Line #25 YMMV/Peanuts


1	YMMV tropes for ''WesternAnimation/ThePeanutsMovie'' go [[YMMV/ThePeanutsMovie here]].
2	----
3	* AccidentalInnuendo: In [[https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/2001/07/30 one strip]], Lucy tells Linus to get her some ice cream, only for him to ask her "What would you do if I told you to go get it yourself?" Her response? "I'd pound you until the sun went down, and I'd keep on pounding you until the sun came up and then I'd pound you until the sun went down again."
4	* {{Adorkable}}:
5	** Charlie Brown is insecure and awkward, but kind-hearted and almost always tries his best.
6	** Linus is an adorable, highly intelligent, shy little boy who carries a baby blue security blanket with him wherever he goes.
7	** Marcie is a soft-spoken, bookish BespectacledCutie with a shy crush on Charlie Brown. She's even branded as such in her [[http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/CWYXkK6OCXzx.jpg character poster]] for the [[WesternAnimation/ThePeanutsMovie 2015 movie]].
8	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
9	** There are some who consider Lucy's cruelty toward Charlie Brown as [[LovingBully a mask for her own romantic feelings for him]]. Since Lucy's kindness towards Charlie Brown (or in general) is a strong case of DependingOnTheWriter some specials/strips give this theory a lot more credibility than others.
10	** In the foreword to the 1975-76 ''Complete Peanuts'' collection, Robert Smigel (a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' writer and the guy behind ''Triumph The Insult Comic Dog'') argues against the popular view of Charlie Brown as a {{Determinator}} - see that entry elsewhere.
11	--->"Charlie Brown didn't keep trying to kick Lucy's football out of some inner strength and Horatio Alger resolve we were supposed to admire. He did it because he was weak. He was flawed, and he couldn't help himself. But that's exactly why we love him."
12	** The reason Violet constantly says MyDadCanBeatUpYourDad is that she doesn't want anyone to know that she wishes he'd spend more time with her -- or so some people claim.
13	*** This appears to be backed up in one strip where Charlie Brown interrupts one her usual boasts and takes her down to his dad's barbershop to tell her about the friendly, loving relationship they have. It ends with an on-the-verge-of-tears Violet walking away and quietly saying "Happy father's day, Charlie Brown".
14	** Some even argue that Charlie Brown's life is not quite as horrible as we think it is as he is not quite the loser is often made out to be. Charlie Brown normally gets along with the boys in his class (particularly Linus and Schroeder) and he has a surprisingly good love life as the LauncherOfAThousandShips entry below has pointed out well enough.
15	** How much of Marcie's polite, studious behavior is her actual personality and how much of it is imposed on her by her strict parents?
16	* ArchivePanic: A half-century's worth of daily comic strips, dozens of animated TV specials, five full-length animated films. Be prepared to spend a ''lot'' of time with these characters.
17	* AudienceAlienatingEra:
18	** There are lots of opinions on when the strip's golden age was, how far it fell from that over the years, and exactly when the SeasonalRot first set in, but everyone agrees that the 1980s were the weakest period, with frequent rehashing of old ideas, misguided attempts at relevance, and the inexplicable rise of [[CreatorsPet Snoopy's brother Spike]]. Some of this was due to [[RealLifeWritesThePlot circumstances beyond Schulz's control]], namely a heart attack that forced him to slow down his working pace. While some fans maintain that the strip enjoyed a creative renaissance in the last few years of its run, others believe that it never recovered from its '80s doldrums, often citing the increasingly scratchy art. This too was a side-effect of Schulz's heart attack; though he recovered, his motor skills started to deteriorate.
19	** Many feel that the 1980s and 1990s were a low point for ''Peanuts'' animation, often for the same reasons mentioned above, or for coming out with strange story ideas and having some of the characters act, well, [[OutOfCharacterMoment unusually out of character]] (most notably Linus in ''You're In the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown''), though some specials from that era like ''WesternAnimation/ShesAGoodSkateCharlieBrown'', ''WesternAnimation/ItsFlashbeagleCharlieBrown'', ''Theatre/YoureAGoodManCharlieBrown'', ''WesternAnimation/WhyCharlieBrownWhy'', ''WesternAnimation/ItsChristmastimeAgainCharlieBrown'', and the ''WesternAnimation/ThisIsAmericaCharlieBrown'' anthology are well-regarded.
20	* AudienceColoringAdaptation: Even those who are familiar with the comic strip tend to be shocked that Snoopy has dialogue in the strips (via ThoughtBubbleSpeech), since in the far more widely known animated works, Snoopy usually [[TheSpeechless doesn't have dialogue at all]] (outside of ''Snoopy the Musical'' and ''You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'', which, even then, only gave him dialogue out of necessity since they're based on Broadway musicals that had songs sung by Snoopy).
21	* BaseBreakingCharacter:
22	** Lucy. People either [[JerkassDissonance love her]] for her personality and her {{Running Gag}}s, most famously her swiping the football away from Charlie Brown at the last millisecond, or they hate her for the very same reasons. In the 25th anniversary compilation book, ''Peanuts Jubilee'' (1975), Schulz even reproduced a letter from an irate fan about one of the football strips. The fan had gone on an epic fire-and-brimstone rant about liars and deceivers.
23	** Violet is also divisive for similar reasons to Lucy, albeit a bit more tepid in the vitriol. She sometimes has the strength to ThrowTheDogABone, such as inviting Charlie Brown to her Halloween party and requesting that he "model", but she's often seen, especially in the early strips and specials, partaking in the same tirades that Lucy's engaged in. In addition, while Violet isn't as equal-opportunity of a {{sadist}} as Lucy is, she displays a notable LackOfEmpathy, displayed at full force in ''I Want a Dog For Christmas, Charlie Brown'', where she describes Spike as "part-beagle and part-disaster".
24	--->'''Violet:''' I think I would rather take one of the coyotes!
