Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts. And today we're right in the middle of good old 1991. So that's me in the corner, that's Harold in the spotlight. We are living large here in the early 90s. How are you doing? Hope you're doing well. this is Unpacking Peanuts. I'm Jimmy Gownley, so I'll be your host for these proceedings. I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules. Seven Good Reasons not to Grow up and the Dumbest Idea Ever.
Joining me, as always, are my pals, co hosts and fellow cartoonists. First, 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 and the original editor of Amelia Rules. He's also the cartoonist behind such great strips as 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, a former vice president of Archie Comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts. It's Harold Buchholz.
Harold: Hello.
Jimmy: Hey, guys. How you doing?
Harold: Doing well, thanks.
Jimmy: We have a small, technical announcement. Liz does not have her microphone today, so it's back to the old school of just hearing Liz in the distance. How you doing, Liz?
Liz: (from far away) I’m fine
Jimmy: We promise it's not a well situation.
Harold: the ethereal voice.
Jimmy: Yes, it's more of an ethereal voice from beyond, but we're here in 1991. gonna be having a lot of fun. do you guys have anything you'd like to say at the beginning of this here episode, or should we just, like, get right into these wonderful comic strips?
Harold: I just have one thing to say. my new theory is that Violet is now the Shermie of the 90s.
Jimmy: Whoa. You're right.
Harold: She seems to pop up when he needs a character that just doesn't.
Jimmy: Straight, man, just to.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: Harsh.
Jimmy: Do you ever wonder why, like, Shermie just went away so definitively, like, what was about him that like, like you say Violet's still Violet, I think, shows up to, like, 1996. So I'm not sure why Shermy, the first person to ever speak in the comic strip, got such short shrift.
Michael: Yeah, yeah, it's sad. But Violet also was a fairly early character.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: And had more personality.
Michael: She might have been number four or something.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Yeah. We'll be interesting to see if she has any bursts of personality before she goes off into the sunset.
Jimmy: Yeah, often one last, blaze of glory.
Jimmy: All right, well, with that out of the way, everybody look out there for the Shermie of the 90s here. And look around in your own friend group. See if you can find the Shermie of the 20s.
Michael: What if I'm the Shermie?
Jimmy: Well, then you won't find it among your friend group. And then you're like, oh, had a few moments where I've realized I was the Shermie. It happens to us all.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: All right, let's hit the strips.
May 6, Lydia and Linus are sitting in class. Linus is perusing some sort of quiz, or paper that he's working on. And Lydia, sitting behind him, of course, says, have you ever thought of going away to sea for three years? Linus just keeps working on his paper, says, I have no intention ever to go away to sea for three years. And then Lydia says, well, if you did when you returned, I wouldn't be waiting for you. To which Linus says, thanks for telling me. And to which Lydia replies, it was fun. And then Linus just sinks in despair in his chair.
Michael: she's really twisted. No, seriously. I mean, it's sadistic.
Michael: It was that it's fun line that really got me. It's like she's really enjoying, like, sticking it to him.
Harold: Well, what I appreciate is that she shares that with him.
Jimmy: Yes.
Harold: You know, she could have kept that to herself.
Jimmy: Yes. Because it, gives a meta layer to their relationship that I'm zinging you.
Michael: Well, he's.
Harold: He's in on her game. You know, she's not.
Jimmy: Right. Exactly.
Harold: Now she knows. He now knows that she's messing with him. And so I actually kind of like that she invited him in by saying it was fun. You know, that's actually an invite by Lydia as far as I'm concerned.
Jimmy: Well, it's like getting the door slammed in your face and then. Oh, just kidding. Come on. one thing I notice, I've been noticing, and I think we'll notice more as the years, go on. Sometimes the lettering changes like it was fun. Looks very different from the other ones. I think what it is is the space between the letters gets wider.
Harold: And the width of the letters too.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. And to me, it looks a little more like a font. I mean, I'm not saying it is a font, but, it's spaced the way a font seems more than hand lettering, which really is crammed together in a lot of ways.
Harold: Yeah, he has a few minor Winsor McKay moments every once in a while, but he's been doing it for years. Since he's hand lettering everything, he doesn't seem to be laying it down in pencil like most people would. He has the confidence. So you'll see, like, you'll have this strange panel where there's like a quarter of an inch from the left, and then it's pretty much crammed up against the edge, the right edge of the paper. And he seems to be okay with that.
Jimmy: Yeah. The cartoonist, James Tonra, in the 90s, he did a comic strip which I loved, called, I loved it so much that I cannot think of the name of it anyway. But it's about two guys in prison. Really funny. On Top of the World, maybe. but he, was a correspondent of Schulz, and they became pretty good friends. And Schulz said, do you use, lettering guides anymore? And he's like, no, no. I stopped and Schulz said, yeah, me too. And Schulz actually sent him some unused. An unused, strip, I guess, with the lettering guides drawn in, and signed it to him since we don't need these anymore. A little tribute for him. Yeah, Top of the World. I think that's the name of the strip. I'll figure it out after the break because it's worth checking out. I really like it.
May 17, Peppermint Patty's in the classroom. She's up front and she's delivering a book report at this, another of the insane schools in the Peanuts universe, because she's giving a book report on, Well, I'll just read it. This is my report on the Brothers Karamazov, of which there were three, Patty continues. It reminded me of a similar story, the Three Little Kittens, because there were three of them. Also, the teacher says something and Patty answers, really, ma'am? And then with sublime self confidence, Patty says, I'm surprised the similarity never occurred to you.
Jimmy: The fact that Patty gets D minuses in this school is pretty amazing because I don't think 9 year olds should be reading the Brothers Karamazov in class.
Harold: Great.
Jimmy: It's one of my top 10 books. Totally recommend that we read it in high school, but it is dark. Dark and disturbing in a lot of ways.
Harold: Yeah, well, but if she is going to be talking about it, in elementary school, I think you should be comparing it to the Three Little Kittens.
Jimmy: And it's a legitimate comparison, right? Three and three. I think that makes sense.
Harold: Well, I told you I did that high school report comparing, Madame Bovary to Green Acres. So I'm with Peppermint Patty on this.
Michael: Yeah, but you guys haven't read the Decontextualization of Three Little Kittens recently?
Jimmy: No. What, is that such a thing?
Michael: No.
Jimmy: Well, we could probably write one. That sounds pretty good to me. There's. What's that? Isn't there like a, what's the book reading Donald Duck or How to Read Donald Duck. And so it's like, is it pro communist or anti communist?
Harold: Just like he was the capitalist.
Jimmy: Oh, it was probably a pro communist because it's the, maybe the Uncle Scrooge stories. I'm fantastic at recommending things this episode.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: Hey, there was that thing. You guys should check it out.
Liz: Oh, Yeah, I remember.
May 27, Charlie Brown's on the phone, and he says, well, yes, ma'am, I guess we could try. Thank you. and then Charlie Brown comes up to Sally, who's sitting watching TV in her beanbag chair. And Charlie Brown tells her, they want you and me to teach at Bible school. To which Sally replies, teach who? And then she continues, you mean there are people around who know less than I do?
Jimmy: That's a great line.
Harold: Yeah. And there's an example in that second panel of the lettering going right to the edge on the right hand side with a lot of white space on the other side. So, yeah, he does do that. He messes around. He doesn't seem to care. You know, it's not going to. Yeah, it's not going to cause any troubles for anybody. Right. But yeah, this is a sequence that goes on for a while with Sally, going to church and trying to teach these little kids. and he's. She's got, got a problematic student that she has to deal with. So this kind of a new role for Sally.
Jimmy: But as we meet the student here on, June 1st, I'm going to have a few things to say about his character design. But here's the strip.
