Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts, and today we are on our second episode of 1989, and I'll be your host for the proceedings. My name is Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, seven good reasons not to grow up, and the Dumbest Idea ever. You can read my new comic, gvillecomics dot substack.com, where I'm serializing the new story. Tanner rocks. You can read it for free right now.
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 Price Guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips as strange attractors, a gathering of spells, and Tangled River is Michael Cohen,
Michael: say hey.
Jimmy: And he's the executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts, Harold Buchholz.
Harold: Hello.
Jimmy: So, guys, we're back here in 1989. we're getting ready for part two. Harold, do you have anything for us at the beginning? No pressure if you don't.
Harold: Nope. Let's just go into the strips as far as I'm concerned.
Jimmy: Well, no, I have something extremely important. Since we started in the eighties, Liz, a long time ago, emailed and texted and said, you know, hip hop's been a really important thing this decade, and we haven't mentioned anything about hip hop. And I wrote back, well, the three hosts are made of mostly mayonnaise, so. But weirdly enough, I actually do have two favorite hip hop albums, and they both came out in 1989. So this is my, this is Jimmy Gownley's white guy guide, to top two hip hop albums, Ready? de La Soul, 3ft High, and Rising, beastie Boys, Paul’s boutique. They both came out in 1989, and what's interesting about them is they couldn't be made today because, all the sampling laws have changed so much that they'd be prohibitively expensive to make. so if you want to hear what 1989 sounded like, you can listen to, those two records. There you go. It took us nine years, Liz, but I got some hip hop in.
Liz: All right, good work.
Jimmy: Thank you. All right, well, if, if that's our today's Rap corner, I guess we can just go ahead and start with the strips.
Michael: Sure.
Liz: Sounds good.
Jimmy: Okay, so if you characters out there want to follow along, the first thing you got to do is go over to our website, unpackingpeanuts.com, and there you're going to sign up for the great Peanuts reread. That will get you one email a month that will tell you what strips we're going to cover. And then you can just go over to gocomics.com and, you can read all of those strips for free. Isn't that amazing? So you do that, and, then you come back to these episodes and you can follow along with us. Like, for instance, when I say…
April 6, Peppermint Patty's on the phone and she says, I'm sorry about the bean ball yesterday, Chuck. It was an accident. Do you still love me Chuck? We cut to Charlie Brown, who said, it's hard to love someone who hits you in the head with a baseball, to which Peppermint Patty replies, you were crowding the plate, Chuck.
Michael: Okay, my memory ain't so good, but this is follow up from last week's. we went over the strip right before this. Now, was it an accident?
Harold: Yes
Jimmy: No, it was not an accident. Marcie completely told her to do it.
Michael: So this is like she's lying here, right?
Jimmy: A blatant lie.
Harold: All right, see, I read it completely different that it. Schulz was trying to have it both ways. They were considering doing it, and then they backed off on it and she did it anyway.
Jimmy: Can't happen. There's no way. If you're going to hit someone in Schulz world.
Harold: Yes, it can. That's what I'm saying.
Jimmy: Yeah, I think. Now, I think she's blatantly lying because also. No, she is blatantly lying. Lying because she reverses herself in the last panel and says, you were crowding the plate.
Harold: Well, that means he was so close that she hit him because he was. Yeah.
Jimmy: You're a sweetheart, Harold. You're so adorable. So, Peppermint-- what do you think? Michael?
Michael: first of all, what do they care what they throw at him? He's going to strike out anyway? They can throw anything.
Jimmy: Yeah, well, she hit him in the head, though. That's, that's. She wasn't trying to strike. That's another thing. Why you would hit Charlie Brown in the head with the ball when he's going to strike out is, is a mystery. I don't know.
Michael: He does have a big head.
Harold: Well, I mean, remember in the strip from the 3 April, Marcie says, I've changed my mind, sir. Let's not give Charles the old beanball. So at least she's not wanting it. And then Peppermint Patty says to Marcie, okay, Marcie, if I hit him, it'll be an accident. So either she's lying to Marcie. She didn't want to, but remember now.
Jimmy: You know, Harold, you can also lie to yourself.
Liz: And making excuses.
Jimmy: Yeah, exactly. It's like that is called plausible deniability.
Harold: Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. So Marcie wants to do it. Peppermint Patty is completely against it. And then Marcie says, don't do it. So there's nobody who wants to do it. You could say there's maybe something subconscious, but I don't think you could say lie to yourself. Well, we can never know. That's getting too deep into the old psychology thing. But not intentional. That's what I'm going to stand resolving this whole issue.
Michael: Okay. Look at their heads. Look at their, everybody's head is going to be crowding the plate.
Jimmy: You know, it's real. And Schulz actually mentioned this, in a real late interview that he found it very hard to draw a group of the characters together because of the size of their heads. And when he started putting, there was a book I guess he was talking about everybody, was raising Charlie Brown up on their shoulders in victory or something. And it's really hard to do because they're giant heads.
Harold: This is no wonder this is so hard for Charlie Brown.
Jimmy: Yeah, he's not pitching regular baseball. He's pitching to these Peanuts characters. And that's not easy.
Michael: Yeah, because the strike zone is between the stripes. Charlie Brown stripes in his head, which is like two inches.
Jimmy: No, no, no. It's, shoulders and knees. Between shoulders and knees.
Michael: Oh, in that case, it's three inches.
Jimmy: Yeah, he's got three inches.
Harold: Now, ive got a technical question here. Beyond the actual storyline, I dont know what you guys are looking at. which version of this one? Go comics or whatever. where I guess came out of go comics. The drapes in the second panel look incredibly computer y and not zipatony. They look like super rasterized.
