Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts, and today we're starting a brand new decade, 1990s, one of my favorite decades, and I couldn't be more excited to be here. Who am I? Well, gosh. I'm 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, the Dumbest Idea ever. And, you can now read my new comic, Tanner rocks, for free over at gvillecomics dot substack.com.
Joining me, as always, are my pals, co hosts, and fellow cartoonists. He's a playwright and a composer 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 is Strange Attractors, a gathering of spells and tangled River. It's Michael Cohen,
Michael: say hey.
Jimmy: And he's the executive producer and writer of mystery science theater 3000, former, vice president of Archie comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation sweetest Beasts. It's Harold Buchholz.
Harold: Hello.
Jimmy: Well, guys, we are starting a brand new decade. one of my favorites. I don't think at any point, in my life did my tastes and interests meet the culture's tastes and interests as it did, in these early 1990s. So, unsurprisingly, because I was 18 to 23, 24.
Harold: That's a good time to line up with the culture.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm excited to get into this. I was pretty actively reading Peanuts, in the nineties, so I'm, Yeah, I'm really, really excited to check out these strips. I picked a bunch of them for this first episode. Harold, what are you thinking? What are your thoughts as we start a new decade?
Harold: Well, it was interesting, obviously, we'll be going through these early year strips in this episode. To be honest, as I read these, I felt that these, this was probably the softest block of strips I've read to date, meaning, a lot of stuff just didn't land for me. It's interesting that it is out at the beginning of this new decade. So I'm just going to be interested to see how it plays out throughout the rest of the year. But a lot is going on in Schulz's life at this time. beyond the strip, as we've been talking about, there's a lot to do when you're managing something that is a worldwide phenomena. So here are some things that were happening at this time in Charles Schulz's life. He's named commander of arts and letters in France at this time, which is pretty cool. And the Louvre has a large Snoopy exhibit opening.
Jimmy: Amazing.
Harold: Which then goes on to, I believe, Japan and Los Angeles. So what an impact that Peanuts is represented not only in newspaper strips, but this is kind of unprecedented that a comic strip artist is in the Louvre and then moving to Japan that shows this worldwide reach that he has. And that can't be a small part of his life, right?
Jimmy: I would not think so.
Harold: What also is going on? they just had the, hour long special. It was called you don't look 40, Charlie Brown on CBS, in February of this year. And there's also. I don't remember this. Maybe you guys do for the 40th birthday, the Super bowl halftime show.
Jimmy: I do remember this. Yep.
Harold: So let's, let's go back here. So now is, in Louvre. He is a commander of arts and letters in France. That's not an easy thing to do.
Jimmy: No.
Harold: And he is the featured part of the most watched television show in the United States for the Super bowl halftime show. That is amazing. And that's just in like a period of, a few months.
Jimmy: A few months.
Harold: And, as far as where he is in the newspapers, editor and publisher did publish a poll that was right around the time of the strips we're reading. And, this was for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. And, they did a poll of the readers, as we've mentioned sometimes, and for better or for worse, by Lynn Johnson, who was a good friend of Charles Schulz. She was the reader favorite. And number two was Peanuts. And then number three, Hi and Lois, number four, the born loser. And number five, Hagar, the horrible. So he's, he's right in there still with the, the readers in terms of their engagement with the strip at this time. So that's all I got for early 1990.
Jimmy: I mean, that's amazing. The Louvre thing is mind blowing. In the, documentary that PBS did, the american masters documentary, Lynn Johnson tells a story about how she would tease him and say, oh, you know, I made 2000 newspapers. I'm catching up to you, Sparky. And he would say, I'll see you in the Louvre.
Michael: Not that hard to get into the Louvre.
Harold: Oh, really?
Jimmy: Tell us how.
Michael: Oh, you just pay like what? How much? 10 euros?
Harold: Well, now I.
Liz: There's a line.
Michael: Yeah, there's a line.
Jimmy: There's a line. That's a bummer.
Harold: Yeah, I think she's got to pass through the line that's like, do you.
Jimmy: Ever see the line up to reach, the top of Mount Everest? Do you ever see the line of people standing?
Michael: it goes all the way to, like, India.
Jimmy: Man, Michael, you are on fire today. Did you have a bowl of Snicker Snax? do you got anything you want to share with us about the early 1990s, Michael, either in Peanuts world or in your own memory?
Michael: I don't think I was reading any comic strips at this period anyway. yeah, of course, this is all new to me. And, so until the word started getting out about his impending retirement at the end of the decade, I wasn't really paying any attention to Peanuts.
Jimmy: Well, now we. Except, I would imagine when we would discuss the old ones. The old ones?
Michael: Oh, yeah. And I met Jimmy in this decade.
Jimmy: In 96, so we were.
Michael: We were self publishing comics. So, yeah, my whole focus was on the comic books. And, yeah, comic strips would seem like just kind of something off way over there.
Jimmy: Yeah. I mean, that is something that's worth sort of talking about. The comic strip medium or world, rather, not the medium so much. And the comic book world are very far apart. And I think the nineties, at least on the independent side, when we were doing the self publishing thing, that was, very much, I think, in the moment, it was very much about expanding, stories and comics and where they can go into the future. And, you know, comic strips at that point were starting to feel like the past.
Michael: Yeah. But your first, attempt at Amelia was for a comic strip?
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. Yes, it was. Yeah. Yeah. I still have those strips. I think I should dig those up and put them out on substack or something just for readers. That'd be fun for them to see.
Michael: Yeah, it's a whole different thing, but it is Amelia.
Jimmy: Yeah. Very strange.
Harold: And one thing I should mention, there was an award for college cartoonists that, Scripps Howard, and Schulz kind of helped sponsor in the late eighties, at least. And I'm not sure how, far it went in to later years, but I answered that, and I believe from what I've seen, at least the year following, Schulz was a judge, so it's possible he might have seen my work.
Liz: Ooh, that's really cool.
Jimmy: I remember that contest. I do remember that contest.
Harold: It was a super special little moment for the college cartoonists, because it was a thing, you know, for those of you maybe younger, or those who didn't attend college, it was a thing to have a strip in the newspaper. And some of these larger universities had, like, a daily newspaper or a Monday through Friday newspaper. And so while you're a college student, there were certain guys who were, and women as well, but mostly guys at the time, putting out these comic strips in their college papers. And sometimes, you know, might be 10,000 readership or whatever. And I was doing that on a small scale once a week, putting out a comic strip.