25	** Lydia. Either you really like her for her humor and quick witted remarks or cannot stand her for her constant exasperation towards Linus.
26	** Rerun. Around 1994 he suddenly became a main character, developing a more well-rounded personality (a mix of youthful naïveté and brash overconfidence), and Schulz centered much of the strip's last few years around Rerun. Either you considered this a case of RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap and found him funny and a welcome shot in the arm after years of ''Peanuts'' retreading the same ground, or viewed him as a CreatorsPet, pushing aside every character not named Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, and maybe Sally.
27	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
28	** The [[Magazine/{{MAD}} Alfred E. Neuman]] cameo at the end of [[http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1973/07/05 this strip.]] {{It\|MakesSenseInContext}} (sort of) [[ItMakesSenseInContext makes sense in context]], as the previous strips had Charlie Brown seeing ''everything'' as a baseball.
29	** Linus makes a brief appearance in [[WesternAnimation/ItsAMysteryCharlieBrown "It's a Mystery, Charlie Brown"]], in which he utters four rhyming lines. He never has dialogue like this again in any Peanuts special.
30	* CantUnhearIt:
31	** If you were introduced to the animated shows first, it's hard to read the strips without assigning the voice acting from the shows to them. It helps that they did a pretty good job recasting the voices to sound close to the original children who played each character, so each character has a basic recognizable sound. [=MetLife=] even used the animated voice cast to do TV and radio commercials featuring the gang.
32	** Depending on if you've seen ''You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'' or ''Snoopy: The Musical'' first, you may start hearing Robert Towers or Creator/CamClarke for Snoopy's thought bubbles.
33	* CargoShip: If taken to the extreme, Schroeder/Toy Piano and Linus/Security Blanket. Unfortunately, those two pairings might be the [[AllLoveIsUnrequited only two requited relationships]].
34	* CatharsisFactor: In one story arc, Charlie Brown is so sick he goes to the hospital. Lucy tells him that she won't pull the ball away. She doesn't... but Charlie misses and kicks her hand instead. Intended to be EpicFail, but many people had wanted Charlie to do ''just that''. He also finally kicks the ball in the animated "It's Magic, Charlie Brown!" special.
35	* CommonKnowledge:
36	** The Coasters' 1959 hit song "Charlie Brown" has nothing to do with ''Peanuts'' (despite the growing popularity of the comic strip at that time and the signature line "Why is everybody always pickin' on me?" being something the ''Peanuts'' character likely would have wondered or said). Songwriter Jerry Leiber said he just chose the name "Charlie Brown" because of its simplicity.
37	** Snoopy pretends to ''fight'' the Red Baron, not to ''be'' the Red Baron (the official name of the persona is the World War I Flying Ace).
38	* ContestedSequel: ''WesternAnimation/ThePeanutsMovie'' and the Creator/AppleTVPlus[=/=]Creator/{{Wildbrain}} specials are this to the original TV specials by Bill Melendez. Some love them for their tighter pacing, {{Animation\|Evolution}} and ArtEvolution, and a greater focus on {{character development}}. Others, however, feel they're too polished, generic, and [[SweetnessAversion saccharine]], lacking the cynicism, BlackComedy, and realism that defined the comic strips and the original TV specials.
39	* CreatorsPet:
40	** Rerun, in the eyes of fans who weren't thrilled by his prominence in the strip's final years.
41	** Spike, Snoopy's older brother, started off as an amusing one-joke character (skinny desert dweller who talks to cacti and hangs out with coyotes), but he was featured incessantly in the 80s, long after the joke started wearing thin.
42	* CreatorWorship: Schulz is credited with bringing a greater degree of substance to the world of cartooning, with his characters boasting complex, three-dimensional personalities and suffering the same insecurities as real people, as well as providing thoughtful insights on the topics of human nature and, in some cases, spirituality. Small wonder, then, that so many contemporary cartoonists cite him as one of their influences, and that the saga of Charlie Brown and Co. continues to endure, even over 20 years after Schulz's passing.
43	* DesignatedVillain: Mr. Hennessey, the hardware store owner from ''Charlie Brown's All-Stars'', who offers to sponsor Charlie Brown's team. He received some ([[JustifiedTrope justified]]) hatred for telling Charlie that in order to receive the uniforms, the girls and Snoopy must be kicked off the team. It's made worse since he's forced to adhere to the league's sponsorship rules.
44	* EnsembleDarkhorse:
45	** Schulz himself noted the discrepancy between Pig-Pen's popularity and his rare appearances in the strip.
46	** Peggy Jean is surprisingly popular in fanfiction - maybe because she's the only girl that treats Charlie Brown with nothing but kindness.
47	** Joe Agate, the titular bully from ''He's a Bully, Charlie Brown'', is pretty well-liked for two reasons. One, he knocks Rerun down a peg, which for those who don't like Rerun, can be seen as a TakeThatScrappy moment. Second, he's an extremely GracefulLoser, who ends up giving Charlie Brown one of his very few [[EarnYourHappyEnding earned]] [[ThrowTheDogABone victories]].
48	** For as divisive as ''WesternAnimation/ItWasMyBestBirthdayEverCharlieBrown'' is, Mimi is seen as the best thing to come out of the special for how courteous she is to Linus, her ChildProdigy status as a skilled botanist, and of course, [[SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound her singing voice]].
49	** There are plenty of fans who would've liked to see Janice from ''WesternAnimation/WhyCharlieBrownWhy'' make a comeback, as not only was she a great source of insight into TheTopicOfCancer, but she had a wonderful dynamic with Linus that could've been explored further, [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter had she not been relegated to just a one-off]].
