1996 Part 1- The Strange Death of Tapioca Pudding

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts. I'm your host for the proceedings, Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, 7 good reasons not to Grow up, and the Dumbest Idea Ever. And guess what? You can read all my comics, my new comics anyway, for free over at Gville comics.substack.com. 

Joining me, as always, are my pals, co hosts and fellow cartoonists. He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast. He's the co creator of the original comic book Price guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator 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 editor of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former Vice president of Archie Comics and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts, Harold Buchholz.

Harold: Hello.

Jimmy: And making sure everything runs smoothly, producer and editor Liz Sumner is here.

Liz: Greetings.

Jimmy: Well, guys, 1996, is here. We have a bunch of good strips to get to, a bunch of mail to answer. But, before we do, I want to talk, just a little bit about a couple things. First off, we should, I want to tell everybody about the fun we had this weekend at our Patreon event, just to let people know if they had an extra couple bucks they wanted to kick in the kind of shenanigans, hijinks, and good times they would be a part of. So, Harold, why don't you start, tell us exactly what we were doing.

Harold: Well, we, got together and we had, prior to the event, taken a crack at using all of the Peanuts characters and trying to build our own subset of those characters to create a different comic strip with the theme that Jimmy came up that there are so many amazing characters in Peanuts that they could carry their own strip. So we tried to prove that by building our own teams of characters. And we did it kind of like a draft pick for baseball. And we took turns choosing characters in also the setting of where it would happen and trying to build the team and then figure out what the theme of that strip would be. So when we got together for the Patreon, all the people who were joining us teamed up with us, and we did it again, together, and we figured out some pretty amazing, faux strips, based on Peanuts characters. It was a blast.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, it was so much fun to do. And it really highlights just the depth of the Peanuts strip. There are very few. You could probably do it with Doonesbury. You might be able to even do it with Bloom County and maybe Pogo. But there are very few strips you could do. You couldn't do a Krazy Kat, for instance. It would be a real short graph.

Michael: I have a strip about a dog policeman in the desert. He's the only one there.

Jimmy: Oh, Michael. so he ended up with you. Tell us about your strip and. And your addendum you want to make.

Michael: Well, it isn't mine. It was a team. We teamed up with one of our. One of our listeners, and that was Frank. So between me and him, you know, with no plan in mind, we ended up with. It's a sports strip. The main characters are all girls, so it's Peppermint Patty and Lucy and Sally, and Lydia. and we decided that what it is, it's a. It's a strip about a girls volleyball team. And the team is called Volley of the Dolls.

Harold: That's a new one. It took a while to figure that one out. After the fact, you always have the great ideas afterward. Right.

Michael: And, since, you know, all the Peanuts characters are so short, they actually play their volleyball games on the tennis court. And, Shermy's the manager. So that's the concept of the strip.

Jimmy: Yeah. And we just had, like, what, about an hour 15, hour and a half, of goofing around, doing this with listeners. So if you want to be a part of, any kind of events like that, head over to unpackingpeanuts.com and you can sign up for our Patreon. it's a lot of fun. We've also done things like we've produced commentary tracks for, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, and for the American Masters documentary, that you could, listen along with. So lots of fun stuff, being a good old Patreon member.

Liz: And thank you to all of our current Patreon supporters. We couldn't do it without you. Thank you very much.

Michael: And Deb did some really great cartoons of some of the strip choices.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah. Super listener Deb Perry, who is the fastest pencil in the West. She can sketch things. it's amazing. Just boom, boom, boom. do we. Can we put some of those sketches up on?

Liz: They are. They are on Blue Sky.

Jimmy: Oh, great. All right, so follow us over there on Blue sky. And check out that, because it's really cool. 

So, okay, before we, get to today's strips, I want to talk about another, just another idea, a concept that I have of how we can use these little introductory chats perhaps for the next few episodes. So, one of the ongoing themes, if you are a longtime listener, is Michael is very interested in things having rules and logic and some way to make sense of it, as opposed to it being, a formalistic exercise of ink on paper. It's got to make inherent sense, let's say, as a, fictional world. And I. When we have these conversations, it ends up being like, don't, worry about it. And Michael says, I have to worry about. And I say, ah, don't. Which doesn't get anybody anywhere. So I thought, though, because I'm working on, this book now that you can see on substack. And your first read through, I think would probably seem like completely total freeform fantasy. But it's actually. I really thought about the rules going into it. And, partly because I didn't want to upset Michael because that would be a terrible thing.

Michael: Right, like you did in Amelia Rules.

Jimmy: I know that he's never gotten over the standing there, ah, Rhonda standing there for a year in issue one.

Michael: No, I thought it was Reggie jumping. It was like,

Jimmy: Oh, that too. Yeah. Both of those, I think, happened in issue one. So it's all downhill from there. So I started to think maybe the four of us, along with you listeners out there, can start contemplating. Because Peanuts obviously does work. So, I mean, obviously it works. It works for millions and millions of readers for 70 some years. But what we are not finding at this point yet is the language to describe how it works. So I think we should talk about this. How does the fantasy work in Peanuts? How does the reality work in Peanuts? And how does all of this make sense at least as, a coherent work of art? Maybe not necessarily as something that you would find in real life. But does that make sense? Sure. Does it sound appealing? Did Harold fall asleep?

Michael: Well, I'm sure he'll wake up when we get into a big argument. Yeah, it's really interesting question and, I'm thinking about it a little bit. First of all, we have to establish that there are rules.

Harold: Establish some rules.

