Peanuts

''Peanuts'' is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. ''Peanuts'' is among the most popular and influential in the history of comic strips, with 17,897 strips published in all, making it "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being". At the time of Schulz's death in 2000, ''Peanuts'' ran in over 2,600 newspapers, with a readership of around 355 million in 75 countries, and was translated into 21 languages. It helped to cement the four-panel gag strip as the standard in the United States, and together with its merchandise earned Schulz more than $1 billion.

''Peanuts'' focuses entirely on a social circle of young children, where adults exist but are never seen and rarely heard. The main character, Charlie Brown, is meek, nervous, and lacks self-confidence. He is unable to fly a kite, win a baseball game, or kick a football held by his irascible friend Lucy, who always pulls it away at the last instant. ''Peanuts'' is a literate strip with philosophical, psychological, and sociological overtones, which was innovative in the 1950s. Its humor is psychologically complex and driven by the characters' interactions and relationships.

''Peanuts'' achieved considerable success with its television specials, several of which, including ''A Charlie Brown Christmas'' and ''It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'', won or were nominated for Emmy Awards. The ''Peanuts'' holiday specials remain popular and had been broadcast on network television for over 50 years before moving to the Apple TV+ streaming service in 2020. In addition, the specials occasionally reran on PBS and PBS Kids from 2020 to 2021, as PBS and Apple TV+ could not renew the agreement for 2022. ''Peanuts'' also had successful adaptations in theatre, with the stage musical '' You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'' an oft-performed production. In 2013, ''TV Guide'' ranked the ''Peanuts'' television specials the fourth-greatest TV cartoon of all time. A computer-animated feature film based on the comic produced by Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox (both now subsidiaries of Disney) was released in 2015.

Title

''Peanuts'' had its origin in '' Li'l Folks'', a weekly panel cartoon that appeared in Schulz's hometown newspaper, the ''St. Paul Pioneer Press'', from 1947 to 1950. Elementary details of the cartoon shared similarities to ''Peanuts''. The name "Charlie Brown" was first used there. The series also had a dog that looked much like the early 1950s version of Snoopy.

Schulz submitted his ''Li'l Folks'' cartoons to United Features Syndicate (UFS), who responded with interest. He visited the syndicate in New York City and presented a package of new comic strips he had worked on, rather than the panel cartoons he submitted. UFS found they preferred the comic strip. When UFS was preparing to syndicate the comic strip as ''Li'l Folk'', that is ''Li'l Folks'' without an 's', Tack Knight who authored the retired 1930s comic strip ''Little Folks'' sought to claim exclusive rights to the title being used. Schulz argued in a letter to Knight that the contraction of ''Little'' to ''Li'l'' was intended to avoid this conflict, but conceded that the final decision would be for the syndicate. A different name for the comic strip became necessary after legal advice confirmed that ''Little Folks'' was a registered trademark. Meanwhile, the production manager of UFS noted the popularity of the children's program ''Howdy Doody''. The show featured an audience of children who were seated in the "Peanut Gallery", and were referred to as "Peanuts". This inspired the decided title that was forced upon Schulz, to his consternation.

Schulz hated the title ''Peanuts'', which remained a source of irritation to him throughout his life. He accused the production manager at UFS of not having even seen the comic strip before giving it a title, and said that the title would only make sense if there was a character named "Peanuts". On the day it was syndicated, Schulz's friend visited a news stand in uptown Minneapolis and asked if there were any newspapers that carried ''Peanuts'', to which the newsdealer replied, "No, and we don't have any with popcorn either", which confirmed Schulz's fears concerning the title. Whenever Schulz was asked what he did for a living, he would evade mentioning the title and say "I draw that comic strip with Snoopy in it, Charlie Brown and his dog". In 1997 Schulz said that he had discussed changing the title to ''Charlie Brown'' on multiple occasions in the past, but found that it would ultimately cause problems with licensees who already incorporated the existing title into their products, with unnecessary expenses involved for all downstream licensees to change it.