50	* EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory: Some fans prefer the idea that Linus's belief in the Great Pumpkin is supposedly a metaphor for religious faith. Though it ''is'' a metaphor for believing in SantaClaus, [[WordOfGod Schulz claimed]] that he thought the idea of a kid confusing Christmas and Halloween (well, Santa Claus and trick-or-treating, anyway) [[RuleOfFunny would be a funny plotline]], but [[{{Jossed}} did not intend to place any deeper meaning or message behind it]]. However, [[FanDislikedExplanation some fans feel that the Great Pumpkin ended up as a commentary on the nature of faith anyway]]. Sequences like Marcie going to a cult deprogrammer after hanging out with Linus on Halloween, or his KnockingOnHeathensDoor promotion of the Great Pumpkin in later years sure seem like intentional examples of it.
51	* FairForItsDay:
52	** Franklin was considered radical for the time just for being a black kid who joined the otherwise all-white cast, especially because he had been included at the suggestion of a schoolteacher who wrote to Charles Schulz to urge him to include one (for context, this happened ''eleven days'' after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination). His inclusion caused controversy at the time; a reader complained when he was drawn sitting behind Peppermint Patty in school, and several southern papers dropped the strip after his debut. Nowadays, though, he tends to be used as an example of a TokenMinority character who [[TheGenericGuy lacks a distinct personality or trait outside of their race.]]
53	** Peppermint Patty was - originally rather gender-nonconforming because she was the first female character in the strip to not wear a dress, yet her hair is still somewhat feminine. These days, this aspect of her character is often lost on younger audiences.
54	* {{Fanon}}:
55	** Several elements of the strip, including the Little Red-Haired Girl's actual name and Marcie's last name. ''You're in the Super Bowl'' called her Marcie Johnson, but Schulz has said that he never considered the animated specials canon. Another special gave the Little Red-Haired Girl's name as "Heather". Again, not canon, but fanfiction uses it anyway, usually on the grounds that they have to call her ''something''.
56	** Many fans have interpreted Marcie as Asian-American, due to her black hair, studious personality, extreme politeness and strict parents. This is probably at least partly fueled by Honey Huan of ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'' fame being an explicitly Asian {{expy}} of Marcie.
57	* FandomSpecificPlot: Those DarkerAndEdgier fics about the grown-up gang. From Peppermint Patty and Marcie being lesbians, Linus being a pot addict, to Schroeder being a closet gay.
58	* FanonDiscontinuity: Fans of the newspaper strip versus fans of the animated cartoons, as far as whether or not character details that are expanded upon in the latter (such as Marcie's last name, the number and names of Snoopy's siblings, and what the Little Red-Headed Girl looks like) should count as canon.
59	* FranchiseOriginalSin: The major part of the strip's humor is Charlie Brown being a [[TheWoobie woobie]] FailureHero. However, while such jokes of Charlie Brown misfortunes are funny when kept to the concise storytelling form of the comic strip, Charles Schulz's original plots for the animated specials eventually lost all proportion for the stories' tone. This led to specials with excruciating levels of sustained and illogical cruelty against our hero that tended to anger viewers, sometimes to the point of writing letters of protest. Of the specials, ''It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown'', ''Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown'', and ''WesternAnimation/HappyNewYearCharlieBrown'' are particularly grievous offenders (the first features Charlie Brown being blamed for losing the homecoming football game when it was really Lucy repeatedly yanking the ball out of his way through force of habit, while the other two end with Linus romancing girls on whom he knows Charlie Brown has a huge crush as well as the senselessness of a grade school student being assigned to write a book report on ''Literature/WarAndPeace'').
60	* GeniusBonus:
61	** Schulz was a big classical music fan,[[note]] His favourite composer was Music/JohannesBrahms; he considered making Schroeder a fan of Brahms as well, but thought Beethoven's name, having three syllables instead of one, was more inherently amusing. (Schroeder does let slip in one strip - to his immediate horror - that sometimes he thinks he prefers Brahms to Beethoven, and when Lucy insists in another strip that Beethoven's birthday traditions include girls kissing the objects of their affection on the nose - whereupon she proceeds to act on this "tradition" - a shocked Schroeder says this "could start a stampede to Brahms!")[[/note]] and though his ability to read music was limited, he meticulously copied passages from various piano pieces for strips featuring Schroeder at the piano (mostly [[Music/LudwigVanBeethoven Beethoven]] piano sonatas, but works by Haydn, Clementi, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff[[note]] The very first strip featuring Schroeder at the piano from 24 September 1951 shows him playing not Beethoven, but Rachmaninoff - specifically, Measure 20 of the Prelude in G minor, Op.23 No.5.[[/note]] among others also showed up), and his pianistic "career" includes some bonuses for fans of classical music.
62	*** In one of the very first strips to feature Schroeder at the piano from September 1951, Charlie Brown tells Patty that Schroeder has a contract with the "[[{{Malaproper}} New York Philip Harmonic]]" to play Music/JohannesBrahms' first piano concerto. "Why doesn't he play Brahms' second concerto?" Patty asks. "Well, after all, he's only a baby!" says Charlie Brown. Brahms' second piano concerto is widely regarded as a leading candidate for the most technically difficult piano concerto in the standard repertoire (the first concerto isn't much easier, but the RuleOfFunny is in effect here).
63	*** Several early 1950s strips feature Schroeder going through a rigorous exercise routine or launching himself off the end of a slide before playing a particular musical passage. The passage in question is the first measure of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.29 in B-flat, nicknamed the ''Hammerklavier'', and widely agreed to be one of the most technically demanding piano sonatas by any composer, so Schroeder may well need to limber up before practice!
64	*** One strip has Lucy attempt to convince her teacher that the school should celebrate Beethoven's birthday by having the day off, ending by declaring that "Beethoven never supported Hitler!" There's more truth to this than the obvious fact that Beethoven died before Hitler was born: Beethoven was a firm believer in democratic principles and strongly supported equality and unity among human beings. Had he lived long enough, he would have ''despised'' Hitler and what he stood for.
65	** The Bunny Wunny books that Snoopy loves? According to Scott [=McGuire=] in section 4.11 of [[http://fivecentsplease.org/dpb/peantfaq.txt the Peanuts FAQ]], Schulz meant those as a ShoutOut to ''the Happy Hollisters'' books based on two clues. First, there are six Bunny Wunnies and there are six Hollister children. Second, each series has a character named Pam.