Jimmy: They are not like rasterized on the go comics.
Harold: So I’m wondering, this is the first time. And when you look at it in the beautiful Fantagraphics edition, which is ultra crisp and not 72 dpi or whatever, it looks like it got printed off of Schulz's brand new computer that he's playing with just. We were talking about that in an earlier episode, how we were entering the world of computers. It really does look like he got some sort of weird printer. I mean, this would have been pretty early for that, but not, this would have been the year of the apple. You've gotten the apple Mac that had come out in the, late eighties,
Liz: five years earlier.
Harold: So I'm thinking. And then the next strip is with Marcie, and she's got some weird, funky thing going on in her chair, and it's all blown out like it printed too lightly or like the toner.
Jimmy: Was not, you know, there was a, there were people, Dave McCann was a big a, guy who did stuff like that who would experiment with photocopiers and Zipatone.
Harold: Uh-huh.
Jimmy: And because you could buy sheets of the film that, you know, shading film that just had nothing on it, and then you could copy a pattern onto it. So theoretically, you could have screentones made of anything. So I could see why something like that would be appealing, to Schulz, like, oh, look at some cross hatching. But maybe you do it once and it's like, oh, yeah, it's just not there yet.
Michael: Well, how much time would it save? Because doing those little patterns wouldn't take more than a minute.
Jimmy: Right.
Harold: But, you know, I was talking about that. Schulz didn't have any, straight lines inside of the drawings. And here it looks like those drapes are made out of straight lines.
Jimmy: They completely draw your attention to it. It's very, it's more jarring to me than just the dot zip a tones, which I've accepted as just part of this. The thing now.
Harold: Yeah, the dots don't. It seems more like coloring than it does part of the art.
April 9. It's a Sunday. and we're starting off with very, very strange and very cute picture of Snoopy hiding underneath an end table. We then see, we, ah, cut to Linus, who's enjoying his thumb and blanket. And we just see Snoopy, the front of Snoopy's snout, sneaking into the panel. And as the strip really starts in the next tier, he sneaks in again a little further, and Linus says, touch this blanket, you stupid beagle, and you'll regret it for years. So you better back off. And then Snoopy says, I can't back off. I can only go forward. I can go forward and make right turns. After I make a right turn, I go forward again. Now another right turn. And while he's doing this, he's going around Linus. And Linus eventually just kind of goes back to his, thumb and blanket position with now another right turn. And here Snoopy passes by in front again. And he says, here I am going forward again, another right turn. And then in the last panel, Snoopy ends, up right on Linus's lap. His head rested in Linus's lap and he says, help me. I'm lost.
Michael: now we're keeping an eye out for the weirdest Peanuts strips and maybe someday we'll do an episode. This strikes me as incredibly weird. it's cute, it's funny, but Snoopy usually will assume the personality of, an animal of some sort. And it looks like he's doing a snake here. Like he's just slithering around on his stomach. But what he's actually doing is he's like a train or something. Like, he can't turn around. He can't do anything. He has to go about.
Jimmy: Do you know what this reminds me of? but it's several years too late for it to have actually been a real inspiration. But when I was a kid in, like, the early eighties, there was a run of, I guess it was like post Star Wars radio controlled vehicles, but they were cheaper. And they'd have, like, there were robots, they'd have. There was an R2D2 one. There was like a landspeeder one, but they weren't fully controllable. So you click the button and it would make a right turn and then you'd click it again and make an. And all it could do were these basic things. So you couldn't actually steer it like you could a true RC car or RC plane or something like that.
Harold: Okay, so Schulz could have been playing with a grandchild and.
Jimmy: Yeah, but it feels, like a little late, but, I mean, it could still be. Yeah, it could still be because they were told they looked so cool and then they were utterly frustrating because they didn't do anything really what you wanted it to do.
Liz: But in an episode a couple, maybe a month ago, Snoopy did go backwards.
Jimmy: He did go backwards. Yes. He's lying to himself, too. Or lying to Linus, I guess. What do you guys think of that first drawing?
Harold: Oh, maybe Snoopy doesn't know how to go beep beep.
Jimmy: what it is Yes.
Michael: That first drawing is. I mean, it's a weird perspective. It looks like he has a plunger on his head or something.
Jimmy: Yeah, you can see that. It's so rare that you see that front on view. Yeah, I like it, though. I think it looks really, for whatever reason, that looks really cute to me.
Liz: I love that little snout on the second panel.
Jimmy: Oh, that's so great. That's so great.
Harold: It's just peering. All you see at the edge of the panel is the snout in the nose.
Jimmy: So funny.
April 15. There's Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and they're sitting under a tree on a beautiful, a spring day. And he says, here we are, two old friends sitting together, sharing a sandwich. And he, gives Snoopy a bite. And Charlie Brown leans back, closes his eyes, and says, I can tell you it just doesn't get any better than this. Charlie Brown has a big smile, but Snoopy suddenly looks concerned and says, it doesn't?
Michael: That's a scary thought.
Harold: This totally makes me think of Andy. We were talking about his, dog, the little terrier dog that he got not too long before this and how. Absolutely Schulz loved this little dog. And so he's kind of doing these self deprecating things about. He's enjoying the moments with the dog, and the dog's like, where's the food? You know?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Which are pretty fun.
Jimmy: Yeah, very fun. Michael, what do you think of jangly black on the tree?
Michael: Well, I mean, I like it better when the blacks go up to the actual outline of the character.
