Wrap-up Season 12 - No One Shook Hands and Said Good Game

We wrap up the Great Peanuts Re-Read and reflect back on the fun and challenges of reading all 17,897 Peanuts comic strips. Then we discuss the death of Charles Schulz, the continued impact of Peanuts, and what’s up next. Plus: Rory goes to college.

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 is not only our season wrap up, but kind of our original mission statement wrap up today.
You know how, like, Gilmore Girls, it's all about getting Rory to college and then Rory goes to college, but then they still do like four more seasons?
That's where we're at now.

Harold (00:41):
Aftermash.

Jimmy (00:42):
Yeah, aftermash.
Yeah, it's really everyone's favorite part.
But you know what?
I'm gonna be your host for these proceedings.
And my name's Jimmy Gownley and I'm also a cartoonist.
I did things like Amelia Rule, Seven Grease is Not to Grow Up, the dumbest idea ever.
And you can read all my new comics for free over there on GVIL Comics on Substack.
And joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts and fellow cartoonists.

(01:05):
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 as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
It's Michael Cohen.

Harold (01:21):
Say hey.

Jimmy (01:22):
And he's the executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics and the creator of the Instagram sensation, Sweetest Beasts, it's Harold Buchholz.

Michael (01:32):
Hello.

Jimmy (01:34):
And making sure we stay out of trouble and that everything runs smoothly, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.

SPEAKER_1 (01:39):
Howdy.

Jimmy (01:40):
Well guys, we made it.
17,897 strips.
I think, you know, that last episode was pretty emotional.
It was rough to, even though we never really fully say goodbye to fictional characters, especially ones like this that live on in pop culture, it was hard to see those final strips.

Harold (02:07):
Yeah.
It's a tough thing to wind up what has been a long journey and to all of our listeners who have been with us throughout.
Thank you for being with us on the Great Peanuts Re read and love to hear how you guys feel on the back end of this.

(02:29):
It's quite an accomplishment to go through a 50-year career of somebody.

Jimmy (02:33):
Yeah.

Michael (02:34):
I'm really curious if anyone out there actually read all of this.

Jimmy (02:38):
Oh, I know of some that have.

Michael (02:41):
I mean, on this, in this time frame.

Jimmy (02:43):
Oh, yes.

Michael (02:44):
With us.

Jimmy (02:45):
Yes.

Michael (02:46):
Well, that's good to know.

Jimmy (02:47):
Yes, I do.
Yes.
And actually, we certainly have heard from so many people, whether they all read every one.
But I know a few that have read it religiously week by week.
So I'm very grateful for that.
You guys remember, do you remember the day the last one appeared and we had heard the news that Mr.

(03:08):
Schulz had passed away?
Do you remember where you were or what that was like for you guys?

Michael (03:12):
I did see the newspaper somehow.
I wasn't subscribing.
I must have just chanced upon it.
And there might have been talk about it, his condition and all that.
I wasn't aware of it.
So now I can't really spot the moment.
It's not like I remember where I was when Walt Disney.

SPEAKER_1 (03:34):
I remember exactly where I was when I heard about Walt Disney.

Michael (03:37):
Really?

SPEAKER_1 (03:38):
Yes.

Michael (03:40):
Wow.

SPEAKER_1 (03:41):
Where?
Walking into geography at Jim McGonagall.

Michael (03:45):
I was in the locker room for gym class.

Harold (03:50):
Wow.
Well, yeah, I do remember, we knew the last strip was coming out, and so I was going to get the paper, and I was supposed to go have breakfast with an animation student and I heard the news before I got there.
But I remember being very emotional, and we were just talking about it together, because he was also an artist, and it just seemed so sad and strange and appropriate.

(04:20):
Yeah.
That the strip ends, and so does Charles Schulz's life, and to put some meaning on top of it, it's hard not to say this man poured his life out into this strip, and then when he was done, it was done and vice versa.
And so I think actually going into agreeing to do this, that memory was there from the start because it was putting an exclamation point on the impact that this man had had on my life.

(04:56):
And that was, yeah, that was a really sad, special moment.

Michael (05:03):
I remember Jimmy, we talked on the phone that day.

Jimmy (05:07):
Yeah.

Michael (05:07):
You must have called me.

Jimmy (05:09):
Yeah.

Michael (05:10):
Yeah, we were both thinking more like, well, that's really strange.

Jimmy (05:15):
Yeah.

Michael (05:15):
It was like the coincidence was overwhelming.

Jimmy (05:19):
It is.
Yes, it is overwhelming.
And there's no way to think, I mean, obviously there's no way to think of the end without thinking of that.
But it is like, is there something comparable elsewhere in art that anyone can think of?
Well, we talked about this.
We talked about the David Bowie thing maybe, but I never, nothing exactly like that.

Michael (05:40):
No, on the day of, on somebody, the day somebody died of some major project ending.

Jimmy (05:48):
Yeah.

Harold (05:49):
Yeah.
And having to say, and saying goodbye.

Jimmy (05:52):
Yeah.

Harold (05:53):
I mean, that's the thing.
I mean, people have died on stage.
Well, right.

Michael (05:56):
Yeah.
Right.
Well, didn't the guy who wrote Rant die like, like opening night or something like that?

Jimmy (06:05):
Oh, I don't know.

Michael (06:06):
I mean, that was a major.
I mean, it would have been his first major hit.

SPEAKER_1 (06:11):
Yeah.

Michael (06:11):
And yeah, I think he died at least around that period.

SPEAKER_1 (06:16):
Oh, wow.

Harold (06:17):
Yeah.
That's the piece of about it that, that he's saying goodbye.
Yeah, as he's going away in a way that he couldn't have foretold, you know, and there it is.
And, you know, you're just sitting there looking at the strip, hearing the news is just uncanny and poetic.

Jimmy (06:38):
Yeah.
Yes, it is poetic.
You know, the thing that makes me happiest about the last few years is I really think that like, say, 96, 97 to the end was a real upswing.
I think he found rerun and, you know, just decided to explore this little guy.

(07:00):
And I think it just lifts the last years, which is great, you know?
One of the things about a huge long project like this, you know, if it's Love and Rockets or it's the 101 fantastic four episodes or issues, there's always going to be peaks and valleys.
But that's what makes those kinds of really long works interesting, I think, and worthwhile.

(07:26):
It's like when you suddenly see someone catch fire again, and there's no way to really explain it.
It just happens.
And then we're lucky enough to get to experience it.

Harold (07:38):
Yeah.
Can you think of another artist who was going along and deep, deep into the career, and then they find something new, and it carries them to the end of that career.
I mean, the one thing I can think of is Sparks.
I mean, they've been around, what, 50-some years, and they got their first number one album in England just a couple of weeks ago, I think.

(08:07):
Oh, wow.
That is amazing that these guys have just kind of stuck at it, had early success, and then they were always there, but they've found something, and people have found them, and that's always cool.

Michael (08:22):
Well, usually when people have faded out of the public view, it's hard to get back in.

Harold (08:28):
Yeah.

Michael (08:29):
I've noticed that Paul Simon, who has a couple of albums out in the last few years, not heavily produced, mostly him and guitar.
I listened to him, I went, I mean, this possibly is great work, but I'll probably only hear these songs once in my life.

Harold (08:51):
So when you engage with that art, knowing this person for a long time, and you say, okay, this is different, it's new, is there something that makes it harder somehow to engage with the new material even if it's good?
Because it's not when you first engage with it.

Michael (09:07):
Yeah.
I mean, it's harder because obviously he's getting very old.
And the songs are more the songs of an old man.

Jimmy (09:18):
Yeah.