Jimmy: Yeah, I did a, newspaper strip in college, but it was a weekly thing. It was a very small, school. And, it was actually just my Shades of Gray strip. I tried to turn into a comic strip. Didn't really work at all, but it was fun to do. It was very cool to do, to see it in the newspaper. And it was kind of a big deal. I mean, the other, I remember seeing the, there was, like, four strips, I think, that, were done by students, and that was really cool. But we're here talking about the pros now and the big leagues. So what do you say we get, right to the good old 1990s comic strips and get into it?
Michael: Yeah.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: All right. So if you guys want to follow along out there, the first thing you got to do is, go over to our website, unpackingpeanuts.com, and sign up for the Great Peanuts reread. And what that will do is get you a once a month email from a good pal, Harold. That'll let you know. As best we can tell, what strips we're going to be covering in that month. And then, because this is the 21st century, you can not, pay for any of this and go on over to gocomics.com, where you could read all of these strips for free. Or if you're fancy and a little bougie, you can go buy those Fantagraphics books, but then you can read along with us, and that makes it all the better. So, with all of that, out of the way, let's just get to the strips.
January 4, it's a one panel panoramic, strip, and we see Linus hiding behind a sort of sad little snow, wall he has made for defense in what looks like a snowball, fight that he is engaged in. And he is yelling, this fortress is impregnable. Nothing can destroy it. No one can get by. No one. And then we see, though, an entire army of beagle scouts just in a row, tromping over top of him, over his head, and, continuing on their merry way.
Michael: Well, they're foreign legionnaires.
Jimmy: Oh, yes, they are. Sorry. They are the foreign legion. You can tell by their hats.
Michael: Yeah, you can always tell anything by their hats.
Jimmy: Hey, speaking of Harold, do we have an update on, any approachable hats?
Harold: No. I checked out the, bob Dylan hat, and I said no Thank you. Thank you for the option. Yes. I don't think I would look good. Bob, of course, rocks it, but I don't think it's for me. Thank you for the suggestion.
Jimmy: All right, well, guys, get on it out there. We need an approachable hat.
Michael: So I think the Schulz people, if you're out there listening, pitch of the week, there's big money to be had. Turn this strip into a video game. Oh, your Linus. You have to throw snowballs and knock the little legionnaires off before they overrun the castle.
Jimmy: That's a brilliant Idea. I love that our pitches are now branching out into multimedia.
Harold: This is great. I'm sure they're super grateful for all of our ideas.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, I'm sure.
Harold: Just sitting there at the very every Tuesday when it drops. Oh, boy. Who's taking notes? We got an intern working on this.
Michael: But I think it's a mistake. This strip in particular, I think this cheapest, no pun, cheapens, Woodstock. He's not a unique little bird. There's, like, an infinite amount of clones.
Jimmy: Well, is that different?
Harold: There are 22 little, little birds on here, which is probably maybe a record in a. To have 22 birds in a single panel, that's a lot.
Jimmy: And it's really cool.
Michael: How many snowballs are there?
Harold: We got. We got six visible.
Jimmy: This reminds me a little bit of the old strip, where Linus is, ranting somewhat similarly. and he, somewhat. I can't remember who it is. Is it Lucy, I assume, comes up from behind him and hits him with the snowball and says, you'll notice. You'll have to use strategy, though. so I just. It was fun to see Linus doing kid like stuff. I noticed that there is some real kid like activities this year, which I thought was cool. And I just love the image of 20 some woodstocks just wandering around.
Liz: He used to make much better snow forts than this.
Harold: That's true.
Jimmy: Well, global weirding. That's the best he could get in the nineties.
Michael: They could go around.
Jimmy: There was a hole in the ozone. Liz.
January 5. Linus and, his friend Lydia are sitting in class, and, we can actually officially say it's Lydia because the strip starts out with her saying, my name is Lydia. But for today, you can call me Snowflake. You can call me Snowflake because there's only one of me in the whole world. Contemplates this for a second and says, I'll have to get back to you on that.
Michael: Boy has she got him flummoxed. He does not know what to do.
Jimmy: Lydia is some sort of relationship genius. Well, I don't know if relationship genius is the right word, but she can certainly keep a boy on the hook.
Harold: Yes. I'm glad to see that Lydia made it into the nineties.
Michael: Yeah, there was like, we picked three. I can't remember how many there were. Maybe we picked them all.
Harold: What part of this do you think, is Linus having to ponder?
Michael: What do you say to that?
Harold: That's one thing I could actually go along with. With Lydia. Yes. You are the only one in the whole world.
Liz: maybe he's imagining, what if there were more of them?
Harold: Yeah. Boy, that could be mind blowing.
Jimmy: Or also he's been tortured by quite a few females in various different ways. So maybe he's thinking, well, are you that different?
Harold: I love his expression. I haven't seen this a lot. At least I don't remember it. Where he always does the two little ellipses on either side of his eye, but he has one eyebrow that's straight across and the other one is arched. And it's just kind of the thinking, slightly bugged version of Linus.
Michael: That's an eyebrow.
Harold: Nice cartooning.
Michael: It could be a hair.
Jimmy: Definitely an eyebrow. But yeah, I love that expression. And when you look at how tiny it is.
Jimmy: Wow. crazy.
Harold: Yeah. Lydia drawing first, that first panel, you know, such a cute, design.
Jimmy: Lydia is a great character design and could be, from any decade. She seems like completely timeless. I could have seen her in fifties strips, you know?
Jimmy: She would have fit right in.
Liz: Classic hairstyle.
Jimmy: Classic hairstyle. Always love a cartoon character with a hair band.
January 17, we see Snoopy crawling along on his belly in the snow. And he's thinking to himself, here's the fierce snow snake sneaking up on a victim. Linus is the victim. And he says, just the other day I was reading that there isn't such a thing as a snow snake. And in the last panel, Snoopy sneaks, away on his belly in the opposite direction.
Michael: So Linus was reading the paper and the headline was, there are no snow snakes.
Harold: It was slow news day, you know.
Jimmy: Finally journalism got together and debunked the snow snake myth.
Harold: It's like those health food things that say this product is free of 130 additives. Like, why did you choose 130? It's free of like a thousand additives.
Jimmy: No, it is not.
Harold: 870 are actually in it. I don't know. But this, yeah, this is the classic. And I don't know of another strip that does this or another piece of art that does this, where you have a character thinking and then the other character seems to be knowing what the character is thinking. We see it all the way through Peanuts. But, again, there is something strange and magical about this strip that Schulz has set up over the years that breaks all of the rules that everybody else would follow. And he has a leg up because of it.
