Welcome to Unpacking Peanuts. The podcast for three cartoonists, take an in-depth look at the greatest comic strip of all time, Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. It's Unpacking Peanuts. We are in 1989, just soaking up the Charles Schulz goodness. I'm your host for the proceedings. My name is Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. I did Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up, and The Dumbest Idea Ever. And you can read my new comic, Tanner Rocks, over on substack at gvillcomics.substack.com. Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts, and fellow cartoonists.
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 Prize Guide, the original editor of Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells, and Tangled River, it's Michael Cohen.
Say hey.
He's executive producer and writer for Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president for Archie Comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation, Swedish Beasts, it's Harold Buchholz.
Hello.
Guys, not only did I never written any of the intros down, which is why they're so dynamic, but now we're going to have a problem. I'm going to have to change it up because we have to add something to Michael Cohen's.
Well, you can certainly cut a few things.
Well, not cutting, we're going to add that you have an announcement to make about your own work and that this is as good a place as any to do it.
Well, okay. Jimmy's mentioned Strange Attractors, which is a strip Mark Sherman and I did back in the early 90s, self-published. So, 30 years later, fast forward 30 years into the future, it's been nagging me because I've been trying to finish stuff. That's sort of my ongoing project is trying to finish everything. And here we have this 400 page unfinished comic. So, I took to Mark and we decided, let's see if we can wrap this thing up. And we're working on it now.
It's not going to be actual comics, but it'll be a collection when we're done on my web comic page. But we won't be publishing issues, but I did finish the next issue.
Wow.
That's great.
Now, how did that feel after all that time to go back to it?
I was a little worried because back in the day, I was actually drawing on paper with a pen and brush. Now, it's been 20 and more years since I've been just working digitally. I wasn't sure if I could capture the lines, the look, and also I hadn't drawn the characters in 30 years. Yeah, I'm fairly happy with it.
That's great.
Yeah. At some point, I'll be putting up the new issues probably on Substack. Yeah. Then when we're finally done, which might be a year or so, I'll redo the omnibus so it has the entire story.
That's fantastic. It is. That's an inspiration to me because I did a comic book back in the 90s called Apathy Cat.
Yeah, you got to finish it.
Four issues and I tried to finish it. I tried to find a way to close it out. It's hard to come back to something that you engaged with so far back to a different person at some point.
There were different people but also neither Mark or I had any memory of what was going to happen next.
Yeah. In my book, I never knew what was going to happen next and I was going to have to figure it out and so now, yeah, it's even harder when you're re-engaging with it.
Yeah. It's easier with a collaborator because you have two people. It's easier to generate ideas.
Well that's fantastic that both of you are willing and able to do that. That doesn't happen a lot to have a reboot of something or seeing something through that's like 40 years in the making or whatever.
Well, the one case I could think of is similar circumstances. Alan Moore and David Lloyd were serializing V for Vendetta for the UK comics, and it eventually got published in the US. But they'd only finished two-thirds of it. And I don't know, so maybe 10 years passed or more when they decided they were going to go back and finish it. And yeah, they did it. I mean, it looked great. They made a movie out of it. The art definitely looked different.
You might hold a record for, you know, for the series coming back and finishing it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, the thing that I think of is smile. You know, not the comic book smile, but the Beach Boys Brian Wilson album.
Yeah, except I didn't totally go crazy and burn up. Burn all my pages.
Depends on who you ask.
Well, we'll ask Liz about that.
But if you want to catch up on the 500 pages that have been published, I put the link on the bio page of Unpacking Peanuts.
Fantastic.
Oh, that's, I have just before we close this out, let me just say my own personal thing. I love, there's lots of meta themes that go through Strange Attractors, which I love, that's just my jam. And my favorite element of the whole thing was Nurse Nebula.
Yes.
And then the very last issue you guys did ends on a cliffhanger with Nurse Nebula. The first time, I believe, we actually see her for real in the book. Am I thinking, remember this correctly?
Yeah.
And then 30 years later, you don't do that. Well, she comes back in.
Yeah. Basically, in this world of Strange Attractors, the comic books the characters love are actually coded messages. And so they're the comic book characters, but they're actually real characters who are different than the comic book characters. It's very confusing.
Kind of stuff. I love that.
The only thing you can't do, Michael, is pull a Dallas, who shot JR and wake up in Chicago.
No. We have an ending, amazingly enough.
Well, that is fantastic. Well, I'm very, very glad to be able to announce this because I'm excited. And I think everyone out there who's into this podcast or science fiction or comics in general, got to get on it, get on the Strange Attractors bandwagon.
Well, thank you.
All right. So back in Peanuts land, Harold, do you have anything for this episode or no? Are we just going to go right to the strips?
No, let's go right to the strips.
Boom, we're doing it. July 15th, Snoopy is atop his dog house and he's making a really sad and pathetic face. And he thinks to himself, sometimes if you purposely look sad, they'll bring you an extra big supper. In the next panel, Charlie Brown comes out with this upper dish and says, Hi, I noticed you appeared a bit peeked. This somehow sends Snoopy popping up in the air of shock.
And Charlie Brown leaves saying, I figured you probably weren't feeling so good, so I didn't give you as much to eat. To which Snoopy responds, and sometimes you do something that is so stupid, it staggers the imagination.