Michael: Well, there are rules in comic strips and movies and TV shows. And, you know, the jump the shark phrase comes about. Because if, when the rules violated, you no longer believe in the world, no matter how crazy the world is. Once you've, you've broken the bond with the viewer. it's hard to get it back, but there are rules. And the example I was coming up with with comics is mixing realistic characters and cartoon characters. And you might think like, well, you can't do that. But there's very successful histories of comics that blended superheroes and funny animals. And the most successful of those would be the original Captain Marvel comic, which not only had superheroes and a family of superheroes and costumes and villains, it had a talking tiger, which didn't bother anyone. You know, the book generally was considered a kid's book, but, you know, the characters survived. You know, the Shazam Characters. So it's not like that universe. The fact that he blended cartoon characters and superheroes ruled out the character as being viable. And there are cases where that would not work. Okay, Jimmy, I'm going to pose a question to you.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: Okay. Let's say you're doing your new Amelia material.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: And you're talking to some big publisher.

Michael: And they're really interested. And they said, look, we want a talking cat.

Jimmy: I'd say how much?

Michael: You would. 

Jimmy: How much 

Michael: we want a talking cat in this trip? Because people love talking animals. Would you?

Jimmy: Here. Well, well, okay, here's the thing. That's a totally separate issue because that, I mean, that involves economics and a million different things. And. And the idea being that.

Jimmy: But what? I guess I would say, and if someone was listening who was trying to navigate those waters, the first thing you do is go, well, that's great. That's a brilliant idea. I cannot believe you, Mr. Editor, are so genius. And then you try to figure out some way to do some version of it, however remote from what they would want, just to make them feel that they contributed something. But you protected yourself. So like.

Michael: And then you wouldn't do it.

Jimmy: Well, I don't know if I figured out a good way to do it and I could do it.

Michael: Is there a good way? I mean, you've established not necessarily.

Jimmy: Well, maybe. Yeah, maybe because. Well, okay. Yes, because here's why. And here. This is actually the key point. And this is where I think we get into trouble with. It depends what you define as the world.

Michael: Well, yeah. You're the only one who can do that.

Jimmy: Well, yeah, but Amelia also defines it. Amelia's telling you a story in Amelia. So if I had to face that issue where we're gonna have a talking cat in it. Amelia's telling you the story. Amelia can tell you a story where a 15 foot tall carrot comes by and menaces the school. 

Ah, well, here's an example. In, When the Past is a Present, when actually I think of one, it might be my favorite just regular issue of Amelia. It's called Funny Story. Amelia's mom goes out on a date with a bathroom, men's bathroom sign. I was trying to. The idea was it's got to be the most generic person in the world that Amelia can't even think of what he looks like. So she actually goes on a date and it's just the little sign on a front of a bathroom m door, you know? And that's what's happening in the story Amelia is telling you. Right, right. Okay. So what I'm saying is you just expand it a little bit. So, for example, so in the world a man that looks like the sign on the front of a bathroom door doesn't exist, but in a world that Amelia is describing to you, it does exist. So it's talking cat too.

Harold: yeah.

Michael: And I think that's, that's one way to, to bridge that gap.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: Is to create a story, a meta. Meta story.

Jimmy: Which I think I think that's the secret to Peanuts.

Michael: Well, I think sometimes it works. I mean, the, the whole World War I flying ace is a meta story that Snoopy's telling himself.

Michael: Where I start having problems is when he's not telling it to anybody and that. And somebody, another character is in it.

Michael: I don't like.

Jimmy: I understand that. And you might not like it and you might, we might never even get to a set of rules that anybody necessarily likes. All parts of it. And those rules might, Schulz might break sometimes. Right. They might and just might not be good or whatever.

Michael: Okay.

Jimmy: But I think again, just expand it one step outward. There is somebody else there. The key is that Schulz is a character in the strip that, that, makes everything else make sense. That and the concept of play, that the, that the characters are playing with each other. And Schulz facilitates those games becoming larger for us to see. I think that is one of the big keys.

Michael: Okay. There are jump the shark moments in Peanuts, but you can overlook them just because there's a massive amount of material and you forget about it. And I think Schulz, I don't think he's forgotten about it, but okay, here's a situation. Snoopy is with the scouts.

Jimmy: Uh-huh.

Michael: The bird scouts. And they're climbing the mountain. And right away you go, well, why don't the birds just fly to the top. Because they can do that, but they don't. That's fine. they've established. They like, they like the adventure. They like Snoopy telling them things. Okay? They get to the top and it's really. They're really tired and they realize they're really high up. And, you know, Snoopy's hungry and he thinks, okay, okay, now I gotta walk back down and the birds fly away. Right?

Jimmy: Right.

Michael: Snoopy can fly. It's been established in Peanuts he has these helicopter ears. Now, if he pulled that off and said, well, I've established that Snoopy can fly like a helicopter and, and the last battle, as he flies down, I would hate that.

Jimmy: Right?

Michael: And it would be like, no, that's that. I don't care how funny it is.

Jimmy: Yeah, but that didn't happen, right?

Michael: No, it didn't happen, but it could. Because he's established the rule that Snoopy can fly. But I'm saying that was not a good decision, If you're going to--

Jimmy: okay, But. All right, so here's another way we can look at that rule. And not just going by things I like, things I don't like, whatever, but things he's said. All right, so Schulz himself has said, I think of these guys as a little repertory company. And I use them and I move them around, to create the strips. I want the themes, I want all that sort of stuff, right? So with that in mind, And he's even then said, so if I want to have an adventure strip, it's an adventure strip, okay? And we've all. And even in the strip itself has said that, it's a comic strip. It's not a, three dimensional world. So the reality, these rules you're talking about don't need to live from 1950 to 2000. They only need to live for that sequence where in this story they're a bunch of hikers, okay? and this story, they're a World War I flying ace. And Schulz allows the play. Schulz is playing with them. And then when the story's over, it's over.