Jimmy: Yes, he does. And I really love the drawings of Snoopy crawling through the snow. I think it's really cute.
Harold: And I love comma for an eye when he's looking up at, when he's looking up at Linus making his comment is really, really fun.
Jimmy: Well, just look at that. I mean, if we're going to get into insane detail, the eye, you know, it's the same drawing except for reversing the angle. And third one in all three panels of Snoopy. Right? But the thing that changes is the eye. And that's all it is, right? The first eye is him being the snake and being sneaky and, determined or whatever it is. Then the next one, he's listening to Linus and taking that in. And then he slithers away. Sad. And the only difference is the eye.
Jimmy: Amazing.
January 20. Snoopy and Woodstock are hanging out. And Woodstock has a shepherd's crooked. and Snoopy, says to him, no, you can't be a shepherd because you don't have any sheep. To which Woodstock says something. And then in the last panel, we see Snoopy imitating a sheep for his friend. And he says, bah. And then thinks to himself, I must be out of my mind.
Michael: Well, this sheep looks surprisingly like a cow. He did a cow once in the last panel.
Jimmy: That's right, he did. Yes, yes, yes.
Harold: So what line would we put into Woodstock's mouth in that second panel if we could understand what he said?
Jimmy: Oh, that's a good question. Well, you started the exercise, so you come up with one.
Harold: Will you be my sheepy?
Michael: If you need any dialogue for sheep Harald's your man.
Harold: Michael, what do you think about the third panel where you've got Snoopy saying baa and thinking something in the same panel. Does that work well for you?
Michael: I don't think they're simultaneous.
Harold: Does it bother you that it's in the same panel? Like, should there have been a fourth panel or. Okay,
Liz: does it bother you?
Harold: a little bit. When I was reading it, it seemed a little strange, but
Liz: should it have been a fourth panel?
Harold: I was trying to think about that. I mean, there really maybe isn't a good way to do it. He could be saying, I must be out of my mind before he does it, but then it's too obvious that he's saying baa, so I don't think it works that way. If he says baa on the third panel and he says, it must be out of my mind, maybe. I mean, I can see. I can see this choice. But for some reason, it was odd that Schulz had to let us know what Snoopy is thinking. when he complies with, I think.
Jimmy: It's unusual is what makes it more awkward. If he was able to show clearly that that was a sheep somehow. Like, I don't know how, and he wouldn't have to do the baa. And if it was just, you know, Woodstock asking, and then Snoopy just being the sheep, saying, I must be out of my mind.
Michael: This is definitely a failure. A sheep failure. No, first of all, he's not saying baa. I mean, this looks like a moo, the way his mouth does baa. His mouth would have to be open wider.
Liz: But there's, wiggles on the speech balloon so that you get the baa.
Jimmy: Yeah, you really do get the, You know, that is an underrated, thing out there, changing the way the speech balloon looks or the word balloon, that can totally change how the person reads the, dialogue.
Harold: I think Schulz is so good at body language, of having a character show embarrassment or whatever. And I think maybe what was working against Schulz here is he's got to take the stance of the sheep.
Jimmy: Yeah, right.
Harold: And so he can't do the body language because he's got to look as close as he can to a lamb, and then he has to maybe tell you what he's thinking. I guess the other way you possibly could have done this in a four panel is maybe Snoopy is showing a little disdain or with the Idea, but then he gives in in the last one. I mean, that's another way you possibly could have done it. You know, where he. He's doing it for his friend, but he's embarrassed or thinking it's silly.
Jimmy: Could you imagine if we were Charles Schulz's assistants. And we're standing there talking as he's just mailing it.
Harold: He's like, get out. Out of my sight.
Jimmy: Get out.
Harold: What if you just-- be gone.
Michael: What if he's listening.
Harold: Right?
Michael: He's really pissed up there.
Harold: I think he's probably got better things to do with his time.
January 21. It's a Sunday. It's a nice looking Sunday. And Charlie Brown and Linus are walking around outside. And Charlie Brown says to Linus, it happened again last night. Of course, I expected it. And they're at the thinking wall now. And Charlie Brown says to Linus. Whenever mom and dad come home, as soon as they pull into the driveway, mom says, home again, Finnigin. To which Linus asks, home again, Finnigan?. And then Charlie Brown says, grandma used to say it too. He continues, all families have traditions. Some of them always go to the mountains in the summer. Some families always go to Hawaii for the holidays. Some families always have a big dinner on Sunday. Some families always go to the opera on opening night. All families have traditions. And then he concludes. Our family says, home again, finnigin.
Michael: All right, Jimmy. You're the only irish person here. Is this part of a song?
Jimmy: No, it's not part of the song. It's about, coming home. But every time we would pull in, from wherever we were going, my mom would say, home again, finn again. And I say it now to this day.
Michael: I've never heard it in my life.
Jimmy: Home again, Finnegan. Yeah. Now there's so there. So one of the reasons I wanted to bring this up is because, of course, that's weird. Because we would do it. And I still do it to this day. And I'm sure my girls will, when they have kids, say, home again, finnigan, for God knows what reason. But here's my question. How long was the discussion in the editorial offices. That, he spelled Finnegan wrong? And he spelled Finnegan wrong multiple times. And this was around the time he was told. He told them, do not change even an apostrophe, even a comma. But here we have. How many times does he spell Finnegan wrong?
Michael: Well, is it wrong? Or this might. Maybe this is the original spelling.
Liz: Or maybe it's just the pronunciation. I mean, he spells it that way to make it have a certain sound.
Michael: Well, it looks like.
Jimmy: Yeah. Or maybe he spelled it wrong there. no. Finnegan of home again, Finnegan is.
Michael: Well, I think we have to go back to the old Irish.
Jimmy: How do I know?
Liz: Yeah, how do you know? how the traditional home again finnegan, is spelled.
Jimmy: I don't know. How do you know? Cat is spelled c a t. It's spelled like finnigan. F I n n I g a n m. Finnigan.
Michael: You're assuming.
Liz: Wouldn't it be f I n n e g a n?
Jimmy: No, f I nn I g a n
Harold: Well, Jimmy, I have to say, if you google it, it is f I n n e g a n. Sorry.
Jimmy: Yes, yes, yes. No, I'm sorry.
Harold: Yeah, yeah, I.
Michael: And if we, consult James Joyce, he would agree with that.
Harold: Right? So it's from something. Right? Can we trace this back to a song or a poem?
