this Peanuts cartoon

[dissolute ocelot]

Why is it called Peanuts anyway?

I'm sure it's on Wikipedia but I believe a publisher or someone thought Peanuts was a really funny word and forced it on Schulz who wanted to call it Adventures Of Small Humans or similar. I believe a similar thing happened with Smack The Pony.

Peanuts is V good but 4 panel cartoons are a weird medium. Do they stand alone or proceed at glacial speed from day to day.

[madhair60]

Peanuts is much more boomer than Calvin and Hobbes, in that it was at its peak of popularity in the 60s and 70s when baby boomers were young. My mother and aunt are both massive fans.

and yet it still doesn't descend into "darn kids and their hippity hop music!" like C&H does

[Magnum Valentino]

Descend?

[Brundle-Fly]

Peanuts is much more boomer than Calvin and Hobbes, in that it was at its peak of popularity in the 60s and 70s when baby boomers were young.

But it wasn't created by a boomer though. Schulz was born over a hundred years ago.

[Lemming]

Have to be honest, coming to this from a position of unfamiliarity with and indifference to the characters, this is pretty much on a Fred Basset level of shitness.

It's one of those things where the characters develop to the point where basically anything they say is funny. If you don't have the decades of context for Linus and Lucy's relationship then it's not as funny.

Though I would say the strips from about 1953 - 1959 are the best by far, it goes off the boil a bit after that, especially when it descends into endless Snoopy Red Baron shit. Not to say the later stuff isn't often good (Peppermint Patty and Marcie are consistently great) but most of the really good material is in the mid-late 50s. I have the big Fantagraphics collections and the green one with Snoopy howling on the cover (which I think is 1956/1957) is almost wall-to-wall great stuff.

Schulz is really good at absurdity too, I love the short series of strips where a character called Charlotte Braun shows up who's just the diametric opposite of Charlie Brown and resents the implication that she has anything in common with him. Even funnier because readers wrote that they didn't like the character and wanted her gone, and Schulz sent a response letter saying he'd agree to remove her from the strip, but that the complainers now had "the death of an innocent child" on their hands.

[Brundle-Fly]

Pig Pen always intrigued me. That weird cloud of dust that followed him around everywhere he went, even when it snowed.  Was there ever a strip where he'd had a bath?

[madhair60]

Descend?

yes

i'm not sure what we're doing right now

[Pink Gregory]

Is The Perishers good?

I grew up reading it and yes, it is, in a fun knockabout comic from the 60s kind of way.  Nowhere near on the same level of humour and plenty repetitive but I grew up reading them and remember it fondly.

Probably was noticing Peanuts somehow, unless Dirty McSquirty and Pig Pen is one of those Dennis the Menance coincidences.

Didn't Peter Cook voice Boot in the cartoon or something mad like that?  EDIT - It's Leonard Rossiter!  Apparently produced by Bill Melendez Productions as well, an actual connection!

Unfortunately it looks wretched.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I liked the TV cartoon in the 70s.

[jobotic]

Pig Pen always intrigued me. That weird cloud of dust that followed him around everywhere he went, even when it snowed.  Was there ever a strip where he'd had a bath?

Yes he had a wash once and looked clean and groomed and two panels later was his usual self.

[Dr Rock]

Easily the second best comic strip ever.

[badaids]

I grew up reading it and yes, it is, in a fun knockabout comic from the 60s kind of way.  Nowhere near on the same level of humour and plenty repetitive but I grew up reading them and remember it fondly.

Probably was noticing Peanuts somehow, unless Dirty McSquirty and Pig Pen is one of those Dennis the Menance coincidences.

Didn't Peter Cook voice Boot in the cartoon or something mad like that?  EDIT - It's Leonard Rossiter!  Apparently produced by Bill Melendez Productions as well, an actual connection!

Thanks for that.  The reason I ask is that I think I used to know the person that drew it.

[Pink Gregory]

Thanks for that.  The reason I ask is that I think I used to know the person that drew it.

Dennis Collins?  Someone did take it over after his retirement.

[badaids]

Dennis Collins?  Someone did take it over after his retirement.

Someone called Maurice Dodd, I think it was the Maurice Dodd that drew it or something. 

[Kankurette]

Whenever I see a 'No Dogs Allowed' sign, I always hear the bloke singing 'no dogs allowed' from one of the Peanuts movies.