Michael (09:18):
You know, facing the big questions.

Jimmy (09:20):
Yeah, that last record of his, wow.

Michael (09:23):
Yeah.
I mean, it's hard to listen to because it's like, yeah, this is very serious stuff.
Well, you know, not that his early stuff wasn't, but it's serious in a more downbeat way.

Jimmy (09:36):
There's no Cecilia.

Harold (09:39):
Schulz is dealing with children for 50 years.
And we saw things about him dealing with his age.
He would slip it in.
Either it was through Franklin talking about his granddad, or, you know, it would be there.
But he was forced to deal in this world of kids.

Michael (10:03):
Well, but Snoopy looked and then acted old.

Harold (10:10):
Yeah, sometimes.
Yeah, you're right.

Michael (10:12):
In the later things, because I've been picking our choices, my choices anyway, for Snoopy strips from the 50s and 60s.
And he's just like a ball of activity.
He's like mad.

Harold (10:25):
Yeah.

Michael (10:26):
And this is not the same character who's, you know, just lying on top of the doghouse thinking.

Harold (10:33):
Yeah.
And yet, I think one of the things that really delighted me when I kind of stumbled on some of the last in the world, the word was out.
This was the end of Peanuts.
And I was kind of curious to check in and see where Schulz was that there was rerun and there was Snoopy and rerun.
And just seeing them, there's that strip that's so close to the end of the run where he's always coming up to the house and often getting rejected with Snoopy.

(11:01):
But then it's like, hey, you know, does your dog want to come out and we'll just act like we have no sense and just have fun.
And Snoopy's up for it and they just go out and have a blast.

Jimmy (11:12):
And that's so grandparent-y.
You know, the kid comes over and you get to just have fun.

Harold (11:20):
And you're not responsible for all the scary stuff of being a parent.
Or not as much and not the ultimate.

Jimmy (11:27):
Yeah, right.
And, you know, I definitely feel that because I also, you know, Michael says Snoopy did start to act older.
And when he did have those moments with Rerun, it still felt grandfatherly to me.
And it felt that really that over time, Schulz's avatar in the strip switched from Charlie Brown to Snoopy, or at least it was between Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

Harold (11:54):
Yeah, his grandfather at the same time, it's just so full of joy.
And I did this Anchor and Happiness Index, and I think you guys were sometimes scratching your head, why on earth are you even bothering to do this, all the things you could do with reading through peanuts?
And I don't exactly know why, except I knew that it had changed over the years, and I was trying to get some sort of barometer that might help me understand the strip and its movement over time.

(12:21):
And to see that it had the anger portion at the end of his life, when he didn't know it was the end of his life, it was, I don't know, it just made me happy for him, that he didn't seem to be in a bad place at the end, where he's just struggling through.
And as you're reading through the strips, knowing you're getting closer year by year, you're like, oh, this could go a bunch of different ways.

(12:44):
And I can't think of a strip, I mean, we keep thinking like who else was in this place where Schulz was at the end of his career.
And another question is, did anybody introduce a character or at least find a new avenue for a character that was so fresh, so late in a strip?

(13:04):
I have trouble thinking of someone, I'm sure there's somebody out there who was like that.

Michael (13:08):
Well, the only person I could think of who had a 50 year career was Jack Kirby.
And his ending last year was a flood of new creations.
But it didn't seem like, it seemed like he was doing it for the money and trying to cash in on, here's the gang doing something new.

(13:35):
He had banned just a lot of projects at the end.
He'd do like one issue, maybe two.

Harold (13:40):
Yeah.
Or Stan Lee, you can think about that as well.
I mean, everyone has their own conversations about who Stan actually was as a creative force, but he was active for years and years and years.
And he was in this vector of creativity, no matter what his contribution was.

(14:02):
It can't be coincidence that he was just over and over again.
He was in the middle of where something amazing was happening.

Michael (14:10):
But he was always best as a publicity man.

Harold (14:14):
I'm also maybe a mood setter.
I think it wasn't just publicity.
It was like Stan in the office was this person who created this mood.
And they said he played this.

Michael (14:26):
Stan was the publisher's nephew.

Harold (14:28):
Yeah.

Michael (14:29):
So he had to be nice to him.

Harold (14:31):
I think a little free.
Yeah.
But also, it seemed like he was kind of free in that regard.
Like, okay, my job is probably not as on the line as someone else because I am the nephew of the publisher.
But he did seem to create this atmosphere that people kind of enjoyed.
And what did that add?
Because you see it in the letters columns.

(14:52):
He did it for the fans.
We know that.
We know millions of kids would just read the columns of Marvel Comics.
And, you know, face front tube trooper leavers and all this stuff.
And all of a sudden, you're in this space of expecting something of the art because of this guy's voice.

Michael (15:09):
But the thing with Stan is that he realized his storytelling chops were old-fashioned.
And he stopped writing in the early 70s.
He was editor for years and years after.
But basically, he realized people didn't want that kind of storytelling anymore.

Jimmy (15:28):
One of the funny things I think about the legacy of Stan Lee is that the guy who basically invented giving writers and artists credits in comics is also famous for not giving writers and artists credit.
You know, like there were no credit boxes in those old DC comics.
Maybe the artists would sign it.
Every once in a while, he was the one that made the box, you know, written by, penciled by, inked by all this stuff.

(15:53):
And yet, still hog most of the credit for himself.
But it's sort of forgotten that, well, previously no one was getting any credit.

Harold (16:01):
You know?
Right.
Yeah, that's, it's interesting.
I mean, the fact that people have such passionate thoughts about Stanley and who he was is a credit to who he was.

Michael (16:13):
Getting back to Schulz, yeah, you're talking about a very late, I mean, I can't even call it like a Renaissance and is in the strip.
There is a surprising bit with some new characters.

Harold (16:30):
Yeah, there's some freshness there, right?

Michael (16:31):
Especially, especially Rerun, yeah.
I wouldn't say that he found like a new way of doing it.

Harold (16:40):
No, no.
It was just a, it was like, but that new key on the piano that he never was able to hit before.
Yeah, he didn't change his own rules.
He just found somebody with a different take on life that fit into this incredibly developed universe.

Michael (17:00):
Rerun was 30 years old at that time.

SPEAKER_1 (17:03):
Another example that occurs to me is Tony Bennett.

Michael (17:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (17:07):
Having a really long career and then finding freshness at the end of it.

Jimmy (17:12):
That's true.

Harold (17:12):
Yeah, and finding partnerships.
He wasn't afraid of younger audiences.
I think that's another thing.
I think a lot of times when you get older, you cut yourself off from the people that are coming out.

Michael (17:22):
He didn't like a lot of those guys from that generation just totally dismissed anything new.
Where he kind of embraced it.
But really, the biggest example of this, which I don't buy particularly, is Dylan.

Jimmy (17:39):
I knew you were going to say Dylan.
Yeah.

Michael (17:40):
Yeah, because I've been reading like Rolling Stone.
I don't read anymore, but from the beginning.
And every time a Dylan album would come out, all through the 70s and 80s and 90s, it was like, he's back.
And now in retrospect, you go like, this is the Empire Burlesque, horrible album.

(18:04):
These albums, when they came out, were like, yep, Dylan's back after all this time.
And it's still happening to this day.
Every Dylan album comes out and people say, well, he's better than ever.
I don't hear it.

Jimmy (18:18):
Well, I do think though that people in the 90s started, I think those 90s out, like Love and Theft and Modern Times, people still like and love those records.
Less so than the 80s stuff, which was like, Elvis Costello.
It's the same.
It's, you know, even that was actually one of the things that, last REM reference guys, I think that's one of the things that made them decide to end it because they were on their, oh, this is their return to form album.