Michael: All right? Okay, here's an example. And Harold can identify with this because he worked with Archie, okay? Archie, in some ways similar to Peanuts. I mean, very different. But, you know, a large cast of well known characters who, you know, any one of them can star in their own strip. They never age, they're eternally in high school. But there's a thing that they do with art, at least when I was reading it, I don't know if they do it anymore. You could pick up an Archie comic, let's say, from the 60s, and there'd be a story where they're cavemen.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: It's just no explanation. It's just, you know, you know, Archie's walking around with a big club and they're all wearing, like, leopard clothes. No explanation. But they could do that. They could be in, you know, Imperial Rome as their same characters. And it's not jarring because they've established that Archie stories can happen anywhere and anytime. Peanuts hasn't done that. But if it. If suddenly, you know, Lucy is Cleopatra and people are calling her Cleopatra, I'd be going like, this is the wrong strip. How did this get in Peanuts? Because there are. I think there are rules.

Harold: I think one of the problems with Peanuts has to do with especially how, you know, all of us are reading this. We're jumping in and reading a year at a time.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And it's kind of one of those no beginning, no end worlds, because that's just the nature of a daily strip. But the way we're reading it, it's even more just randomly. Okay, January 1st is where you begin for this year. December 31st is where you end. Or in our case, you know, the end of April right now and the end of August, and we do four months at a time, and that's how we're engaging with them. And, one of the things that struck me, I think I've mentioned this before when I was in film school, was how, do you get an audience to accept something in your fictional story? And the rule that struck me, as I was looking at it, was you have to establish the premise at the beginning. Like the Archie stories. The very first panel of the of the six page Archie story that's got a title on it, you know, it's the beginning, is that they're wearing Roman garb. And then I was like, okay, these guys are in Rome. And so you accept it. In Peanuts, you don't have that luxury because it's a daily strip. And you may be reading them randomly, or you may be reading them in order, or you read one in the newspaper. And Schulz doesn't have that luxury to, say, okay, reset. You know, this is a whole new thing unless the reader just assumes that. And it's up to the reader to decide, because it's really not baked into how you experience it. And I think that's the problem. 

I mean, to me, the classic example for, say, a Film that sets the rules up front is It's a Wonderful Life, number one. The title is It's a Wonderful Life. So you kind of know what you're getting. You know, they say, don't, don't, don't make a message in a movie. And that's the movie that breaks all the rules. The message is in the title. This is what you're going to see is, this is, I'm going to tell you It's a Wonderful Life through this story. Then where does it start? It starts in heaven. So if either you reject the film outright in the first minute of the film and turn it off, or just get mad all the way through the film because heaven's involved in the story, or you say, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to suspend any disbelief I might have. I'm going to say, okay, in this world there's a heaven where there are angels who care about people down on earth and we're going to send a guy down. And that's, and that's a strange film because he doesn't show up till like halfway into the film, actually into the life of the person, which is kind of that Schulz thing. Right. Schulz is descending into his characters in ways that are kind of invisible. And he's not saying, hey everybody, you know, his name's above everything, his signs, every single one of the strips. But depending on how you choose to approach the strip, you may not accept that premise. That Jimmy's saying is that he's a, he's a character in, the story. Because it's not, it doesn't hit you over the head and say, these are my rules. You have to kind of figure them out. And then you have to decide whether you accept them or not in ways that when you just, in real time, you're watching a movie rule set, the rules set up in the, in the beginning, and you either accept them or you don't. Most people do. If they're going to watch a movie, they say, okay, take me on a ride, I'm going to go with you. Now if you had introduced Clarence the angel halfway through the movie without having the opening scene.

Harold: Where they set it up, that that was happening, you'd lose half the audience. They'd say, what? Wait a second, that's not the world that I got introduced to. What's an angel showing up in the middle of George Bailey's life?

Harold: It was because it was placed at the beginning and the rules were set there.

Jimmy: Well, I think Harold's right. And I think that about one of the bigger issues with doing this is we do have to keep in mind this is a comic strip. It's, it's not a TV show, it's not a movie, it's not, a novel. It's not any of those things. And also, like, we might find and figure out a holistic way to understand Peanuts that we don't even jibe with or maybe some of us don't jibe with, but I think there's a way to do it. And as far as setting up his presence in this, I mean, that this goes back to the Snoopy with the flower in like the fourth strip, you know, it feels to me that Schulz's presence is there from the beginning, but it's not going to be ever something that's announced. That angel thing is a really good, example. And it is important that in a movie that it's set up. Tarantino once said, I'm not Catholic, but I am when I'm watching the Exorcist. You know, it's not important that you have to believe in the rules of Catholicism for the rest of your life, but it's important that you believe in them for the 120 minutes the Exorcist is, because that's where the superpowers come from or whatever. 

So, you know, I think, I think this is an interesting conversation and I, and I'd love for our listeners, to get involved with it. I. But I do think if we're going to start, I really think that idea of Schulz being, an integral, active part of the strip itself is going to be the key that lets us make something that makes a larger sense.

Harold: And I think you're right, Jimmy, that if, say you, Jimmy, came in at the beginning of anybody ever experiencing Peanuts and going, okay, here's the deal. Yeah, just like the beginning of a movie said, this is what this is. Schulz is a character in the strip. Enjoy. Right, right. And you set it up. Then if people were saying, okay, I'm going to listen to this guy and I'm going to look through that lens. There aren't, there are going to be very few people that would have any issues or problems with it because the rules have been set.

Harold: You know, I think, just in the last episode we did, I was talking about what I was seeing in what Schulz was choosing to do was he was saying, okay, these characters, different characters have fantasy lives. It's not just Snoopy. You got Spike, you Got Woodstock, you got, you know, there's a lot going on and it seems like with the kids and this. I'm just dawning on me as I'm saying this, but the kids have. You wouldn't even call them a fantasy world. It's just the world they wish it was. You know, Lucy wishes Schroeder loved her. You know, Charlie, Brown wishes that he could be a great baseball player. And in with the kids, it, more of it seems to be, you know, it's the unrequited love. It's denied fantasy, it's denied wishing. This is the way reality was and it's not. But through the animals, he lets them have that fantasy and they get away with it. And we kind of, in general delight in it. And he has that dichotomy all the way through the strip where you. There is something satisfying that Snoopy can go to the heights that he goes to, but for the most part he does reserve it for the animals. But because both of them live side by side in the strip, you get that mixture of the person who keeps hoping but never gets what they want and the little animal that hopes and can go off into outer space.