Jimmy: Yeah, I think it works in two and three better than it does in panel one.
Harold: How do you like Snoopy's little mouth open in panel one? And that looks a little unusual.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: I'm wondering if he's Andy inspired. He's messing with Snoopy's drawing a little to see what he can do.
Michael: Oh, yeah. Snoopy definitely looks totally different. Different?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: A little more like a stuffed animal.
Harold: Which Andy did. Andy looked like a stuffed animal too.
Jimmy: So, yes.
Michael: I'm wondering if part of this gag would, this gag would work better if it was actually he described what the sandwich was like. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich or just a peanut butter sandwich or a banana sandwich.
Jimmy: Yeah, the little specificity of it. Right. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. It just doesn't get any better than old friends and peanut butter sandwiches. It doesn't.
Harold: Yeah, I can see that.
Liz: The valedictorian at my high school graduation, started his speech with, people say, these are the best years of our lives. And I ask it is?
Harold: I wonder what he'd say now.
Jimmy: Definitely not. I actually, I do truly feel sad for people who, who still think that.
Harold: Their high school, they peaked in high school.
Jimmy: Yeah, that's tragic. I mean, they're always going on about how they're good at basketball, and, you know, it's really annoying.
Harold: Yeah, there's something to be said for slow starters.
Jimmy: Slow starters? Yeah.
Harold:
Jimmy: Life. is a marathon. April 20. Well, if we're lucky, it is.
Harold: Yeah.
April 25. Linus, annoyed, is sitting in thumb and blanket position with Lucy next to him, and he says, why are you always so anxious to criticize me? To which Lucy says, I just think I have a knack for seeing other people's faults, to which Linus responds, what about your own faults? And to which Lucy says, I have a knack for overlooking them.
Michael: But she admits she has faults.
Harold: Wow.
Jimmy: She's mellowing.
Michael: That's certain people would not do.
Harold: well, I wouldn't do it.
Jimmy: Are you kidding me?
Michael: No, I'm not talking about you guys. I'm talking a certain person who would not ever admit having a fault.
Harold: We were talking in an earlier episode about, how it might benefit the strip sometimes if Schulz gave emphasis towards, with italics, or bold. What do you think about that last line of Lucy's like you emphasize overlooking. In my head, I emphasized them. oh.
Michael: I'd emphasize knack.
Jimmy: Okay, let's try that. Let's try all of it. I just think I have a knack for seeing other people's faults. What about your own faults? I have a knack for overlooking them. All right, now, what about your version, Harold?
Harold: Okay. I have a knack for overlooking them.
Jimmy: Okay. What about your own faults? I have a knack for overlooking them.
Michael: doesn't flow.
Jimmy: How did I say it? I don't even remember.
Harold: I have an act for overlooking them.
Jimmy: Oh, what about your own faults? I have an act for overlooking them.
Harold: All right, all right. Readers, listener, good friends. What do you prefer? Do you like knack overlooking, or that's your emphasis?
Michael: I think I win, because if you emphasize both the knacks and panels two and three, it works nicely. Also, I'd emphasize the a. I have a neck.
Harold: All right. Well, yeah, I think the best read that, Jimmy gave definitely to you, Michael. So maybe. Maybe that's the best of the best of the lot.
Jimmy: All right? And if you guys out there have.
Harold: A different take or a different take.
Michael: Or a different take.
Jimmy: Leave it on the voicemail.
May 5. Sally, and Charlie Brown are at the desk. Charlie or Sally is writing something, and she says, the teacher said, my report on why we're here isn't long enough. So Sally continues, and, she elaborates with this little bon mot. How should I know? And who cares? And then she picks up the paper, looks at it and says, that's a lot longer. And Charlie Brown says, and it has more depth.
Jimmy: A couple things. Sally as a student is still brilliant. Always brilliant. But again, back to this school. What kind of. What kind of assignment is this? Teacher?
Harold: Yeah, right. These are some pretty, ambitious assignments, I will say. I think Sally and Charlie Brown are well matched as siblings. You know, I think the cumulative effect of Charlie Brown in Sally's life is probably good for Sally. And I think the cumulative effect of Sally for Charlie Brown is probably good, too.
Jimmy: I think you're right. Yeah, I definitely think you're right. And it's really great to see. It's interesting to see these, like, glacially changing relationships, over decades, and then they do settle into something that feels really appropriate, that it's like we ended up where we should have ended up.
Harold: Yeah. Very sibling y. There's something that just feels very real, and it's not always heightened, you know, he's comfortable with these small moments with each other, and I think it works well.
Jimmy: Me too. May 14.
Harold: oh.
Jimmy: Olaf is back. Anil is a Sunday, and it's also a mother's day strip.
Michael: So is he gonna hurt himself?
Harold: We'll see.
Jimmy: We will see.
So Olaf thinks to himself, I wonder if she even remembers me. Oh, I know. That's what we're starting, people. The battle two. He's writing a letter. May 14, 1989. he continues to write. Dear mom, this is your son Olaf. I'm writing to wish you a happy mother's day. Last week, I was invited to go on a fox hunt. And we see Olaf running, around in a field somewhere. You would have been proud of me. He continues. I knew where the fox was hiding, but I didn't tell anyone. And we see Olaf standing next to a bush, clearly concealing a fox. And Olaf pointing the other direction. Remember how you used to read to us every night? He continues. And we see Snoopy, Spike, and Olaf just listening. And then Olaf continues. My favorite book is still Joe Bunny, in which that sends him into heels of laughter. Then he takes himself, to, I guess, wherever he's going to mail this thing.
Oh, no.
