Believe it or not, Peanuts and Charlie Brown have been around for 75 years. Charles Schulz had originally titled his comic strip Li’l Folks back in 1947, but renamed the strip Peanuts in 1950. By the time Schulz passed away 50 years later (2000), Peanuts was running in more than 2,500 newspapers in 75 countries, read by over 350 million people.
In the 1960s, a band named The Royal Guardsmen released songs dedicated to Snoopy and his imaginary life as a World War I flying ace. His target, of course, was the infamous Red Baron. They engaged many times in Snoopy’s imagination. It’s lots of fun to read, especially for fans of Snoopy and Peanuts.
In 1967, a show opened in Greenwich Village in New York City titled “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.” An unknown actor (at the time) by the name of Gary Burghoff played Charlie Brown. You now know him as Radar, both in the movie and in the hit TV series M*A*S*H. Fortunately, I was able to attend a performance of this wonderful show. I own both the L/P and the C/D of the complete sound track; every now and then I still listen to it. A personal favorite is “The Book Report” in which the characters are seated at their desks at home, working on their latest assignment: a 100-word book report on Peter Rabbit. The best, in my opinion, is Lucy, who counts the words as she writes: “1,2,3… 17. 83 to go. [sigh].” Finally, she’s done: “The end. 94, 95. The very, very, very end.” Then Linus says, “Amen.” One of the reasons that I never, throughout my teaching career, put a word count on an assignment.
There were also movies based on Peanuts. In 1965, A Charlie Brown Christmas was released – excellent! Then in 1966, It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown came out. Another excellent movie, and both were a lot of fun too, imparting their messages of hope and joy.
Snoopy became a mascot for N.A.S.A. in the 1960s. My recent cruise to the Bahamas had an excursion to N.A.S.A., the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. In the Apollo section of the Center we got to see some truly interesting artifacts – the actual engines from a rocket, a moon rock, and the shuttle the astronauts ride in to get to their space ship. There was also a bin full of astronaut Snoopy dolls, complete with an astronaut helmet. Yes, I have one. He gets to sit on the coffee table every year during the week of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Although there are other comics around, none can surpass the down-to-earth, cuddly aspects of Peanuts. These characters are playful and fun while also reminding us of our humanity. That’s why we still love them.
Happy Anniversary to the entire Peanuts gang, along with its current staff, and thank you Charles Schulz for giving us Charlie Brown and all of his friends. We are forever grateful!