Harold: And I think the two of those together in this strip give Schulz and us a really rich world to live in where hope is fulfilled but also hopes can be dashed. And it feels real. I think in aggregate, even with all the fantasy that that's kind of at least emotionally what we all experience. We get a mixture of both living in this world.

Liz: I have a question, orI have a request. Jimmy. Could you describe or give some examples of what you mean when you say Schulz is a character in the strip?

Jimmy: Yes. Okay, I'll give an example. So let's say, the premise of a strip is Snoopy and Linus on top of the doghouse. And Snoopy is going to fly Linus somewhere. All right, well, let's just think about this. If this was some sort of real world and we can assume that Linus is playing with the dog. Like if I think about this a little bit, like when you're a dad with kids and they present you with play, and sometimes you go, oh, that's really cute. That's great. Okay. Yeah, that's fun. And then sometimes you go, that's great. Okay. And you get involved and you play with them and it becomes this bigger thing. So back to the strip. Snoopy and Linus are on the doghouse, right? That's kids playing. in this example, Snoopy is a kid. He's a sentient being. In the Peanuts world, it's two characters playing, right. If you see the dog, the, bullet holes appear in the doghouse. Cause they're getting shot down by the Red Baron. That's Schulz playing with the kids.

Liz: Okay

Jimmy: It's. He's there in the strip. Imagine he's just on the other side of the fourth wall. And Snoopy's like, oh, no, the Red Baron is here. It's like, oh. Schulz says, oh, I got. He got you, too. He puts his little pen and ink bullet holes on the side of the strip. Or an example being, boy, oh, boy. Nothing will ever go wrong for me today. And the next panel, you know, a torrential downpour that would have taken hours to sweep in, you know, along the Gulf Stream, just appears in the next panel and dumps on Charlie Brown's head. That's Charles Schulz playing around with him. So that's what. I mean, it's when things that. His interaction with the strip is what allows the. What would be, in our world, impossible things to happen.

Liz: Okay, thank you. That helps. It's sort of like Clarence, I mean, he's sort of. He's influencing it. The “character in” was the part that I was struggling with, but it's. He's interacting with it, but he's also above it.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Liz: Yes. Got it.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a dimension below him to get really frou frou about it. And he. So he has ultimate power in that dimension below. I mean, he could draw the bullets. He could put the smoke. He could then erase it in the next panel. Right. He's playing with those characters, and that's what's allowing to them, and even to us seem like fans. Rules are breaking. rules of physics are breaking. Well, no, rules of physics are breaking because he's doing it. He just put pen and ink on it. But to Charlie Brown, it's a, It's a torrential downpour. So that's. And it's different than in Calvin and Hobbes, for example, where it's obviously. Well, I mean, if you really want actually a strip that doesn't have as many rules as you would think, Calvin Hobbes is a big one, because he's intentionally trying to blur the line about whether or not Hobbes is real.

Michael: Yeah. But I'm curious. The. The parents would never see Hobbes as a talking creature. So that is a rule.

Jimmy: Right.

Michael: And did he ever violate that?

Jimmy: No, but you could see the results of Hobbes. Like, you could see Calvin tied up in chair and him saying, Hobbes has me, you know, kidnapped, or whatever. Which could never have happened because how could Calvin have tied himself up but the parents wouldn't see Hobbes doing that.

Harold: Now.

Michael: It's an interesting topic.

Jimmy: That's Michael's way of saying, let's move on. So I will tell you why. Here's what we're going to do. That's like. We'll put it in the old idea pile. Yeah, we'll never.

Michael: We'll never see that again, basically.

Harold: So.

Jimmy: So guys, though, seriously, I think this is a really important thing. I think it's a great way to spend the last few episodes. or at least a few. Last few. All right, so you characters out there, we would love to hear your thoughts on the rules of Peanuts. What's the words for that? The aesthetics of Peanuts?

Michael: No, no, not aesthetics at all.

Jimmy: Metaphysics. Now the, what's.

Michael: I think rules is the word.

Jimmy: No, it's not. It's so square. Listen, you should. We should have different. I should have been in LA running around the comic book stores, and you should have been in Catholic school. You would have loved it. You would have loved it. There's a rule for everything. 

All right, so I think this is an interesting discussion. I think this is something we could definitely do for the next few episodes. sort of stretch out and flesh out rather, poetics. That's what it is. The poetics of Peanuts. That's something that it'll explain. the inner workings of it, mechanics of it. 

So if you want to be a part of that, give us a call. 717-219-4162. Or you could leave a text message there. Or you could just email us over at unpacking peanuts gmail.com. we'd love to hear from you. All right, with that, being said, let's take a break now and we'll come back on the other side and we'll do strips at the end.

Liz: Sounds good.

Jimmy: All right, we're just going all kinds of crazy today. All right. Be right back.

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 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 Zipatone, Annette Funicello to Zorba the Greek. Check it all out@unpackingpeanuts.com obscurities.

Jimmy: And we're back. Unprecedented that we haven't gotten to strips yet. Actually, I don't think it's unprecedented, but it's almost unprecedented. So how about we get, the mail out of the way? Liz, I'm hanging out in the mailbox. Do you got anything?

Liz: We do. We got a couple. So, Troy Wilson, proud Canadian. I'm happy to support our Canadian listeners. Troy writes, like Harold, I am none of the above. The only baseball I care about appears in Peanuts. I'm not a sports guy. Don't play any, don't watch any, don't care about any. But I do wish all athletes and sports fans well be of good cheer and be in good shape. 

Michael: Athletes be in good shape.

Harold: Yeah. Schulz, the most athletic cartoonist I know.