Jimmy: Well, the only thing I can think of is the song Finnegan's wake, which is where Joyce takes the title for the book. And the only thing I could think about why it would relate to, but I have done no research on this, despite having said it for 50 years of my life. is, you know, Finnegan wakes up, he dies and then is revived, and then it's a cycle that goes on forever. Going on a trip and coming home. And you say home again, Finnegan. Could be that.
Liz: Let's ask the guy who was on that plane with you.
Jimmy: For those who don't remember, I once fell asleep on a cross country flight with my earbud falling on my ear. And the song Finnegan's wake on loop for five and a half hours.
Harold: That can do things to you.
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. Let's do Google home again Finnegan.
Harold: Yeah. I'm trying to find it because people are asking this question.
Liz: No one's asking this question.
Harold: People are wondering when the world of Google, everything is collected. If four people asked it looks like a million people did. I don't know. Home again Finnegan. Yeah. A lot of people are writing little blog posts about it. And, yeah, it's a thing. And there's reference to this children's poem called To market. To market. But it's not in there that I can see. I don't understand why that popped up. But that's when you use Yahoo to search instead of Google. and then there's a Michael Finnegan song or poem, but I don't see the home again part.
Michael: So this must be like, see you later, alligator. For at least my parents generation. Yeah, they say that then there wasn't anything.
Harold: Maybe, I mean, this Michael Finnegan thing. The last things is there was an old man named Michael Finnegan find a little tree and barked his what? Barked his skin again. Took off several yards of skin again. Poor old Michael Finnegan. Begin again. So begin again.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: So maybe, maybe home. Home again was a way of saying, go back to the beginning and start over. And just one of those things that goes in loops. I don't know.
Jimmy: Well, yeah, and that tracks with Joyce too, because the whole, but one of the big features of the book, Finnegan's wake, is that it ends in the beginning of a sentence and you have to start over again and you read it forever. So that Idea of a completed cycle is somehow connected to Finnegan across all these things.
Michael: Thank you.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah. You know, I like the way this draw, this strip looks. I think he put a lot of effort into it. I love the way the thinking wall looks across the board. Michael, he's keeping it consistent, not changing it to black ink in some panels.
Michael: No zipatone,
Jimmy: no zipatone. Looks really nice.
Michael: Full of houses in the background. Yeah, this is classic Schulz.
Jimmy: Yep.
Harold: And he's doing more what you call the symbolic panels, that are actually starting with dialogue this year, I noticed.
Jimmy: Yep, you're right. That is interesting.
Liz: But it's not like necessary dialogue.
Harold: Right.
Michael: Maybe they're not cutting the two panels anymore.
Harold: Oh, that's interesting. It's possible. That was the other thing I saw in the editor publisher. This was the period when people were fighting the syndicates to get their rights back. Was it Cathy? I saw something that she had like an 18 year contract that she was trying to amend.
Jimmy: Oh, wow.
Harold: And, I think the guy who, Bill Keane, who did the family circus, he got the rights back to his strip from the syndicate. So this was definitely a moment when if you wanted to make a move and ask for something or demand something, that it was definitely in the zeitgeist. All the cartoonists were talking to each other about this stuff. So who knows? Maybe he did say, okay, if you're going to run the strip, you're going to include that top tier.
Jimmy: Well, you know, this is, the nineties also was when people started coming up with clever things to do. like the Mutts strip. Instead of having, a top tier that was, you were able to jettison, it had a large panel that would run on the left hand side. That was just an illustration. And in Mutts in particular, I mean, he was able to do spectacular things with that one panel, but it was able to be removed. So people were definitely experimenting. you know, I have to say though, as I understand it, the syndicate deal was 50 50 split. That's pretty good.
Harold: 50 50 after syndicate expenses. So if you're charging against the sidewalk in front of the building in New York City.
Jimmy: Right? Yeah. Well, all of these deals only work if everyone's being on the up and up.
Michael: You don’t want to go against the mob.
Jimmy: It's run by a big eastern.
January 22. Snoopy and Woodstock are atop the doghouse, and they're hanging out. And Woodstock asked Snoopy a question. And Snoopy answers, sure, why not? And then Woodstock flies away, and, Snoopy says to him, well, put it on and let me see. And in the last panel, Woodstock arrives with a gigantic stocking cap that is about three times the size of him. And Snoopy says to him, yes, it does make you look taller.
Michael: Is this his tribute to doctor Seuss?
Jimmy: That's a definite seussian hat.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: You know, I was thinking of another, antecedent, influence on Woodstock.
Harold: What's that?
Jimmy: Ignats. You know, Ignatz mouse from Krazy Kat is a tiny, tiny, tiny little character, with little, you know, dot eyes and stick legs and, and was a huge influence on Schulz. So I was, I'm wondering if maybe he was thinking of, Ignatz when he was developing Woodstock.
Harold: yeah. That's interesting. Are there any other tiny characters in comic strips that might have influenced him?
Michael: Pogo always had little bugs.
Harold: Little bug.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Walking the little baby bug to school.
Harold: Things like, yeah, yeah. And there's a gorgeous little, dog that was in bringing up father. It was this little black dog with a long little snoot and super designy.
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Woodstock looks very cute in that hat. That would be a great Christmas tree ornament. You know, you could just hang them from a bunch of woodstocks by the, by the hats.
Liz: Is that something you'd consider, Harold,?
Harold: For an approachable stocking cap that's three times my height? I'd have to get a taller tent, but, yeah, I'll consider anything. Yeah. The other thing that stands out here for me is that Woodstock in the hat is looking kind of strangely forlorn. I would think most cartoonists would have chosen to give the bird a, big cheesy grin or something. But it makes it funnier when Woodstock is not super proud of this thing that makes him look taller. He's just kind of confused.
Jimmy: It really does make it funnier there. And I know Michael and I have talked about this, in the past, but there is an element when you have the character smiling, when maybe you're not quite sure that the joke is going land. Whatever.
Harold: Yeah, it's a real temptation, you know? Hey, come along with us. This is fun.
Jimmy: Yeah, right. Exactly. But that looks great. Okay. Yeah. here we go. Now. January 25.
Michael: Here we go.
Jimmy: I can't wait to talk about this one.
A bunch of randos that we have never seen are standing in line to sharpen their pencils. The first one says, why do we have to stand in line for everything? then the next one says, what's the hold up? And then the next kid says, probably an overturned vehicle. He really needs to get pencil sharpened because he's, like, whole handful of them. Then another kid says, push him out of there. And then the last one says, what's taking you so long? Charles? Which is wild that they call him Charles. And then by, the way, this is all one panel. And then in the last part of the panel, we see. What do we see? We see Charlie Brown's clothes being sucked into the pencil sharpener. Is that right? Are we seeing Charlie Brown himself being pulled into the pencil sharpener? I'm not sure. But anyway, what's left of Charlie Brown, which does not have a head, says, I like a pencil with a fine point.