For goodness sake. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm missing the punchline here. Sorry.
So then he takes it. He's going to send this letter off, and he says, anyway, mom, have a happy mother's day. Greet dad for me. And then the last one, we see him in front of some sort of newfangled device. And he says, it sure is easier writing to you since you got the fax machine.
Jimmy: Love Olaf
Harold: Well, maybe that's what Schulz got. He's got a fax machine printer with thermal, and that's what he's been pasting down to his comic strips.
Jimmy: It could be. Absolutely. Could be Olaf trying to write that letter first. panel, tier two.
Harold: Ah. Lying on his stomach, and he's got a very big stomach, so his back leg is literally floating on the ground as he rolls forward to write on the ground.
Jimmy: And then the next great panel, Olaf pointing in the other direction with the fox hiding in the bush to see.
Harold: Two little eyeballs peeking up toward Olaf. That's so cute.
Jimmy: And then the three, brothers sitting there having a story read to them. And the two of the other idiots are actually wearing their hats, and Spike has a mustache. The whole thing. I don't even know what to say.
Harold: All right, pitch of the week.
VO: Pitch of the week.
Harold: Let's do Joe Bunny. Joe Bunny. Very funny book. I think we need to make that come into the world.
Jimmy: Yeah, but no, no, but it's got to be like a princess bride thing, right? So it would be like, olaf reads, Maybe Snoopy is not feeling well, and Olaf comes over and reads to him.
Harold: Yes, yes.
Jimmy: So funny.
Harold: Absolutely. This is. This is our next book. Our next Peanuts Worldwide approved book. We would love to do that one. So where does Olaf live? I guess we don't know. Is he. Is he. I guess he lives maybe with a family or he's not out in the desert, probably with a fax machine.
Jimmy: Yeah, he looks like he's. Well, he's definitely. I think he's with the family because he's being well fed.
Harold: Yeah, I think. I think, I think there's a lot of old Roy being purchased in that family.
Jimmy: All right, here's a question. Is it a Peanuts obscurity what a fax machine is?
Michael: Maybe it's a fox machine.
May 18. Good. old Sally's in front of her class. She's delivering another report, and she says, this is my report on serfs. Serfs had to work very hard. Every morning, the master would yell, serfs up. And then she looks off panel, too, in the direction of her teacher, and says, well, I'll bet they did in California.
Harold: Yeah, she looks a little upset with the teacher for having corrected her. That would hit my anger index just barely there.
Jimmy: Now, we listen. Michael, Liz and I listened to another podcast called Sail On, which is a Beach Boys podcast. And they just did, like, five episodes on the Surf's Up album. So that's the first thing I thought of with this.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: oh. Yeah. But in 1989, they were dead or crazy, so I don't know if it would have been.
Jimmy: Oh, no. 89 was a. They had their biggest hit ever in 1989 or 1990. Kokomo
Michael: Some of us don't recognize that fact.
Jimmy: You don't count John Stamos as a beach Boy then?
Harold: Oh, Man, I love that Schulz has gotten 39 years into the strip, and he's finally really comfortable with the bad puns he's enjoyed his entire life that we see in his correspondence with friends and stuff. Now it's in the strip. I like that the dad jokes are kind of seeping in.
Jimmy: Love a good dad joke.
Michael: Oh, stop. Hold the presses. Look at this strip. Yes, four panels.
Harold: And evenly, evenly matched.
Jimmy: Wow, classic look.
Harold: Look how tall they are now because of how much height has been added to his strips compared to back when it was that little space saver. And four panels. Remember how wide those things were?
Jimmy: Yeah. So different. Wow.
Harold: And evenly, evenly spaced. I've seen him do some four panels where he kind of mixed it up, but this is old school for even panels.
Jimmy: Yep. Still looks good.
May 21. It's a Sunday, and we are, with Snoopy and the Beagle scouts. But they are in their, foreign legion mode. So they've come up to a gate which says, Ace country club. No dogs allowed to, which Snoopy says, must be a misprint. Then follow me, men. And, he follows the or they follow him into the country club, and we see him walking across what looks like a sand trap on a golf course. Snoopy, continues saying, here's the world famous sergeant of the foreign legion leading his troops across the burning desert. Then we cut to Sally on the phone with Charlie Brown. Sally's on the phone, rather, and she speaks to Charlie Brown, who's in the room with her, and she says, it's the local golf pro. He says, your dog is walking through his sand traps again. Cut back to Snoopy as a golf ball lands in the sand trap, and Snoopy says, suddenly a hand grenade falls in their midst. The sergeant hurls himself upon the grenade to save his troops, and Snoopy does just this, jumping on top of the golf ball. Then in the last tier, we see. But a miracle occurs, says Snoopy. The grenade fails to explode. But then Snoopy and the Beagle scouts are sent running as a barrage of golf clubs come flying at them. As Snoopy thinks just then a tremendous artillery barrage begins and the troops retreat to an oasis. The oasis ends up being the flag on the number three hole. And Snoopy says, exhausted, they rest beneath a palm tree. Now we see Charlie Brown on the phone and he says, now he's where? Yes, sir, I understand.
Harold: There's lots to love in this strip. It's just, it's, such a fun Idea. I love the Idea that Snoopy is not only playing out his fantasy like he would be, say, with a Sopwith Camel, but he's in someone else's space.
Harold: Like the world space, not even the Peanuts world space. And he's messing everything up. I think there's humor in that. the little foreign legion birds are adorable.