Liz: That's true. And then, John Merullo, super listener John writes. Hi, all. There was some discussion in the baseball episode who our best hitter, who, according to Patty, was coming up to bat after Charlie Brown was, it was guessed but not confirmed to be Snoopy, Shermy, or Pigpen. Now, in the adaptation in Charlie Brown's All Stars, the three batters who precede Charlie Brown are Linus, Lucy, and Snoopy. Patty still states that their best hitter is coming up, thus assuming the same continuity, eliminating Snoopy. This leaves Pigpen and Shermy. In a 1977 strip, which I looked up, and it happens to be March 13, 1977, Lucy states that Shermy is their designated hitter, which Charlie Brown confirms, saying he is a good hitter. This leads me to believe that the best hitter to whom Patty is referring is none other than our friend Shermy.

Harold: Go, Shermy.

Michael: All right.

Harold: Shermometer edition. Right?

Liz: We did.

Harold: I guess we already have that in there, don't we?

Liz: We forgot he's on the Shermometer in 1977. As good hitter.

Jimmy: That's right.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: All right. And that's why he's captain of the volleyball team, because he's really a sports-oriented person

Harold: Wow. Thank you for clearing that up and reminding us.

Liz: So that's it for the mail.

Jimmy: And we got, we heard from. On the hotline, we heard from Captain Billy. He writes super fan. Captain Billy here. The Cleveland Guardians were named after the stone guardians on the Superior Avenue bridge. Fun fact. Bob Hope's father came to Cleveland to work on that bridge and brought five year old Bob Hope with him. That's why the bridge was renamed after his father recently. Also, Bob Hope was a partial owner of the Cleveland Indians for around two decades. So there you go. So that's who used to be the Indians.

Harold: If I was gonna say that Bob Hope is a partial owner of the bridge, he bought it. Bought it for a dollar.

Jimmy: No, he had a partial bridge.

Harold: His upper.

Jimmy: Yes. All right, well, that's the mail. So, if you want to contact us unpacking peanuts@gmail.com 717-219-4162 we would love to hear from you. because remember, when I don't hear, I worry. 

So guys, with all of that prelude out of the way, how about we finally, at long last and with great. No, you know what? Actually hang on. Let's take a moment and really take. Okay, no, let's get to the strips. 

Michael: Let's just end the show here. Be of good cheer, everybody. Hope you enjoyed the strips.

January 6, Rerun, Snoopy and Lucy are in the Van Pelt house and Rerun is writing something. He says, we're writing a story about a little kid who wants a dog, but his mom won't let him. It's a heart wrenching tale. Then he hands it to Lucy and as she reads it, he says, don't read it if you fear having your heart wrenched.

Michael: Now, Rerun doesn't have a whole lot of characteristics, but this year really established the boy who really wants a pet dog as a major characteristic.

Harold: Yeah, I like Snoopy watching him, figuring out a story. of course, Rerun can't write yet, can he? So he's just looking at a piece of paper. I don't know that he's actually.

Liz: He's got a pencil.

Harold: He's got something there for Lucy to read. I don't know if it's a. Maybe it's a. An illustration of the idea.

Jimmy: Well, yeah. Now, one of the reasons I picked this is because Rerun, and him being creative becomes a real theme. he eventually goes on and wants his. His life's go is to become an underground cartoonist.

Harold: Yeah. He is an interesting kid.

Jimmy: He's the best. He's so. He's so cool. It's. He seems so 90s.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Which is amazing because this is, you, know, a guy who was doing things that were so 50s and so 60s, and here he is. This feels like, a 90s kid to me.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: We also are seeing though just the hint of him starting to do the bird's nest hair.

Harold: And I, I don't think he's actually writing at a table because it just keeps more. The table keeps morphing that space there, and it's shaped. So I think he's working off of a waterbed.

Liz: or the beanbag chair.

Harold: Giant beanbag.

January 8th. All right, if you want to know what made me laugh the hardest, this episode. Just this little simple thing. Marcy and Peppermint Patty, and they're sitting in school in their desks, and a, consternated Peppermint Patty looks down at her shirt and goes, rats, I just got grape jelly on my shirt. To which Marcie replies, in math class? 

Michael: I don’t know. I almost picked this just because I absolutely did not understand this strip. I do not get the relationship.

Harold: Okay, Jimmy, can you, can you lay it out here?

Jimmy: Why would she be eating something with jelly in math class?

Michael: That's the joke.

Jimmy: Oh, my God.

Michael: I don't still don't get it anyway.

Jimmy: Because you're not supposed to, like, you get jelly on your shirt at lunch, not at math class, because why would she be getting jelly?

Michael: I don't know. People might be sneaking food into class. 

Jimmy: Has anyone ever told you you're a tad too literal?

Michael: I don't know. This breaks all the rules.

Jimmy: Break your head. Oh, my God, that's so funny. 

January 21st. It's a Sunday. And we start with, a big symbolic panel of a snowman dressed, like he's ready to play baseball. And the next panel, Linus is talking, to Charlie Brown, who's standing atop the pitcher's mound, which is covered in snow. And Linus says, why are you standing up there, Charlie Brown? Charlie Brown says, memories, Linus. My pitcher's mound may be covered with snow, but the memories are still there. To which Linus says, happy times, huh? Charlie Brown says, some of my happiest memories. We didn't see those, I guess. Linus says, what about all the games we lost? Charlie Brown says, it was my right fielder. It was always my right fielder. Linus says, I remember our last game. She dropped an easy fly ball, says Charlie Brown. And then Charlie Brown continues the next panel. Then the next batter hit another easy one to right field, and she dropped it. Then she missed another fly ball, and then the grounder went through her. And then she dropped another fly ball. And now we see Charlie Brown pounding on the snow covered mound. And he says, memories, memories, memories. And then Lucy, who has walked in and has seen all this happening. now walks away and says, I think I'll go build a snowman.

Michael: I want to know how this other team has all these pull hitters or they're all lefties. I don't know. Hitting to right field is not easy.