Michael: Well, this is part of a sequence. So this is the finale of a sequence, with this pencil sharpener, which is probably the weirdest sequence of dailies he did. I mean, it certainly wasn't worth a week's worth of strips.
Harold: So how does it all start? How does the sequence start, Michael?
Michael: I don't remember anything.
Harold: Well, it didn't have something to do with the little red haired girl. He was trying to, get her attention, and he was going to go up and, sharpen his pencil. That's what I remember anyway.
Michael: That works usually.
Harold: So she's in the classroom again. So little red haired girl who's hopping around from being in the. In the schoolyard or just being in the neighborhood. Now it appears that she's in his class.
Jimmy: Oh, no. You know what? I think I just figured it out.
Harold: What's that?
Jimmy: Charlie Brown has face blindness. And he just keeps. They just new red haired kids moved into town, and he's like, the red haired girl's back. He doesn't know it's a different person.
Harold: Okay, man. Well, that that kid in the middle of the five kids and waiting in line, I think is Marcie's brother.
Jimmy: You think so? Well, what about someone calling him Charles, like Marcie?
Harold: Well, yeah.
Michael: I mean, that could be Lydia, without the hair band.
Liz: Could be Marcie without the glasses.
Jimmy: They are all having a rough day. Whoever they are, they look disheveled.
Michael: This is weird. This is the, least Schulzy peanut strip I've ever seen. It breaks every rule. If someone said, this is what the nineties is gonna look like, I would run the other way.
Harold: Wow.
Michael: I mean, one panel, zipatone characters you've never seen before. And this bizarre, headless Charlie Brown.
Jimmy: What. What has happened to him? What do you think? We're.
Michael: Isn't he trying to get out of his clothes? Cause he's trapped.
Harold: So I don't know how this works. But he's wearing a short sleeve sweater, right?
Jimmy: Well, they say it's a sweater, and then later we see that it's actually now has a long sleeve. I'm not sure if that's because it's destroyed by the pencil sharpener, but whatever. But he has a. Yes, he has a sweater which has his trademark stripe on it with a collar. And that's what's caught in the pencil sharpener.
Harold: Yeah, it's. It's. It's very odd. And then his other sleeve does not show any fingers or hand or arm.
Jimmy: No.
Harold: So, I don't know.
Michael: Take it off.
Harold: Yeah, I suppose.
Jimmy: Okay, so. Okay, so you guys are saying Charlie Brown is tucked in there. Is that, like, the top of his head we're seeing?
Michael: Well, he's talking. You don't see his head? Well, yeah, you do see a little curve there. Yeah, he's trying to. He can't get away. And he's trying to take the sweater off.
Jimmy: I got it.
Michael: Oh, okay. Yeah, that would. This definitely goes in our weirdest strip.
Jimmy: yeah. Like, no, I'm not joking. Like, I could not tell you what was happening. I was very confused. I'm like, is like, did he sharpen his hand off? It looks very grotesque to me.
Harold: Yeah, you, could. You could read it that way, I guess. It's so surreal. Anyway, so you can put your own rules on it. Trying to make sense of it. Boy, I do remember that the pencil sharpener was an important part of the schoolroom. You know, this. It was a big deal for me to go up and sharpen my pencil and the smell of the wood shavings and the graphite, and I. Oh, boy. It was, I don't know why we didn't have those little tiny pencil sharpeners where you just had it at your desk. It was the communal pencil sharpener was a big deal in squadron, if it still is.
Liz: They work better. The mechanical ones than those little ones.
Michael: They have apps for that now.
Jimmy: I don't think you can buy a Boston pencil sharpener anymore.
Harold: What?
Jimmy: The best pencil sharpener, as my, illustration professor would say, it makes a fine roman spear point, but I was looking for one recently, and you can only find them used.
Harold: No way.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Wow.
Jimmy: All right, well, while we ponder with whatever is happening there to Charlie Brown, we're going to take a little break. then we'll come back, answer the mail, and do some more strips. so meet us on the other side.
BREAK
VO: Hi, everyone. We all love listening to Jimmy describe what's going on in a Peanuts strip. But did you know that comics are actually a visual medium? That's right. You can see them anytime you want@gocomics.com. or in your very own copy of the complete Peanuts available from Fantagraphics. Plus, if you sign up for our monthly newsletter, you'll know in advance which strips we're talking about each week. Learn more about the Great Peanuts reread@unpackingpanuts.com.
Jimmy: All right, we're back. So, Liz, we're hanging out in the mailbox here. Do we have anything?
Liz: We do, we do. But first off, I want to do a shout out to Layla Sadiq and John Esparza, for sending us their fan art. It was just wonderful, and I've posted it on social media. But we love to receive your fan art, your ideas of what we look like in our studio and what we look like crossing Abbey Road, doing the ministry of Funny walks. So thank you to them and to anybody else who wants to send us stuff.
Michael: Yeah, those were really great.
Harold: Thank you.
Jimmy: Very cute.
Liz: Then we also received a message from Rob Zverina. He writes, been enjoying your podcast since I stumbled upon it about a month ago now, up to 1975, taking it in order, born in 69 Peanuts. Paperback reprints were my entree into comics and literacy in general.
Jimmy: All right.
Liz: It's wild how 50 years later, I can still anticipate the punchlines as you discuss certain strips. I dabbled in cartooning as a kid, but put down my drawing pen long ago. Except for that time in 2005 when I took a high speed train from Amsterdam to Prague. After eating a space cake in the station that set me up for a ten hour ride, I found myself trying to conjure the spirit of Charlie Brown.
Harold: Wow, those space cakes. Look at how.
Jimmy: Now, a lot of people don't know, but space cakes are made by the Snickersnack corporation. And he sent a strip with that. And it is. It made me laugh out laugh.
Liz: And Ann from Pennsylvania writes, I'm doing a bit of catch up after falling behind on episodes, and I'm really having fun listening. My lunch has been at risk from a spit take more than a few times during the run where Charlie Brown and Linus's teacher is having a rendezvous at the baseball games and then gets dumped. It occurred to me that if the kids wanted to play matchmaker, they should have introduced her to Peppermint Patty's dad. He seems like a single parent who is being the best dad he can be. And a guy like that sounds pretty lovable.
Harold: That's true.
Jimmy: That'd be very cute. See, there's a show. it's the reverse.
Harold: There you go.