Wow, I love that drawing of Snoopy, the little forlorn.
That should be a toy.
Forlorn Snoopy.
Eeyore.
He presses paw and he whimpers.
Oh gosh, the saddest day ever.
I have a sense that would actually Pitch of the week. That would actually probably sell super well. That's our latest offering to our friends at Peanuts Worldwide.
The sad Snoopy.
Oh my goodness.
Depression doll.
That drawing, talking about how he'll draw these iconic poses. Look at his ear on our left here and how it arcs out in this really strange way from where the shape of his head, little peanut head goes. Again, it's one of those things where maybe anatomically, that's not the most obvious place to go, but for the sake of the drawing, it looks perfect.
And it's amazing, he has drawn thousands of pictures of Snoopy, and we've never seen that drawing of Snoopy.
Right.
Even have back legs.
He tucks them in. That is so strange. Or maybe he drops them off the back. What do you think he's doing?
I don't know. That's really weird, but very, very cute. That would drive me nuts if I was drawing that and I realized I had no place to put the back legs.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know about that.
Yeah. Once again, like we said before, you know, if it feels right, don't second-guess yourself. It's probably right as a cartoon.
Feels right is right. It's probably true. July 21st. Sally's on the phone. Charlie Brown sitting in his chair reading a book and Sally says to him, it's that same girl on the phone again. She says she's an old friend of yours. Sally continues. She insists on coming over to see you. She says she hasn't seen you for a long time. And then the last panel, Sally says to Charlie Brown, I warned her that she'll probably be disappointed.
That's nice. I like, it's like a good insult.
Looking out for your big brother.
It is a very strange sequence of strips where a girl who claims to have been friends with Charlie Brown at camp wants to meet up with him. And it brings us back to another trip to the mall, which is exciting. But she mistakes Charlie Brown for Snoopy. That's the bit. She thinks Snoopy is Charlie Brown and somehow his memories and affection and everything for Snoopy, but thinks it's Charlie Brown.
But she, so she thinks Snoopy is a kid.
Yes, yes.
Like Pepper and Pea.
Snoopy has that way. Do you think he was actually at the camp and was using Charlie Brown's identity, his identity theft or is he just going crazy here?
I think no clothes might have been a warning.
July 24th, Sally's on the phone again and she says, okay, I'll tell him. It was that girl again. She wants you to meet her over at the mall. Charlie Brown says, who's sitting there eating some Snickers snacks, I guess, do you think I should? Sally says, I don't know. Maybe it's a trick. Maybe you should take your dog along. To which Snoopy replies, and if you want, I'll bring my sword cane. He does have a sword cane.
We pick all the sword cane jokes, I think.
I think a sword cane needs to make a comeback.
Here's another Peanuts Worldwide. Can you imagine a Snoopy sword cane?
I thought it was rerun.
Oh my gosh.
It would be amazing.
I don't know. You can't ship that across state lines.
What do you guys think of this sequence in general?
Well, let's finish it up. Let's go back to the one before. This is the punch line.
July 28th, so this girl who does not have a name as far as we know has arrived at the mall and she's picked up Snoopy thinking he's Charlie Brown, apparently. And she says, Charlie Brown, oh, it's so good to see you. Then she gives Snoopy a big hug, saying, I thought about you so often as Charlie Brown looks on confused. And then he says to her, are you sure there hasn't been some mistake? And then the girl, as she's hugging Snoopy, says, who are you?
It's kind of funny. So, she's the girl with the zipperton hair.
There's this little zipperton haired girl.
Wasn't that a popular song in the 60s? The girl with the zipperton hair.
Yeah, well, something's going to her head because she thinks this dog is a person. She thinks his name is Charlie Brown.
Well, no, that's not necessarily established.
What do you mean?
That she thinks it's a human.
Oh, maybe she just wanted to see the dog, Charlie Brown.
Yeah.
Well, that's true.
But she called him on the phone.
And invited him to the mall.
Yeah, but this is Snoopy.
That's true.
You call Snoopy on the phone, it seems.
So do you think that there is a backstory where Snoopy snuck away and gave Charlie Brown as an alias or something?
I do now because in the previous strip on the 27th, they're waiting on this bench for her to show up and she cries out off panel, Charlie Brown and they both turn and Snoopy's ears go straight up and Snoopy goes, Oh no. Right.
He recognizes her.
I didn't notice that the first time around, but you mentioned it off Mike, Jimmy, and I was like, Oh, so Snoopy has been up to identity then.
That's what it seems like, right?
Yeah. That sounds like Snoopy. He can never remember his name unless he's. So we now know Snoopy's game.
Yeah. We figured it out. We got eyes on you Snoopy. I think that's a whole graphic novel we could put in there of Snoopy stealing Charlie Brown's identity.
Yeah. That's food for thought.
Oh, my God. That's why he can pay for all that stuff in his doghouse.
That's why he doesn't want to remember his master's name because he's assumed the identity.
That's right. Oh, wow. There's a whole dark.
Charlie Brown does not exist.
August 26th, Charlie Brown's atop the mound and he's yelling out to right field. Lucy, do you think if you paid attention to the game, you might catch the ball just once in your life? And Lucy yells from right field.
Sure.