June 1, in the middle of this class, where Sally is teaching, Bible study, she says to one of her students, you stupid kid, Gatsby isn't the Bible. Why do you keep bringing him up? Because the kid has been bringing up the Great Gatsby again and again. The kid continues and answers Sally with, Gatsby had a mansion in Jericho and he used to throw great big parties. Sally's apoplectic. He did not. You're all confused. You're ruining my class. And then the kid says, you're not very nice. Are you on some kind of medication?
Harold: Wow.
Jimmy: I think this kid's hair is what he was looking for for Rerun.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: When he gets to the final to differentiate Linus from Rerun, he goes with his bird's nest hair, which, is always semi confusing to me. But this. I think this could have worked on Rerun to make him different from Linus. You could have even done the glasses.
Harold: Yeah, yeah, Just something to differentiate him a little bit more. I don't. Don't know why he kept it so close.
Jimmy: I wish I was around him then. I could have made him a success.
Harold: Well, yeah, I know what's going on with Sally's arm in panel three?
Jimmy: it looks like she has some sort of terrible cyst that has to be taken care of immediately.
Harold: I've never seen anything.
Jimmy: Is that what you're talking about?
Harold: I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Her arm. It's not just a straight line.
Michael: That's the sleeve there.
Harold: But what sleeve? I mean.
Michael: Continue. Yeah, I think he's going with a.
Harold: Kind of a curvy sleeve, like it's puffy or something.
Jimmy: no, this looks like it should be. I mean, that might be what he's going for, but it definitely looks like this should be on a medical poster that says, go to your dermatologist today.
Harold: Yeah. Or maybe she's. She's rent her garments over what, this kid?
Jimmy: Yeah. He's so upset. Is she so upset? Rather. so, yeah, the kid is, throwing Gatsby in with the Old Testament stuff. What do you. What do you think that's all about?
Michael: I never understood why Gatsby was such a big deal.
Harold: Oh, I know.
Jimmy: I got to cry for just a second. Hang on. I'll be fine.
Harold: Yeah, I read it in college. I was. I was. Yeah. Big question mark over my head.
Michael: most overrated book in American literature.
Jimmy: I think it's about the style. I think it's beautiful. But that's fine. Lots of people don't like it.
Michael: It’s no Brothers Karamazov, That's for sure.
Jimmy: Well, for sure. but, you know, to me, obviously, he's. Both of these things are part. Or seem to be, anyway, part of him looking back over his life. He used to teach Sunday school. He used to live in St. Paul. I think for all that Citizen Kane mumbo jumbo that Michaelis is trying to peddle, I think you could make a lot more of a case for Gatsby.
Harold: In what way? How would you describe that?
Jimmy: Well, in terms of the fact that he would relate to it because, it's written by a guy from Minnesota. It's about a guy who is seen a certain way from. By the entire world, but his interior world is actually, you know, quite different. And Gatsby stands in the edge of the dock pining away. His whole thing, his whole schtick was really to just impress one woman, from a long time ago. I'm pretty sure Schulz would get that more than he got Citizen Kane. Because I don't think Schulz like started wars, for his, or you know, for his newspaper and stuff like that. I mean, Gatsby or, Citizen Kane's a giant character.
Harold: Yeah. Although the newspaper thing he could relate to. Right, that's, that's his.
Jimmy: Yeah. But not. I don't. But not in the way Kane and William Randolph Hearst, you know, they, they were not above lying to people, manipulating people to do whatever they want. I don't think that's the kind of thing Schulz could have understood. But I do think he could understand, oh, Gatsby is a fraud, at least from his own point of view. Right.
Harold: I could see Schulz dealing with living in a world where the Charles Foster Kanes live. And he's kind of adjacent to that, you know.
Jimmy: Yeah, that's true.
Harold: Yeah, maybe.
Michael: But I could also say Schulz. Schulz. Doing a, Gatsby comic strip would be nice.
Jimmy: He would crush it. That would be an excellent. Did they ever try that classic illustrated newspaper strips? I'm sure they didn't, but that's actually a kind of cool Idea.
Harold: I don't think so.
Michael: I'm sure MAD must have done it at some point.
Jimmy: Well, Mad, but I mean like an actual adaptation in a comic.
Harold: There were some strange adaptation things in the Sundays, but I don't know if they did Ever tried to do like great literature? Yeah, it's usually the latest Audie Murphy movie or something.
Michael: Well, there was Classics Illustrated Junior.
Jimmy: What's that?
Michael: Well, you know what Classics Illustrated was.
Jimmy: Yeah, the comic books.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. Well, there was a whole line of juniors for doing more like fairy tales.
Harold: Fairy tales instead of Joan of Arc or you know, the.
Jimmy: Wow. Nope, Just learned that.
Harold: Ivanhoe.
Michael: Yeah, I used to read those.
Jimmy: See, everybody learns something here on Unpacking Peanuts.
Harold: So what, what that would have been in the 50s and 60s mostly.
Michael: Yeah. Probably late 50s as far as I'm concerned.
June 2nd, it's a Sunday. And The struggle for security is ongoing. Snoopy and Linus are in a tug of war over the of the blanket in the first symbolic panel. Then in the second panel, we see Snoopy peeking out from behind a very raggedy looking tree made of jangly black ink. Then the strip continues and restarts really on the second tier with Linus in classic thumb in blank position. And suddenly Snoopy swoops in, clomp. Grabs the blanket with his teeth and sends Linus flying over the next three panels. then Snoopy grabs Linus blanket and sits in his own classic position, with the blanket by his cheek, but no thumb in his mouth, to which Linus then pulls the entire maneuver Snoopy just did, but in reverse, including grabbing the blanket with his teeth. And then Linus walks away disheveled, with the blankets still in his teeth. And in the background, Charlie Brown and Lucy are sitting under a tree. Charlie Brown says, isn't that your brother walking along with a blanket in his mouth? And then Lucy says, aunt Marian says, you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your relatives.
Harold: Aunt Marian came back. I love that drawing in second to last of Linus with the blanket in his mouth and Snoopy just flying with his butt and his legs and his arms out. That classic Schulz pose. Yeah, that, that's a, that's a fun T shirt.
Jimmy: I like the whole, bottom tier. I really like the last panel because that's a foreground background situation is something that happens so rarely in Peanuts. But it looks real nice here.
Harold: Yeah, he's really mixing stuff up in his panels this year. He really is. It's cool to see.
Jimmy: Yeah. Interesting that he goes with a full on jangly black tree and that second panel because it's a color strip, so he certainly could have just left it for color.
Harold: I like that. That works for me. Yeah.
Michael: Actually would not call that jangly. It looks very tree like.
Jimmy: Oh. so okay, so to be jangly, it has to have more of an abstract fill, more metal. Got it. So this has more of a texture of the tree feel.
Michael: Yeah.
Jimmy: So this is textural black.
Michael: Yes, absolutely.
Jimmy: I love that we have all these terms. This is excellent. All right, so we'll have to, Liz, just recut that in. Change everything to textural black, please. Thank you.
Liz: No problem.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, we can't see any of Liz's hand gestures when I say things like that, which is a wonderful part of this podcast.
June 4th. So we're back here in Sally's story as she's trying to be A Sunday school teacher. And now she, though, is in her, her beanbag chair watching TV and talking to Charlie Brown. She says, how can you teach someone who thinks the Great Gatsby was in the Old Testament? And Charlie Brown says, I heard you kicked him out of your class. What was his name? Larry? Why? Charlie Brown says he's the minister's son.
Harold: Sending Sally's feet up in the air and she disappearing into the beanbag. He's been doing more and more of that.
Jimmy: but I read you that strip because I really wanted to read you this strip. So it's
June 6th, so Larry is, hanging out here now at Sally's house with Sally and Snoopy on the couch. And Larry says, it was nice of you to invite me into your house, ma'am. And they're enjoying a little beverage. And Sally says to him, tell me, Larry, are you going to be a minister like your father? And then Larry answers, is that what he is now?