Jimmy: I think that breaks all the rules. No. Do you know why it is easy as a kid, though? Because you're slow and you swing late. So lots of little kids do hit to right now. The other reason I picked this is this is. This feels like a throwback to me. it's three of the big four. It's a baseball strip. It's that. That him pounding on the ground. I think I mentioned this before in that book, Parables of Peanuts by Robert Short. He talks about Schulz repeating iconic poses again and again so that they lodge in our minds as being meaningful. And that pounding on the ground like--

Michael: He’s pounding on snow, which is totally different.

Jimmy: Pounding on snow. 

January 26th. Charlie Brown is asleep in bed, tucked under his comforter. And Snoopy is lying on top of the comforter, asleep as well. Well, Charlie Brown's actually not asleep. He's up and he's thinking, saying to himself, sometimes I lie awake at night and I wonder if my life would be different if I had it to do over. Then a voice comes out of the dark that says, boy, there's an original thought.

Jimmy:  That’s Schulz. That's absolutely. Schulz in the strap.

Harold: So Schulz being a character, he's really, Being a character.

Jimmy: Yeah, exactly. Boy, there's an original thought.

Harold: That's got a lot of levels.

Jimmy: Yeah, well, and I do, you know, I said in one of our earlier episodes, at least when we were recording, I don't know if it's in the show, but, you know, there is a thing about depression that's narcissistic because you can't see beyond yourself and including beyond your own myopic thoughts. and sometimes you might just need a, voice from beyond telling you to snap out of it. Hard to prescribe that, though. Yes, please take one voice from beyond and call me in the morning.

Harold: I love the drawing of Snoopy sleeping on top of Charlie Brown in the bed. We're seeing a lot of that, in these recent years. But they're poses that you'd never seen. Snoopy. The kind of. For pet owners, the animal kind of just wraps them around, whatever themselves, around any curve that they might have, whether it's your body or in a couch or some pillow or something. They're m. Really nice simple drawings. And, we hadn't seen that before in Snoopy. He's being more genuinely dog like in these later strips, probably because of Andy.

February 3rd is another one that just made me laugh really hard. Sally's sitting in her beanbag chair watching, tv and Charlie Brown's behind her and she says, how about that? When the program ended, the lady said, thank you for watching. I didn't think she even knew me. 

Jimmy: Nothing to say about that. Just made me laugh.

Harold: Well, the thing that stands out to me is we talked about how elongated the characters are when they're sunk down into a bean bag. The feet are like way far away from where they would be if they were standing. And look at that arm in the second panel. It's just way far away. The longest Peanuts arm.

Jimmy: Yeah. What are you guys thinking about? the shakiness of the line this year.

Harold: It stood out to me. It started to hit me seeing these, again, I was just very aware.

Jimmy: I remember I started. Yeah, I actually remember I started reading it almost every day, in 1995 again, because I was out of college and had a job and stuff like that. So, and I remember, around 96, thinking that's when you could really see, some days where he was struggling. But he can still put together a very nice looking comic strip.

Harold: Definitely. The thing I hadn't noticed up until this point is, you know, I'm saying that, my theory was that he, he found a way to do the lettering, that he was able to get a quick stroke in between the tremors because you can imagine how specific you have to be with lettering. And he's able to hold it together even, to this point where the letters generally look clean. And we were saying also the really important curves on the characters like Charlie Brown's head and the noses and certainly the eyes, he's able to get that. So there's not a tremor in that. I'm starting to see a tremor in the bottom of Snoopy's snout going down to his neck. And I'm. And I'm starting to see a tremor sometimes in the letters. And he said he had to hold his hand with, his other hand. Can you imagine doing that with the pen and ink? I mean, this is not easy stuff to be dealing with in the first place. But then when you're, you're shaking and you're dealing with like wet ink that can smear and drip and drop, and this is a real challenge. I mean, I feel for the guy, but when I start Seeing this, the tremor in the letters, I, think, oh, wow, he is. He's working super hard to make these as good as he can at this point. You just.

Jimmy: Just kind of feel it, you know, and that. And he would say things like, I've been. I work on harder on the strip now than I ever have. And I think part of that is because he's fighting his own limitations, just physically. And that's a heroic struggle. And I don't think it has anything to do with money and. Or may. If it does have something to do with money, it's the money that's coming that he's responsible for so many people. You know, it's not just his money. It's. It's everything. And I don't mean five kids and step kids and a wife, and any of that's a house. I mean, the syndicate, the salespeople, the animators, the licensees. he has a. He. I think he feels that really. And is choosing to spend his last few years. He didn't know it at the time, but that's what it ended up being. Continuing to do the strip to the best of his ability. I think that's heroic because that's.

Harold: Yeah, he could. He could have stopped. He could have, He saw that he was just slipping a little bit in the polls. And next. Next episode, I'll go over some of that information. But, yeah, this year he got his star on the Walk of Fame. I mean, that's a big marker, especially for a cartoonist to get.

Jimmy: Yeah. How many things possibly even be on it.

Harold: Yeah. Any other one?

Jimmy: Maybe. Al Capp.

Harold: It'll be interesting to go back and see which cartoonists have gotten on the Walk.

Michael: I mean, you have to have some connection with the film industry. I mean, it's not. It's the walk of. The Hollywood Walk of Fame.  

Jimmy: He would have been on for tv, probably.

Michael: I mean.

Harold: Yeah, it could be tv, radio, film. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: So maybe.

Harold: Yeah, that's possible. But the other thing he did, in a slightly related note, is the International, Museum of Comic Art, which, was relocating to Boca Raton, Florida, that the Walkers were involved in. The, Mort, Beatle Bailey and all of those characters.

Liz: I was thinking of old people with walkers.

Harold: Well, in Florida I can. Yeah. Okay. But, you know, we always have talked that there's. There's this little bit of a rivalry and a little bit of each didn't seem to kind of get the other because they were different kind of cartoonists. But I thought it was cool that the number one donor to the museum, of comic art down in Florida was Schulz. Donated a million dollars to help them go. Wow, that was pretty cool.