66	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff:
67	** At least two translations of the strip (the French one and the Swedish one) were renamed after Snoopy. He's also ''very'' popular in Japan, thanks in part to being a cute dog who happens to be marketed by Sanrio. Unfortunately, most Japanese seem unaware that the main character of the series is his owner, despite the strip's long-running and faithful translation, which gets printed daily in Japanese newspapers and has numerous compilation books in both English and Japanese. He has also gotten everything from his own café to special donuts at Mr. Donut Japan. Because of how popular Snoopy is there, the 2015 movie in the franchise was retitled "I Love Snoopy", was released a week after the American release and was shown in 4D, which is rare to happen to any Western animated film. It would be interesting to note that, if you look at Yoshi from the Super Mario series' look and personality, it's very similar to Snoopy. Even similar enough to think Yoshi might be an AffectionateParody in tribute to Snoopy.
68	** A peculiar example (almost a form of CoveredUp) is that in the USA the animated specials are better known than the original strips, whereas in other countries it's usually the other way around.
69	** A similar situation happens in South America. The strip goes either by the name Carlitos (literally "Charlie") or... Snoopy. (Brazil goes both ways: "Minduim", a mangling of the Portuguese word for "peanut" that became Charlie Brown's nickname, or "Snoopy")
70	* GrowingTheBeard: The late 1950s, when the characterizations of Charlie Brown (ButtMonkey {{Determinator}}) and Snoopy (AnthropomorphicShift to an IntellectualAnimal) finally crystallized. Or it can also be argued as when Lucy is introduced in 1952, followed later in the 1950s by Linus and Sally to complete what remained the strip's core cast for most of its run. It arguably grew an even bigger beard in the early 70s after Franklin, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie were introduced.
71	* HarsherInHindsight:
72	** The name of Snoopy's birthplace, the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, doesn't sound ''quite'' so charming now that the disgraceful conditions of many "puppy mill" dog-breeding facilities are better known.
73	** The 1966 storyline of Snoopy's doghouse burning to the ground becomes harder to read [[http://mashable.com/2017/10/13/peanuts-charles-schulz-house-burns-ca-wildfires/#sJ0pJRBL5iqa with the news of Schulz's home being destroyed in a California wildfire.]]
74	** Peter Robbins was Charlie Brown's original voice actor from 1963-1969, and all the animated scenes of Charlie Brown talking about being depressed and visiting Lucy's psychiatric booth might come across as this now, knowing that Robbins would struggle with bipolar disorder in later life, [[https://www.insider.com/charlie-brown-voice-actor-peter-robbins-dies-aged-65-2022-1 and would ultimately take his own life]] in January 2022.
75	* HeartwarmingInHindsight:
76	** Patrick [=McDonnell=], who grew up during ''Peanuts''' run, wrote a letter asking Schulz to create a cat sidekick for Snoopy. Schulz simply responded with an autographed picture of the Peanuts gang. [=McDonnell=], with approval and assistance from Schulz, would then create his own comic strip, ''ComicStrip/{{Mutts}}'' in 1994, which shares some of the same values as ''Peanuts'' and is still running in newspapers today. In the comic's first collection, Schulz wrote the foreword, commenting that ''Mutts'' is "exactly what a comic strip should be."
77	** [[http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1999/01/28 In the January 28, 1999 strip]], Rerun is looking at a painting of ''Mutts''' Earl at a museum. Later, to celebrate what would have been Schulz's 100th birthday in 2022, ''Mutts'' featured Earl at the same museum, looking at a painting of Snoopy.
78	** In the same strip, after Doozy adopts Guard Dog, a tethered dog, she renames him to Sparky, the exact same nickname Schultz had growing up. [=McDonnell=] later claimed [[https://mutts.com/blogs/news/a-letter-from-patrick-the-guard-dog-story in a blog post]] that this was done as a tribute to his childhood idol, saying that ''Mutts'' nor Guard Dog would've been possible without Schultz's inspiration.
79	* HilariousInHindsight:
80	%% ** On June 10, 1959, shortly after Sally's birth...
81	%% --->'''Linus:''' When I'm twenty-two and Sally is seventeen, do you think she'll go out with me?
82	%% ** A 1961 strip has Sally expressing her ''disappointment'' that she can't go to school with the other kids.
83	%% ** [[http://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1998/03/20 This 1998 strip]] all but predicts Tiger Woods' sex scandal 11 years later, as long as you take into account [[AccidentalInnuendo the different meanings of "ho/hoe"]].
84	** In baseball-related strips, the characters would often use "goat" as an epithet for the player who messes up at a critical moment and loses the game for the team (usually Charlie Brown). Since then, the term has taken on a polar opposite meaning; in the context of sports, it's often used as an acronym for Greatest Of All Time.
85	** A gag from TheFifties actually used the pun "Quicksand Box" before ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' also used the joke and before it became the basis for the QuicksandBox trope.
86	** The first football gag in the strip had Violet pull it away, though out of fear Charlie Brown would kick her hand instead. It would seem her fears were founded as the one subversion of the gag when Lucy took over had Charlie Brown kick her hand.
87	** The September 30th, 1971 strip has Linus find a discarded pair of disposable anaglyph 3D glasses and give them to Snoopy, who is happy because now he’ll be ready if “3D comes back.” 3D would indeed return (and subsequently disappear again) several times over the following years for movies and television, albeit using glasses more sophisticated than disposable anaglyphs.
88	** ''You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown'' would become quickly and oddly prophetic, having aired alongside Super Bowl XXVIII. The special depicts Snoopy's team defeating a team of small buffalo, while the winner of the Pass and Punt competition, Melody Melody, was adorned in a Dallas Cowboys helmet and jersey. The Cowboys would go on to win that very Super Bowl, with the opponent they defeated being the Buffalo Bills.