Jimmy: can I tell you my. The journey I went on reading that strip? Yeah, I went, oh, that's kind of dumb. I mean, how could a kid not know what their parent does for a living? It's kind of a stupid Idea for a bit, as a matter of fact. Where have I heard this before? Then I realized I did an entire Amelia issue about that exact premise. And it's one of my favorite ones. Funny story. But then sitting here, however many years later reading this, I'm like, boy, what a hack.
Harold: Well.
Jimmy: It was a long way to go to get to tell you that, but I just found it really funny. I laughed at myself when I discovered it.
Harold: In spite of yourself.
Michael: So I don't. I don't have this strip in front of me. Who's. Who's he saying ma'am to?
Jimmy: Sally.
Michael: That's weird. When did people stop saying ma'am?
Liz: Never.
Michael: Never. Do they still say ma'am somewhere in the country?
Liz: to every woman over 30
Jimmy: Yeah, people say ma'am. I'll say, I could say, yes, ma'am.
Michael: Or yes, no, I would never say it.
Harold: I say, it's my wife every once in a while. Doesn't always go over. This is a two panel strip with three characters in each panel. I really like. Again, he's just playing with how he spreads out the characters and the development of the strips. And I'm enjoying it. I really am. I love the little bits of business, like Larry looking into what is probably his cup of cocoa while he's saying, it was nice of you to invite me into your house, ma'am. It's kind of cool that we now have Sally, who's been going nuts over this kid, has now invited him in and being nice to him. And it's cool that Snoopy has his little mug of cocoa and is sitting off to the right, watching this conversation and having. And his. The last editorial comment in the strip where he's turned away from them when Larry doesn't know what his dad does and he's rolling his eyes.
Jimmy: Yeah, it's really funny.
Harold: It's just. It's just a fun. It's a fun thing where he's adding bits versus it, just being bang, bang, bang, bang, gag. There's. There are these little. Little touches that he's adding. It's funny you think that it would take away from the strip by going from four panels to two, but he's actually adding something to me in the choices he's making.
Jimmy: I love any chance we get to see a group of the characters in one panel. I always think that looks really charming and very kind of just cozy or whatever you would say.
Harold: It does feel.
Jimmy: There's definitely a cozy vibe. yeah.
Harold: Yeah. Which you wouldn't expect from Sally, right?
Jimmy: No. And what else? I think that's funny about it, too. Is that really what Sally's irritated about? And she ran into another Sally. You know, that's what's like, wait a second, kid. You got everything wrong. But, you know, in the rest of Sally's life, she is that person.
Harold: Yeah. Except that he's the clueless intellectual, and she's more the clueless anti intellectual.
Jimmy: Right, right.
Liz: Isn't she enormous in the second panel?
Harold: She is, yeah. She's quick. She's quite tall. I mean, he kind of comes up to her ear. You could say the top of her ear, maybe. So sitting down. Yeah. So seeing Sally as the big kid is kind of jarring.
Jimmy: One of the things that's really, happened to me while I'm working on my new. Oh, I didn't even say it's at the top, but you can subscribe to my new comic, Tanner Rocks, over at gville comics subs stack.com and it's totally free. But one of the things I'm trying to let myself do is not get hung up on stuff like that. Like, I had. I drew a picture of Tanner hugging her sister, and it just felt totally right. But when I started, like, looking at it, I. Obviously, the proportions are wrong, and if Tanner stood up, she would be, like a foot and a half taller. And I thought, you know what? It doesn't matter. It really does not matter. And I'm only going to make it worse by trying to make it anatomically correct when it's never. I mean, it's a cartoon to begin with, right?
Harold: Yeah. See what Charles Schulz is doing for us?
Jimmy: Exactly.
Harold: If it looks right, it feels right. It's right.
Jimmy: In cartooning, it is right.
June 7th And then we wrap up with another little Gatsby note with a, single panel strip. Larry is waving goodbye to Sally and Snoopy, and he says, goodbye, ma'am. Whenever I think of you, I'll think of Gatsby and the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. And Sally says, I'll think of you too, Larry. And then Snoopy says, so long, old sport.
Jimmy: which is a Gatsby reference. That's the old sport is something they say all the time in that. And also in, like, this side of paradise, that twenties jargon again, single panel strip.
Harold: It does something different than the other strips of this week because it's a single panel strip. You've got this distance between them that actually adds into this Idea that he's saying goodbye. Even though she goes to his church. I'm assuming she will see him again unless she's just given up. But, yeah, I just really like what he's doing with, the panels and the placement of the characters. He's just doing more than he has ever done to the dailies. I'm just looking back this week starts with a five panel daily, then goes to two fours, then to a two, a one and a two. And it's like he's constantly surprising me this year with the choices he's making, and it's kind of refreshing to me.
Jimmy: I love the roses.
Harold: Oh, yeah.
Jimmy: I just think those are great cartoon roses. Just a couple squiggles. A couple.
Harold: What do you think of the giant weed in the middle of the lawn?
Jimmy: They got to take care of that.
Harold: Crabgrass and the lawn of life.
Jimmy: It reminds me of an Eddie Campbell strip in. I think it's in After the Snooter, where he misses a, spot, trimming the grass, mowing the lawn. And his wife points it out to him and he's like, no, no, no. That is a monument to chaos. And it just grows taller and taller over the summer because he won't admit that it was just a mistake.
June 9th. Okay, so we start with it's a Sunday. So we start with a big symbolic panel of a, graduating Peppermint Patty, holding a gigantic diploma. I mean, and When I say gigantic, it's like four times the size of her. Or possibly it's a regular sized diploma and she has shrunk. It's hard to say because there's no background. But then, in the next panel, she's leaving the house and Marcie's there to greet her. And Marcie says, today's the big day. Then on the second tier, we see Marcie and Peppermint Patty peeking out from behind some curtains. They've arrived at someplace. it turns out it's the graduation auditorium. And, Marcie says to Peppermint Patty, I love graduation, don't you, sir? And Peppermint Patty asks, though, what do we have to do? And she looks a little nervous. And Marcie says, just march down the aisle and walk up to the principal. Because they're sitting now in some folding chairs. And Marcie continues to explain, they popped out of the folding chairs. Now, Marcie says, when he hands you your diploma, say thank you. Peppermint Patty looks off into the distance, away from the stage area, I guess, and says, listen to that music, Marcie. And then Marcie says, they're calling our name, sir. And Patty says, someone should have a talk with our principal. And then they start walking down the aisle. And Peppermint Patty says, other schools play Pomp and Circumstance for graduation. And Peppermint Patty says as they're both hopping on one foot, I hate going down the aisle, doing the Hokey Pokey.
Michael: I think they're shaking it all around. Yeah.
Jimmy: So I have a quick question. What the hell is going on in this? What are they graduating for? From who is what is what?
Michael: I don't know. First of all, it seems weird that if they are indeed graduating, that he didn't use that as kind, of the springboard for a big sequence.
Jimmy: Right. But what would they be graduating from? I don't know.
Michael: Junior high, grammar school? I don't know.
Harold: Well, did you graduate your grade ever? Was that ever a thing?
Jimmy: I graduated from 8th grade to high school.
Michael: Oh. See, we went in from 6th. All right, so there you go to junior high. But, yeah, because I. I don't think there's any change. No new teachers, no new kids.
Jimmy: No.
Michael: Yeah. It's like he had this gag he wanted to use, and it doesn't fit in with anything else.
Jimmy: Now, if you did it with Snoopy and Woodstock or a bunch of. Right. Then you could just say, well, it's Snoopy's fantasy world. But this seems weird.