Harold: I would have loved to have seen a sequence where, since it says no dogs allowed outside the gate of the ace country club, that if he had done one, where he sent the little birds in to buys while he stayed outside and looking around the corner, that's really funny. But the hand grenade thing is hilarious. I love that when Snoopy leaps on the hand grenade, he's further away from the, from the golf ball than when he was when it landed.
Jimmy: When it landed.
Harold: That's a really interesting design choice. Again, where I would be second guessing myself whether I could get away with something like that given how close it was in the previous panel. He's messing with, where things are in the panels. But at the same time, the composition of that panel looks great. And I love the little scurrying birds as they're running away from the hand grenade while they brave foreign Legion sergeant is jumping to save his little troops.
Jimmy: That's such a great panel. I love that picture. And you know, this one, it really feels like he was enjoying the drawing. And it does seem like the struggle was much, evident, you know?
Harold: Yeah. And all of the, all the various golf clubs, you can see the putter and the wedge and all being thrown at Snoopy and the birds as they run away with the little flaps of the backs of their hats. I mean, there's so much great stuff in here.
Jimmy: It's interesting because that's so much more drawing. And yet, if we scroll back a little bit and we see Sally, writing her why we're here essay, you could see the struggle there more than you can see it in the Sunday, even though there's so much more drawing in the Sunday.
Harold: Now we're seeing the panels, I think larger, significantly larger in the dailies the way we've got them. Set up for ourselves to refer to when we're talking. So you see it as more of. As a piece. I think when you see the Sundays, because panels are smaller, he's drawing bigger. Ah. that struggle is certainly less evident just because of how much we get to see a shrunken version of the Sundays.
Jimmy: All right, so how about we take a break here, come back, we'll read the mail, finish up some strips, and, get through some more. 1989 sound good?
Michael: Sure.
Liz: Sounds good.
BREAK
VO: Hi, everyone. I just want to take a moment to remind you that all three hosts are cartoonists themselves, and their work is available for sale. You can find links to purchase books by Jimmy, Harold, and Michael on our website. You can also support the show on Patreon or buy us a mud pie. Check out the store link on unpackingpeanuts.com.
Jimmy: And we're back. Hey, Liz, I'm hanging out in the mailbox. Do we got anything?
Liz: We do. We got a lot this week. First and foremost, we heard from Benjamin Clark, who is the curator of the Schulz Museum.
Jimmy: All right.
Liz: He is, responding to our episode from last week. this is on Blue sky. He wrote this, and he says that UPP Gang goes deep on the Peanuts strip, published January 16, 1989, asking about uneraced pencil marks under Zipatone being picked up by the printer. Nope.
Harold: No.
Liz: he says, here's the original art, and I don't see pencil on the couch.
Harold: What? Oh, then maybe. Maybe he was. Okay, so my next theory.
Liz: Oh, well, wait a second. He goes on
Harold: Oh, good. He's got some explanation. Good, good.
Liz: He says, so what gives? The strips you see online were sometimes scanned from newspapers, which may be the case here. The Schulz studio is painstakingly cleaning the digital strip images up. once we can access original art, they can reference.
Harold: Well, okay, so, Benjamin, I looked at the Fantagraphics book as well, and it has the same thing, which makes me wonder. So there's a step or two that may be happening, and I'd be interested if you know any of this. Either Schulz, on his end, now using a photocopier or something in his studio, laid it down on the glass, and maybe there were some marks or some shavings or something on the glass, and that was the version that got to the syndicate. Or at the syndicate, they were shooting it, or, they were trying. You know, because it used to be, it was a photostat, and maybe they're using photocopies, I don't know, but it seems like there's some in between. Step there. That somehow added that. And I'm guessing if it wasn't this fine screen of completely clear dots, if you saw something that screwed up in the version you were sending, you could take some white out on the copy you're going to mail to the syndicate or whatever, however it works, and you could fix it. But, when a zipatone, you just got to let it go. Or maybe you don't even notice it. I don't know, because it's not some obvious blemish on the paper. So anyway, I don't know. I don't know how that works. Hey, I would love to ask this question to you, Benjamin. about that other strip we were talking about where it looked like maybe he was pasting something down that was not Zipatone on that strip with, the bean ball. yeah, the curtain. So I don't know if you have access to that, not to give you extra work, not to obligate you. that I'd be fascinated to know if that looks like Zipatone or it looks like he's pasting some foreign object down on the paper.
Jimmy: April 6, 1989. They do actually have tones that did those screens, too, you know?
Harold: Right. Like, if you look at the very next day strip with Marcie, though, it's like, wildly faded out on her chair, which Zipatone. The one thing Zipatone was really, really good at was reproducing, because that's exactly what it was made for. So it looks like something was altered that we weren't using. Like you were saying. Saying the pure Zipatone. But because I think it would have reproduced cleanly. And even in the Fantagraphics books, Marcie’s chair is just like totally blown out. Probably because it was not straight Zipatone. Maybe a photocopy of Zipatone or, whatever. Anyway, thank you, Benjamin. I love to hear that stuff back. Cause I'm always fascinated and we have all these theories, and we're obviously wrong a lot.
Jimmy: Every time we hear from Benjamin Clark, I think of that scene in Annie hall where someone's, talking about Marshall McLuhan, and he goes, well, I happen to have Marshall McLuhan right here.
Harold: That's the best. It's nice to have Marshall McLuhan right here.
Jimmy: Thank you, Benjamin.
Liz: And Joey Weiser comics commented on Instagram when I posted the picture of Olaf saying, I think I'll hurt myself. And, he writes, the extended Beagle cast is a frequent point of conversation on this show. And the fact that Japan has great merchandise also comes up from time to time. Well, I was there earlier this year, and I have something to tell you. The current Peanuts merch in Japan is very Beagle family focused right now, with particular attention being paid to Olaf.