Jimmy: That is very cool. That's giving back for sure. 

February 4th, Lucy is behind the psychiatric, booth, but in this symbolic panel, instead of saying psychiatric help, it says, why not? And who knows? But then we're back to the regular old booth and her regular old patient, Charlie Brown. And Charlie Brown says, I just had a terrible thought. What if I finally meet that little red haired girl and what if she really likes me? But what if it turns out that I don't like her as much as I thought I was going to to this? Lucy rolls her eyes. Charlie Brown continues, how could I tell her? How could I break up with her? How could I leave her? And then Lucy says, you're worried about leaving someone you haven't even met? Hopeless. Completely hopeless. And then Charlie Brown responds with, maybe I can leave her now and meet her later.

Michael: Only a true neurotic would have come up with this idea.

Jimmy: Right? It's amazing that it is so neurotic.

Harold: Yeah. actually, there's going to be a moment this year that is, I think, slightly historic in the strip related to the little red haired girl. So I'm looking forward to that.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, I know when you talk.

Michael: I have no idea.

Jimmy: It turns out she actually dies. No, no, no, I meant her hair. As soon as it came out of my mouth, I'm like, that's not gonna be what they should. 

February 11th, another Sunday. And, it's a symbolic panel. Linus and Sally on oppos of a big giant Valentine's, day heart with Snoopy perched in, at the top where the two halves meet. And then the strip starts in the next tier with Sally saying, I made this valentine especially for Linus. And, we see that she has made a little homemade valentine. And then she gives it to Snoopy, saying, I want you to deliver it for me. So, Snoopy goes over the Van Peltz kicks on the door. Bam, bam, bam. Linus answers and says, what's this? Snoopy hands the valentine to him. And, they're inside now, I think, anyway, and Linus reads it and says, for my sweet Baboo. And then he freaks out. I'm not her sweet baboo. Where did she get that idea? Why does she keep calling me that? He's screaming to the heavens, I'm not her sweet Baboo, and I'll never be her sweet baboo. And Snoopy is looking at the, valentine at this point. Then we cut back to Sally at home, and Sally asks, did he like it? And Snoopy thinks he loved it. And then we cut to Linus in the last panel with the valentine, smashed into his face and his nose poking through it. Which is how Snoopy ended up, delivering it after Linus's complaints. 

Jimmy: Much funnier when you look at that one than when I read it, but. Oh, this is another one. Maybe I was just in a great mood because I've been in a pretty good mood lately. But, this year made me laugh out loud a bunch of times. And this is one of them. This one just kills me that Snoopy's like, just had enough of this nonsense. He loved it. 

February 16th. It's a panoramic panel, one of those done in one things. And it is, another one of our Frank Miller-esques. look At World War I Spike the infantry man just in the trench surrounded by darkness and mud and piled sandbags. And, he's thinking to himself, so I stood in the chow line in the rain for an hour today because the cook said we were having tapioca pudding. So what happens? They ran out and I got bread pudding. I hate bread pudding. I'm in the infantry. I'm standing in the rain. Rats. 

Jimmy: I just picked this one because I can't believe that they killed and ate Tapioca Pudding. Oh, our famous character, the, the girl whose dad was in advertising. You know, I think he's leaning partly into these World War I strips because it's there, I mean, there's. It's custom made for hiding his tremor.

Harold: You know, anybody who's, who's been through war, especially, you know, at a young, impressionable age, you know, you're in your teens, early 20s, going off to war. What a strange interlude in your life that you're going to carry with you the rest of it.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And the things that you were asked to do that you can't do in polite society and how that, the. How jarring that is.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: You know, that can never leave a person.

Jimmy: Well, yeah, not just ask to do, but trained to do. Like you went through a rigorous, let's call it, training program to become a certain way, to behave a certain way so that you can survive what's about to happen. And then, like you say, the war is over eventually, thankfully, hopefully, and hopefully you survived it. But then you go home and you're this person that can't do any of the things you were trained to be. That's why the GI Bill was so great, because, I mean, it gave so many people. Schulz use his GI Bill. Right. To get the, correspondence course, I think. Right. So, yeah. I mean, you're. Yeah. And it's. That's what it is. It's an interlude. It's these two or three years or whatever it is that make no sense, when, you know, put in the context of everything else of your life and. Yeah, and that. There's definitely that PTSD element in these war strips, for sure. 

February 27th. --from one extreme to the other. Snoopy dressed as a pirate with the kerchief over his head, the bandana over his head, an eyepatch, and Woodstock on his shoulder as a parrot are standing at the bus stop with Linus and Charlie Brown. And Linus says, things change. In the old days, you never would have seen a pirate waiting for the school bus.

Michael: I picked this because it seems like it would have been an obvious choice for Snoopy's fantasies. I mean, he's doing all the. All the classic adventure kids adventure story tropes.

Harold: Well, he did do it right when. When, the eye patch. He, stole the eye patch.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, that's right. For one strip or one or two strips. That's right.

Michael: Seems like a real natural.

Harold: I thought you picked this, Michael. Cause you was like, this is. This is Linus saying Schulz is breaking the rules. He's just saying if things change, he would never seen this in the old days.

Michael: This fits totally, totally in Snoopy's persona. But adding Woodstock is the parrot was the genius movie.

Jimmy: That is what makes it. Yeah.

Harold: Did we ever establish that Snoopy said he didn't have any shoulders possible to do something like this? he's got to be clawing in.

Liz: Or he's just flying like a hummingbird.

Jimmy: Yeah, right next to him. 

March 8, Marcie and Peppermint Patty are in class. And of course, Peppermint Patty's trying to cheat. And she goes, quick, Marcie, what's the answer to the first question? Then Marcie says, I can't tell you, sir. That would be cheating. Hey, we just talked about this. And then Peppermint Patty says, you're right, Marcie. What was I thinking? What came over me? It's so unlike me. I must have blanked out. And then Marcie just gives up and says, 10. Patty says, Got it.