History

1950s

The strip began as a daily strip on October 2, 1950, in seven newspapers: the '' Minneapolis Star'', a hometown newspaper of Schulz (page 37, along with a short article); ''The Washington Post''; ''Chicago Tribune''; ''The Denver Post''; ''The Seattle Times''; and two newspapers in Pennsylvania, ''Evening Chronicle'' (Allentown) and ''Globe-Times'' (Bethlehem). The first strip was four panels long and showed Charlie Brown walking by two other young children, Shermy and Patty. Shermy lauds Charlie Brown as he walks by, but then tells Patty how he hates him in the final panel. Snoopy was also an early character in the strip, first appearing in the third strip, which ran on October 4. Its first Sunday strip appeared January 6, 1952, in the half-page format, which was the only complete format for the entire life of the Sunday strip. Most of the other characters that eventually became regulars of the strip did not appear until later: Violet (February 1951), Schroeder (May 1951), Lucy (March 1952), Linus (September 1952), Pig-Pen (July 1954), Sally (August 1959), Frieda (March 1961), "Peppermint" Patty (August 1966), Franklin (July 1968), Woodstock (introduced March 1966, officially named June 1970), Marcie (July 1971), and Rerun (March 1973).

Schulz decided to produce all aspects of the strip himself from the script to the finished art and lettering. Schulz did, however, hire help to produce the comic book adaptations of ''Peanuts''. Thus, the strip was able to be presented with a unified tone, and Schulz was able to employ a minimalistic style. Backgrounds were generally not used, and when they were, Schulz's frazzled lines imbued them with a fraught, psychological appearance. This style has been described by art critic John Carlin as forcing "its readers to focus on subtle nuances rather than broad actions or sharp transitions."''Masters of American Comics'' John Carlin Yale University Press 2005 Schulz held this belief all his life, reaffirming in 1994 the importance of crafting the strip himself: "This is not a crazy business about slinging ink. This is a deadly serious business."

While the strip in its early years resembles its later form, there are significant differences. The art was cleaner, sleeker, and simpler, with thicker lines and short, squat characters. For example, in these early strips, Charlie Brown's famous round head is closer to the shape of an American football or rugby football. Most of the kids were initially fairly round-headed. As another example, all the characters (except Charlie Brown) had their mouths longer and had smaller eyes when they looked sideways.

1960s

The 1960s is generally considered to be the "golden age" for ''Peanuts''. During this period, some of the strip's best-known themes and characters appeared, including Peppermint Patty, Snoopy as the "World War One Flying Ace", Frieda and her "naturally curly hair", and Franklin. ''Peanuts'' is remarkable for its deft social commentary, especially compared with other strips appearing in the 1950s and early 1960s. Schulz did not explicitly address racial and gender equality issues so much as assume them to be self-evident. Peppermint Patty's athletic skill and self-confidence are simply taken for granted, for example, as is Franklin's presence in a racially integrated school and neighborhood. (Franklin's creation occurred at least in part as a result of Schulz's 1968 correspondence with a socially progressive fan.Evon, Dan (December 24, 2015)
"You're a Racist, Charlie Brown?: A closer look at allegations of racism in the comic strip 'Peanuts'"
Snopes.com.) The fact that Charlie Brown's baseball team had three girls on it was also at least ten years ahead of its time. The 1966 prime time television special ''Charlie Brown's All Stars!'' dealt with Charlie Brown refusing sponsorship of his team on the condition he fire the girls and Snoopy, because the league does not allow girls or dogs to play.

Schulz threw satirical barbs at any number of topics when he chose. His child and animal characters satirized the adult world. Over the years he tackled everything from the Vietnam War to school dress codes to " New Math". One strip on May 20, 1962, even had an icon that stated "Defend Freedom, Buy US Savings Bonds." In 1963 he added a little boy named "5" to the cast, whose sisters were named "3" and "4," and whose father had changed their family name to their ZIP Code, giving in to the way numbers were taking over people's identities. Also in 1963, one strip showed Sally being secretive about school prayer, in reference to the Supreme Court decisions on it that year. In 1958, a strip in which Snoopy tossed Linus into the air and boasted that he was the first dog ever to launch a human parodied the hype associated with Sputnik 2's launch of Laika the dog into space earlier that year. Another sequence lampooned Little League