(18:49):
And then you're stuck in the return to form album for the rest of your career.
You know, it's always going to be that.

Harold (18:57):
Yeah, that's the weird thing about musicians.
I think it's a blessing and a curse that musicians who still have some chops and had made a big impact on people in a certain era.
They are, there's a path for them to be allowed to continue to be present and be performing.

(19:21):
Sometimes into 80s, even 90s, sometimes.
I mean, think of Baccarat, I think of, it was a Frankie Valli.

Jimmy (19:27):
And Leonard Cohen.

Harold (19:28):
But like you say, I mean, the curse is that maybe you'll get to throw something new in to the concert, you know, a song or two.

Jimmy (19:38):
Yeah.

Harold (19:39):
But you are going to have to recreate the thing that people love and that's why they're coming.

Michael (19:45):
Yeah.
But what puzzles me is someone, I mean, it's McCartney who puzzles me because everybody in the world wants to see him and they're willing to pay a lot of money and he doesn't have to.
He feels he has to give them a certain quota of the songs they've heard a million times.

(20:07):
I mean, he can come out and just do his new album.
And I mean, it's not going to hurt him.
I might hurt him critically, but he's certainly not hurting for money.

Jimmy (20:16):
Right.

Michael (20:17):
He can do exactly what he wants.
But then again, he really feels, he owes it to the audience to stick to the old favorites.

SPEAKER_1 (20:27):
And you must get some juice from that.
I mean, the pleasure of it.

Jimmy (20:31):
Well, I can imagine starting Hey Jude in front of 80,000 people and feel that energy.
And the one thing I heard him say too is that, like, he knows that for some people, it's the only time they'll see him and he has to play Hey Jude.

Michael (20:45):
But he doesn't have to.

Jimmy (20:46):
No, he doesn't.

SPEAKER_1 (20:47):
No.
I do want to say that I thought it was the coolest thing in the world that you took your daughters to see him twice.

Jimmy (20:54):
Just once.
Just once.

SPEAKER_1 (20:54):
Oh, okay.
When I heard that you, and how old were they when you took them?
Eight.
That is like the coolest dad in the world.

Jimmy (21:02):
Oh, thank you.
It was really fun.
And it was like their, well, their first concert was Fountains of Wayne at six months.
Their second concert was the Beach Boys at two years.
They don't remember those.
So this was one of their first big, big, big concerts.
And I'm like, what do you guys want to hear?
And they said, one said, hey, Jude, one said, live and let die.

(21:22):
I'm like, I don't know if he's going to do those guys.
I'm not sure.
I know.
So they're very excited.

Harold (21:28):
Wow.
That's, that's cool.
And it's so funny, you know, as we get older and certain artists who came up, you know, alongside us, you don't think of them as terribly old, but they are still just vibrantly out there.
Weird Al Yankovic, 45 years.
Yeah.

Jimmy (21:45):
Well, Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets is 45 years now.

Michael (21:49):
Yeah.

Harold (21:49):
Wow.
Yeah.

Michael (21:50):
Yeah.
And he's doing, you see, that's somebody who is doing exactly what he wants.
He can do Maggie as a teenager again.
Occasionally, he'll do a little flashback.

Jimmy (22:01):
Yeah.

Michael (22:01):
But probably a lot of people have stopped reading it, you know, 20 years ago because it wasn't cool anymore.
Stuck around with old people.

Jimmy (22:11):
That's another thing that's difficult about just getting older, is watching these things that you love become more important than less important, then maybe have a resurgence, but then maybe not.
Like I was reading about Love and Rockets, or no, it wasn't.
I was listening to a podcast.
They were talking about it like, oh, it's this little indie book, you know.

(22:31):
I was like, no, it's like one of the corners of Western literature.
What are you talking about?
This is one of, it's like Moby Dick and then the Locust stories.

Michael (22:42):
Yeah, clearly.

Jimmy (22:45):
But it's not seen that way.
The other thing is everything now is a popularity contest.
When we were younger, there was an impetus to find a cool thing.
That was a small thing for a group of people, and it wasn't just like an alternative rock thing or punk rock thing.
It was all kinds of different people finding a niche and nurturing that and creating a scene and watching it grow.

(23:13):
Then sometimes when it would get big and actually become popular, those original people fell away from it.

Michael (23:19):
Yeah.
Well, you weren't looking for that micro-niche, because the theory was that you're not going to get rich, but there are enough people out there who could support you.

Jimmy (23:31):
Right.

Michael (23:32):
If you're doing something very quirky and not compromising at all.

Harold (23:36):
But wouldn't you say that's actually happening more today?

Michael (23:39):
Yeah, but no one's getting-

Harold (23:41):
The 1,000 true fan theory that if you have 5,000 people who really love what you do, you can be supported for a career.

Jimmy (23:50):
I think it's really hard to get people to subscribe.
I mean, yes, there are examples of it.
I think it's probably no more or less likely than getting a book published by Simon and Schuster.

Harold (24:00):
But I think there are more people and there are more ways now for someone to find an angle to do what they do full-time.
It's hard, but I think there are more creatives who actually are making most of their living as creatives than ever before.

Michael (24:15):
Yeah, there's probably more, but how many people are actually trying to be creatives?

Harold (24:20):
Quite a few, right?

Michael (24:21):
It's way, way, way higher than it ever was because it's so cheesy.

Jimmy (24:25):
Going back to Schulz, the thing about Schulz that makes him unique is that 50-year career was set on one project, Peanuts, and he was wildly financially successful.

Harold (24:39):
Yeah.

Jimmy (24:40):
That gives you-

Harold (24:42):
Which is its own burden.

Jimmy (24:43):
Yeah.
I'll take it.
I will take that burden.

Harold (24:49):
Wow.

Jimmy (24:50):
Yeah, there's not even a question.
No.
Here is the real answer to everyone's problem.
Everyone needs more money.
Everyone needs more money.
The publishers need to pay the artists more money.
I mean, it's absurd that you could even think that it would be a burden to be a billionaire.

Harold (25:10):
Oh, my gosh.
I mean, in my tiny career, I've had the highs and the lows, and I know for my highs, there are nowhere near a Charles Schulz high, but I was a Netflix TV producer for three and a half years or whatever and got to deal with what you have to deal with when there's that level of money going around.
I don't know that I agree that I would jump at one thing versus another in some cases, just because there is a bunch of garbage that's attached to having a lot of resources.

(25:42):
That extra million, is it worth it if someone is going to be taking up your life with a lawsuit because they're trying to get some of that money?
I don't know.

Jimmy (25:48):
If you have all that money, you're not being bothered by it.
You have the lawyers.
Yeah, the trust.

Harold (25:54):
Then you got to meet with the lawyers.
That's why Snoopy, the bowler hat, I feel for Charles Schulz.

Jimmy (26:00):
Yeah, probably.

Michael (26:00):
This is getting way, way, way off top.

Harold (26:02):
Is it?
I did want to throw this out here.
This is something I just discovered a week or two ago, talking about how publishers need more money and to pay the artists and all of that.
I was going back and I was looking at record albums, right?
Do you know, as Justed for Afflation, what a record album would cost today if it was pretty much the way it was in the heyday of people buying stuff in the 50s and 60s and 70s?

Michael (26:27):
You're talking about an LP?

Harold (26:30):
Yeah, an LP.

Michael (26:30):
Like LPs.

Harold (26:32):
Yeah.
What would that cost today in today's dollars?

Michael (26:35):
Probably 15 bucks.

Harold (26:36):
$18?