89	** In 2021, a graphic novel titled ''Scotland Bound, Charlie Brown'' would be released, based upon the concept for a scrapped special decades prior. Charlie Brown and the gang travel to Scotland, and Charlie Brown gets to meet his pen pal - a girl named Morag. The trip also involved a tour of several Scottish landmarks, one of which was Loch Ness. Just a few months later, [[Characters/TheLoudHouseLincolnLoud another round-headed kid]], one who happens to be based on good ol' Chuck himself, [[WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouseMovie would go on a Scottish adventure of his own]], where both a Loch and a woman named Morag would play major roles.
90	* IAmNotShazam: When the strip first came out, people naturally assumed that Charlie Brown's name was "Peanuts". This frustrated Charles Schulz, who had predicted that this would happen. From 1966 until 1987, the Sunday strips carried the subtitle "Featuring Good Ol' Charlie Brown" to help avoid this.
91	* IconicCharacterForgottenTitle: Ironically enough, once the strip became popular many people wound up forgetting the actual title and thinking it was called "Charlie Brown" or "Snoopy".
92	** Snoopy was so iconic that that, in some countries (like Sweden), the comic strip is ''named'' after him. The official name of the strip's website was "snoopy.com" for much of the internet era.
93	** Most of the animated specials and book collections include "Charlie Brown" in the title, but the title panels on the Sunday strips for many years said ''Peanuts featuring '''GOOD OL' CHARLIE BROWN'''''.
94	** In Italy it was known as "Linus" back in the day by most readers, mostly because the comic strip was published in a magazine [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_(magazine) named after him]].
95	** In Brazil there is an attempt to equal character and title by making Charlie Brown nicknamed "Minduim" (from amendoim, "Peanut").
96	** The title ''Peanuts'' was the idea of Schulz's bosses, and Schulz himself was never crazy about it, pointing out that it's not as if kids have ever been "peanuts" or anything.
97	* IronWoobie: Charlie Brown stopped being too bothered by things that don't turn out well for him as he's come to expect it. It doesn't stop him from continuing to run his baseball team or participating in competitions of all sorts, however, in hopes that he will one day get his big break.
98	* LauncherOfAThousandShips: Believe or not, Charlie Brown. In ''Peanuts'' fanfiction (yes, there is ''Peanuts'' fanfiction), he's been paired up with [[{{Tomboy}} Peppermint Patty]], [[HeWhoMustNotBeSeen The Little Red-Haired Girl]], [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Lucy]] and [[CrackPairing Frieda]]. In the strip, there's also Marcie, who has a huge crush on Charlie Brown, and he also had a short-lived romance with a girl named Peggy Jean. And in the early days, [[ThoseTwoGuys Patty and Violet]] sometimes showed romantic interest in him.
99	* LGBTFanbase: Despite being straight in canon[[note]]they both have crushes on Charlie Brown and have displayed an attraction towards several guys in the TV specials[[/note]], and never having shown attraction towards each other or other girls, Peppermint Patty and Marcie have garnered a large lesbian following. Peppermint Patty due to her tomboyish looks and personality resonating with many lesbians, and Marcie due to her closeness with Peppermint Patty and tendency to call her "sir". Unsurprisingly, it is very common to see them portrayed as a [[AdaptationalSexuality lesbian couple in parodies and fanworks]]. Peppermint Patty has also attracted some non-binary fans as well due to her dislike of being referred to as sir or ma'am.
100	%%* LoveToHate:
101	%%** Lucy Van Pelt.
102	%%** Violet.
103	* MandelaEffect: Some people remember Snoopy's tail being a thin black line rather than a white tail with a little black dot on it.
104	* MemeticLoser:
105	** Charlie Brown both in and out of universe. As Creator/ChrisRock once said, "He didn't even star in his own Halloween special."
106	** Linus, to a lesser extent, also is this, namely in ''It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'', the first Valentine's Day special and ''especially'' in ''Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown''. Plus having Lucy as a sister doesn't do his reputation/well-being/self-confidence any favors.
107	* MemeticMutation:
108	** Snoopy's HappyDance.
109	** Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown has become a popular analogy. Political pundits especially seem to love it.
110	** "I got a rock" is so memorable that it still gets referenced/parodied even today.
111	** There's ''[[http://3eanuts.com/ 3eanuts]]'', a ''Webcomic/GarfieldMinusGarfield''-style attempt to recontextualize ''Peanuts'' by leaving off the final panel, which often ends up making the strip seem cruel and depressing (or more cruel and depressing than it is already).
112	** The VolumetricMouth when characters scream sometimes with the WrittenRoar of "AAUGH!" has been widely parodied in pop culture references. Since the age of the Internet, it has also been circulated as a reaction image.
113	** "Curse you, Red Baron!"
114	** Linusposting / Ratio + Linus[[note]]Memes involving Linus became popular in late 2021, notably Ratio + Linus, which people on the internet, specifically Twitter, would reply with this phrase alongside an image of Linus to get more retweets/likes than the original post, depending on how divisive or controversial it is.[[/note]]
115	** In 2020, the Website/{{Twitter}} account "@matrixreloaded_" posted "People on here will tweet anything. 'Charlie Brown had hoes.' No he didn’t. That isn’t true." Since then, "Charlie Brown had hoes" has entered Twitter parlance as shorthand for a situation where someone posts something very obviously incorrect, often as a case of wishful thinking. Ironically, this also led to a big debate in some internet circles about how Charlie Brown [[AllegedlyDateless could be linked with several girls throughout the strip's history]], so the line really could be true after all.