Harold: I just thought you graduate your grade. That does happen. In certain. I mean, our listeners, maybe they can say to tell us if they ever graduated a grade. You know, they had the. We went all the way up to having a diploma for, like, second grade or third grade. I could see this world of awards. Everybody gets the award, and everyone walks away with the blue ribbon and the prize. You know, I could maybe.
Jimmy: Well, yeah, My kids graduated kindergarten.
Michael: Yeah. It's a different school, though.
Jimmy: yeah.
Harold: Well, not. Well, depends on. Yeah, depends on the school.
Jimmy: Well, yeah, I mean, it was the same building, but anyway. Very strange. Very, very strange. I do love the drawing of them doing the Hokey Pokey.
Harold: It's the blank look on Marcie's face, just the stoic doing the little dance, I think, that makes this strip. And he just did the Hokey Pokey joke with Snoopy and Woodstock, and he's like, he's going back to something that works. And judging by the hearts on the likes on the, gocomics.com, there's more likes, I think, than any other strip I'd seen this year. People seem to really like this one.
Jimmy: Well, I mean, then it says. I think that, some part of it is people are responding to the drawing, which I know sounds obvious, but you sort of, I think, tend to think that the joke is all in the writing or the experiences in the writing, meaning the words. But obviously you could get a good chuckle just out of looking at that last panel.
Harold: Oh, yeah. Just seeing the word, the term Hokey Pokey, and seeing Marcie doing a little.
Jimmy: And unnecessary quotation marks.
Harold: Oh. Which is always genius.
Michael: Yeah. He's going through a lot of complicated stuff to get to that Hokey Pokey panel.
Harold: Yeah. He's changing his angles up quite a bit here, right?
Jimmy: Absolutely.
Harold: It's an interesting, interesting Sunday.
Jimmy: Let me ask you guys a question about drawing. Do you sometimes, when you're not inspired to draw, find that it's easier to draw something more complex and more, challenging than just something simple, basic, and repetitive?
Michael: I have no Idea.
Harold: I've never thought of it that way. So I'm guessing no, because, there are those times, at least in my day, when whatever part of the brain is supposed to be the drawing part of the brain, it's not working. And you're just fighting to get back into that space so that you aren't hacking out something that looks horrible. fighting through it sometimes seems to help because you ultimately your brain figures out, oh, I need to be focusing on this. But I've noticed. The thing I've noticed is if I'm not doing really well with the drawing. I might be doing really well with the right, because I don't know if it's a left brain, right brain thing they talk about or what it is, but that's what I've noticed.
Jimmy: Interesting.
Harold: What is your experience?
Jimmy: Yeah. If I sat down on a day when I wasn't up for it, which just wasn't feeling the mood, and it was, Amelia and Rhonda in class talking to each other, that would break my spirit. Like, oh, what am I going to do? Draw nine panels of them sitting in the same desks over and over again? So, And, yeah, and when I was younger, I would go, yeah, man, that's the gig. You got it. You wrote it. You got to draw it. Now that I'm older, it's like, well, I'm just. I'll write something different. Forget it. Like when I was working on, And it's not coming out until, you know, probably January, February of next year, I'm serializing on my substack, but I'm working on this book called in the Real Dark Night, which is also an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote. since today is our Fitzgerald episode. and I just decided I'm not going to draw anything I don't want to draw. So, every page is just me drawing, drawing however it is that I want to draw in that moment. And I found that it is much easier for me to go, all right, I'm going to do a crowd scene with a bunch of people in this class, and it's going to be emotive and all over the place than just something meat and potatoes, talking head stuff. I think I've drawn so much of that stuff that I just need to find something more interesting to draw.
Michael: Yeah.
Harold: As artists, when you're working on a comic, do you kind of purposely hop around, go that panel? No, I'm going to jump over two pages and ink this thing, because I feel like I can do that now. Or do you just plow through step by step?
Jimmy: No, mine's completely chaotic until the last possible second. And then sometimes for months after publication, it is also still completely chaotic.
Harold: How about you, Michael? Do you find yourself just going panel by panel, or do you, every once in a while, jump and round a little bit to hit wherever you are feeling?
Michael: On, Tangled River, which was a big graphic novel, I was determined to do one panel a day. Finished. And so. And, since I was going off my own script, I was definitely, definitely knew what I was going to be drawing every day. Yeah. Now I tend to skip around a little bit more. But also when confronted with a sequence where nothing is happening in many panels, you can always rewrite it.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: so that there is something happening.
Jimmy: Exactly, exactly. And I think that's probably like. I think it's probably the right move in some of those situations. Because you think, well, I'm too bored to draw it.
Harold: Right.
Jimmy: Maybe people aren't going to want to read it, you know.
Michael: Yeah, of course. And some people don't care.
Michael: Dave Sim. Notorious for doing pages and pages of static characters.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Literally. I mean, sometimes I think he even just photocopied them.
Jimmy: Well, the famous one is the four and a half pages of Cerebus peeing at night. He wakes up in the middle of a dream and then it's four pages and you just see him from the like chest up and he's. But it's the same drawing. Four photocopied for four and a half pages. Yeah, yeah.
Michael: But he's doing lots of things with the lettering and stuff.
Harold: Yeah. And did have you guys ever felt guilty about the idea of --. In this computer world of. Now, Jim, you largely are working on paper, but that doesn't mean you couldn't scan something. And then. Oh yeah, it just appears once on your actual finished Bristol board. But then, you know, in the computer you are dropping it in over and over again. Because at first I'd heard people say, well, they look down on it. You know, you look at Schulz, he drew everything. He just really didn't copy stuff. And that was like the cartoonist, cartoonist thing. But I think because of my background in animation.
Harold: Where you create one background and you reuse the cells. Because it's such an arduous process that I think that affected my approach to doing the comics once I had that computer because it was like, well, you know, I'm looking at it from an animator's perspective rather than say the purist cartoonist perspective.
Jimmy: No, I absolutely do that. and actually going back to Cerebus, he had a background artist, a genius named Gerhard. And Gerhard would actually sometimes just do one master drawing and then, you know, he didn't do it digitally. He would photocopy it and then cut and paste areas behind the drawings because they wanted finished art. As you know, in the real world.
Harold: Oh.
Jimmy: That was also being photographed. It wasn't being scanned.
Harold: Yeah, I don't mind. I was looking back and thinking the first Sweetest Beasts book I have is Wild lion kind of just lying in the dirt. His nose is, like, right on top of the, you know, the desert floor. And he's just kind of looking straight at you. It goes on, like, 10 panels. And then I didn't. I didn't redraw it. I changed the background colors to all these different pastels, which I thought worked pretty well, but for some reason, the point was he's not moving. He's just there in the dirt, thinking. And I thought, yeah, I shouldn't redraw this, actually.
Jimmy: Right. I totally think that's the right way to go. And I think, you know, with that Cerebus thing, too, like you said, you're doing 10 panels or whatever like that. Well, that's the way to go. I mean, Cerebus, that's four and a half pages repeating the same drawing. That's a move. That's. That's a move. That's. That's a concept and Idea. Do it for two panels. It's. It's, That was lazy. Do it for 10 panels. It's what you're meant to do.
Harold: It's a manifesto.
Jimmy: Yeah. It's an aesthetic to the piece. yeah, that's how I feel. Anyway,
June 19th. Good old Sally has answered the door at the Brown house, and she says, there's a dog here who wants to come in. And then Snoopy walks past her saying, not a dog. The dog.
Jimmy: Which I have to agree with him.
Michael: Well, he is the dog.
Jimmy: He is the dog in pop culture.
Michael: Yeah. He won.
Jimmy: Yes.
Harold: He's earned the right to say that. Yeah.
Jimmy: And he's clearly the dog at the Brown house. There's no other dog.