Michael (26:40):
Yeah, well, $3 was a lot of money, which is what records were.

Harold (26:44):
For your average hardcover novel or hardcover book, let's say, what do you think that would be today compared to the 70s and 80s, 60s and 70s and 80s?

Michael (26:53):
Well, I guess about 50 then or something.

Harold (26:56):
It's also $35.

SPEAKER_1 (26:58):
Oh, wow.

Harold (26:59):
It's interesting to me that with, and certainly with the world of the Amazon, it's funny.
The vinyl has now become the specialty thing.
It's like, oh, it's just this expensive thing.
Only the super collectors are into it, and people are paying $35 or less for an album in that rarefied world.
It's interesting to see that in the time past, people were willing to pay more for art in a world where we weren't saturated with art everywhere.

(27:29):
That has ratcheted down over time, like you were saying, and everybody knows how to get something for essentially free.
But it makes me happy to see that $35 figure because it's like, if people were willing to pay that in the past, maybe there's a way, and we do see it, people who have Kickstarters and they put out a hardcover version of their comic and they're charging $25, $50 for it.

(27:51):
That's not unreasonable.
And people, they find people who will support them in that, and they tend to seem to be able to grow their own little homegrown audience that they now can reach out to as they create.

Michael (28:04):
What's amazing is that the comic industry, of course, I'm going back way into the 60s, those Tolstoy and Comics, those, first of all, they were returnable and the publisher maybe made a penny, and they were still mailing those out as subscriptions.
I mean, they were thinking like, we got to get our pennies.

Jimmy (28:24):
Or the ads.

Harold (28:26):
Yeah, they didn't make a lot of money on ads and comics.
I can tell you that for sure.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, here's real quick, I'll give you, this was the economics in the 50s and hey, Dave of comics.
You would print at least 300,000 copies.
You would have to sell at least 200,000 of those to bank a decent profit and not want to move on to some other character or whatever.

(28:49):
And it would be 10 cents for someone to buy, you'd sell it for 6 cents to the wholesaler who would then give 2.5 cents of it to a retailer or whatever.
And so you'd have to, and it would cost 2.5 cents to print the comic.
So between the 2.5 cents you were making and the 6 cents you were earning, you would have that 3.5 cents that's left over for you.

(29:11):
You'd have to offset that against the 2.5 cents you print out every copy that didn't sell.

Michael (29:14):
Wait, wait, what about paying artists and stuff?
How did that 3.5 cents?

Harold (29:16):
Well, that's in the 3.5 cents.
Yeah, so say 200,000 times 3, 3.5 cents, that's 7,000 bucks that's now around for you to minus the copies it didn't sell.
So like 100,000 of them didn't sell.
Now you're down to 4,500 bucks that you've got to spend for yourself and your artists and whatever office expenses you've got.

(29:37):
So that was, yeah, it was weird that that was a business model that required you to be in the hundreds of thousands, but it worked.
It worked for a number of decades.
And it's funny how those rules always shift and change on us.

Michael (29:51):
But they didn't have the money to give the artists raises.

Jimmy (29:55):
They never do.

Harold (29:56):
Well, actually, no, I was reading, in that Vincent Fago thing, I was reading an interview with him and he was saying, he and the artists were making some big money.
There were some people making, in the 40s, $10,000, $15,000 a year because they were cranking out pages.
That there was good money for a while and then that did slip away over time and that's why I think you see the quality of stuff going away.

(30:25):
Yeah, because the publishers got cheap.

Jimmy (30:27):
Yeah, but that has nothing to do with the quality though, because when you're talking about the 40s, a lot of those books, they're unreadable.

Michael (30:35):
Yeah, the artists had never drawn anything like that before.

Harold (30:40):
Well, I guess, I hear you what you say, but I also know that there was nothing had been made like that before.
There was a dynamism in them as crude as they were, that was breaking ground.
And so I don't know, by today's standards, yeah.

Michael (30:56):
That's like the war years when I think sales are really booming.
A lot of those comics are going overseas to the troops.

Harold (31:04):
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely.
They were guaranteed sales.
They weren't coming back.
It's a crazy world and it's always changing, and that's the crazy thing for artists.
You don't have the punch the time clock kind of existence, and you figure something out, the rules will shift maybe in two or three years once everyone else figures out what you're doing.

(31:26):
And it becomes devalued because, you know, it's like, oh my gosh, this is working, and 7,000 artists move into that space and then figure a way to devalue it, or somebody comes in and finds a way to monetize it and take the money away from the artist.
It's always changing, and that's hard for artists.

Michael (31:42):
Okay, but for Schulz, since this is a Peanuts podcast.

Harold (31:46):
But for Schulz, he had a golden era where 50 years, something worked for him.

Michael (31:52):
Well, here's my feeling about this, because I read them all, which I didn't think I would, but I did.

Jimmy (32:01):
What a burden.
I'm glad you survived.

Michael (32:03):
No, it wasn't a burden, but it's like the comic format was really geared towards humor.
I mean, short punching things, you laugh and then you go on to the next trip.
I remember talking in one of our 60s episodes, I posited that Schulz might have been the funniest man in the 60s, amid Woody Allen and all the great comedians of that period.

(32:31):
I think he was the funniest person.

Harold (32:34):
That's cool.

Michael (32:35):
I found that in the last 30 years of the strip.
For whatever its virtues and its characterization and artwork, I didn't laugh anymore.
It wasn't sad, it just didn't have the punch.

Harold (32:52):
Yeah.
I think the punch is there in the mid-50s through early 70s.
I agree.
Yet, I got to mention in two recent episodes that I laughed louder and longer over a little rerun strip sitting between his siblings as he's innocently telling the story about how he denies their existence.

(33:17):
Yeah.

Michael (33:18):
That used to come every day.
That laugh used to come every day.
You're talking about it coming once a decade.

Harold (33:25):
Yeah.
What a track record he had.

Michael (33:28):
Yeah.
It's mind-boggling.

Harold (33:29):
Surprising us over and over again.

Michael (33:31):
To me, it was sort of, yeah, I'm reading them.
No, it wasn't a burden and I'm picking strips, but I'm not finding them funny.

SPEAKER_1 (33:42):
But you're finding them worth reading?

Michael (33:45):
Well, it's just that we're on a mission here.
I don't know, not that you guys are applying pressure, but the fact that we're doing a weekly podcast, I don't know if I would have read them all.
If on my own, I went, I'm going to read all the peanuts and now I can go to Go Comics and read all the peanuts, I might have stopped.

Harold (34:07):
Yeah, I might have had a certain era in the 80s or something.
Yeah.
It was just like, this isn't working for me and I'm going through a year and I go, this is rough.
What I've gone on and discovered that there was more invention that I, because that is what you expect in a career, right?
You're going down parallel in a path with a creator, and you're vibing with them and then they may go off in a certain direction, or you may go off in a certain direction and you don't align with them anymore.

(34:37):
And so that seems like a reasonable part.
Yeah.
I'm so grateful that I got to stick around to the end and find that I was vibing with Schulz in 1999.

Michael (34:46):
I know a lot of people who just absolutely love Love and Rockets and couldn't wait for the next issue, which might take three, four months to get one.
And I know people who dropped it, who are fanatics and then somewhere along the line, it's like, this isn't working anymore and just never read it again.

SPEAKER_1 (35:07):
Or this isn't what I want anymore.

Harold (35:10):
Yeah, that's what it is.

Jimmy (35:13):
It's the difference between looking at it from an entertainment me point of view and I'm learning about the artist point of view.
Like if you're in a class and you're learning about Dickens, you don't go, meh.
No, you read the book and you understand, why this guy is considered what he is and why it's in the canon and why people are reading 150 years later.