116	* MisaimedFandom: It's very common to hear Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" played on the radio around Christmas, as it's very much attributed towards ''WesternAnimation/ACharlieBrownChristmas''. But it's not really a Christmas song. It was composed for the 1963 documentary ''A Boy Named Charlie Brown'', and was even released on its soundtrack album before ''A Charlie Brown Christmas'' ever made it to airwaves, and had been a regular part of Guaraldi's live set lists well before he did the Christmas show's soundtrack. What's stranger, aside from "Christmas Time Is Here" and occasionally "O Tannenbaum", none of the other songs from ''A Charlie Brown Christmas'' tend to get radio play, giving most of the attention to "Linus and Lucy", and the song itself is never played around Halloween or Thanksgiving, where it got its own set of special renditions for those holidays.
117	%%* {{Moe}}: They’re a whole cast of moe! Special mention goes to Charlie Brown, Sally, Linus, Rerun, and Marcie.
118	* NarmCharm: The animated specials, particularly the very early ones, have a great deal of this. The animation is crude and often off model, and some of the child actors, particularly very young ones like Kathy Steinberg (the original Sally) and [[CrossDressingVoices Jimmy Ahrens (the original Marcie)]], give very awkward readings of their lines (which are often audibly spliced together from multiple takes), but the art and the vocal performances are part of what makes the stories and especially the characters so endearing in many viewers' eyes.
119	* NauseaFuel: An early 1970s Sunday strip has Lucy drink some soda with a straw that Snoopy used without her knowledge. The disgusted expressions that Charlie Brown makes because of this distract Lucy from their conversation.
120	* NightmareFuel:
121	** One story arc has Linus's blanket come to life and start stalking and attacking Lucy at every opportunity to the point where she stays outside all night hiding from it. [[https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1965/03/25 At one point]] it lunges out of Linus's hands at her, and it has a ''mouth''.
122	** In one strip, Charlie Brown, not having a kite to fly, attaches some string to Snoopy's collar and uses him as a kite, who uses his ears to create the lift needed to fly. But it doesn't work for long, and Snoopy plummets to the ground and SHATTERS into a hundred pieces!! Luckily it was just Snoopy having a nightmare from eating too much pizza before sleeping, but still, that image of him shattering in front of his master must've upset a LOT of kids at the time!
123	** There was a series of strips where Snoopy woke up (in his doghouse unlike usual) to find an enormous icicle had formed right above him. He was worried it was so unstable, the slightest movement would cause it to crash. As Charlie Brown and Lucy used a pizza to attract Snoopy, it was shown he was right and was extremely close to grave injury at best.
124	** In ''It's a Mystery Charlie Brown!'', Snoopy and Woodstock sneak into the school's science fair to reclaim Woodstock's nest but also play around with some of the exhibits. One of them gives Snoopy an electrical shock, and he briefly [[XRaySparks turns into a screaming skeleton]].
125	* OlderThanTheyThink:
126	** The gag of a youngster playing a difficult classical piece on a toy piano had been used in the WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon ''WesternAnimation/WhatsUpDoc'', released a few months before the strip's debut in 1950, and a year before Schroeder's debut. There ''had'' been a proto-Schroeder musician character in ''Li'l Folks'', but he played a regular piano.
127	** Violet was the first one to pull the football away from Charlie Brown when he tried to kick it, in the November 14, 1951 strip (a few months before Lucy's debut), but only because she was worried that he'd kick her hand. She also beat Marcie and Eudora to the punch by calling Charlie Brown "Charles" once around the same time.
128	** While Schulz proudly took credit for popularizing the term "security blanket" in regards to Linus, it had already existed for a long time. It originally referred to a baby blanket that could be fastened over the child so they couldn't kick the sheet off if they got restless. Then it became a common military term in the first part of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar to describe measures taken to keep things like missile tests secret. What ''Peanuts'' did was play with the meaning of "security" so that it had to do with ''mental'' security, and it also involved a literal blanket.
129	** A UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco Bay Area-based cartoonist draws a comic strip about a group of kids that becomes popular enough to jump to other mediums and have its characters used for advertisements. That would be [[https://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/knight_tack.htm Tack Knight]], whose strip ''Little Folks'' ran in newspapers from 1930-33, then jumped to comic books for a few more years. ''Little Folks'' is now best known for being the reason ''Peanuts'' got its name; Knight kept the title ''Little Folks'' under trademark, so Schulz couldn't re-use the name of his local Minnesota feature ''ComicStrip/LilFolks'' for his new national strip in 1950.
130	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: The strip sometimes suffers from this, due both to its own cultural ubiquity and to the influence it's had on countless other comics over the last half-century. Consider this: Schulz's characters were considered ''dysfunctional'' in the 1950s and '60s. After comics like ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' or ''ComicStrip/{{Zits}}'', it can be hard to believe this considering any parent would dream to have kids as intelligent and introspective as the Peanuts Gang are.
131	** As ''Calvin and Hobbes'' creator Bill Watterson once put it in an interview:
132	--->"Every now and then I hear that ''Peanuts'' isn't as funny as it was or it's gotten old or something like that. I think what's really happened is that Schulz, in ''Peanuts'', changed the entire face of comic strips, and everybody has now caught up to him. I don't think he's five years ahead of everybody else like he used to be, so that's taken some of the edge off it. I think it's still a wonderful strip in terms of solid construction, character development, the fantasy element...Things that we now take for granted--reading the thoughts of an animal for example--there's not a cartoonist who's done anything since 1960 who doesn't owe Schulz a tremendous debt."
133	* OneTrueThreesome: Quite a few people ship Charlie Brown/Peppermint Patty/Marcie
134	* RetroactiveRecognition:
135	** In ''It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown'', ''Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown'', and Series 2 of ''The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show'', Sally was voiced by Stacy Ferguson, now better known as Music/TheBlackEyedPeas lead singer/solo artist Music/{{Fergie}}. Ironically, when Sally sings at Snoopy's wedding in ''Snoopy's Getting Married'', that's not Fergie doing the singing![[note]] Sally's singing voice was provided instead by Dawnn D. Leary.[[/note]]
136	** In ''Snoopy's Reunion'' Linus is voiced by a young Creator/JoshKeaton, under his birth name of Joshua Wiener, who has been a prominent voice actor in the 2000s and 2010s.
