Peggy Jean

This is a list of characters from the comic strip ''Peanuts'' by Charles M. Schulz. This list contains limited information on the characters; for more, visit their respective articles.

Main characters

Supporting characters

Other children

Beagle scouts

Snoopy's siblings

"Inanimate" characters

Unseen characters

There have been several characters which have not been shown in the comic strip, such as the Little Red-Haired Girl and the Great Pumpkin.

The Little Red-Haired Girl

The Little Red-Haired Girl is a female character who has red hair and is Charlie Brown's unrequited love interest through most of the strip, first mentioned by him on November 19, 1961. She is not shown for most of the strips and is known simply as "the little red-haired girl". She appears in the animated television specials ''It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown'' (1977) and ''Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!'' (1986), and her name is given as Heather Wold. Schulz first publicly suggested that name for her in an article in the February 1968 issue of ''Woman's Day'' magazine, but did not utilize it in the strip. She also makes a brief appearance in the 1988 TV special ''Snoopy!!! The Musical''. She is a main character in ''The Peanuts Movie'' (she moves in and Charlie Brown becomes infatuated with her, and over the course of the film she gains a liking to him, and becomes his pen-pal).

Morag (the "Pencil-Pal")

In 1958 Charlie Brown had a pen pal, but after several frustrating attempts at writing with a fountain pen results in only messy smudges, Charlie instead addresses and writes to her as a "pencil-pal". When asked by Lucy about what they write about, he says, "She tells me about her country, and I tell her about ours...", so it is presumed she does not live in the U.S. In one strip, Charlie Brown writes to her, telling her that she is his only friend, with the postscript "Everyone hates me". She has been known to write back to Charlie Brown at least once, when Charlie Brown reads his letter to Lucy, reading that she and her class at school all agree that Charlie Brown must be a very pleasant person. In a strip series in 1994, the Pen Pal was revealed to be a girl in Glasgow, Scotland named Morag.

World War II ("The Cat Next Door")

A never-seen cat lives next door to Charlie Brown and Snoopy. The main focus on this cat occurred during the 1970s, although Charlie Brown referred to "the cat next door" as early as November 23, 1958. Snoopy often taunts this cat (usually starting with, "Hey, stupid cat!"), who generally responds by violently carving up his doghouse in a single swipe. They often have fights, with Snoopy generally coming worse off. The neighbors who own the cat have complained to Charlie Brown about Snoopy harassing their "kitten". The cat's name was revealed to be "World War II" in the October 20, 1976 strip.

The Great Pumpkin

The Great Pumpkin is a fictional entity that Linus van Pelt believes in wholeheartedly, despite the widespread disbelief and mockery of his friends.

According to Linus, the Great Pumpkin rises every Hallowe'en night and distributes gifts to those who believe in his existence. Linus' belief in the Great Pumpkin is rarely deterred, despite never having seen it, although he and Sally Brown (who often accompanies Linus to the pumpkin fields out of loyalty) often mistake other things to be the Great Pumpkin, although these sightings are often the result of Snoopy playing a prank on them.

Although the Great Pumpkin is often believed to be a fictional character, a series of strips running in October and November 1961 have radio reports of the Great Pumpkin being sighted; however, this is disregarded in future years.

Adults

Adults in the strip are typically unseen. In the 1950s strips, Mrs. Van Pelt (Linus and Lucy's mother) was a semi-regular character, conversing with her children from just outside the frame (with her speech bubbles fully visible and intelligible). Mrs. Van Pelt's dialogue was eventually phased out in favor of a style in which adults' dialogue was only implied and the conversations depicted solely from the child characters' side; in the ''Peanuts'' animated cartoons, this was adapted as the adults' "speaking" being represented by the unintelligible sounds of a muted trombone ("mwah-mwah-mwah"). Examples of such characters are the characters' parents and family members (like Linus' blanket-hating grandmother), the characters' schoolteachers, Charlie Brown's baseball hero Joe Shlabotnik, and Helen Sweetstory, author of the ''Bunny Wunny'' books.

In the 1966 animated TV special ''Charlie Brown's All-Stars'' and its accompanying book, Mr. Hennessy, proprietor of Hennessy's Hardware store, talks to Charlie Brown on the phone unseen to confirm his sponsorship of Charlie Brown's baseball team in a real league with real baseball uniforms, but changes his mind when Charlie Brown tells him that girls and a dog are on his team.

The Red Baron

The Red Baron is an adversary of Snoopy, under the guise of his "World War I Flying Ace" persona.

Although never seen in the strips, Snoopy and the Red Baron often battle against each other; despite Snoopy's best attempts, the Red Baron often wins their dogfights, causing Snoopy to fall from the roof of his kennel (which doubled as the Flying Ace's "Sopwith Camel") and curse his opponent. Snoopy's battles with the Red Baron were a popular feature of the comic strip, and featured frequently.

Schulz took the Red Baron directly from history, based on the real-life wartime career of Manfred von Richthofen.