(35:37):
And it's less to do about your personal taste.
And I think that's where this is with Schulz.
This is the, he's one of the best artists of the 20th century, full stop.
Doesn't matter what field.
So the whole career is worth watching.
I watched a video of Picasso painting on glass on the Criterion Channel a couple of weeks ago.

(36:02):
And it's not like any of those paintings, he's painting on the glass, are masterpieces that are worth talking about for time immemorial.
But it's interesting and rewarding to watch Picasso draw.
Just because, oh my gosh, it's Picasso and he's drawing.
And that's different than if someone handed me like a book with those drawings and just like for my birthday.

(36:25):
And maybe I like him, maybe I don't like him.
It's just a different mindset you bring to the work, I think.

Harold (36:32):
Yeah.

Michael (36:32):
Well, we were looking at it as a career.

Harold (36:36):
Yeah.

Michael (36:36):
His career, which was different.
So we, even though we're not academics by any means.

Jimmy (36:44):
I think that's obvious.

Michael (36:45):
We sort of had, you know, it's not like there's thousands of Peanuts podcasts.
So we sort of had a duty to pick out strips that were worth talking about and actually have good discussions.
So there was a little, it wasn't like we were just doing it for fun.

Jimmy (37:06):
I mean, no, yeah, I think it's important to say.
That's what we were trying to do.
We were trying to look at it, not just critically, but from, well, you know, we're all cartoonists and we're trying to explain to people just the lofty position Schulz was able to operate in so much of the time.

Harold (37:25):
And I was always trying to learn from Schulz in the reading.
Because, you know, I'm still actively doing stuff.
And I've learned a lot from Schulz and from our conversations too about certain hangups that I might have about art and what I must and must not do and seeing Schulz break certain rules in particular and say, look, this is the most popular cartoonist in my lifetime.

(37:57):
And he, you know, we're always talking about, you know, let's say the different versions of Snoopy, where his hind leg is shrunken 80 percent because it looks really cool because that's what cartooning is, is making a really cool simple drawing.
And it's not the animation approach where you create a model and you've got to match that model because there's 14 different artists drawing it.

(38:20):
And so you have to try to make it look the same.
He's the one artist.
He decides what Stipe looks like in this pose.
One aspect of cartooning you could say is, and success in cartooning is, is it done quickly?
No, a lot of people disagree with that.
But a lot of the art that I like, it's true.
You know, great cartooning is the person who can capture something and boil it down quickly.

(38:46):
You know, that Schulz could go in every single day, give us something fresh, a new finished piece of art.
I really enjoyed just soaking in what Schulz was doing, and then every once in a while, seeing the certain rules that he would follow or certain rules that he would break.
And certainly, in terms of comedy and character, how you can go, you can create a character so rich and so complex that they will contradict themselves.

(39:12):
Stuff like that was incredibly helpful to me as I was reading through this.
And the way I look at my work now, it seems freeing to me to see a master doing something and making so many right choices over and over again.
And getting the sense of what his boundaries were, what his rules were, and what rules he could break.

Jimmy (39:33):
Absolutely.
Well, how about we take a break here, speaking of breaks, and we'll come back and we'll answer the mail and give our final thoughts.
So very exciting.
All right, we'll be right back.

SPEAKER_1 (39:47):
Hi, everyone.
Thank you for listening and engaging with us.
Your appreciation makes this effort a real pleasure.
And now we're asking that you support our work.
If you enjoy the show, we hope you'll join us on Patreon and get our new episodes right away.
Those of you who can't for whatever reason, we hope you'll come back when the new season gets released in three months.

(40:11):
Thank you for being an essential part of Unpacking Peanuts.

Jimmy (40:21):
And we're back.
Hey, Liz, I'm hanging out in the mailbox.
Do we got anything?
We do.

SPEAKER_1 (40:25):
We have a lot of mail today.
So first up is friend of the show, William Pepper, host of It's a Podcast, Charlie Brown.

Jimmy (40:34):
All right.

SPEAKER_1 (40:36):
In 1999 part three, you asked for suggestions of what reruns new name should be.
I think Lexington.
Lex would be too Lex Luthor-y, but Lexington keeps up with the L thing the Van Pelt's have going while also being a little odd.

(40:57):
Thanks for doing the podcast.
I've learned a lot about cartooning from you all and look forward to the next phase.

Jimmy (41:04):
That's awesome.
Well, it's great to hear from you, William.
Still listening to your podcast.
You're doing a great job and thank you for those kind words.
Lexington Van Pelt.

Harold (41:14):
Yeah, I like Lexington.
Yeah.
Well, of course, we know Lex Fajardo, who's a friend of the podcast and closely interwoven into the peanuts world.
I don't think of Lex Luther all the time when I hear Lexington.
I could totally see.
If you got a Linus, I could totally see a Lex or a Lex.

SPEAKER_1 (41:37):
Another friend of the show, Benjamin Clark, of the Schulz Museum commented on Facebook and he says, Schulz did not work left to right or right to left when inking his strips.
He'd usually start with the lettering, then move to the hardest drawing.
He said that he did this because if he messed up the most challenging part, he wasn't too far behind if he had to start over.

(42:01):
The Schulz Museum occasionally displays unfinished strips depending on the exhibition.

Harold (42:06):
Well, he's a smart guy.
That makes so much sense, right?
I mean, have you guys done that too?
You start with the thing that's going to possibly mess you up.
Well, a lot of times it's also, do you ever feel like you're on an arc of creativity or ability to draw?
It's like, I can only do something really basic right now and I'm just not up to it.

(42:28):
Then 20 minutes later, you're on fire and you're like, I'm going to go after this crowd scene.

Michael (42:34):
It's more like with me, I think I've even mentioned this before, doing 24-page comics and I'd leave all the hands.
It's the last two days were like hell because I had to do nothing but hands.

Jimmy (42:50):
That is like the most Michael Cohen thing I've ever heard.
That is amazing.

Harold (42:56):
That is professional procrastination.

Jimmy (42:58):
Yeah.
Now, I have though, I must admit, had like seven or eight problematic panels that I haven't drawn yet.
Over the course of the book, that's always sucks.

Harold (43:17):
Thanks, Benjamin.
I love to hear that.
Again, that's a wisdom thing to learn from Schulz.
Of course, of course, that makes sense.
Yeah.
And he seemed to hate to do a lot of like paste over and white out and this and that.
I'm sure I know he did it, but maybe at a certain point he's like, I just, it just makes sense.

(43:39):
Let's start over.
Yeah.
Don't torture yourself and create a horrible montage of.

Jimmy (43:47):
Well, yeah, I have found often that working to fix something is sometimes a lot more difficult than just starting over.
You know, especially if you're working traditionally on paper and stuff and you're dealing with white out or a piece of paper glued on top of it.
I mean, you know, sometimes it's better to just cut your losses.

Harold (44:08):
I agree.
Although I usually go to the bitter end and you're so invested in this mess that I can't start over.
But it's wise.
That's a bit of a wise thing to do.

Jimmy (44:19):
But I'm also a type of person, if something is just out of reach, I will stretch to the absolute limit and risk breaking my neck rather than just get up and pick it up.
So that's just a character fault for me.

SPEAKER_1 (44:35):
We also heard from Rob Zverina, who writes, Your conversation about the wannabe cartoonist considering a career in welding hit close to home.
Long story short, I'm an artist who has always struggled with monetizing my creativity.
Anytime I start marketing myself, the lens on my process gets distorted, like I've summoned an internal demon editor who has to sign off on whatever I'm considering to do next.