Criticize me in front of everyone. Shout out to the whole world. And then in the last panel, Charlie Brown has arrived in right field and is whispering to Lucy, Psst, you're the worst player I've ever seen.
She has really lost her edge. In the olden days, she would just slug him.
That is probably panel four. This is only three panel. The panel four, we didn't get to see, but Michael knows exactly what's going to happen. He's probably right.
Yeah, I think you're probably that is what's going to happen there in panel four. It's a good joke from Charlie Brown. I really think it's funny. I like the drawing of him whispering to her. Also a little hard to draw with those hats and those giant heads, trying to do all that and get it in that close of an area. Yeah, that's pretty.
Yeah, he has to lean pretty far.
Yeah, and I've definitely come down on the side that Lucy is wearing corduroy pants, not striped pants.
Okay.
That's canon, baby.
That makes sense. I like her little lean in to the whisper too.
I do too.
And that she seems kind of surprised given that's exactly what he was saying before.
I just think she's shocked that he went through all that trouble, came all the way out to right heel. August 27th, more baseball. Start off with one of them there, symbolic panels, and it's a mitt, a baseball mitt with a paw print on it, like a signature model of a baseball glove. And Linus in the next panel comes out to Charlie Brown in the mound and says, I've been thinking, sometimes I wonder if this is our field of dreams. And Charlie Brown says, our what?
And then Linus continues, Remember the man who built the baseball field on his farm? So Shoeless Joe would come back. That could happen here, Charlie Brown. Maybe if we have enough faith, Shoeless Joe will come here. Then Linus stands up on the bench and yells, look, it's him. It's him. He's come back. And in the last one, it is, in fact, just Snoopy. And it's Shoeless Joe Beagle, to which Charlie Brown sighs.
Yeah, did you guys see the movie Field of Dreams? That this is referring to?
Yeah, this is a 1989 movie, right? Wow. So it made that big an impact at the time that-
Oh, it was huge.
Yeah.
I hated it.
You hated Field of Dreams?
I didn't care much for it either. I thought it was- Oh, my pals.
That's amazing.
No. But I did come out of the theater and I went over to, I think there was like a McDonald's or something, like on the edge of the mall. This guy had walked out of the theater with me and he was so moved by it, he had to sit and talk about it.
Really?
Oh, God.
Yeah. He was talking about his relationship with his father and all this stuff. Obviously, it touched a lot of people.
No, it did. That's why I hated it.
Yeah. I think people of middle-aged people in 1989, it probably hit especially because it was a time to have those feelings.
You baseball fans, so who is Shoeless Joe and what is the backstory on this?
I don't know the backstory. It's Shoeless Joe Jackson, which everybody knew, but I don't know why he was shoeless. Was he actually shoeless? Maybe he was clueless.
Wasn't he so poor that he came to the tryouts with and didn't have shoes on?
Well, I think that's the myth. And then the shoeless thing became a 20th century meme because there's even a shoeless Joe in Damn Yankees, the music, which is unrelated.
Who came along in a puff of smoke.
Yeah, right.
And wasn't it all part of, there was a scandal about fixing a game and these guys were accused?
Yeah, it was a world series and it was the early 20th century, like the 1918, 1919, something like that.
1919, yeah.
Okay, so yeah, they threw the world series basically, or they attempted to throw the world series.
Which is probably what led to that commissioner that they were talking about years ago, Charlie Brown.
Oh, that's right, that's right.
The commissioner was trying to get rid of vice that into baseball.
We're going to get mail.
Anyway, that's an obscurity.
I called up the Wikipedia page here though. You're right, it is the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series. Yep. And he was banned from baseball after the 1920s season.
But he was walking around in someone's field all those years later.
And Babe Ruth apparently modeled his hitting method after Jackson's. There you go. Well, it says it on Wikipedia. It's got to be true. What?
Hitting hard?
Yeah, I guess that's it. You know what?
Swing for the fences.
That sounds like it's my new.
That's my new philosophy.
Yeah, I had a different philosophy. I struck out. That was it. It wasn't as good a philosophy. September 11th, we see Snoopy and Woodstock in a canoe on top of a gigantic birdbath. And on the one side, the birdbath seems to be a waterfall just pouring off it. And Snoopy thinks to himself, or thinks to Woodstock, I guess, I hear a strange roaring in the distance. We'd better paddle like mad.
I think we need our physicist to comment on this. Give him a call. The water ain't going to do that.
Yeah. I mean, I think I would have tilted this giant birdbath a little bit so that there'd be some explanation. I guess there's probably a fountain underneath that's gone awry. I don't know. It's strange.
I feel like it was Friday afternoon, and he's like, there we go. Done for the week. One, two, three, four, five, six. Oh, no.
Yeah, that could be one of the fastest strips minus having to cut the Zip-A-Tone for the birdbath.
Whatever I see. Yeah, I mean, one panel. Snoopy and Woodstock. A gigantic, out-of-scale birdbath. I think of when I worked in TV news, the assistant news director, when there would be some emergency and we'd have to get something on the air immediately and it would happen and we'd get it on there. And he would say, it's better than good. It's done.
Yeah, that was a motto I had for myself in the early 90s when I was struggling with procrastination.
Exactly. That's a motto every cartoonist out there should remember.
It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be done. And if you're a daily cartoonist, you kind of have to remember.