Jimmy: Really?
Liz: It's very popular. So, Jimmy, maybe it's time to go to Japan.
Jimmy: I really need an Olaf plushie. And I know I'm a 52 year old man. Leave me alone. I need one anyway.
Harold: Oh, wow. Well, Joey, that's so cool. I hope you got to bring some fun stuff home.
Jimmy: Yeah, send us pictures if you got any. That's very cool. Thank you.
Liz: And then we heard from our friend Debbie Perry, who writes, the strip with Snoopy sleeping on the base from May 14, 1988. That baseball scene where he was asleep, second base?
Jimmy: Yeah. yeah.
Liz: It made me think of a Sunday strip from July 14, 1968, in which Snoopy is also sleeping on one of the bases. Charlie Brown's response is much more confrontational in 1968 as he starts out calmly and leads up to shouting at Snoopy to get him to move. It certainly shows how Schulz and Peanuts have mellowed in 1988.
Harold: Interesting.
Jimmy: That is interesting.
Liz: What we don't know is whether Schulz was consciously repeating himself or just hit on a gag that he didn't remember he'd drawn already. I'm sure he couldn't remember every single comment he ever drew.
Harold: Yeah, I'm wondering if that strip, is it the same gag or is it more a theme, like Lucy and Schroeder at the piano and we're seeing a variation on Snoopy sleeping at a plate. I can't remember that particular 1960 strip off the top of my head.
Liz: I took a look at it and it is basically the same of, somebody's gonna step on your head.
Harold: Okay, so it's the same concern. Well, it's nice that Charlie Brown's concerned Snoopy's being stepped on on the head of.
Liz: And then we heard from a new listener, Eric Glickman, who writes, hi, Jimmy, Michael, Harold and Liz. I discovered your podcast just a while back, and I've been enjoying it from the beginning, ever since yesterday. I listened to the season five wrap up and I just had to write y'all when the conversation turned again to the ending of the Mister Sack storyline. I'm not sure if this has been discussed, but I believe that the key to the conclusion of this series is nothing. The visage of Alfred E. Neumann's gap tooth smile rising up like the sun over the horizon. But in the words that arc over his head. What, me worry? I believe that Mister Schulz was sending a message to the sackless Charlie Brown that, yes, life had seemingly returned to the way it was. But worrying about it was a waste of time and everything was going to be okay. Mister Schulz could have simply used Alfred E. Newman's head in this final battle if it was meant to be just a call out to Mad magazine. But he purposefully added the signature motto to conclude the story in a meaningful and memorable, albeit strange way. One other note. I was excited to hear the discussion of the big, glorious book Peanuts Jubilee, which I received for Hanukkah in 1975 when I was twelve, and has accompanied me through my life ever since. From college to multiple apartments, and finally to the house I live in now. keep up great work and Be of good cheer. Eric.
Michael: Oh,
Harold: Man, I get goosebumps you saying that, because I was just about the same. I guess I was a little bit younger, but yeah. The impact of that book is really hard to overstate in my life, given that it just behind the scenes perspectives of Schulz as a cartoonist, telling us what it's like to be a cartoonist and to make the thing that as a nine year old, that was the life I wanted to live. He gave me this little blueprint that actually was very, very helpful for me that I'm now doing what I'm doing.
Jimmy: You know what I think, thinking about, the Alfred E. Newman thing? I think, first off, he could very well be right about all of that. If there were no words and it was just Alfred E. Newman's head, I might actually have found it funnier. I don't know if it would have been a better ending to the story overall. But, if there was no explanation as to why he's seeing Alfred E. Newman, that's pretty wild and random.
Harold:. Might have been pretty disturbing, too. Well, it is even more so.
Jimmy: Right?
Harold: But I love that interpretation of it. I think the Idea that Schulz character in the strip, and, boy, he's giving him a sun and a message to tell him tomorrow's another day, don't have to worry going back to your old self. But that's interesting. Yeah. I can't remember which exhibition that was at, but that strip was featured. And you can see the original with an inscription that he wrote to. Was it Al ? Oh, it's on our obscurities, isn't it?
Liz: Yeah, no, David Shair saw it at the exhibit, in Massachusetts.
Harold: Oh, for the Norman Rockwell Museum. Yeah, yeah. It's so cool to see that he finished that up, signed it was at Al Feldstein as a token of admiration. Schulz was enjoying Mad back in its heyday there.
Liz: And finally Jason Bullet writes to us. He's a regular listener and says, after seeing rap inspired Peanuts art on a related subreddit recently, I searched for strip memes. And when I came upon this Sunday strip from August 27, 1967, I was surprised that this didn't make the cut on the last 1967 episode. I would have enjoyed the breakdown, especially with the color strip. And he attaches it as opposed to the black and white on gocomics.com. Maybe I should spring for the relevant phantographics book. And then I wrote back to him and said, tell us why you think it's special. Was it the color or something more? I want to hear your take on it. And then he writes back and says, what's special to me is the first panel in the second row where Charlie Brown gets so angry at Snoopy, he literally turns red.
Harold: Yeah, that's a, favorite strip of mine. I remember that from childhood. I believe it is featured on a cover of one of the Fawcett Crest paperbacks. and my favorite panel’s of last one, where Snoopy is, there's a whole line of dog dishes, and Snoopy's like, it's like in a little buffet. And Snoopy's taking this little piece of this and this, and it's like, oh, it's a great strip. That was an amazing year, though. it was up against some real stellar scripts. Yeah.