[jobotic]

Someone called Maurice Dodd, I think it was the Maurice Dodd that drew it or something. 

Name certainly rings a bell. My uncle had a couple of books. Can't remember them that well. Dog was called Wellington I think.

[Pink Gregory]

Someone called Maurice Dodd, I think it was the Maurice Dodd that drew it or something. 

Maurice Dodd wrote all of it and also started drawing it when Collins retired, apparently.

[poodlefaker]

For a second, my brain processed that as George and Lynne.

I bet it did, you dirty old bollocks. Hang on, Peanuts naked? You monster.

[FredNurke]

Maurice Dodd wrote all of it and also started drawing it when Collins retired, apparently.

Dodd has a strong claim to have invented the idea of 'go-faster stripes', as touted by Wellington (unless someone can find an earlier reference).

[Alternative Carpark]

Name certainly rings a bell. My uncle had a couple of books. Can't remember them that well. Dog was called Wellington I think.

Wellington was the owner of the dog, who was called Boot. The other main characters were Marlon (slow-witted), Maisie (a little bit like Lucy in Peanuts), and Baby Grumpling.

[Andy147]

I'm sure it's on Wikipedia but I believe a publisher or someone thought Peanuts was a really funny word and forced it on Schulz who wanted to call it Adventures Of Small Humans or similar.

It was previously called "Li'l Folks", but they had to change the title (I think it was too similar to another strip, maybe?), and in the TV show "Howdy Doody", the place where the kids sat was called the Peanut Gallery, so someone thought that "Peanuts" made sense as the title of a strip about kids. (This is according to an interview with Schulz in the first of the "Complete Peanuts" books. Schulz calls it "the worst title ever thought up for a comic strip").

[Andy147]

Pig Pen always intrigued me. That weird cloud of dust that followed him around everywhere he went, even when it snowed.  Was there ever a strip where he'd had a bath?

There's even a strip where you see him taking a bath.

[Mister Six]

That's the first Peanuts strip that's really made me laugh. The timing is impeccable.

I dunno, Peanuts seems like one of those things that I should love, but it so often leaves me cold. Never really gotten into it. Maybe it's like Seinfeld and I just need to sit down and force my way through a bunch of it until I get used to the rhythms of the thing.

I thought the CGI film they did the other year was quite charming, even though I know it's fundamentally too uplifting and conventional in its "You did it, Charlie Brown!" ending to really count as a proper Peanuts thing.

Fuck, all right, these were funny too. Maybe I should give it all another go.

[Mister Six]

Who the fuck are these cunts slagging off Calvin and Hobbes? Fuck off, fuck off.

[Oh, Nobody]

I think I was born hating Peanuts. Ubiquitous, repetitive, merchandised to the knackers. You could say I had a- heh- Peanuts alle

Sometimes I'll see a strip and think yeah that's alright, but these kids are all wankers. Shermy, he was alright. Oh and Snoopy's relative that looked like Harry Dean Stanton. And the adult voice in the old cartoons. Ah maybe I like Peanuts.

I suppose it's fine enough and I say this with no malice but I do believe Schultz should have died in World War 2.

[Mr Farenheit]

I think I've always been put off since reading that academic study which found that 98.4% of paedophiles thought Peanuts was the best cartoon. Maybe that's unfair of me but I can't help it

Good Grief

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Someone called Schulz just had to be a cynic.  That surname sounds like a contemptuous or amused or dismissive noise: a verbal shrug.

[Magnum Valentino]

I don't think I want to start buying these from the start, is there either a particular volume or a collection or something anyone can recommend?

A book that would prompt the reply "I'd probably have to say The Best of The Peanuts".

[NoSleep]

The only thing I've seen vaguely like that looks dreadful. They've colourised them and rearranged the panels; like somehow people of today wouldn't be able to handle the original format.
All I can tell you is I was a fan of the late 60's through the 70's era, so that's where I'd start. I don't know if there ever was a period when the series kicked in proper or if it hit the ground running (I'm guessing the latter). But it does appear that he got more playful with the characters as time passed.

[Shaxberd]

Peanuts: A Golden Celebration

It's out of print, but seems easy enough to find second-hand online from an initial search. It's a coffee table book brought out to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the strip, it's got a good collection from across the decades along with commentary about how it developed.