September 27th, switching gears to another sport here, Charlie Brown and Franklin are out kicking the old football around. And Charlie Brown says to Franklin, My grandpa and grandma have been married for 50 years. And Franklin answers, they're lucky, aren't they? To which Charlie Brown responds, Grandpa says it isn't luck, it's skill.
Damn, grandpa's smart.
Wouldn't they have more fun if they were using a European football rather than an American football? They could like dribble it and...
Oh, in the 80s though, unless you were trying to act like the karate kid, or live in some fancy suburb, you weren't playing soccer.
Now, I've got to ask you, Jimmy, what kind of pants are Franklin wearing?
I think those are also Torterized. I think that's what he's going with.
That second panel, it looks like he's wearing dark socks underneath, and it looks to me like the baseball pants where you tucked them in.
Yeah, I could see that. That's like pinstripe baseball pants.
Yeah. Did he ever make the team?
What team? Franklin?
The baseball team.
No, because he's in Peppermint Patty's neighborhood. So he's in Peppermint Patty's team. They should trade for him, though, because I think Charlie Brown would have a sane person to talk to now and again.
Lucy could make that move.
Yeah. See, and how he could do it is he would be able to trick Peppermint Patty and to do it and say, oh, you're so great. You're so you know, then you could make Lucy a successful player or your team will win with her.
Go ahead.
Come on. Let's see how good you are. Go to her into it.
All right.
With that being said, how about we take a break and we're going to get some of our technical issues under control here. I've been having all kinds of problems today that you guys don't know about. While I'm doing that, you guys just listen to this fabulous little commercial break and meet us on the other side.
Hi, everyone. You've heard us rave about the Estabrook Radio 914, and one episode would be complete without mention of the Fab Four. Now you can wear our obsessions proudly with Unpacking Peanuts t-shirts. We have a BF Good Cheer pen nib design, along with the four of us crossing Abbey Road, and of course, Michael, Jimmy, and Harold at the Thinkin Wall. Collect them all, trade them with your friends, order your t-shirts today at unpackingpeanuts.com/store.
And we're back.
Hey, Liz, I'm hanging out in the mailbox. Do we got anything?
We do. We got one from Paul Castiglia. And he writes, Hey guys, you might recognize my name from being Harold's twin brother from another mother. Regarding the April 25th, 1989 strip, your three-way discourse on whether to emphasize overlooking or them or NAC for two-plus minutes could only make me think of Orson Welles arguing with the producers of a frozen peas commercial voiceover about their direction to emphasize in July.
Oh, maybe we can play a little clip of that so people know what we're talking about. It's one of the most hilarious outtake things where people recorded and then surreptitiously entered into the world of the underground pre-internet because he was being such a jerk to these people trying to do food ads that he was the narrator of. It's so funny. There's no possible way you can emphasize the word in in July. And I'm like, we just did.
Well, you know, that is not what I could say what I aspired to achieving.
Man, that is hilarious.
In any way I'd like to be compared to Orson Welles.
When I listened to the YouTube clip, I thought he was absolutely right. Frozen peas people didn't know what they were talking about.
Oh my goodness. Well, having been a producer, I feel very badly for those people who tried to deal with Orson.
Now, do you guys know, as far as pre-internet famous audio that got passed around, do you guys know the Buddy Rich tapes, the drummer?
Oh, yeah, a little bit.
Oh my gosh. Or he would just come after a show, he'd go on the bus, and he'd just berate the band for like 20 minutes. And eventually they just became numb to it. And one guy recorded a bunch of them and they got passed around for years. And sometimes when George Costanza would freak out on Seinfeld, like what I'm thinking of specifically is where he's yelling in the theater that he'll take people outside and show them what it's like. It's actually just lines from those Buddy Rich tapes.
Oh, that's amazing. Well, I know Animaniacs pretty much almost word for word did the Orson Welles thing, which I thought was amazing with the Pinky and the Brain. And the other famous one from the past is Casey Kasem when he's getting upset with his staff for...
The long distance.
Yeah, the long distance dedications where they would start from some super peppy song and then all of a sudden someone's dog has died.
Yes.
You guys just keep giving me these terrible transitions when I'm going...
I don't think he used the word terrible, Harold. But it's probably not a word that you would care to use.
That is true.
Is that the one word he keeps saying it's ponderous? Or who's the... I don't know. We're going off track on just famous outtakes from Lunatics. Thanks, Paul.
Oh, and he adds, for the record, the word to emphasize there is them, proving once again the symbiotic connection between Harold and me.
All right.
Well, the next time we're doing this, we're not recording it. We're just, we're doing it live.
We're doing it live.
That's Bill O'Reilly, right?
I think the emphasis should be doing it live.
That's it for the mail. Do you have anything from the hotline?
I got a text from Super Listener Shaley who says, Hello everyone. It's been forever since I sent a little message to you. Life got busy and all, but I'm catching up to the episodes. I've been meaning to ask, whenever this podcast comes to an end, would you ever do a deep dive into other comic strips? Whatever new podcast you end up doing, know this gal is going to check it out. Anyways, I hope you're well. Sorry for worrying you, Jimmy, and be of good cheer at your friendly name, Shaylee.