Jimmy: You have Peppermint Patty's dad, and all the kids are just off screen all the time.
Harold: Wow. That is. That is a concept. Yeah. Peanuts in reverse.
Jimmy: I like. I like that she describes it as, she's having a rendezvous.
Harold: Yeah. And you start to wonder about the wisdom of that teacher in the first place. That that's where you meet outside, where all the kids are hanging out and your students when you're meeting some guy.
Jimmy: Yeah, I got a perfect place. Oh, man.
Liz: Well, that's it for the mail this week.
Jimmy: That's it. All right, well, listen, if you guys want to write to us, you can do that by sending us an email. We're unpackingpanutsmail.com, and, we love to hear from you. And of course, if you want to follow us on social media, you can do that. We're unpackpeanuts on Instagram and Threads and at unpackingpeanuts on Facebook, blue sky, and YouTube. So we wanna hear from you. Cause, remember, when I don't hear, I worry. So how about we get back to the good old strips?
Harold: Sure.
Jimmy: All right. So, Charlie Brown eventually resolves the whole pencil sharpener issue, and we're on to other things.
Michael: So we don't see his right hand in the strip.
Jimmy: Oh, no.
Liz: But that would have been his left hand. That was.
Michael: Oh, yeah, no, but in this strip it’s his right hand, he's hiding it.
February 7. Charlie, Brown and Sally are sitting on the couch watching tv, and Sally asks her big brother, does a grandma have the right to criticize a grandchild? Or should she criticize the kid's mother, who, of course, is her own child? Sally continues, in my opinion, I don't think she does, and I think I'm going to tell her. And then Sally turns to Charlie Brown and says, unless, of course, you want to.
Jimmy: I have often been the person who has been turned to with, you want to. And nine times out of ten, I'm already criticizing the person, so it doesn't matter. But I feel for Charlie Brown here.
Harold: This all came out of Sally, being late and sending, I think was a six weeks after in sending her thank you notes for Christmas. And, boy, I was terrible at this.
Jimmy: I remember as a kid, I still haven't sent out my thank you notes for my first communion.
Harold: There's still time. This. This was an interesting strip to me because, you know, we have Sally having strong opinions about things here. And this is kind of the squeaky wheel gets the grease kind of thing when she's thinking through, you know, what's acceptable. Is it okay for my grandma to criticize me and let me know that she doesn't think I'm up to snuff when there's somebody in between who maybe. Maybe my mom is responsible or my dad is responsible for this and she should take it up with them, which is a fascinating concept. I never thought of that. That's classic Sally.
Jimmy: It is. Absolutely.
Harold: Have that logic, and you have to stop and consider it for a bit here.
Jimmy: This is, I think, amazing. And am, I reading too much into it, perhaps. But what else do we have to do? If you zoom in super close, if you're looking at this on a screen and you look at Charlie Brown in panel two and Charlie Brown in panel three, ostensibly, Charlie Brown does not move or react through this entire strip. However, if you look very, very, very closely, he does have a subtle change of expression in the third panel that makes all the difference. His eyes are ever so closer together. Just a little bit closer together. There is like a millimeter between his eye and his nose in panel three. And it disappears in the last one.
Harold: It's a different expression. Yeah.
Jimmy: There's one 16th of an inch, one 32nd of an inch longer mouth. And I don't think this is just variation in drawing. It's Schulz having that level of precision when it comes to facial expressions. And then the eyebrows, that one eyebrow, you know, Charlie Brown's left eye, where the right is slightly up. You, know, the right, from us looking at it, is slightly up. So it has a very, very restrained but quizzical and slightly surprised look.
Harold: It's crazy.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Yeah. Second panel, looks like he's looking down. His eyebrows are raised. First panel, he has no eyebrows. And you can see, this very gradual change in his expression based on what Sally's saying.
Michael: Harold and I were just talking about this during the break is, with a few exceptions, these characters are very, very restrained in their expressions and movements.
Jimmy: Mm
Michael: It's, like, minimal. It's the least you can get away with. Nobody's, like, flailing their hands around or whatever.
Jimmy: Right.
Harold: Yeah. We were talking about how maybe that helps pull you into the strip when the characters have so little expression, versus a strip where somebody has just got crazy, crazy reaction. Right.
Jimmy: I mean, and I do crazy reactions all the time, especially in, you know, the Amelia stuff.
Harold: And the question is, does the more reserved strip possibly, allow you to pull you in further into the characters and into the strip because it's such a quiet space? And if does, does a really strong reaction sometimes kind of push you back?
Jimmy: Yeah. And I think it's partly like, it's, well, I mean, if it's a really good reaction and you're great at doing it, you know, Jaime Hernandez can do a strong reaction in a completely different style, and it'll work.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: But I think it takes a real master to be able to do such a minimal thing, because you really have to be confident that that's going to read, that people are going to follow you, that you're just, you're just confident enough in this, this stayed version of this, that I'm drawing basically the same panel three times with minor variations, is enough to bring people in. And I think your own internal artists, criticisms of yourself would probably push you towards not doing it.
Harold: Yeah. Michael was saying, it seems like maybe more inexperienced cartoonists will maybe, I don't know, feel a little less confident about what they're putting in there, and so they'll tend to go over the board with that. And, yeah, I think there's truth that I certainly know I've done that well.
Jimmy: And, you know, there's also, I think, a lot of people are influenced by, well, these days, honestly, the biggest influence on cartooning is, like, manga and anime, and subtlety is not the name of the game and a lot of that stuff.
Harold: Right. And a different experience for the reader because of it.
Jimmy: Absolutely.
Harold: There's one other thing I'd like to mention about this strip. I'd like to suggest a new segment for unpacking Peanuts. I'm calling it Zipatone Watch.
Jimmy: Okay. Are you going to talk about the one dot that's missing in the third panel?
Harold: Well, that was where I started. That is missing between Charlie Brown and Sally, which is in both the fan of graphics and in the, go comics version. But then the thing that really fascinated me was Schulz is piecing together zipatone, above Charlie Brown's head in both panel one and panel two. And I was wondering, you can see the angle of the zipatone changes.
Jimmy: Yes.
Harold: And its effect, actually, is to kind of give you the sense that this is a cushion that has an angle on it. I don't know if he meant it or he just ran out of zipatone. He didn't have a big enough patch to put in this gigantic panel. But he does it a second time above Charlie Brown's head, where maybe he was doing something intentional.
Michael: I remember. I mean, I used it for a while. You usually end up with a little box full of scraps.
Jimmy: Right.
