SPEAKER_6 (01:15:35):
The human personas, you mean?
Well, I mean, I probably wouldn't have noticed it, but your love for the grocery clerk made me appreciate it.

Michael (01:15:46):
Yes.

Harold (01:15:48):
That was the very first one that came to my mind, was the grocery clerk.

Jimmy (01:15:51):
Well, then my life is complete.
Everybody loves the grocery clerk.

Harold (01:15:55):
You're doing some heavy reading tonight, eh?

Liz (01:15:59):
I think I've got to go for Joe Cool.

Jimmy (01:16:02):
Joe Cool is a great one.

Harold (01:16:04):
Number two for me, Joe Cool.

Jimmy (01:16:06):
It's funny, I was watching those secret channels behind the main channel on TV now that has old stuff.
They have a Saturday Night Live channel, and they were showing one from just a couple of years ago, maybe even just last year, and it was them doing the Christmas special, and Keenan Thompson was playing Snoopy.

(01:16:31):
The shot goes to Keenan playing Snoopy and the crowd cheers because everyone likes Snoopy.
Then they cut away, and when they come back, Snoopy's Joe Cool, and the crowd goes nuts.
I thought, that's amazing because this is a comic strip.
It's a persona of a comic strip character that was done in 50 years previous to this, Joe Cool from late 60s, early 70s and stuff like that.

(01:16:57):
Yet as soon as they put those shades on them, the crowd went crazy because everybody loved it.

Harold (01:17:03):
Did it have a thing on the sweatshirt that said, Joe Cool or did they have to know?

Jimmy (01:17:07):
That would have been a little too much to get in between the cuts.
I think he had no sweat.
He was just in the Snoopy outfit, but it was really adorable.
I think we've certainly talked a lot today, and that's always one of my goals, is to at least fill up the time for you people out there.

(01:17:27):
If you want to continue this conversation, there's a couple of different ways you can do it.
First thing you can do, of course, is you go over to unpackingpeanuts.com and you sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread.
There you go, one email a month that will tell you just what we're going to be covering, and you will be able to then read ahead if you want to follow with us.
You can also call us on our hotline.

(01:17:49):
We are 717-219-4162.
And of course, you can find us on social media.

Harold (01:17:57):
We are, what are we, Liz?

Liz (01:18:00):
We are Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads, and Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.

Jimmy (01:18:09):
There you go.
All right.
So if you want to keep this conversation going, hit some of those links.
Remember, when I don't hear from you, I worry.
So with all that said-

Harold (01:18:18):
Well, hold on.
I got it.

Liz (01:18:20):
Oh, yes.

Jimmy (01:18:21):
Oh, right.
I have other stuff too.
Yeah, sorry.

Liz (01:18:23):
Where's Harold?

Harold (01:18:26):
Yeah.
Well, I'm wearing a little knit cap and some red and white striped shirts.
On December 12th, I am kicking off the presentations at the It's a Wonderful Life Festival in Seneca Falls, New York, which I highly recommend for anybody who loves that movie.
From 11-15 on Friday, December 12th, I will be talking about how Frank Capra came to make It's a Wonderful Life.

(01:18:53):
And then on Saturday, the very next day, I am down in Ocean City, Maryland for two days for their Comic Con.
I'm an invited guest at that, which is kind of a rarity.
Usually, I'm just an interloper.
And then it's more punk rock fun at the Philly Punk Rock Flea Market, December 19th, 20th and 21st.

(01:19:16):
So if you're in that area, please stop by and look at all of the punk rock wares and stop and say hi.

Jimmy (01:19:23):
Awesome.
And I would just like to ask if anyone out there, if you're interested, right now, you can preorder the first two Amelia Rules books with brand new stories from good old Simon and Schuster.
And that would be great if you could preorder those books.

Liz (01:19:38):
And we'll put the link in the show notes.

Jimmy (01:19:40):
Awesome.
Thank you.
All right.
So with all that said for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

SPEAKER_6 (01:19:48):
Yes.
Be of good cheer.

Liz (01:19:51):
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.

(01:20:14):
For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

Jimmy (01:20:21):
Touch the dog.
Good grief.