Well, I was worried, Shaylee, but I forgive you. Well, I think after we finished doing up to 2000, we still have a number of Peanuts things we need to do. We got to do our weirdest episode. We got to do maybe like a true best of, like a survivor style. I think we're going to be doing Peanuts for a while. I don't know that there would be any other comic strip. I mean, we've talked about this before. I mean, what in general would you guys have?
Do you guys have any passion for anything else that would equal this? I guess I know that answer is no, but.
Well, in terms of the entire strip, I would really like to go back and reread Bloom County.
Yeah.
That would be my pick.
Yeah, I don't have one. Growing up, Little Orphan Annie is one of those strips that people just don't know what it was, but it was a remarkable strip. But yeah, at this point, no. I wouldn't want to revisit it and live it every week. Peanuts is very unique.
Yeah. It's the only one that I would want to read every single one. It's cool. Things like Bloom County and Calvin Hobbs. The upside with that is they're only 10 years. Getting into Little Orphan Annie or Doonesbury or whatever else, that would be another years-long commitment that I don't think anyone's up for. Yeah. Now, Schulz is the man. That's as far as I'm concerned. But we could do a special sometime on Bloom County or something.
I'm sure we could do at least an episode or two on some of these other strips because there's enough interest there, I think, between the three of us that we could find something cool. That's it.
That's it for this week.
All right. If you guys want to get in touch with us, you can write to us. We're unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com. And you can also just follow along with us on the old social medias. You could shoot us a message. We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads, and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube. And we love to hear from you. Because remember, when I don't hear, I worry. Hey, do you know why I say that, by the way?
A long time ago, I was on, or not long, but right before I started seeing it on the show, I just posted that on Twitter. I said, hey, I haven't heard from you in a while. Are you okay? When I don't hear, I worry, just like as a goof. Two people sent me private messages saying that, actually, they weren't okay and they wanted to talk to me. I ended up talking to two people through Twitter for an afternoon.
I thought, wow, all right.
There you go.
There's some power to it.
I guess so. Let us know if you want to talk about anything. We're here. All right. But before we get back to the strips, Episode 3, let's check in with the good old Anger and Happiness Index.
Sure. So to get everybody back up to speed, the Anger and Happiness Index is me looking through all of the strips from the year and counting the strips where I can see that there is a character who is showing either anger or happiness, at least one in each strip. Then I count those up. And every year I try to see if there's any trend line in terms of whether anger or happiness is increasing or decreasing in the strip. We've been doing this since the, what, the mid late fifties for anger.
And then we start a little bit later for the happiness. So 1987, we had 73 strips that show the character showing anger and 126 with the characters showing happiness, which has been pretty consistent for a number of years. Then in 1988, I dropped the amazing bombshell that I'm sure everyone is just on the edge of their seats about because anger stayed pretty much the same, 69, but happiness dropped from 126 to 76. And I'm like, what's going on in Charles Schulz's world? Is this an anomaly?
Is this something that we're going to see more of? So my question to you guys is in 1989, did it feel any different at all?
I'm going to go out in the limb and say the happiness is back up.
Okay. Michael, you have any thoughts?
Since I don't, I'll say it's staying the same.
All right. So anger from 88 to 89 goes from 69 strips to 75. So it's pretty steady once again. And happiness goes from 76 back up to 97. So you are right, Jimmy. But the interesting thing is the first half of the year was pretty much down where it was in 88. And then the second half is kind of bringing it back up to what it was in 87. So I don't know. I don't know. Maybe there was a period that was rough in Schulz's life and he was having a hard time finding happiness in his characters.
It's only a guess. We'll never know this side.
Yeah, it is definitely interesting to see that. And I did notice that just while we were going through these strips, I noticed more smiles. You know, like Lyna smiling about the shoeless Joe Beagle.
Yeah.
Even real subtle things, you know, loosely with the football, of course, and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, and a little hint of My Strip of the Year features both great happiness and great anger. So I'm looking forward to sharing that.
Oh, I'm very excited about My Strip of the Year. I can't wait to give it its flowers again. All right. So I guess that is that. So let's get back to the strips. October 1st, it's a Sunday. Lucy is out in the field with the football, and who says Charlie Brown? Charlie Brown says, I don't believe it. But believe it, Charlie Brown, it's football time. The strip starts up on the next tier as Lucy says, come on, Charlie Brown, I'll hold the ball and you kick it.
Charlie Brown says, ha, you say you'll hold it, but you'll pull it away and I'll kill myself. And Lucy says, but think how the years go by, Charlie Brown, think of the regrets you'll have if you never risk anything. Charlie Brown thinks this over, then walks away saying, maybe she's right. Before you know it, you're old and you haven't really done anything.
So now Charlie Brown's tearing off to try to kick the football and he says to himself, this year I'm going to kick that football all the way to the North Pole. But unfortunately, Lucy pulls it away, and he lands, wham, in the last panel, he says to himself. On the other hand, maybe it's better to just let the year go by.
I'm not a big fan of these. I know it's the iconic setup for Peanuts and it's immortal. I sort of wonder if he did this once, do you think it would be remembered?
No, I think it's remembered entirely because it's repeated.
Yeah. I think the inevitability of the end of these strips just kind of gets me down. I'm not a big fan of it because of what it represents. But Charlie Brown is just going to constantly be taken by Lucy and it will never end.
