Peanuts (Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Charles M. Schulz)

They were different ages, but the ages drifted towards them all being the same age. Even if that doesn't make sense for Linus and Lucy. Linus was originally a baby brother to Lucy, and Lucy herself used to be the baby to an older Charlie.

Re: The birth of Rerun

It definitely strikes me as odd that parents wouldn't discuss a new sibling with their children if their children were old enough to know what's going on, but it's at least consistent with Schulz's portrayal of such things. Charlie Brown had no idea that Sally was about to be born when the same situation played out with him (though Lucy, presumably because she had gone through the same thing when Linus was born, suspected what was going on; one wonders why she didn't figure it when Rerun was about to be born).

As to his being named Rerun, we don't really know if Rerun is his official name, or just a nickname Linus and Lucy decided to give him (given that every other kid in the strip—except for the long-absent-and-nearly-forgotten 5—has a regular name, I'd suspect the latter). Heck, I didn't know Peppermint Patty's last name was Reichardt until a couple of years ago.

Linus and Lucy came up with the name, and everyone else just immediately treated it as his official name, as far as I can tell.

So did Pigpen or Franklin ever have a story dedicated to them? They're the only main characters from the strip who, as I recall, never had a story of their own (maybe Shermy too, but that was from the early years).

I wonder what is behind that "poor, sweet baby" thing Schultz got going in the 70s. At first he mocked the phrase, but then he seems to start using it more earnestly.

It was even a song in Snoopy:The Musical (and the tv special based on same), that Peppermint Patty sings to Charlie Brown. There, it's ultimately used sarcastically, as it's followed up with Peppermint Patty telling Chuck that he'll never find a girl like that.

It's funny, as Charlie Brown's statement is rather mild, really. On the surface, all he's saying is that he'd like a girlfriend who is affectionate and sympathetic. The song makes it pretty clear that Peppermint Patty realizes that she is herself neither particularly affectionate nor sympathetic, given how she builds the description up to saccharine levels and makes it out to be unreasonable expectation.

As to the phrase's origin, possibly it has it's roots in Schulz's divorce. The first "Poor Sweet Baby" strip was in April of 1973, which is shortly after Schulz's divorce from his first wife. She had never apparently been the most emotionally supportive of people (he based the interplay between Lucy and Shroeder, particularly the bits where Lucy doubted if Schroeder would be able to support her working as a musician, on conversations he'd had with his his first wife early in his career; interestingly, she's pretty famous in the field of mule-breeding, believe it or not, as is one of their daughters). He had an affair with a much younger woman (possibly an affectionate and sympathetic one), and the affair's discovery led to the divorce. He married his second wife in late '73, and they were together until he died.

The strip, the "poor, sweet baby" thing feels like a random thing Schulz used in one story (it started with the Baseball Tickets thing, right?) decided he liked as a running gag for a while. I did work pretty well with the strip, since the idea was "a character makes an overly sweet gesture of comfort, which doesn't work at all."

It's funny - in an odd sense - because the gag usually involved someone kissing someone else on the cheek, and since it was usually Peppermint Patty with Charlie Brown that meant using the gag made Patty more overtly affectionate than usual.

The punchline in the musical (and subsequently the movie) is completely different, but I like it just as much. It works really well with Patty's character, imo.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 8th 2020 at 3:14:09 AM

The first usage was in a stand-alone Sunday strip from April 8, 1973. You can find it here: https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/Poor_Sweet_Baby

Right, but the baseball tickets storyline was right after that (I think), and the point he started using it as a Running Gag.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 8th 2020 at 8:44:10 AM

When did Lucy stop wearing her blue dress and start wearing pants?

Who is the fifth most used girl in the strip? (After Lucy,Sally, Marcie and Peppermint Patty?)

I'd guess Violet.

She was still wearing the dress in the early 70s.

Honestly, I don't mind dresses when they are iconic, and so do a lot of fans. Suske en Wiske got a lot of flak for giving the girl lead character modernized clothes.

That's what you get for having a Limited Wardrobe.

The Go Comics run of Peanuts seems to have entered the Rerun era. Lots of comics with Rerun on the back of a bicycle now. I can't say they're very good.

Along with the Spike-in-Needles strips, I have to say that the Rerun strips were my least favorite (didn't particularly care for the Peppermint Patty and Marcy at-the-concert strips, or Snoopy's Beagle Scouts either).

Quick question: I know there's a strip (series of strips?) where the punchline is that Charlie Brown's baseball team wins while he's not there to share the glroy. Doesn't anyone know offhand when that happened?

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 4th 2021 at 12:41:23 PM

Yes- April 26,1958. https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1958/04/26

It actually happened a couple of times over the years. is the first instance of it.

It's depressing, but it also implies that Charlie Brown is a horrible team leader. On another note- The Emily Story Arc is creepy, in that Charlie Brown ends up hallucinating a dance partner. Emily shows up several times later on, and snoopy sees her, but it's never explained if she's actually real or not. https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1995/02/11 https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1996/04/12

I think the joke is rather that Charlie's team is awful at baseball, but only when he is around. When he isn't, they miraculously start playing much better.

Yeah, it's just the universe hating on Charlie Brown, not really an indictment of his abilities. Remember that they did win a game once, with Charlie Brown present, only to have the victory taken away because Rerun and Snoopy had bet on the game.

There's also the one time in the 90's Schulz threw him a bone and let him hit a game winning home run.

I kinda liked the Royanne Hobbs storyline.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 6th 2021 at 1:28:48 AM

Fixed above link.

Charlie Brown certainly has his faults and limitations, but it's also been demonstrated multiple times that most of his team is pretty hopeless as well.

And not just hopeless in playing, but also in actually listening to their manager or taking the game seriously. Lucy is especially bad at this.

Some "lost" Schulz strips have recently come to light: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/05/31/charles-schulz-hagemeyer/

I hadn't heard of them before, but the "Hagemeyer" strips were apparently known but only four had previously been seen publicly.

This was apparently a set of seven strips Schulz did in the 1950s as a trial for a new comic strip. Hagemeyer is a man who works for a female boss named Hamhock, and they bicker constantly.

That's it. It's pretty much the "bickering couple" format ala The Lockhorns and many others. The only real twist is that's she's his boss, not his wife.