Jimmy: the red Charlie Brown. I think one of the reasons we tend not to focus on the color ones is because a lot of, because both the Fantagraphics books, they're all black and white. And the majority of the stuff on go comics is also black and white. So that might be why. But, looking at it, having you brought it to our attention, the abstract red Charlie Brown, I like. And I think it reminds me of Terrible Thompson by Gene Deitch, which was, like an aborted comic strip. Well, I mean, not aborted. It ran for like six months, and it had really modernist abstract color. And I think Peanuts looks good when he does that, but, boy, it's very, very rare.
Liz: So that's it. Anything on the hotline?
Jimmy: I did get one text from super listener Jim Meyer. I actually just closed the voice thing, so I'm m going to summarize it. But he basically said, oh. So it was nice that we listened, that we read the Nancy strips, because we are always recommend people read things out of their comfort zone. So he appreciated that we took our own advice, which, I have to say, did not occur to me while we were doing it, but, boy, am I glad we did now. And, that's it.
Harold: Cool. Thank you for mentioning that. Yeah. Jimmy's comfort zones. Yes. Ooh. It's specific. That was a stretch.
Jimmy: That was a stretch.
Harold: But we're all the richer for it.
Jimmy: All the richer.
Harold: Exactly.
Liz: Thanks, everybody.
Jimmy: Yeah. Thank you so much for, so much of the fun is hearing from you guys and just keeping this conversation going. So if you want to do that, the thing you can do is you can just write us unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com. We love, to hear from you. and when I don't hear, I worry. And you can find us on social media, but I'll give you that rundown at the end of the show. What say we just, get right back to those strips?
Michael: Yep.
Liz: Good.
June 11. it's a. It's I guess. A symbolic panel of Peppermint Patty just peeking over what appears to be a giant roll of lifesaver style candies, but without the hole in them. And then in panel two, we see we're at a tiny tots concert, and, her opening this candy is making a little crinkling sound, which, Marcie notices. Marcie then reads from the program concert etiquette. Do not open candies wrapped in cellophane. Trying to be quiet by opening wrappers slowly only prolongs the torture of those around you. We then cut to the next panel with pepper and patty. Crinkle slowly. The next panel. Crinkle, crinkle. This is getting Marcie. It's getting to her. Then in the next panel, one more crinkle as pepper, and Patty glances around to see if anyone notices, leaving Marcie. We actually see the pupils in her eyes so much. Then, after a beat, panel, one very loud wrinkle sending Marcie flying. And then finally, pepper and Patty is able to chomp on her candy, and Marcie is disheveled in the seat next to her.
Liz: Michael, did you pick this one?
Michael: Did I? What is it?
Liz: Michael hates crinkles. We had to stop going to movies.
Michael: Now, this is precisely why I have not gone to movies in years.
Harold: Oh, my goodness. Well, I lived this. I lived this. I lived this back in 2000, I went on a trip with my sister to Prague, which was so special as adults. It was really, like, the one thing we got to do long term with each other. It was really a cool experience. We were going, to the. The lovely state opera at the national theater, and we got a box seat right next, on the side of the opera. I guess they're cheaper these days. It used to be that's where the important people would sit.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.
Harold: But I think they're not the best views. It's to be seen and not to see. We certainly would hear. It was beautiful and wonderful. But, you know, all that travel, you can get a catch a bug. And my sister cough, drop was cough drop. She was, you know, then had the dilemma, do I cough the whole thing, or do I unwrap that piece of cough drop so that I will stop coughing? And she did exactly what is in this strip? It's like crinkle, crinkle, and I'm just squirming in my seat. And, of course, we're in this box, and you're seated with these other people, and you're kind of spread out in the chairs, and somehow that feels more intimate than you just being like sardines.
Jimmy: Yeah, right, right.
Harold: And she's trying to figure it out, and it's. It's. I'm just. It's just going on forever. It seems like it would. Nonstop. And then finally, she's like, okay, I just gotta tear off the bandaid. But I remember we were this mortified. But, you know, it's like, what do you do? Which. Which do you choose? I guess she could have gotten up and left. But then that you're in a seat, box seat. People watch you leaving. The opera singer is in the middle of her piece. So there was a no win situation. But, boy, I'm with Marcie. It is absolutely. It's torture.
June 15. Okay, so this is a, part of a sequence where Peppermint Patty is not able to go to camp, and. And, Marcie and Charlie Brown have gone to camp. And, this is, Marcie's opportunity to drive Peppermint Patty crazy. So Peppermint Patty calls, and she says, hi, Marcie. Just sort of checking in. Are you and Chuck having a good time at camp? Marcie replies, Charles, I can't hear what she's saying if you keep nibbling on my ear. In the third panel, she says, just teasing you again, sir. We cut back to Peppermint Patty, who's actually chewing, on the phone cord, I think, to prevent herself from screaming.
Harold: Oh, Marcie, Marcie, Marcie.
Jimmy: I like. I like this whole sequence with Marcie. I think Marcie's a great character in it. I think, when I find myself missing the slickness of like, say, the late fifties, early sixties Peanuts. But then I look at that last panel, I think, yeah, but I. That's so expressive and that's so good and so cool and it's so not early Peanuts.
Harold: Right. Yeah.
Jimmy: He's very, very aware of marrying form and function. By the way, speaking of that, we had a conversation, I guess, in our last episode about the whole thing about, do you like seeing the brushstrokes? Do you not like seeing the brushstrokes? This is fascinating to me. I have nothing really to add to it this week, but I think I will again. I think that there's something very interesting about how people process art in pursuing that.