Interesting. I don't know that I have much of a feeling one way or the other. I really enjoyed reading them all in a row a lot of time when we did it for the football season episode.
Yeah, his cleverness and keeping it going and keeping it is pretty impressive.
Yeah. I mean, anything that I do that I feel that I have to do again and again, I end up breaking and deciding not to do because I don't want it, which is a ridiculous, stupid idea from the point of view of a commercial cartoonist who's trying to make a hit. But for me, as a person who just has to do the work, the thing that everybody liked and one thing everybody liked that read it anyway in the Amelia books early on was Reggie doing his long definition.
Yeah.
And I could do those two a day for the rest of my life, but I just had to get out.
You came to resent them deeply.
Well, not that, but it's like, well, so we got to do it again and again. Like it just feels hard. And to think that he did it for 50 years almost, or however many of these he ended up doing, it's kind of crazy.
Isn't it funny that the things often that we just are so adept at that other people are in awe? How can you do that? That we often kind of hold it in contempt?
Contempt, yeah.
How easy it is to us.
Yeah.
You're right. And for a professional cartoonist to find something that you can dash off and people are like, oh, that's wonderful. That is a real gift to have. And it's, yeah, we have to kind of deal with our own issues. But that's so true with people. They show little respect for the thing that comes to them. Naturally. Naturally compared to other people. And sometimes, yeah, we don't want to lean into it for maybe because we like a challenge. Yeah, maybe.
But I don't think that's the reason. I think it's something. I mean, maybe for some people it is. But I think it's something else. It is like, oh, well, that can't be any good because it didn't.
Yeah, well, yeah, that's, that's, I've heard, yeah. Diane and I, my wife, you know, there's things that she's just a genius at and she's like, yeah, well, everybody can do that, you know? No, they can't. That's just you. That's just you. This is special, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know why that's just a human trait. We should, we should be kinder to ourselves.
Yeah. Listen to others and share with them what your talents are. Exactly.
October 20th, Linus and Snoopy are out for a walk. Linus wearing a jaunty hat and Snoopy wearing his Pharrell lawyer hat. And Linus says, is it true that you've been practicing law with a dog license? And this sends the Snoopy's lawyer hat flying into the air. And in the last panel, he picks it up off the ground thinking, it's impolite to ask an attorney something that makes his hat fly off.
I love that he's playing into that old comics trope where somebody says something crazy and at the end the character's hat flies off. I love that it's the second panel of the three that the hat flies off, and then Snoopy comments on it.
Well, I think I want to get, just pull the curtain back aside here, and I think this is a perfect time to revisit Harold's quest for an approachable hat.
Yeah.
Explain why Harold needs an approachable hat.
Harold, why don't you explain why you need an approachable hat?
All right. I've been going out on the streets, selling at street fairs, and I've also going to comic book conventions pretty much every weekend of the year. On the weekdays, I record Unpacking Peanuts and create new books. On the weekends, I go out and sell my wares. I'm trying to make a go of it, trying to make as much as I can when I go out financially, so that I can continue to support that kind of a lifestyle.
I'm always looking for the advantage, the extra little thing that might help me sell another book a day. Up came the concept of, well, what if I wore an approachable hat? To which everyone's like, you're insane.
Well, we need people to get in here with their concepts, or what would be an approachable hat for Harold. Now, I really do think the Bob Dylan newsboy hat, not the classic newsboy hat like I wear, but the Bob Dylan early 60s one, I think that could work on you.
Yeah, really?
Yes. Now, my other choice is, I would be willing to give up my classic newsboy cap look, because I'm looking for an unapproachable hat. I think I'm going to go with a yachting cap.
Yeah, and an ascot.
Yeah. I don't need to get crazy with it. I think just a guy walking down the street in jeans, a t-shirt and a yachting cap, people will stay away from.
Yeah, I think the Propeller Beanies are ready for it.
Well, that could be, we all have to have our own hat.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yachting hat, newsboy cap, Propeller Beanie.
Yeah, a light up Propeller Beanie. I think that's a good indicator.
I'm putting in for the Dylan hat. Everybody else out there, weigh in. What is the hat that would make Harold an approachable person on the streets of New York?
What would you call Linus' hat in this strip?
I think that's a newsboy cap or a flat cap. That to me looks like the kind I wear.
Okay. So, you're a Linus when it comes to hats, huh?
Got it. It's the only one that looks good on my potato-shaped hat.
Well, except for Michael Stipe's hat.
Well, that's it. October 26th, Snoopy is atop the doghouse, and Charlie Brown comes out to talk to him and says, What would you say if I told you I was going to devote the rest of my life to making you happy? Charlie Brown continues, we'll go for long walks in the woods and romp around in the yard. Now, the third panel, he has Snoopy off the doghouse, and is sitting him on his lap. Charlie Brown says, You'll sit in my lap and I'll scratch your ears and we'll watch TV and I'll give you cookies.
Snoopy looks completely nonplussed by this. But then in the last panel, he asks, what kind of cookies?