137	** In ''He's a Bully, Charlie Brown'', Creator/TaylorLautner voiced the main antagonist Joe Agate.
138	** A young Nicole Eggert of ''{{Series/Baywatch}}'' fame had a small voice role in ''Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown.''
139	** Likewise Music/JennyLewis in ''It's An Adventure, Charlie Brown''.
140	** In ''Peanuts Motion Comics'', Lucy and Sally are voiced by Creator/MichelleCreber and Creator/ClaireCorlett, who would later become known as [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Apple Bloom]] and [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Sweetie Belle]] respectively.
141	* TheScrappy:
142	** Snoopy's family, especially Spike, from the late 70s onward, due to them all being a massive SpotlightStealingSquad, reducing Snoopy's uniqueness, and causing the comic to be less charmingly melancholy.
143	** Violet and Patty, due to them being huge {{Rich Bitch}}es a la Muffy Crosswire from ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}''. Thankfully, they both [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome disappeared]] in the mid-to-late 60s.
144	** Charlotte Braun was a character who appeared in the early years of the comic. However, many readers at the time hated her and found her to be obnoxious and unlikable, on top of lacking the memorability, warmth, and humor the other characters had. Infamously, one fan in particular hated her so much, she actually sent a letter to Charles M. Schulz to get rid of her, which resulted in him effectively ''killing her off'' after only appearing in 10 strips, with his response letter [[https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F30987263-4f90-43e8-8126-19c92348a1d7_800x1022.png featuring a doodle]] of her looking sad with an ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice axe cutting her head]]''. Notably, she has never reappeared in any ''Peanuts'' media since, not even through cameos like the other early Peanuts characters have.[[note]]though most of her traits (and her outfit) would be carried over to Lucy Van Pelt, who became [[MorePopularReplacement far more popular]].[[/note]]
145	* SequelDisplacement: The strip is far more famous than its predecessor, ''Li'l Folks''.
146	* {{Squick}}: The RunningGag of binders causing physical pain. From Snoopy in ''WesternAnimation/YoureNotElectedCharlieBrown'' getting his paw's finger stuck in a binder, then having it clamp down on his nose, to Peppermint Patty in ''WesternAnimation/ItsFlashbeagleCharlieBrown'' falling asleep into her binder and having it clamp onto ''her'' nose, followed by it clamping onto her scalp before Marcie pulls it off. Snoopy's paw finger and Peppermint Patty's nose are especially squicky, as they result in CartoonThrobbing, and Snoopy even ''cries''.
147	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Many characters in the comic strip such as Violet or Frieda had a lot of appearances before barely appearing near the end of the strips run, marking some fans wish they were used more.
148	* TitleConfusion: The iconic instrumental theme song isn't called "Peanuts" or "Charlie Brown". It's actually called "Linus and Lucy".
149	* ToyShip: Many of the strip's male/female relationships would qualify as this.
150	* UglyCute: Spike, a disheveled stray dog who is as thin as a twig, looks cute because of the art style and has a certain charm to his character.
151	* UnintentionalUncannyValley: Lucy's early appearances had her depicted with pupils and irises rather than the simple dots that were shown in the time. This made her look like a total CreepyChild, especially when she smiled.
152	* UnpopularPopularCharacter: Charlie Brown is treated like dirt by almost everyone, from major to one-shot characters - even his friends are not above tearing into him for his perceived failings - yet he remains beloved by many readers, partly because of his perennial underdog status and the fact that it never stops him from trying.
153	* UnintentionallySympathetic: Schulz by his own admission thought Charlie Brown's mopey and bothersome habits evened out his trademark bad luck a lot more than many fans did. By the time he ended the strip, he did seem to catch on to their point, and regretted not getting the time to close it more satisfyingly with some ThrowTheDogABone moments.
154	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
155	** Some of the animated specials come off as this.
156	*** ''WesternAnimation/ACharlieBrownChristmas'' (1965), Lucy comments on Beethoven never being featured on bubblegum cards. Said cards are usually referred to as "trading cards" nowadays, as the majority of them stopped being packaged with bubblegum in the early '90s.
157	*** In ''Charlie Brown's All-Stars'' (1966), Charlie Brown wants his team to play on an organized league only to learn that teams with girls on them can't be sponsored. At the time, Little League actually was off-limits to girls.
158	*** In ''WesternAnimation/ItsTheGreatPumpkinCharlieBrown'' (1966), the kids refer to trick-or-treating as "tricks or treats", which was used interchangeably with the singular version during the decade before falling out of use in the 1970s.
159	*** In ''There's No Time For Love, Charlie Brown'' (1973), Peppermint Patty comments that the metric system will probably be official by the time she reaches high school.[[note]]Like the rest of the English-speaking world, the United States was on track to switch to metric by the early 1980s. ''Unlike'' everywhere else, however, the process went completely off the rails by the end of the 70s – major industries were split on the issue (some supported it, but the economically-vital housing sector - construction, engineering, surveying, etc. - was dead-set against), the public was overwhelmingly opposed (this was also true in other countries, but their governments forced it through anyway), and the cost of changing millions of road signs and other official stuff during the era of Stagflation was deemed "not worth it". So, Congress gave up partway through, leaving the weird mix of Customary & Metric that's still in use in the USA today.[[/note]]
160	*** In ''WesternAnimation/ItsTheEasterBeagleCharlieBrown'' (1974), Sally wants to buy platform shoes which were all the rage in TheSeventies.
161	*** ''You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown'' (1979) has Charlie Brown thinking that people will "treat [him] like Bruce Jenner" who is known as Caitlyn now.
162	*** In the decades since ''Life Is a Circus, Charlie Brown'' (1980), the popularity of the traditional traveling circus fell into steep decline. Most notably, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus closed in 2017.
163	*** There's also ''It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown'' (1984), which could not more obviously be tied to the 1983 film ''Film/{{Flashdance}}''.