Harold: Yeah. Michael, this is another one of those four panels. clean evenly--
Michael: I guess he figured anything goes at this time.
Harold: Yeah. And I mean, and it also, this is so 1989 compared to early Peanuts, that somebody who likes Charlie Brown, likes Charlie Brown so much that she's going nuts to hear that he's nibbling on someone else's ear. that's a lot different than the Charlie Brown that we knew in the fifties and sixties.
Jimmy: And yet Charlie Brown himself doesn't see himself differently. I think that's really sophisticated writing.
Harold: Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's clueless. Or whenever it's made obvious to him, he's trying to back away as fast as he can. You know, it's usually those phone things when he's on, he's like, I'm sorry, you have a wrong number.
Jimmy: Right, right. Like he doesn't know how to process it.
Jimmy: That whole, I really think that's a good little sequence. Very fun.
July 7 baseball game. Lucy comes up to the mound and says, sorry, I missed that. Easy fly ball manager. I thought I had it, but suddenly I remembered all the others I've missed. And then she walks away saying, the past got in my eyes.
Michael: Which would be a weird line if she hasn't done this excuse thing like 20 times already.
Jimmy: I like past got in my eyes. That's a great, that's a good country western song.
Harold: Okay, pitch of the week. Number two. All the Lucy excuses for why she didn't catch a ball in, in a book.
Jimmy: Little oh, that'd be really funny.
July 10. So Linus and Lucy are at the ice cream parlor, and Linus says, a double dip cone, please, with the chocolate on top and the vanilla on the bottom. He continues, I like the vanilla on the bottom because it leaves a better lingering aftertaste. Then he gets this ice cream cone and says, thank you. I appreciate the performance of a fine chef. And then they leave the ice cream parlor with Lucy saying to Linus, you drive me crazy.
Jimmy: The lingering flavor is the most important part of the meal. I am 100% on Linus’s side, here.
Harold: now to you, is vanilla the thing that cleans the palate? That's how you want to end, or.
Jimmy: Yes, I also agree with that.
Harold: Yes, I kind of agree as well. Yeah. The other four panel. We keep picking the four panel strips. This one's a little different in terms of how it's broken up, but there's a lot of text in here.
Michael: What I find strange. And I wonder if he drew it first and then did the lettering gets those triangles in panel one. It looks like they were probably little representations, of ice cream cones. But, if you cut off the top, it looks like there's four people talking here.
Jimmy: Yeah, I was going to say. And not only that, the actual little pointer to Linus is really wonky.
Harold: Yeah, right.
Jimmy: Yeah, that is really weird. Yeah. I was thinking of them as, like, pennants. Like, sporting pennants, but, yeah, they're the bottoms of ice cream cones on the signs of the wall, rather. That's a really strange thing.
Okay, guys, so how about we stop there for this week, come back and finish 1989? Does that sound good?
Harold: Yeah, sure.
Jimmy: Oh, and of course, you know, we didn't mention 1989 is, of course, the year Taylor Swift was born.
Harold: Okay.
Jimmy: A lot to celebrate in this year.
Harold: Happy birthday, Taylor.
Jimmy: Happy birthday, tay tay. Yeah. So we want you to come back next week, where we do, we wrap up 1989. In between now and then, if you want to keep the conversation going, you can follow us, on the social medias. We're unpackpeanuts on Instagram and Threads, and we're on Facebook, blue Sky, and YouTube at unpacking peanuts. And of course, you can always email us. We're unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com. and if you want, you can give us a call. 717-219-4162 and remember, when I don't hear from you, I worry.
Liz: And where's Harold going to be coming up.
Harold: Up these coming weekends? If you're around, the east coast, if you want to stop by and say hi and talk unpacking Peanuts or mystery science theater or sweetest beasts. On Saturday the 21st, I will be at the Woodside Queens Festival in Queens, New York, between 63rd in Roosevelt on the 22nd. Looks, like, I'm going to be, in Manhattan at Columbus Circle between 60th and 61st street on Broadway with my tent and selling my wares. And the 27th, I will be in Harrison, New Jersey, at the Riverbend artisan market from four to 09:00 p.m. and then for those of you who are mystery science theater fans and haven't yet heard, October 4 and fifth, I'll be at the Mahoning Drive in theater in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, with Joel Hodgson. He is taking over the drive in for Friday and Saturday night, showing his favorite mystery science theater episodes. And he is also, he's going to be signing stuff. He's going to also, he picked two movies, 35 millimeter movies, on one of the biggest screens in the United States, showing the big circus. And I think it's the 7th voyage of Sinbad. And I will be setting up right next to him and, ah, selling the mystery science theater, comics and stuff with Joel. So that's my upcoming weekends. If anybody can come out and say hi.
Jimmy: Awesome. I will be, walking to the corner shop to get, an Arnold Palmer, for the next 15 minutes. So if anyone sees me there, stop by and say hi.
Michael: And I will be at, Via Giannini 13 Pergola, Italy, every day for like the rest of my life.
Liz: I'll be in Rome this weekend.
Jimmy: Well, you win.
Harold: Yeah, right.
Jimmy: Suddenly my Arnold Palmer's not seeming so exciting. Anyway, see you characters next week. For Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
MH&L: Yes, yes. Be of good cheer.
VO: Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen and Harold Buchholz produced and edited by Liz Sumner music by Michael Cohen additional voiceover by Aziza Shukrala Clark for more from the show, follow unpackPeanuts 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.
Jimmy: The better lingering aftertaste.
Comentarios