I like this. I really like this little strip. I love that look on Snoopy's face. It's so funny that talking about Michael, you're saying that Snoopy looks more and more like a plush toy here. I can't help but think of Snoopy as a plush toy with a little sad face and the droopy ears. Of course, we keep bringing up Andy, Schulz's most beloved dog that he's owning in this period, and how he has this relationship with Andy, and Andy keeps getting his way into the Snoopy strips.
I think that is one of the best drawings of Snoopy of all time, that panel three. I love it. I love that neutral, but it's not just neutral, it's neutral bordering on concerned.
Yeah, yeah. It's a great drawing.
It's toleration.
Tolerate. And definitely breaking the fourth wall. I mean, that is looking right at us.
Got a load of this guy.
I really feel like we have completely just accepted the Zip-a-Tone. I don't really think about it at all. Michael, do you think about it still?
I have dreams.
You're being chased by dots in a row.
Yeah, no, I don't notice it anymore. Like also, did we notice this was four panels? Nope.
Yeah, and it's not four even panels. He's messing around.
Yeah, I wonder when he would decide to do that because he certainly could have done this as four even panels if he wanted to.
It's a lot of dialogue.
Yeah, it is a lot of dialogue. Yeah, especially panels one, three.
Yeah, so would you get that t-shirt, Jimmy, of panels?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. But listen, if anybody is out there in Japan or is traveling to Japan and you can hook me up with an Olaf shirt of some kind, I would be willing to trade a drawing for an Olaf piece of Olaf merch if you're out there. And that brings us to November 11th. And Linus, Charlie Brown and Pepper and Patty are all hanging out under a tree. And Linus says, today is Veterans Day. Charlie Brown says, I wonder if there will be a lot of parades.
And Pepper and Patty says, I think there should be something special to do on Veterans Day. And then we see Snoopy in his World War I flying ace outfit walking away saying, Here's the World War I flying ace going over to Bill Malden's house to coiff a few root beers. So that's now a Veterans Day tradition for Snoopy to go over and coiff a few root beers at Bill Malden's house.
But do you think Schulz was doing it?
No, I think it was all in his imagination. I don't know where Bill Malden lived. But I know he loved doing it for Malden every year because he really was such a fan of his and appreciated what he did for them as soldiers.
That's really nice that he keeps it up, especially this time of year. I love the occasional tableau where it's all one panel, where all the characters are just kind of living in the same space together. We've said that the one panels don't work sometimes, but this one works for me because you just feel like they're all together. They're all sharing a moment together.
And that's so rare because the other thing I was marvelling at this year as I was going back to the anger happiness thing was how he's able to take three characters, sometimes more, and we know them all so well, they're all approaching the same situation from their perspective. And you can hold them all in your head because you know these characters so well. You got one character who's like angry and other characters happy about something.
The other character is trying to get something out of somebody. And it's so rich because I don't think a lot of other cartoonists have had those moments where you take more than two characters and try to get the audience to experience things through their eyes all at the same time in such a quick succession. And Schulz is really good at it. I mean, there's some famous strips that were often like that. Did you guys ever see a thing called Our Boarding House?
Oh, yes, of course.
With Major Hoople? Yeah. It was like a single panel, but sometimes, or strips like that, where it's all of these characters all together in one space, and there's some character bloviating about something, and then there's a woman knitting, and she's thinking her angle on it. That's the whole fun of it, is that everyone's got their own take on some little snapshot. But as a general rule, it seems like it's kind of rare.
There is something special about it to me, where you get to see through the eyes of multiple characters the same event or the same concept.
Yeah, well, I just love the picture of the three of them under the tree. I think that's really nice. It's just great to see those three characters hanging out in one panel. I do think this is definitely one of the successful one-panelers. I also think it's great that he knows, most people don't know who Bill Malden is, right? That does not bother him at all. But he knows that enough people do that it will matter to those people. And he knows Bill Malden. Let's see it.
Yeah, that's cool.
And if any new listeners don't know who Bill Malden is, it's on the Obscurities page.
Of course it is because the Obscurities page rules. Liz does such a great job on that. It's so unfortunate that we call it the Obscurities page.
Yeah, it's not all obscurities. There's a ton of stuff in there. If you like the podcast, go in and check it out. If you've never been there or you haven't been there for a few months, Liz is always putting stuff on that illustrate different things we talk about. It's really an interesting addition, the supplement to the podcast. I know a lot of you probably have never been there. But if you think of it, next time you're on the Internet, go check it out and there's a ton of stuff to enjoy.
It'll remind you of stuff that we talked about and hopefully bring a smile to your face.
Absolutely. That brings us to November 28th. Linus is walking by a snowman who has a big stove pipe hat on, a top hat, and it appears as if the snowman is whistling to Linus. Linus walks by being a little confused and vexed by this whistling snowman. Then the third panel we see popping out from underneath the top hat, it was Woodstock whistling and I think it's awesome.
I love that strip.
I almost picked this for strip of the year. I just noticed something now.
What's that?
Because it's really, it's cute, it's sweet, it's funny, and we love Woodstock. But there's no way that hat would fit on his head.
So that disqualifies it for the best of the best.
Well, he could be poking his head out. But this is funny because it looks like he's wearing a hat.
I think that's my vote for Approachable Hats.
Oh, there you go. Should I grow the Abe Lincoln beard? Well, I can't grow an Abe Lincoln beard. I'd have to paste it on.
Well, then definitely don't do that. I will say no.