(45:05):
It becomes less about inspiration and more about transaction.
I long ago decided to be an artist with a day job and have supported myself as a permanently part-time self-employed carpenter for 20 plus years.
Having one foot in the building trades and the other in more cerebral aesthetic pursuits keeps me balanced and feeds my art practice.

(45:30):
Anyhow, thanks for the excellent nuanced, detailed and humane discussion.
I do hope you'll keep the band together and continue the podcast, even if its focus shifts to something else.

Harold (45:42):
Thank you.

Jimmy (45:43):
Yeah, we're keeping the band together.
I don't let people quit my band.

Michael (45:46):
I don't want to play bass anymore.

Jimmy (45:48):
Hey, this gives me an opportunity to say something I've been thinking about for I think 11 years.
I was interviewed on a podcast once, and they're talking about work-life balance and being a professional cartoonist versus being an amateur cartoonist or a hobbyist or whatever.
I said something like, well, a hobby is a legitimately valid way to go.

(46:14):
You could do eight pages of comic a year, if that's what makes you happy.
That's true.
What I didn't think though to say is, those eight pages an amateur does an year might be the best eight pages of comics done that year.
Like, professionalism and money doesn't necessarily equate to quality.

(46:36):
I've gotten both of the, as a little treat to myself for completing a big commercial job.
I got the Marlboro-
A new guitar?
No, it wasn't that big of a commercial job.
I'm treating myself to the $5 Marvel a month and whatever it is, $7 DC a month.

(47:01):
There are things that are very, very, very popular that are really, really not worth looking at.
There's stuff that if you've ever seen Barry Windsor Smith's story called The Beguiling, it's like eight pages and I think it took him like three years to do.
But it's the most gorgeous eight pages of comics ever made.

Michael (47:22):
But he was doing another work at the same time.

Jimmy (47:25):
Well, that's what I'm saying.

Michael (47:26):
The better example is Mark Schulz, possibly the greatest cartoonist who's ever lived.
Well, he's up for the running.
When he was at his peak doing Xenozoic Tales, he would do, it was like a 21-page comic maybe.
It would take him two or three years.
He'd do nothing else.

Harold (47:45):
Wow.

Michael (47:45):
So we're talking maybe 8-10 pages a year.
Yeah, I mean, it shows.
But he was going for absolute perfection in every detail.

Harold (47:59):
Yeah.
As an artist, if you are successful, particularly in this, I mean, Schulz had this really nice situation where the rules were set in 1950, and more or less he could stick with the rules of how much it was expected to create.
In success these days, say someone who's working in graphic novels, and someone says, oh, we're going to give you this 15-book deal.

(48:27):
All of a sudden, you've got this dilemma of the stress of creating.
The more you create, the more they'll take, and the more you'll make.
And that's a really hard thing for certain artists because they know they're on a hot streak and they don't know how long they're going to have it, but they also know they may kill themselves and wipe out whatever was special in their work because that stress and strain will show.

Michael (48:52):
Everybody simplifies as they get older.
It's like a rule that can't be broken.
Nobody gets more detailed as they get older.

Harold (49:05):
Yeah, and regarding what was just said here about, I'm so grateful to hear that you found the balance between carpentry and doing what you love, and you get to enjoy both.
I think that really is the secret, and I think that's the one thing that I would add, and this is not necessarily to you who's writing this, but when it comes to sharing your work, and if you equate that with the finances of it, it's not just that.

(49:33):
Like if you're sharing your work with a publisher or on social media or in person at a convention or whatever, there is a real gift that you can be giving of yourself to others in sharing your work.
And I think there are a lot of artists, particularly, a lot of us are introverts.
Why else would we be spending 10 hours to create something someone could read in 15 seconds?

(49:55):
Yeah, exactly.
But when it comes to sharing your art, for those of you who are out there, and I just want to encourage you to realize that potentially part of what you're sharing as an artist is finished work that others can see.
So they're become a guest in your mind.
And part of that sometimes is going out and helping interpret it and showing it to other people, whether it's somebody who might create 10,000 copies of it, or someone who might buy one from you, or isn't going to buy anything from you at all.

(50:25):
That there's nothing wrong with creating an experience that is valuable for somebody else and being rewarded for it.
And there's nothing wrong with sharing what you love with someone else.
Just make the art a little bit outside of yourself.
Look at it as now that it's done, it's not you anymore.
It's gone into the world and you can sit down, hopefully on the same side of the fence with someone and say, look what this is, isn't this fun?

(50:52):
This is what this is supposed to be.
What do you think?

SPEAKER_1 (50:55):
Well said.

Harold (50:57):
I just feel really bad for artists who somehow have this feeling that if they are rewarded for their art or if they are seeking that, at some point in the process, that that destroys the purity of the art and that's not necessarily true.

Jimmy (51:14):
I really think that's not true.
I totally agree with you and I think it's something that's really destructive that artists believe about themselves.
And I think it's something that is easily manipulatable to keep artists down.
You know, I think if I agree with everything you said.

SPEAKER_1 (51:34):
We also heard from our friend Shaili.
Yay!
Who says, since I've been getting back into speed listening to the podcast while folding laundry, I do find it rather fascinating on the topic of the Van Pelt parents.
I don't know if Joshua mentioned this or someone else, but apparently there were a few times that we have seen the Van Pelt parents in the TV specials.

(51:58):
Then she continues and says, and another note, for my answer on what is Peanuts, I see it as many cartoonists' origin story.
I mean, Jimmy was inspired by Peanuts since his young age and his art style is very much a nod to it.
And funny enough, because of my love for the Peanuts cartoons I watched on VHS, it led me to liking Jimmy's work and spark my love to be in the creative arts.

(52:28):
It's a cheesy statement, but hey, in a world like this, we could use the cheesy statements.

Jimmy (52:34):
I'm all about cheesy statements like that, especially if I'm at the other end of it.
Boom, that's great.

Harold (52:39):
That's wonderful.
That's so cool, Shaylee.
Thank you for sharing that.
And I know what it means.
Jimmy can speak for himself, but you sharing that does mean a tremendous amount when we hear that from people who are experiencing it.

Jimmy (52:54):
And listen, if you guys want to see Shaylee's work, it's called Invisibella and you can see it over on Substack.
You can see my work too and Michael's.

SPEAKER_1 (53:04):
And then we heard from a new writer, a listener for a while, but we heard from Deborah Lofas, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, L-O-F-A-S.
And she says, hello from the UK.
I don't know if you're aware, I'm a bit behind with listening, but the Royal Mail in the UK has just issued a set of eight Peanuts commemorative postage stamps.

(53:28):
Oh, wow.

Harold (53:28):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (53:28):
And she sends us the link and she also sent us the pictures that I will put on social media and she says, one of the stamps features Charlie Brown, not in his usual yellow sweater with the zigzag, but in what looks like a sports top.
He's about to kick a black and white soccer ball.
Have I missed a memo?
When did this happen?

(53:49):
There's also a Snoopy sleeping on a British post box instead of his dog house.
And Snoopy in Woodstock is Buckingham Palace guardsman.
Peanuts, it's such a quintessentially American strip that I find this slightly disturbing.

Harold (54:07):
Interesting choice that they did that instead of just making it peanuts that they actually are trying to bring it in to the culture where the stamps are being made available.

SPEAKER_1 (54:18):
Probably for the 75th anniversary or something, but she concludes with, there's a lovely, although brief history and appreciation of Schulz in the pack, but sadly it doesn't mention your podcast.
You have all done Schulz proud over the past few years, and I've been fascinated to hear your expert analysis, to have obscurities explained, and to understand the strips in context.