Harold: Right.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: What's Sally doing?
Jimmy: She's being passive aggressive there. I think maybe so.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: All right, well, while we contemplate whatever the heck Sally is thinking about calling Snoopy a dog. we're going to take a quick break, get a nice tea. Or a nice tea, depending on which way you like it. And, then we'll come back, check the mail, and read some more strips. See you on the other side.
BREAK
VO: Hi, everyone. Have you seen the latest anger and happiness index? Have you admired the photo of Jimmy as Luke Skywalker? Or read the details of how Michael Co. Who created the first Comic Book Price Guide. Just about every little known subject we mention is referenced on the Unpacking Peanuts website. Peanuts obscurities are explained further and other stories are expanded more than you ever wanted to know, from Albert Payson Terhune to Zipotone Annette Funicello to Zorba the Greek. Check it all out@unpackingpeanuts.com obscurities.
Jimmy: All right, we're back. Hey, Liz, I'm hanging out in the mailbox. Do we got anything?
Liz: We do. We got one email from Rob Zvarina. and he writes, I am so conflicted. I've listened up to 1981, but part of me wants to skip ahead to newer episodes so I can participate in the unfolding conversation. But I've also recently started collecting the Fantagraphics volumes, which makes me want to go back to earlier episodes for the readalong experience, as if I weren't suffering enough existential dilemmas already. And then he says, I really appreciate the gentle vibe of your podcast, and it's bittersweet to see it so rapidly approaching the end.
Harold: Oh,
Michael: I'm very glad we're providing some angst to our readers out there. It makes me very happy.
Jimmy: Yeah, you say it's a sweet, gentle place, but in our mission statement is we want to induce this type of psychotic breakthrough from people.
Harold: Well, thank you. I hope you find, the solution to your, dilemma.
Jimmy: Yeah, well, the answer is just listen all the time. At work, in the car, at.
Harold: Home, in the tub, binge listening. Oh.
Liz: He adds, I applaud the mentions of Mahoning Drive In. Went there in summer 2021 while visiting PA. It was great. And he sends a picture, which I will post, and he says there's a slightly inspiring documentary about it, if and y'all didn't already know. And he sends us a link.
Harold: Yeah, it's called At the Drive In. The very first time I went to the Mahoning Drive in theater was when they were premiering the documentary about the Drive In. At the Drive In. At the Drive In. And it was so cool to see that on the big screen and literally just get out of the car, walk over to the snack bar and projection area and meet all of the people that you just watched on the screen. It's a great documentary. And actually, Diane and I got to see it again at the, Grauman's Chinese Theater that was now called TCL Theaters. They premiered in LA when we were shooting Mystery Science Theater 3000. So we got to meet a bunch of the people from Pennsylvania who came to the premiere in California, which was extra special. So definitely check out the Mahoning Drive In. If you love classic 35 millimeter film, they run during your normal months, around April through the, end of October, and they're known for showing 35 millimeter on one of the largest widescreens in the country.
Jimmy: Very cool.
Harold: I've got something.
Jimmy: Go for it, Harold.
Harold: this is from a little while back, but we did say we would be reading reviews as people put them up, as we're trying to encourage you to let others know about it. So we're always grateful for you guys to get the word out on social media or by doing reviews, that really does help people discover us. And what we heard From Andy Drew Louie1 via, Apple Podcasts, he, said, the best five stars, best podcast out there. I love listening to an episode while drawing my own comic strip. Love it, and I don't want it to end. Keep up the good work. So thank you so much for that. We really appreciate it.
Jimmy: Oh, I love that people are listening to it while they're making their own art and comics.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: And of course, getting existential despair. You know, that's the stuff.
Harold: It's a good mix.
Jimmy: That is fantastic to hear. we got one. I logged into the hotline, and it's like we got 13 new messages. I was like, wow, 13 new messages. but they are 11 of them. or actually, I guess it's 14 new messages because we got another one. 11 of them were telling us that the deadline for voting in Pennsylvania to register to vote was coming up or was today. So, unfortunately, that was all of that. Then we got two from Liz, who was just, what, activating your own Google number or something like that?
Liz: No, I was testing a Bluetooth recording.
Jimmy: So I got two from Liz testing a Bluetooth recording. And then someone else wrote, I think my lunch is here. I'm fairly sure that was a misstext.
Harold: And, you know, whenever you tell us your lunch is there, your algorithm just blows the algorithm out of the water for us. We get new listeners. So if your grubhub order arrives, just call the hotline, Let us know.
Jimmy: Yeah, but let us know what you're having. Don't just say it's here. I want to participate vicariously.
Liz: When we don't know what you're eating, we worry.
Jimmy: Exactly. Exactly. Hey, speaking of diet, 11 months without a soda, guys.
Harold: Wow.
Jimmy: Thank you. That was white knuckled it for about nine of them, but we made it. Last week, I accidentally deleted, a text from super listener Jim Meyer. But, to paraphrase, he read recently the, the BD storyline in Doonesbury that I had recommended a while ago, and it made him cry in front of his wife. And she was very upset because he has been to several funerals with her where this event, this did not occur, but apparently Doonesbury makes him cry.
All right, so if you want to, keep our little conversation going, just hang out with the gang between now and next week, there's a bunch of different ways you can do it. First, you could go over to good old unpackingpeanuts.com and you can sign up for the Great Peanuts reread. And that will get you one email a month, where we tell you what strips we're going to be covering in the next 30 days and anything else that, you might need to know, any bonuses or special events and stuff like that. Secondly, you can, of course, just email us at our website where we are unpacking peanutsmail.com and of course, you can also follow us on social media. We're unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads and unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Bluesky and YouTube. And also, if you wouldn't mind, if you could keep. If you could turn on automatic downloads, that would really help us out a lot. You can also set it up so they get deleted right off, your phone after you're listening to them. So with all of that said, how about we get back to the strips?
Harold and Michael: All right, sure.
June 21st. Charlie Brown's sitting there enjoying some ice cream, and his pal Snoopy is watching. And Charlie Brown says, I can't share this with you. They say ice cream isn't good for dogs. Next panel. Snoopy now has irises. That's all I can say. And, the whites of his eyes actually, too. And Snoopy or Charlie Brown says to Snoopy, and if you stare at me like that, you're going to spoil it for me. To which Snoopy replies, I'll settle for that.
Jimmy: that's a really funny joke. I love that joke. And I love the weirdness of Snoopy with the whites of his eyes.
Harold: Yeah, that stare. Boy, I would do it. Do it to you.
Liz: That cracked me up.
Jimmy: Look at the size of Snoopy's head these days versus his body. I mean, his head just dwarfs the size of his body. It was not always thus. Right. I mean, I know obviously, going way, way back, it wasn't, but this feels even more recent to me.
Michael: So is this true about ice cream? I've always heard that. I always thought it was also an excuse not to give it to your dog.
Harold: Yeah, I don't know which is true. Well, if you go to Dairy Queen, it's not ice cream, so you probably.
Jimmy: Yeah, if you get a puppuccino over at Starbucks, which is just whipped cream. yeah, I don't know. I know. Don't, don't give your dog grapes and don't give your dog chocolate. So maybe it's chocolate ice cream. I don't think dairy in general would be great for dogs. You can give them cheese, but I wouldn't give a dog a bowl of milk. You shouldn't give a cat a bowl of milk either.
Michael: Come on, dogs and cats, their, insides are pretty much the same.
Harold: All right, don't tell them that.
Michael: That's my theory anyway. I'm sticking with it.
Jimmy: And keep in mind, Michael is a licensed podcaster, so all medical and veterinary opinions are board certified.