164	** Many strips refer to real world events, but these were rarely reprinted (precisely because they were dated) until ''The Complete Peanuts''. Occasionally some slipped through when the reference was sufficiently obscure: for example, a series of strips in which Snoopy observes birds having furious (but unintelligible) political arguments while holding signs depicting different punctuation marks. This accompanied the bitter polarized political discourse in the US in the run-up to the 1964 election.
165	** One strip from 1954 has Lucy ask a dumb question, only for Charlie Brown to offer an obvious fact as a sarcastic reply. That fact? ''"I know there are forty-eight states in the union"''. That's right, ''Peanuts'' is so old it was around before Alaska and Hawaii were admitted as states.
166	** The comic for July 19, 1997 has Lucy reading a list of players on a baseball team: "Clay, Blake, Morgan, Travis, Trent, Hunter, Bailey, Madison, Taylor, and Justin." The punchline is that these are meant to be "weird" names, but in the present day, they've become quite common. Of these names, Clay, Travis, and Trent are the only ones to not have been in a yearly "top 100 names" list.
167	** The 90s strips were full of this, with references from from ''Film/ForrestGump'' to Barney to the Walkman. In one of the last daily strips, Sally is writing a letter to Literature/HarryPotter. Not as obvious as Flashbeagle, but this was written around the time the books were becoming popular.
168	* ValuesDissonance:
169	** While in the strip Franklin's treatment is ahead of its times, some of the animated adaptations treat him as the TokenMinority; he is shown acting differently from the other kids and is given stereotypically black mannerisms which at the times were acceptable. ''Series/TheDailyShowWithTrevorNoah'' did a segment [[https://youtu.be/-A-SuVIMLnQ on this]].
170	** Shortly after the film ''[[Film/Ten1979 10]]'' came out, there was a sequence in a special in which Peppermint Patty wore her hair in cornrows. In the aftermath of concerns about appropriation of black hair styles, this sequence has perhaps not aged well, at least as far as American or English-speaking viewers in concerned, anyways.
171	** Peppermint Patty's debut comic has her mention that she "Indian wrestles" her friend Roy. This expression was acceptable in 1966, but not very acceptable now.
172	** The regular use of DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale can come across as this now. Lucy's bullying is often portrayed as negative but tends toward BlackComedy rather than anything serious. Even Peppermint Patty and Marcie have been shown hitting boys in a way that was portrayed sympathetically. Audiences nowadays tend to be much more critical over this sort of thing.
173	* ValuesResonance:
174	** ''A Charlie Brown Christmas''[='=] denouncement of commercialism (which carries over into ''A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving'' and ''It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown'' as well) and presentation of the TrueMeaningOfChristmas. Which makes later handling of the show even more ironic; due to the fact that networks generally push in more and more commercials into episodes, for several years the special aired heavily truncated. Fan backlash ultimately made them back away from it, giving the special a full hour and tossing in a short from a Christmas anthology special to pad things out so they can air it uncut. Of course, that does mean that ABC gets to have a reliably high rated special they can rerun in an hour timeslot.
175	** There's also a bunch of still-relevant political humor in ''You're (Not) Elected, Charlie Brown'' and the strips on which it was based. The fact that they haven't dated is probably due to Schulz lampooning the overall election process rather than a current election or event of his day.
176	** The bullying can fall into this and Dissonance as well - the characters do bully each other, and it's PlayedForLaughs, but many of the actual instances bullying rarely veers into TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior, and when it does (such as Lucy throwing Schroeder's piano to the kite-eating tree), it's not shrugged off.
177	** Save for a few controversial instances, Franklin's skin tone is barely commented on.
178	** '''Charlie Brown having girls play on his baseball team''', even before Little League started letting girls play. This becomes a major plot point in ''Charlie Brown's All-Stars'' where Charlie Brown refuses to sacrifice his female teammates (and Snoopy) for sponsorship.
179	** From a modern perspective Peppermint Patty's trouble with schoolwork reads a lot like someone suffering from undiagnosed ADD or ADHD. She is clearly intelligent, but her main problem is her inability to concentrate on things she has no interest in. In turn, her teacher(s) seem resigned to her just being a poor student and they never try to figure out if there is something that might be done to help Patty's school performance.
180	** An arc in the 70s dealt with the school enacting a dress code and Peppermint Patty ''not'' being happy about being forced to wear a dress, and doing everything she could to get the dress code removed. Despite some jokes, this is largely played sympathetically, and that a person ''shouldn't'' be forced to wear something they're not comfortable in. Considering there are still a ''lot'' of schools that force gender conforming dress codes even today, it's a message that's still just as relevant now as it was back then.
181	* ViewerGenderConfusion: It can be easy to mistake Peppermint Patty for an ''actual'' boy. She's one of the few girls to be consistently drawn with shorts instead of skirts and, in the last two decades of the strip’s run, it became more socially acceptable for young males to have longer hair. It doesn't help that in some of the animated adaptations, she is ''voiced'' by a boy. And of course, there's her best friend Marcie constantly referring to her as "sir". This was actually lampshaded in the strip itself. For example, in the strips constituting ''She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown'', where Peppermint Patty goes to get her hair cut by CB's father, a barber, she comes running out, her hair all but scalped, and screams at him, "You didn't tell him I'm a GIRL!"
182	* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Despite being adapted into animation for kids, the original strip wasn't meant ''for'' kids; hence its serious and dark tone. But it's pretty clean, so anyone can read it.
183	* TheWoobie:
184	** Charlie Brown. 'Nuff said.
185	** Linus, whenever the Great Pumpkin fails to appear.
186	** Peppermint Patty gets her moment when she sees the Little Red Haired Girl and how pretty she is, and realizes why Charlie Brown always loved her. It's enough to drive her to tears, and anyone who's ever had an unrequited crush probably knew exactly how she felt. Thank God Linus was there to listen and cheer her up.

Context YMMV / Peanuts