Okay. All right. But that is an adorable drawing of Woodstock. Love that.
Yeah. That's really, really cute. December 23rd is Christmas time now and we see Snoopy as a Salvation Army Santa Claus ringing a bell on a street corner. Sally wisely comes up and says, I don't think you're the real Santa Claus. If you're the real Santa, where are your helpers? Then we see three of the Beagle Scouts go by in little stocking caps, all holding signs that say help, help, help, help. To which Sally says, that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. To which Snoopy says, who cares?
Merry Christmas, sweetie.
Woof, woof, woof.
Says. He says.
Isn't it?
Wow. It's not the little thought balloons he is saying. Who cares? Merry Christmas, sweetie.
Woof, woof, woof.
That's got to be a mistake.
Well, do you think it's because the woof, woof, woof was actually said that Schulz switched it over?
And I don't think he will do this very often because it doesn't work, but I think that's what it is. Sally hears woof, woof, woof, but.
He can't have both, so he just chooses the last thing actually being spoken.
This marks a rare instance where Snoopy is apparently shown speaking out loud, says the Peanuts Wiki.
Interesting. So this doesn't really work for you, Michael. Which part of it in particular is like, hmmm?
Oh, I don't think it's funny. No, I mean, it's just an idea that's kind of an unbaked idea, half-baked idea.
I can see that. Yeah, it's odd. It's fun for me. It's odd, but I agree. It doesn't quite fully land. It doesn't seem fully formed. It doesn't have the room.
Or cut it at the fourth panel entirely and just have the three helpers.
That's, yeah. Yeah, that's possible.
It's Hume.
It could have been Ho Ho Ho.
Right.
Three different suns.
I would like Ho Ho Ho with the three different, each character holding a ho.
Yep. Well, they can't all be winners. But I do like Snoopy with the Santa outfit. That's very cute.
But you can't win if you don't play.
Exactly. That brings us to the end of not just another year, but another decade of bringing us to the last decade of Peanuts coming up for our next seasons, which I can't believe we've made it this far.
Yeah. Congratulations, guys. And thank you for everyone listening who's gotten this far with us.
Yeah, guys. Thank you all for listening every week. It's just so great. Thank you guys, my co-hosts and producers, for actually sticking with this. I mean, it's been a blast. I'm so happy that we get to do this every week. Yeah. So if you characters out there want to keep this conversation going, there's a couple ways you can do that. The first is you can hop on the old internet and email us. We're unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com. You can also follow us on social media.
We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky and YouTube. Remember, if you go over to our website, sign up for the great Peanuts reread. That will get you on our once a month email list. And that's how things roll here. So with all that said, guys, all I need from you is your strip of the year and your MVP. Harold, why don't you go first this time?
Why don't I go second?
Michael, why don't you go first this time?
Why don't you go first? Cause I'm trying to look up my strip.
I will go first this time.
You go. Oh, yay.
My MVP begins and ends with Olaf. Cause Olaf made me laugh harder than anyone. And I'm going to go all the way back to January 26th. Olaf, gonna hurt himself for my strip of the year. And that's as long as I can take to give you guys time.
All right. I'm ready. Well, I'm not too far away from you, Jimmy. I'm on January 30th. I think we might've both selected this strip for the year, but it is Snoopy being miffed while Woodstock is, is thrilled to be doing the Hokey Pokey for the National. I love that little strip. It's so small. It's so simple, but I think it's the most fun I had this year.
Oh man, the drawing of them doing the Hokey Pokey. That'll get me every time.
That's another great t-shirt. Can you imagine hockey outfit with that on there?
Hokey Pokey.
The Hokey Pokey. That one is very special and it's one of those ones you just can't quite put your finger on exactly how it's so perfect, but I love that one. For my Peanut of the Year, I would have to say once again, I have to say Marcy because we see another layer of Marcy once again this year, particularly in the sequence when she wants Peppermint Patty to be Charlie Brown. It's like of all the characters, I think I'm learning more about her than any other existing character.
It's got a fair amount of time in the year.
She's an insanely complex character.
She is and those layers just keep being added and that's unusual. I couldn't think of another character where I was like, oh, that's the side of them I hadn't seen before. Marcy keeps being unfolded and unraveled for us, which I enjoy.
Very cool. All right, Michael, what do you got?
Well, let's go way back to March 29. It's a Marcy Strip. I find it amusing because we know she's not interested in sports. This really shows what somebody who doesn't care, feels about all this sports lingo. So swim with omens.
Yeah, Marcy says, I'm your new catcher, sir. And Peppermint Patty says, you look good, Marcy. She's in the whole outfit there for the catcher. And then Marcy says, are we going to have any omens?
Oh, yes.
Peppermint Patty says, signs, Marcy. Marcy goes, whatever.
Yes, that's right. And I am also in favor of them being called omens. I love that. And how about your MVP?
I also will go with Marcy. There was nobody obvious this year. I mean, other than Olaf, but of course, he's the only appears in like two strips. I'll give it to Marcy.
Dominates.
Yeah, he has a sack over his head in some of it.
So, all right. Well, that was another great year. Another fun episode. Thank you all for listening. And for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer. Yes.
Yes. Be of good cheer. Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen and Harold Buchholz. 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. 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. Oh, no.