(54:43):
Many, many thanks for the hours of joy and pleasure you've given me.
Deborah Lofas.

Jimmy (54:49):
Well, it was our pleasure.
Thank you for writing.
Hey, speaking of Snoopy sleeping on the British Post Box, I have, I insisted that we use the sound of the TARDIS from Dr.
Who for this Peanuts time machine that we had in this podcast.

(55:09):
And the reason is I've always felt that the TARDIS and this Snoopy's dog house were very similar.
They're both bigger on the inside.
They can fly through different times and space.
They're instantly iconic.
So, so maybe that's a little tie in to some, some British culture.

SPEAKER_1 (55:31):
Then we heard from another new listener.
This is Griffin Tinch, who writes, first of all, a huge, albeit early, congratulations to all of you for making it through all of Peanuts.
I discovered your podcast when you were covering the late 80s, and I've had a blast catching up on all the old episodes.

(55:51):
I know it's been a long time since you discussed the character tier list, but I thought I'd share this with you.
Several years ago, I was very bored and had too much time on my hands, so I started rereading Peanuts.
I have all the Fandegraphics books, and recording which named characters appeared or are referenced in each strip.

(56:14):
Eventually, I made my way through all 50 years, so I now have a whole Excel file of data.
I also wrote a short program using Java to use the data I collected to create tier lists for each year and each decade of the strip, as well as one for the entirety of the strip's run.

Jimmy (56:32):
Amazing.
Amazing.

SPEAKER_1 (56:35):
And he sends us all of his tier lists, visuals, and the data.
And he explains in great detail how he built the algorithm.
He does say, a caveat here, the collection of the data required me to make a lot of judgment calls about which characters appear in each strip.

(56:55):
As you might imagine, Woodstock in particular gave me a lot of trouble, as there are plenty of birds that may or may not be Woodstock that show up from time to time.

Harold (57:06):
Tell me about it, the Anger Happiness Index.
You try to be fair and consistent.
It's like, oh my gosh, what do I do?

Jimmy (57:13):
Is that one-thirty-second of an inch long line?

Harold (57:17):
Yeah, right.
Is that raised eyebrow?

SPEAKER_1 (57:21):
There were also some potential Linus rerun mix-ups, so the numbers that I came up with could easily be different from the numbers that another person would come up with if they compiled.
Another caveat, to be eligible to be on the list, a character must be named and also must be physically seen in at least one strip.

(57:41):
This means that the little red-haired girl isn't featured here, unfortunately.
The same goes for all adult characters and the little pigtailed girl from reruns kindergarten.
So anyhow, I will put Griffin's material in the obscurities section.
And it's wonderful because for each decade, he uses what the character looked like in that decade in his tier lists.

Harold (58:10):
Wow.

SPEAKER_1 (58:11):
It's an incredible amount of work and our listeners are wonderful and very crazy.

Michael (58:17):
Hey Griffin, I totally understand that obsessive behavior.
I think I was like 12 and I really was into the Justice League and I counted panels.

Harold (58:29):
Yeah.

Michael (58:29):
I went through every issue I had and counted how many panels each character appeared in.

SPEAKER_1 (58:38):
Did you read a program?

Michael (58:40):
Well, they didn't have such thing as program.

Harold (58:43):
Yeah, I was in the same space.
I remember the two things that just brought me to mind.
I used to count the number of laughs in sitcoms to see which ones had the most.
I also would count the number of panels in comics because I was a cheap skate and I was trying to figure out what the best buy for my money was.

Jimmy (59:09):
I have other issues, but that's all.

SPEAKER_1 (59:12):
I'm normal.
I'm very, very normal.
We heard from Super Listener Deb Perry, who writes, your podcast is making me remember one of the saddest moments of my life.
I was surprised when Charles Schulz retired and crushed when he died a few months later.

(59:34):
I couldn't pick up a pencil and draw for months after that.
I never met Charles Schulz, but losing him felt like losing a family member.
This may sound weird, but I remember being a little spooked out by an animated hallmark commercial that aired on TV after Schulz passed.
It felt like I was seeing ghosts.
It took some adjustment, realizing that Snoopy and the rest would live on even after Schulz died.

(01:00:00):
Schulz was the heart and soul of Peanuts, and it still feels a little strange knowing that someone else is creating new Peanuts material now.
Apologies for relating such a downer of a story, but I didn't want this series to end without saying something.
I really have enjoyed every moment of Unpacking Peanuts, and I look forward to seeing where you go next with it.

Harold (01:00:21):
Well, thanks, Ted.

Jimmy (01:00:22):
It's not a downer.
It's great to hear, and I completely understand that reaction.
You didn't meet him, or he didn't meet you, rather, but you certainly did meet him every single day for all those years.
And it is like having a family member.

(01:00:45):
I don't know, and it feels slightly more above board and less staged, like the parasocial relationships we have now with social media influencers or podcast hosts or stuff like that.
It felt like, I don't know what it is.
Maybe it's because it came free in the newspaper that you're buying for other reasons or whatever, but it really felt like a little gift every day from your cool uncle or whatever.

(01:01:11):
It was heartbreaking.
I was invited to be on the, I worked at the TV station in Harrisburg at the time, and it was right before Amelia started, and they knew I was a Peanuts fan, so they're like, do you have a collection?
I'm like, oh yeah, I have a huge Peanuts collection.
They're like, can we come over and film it?
I said, sure.

(01:01:32):
Really what they wanted me to do is cry, and I was refusing to do that.
Then when they saw my collection was just Peanuts books, they were so disappointed.
They're like, don't you have the chachka?
I'm like, well, not really.
But yeah.

Harold (01:01:47):
No weeping openly?

Jimmy (01:01:50):
Not for ABC 27.
I'll cheer up for our podcast, but that's it.

SPEAKER_1 (01:01:56):
And finally, we heard from John Marullo, who sent it just this morning, and he says, hearing the final strip read at the end of the 2000 episode brought me back to that February morning.
I woke to the gentle voice of Leanne Hansen, then the host of NPR's weekend edition on Sunday, opening her show with a short tribute to Peanuts, which was to end its original run that day.

(01:02:22):
After a brief pause, she added, sadly, that Charles Schulz had died in his sleep the previous evening.
I cried.
I was 30, but I felt like my childhood had truly ended in that moment.
Be of good cheer.

Harold (01:02:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, it's time to weep openly.

SPEAKER_1 (01:02:42):
Yeah.

Jimmy (01:02:43):
My mom called and told me, which was weird because we had times, we called her, it was never in the morning because she knew me.
There was a call in the morning and she's like, I have sad news and I don't even want to tell you.
I thought, oh God.

(01:03:04):
So, with that, it was actually almost slightly relief that it wasn't someone I personally knew, but it was still like, it was an absolute shock to the system.

SPEAKER_1 (01:03:14):
Wow.
So, that's it for the mail today.

Jimmy (01:03:19):
And we got two things from the good old hotline.
We heard from super listener, Captain Billy, who says, hi, super fan Captain Billy here.
And he says, one, Gatorade had football helmet caps in the 70s.
Oh, we were talking about collecting bottle caps.

Harold (01:03:35):
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.

Jimmy (01:03:36):
The helmet image was on the top.
My brother's collection was one of the first thing I sold on eBay.

SPEAKER_1 (01:03:42):
Yeah, Captain Billy.

Jimmy (01:03:46):
Two, oh, wait, this is wild.
Cause we were also talking about Pogs in the same episode.
Two, Pog, P-O-G stood for pineapple orange guava.
It was a juice company in Hawaii, maybe.
The employees played a game with the caps, which I believe were corks for glass bottles.
Ask your parents about life in the 70s.
Somehow it became a worldwide craze for two to three years or so.

