October 2, 1950: "Peanuts" Debuts

The first one

October 2, 1950, 75 years ago: The comic strip Peanuts debuts in national syndication, drawn by Charles M. Schulz. Within 10 years, it becomes the most popular comic strip of all time.

The series is based around Charlie Brown -- almost everybody addressed him by both his first and last names -- a boy with very little hair and even less luck. Nothing he does seems to work out. And the other kids in the neighborhood torment him, calling him things like, "You blockhead!" Leaving him to say things like, "Aaugh!" and "Rats!" and "Good grief!" and "I can't stand it!" and "My stomach hurts!" It never seemed to occur to anyone that an 8-year-old boy had an ulcer. (His age was once mentioned on one of the TV specials.)

He did have one true friend, Linus Van Pelt, philosophical beyond his years. Linus has an older sister, Lucy, described as "crabby" and a "fussbudget." She is physically and emotionally abusive to her brother, to Charlie Brown, and to the one other character who seemed to be a real friend to Charlie Brown, Schroeder, frequently threatening characters, "I'll slug you!" and sometimes actually doing it: "POW!" or "WHOP!" I wonder if the writers of the 1966-68 Batman TV series were inspired by this, along with various other Schulzian visualized sounds like "WHUMP!" and "KLUNK!"

Schroeder was a classical pianist in training on whom Lucy has a crush, but she strikes back when he makes in plain that he's just not that into her. His full name is never mentioned, and it's not clear whether Schroeder is his first name or his last name.

Lucy pretended to be a psychiatrist, diagnosing the neuroses of Charlie Brown and the others, mostly making things worse, and charging 5 cents. And, starting in 1952, it was an annual tradition for Lucy to hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick, for him to tell her he knew she would pull it away and send him flying and landing flat on his back, for her to come up with some new cockamamie excuse for why she wouldn't do it, for him to figuratively fall for it, for him to then literally fall for it, and for her to come up with some new cockamamie excuse for why her reason for not pulling it away did not apply.

In 2021, after watching the 1973 special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for the first time in many years, I realized something for the first time. The special begins with Lucy once again pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, but she doesn't get invited to Thanksgiving dinner at his house. Her brother Linus is invited, and even does some of the "cooking." But Lucy isn't invited. Whether intentional or not, Charlie Brown got his revenge on her.

Lucy's abuse of Linus led to him carrying a security blanket everywhere he went. Which made things worse between them. Many times, she stole his blanket, and it was like Superman being affected by kryptonite, as he felt weak without it. He always got it back, though.

Charlie Brown had a dog, Snoopy, who usually slept on top of his doghouse, did a dance when he was about to be fed (or thought he was), and imagined himself as various things: An athlete in various sports, a World War I flying ace, even an astronaut who beat everybody to the Moon: "I beat the Russians, I beat everybody! I even beat that stupid cat who lives next door!" Snoopy became the strip's "breakout character," becoming more popular even than Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown had a baseball team that never won. Except when he wasn't available. He was the manager and the pitcher, and line drives hit back at him led to him dodging them, and his clothes flying off. Schroeder was his catcher. Snoopy at shortstop and Linus at 2nd base made a good double-play combination, the team's one strength. Lucy, the worst player, was stuck at the usual worst-player position in those days, right field. As a song by Peter, Paul and Mary put it, "Little leagues never have lefties that pull."

In 1966, Schultz introduced Peppermint Patty, a tomboy who, despite being a girl, was the best athlete in the neighborhood. Her best friend, Marcie, was introduced in 1971. Peppermint Patty and Marcie have been retroactively viewed as a gay couple, ignoring that they're just children. Both seem to have some affection for Charlie Brown, although Peppermint Patty does ridicule him sometimes. She calls Charlie Brown "Chuck." Marcie calls him "Charles," and calls Peppermint Patty "Sir." Peppermint Patty doesn't like that: "Stop calling me 'Sir'!"

In 1968, Schulz responded to the assassination of Martin Luther King by introducing the strip's first black character, Franklin. All the kids accepted him, and he accepted Charlie Brown as a real friend, never once mocking his lack of luck or athletic ability. His appearance touched on more than civil rights: He mentioned that his father was serving in Vietnam.

Franklin's last name was never mentioned in the strip, but a TV special made it Armstrong, in honor of Robb Armstrong, one of the earliest widely-known black cartoonists.

Schulz argued with Larry Rutman, then the president of King Features Syndicate, the distributor of the Peanuts comic strips to newspapers. Schulz said, “I remember telling Larry at the time about Franklin. He wanted me to change it, and we talked about it for a long while on the phone, and I finally sighed and said, “Well, Larry, let’s put it this way: Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How’s that?” Rutman printed it just the way Schulz drew it.

So why didn't Schulz ever show Charlie Brown kicking the football, winning a baseball game, winning a spelling bee, or winning anything? He said, "Because winning is happy, but happy isn't funny."

In 1999, Schulz knew he was dying of cancer, and so he decided to wrap the strip up, rather than leaving it to his son or some other collaborator to do, as some other cartoonists had done with theirs. He set his last strip to go on Sunday, February 13, 2000, with a farewell message. He died the day before.