July 5th. Peppermint Patty and Marcie have gone to camp and Charlie Brown has sent them a little bit of a care package, which contains cookies, and they are writing a thank you note. Marcie is writing and she writes, dear Charles, thank you for the box of cookies. We shared them with all the kids here at camp. She continues in the next panel. We wonder, however, what happened to the frosting on the cookies? And then in the last panel, we see Charlie Brown reading this, note, standing next to Snoopy by the mailbox. And he says it almost looked like someone had taken apart each cookie and licked off all the frosting. To which Snoopy stands blushing beside him now.
Michael: Is this a plug for Oreos?
Harold: This is the first time I think we've had Oreos in this comic.
Jimmy: Yes, it could be Hydrox, we don't know.
Michael: Well, that's just a rip off, right?
Jimmy: No, Hydrox is the first one. Oreo is the ripoff. Yeah, isn't that weird?
Liz: Team Hydrox
Michael: Boy, I've learned so much from this podcast.
Jimmy: Oh, you're a Hydrox fan?
Liz: Oh, yeah.
Jimmy: Well, really all cookies?
Jimmy: But if I was gonna go down the cookie, rabbit hole right now, I would get, some of the golden Oreos and I'd make, my own double triple stuff. That kind of scenario. Dunk the cookie part and then just have a giant six or eight level filled cookie. That's how I do it.
Harold: Wow. Mmm.
Liz: What would you do with all the extra cookies?
Jimmy: One at a time, you dunk those in, preferably tea. But, probably if I'm at this point in my mental health cycle, I am not up for making tea. So it's most likely just going to be milk. Yeah, they dunk cookies. You dunk the cookies in the, in the milk or the tea and then you leave that one Giant Dagwood sized cookie for the end. Isn't it weird that I had to change my diet last year? I don't know what happened. It seemed like that was a flawless plan. But turns out now Schulz used to take dog, biscuits with him to work because when he would park his car and then walk to the studio, apparently there are these two dogs that would bark at him all the time and he would take these two dog biscuits to them. But he always calls them cookies in interviews and stuff. And he, Hm, talks to Andy and says about giving Andy cookies. So I think, I think Schulz is generating a lot of his inspiration very inward looking at this point. It's all what's going on around him and his line of sight. You know, his dog, Andy.
Harold: Was a big, big part of his life at this point. You know, we've been told that how much having this dog meant to him, who would just come up, hang out, sleep on his lap. We see strips where Charlie Brown's got a dog on his lap and he's not going to move because the, the dog is asleep. And that's Schulz for sure.
Jimmy: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
July 14th. Linus is in classic thumb and blanket position on this Sunday strip, and Snoopy's sitting next to him. Over the next 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 panels, Snoopy, who's asleep, just sort of mooches closer and closer and closer to Linus, moving up on his lap, then up next to his cheek until the dog is actually like right in front of his face and enjoying the blanket. And it seems as if Linus actually has his thumb in Snoopy's mouth instead of his own. Now in a pure Picasso panel if ever you've seen one. And then this freaks Linus out, who yells, what's going on here? Sending the blanket and the dog flying. And everyone's shaken up. In the next panel. And then the last panel, Linus looks at his own thumb and says, how do you get dog lips off your thumb?
Michael: I can't figure out how that maneuver worked with the thumb on, tier three he made. He'd have to pull it out of Linus.
Jimmy: Yeah, he scooched in.
Michael: Yeah, boy, that would be tough to pull off.
Harold: Stuck his muzzle in the upper arm there or the lower arm maybe. And just. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty good move by Snoopy, especially if he's sleeping.
Jimmy: Yeah, that panel, first panel, last here. Weird. That would be way up there for weirdest panels ever, right? I mean, if you had a T shirt with that on it. What Would people even think it is?
Harold: Yeah. And that, that panel, when Linus screams, what's going on here? And sends Snoopy flying with the feet up in the air, and the boy, Snoopy's been eating a lot of cookies. That's a big butt. Yeah, that's a big old Snoopy butt. Flying up in the air is quite the size, compared to Linus. Something must be coming our way.
Jimmy: That's what gives it that 3D effect.
July 22, Lucy and Linus are on the beach and they are making a gigantic sandcastle. And Lucy says, in a thousand years from now, people will look at what we have built here today and be totally amazed. But Linus looks off to the right hand side of the panel from our point of view, and he can see that a giant storm is on its way and it's about to destroy the castle.
Michael: I wonder if Schulz was tempted to just put in that photo stat tidal wave again.
Jimmy: Right. I did a, reverse image search, and the only thing it comes up as is Peanuts.
Harold: I did the same. So, yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
Jimmy: We're both nuts, Harold. I'm sorry to tell you.
Harold: It's our job. Podcast hosts have to do reverse image searches because we're certified.
Jimmy: We are board. We are board certified. I think everybody needs to remember that this is a board certified podcast at all time.
Harold: Yeah. Unless they're saying, yeah, we're certified board. But, this, this strip is. This is what a Sunday strip used to be. Had to, had to be a Sunday strip to do this one. Kind of the epic, gigantic sandcastle panorama shot with the water beneath and the rain coming. And he's. He again, he gets it all in this one panel. It's kind of a redo of one he did in, I think was the 60s.
Michael: Oh, earlier. This is a genius period when he was able to build things in like, three seconds. Monumental sculptures.
Jimmy: Yeah, the card houses and the dinosaurs.
Michael: No.
Jimmy: Fortresses.
Harold: Yeah, yeah. This strip just has an epic feel to me. It's cool.
Jimmy: I'll tell you what, Schulz can do Zipatone. It looks good. He's got it.
Harold: Yeah. I don't know who else is doing it this way. I don't remember seeing an artist quite cutting it out the way he is. it's. Well, for one thing, being a cheapskate, which Schulz didn't have to worry about. He could buy as many zipatone sheets as he wanted, but the way he's cutting it, it's almost like he's slicing it out pieces with because, like, if I were the cheapskate, I would be taking the pieces from what have been, like, you know, let's say 3 square inches and laying it all down and trying to put the pieces in. It looks like he's probably cutting it from the entire width of the strip and then just pulling away the stuff he doesn't want and throwing it out.
Michael: Yeah. Because, he uses it again a couple of strips down the line. I think it's a real zipatone nightmare.
Harold: It's a lot of work doing what he's doing.
Jimmy: Oh, that's what I wait. We'll wait when we get there. Because I want to talk. That's why they want to talk about. You're talking about the swimming strips.
Michael: Yeah, yeah.
Jimmy: I want to talk about the use of zipaton there. But, we wait till we get there because it's so exciting.
Michael: Yeah. Well, keep. Keep moving along.
August 1st, good old Charlie Brown's at this psychiatric help booth. It's back to 5 cents. And of course, Lucy, the doctor is in. And Charlie Brown says, one day I feel good, the next day I feel bad. I have too many ups and downs. And then Charlie Brown concludes with, I think I'm suspended from the bungee cord of life.
Jimmy: I picked this one because it was nice to see, Charlie Brown back at the psychiatric help booth. But I also thought it was weird to see bungee cord in it, just because that seems like such a 90s word. Like when remember one thing about the 90s. Or it was extreme. Everything was extreme. And bungee cords were a big part of, like, the early 90s zeitgeist. very strange.
Harold: What's interesting to me, on that first panel, it looks like he is lettering Lucy's booth with his drawing pen, and then he's lettering the lettering with the lettering pen for Charlie Brown speaking. And it's so much rougher using, the drawing pen to write, say, the term psychiatric.
Jimmy: But do you think he's doing that in to make it look like Lucy wrote it? I think so, to give it a homemade quality.
Harold: But I can't remember going back, looking at the lettering and it feeling that different from the strip lettering? Maybe it. Maybe it was, but. Well, the one place is it's got the tremor like you don't see on the really crisp looking letter for lettering for Charlie Brown, which I thought was interesting that he's figured out how to get those lettering strokes before he even has a single tremor. You know, I don't know how that works.