Michael: all the little pieces you've cut out. And sometimes you just. At least I did, you know, try to put them together so you don't waste your valuable zipatone.
Jimmy: Because it was expensive. I mean, I know that's irrelevant for Schulz, but. But it was expensive stuff. It's like, how much was it? Like five, $6 a sheet?
Harold: I think so. At least when I was using it.
Jimmy: And that was 30 years ago.
Harold: Right around this time, actually, for me.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Liz: Are we going to ask Benjamin about what the actual art looks like?
Harold: I think he just did. Yeah, This does absolutely look like, it's a patch job, but, we would. We could get some confirmation. If somebody has access,
Liz: he probably has better things to do.
Harold: He might have better things to do than do our Zipatone Watch, Benjamin. But thank you for listening.
February 9. Sally is, talking to Snoopy in their living room. And Sally says, each family has a chain of command. And do you know who's the lowest on that chain? Guess. It's the dog. The dog is the lowest. Do you understand that Snoopy does not respond at all? And Sally says, I said, do you understand that Snoopy does not move, but thinks to himself? They hate it when you just stare at him like this.
Michael: This is super subtle.
Jimmy: Yeah, it really is.
Michael: Snoopy does not react at all. Sally hasn't thrown around her weight all that often, but she must be tired of being the little one and be told what to do. Yeah, I like this one a lot.
Jimmy: Now they're constantly updating the musical, You're a good man, Charlie Brown. And, several years ago, my kids took me, to see a local production for my birthday, and, this was adapted in the new version. and the woman who played Sally really got full value. so it was really funny.
Harold: And it's interesting. We say there's no change in expression from Snoopy, which is kind of the joke, but it does take away his eyebrow.
Jimmy: Eyebrow?
Harold: Yeah. Which is more just the plain blank stare.
Jimmy: That's great, by the way. They hate it when you just stare at them like this. Also works with people, especially if they're already parents. If you could let someone who already knows the answer to their query, just think about it silently for a while. They'll come to the conclusions that they need to without you weighing in at all.
Liz: Hard to do on a podcast, though.
February 13. Lydia and Linus are in class, and Lydia is handing Linus a valentine. She says, here, Linus, I want you to have this valentine. But don't misunderstand. This doesn't mean I love you or anything. Linus asks, what does it mean? And Lydia says, it means I happen to have an extra one left over.
Michael: Harsh.
Jimmy: I don't believe her.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: I, think she totally loves him.
Harold: I think there's something going on there.
Jimmy: Absolutely.
Harold: I don't even think she knows. That's the kind of the fun of it.
Jimmy: Oh, absolutely. Yes. This, to me, I think, actually, this is really very, very sophisticated understanding of childhood and romance. Because she clearly does have feelings for Linus, but she doesn't know how to express them. So she comes up with this game.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: And,
Harold: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think back to that strip where she's calling him on the phone and she's telling him one thing, but the big smile on her face kind of, says something else.
Michael: I was just wondering if we'd ever seen her in anything but profile except.
Jimmy: In that phone call. Maybe not. She's right, because I'm pretty sure she does. We see a full on view in that, but we see it 90% in profile or more.
February 18. Snoopy is atop his doghouse, and he wakes up, and he thinks to himself, am I awake? And Charlie brown hears something in his bed. We cut to that, and, it turns out it's Snoopy kicking away at the door. Bam, bam, bam. Charlie Brown answers the door and asks Snoopy, are you feeling lonely again? And then he lets Snoopy in the house, and he asks him, it's a terrible feeling, isn't it? And then they decide to have a little sleepover. Charlie Brown and Snoopy are tucked in in the bed. And Charlie Brown says to him, you wake up in the middle of the night, and everything seems hopeless. You're all alone. You wonder what life is all about. And why you're here. And does anyone really care? And you just stare into the dark, and you feel all alone. And then Snoopy, tucked in next to Charlie Brown, turns over to him and thinks to himself, do we have any night cookies?
Michael: So, Harold, I noticed this is one of your few picks.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: What was it about this that appealed to you?
Harold: Well, I, started out the podcast today, saying that I felt like the strips this four months or so that we're reading, the beginning of 1990 felt very soft to me. Kind of a smaller world that's already very small. And, you know, just the few things I know about Schulz in this period, other than all these crazy things happening around him, all around the world, celebrating what he's doing, is that, you know, he said, these are the things, I think at night. You know, this is Schulz. These are the questions that Schulz is often asking late at night when he can't sleep. and then, of course, Andy, his little dog that has become such a huge part of his life. We see it over and over in the strips where he's got this little companion. And Schulz is kind of joking that, you know, the reason his companion is with him is for the food and for the cookies. And so this seemed to just be a, really emblematic strip of, where Schulz is a part of his life, is really nicely captured. I love the little interaction. And although Snoopy often is dismissive of Charlie Brown, it seems like that's disingenuous because he goes to him when he needs something. And I don't know if it's just about the cookies.
Jimmy: Oh, I don't think it's just about the cookies. but the cookies are a bonus. And also, I think Charlie Brown has taken care of everything for Snoopy at that point. Whatever anxiety Snoopy did have, you know, now he's inside, he's tucked in. Everything's good. So now Snoopy's onto the new thing. Before, Charlie Brown still has his existential angst.
Harold: Yeah. Wearing his, Sergeant Pepper lonely hearts club pajamas.
Jimmy: Yeah, they are really into those weird pajamas. It just needs, like, epaulettes on the shoulders.
Harold: Yeah, I don't think you want all those buttons on your front, unless if you're a stomach sleeper,
Jimmy: it would not be comfy, I don't think. Although what, does look comfy is Charlie Brown and Snoopy just tucked in bad. I love that.
Harold: It's lovely.
March 3. Snoopy's at the mailbox, and he's got something. And it says, dear contributor, we are returning your dumb story. Note that we have not included our return address. We have moved to a new office, and we don't want you to know where we are.
Jimmy: Oh, that just, It made me laugh. And also, I just wanted to mention I've just had a little, chat with an editor of mine, at, scholastic. And, I'm going to be able to serialize seven good reasons not to grow up on my sub stack, but not just the version that was published. Jimmy's version.
Harold: Oh, the director's cut.
Jimmy: Yeah. The 75 extra pages that are absolutely insane. And it has robot Miley Cyrus's and stuff in it.
Harold: Wow.
Jimmy: At last.
Harold: Hooray. That's so cool. I can't wait to see that.
Jimmy: Yeah. So, anyway, I just wanted to take this opportunity to throw in that plug.
Liz: When might that hit your sub stack?