Joe Shlabotnik

Joe Shlabotnik is a minor-league baseball player who, inexplicably, is greatly admired by Charlie Brown. He never appears in the strip, but is occasionally mentioned by Charlie Brown as his hero and is part of several plots involving Charlie Brown:
*Even before the minor character was introduced, Schroeder made up the name (albeit as composer "Joseph Shlabotnik") to impress Charlie Brown with his "knowledge".
*Joe is introduced (with no name yet) when Charlie Brown reads in the paper that his "baseball hero" is sent down to the minor leagues for a low batting average.Schulz, Charles M. ''You Can Do It, Charlie Brown.'' New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1963.
*In 1963, Charlie Brown spends $5 on 500 penny packs of bubble-gum cards (incidentally, the last year that Topps offered penny packs) to get a Joe Shlabotnik card, but none of the 500 cards he buys has Joe's picture. Lucy then buys one penny pack, and it turns out to be a Joe card. Charlie Brown offers Lucy his entire baseball card collection in trade for Lucy's Joe Shlabotnik card, which he has been trying to get for five years. Lucy declines, then (after Charlie Brown walks away, dejected) throws the card into a trash can, deciding Joe is "not as cute as I thought he was."
*In his ''Joe Shlabotnik Fan Club News,'' Charlie Brown writes that Joe, now playing in the Green Grass League, batted .143, made some "spectacular catches of routine fly balls" and "threw out a runner who had fallen down between first and second." The newsletter lasts only one issue, owing to Lucy's comment on it: "Who needs it?"Schulz, Charles M. ''You're Out of Sight, Charlie Brown.'' New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970.
*Charlie Brown and Linus attend a sports banquet so that Charlie Brown can sit next to planned attendee Joe Shlabotnik, who does not show up because he had "marked the wrong date on his calendar, the wrong city, and the wrong event."
*Charlie Brown's baseball teammates invite Joe to be guest speaker at a testimonial dinner honoring Charlie Brown's dedication as their manager. Joe accepts the invitation for a reduced speaking fee (down from his usual $100 fee), because all they can offer is 50 cents. However, they cancel the dinner at the last minute when they decide it would be hypocritical because they would be giving Charlie Brown untruthful praise. Joe gets lost along the way and does not show up for the dinner.
*Charlie Brown discovers that Joe is managing the Waffletown Syrups in a location near his summer camp, so Charlie Brown attends the game and cheers Joe on as he manages. Somehow catching a foul ball, Charlie Brown waits after the game for Joe to sign it, only to find out that he has been fired for "signaling for a squeeze play with nobody on base." Charlie Brown finally meets Joe in person when he catches up with Joe as his bus is about to leave. Joe autographs the baseball, but hits Charlie Brown on the head with it (demonstrating his incompetence in baseball) when he throws it to him as the bus departs.Schulz, Charles M. ''Don't Hassle Me with Your Sighs, Chuck.'' New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976.
*In a series of strips in 1996–97, Charlie Brown purchases a baseball signed by Joe Shlabotnik, but it turns out to be a forgery.
*Schroeder points out that the reason Joe Shlabotnik is sent back down to the minors is because he has a .004 batting average.

Teachers

Aside from Linus van Pelt's teacher Miss Othmar and her replacement, Miss Halverson, few other teachers were mentioned by name in ''Peanuts'' (and none were ever drawn), with the children most often addressing their teacher as "Ma'am" (only once was a male teacher mentioned, in the "GEORGE WASHINGTON!!!" storyline from 1967 featuring Sally and Charlie Brown).

In the 1966 strip storyline about Charlie Brown's competing in the class spelling bee (later adapted into the movie ''A Boy Named Charlie Brown''), Charlie Brown mentions that his teacher's name is Mrs. Donovan, but he was later shown in Miss Othmar's class with Linus. Peppermint Patty and Marcie's teacher was named Miss Swanson in the early 1970s, but had changed to Miss Tenure by 1978, in a storyline in which Patty disguised herself as a janitor to investigate the theft of Miss Tenure's box of gold star stickers and to clear her name of said theft. On August 24, 1993, in conversation with Marcie, Peppermint Patty refers to her book report as being written for Miss Davis. Marcie reveals to her that Miss Davis quit two years previous to have a baby.

;Miss Othmar

Miss Othmar served as Linus' teacher starting in 1959. There was a series of comics where Linus had to bring egg shells to class so she could teach the class about igloos but Linus kept forgetting to bring the shells. Typically, neither the comic strip nor the cartoons depict adults. In the strip, we only see the children's side of the conversations with Miss Othmar. In the cartoons, a muffled horn was used for her voice. This became her—and all other voices of adult characters—trademark in the cartoons and is sometimes parodied in other programs.

Linus developed a long-lasting crush on her. As a result, Linus held her in unreasonable esteem, which made his discovery that she earned a salary for her profession a crushing disillusionment that he tried to rationalize away. When Lucy tells Linus that it is wrong to worship a teacher, Linus denies worshipping Miss Othmar, but he does admit to being "very fond of the ground on which she walks."

Eventually, Miss Othmar married, assuming her married name of Mrs. Hagemeyer; Linus, however, continued to call her Miss Othmar, and other characters in the strip began referring to her as Miss Othmar again as well. (As Linus said, "In ''real'' life she's Miss Othmar!")

Although Miss Othmar quit teaching after she got engaged, she returned to teaching a few years later, much to Linus' delight. However, in 1969, Miss Othmar was fired following a teacher's strike, and Linus was devastated. Miss Othmar's replacement was Miss Halverson ("Halverson" being the maiden name of Charles M. Schulz's first wife, Joyce), whom Linus initially refused to accept as his new teacher, although he eventually seemed to learn to live with it.

Miss Othmar talks briefly to Sally in the TV special ''You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown''.

Marcie mentions that she is taking organ lessons from a "Mrs. Hagemeyer" in a 1979 strip, but it is unclear whether this Mrs. Hagemeyer and Miss Othmar are one and the same.

In ''The Peanuts Movie'', her "talking" is provided by New Orleans–based trombonist Trombone Shorty.

References

*Derrick Bang with Victor Lee; ''Fifty Years of Happiness'', 1999,

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