Jimmy: Well, and the other thing about a, lettering pen is that you can push much harder. You know, it has a different.
Harold: Yeah. Right.
Jimmy: Otherwise the flex on that thing not as flexible.
Harold: Right.
Jimmy: the one place you're never going to be able to hide that tremor is those straight lines. So when you look at that.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: Post or whatever it is that's holding up the sign or the psychiatry sign itself, but really on the little piece of wood that, that holds it up.
Harold: Yeah. It's like 12 tremors going down the. That little post.
Jimmy: Yep.
Michael: there's a weird thing in panel two. The little stray hair on Charlie Brown's head interrupts the balloon.
Jimmy: Uh-huh.
Harold: Yeah, he's been doing that.
Michael: Really?
Jimmy: It's, it just makes it weird that it's the hair. Like I think he does it with Lucy's head in the, third panel. But you don't notice it as much because it's just so strange that it's that one hair.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: Like, because obviously, you know, it just, it creates almost like a tangent and it's an unintentional effect of two lines meeting where they shouldn't. And I just think that's what's going on there. It is weird.
August 10th. Hey, Marcie, says Peppermint Patty as she comes to Marcie's door. It's a beautiful summer day. Then, she continues to say to her friend, come on out and we'll waste it away doing nothing. Then we can look back upon it and regret it for the rest of our lives. And then the last panel, the two friends sit with huge smiles under the tree and Marcie says, this was a good Idea.
Michael: This strikes me as sort of what Peanuts is in a lot of people's minds when people say Peanuts is a strip about friendship.
Michael: Which really isn't. I mean, it rarely is, but this strips definitely is.
Harold: Yeah. I haven't seen this where you just have a straight through warm moment between two characters. It is rare and it's funny.
Jimmy: And the other thing about it is that it's Peppermint Patty that indicates it. And she is actually asking Marcie to act differently than Marcie normally acts.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: And Marcie, come over to the dark side for a day. We're not gonna do anything and you're gonna love it and we'll regret it for the rest of our lives and who cares? And she's right, you know, and given.
Harold: That Marcie, we know the pressure that she's been under. Now this is the summertime. But the fact that Peppermint Patty talks on Marcie's level and regret it for the rest of their lives is the thing that makes it a Peanuts strip. It's the way, you know, you have to have some little tension in there. But it just, it's so beautiful. I love this so much. And it reminds me, it stands out from the 40 years of strips we've been reading up until now. It just jumps right out at you in terms of the feel like you're saying, Michael, it's not what we expect of Peanuts. But it reminded me of one of the very last strips, which I actually remember reading in the paper knowing that Schulz was retiring and it's a Sunday with Rerun and Snoopy and the same, same thing. They just let you know, let's, let's go ask. Act like we're, we didn't have the sense we were born with or something like that. They just go off and have fun.
Jimmy: Yes, yes, yes.
Harold: And I loved that strip. And I was like, I hadn't seen Peanuts in a while and it was the first one that I had seen in a long time that was super memorable. And, and I was like, oh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm re, I'm reconnecting with Peanuts after years of not reading it and I'm running into this strip that I absolutely love. And I know it's ending that was really like, oh, you know, a lot of emotions are attached to reading that strip.
Jimmy: Yeah, for sure.
August 13th, Charlie Brown's atop the old pitching mound and, Schroeder comes out from behind the plate and says, what are you gonna throw to this guy, Charlie Brown? Charlie Brown, with a look of wicked determination, says, curve. I'm going to give him my old curveball the last panel. Schroeder has gone back behind them the plate. But Charlie Brown yells to him, a catcher should never say, I'll, believe it when I see it.
Jimmy: I get Schroeder, man. I totally get Schroeder. that just made me laugh. That's why I picked that one. And I also, I mean, I remember Little League enough to remember catchers and pitchers having signals and you're 40 some feet away from home plate. You're, you can't. And you're nine. You can't throw a curveball. You can throw a straight ball and a slightly slower straight ball. That's, that's your two pitches. As a nine year old.
Liz: What position did you play?
Jimmy: First base and center field. I, When I was in Little League, I played first base. And then I moved to center field, in like, teener league in high school. And I was a terrible batter. No matter what position I played, 27 times in a row, I struck out. Remember that, people? I'm going to make a T shirt 27 times.
Liz: what about you Michael?
Michael: I was never on a real team. I thought of myself as a second baseman because I could not throw very far.
Jimmy: Second base is a tough position, though.
Michael: Yeah, I was good. I was good on ground balls, and I could probably reach first base throwing from second base.
Harold: That was about it.
Jimmy: I was a very good fielder. But the moment kids actually did learn how to throw curveballs and stuff, it was all over for me. There was just no hope. I actually, I, remember calling the coach and going, listen, in high school, I'm just going to quit. It's like. And it was a small school. He's like, no. Why? It's great. Like, I am doing a disservice to the sport of baseball, I feel, so. And to your other good players, we don't need to continue the charade any further. But really, I just was sick of striking out, man.
Harold: I just have memories of tee ball where you're just standing there and it's up to you. It's standing there in front of you. All you have to do is hit the wiffle ball and you hit the tee and it just goes clunk. Drops off the ground two inches away from the fence. That's the worst.
Jimmy: Very funny. All right, now we're talking about the weird zipatone strip.
August 14th. Charlie Brown is in a pool. And, Linus is sitting there with flippers on and everything on, the side. And Charlie Brown says to Linus, did you see that? I swam clear across the pool. And I think the little red haired girl was watching me. Charlie Brown looks out across the pool and says, I wonder if I impressed her. And Linus says, maybe if you hadn't been doing the dog paddle.
Jimmy: All right, Michael, you wanted to talk about the zipatone.
Michael: There's this big blobby shape behind them. I don't know what it is. I mean, I, would say that represents some kind of glass.
Jimmy: Right?
Michael: But I've never been in an actual swimming pool, so I have no Idea if they have, like, glass in swimming pools.
Jimmy: Wait, what? You've never been in an actual swimming pool?
Michael: Not a public one.
Jimmy: Oh, public. well, what I was thinking was, is, yeah, the high school where I grew up, had the public high school. I went to Catholic school. But the public sky school had An Olympics ice pool. And they would open it, once a week to the public for swimming and whatever. And it was indoors and everything got super foggy and stuff. And I was thinking that's kind of what he's going for. But the rest of the drawing sort of feels like it outside. but maybe because of the bench, but I don't know.
Michael: I don't know either.
Jimmy: Thoughts?
Michael: I mean, is glass out of the question?
Jimmy: Not out of the question, no.
Harold: It felt like an indoor pool to me. Based on what he did. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's slightly undermined, but that doesn't even make sense. I mean, everything is man made. So there's these straight lines, but he's got, you know, he's got the tremor. And so the lines look a little rough, aren't.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Which would suggest like, traditionally that would have suggested there. It's an outdoor. It's ground. It's not. It's not something that's been smoothed out like a concrete base. But yeah, when I read it, I, saw it. I was like, that's pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool looking.
Jimmy: Yeah, it's weird. I wasn't sure what it was either. And I think it would have been. In that instance, it would have been just as well to either put gray across the whole thing and then it's just a tone in the background or just don't put anything.
Michael: Leave it white. Yeah, I think it's ugly.
Harold: I liked it. Yeah.
Jimmy: Yeah. Because like he's trying to go. Your mileage may vary that. That's. Wow, that's a rare, just impasse here. And unpacking Peanuts. Hopefully we could get past it, I think. yeah, I would just put gray or nothing, but it's fine. I think the joke's funny.
August 26, Charlie Brown sitting in the old beanbag. And Sally comes up and asks him, school starts again next week, doesn't it? And Charlie Brown says, that's right. Then there's a panel of silence. And then Sally says, whee.
