EXTRA STUFF

About the Show

Peanuts began life as a comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000 (the day after Schulz's death), continuing in reruns afterward. The strip is considered to be one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, with 17,897 strips published in all, making it "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being", according to Professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University.


At its peak, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of 355 million in 75 countries and was translated into 21 languages. It helped to cement the four-panel gag strip as the standard in the United States and together with its merchandise earned Schulz more than $1 billion. Reprints of the strip are still syndicated and run in many newspapers.


Peanuts achieved considerable success for its television specials, several of which, including 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' and 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' won or were nominated for Emmy Awards. The holiday specials remain quite popular and are currently broadcast on ABC in the United States during the corresponding season. The property is also a landmark in theatre with the stage musical, 'You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown', being an extremely successful and often performed production.


It has been described as "the most shining example of the American success story in the comic strip field", ironically based on the theme of "the great American unsuccess story", since the main character, Charlie Brown, is meek, nervous and lacks self-confidence, being unable to fly a kite, win a baseball game or kick an American football.


List of Peanuts Characters

The initial cast of Peanuts was small, featuring only Charlie Brown, Shermy, Violet, Patty (not to be confused with Peppermint Patty) and a beagle, Snoopy.


Though the strip did not have a lead character at the onset, it soon began to focus on Charlie Brown, a character developed from some of the painful experiences of Schulz's formative years. Charlie Brown's main characteristic is either self-defeating stubbornness or admirable determined persistence to try his best against all odds: he can never win a ballgame but continues playing baseball; he can never fly a kite successfully but continues trying to do so.


Though his inferiority complex was evident from the start, in the earliest strips he also got in his own jabs when verbally sparring with Patty and Shermy. Some early strips also involved romantic attractions between Charlie Brown and Patty or Violet (the next major character added to the strip).


On March 11, 1960 Charlie Brown's father was revealed to be a barber. Also in 1960, the now popular line of Charlie Brown greeting cards was introduced by Hallmark. Charlie Brown and Snoopy reached new heights on May 18th, 1969 as they accompanied astronauts on Apollo X.


As the years went by, Shermy, Violet, and Patty appeared less often and were demoted to supporting roles (eventually disappearing from the strip by the end of the 1960s/beginning of the 1980s), while new major characters were introduced. Schroeder, Lucy van Pelt, and her brother Linus debuted as very young children — with Schroeder and Linus both in diapers and pre-verbal.


Snoopy, who began as a typical puppy, soon started to verbalize his thoughts via thought bubbles. Eventually he adopted other human characteristics, such as walking on his hind legs, reading books, using a typewriter, and participating in sports. He also grew from a puppy to a full-grown dog.


One recurring theme in the strip is Charlie Brown's Little League baseball team. Charlie Brown is the manager of the team and, usually, it's pitcher, with the other characters of the strip comprising the rest of the team. Charlie Brown is a terrible pitcher, often giving up tremendous hits which either knock him off the mound or leave him with only his shorts on.


The team itself is also poor, with only Charlie Brown's dog Snoopy being particularly competent. Because of this, the team consistently loses. However, while the team is often referred to as "win-less", it does win at least 10 games over the course of the strip's run, most of these when Charlie Brown is not playing, a fact that Charlie Brown finds highly dispiriting.


Snoopy as "the World War I flying ace", flying his Sopwith Camel.In the 1960s, the strip began to focus more on Snoopy. Many of the strips from this point revolve around Snoopy's active, Walter Mitty-like fantasy life, in which he imagined himself to be a World War I flying ace or a bestselling suspense novelist, to the bemusement and consternation of the other characters who sometimes wonder what he is doing but also at times participate. Snoopy eventually took on many more distinct personas over the course of the strip, notably college student "Joe Cool".


Schulz continued to introduce new characters into the strip, particularly including a tomboyish, freckle-faced, shorts-and-sandals-wearing girl named Patricia Reichardt, better known as "Peppermint Patty." "Peppermint" Patty is an assertive, athletic but rather obtuse girl who shakes up Charlie Brown's world by calling him "Chuck", flirting with him, and giving him compliments he is not so sure he deserves.


She also brings in a new group of friends (and heads a rival baseball team), including the strip's first black character, Franklin, a Mexican-Swedish kid named José Peterson, and Peppermint Patty's bookish sidekick Marcie, who calls Peppermint Patty "Sir" and Charlie Brown "Charles". (Most other characters call him "Charlie Brown" at all times, except for Eudora, who also calls him "Charles"; Charlie Brown's sister Sally Brown, who usually calls him "big brother"; and a minor character named Peggy Jean in the early 1990s who called him "Brownie Charles" after he could not remember his own name. Also, Snoopy calls his owner, Charlie Brown, "that round-headed kid." At one point, in 'A Charlie Brown Christmas', Lucy calls Charlie Brown "Charlie".)


Several additional family members of the characters were also introduced: Charlie Brown's younger sister Sally, who is fixated on Linus; Linus and Lucy van Pelt's younger brother Rerun; and Spike, Snoopy's desert-dwelling brother from Needles, California, who was apparently named for Schulz's own childhood dog. Snoopy also had three other brothers and a sister who made some appearances in the strip.


Other notable characters include: Snoopy's friend Woodstock, a bird whose chirping is represented in print as hash marks but is nevertheless clearly understood by Snoopy; Pigpen, the perpetually dirty boy who could raise a cloud of dust on a clean sidewalk or in a snowstorm; and Frieda, a girl proud of her "naturally curly hair", and who owned a cat named Faron, much to Snoopy's chagrin. (The way Faron hung over Freida's shoulder prompted Linus to comment that he was "the world's first boneless cat".)


Peanuts had several recurring characters who were actually absent from view. Some, such as the Great Pumpkin or Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron), may or may not have been figments of the cast's imaginations. Others were not imaginary, such as the Little Red-Haired Girl (Charlie Brown's perennial dream girl who finally appeared in 1998, but only in silhouette), Joe Shlabotnik (Charlie Brown's baseball hero), World War II (the vicious cat who lives next door to Snoopy - not to be confused with Frieda's cat, Faron), and Charlie Brown's unnamed pen pal. After some early anomalies, adult figures never appeared in the strip. There are, however, pictures of adult hands in strips and Charlie Brown's father's voice in others.


Schulz also added some fantastic elements, sometimes imbuing inanimate objects with sparks of life. Charlie Brown's nemesis, the Kite-Eating Tree, is one example. Sally Brown's school building, that expressed thoughts and feelings about the students (and the general business of being a brick building), is another. Linus' famous "security blanket" also displayed occasional signs of anthropomorphism. Another example is Charlie Brown's pitching mound, which at times would express thoughts and opinions.

Source: Wikipedia

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