Jimmy: January.
Liz: Okay.
Jimmy: Starting in January.
Liz: Cool.
Jimmy: Yeah.
March 20, Sally and Snoopy are under a tree, and Sally is reading a book, and she says, there are too many characters in this book and too much going on. I can't keep track of the mom, which Snoopy thinks I like. A book where there's only one character and nothing happens to him.
Jimmy: I agree.
Michael: Okay. Name that book.
Jimmy: Finnegan's Wake. One character lays there the whole night in dreams.
Harold: hm. Yeah. And again, emblematic of my feeling about this, these four months, nothing happens relative, to what he normally does. It seems like this is just such a low key, low key time.
Jimmy: I think what it partly is is that he hits something and then he goes off to something else. And you're seeing a lot of the things that are big, icons and symbols of the strip, but you're seeing them in very short bursts. All right, here's a one baseball strip, and then we're doing something else the next day. Right.
Harold: It's not building necessarily.
Jimmy: Right. Right.
Harold: Unless you were sharpening your pencil.
Jimmy: Yeah, that we're all sharpening your pencil. I think that thing has to. That would easily make the top five weirdest strips of all time.
March 31. Charlie Brown's atop the mound, and his right fielder, Lucy, comes in and she says to him, come on, Charlie Brown. Strike this guy out. You can do it. We believe in you. And then she walks away saying, I've always believed in you. And then in right field, she says, hypocrite that I am.
Michael: I really like this. But she is mellowing. I don't think she would have done this years ago.
Harold: No, I don't think so. I like Charlie Brown's expression in the second panel. Where he allows himself the tiniest smile in the world. He's letting Lucy have a slight impact on him. Despite all of the things that she's done to him in the past, he's willing to give it a little bit of hope that maybe there's something to what she's saying.
Jimmy: Well, I'm telling you, I think I know why Lucy is mellowing out, and I think she's just much more comfortable in the sweatshirt and corduroy, pants.
Harold: That does it. The saddle shoes, though.
Jimmy: Yeah, well, you got to stick with a trademark, for God's sake.
Harold: Why didn't they have a brand of Lucy saddle shoes? Maybe.
Jimmy: Boy, I think that's, like, a missed opportunity.
Harold: Jeepers, boy, we've just giving them out.
Jimmy: I'll tell you.
Harold: You're welcome.
Jimmy: You're welcome. Question mark.
April 1. It's a Sunday, and we're still, at the baseball field. And Lucy says to Charlie Brown, the key is concentration. Think positive. Now she's back out in the field, and she says, come on, pitcher. Get the ball over the plate. Throw hard. Put some stuff on it. Show a little class. Show a little class. and then we see clearly, a fly ball has been hit in her direction. And she reaches out her glove, but the ball just goes right over her head. Bonk. Lands directly behind her. And Charlie Brown yells out to her, for someone who talks so much, how come you never catch the ball? And then Lucy answers, I'm only out here in an advisory capacity.
Michael: Very nice. Maybe she needs glasses.
Jimmy: It could be that simple.
Harold: Yeah. Amblyopia runs in the family.
Jimmy: My mom, put off getting cataract, surgery for a decade. The reason? She was afraid that the doctor would tell her she was going blind. Now you go, well, she was going blind because of cataracts. You try to. Can you imagine? Pity me. People pity me. Anyway, she got the cataract surgery, and she's like, do you have anything to eat? I said, oh, I have some cheetos. Do you want some cheetos? Oh, I'd love those. But they were never this color before. When did they start making them look like this?
Harold: Oh, no.
Jimmy: It's just what she does look like. Mom, you've been blind for a decade.
Harold: Wow. I nominate this strip for some of the weirdest, word balloon shapes around. Letters, lettering, in the history of the strip.
Jimmy: Just doesn't. Why isn't. Why is he not centering it?
Harold: I don't know. It's so strange.
Jimmy: Yeah, it is weird. It's weird. In panel two, in panel three, panel four, and then panel five. Or not panel five. All the Lucy ones. I'm so. I'm saying. So, Lucy in panel two, three, and four, and then the final panel.
Harold: Strange.
Jimmy: Yeah.
April 3, the beagle, scouts are out for a walk, and, Snoopy asks them if any of you know a good hiking song. Feel free to sing out. And one of them does.
[Liz cracks up]
Harold: You read ahead.
And then Snoopy says, no, I don't think one more for the road is a hiking song. which makes the laugh. The bird laughs.
Harold: So is this the, Frank Sinatra? And I love that all. All five of the birds like big smiles, including Raymond.
Jimmy: Yeah. I love that we're seeing Raymond again. That's so funny. And, you know, here's an idea. Like, if I thought of that, I'm like, I'm not going to cut a tiny little piece of zipatone every time I have the Idea to throw this bird.
Harold: But he's got a whole drawer full of.
Jimmy: Oh, that's what it is, right?
Michael: Yeah.
Jimmy: And he's like, okay, waste not want not. iOh, man. Really funny. All right, let's wrap it up here on
April 17. And, Snoopy presents Woodstock with a crown. And he says, here, if you wear this crown, everyone will think you're king of the jungle. Then in panel two, we see Woodstock wearing the crown.. But he has a question. And Snoopy answers the question in panel three by saying, well, from a distance, they'll never know it's cardboard. And Woodstock stands looking very regal in this cardboard crown.
Jimmy: From Burger King, I'm assuming.
Harold: Yeah, Burger King will do that to you.
Jimmy: When I played the third wise man in my first grade Christmas pageant, I used a Burger king crown with just the logos covered up. Oh, man, I love. I think Woodstock looks great in the crown. Very, very cute.
Harold: King of the jungle.
Jimmy: Absolutely. Well, that'll bring us to the end of this episode. We got tons more strips to cover, before we get to the end of 1990. So we're going to be doing this for a couple more episodes. And we sure hope you join us when we come back, because it's no fun if you're not here. But if you want to keep the conversation going, in the week between now and then, you can head on over to those social media, things that all the kids are talking about. And, you can follow us. We're unpackpeanuts on Instagram and Threads and unpackingpeanuts on Facebook, Bluesky, and YouTube. You can send us an email. We're unpackingepanutsmail.com, and you can even, give us a call, leave a message, or text us at 717-219-4162 and remember, if I don't hear from you, I worry.
So that's it for this week. come back next week where we do more 1990 and have even more fun. So for Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
MH&L: 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 Shukralla Clark. For more from the show, follow unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, blue Sky, and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpanuts.com. have a wonderful day, and thanks for listening.
Michael: Wow. I hate this world.