Michael: You know, that's the most sarcastic thing you could possibly ever say.
Jimmy: whee
Michael: Yeah. I mean, you can hear her do it.
Jimmy: Absolutely.
Liz: But it's actually a little more positive for Sally than usual for the new school year.
Michael: Okay, I'm going to bring up my topic. If we have time.
Jimmy: We always have time.
Michael: Okay. My topic is this. I have a theory.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Here's my theory. well, first of all, let me preface it by saying, can you think of cases Certain cases where comic strips have influenced the language?
Jimmy: Yeah. Sure. yeah, Popeye.
Michael: Jeep is the only one I could come up with. Jeep was a character in Popeye was a little animal. But I think since a lot of the strip. Well, not a lot, but many strips in the last few years, Sally's been saying whatever as the punchline.
Michael: Which I. I'm wondering if the Peanuts actually started that because people say it all the time now.
Harold: Are you wondering if that was something that he actually influenced?
Michael: yeah, that's my question.
Harold: I didn't think of it that way, but yeah, whatever.
Jimmy: As slang.
Harold: I thought that was something he heard and was magnifying, you know, but.
Michael: Well, that's possible. But someone had to start it.
Harold: That's true.
Jimmy: Whatever. On slang. This is by the not board certified Wikipedia. okay. Early examples of the current usage include a 1965 episode of Bewitched in which the character Endora exclaims, all right, whatever. Or oh, well, this one. Everyone knows this one. I shouldn't even bring it up. because it also was used in the classic My mother the car. Oh, well, whatever. Was the standing retort used by Captain Manzini Avery scriber whenever he would mispronounce Crabtree. Jerry Van Dyke, the car's owner.
Michael: All right, that's got to be it.
Jimmy: It's got to be.
Liz: I can sing the theme song for my mother the car.
Harold: Really?
Liz: 1928 Porter. That's my mother, dear.
Jimmy: Now, for people who don't know what my mother the car. This is a Peanuts obscurity. It's about a guy whose mother dies. This is a sitcom, but a guy whose mother dies and is reincarnated as his car.
Harold: Yeah, it's correct. Can't lose.
Michael: Yeah, I watched it. And Jerry Van Dyke, Dick's brother. Yeah, Dick's brother. Yeah, he was a star too.
Jimmy: Yeah. And really, really talented.
Harold: Well, it's interesting, I'm just looking at some of the other terms that are attributed to comics that got into the public thought. Obviously, security blanket is the one I think of for Peanuts. but terms like milk toast, which was from Casper Milquetoast, malarkey, was another one Keeping up with the Joneses. and also from Popeye, Goon. The term goon. They're claiming this.
Jimmy: Yeah, Goon.
Michael: Yeah. Of course, another one would be Sadie Hawkins Day, right?
Harold: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Lil Abner has. Definitely has some in there that were.
Michael: But I don't think Schulz. There are any Schulz examples. I mean, his influence is huge. But outside of the security blanket.
Jimmy: Rats.
Harold: Yeah
Jimmy: Good grief.
Michael: I mean, I just thought of Dagwood sandwich.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, of course. Yep.
Harold: Yeah, that's a great one. Our listeners, I'm sure, will probably have some. They can remind us.
Michael: All right, so I'm wrong. I apologize.
Jimmy: Well, I just. It's okay this one time. But, like, we are risking board certification.
Michael: With this, so I'll keep my mouth shut next time.
Jimmy: Yeah, that'll be a good podcast. Yeah.
Harold: It was asserted without evidence.
Jimmy: I say we double down. That definitely came from Peanuts. Boom. And now all I need is someone else to cite us.
Harold: I think double stuff. Oreos came from Snoopy. Messing with.
Liz: People say that whatever was originated in Peanuts.
Jimmy: Yes. People are saying. They come up to me. They say, jimmy, I know for a fact
August 29th. Oh, Sally and Linus are sitting on either side of the tree. It's very cute. And Sally says to Linus, let me get this straight. If I refuse to go to school, they throw me in a dungeon with no food or water for 10 years? Oh, this is what Linus has told her in a previous strip, and he's doubling down on it. That's right. And then Sally says, but if I go to school, I go, for how long? And Linus says, 12 years. To which Sally says, it's worth thinking about, isn't it?
Jimmy: I think I would have taken that. No question. Two free years of my life back.
Michael: Yeah, well, yeah, but there, are comic books in the dungeon.
Jimmy: Oh, that's a tough call. Right. Okay.
Michael: Had to be a TV and comic books.
Jimmy: Yes. Yeah. Then you're set.
Michael: Oh, yeah. I'd go for that. I was longing for that.
August 31st, Sally is, talking to Charlie Brown, who's in the beanbag watching tv, and Sally says, I've decided I'd rather go to school than spend 10 years in a dungeon. Charlie Brown says, this year, you'll probably be studying fractions. To which Sally says, exactly. Where is this dungeon?
Jimmy: Oh, man. Fractions were tough. I remember fifth grade was all about fractions, and I remember struggling.
Michael: Yeah, multiplying with fractions blows the mind.
Jimmy: Yeah. But, Harold, I assume you were. Were you. Are you natural? You must be naturally good at math. We make you do enough math in all of the various, configurations we've worked together. But I'm assuming you were just naturally good at math.
Harold: Yes, I was good at algebra and geometry I was not particularly great at. But I was fascinated by it. And, you know, people who say, you know, why did I take math? I've never used it a day in my life. And I was thinking, I use geometry and algebra pretty regularly just because I can. Because I, I know how to get to something that I would have just thought about and then forgotten as well, you know, because I don't have a path there. But when you do know how to get to a question about, you know, well, how long is it around this circle if you know what the diameter is? I mean, that's stuff I've actually used. Because if it's in your mental vocabulary, you can do it. And I get it. If you don't, you're still going to live and you're going to have your life and you probably just focus on other things. But math does help you see the world. I got a little lost, in the calculus thing, and I just didn't go beyond that. But, yeah, I think I had an aptitude for that sort of stuff.
Jimmy: Well, the one thing I hate when people say, even if the person saying this phrase is Bob Dylan, it drives me nuts. Useless knowledge, pointless knowledge. I don't believe there is such a thing.
[music sfx]
Jimmy: It drives me to distraction. Oh, like, oh, you pencil neck, why do you need to know that stuff? Yeah, because it's good to know things.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: I mean, that's it as an end in itself. It makes you more, you know, it's.
Harold: Better to know things generally than not know things. I think a good way to live life.
Michael: It is.
Jimmy: Right, Right. Yes, I agree. well, that is it for the strips this week, guys. That was a lot of them, but I really enjoyed it.
Michael: Yeah.
Harold: Yeah.
Jimmy: So I hope you guys enjoyed it too, and I hope you come back next week and, we'll do this all over again as we wrap up 1991. And we'll find out things about the Happiness and Anger Index, the MVP and the Strip of the year and all that kind of good stuff. But of course, I desperately want you to stay in touch between now and then, because when I don't hear, I worry. So I want you to give us a call on the hotline, 717-219-4162. Tell us, when the next voting deadline is, or tell us what you're having for lunch, or if you want to go off the beaten path, talk about the podcast and Peanuts. So you can, let us know those things by emailing us at unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com or you can follow us around on good old social media where we're at unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads, and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, blue sky and YouTube and that's it. So do that. Maybe put your automatic downloads on for us and then come back next week where we will be wrapping up 1991. I cannot believe we're so far into this.
Jimmy: It's almost too much to take. But we'll be back here next week. So until then. From Michael, Harold and Liz. This is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
Michael Harold and Liz: 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 Unpacked Peanuts 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.
Harold: Reverse Image searches.