(01:04:09):
See you in November.

SPEAKER_1 (01:04:10):
Okay.

Jimmy (01:04:12):
So there you go.
And we heard from friend of the show and cartoonist Todd Webb, who actually included from a book, I'm not sure what book it is, but it's a collection of his, but that has his preliminary drawings in it.
Oh, it's McSweeney's, I believe.
And so I think we can put this up on our social media because it has three pages, four pages of Schulz preliminary drawings for the strip, which is really cool to see.

SPEAKER_1 (01:04:38):
Cool.

Harold (01:04:39):
That's great.
Thank you, Todd.

Jimmy (01:04:40):
And that's it for the mailbox.
If you guys want to be in touch with us, we would love to hear from you.
Remember when I don't hear, I worry.
So you could call our hotline or send a text message like those two folks did, 717-219-4162.
You could also write us at unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com.
And we'd absolutely love to hear from you.

(01:05:01):
Well, that's the mail.
Do we have anything we want to say here at the end, at the end of all things, where time collapses on itself?

Harold (01:05:10):
I've got something that's been brewing for a long time.
I don't know if it's appropriate to bring it up here or not, but it was about Schulz's faith.
That's been a part of me.
I think I mentioned I got the Gospel According to Peanuts book that Robert Short put out not too long after I became a Christian in college.

(01:05:35):
And I was reading through it and just so amazed at all of the little things that he had put in the strip that kind of prepared me in my journey.
And one of the things that really struck me, I think it came out of some quotes in that excellent spiritual biography of Schulz that we have, that was written by Stephen Jay Land, Charlie Brown Religion.

(01:06:00):
He really kind of dives in to where Schulz was coming from and what he was going through throughout his life and that we have this record of it in his family and with personal life and all of that.
And I know he was a very thoughtful guy.
And I see that in his work.
I see that he always seemed to have a sympathy for characters and certainly simply sympathy for characters who were kind of on the underside of something, right?

(01:06:28):
And it's a part of him that's so strong.
And that was very helpful to me to kind of put some of what Schulz was doing and was driving Schulz in his in his storytelling.
I just see it in the work and he was just like all of us.
We all fall short of everything we're trying to be.
But I see it in the work and I think it's why, part of why this strip lives on.

(01:06:53):
I think people somehow feel loved through this strip.
And this is very personal, but this is 50 years of reading this.
This is kind of where I've wound up.
It's like, I just wish if as a guy who was spending a lot of his life pursuing these questions, and having really helped me pursue these questions.

(01:07:14):
And again, that's a very personal thing.
But having gone through it, having done this for multiple years, I did want to share that because it's something that has been in the back of my mind and my heart as we've been finishing out the read.

SPEAKER_1 (01:07:28):
Thank you.

Jimmy (01:07:29):
Yeah, I think it all goes back to empathy, you know?
And look, there is something beyond just the craft in this work.
There's, you know, when a little kid is in a hospital at three years old and can't read, has never read a comic strip in their life, probably never seen a TV show, but they have not just a stuffed animal, but they have Snoopy with them.

(01:08:00):
And they hold on to Snoopy because then a Snoopy will protect them.
That's something, that's because that's just in the culture.
Snoopy is a cultural, is part of the just human imagination now, the collective unconscious.
And to have your characters, the basis of them, be empathy and be love, you know, it takes your art beyond art.

(01:08:25):
I mean, it makes your art love, you know?

Harold (01:08:28):
And it's something we don't talk about a lot and it's very hard to talk about.
But it's, it's absolutely, to me, is absolutely in the work.

Jimmy (01:08:39):
Yeah.
Well, guys, I think that has brought us to the end of our original journey.
We are now in the Rory goes to college years.
Nobody likes them as much.
But you know what?
It's there's there's always good stuff.

Michael (01:08:55):
I like the big black canvas that lies ahead.

Jimmy (01:08:59):
Yes, exactly.
The blank white page.
Nothing but possibility.
Michael, do you want to give people a little bit of a clue as to what we're going to be doing next on Patreon?

Michael (01:09:13):
Well, we are going to go back to the early decades and delve into individual characters.
And Jimmy suggested Snoopy being the most popular Peanuts character.
We're going to go and pick 20 strips from each decade that we haven't discussed before.

(01:09:40):
So this is stuff that's pretty much virgin territory as far as discussing.
I've done the 50s.
It was really hard because there were so many brilliant strips.
I was just paring it down to 20.
It seemed almost impossible.
But it's not like this is the definitive list.

(01:10:01):
I had to go buy what I like.
And I was trying to cover all the little phases, so at least some samples of all the little phases Snoopy went through.
But that's what we're going to do.
So we'll do the 50s and the 60s.
And check out Snoopy's entire career.

(01:10:22):
And then I assume we'll go back and delve into some other characters.

SPEAKER_1 (01:10:27):
I thought we were going to do Snoopy beyond the 60s.

Michael (01:10:30):
Oh, yeah.

Jimmy (01:10:31):
Yeah, no, we're doing the entire, yeah, we're doing-

Michael (01:10:35):
Five decades worth of Snoopy.

Jimmy (01:10:37):
Understanding Snoopy.

Michael (01:10:38):
Yeah.
It'll be kind of free form because we've got other ideas we'd like to try.

SPEAKER_1 (01:10:44):
And special guests will join us.

Michael (01:10:47):
Yeah.
So we might do a little bit of the old Wheel of Fortune and just pick random strips and talk about them.
And if any of you guys have suggestions of what you'd like to hear, we'll certainly consider that.

Jimmy (01:10:58):
We would love to hear from your member.
I worry when I don't hear.
And plus, if you have some ideas for us, that would be great.
Because I just had the one idea to read the comic strips and now I'm done.
All right.
Well, thank you all for joining us on this journey.
Thanks to my pals for agreeing to this madness.

(01:11:22):
Thank you to Liz for making it a reality.
I can't wait to see what comes next.

Harold (01:11:28):
Thank you guys for making this happen.
Thank you.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (01:11:31):
It's been a wonderful team that I am really happy to belong to.

Harold (01:11:36):
Yeah.
And that is, I've said it before.
Me too.
It's very rare in my life that I ever got to work with a team on something creatively where I felt like the whole was greater than some of the parts.
That's so special.
Amen.
And thank you, Jimmy, for thinking of this.
Thank you to me and thinking of us doing this.

(01:11:58):
It has genuinely been a real blessing.

Jimmy (01:12:00):
Well, that was the idea.
It wasn't to talk about peanuts.
It was to talk about peanuts with Michael and Harold.

SPEAKER_1 (01:12:05):
And Liz.

Harold (01:12:06):
And Liz.
That was the bonus.

Jimmy (01:12:08):
Well, I mean, Liz, you came in and saved the day totally because otherwise there would have been nothing.

Harold (01:12:13):
This would not exist.

SPEAKER_1 (01:12:15):
It is the greatest joy in my life to be part of a great team.

Jimmy (01:12:20):
Yay.
Having said that, I quit.
All right.

SPEAKER_1 (01:12:24):
Oh, oh, we will be back in two weeks with a special guest, Nat Gertler.

Jimmy (01:12:30):
Yeah, very exciting.
Peanuts historian, Nat Gertler.
It was great of him to come on the show.
We have a really good conversation with him.
So be there, be square.
So for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

SPEAKER_1 (01:12:49):
Yes, be of good cheer.
Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted by Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner.
Produced and edited by Liz Sumner.
Music by Michael Cohen.
Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.

(01:13:11):
Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube.
For more about Jimmy, Michael and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
Nyeh.