Harold: Yeah. This is like Schulz poking you in the eye. If you're like, you know you're having characters cheating and they have absolutely no regrets. No. You know, that they're no conscience. Marcie points out that she's completely aware it's on top of her mind that it's cheating, and they just go right ahead and do it.

Jimmy: I love it. It gives, you know what. Because it gives it that little bit of spice, you know, like, if it was a bunch of goody goodies going, I can't do that, and I can't do that, it didn't. Wouldn't have a little bit of spice to it, you know.

Harold: Well, I think it would have been even more spice if you did have a character in the strip who's like, you can't do that. It's odd that, that it's just goes one way when he's. It's cheating, you know, you think Linus would be, you know, you'd have something where it's like, oh, this is terrible. You know, Lydia. Imagine Lydia. Did she ever ask him for an answer and he had the dilemma. I mean, that would have been an amazing strip.

Liz: And it assumes that Marcie is telling the truth.

Jimmy: Well, that's true. Yeah.

Harold: Yeah. I remember in 8th grade being seated next to, a girl that I liked a lot. And, at one point she did. She just turned to me, looked straight at me and asked me the answer to one of the questions. And I just kind of. I was Charlie Brown, you know, I just stared at her. She didn't talk to me normally unless she's wanting to.

Jimmy: There's something. I like it. I like it. There's a little. It's a little bit of anarchism that, is nice to have thrown in there now and again. 

March 17th, it's a Sunday, and the old Beagle Scouts are out on a hike, walking across a large bridge, made from a fallen log in the first panel. Then they're out in a field, and Snoopy says, okay, troops, here's where we'll spend the night. I'll go off and gather some firewood while you prepare the camp. And then we see the little, birds kind of looking around, and Snoopy says to them, we're going to be here for a couple of days, so make it a happy place. And then he goes around to pick up some sticks. And when he comes back, it's an entire fairground. There is the tent set up, of course, but there's also a Ferris wheel and a merry go round, and the little birds are enjoying themselves. And Snoopy's hat, of course, Shoots straight off his head.

Harold: Yeah, this one made me laugh out loud. And of course, the hat flying off the head is just an additional delight. And these are adorable, these little birds. And, boy, they did a nice job with the Ferris wheel. And the Merry Go Round helps that it's in color.

Liz: Yes.

Jimmy: Oh, yes.

Harold: Yeah, it just looks great. And for anybody interested in what I was talking about in terms of the tremor starting to affect the actual, like, faces of the characters, which is a big deal. You can see it here on the bottom of Snoopy's snout in multiple panels where he's got the tremor there. which I just had not seen before.

Jimmy: Yeah, really good looking strip.

Harold: What do you think of the horses in the Merry Go Round? Very childlike, like the bunnies we were talking about.

Jimmy: There is that first one, the one right in the center. in my high school, we were the Cardinal Brennan Chargers, and they renovated the gym my freshman year. And they painted a horse on the side, you know, represent the Charger. And it looked like that. It looked kind of like a stuffed animal aardvark. I mean, it was the worst horse ever. I actually like the horse that's coming around, the one in the far left that you can see it circling around. Yeah, totally abstract cartoon. 

March 22. We're, back in the school room with Peppermint Patty and Marcie and Peppermint Patty is soaked to the bone. and she says, yes, ma'am, I walked to school in the rain again. Yes, I got kind of wet. Homework, she says, did my homework get wet? And then Marcie just loses it. She just laughs her head off for, like, no reason at this. Ha, ha, ha, ha ha. And then Peppermint Patty says, ignore her, ma'am. She's humongously weird. 

Jimmy: I pick this because of the word humongous. That is something I think Schulz heard one of his grandkids say that humongous is a very late 80s, early 90s word. It feels to me. I mean, I know this is mid-90s, but still humongously weird. 

April 20th. So, this is a sequence. Charlie Brown is, Has gone to a dance, as you may remember from one of our previous episodes, where he danced with a girl and he, really liked her, but he was the only one who remembered her. But now here we are, and there it's a Sweetheart Ball. And there is Emily, and she's dancing with Charlie Brown. And, Charlie Brown says to her, I can't believe I'm here with you at the Sweetheart Ball, Emily. And she says, do you remember how we met at dance class? And then she says, I still enjoy dancing with you, Charles. And then an announcement comes over the PA System. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Does anyone here own a small white dog? And Charlie Brown says, oh, no. 

Jimmy: Which is going to be a cliffhanger. That's where we're leaving it this week.

Harold: You know, So I kind of like Charlie Brown as vindicated because there was. It was kind of questioned that this wonderful time he had, ah, dancing with this little girl who enjoyed dancing with him that he had. He just couldn't stop thinking about her. And then all of a sudden, it was kind of set up in this weird place, like he imagined the whole thing. I was very happy to see that Emily showed up again.

Michael: I was very convinced she didn't exist. So I think this whole thing is a dream or hallucination.

Liz: Nice suit.

Jimmy: How about that lapel on the, last panel? I have no idea what is going on there.

Harold: That is. That's like Hugh Hefner kind of.

Liz: No, he'd be wearing a bathrobe.

Harold: Okay. Right.

Jimmy: It is like, it does have that, like that smoking jacket or kind of like a, ah, weird 70s tuxedo vibe. It's so strange. I think Emily's really cute, even though she's clearly just Charlie Brown in a wig.

Michael: What color do you think that, hair would be?

Jimmy: Oh, he has a thing for redheads. Clearly. They're all redheads. 

All right, so that brings us to the end of this episode. We will find out what happens next episode. If you characters want to keep this conversation going, there's, of course, a couple different ways you can do it. First thing you could do is you got to go over to the old unpacking peanuts website, unpacking peanuts.com and there you sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread. That'll get you one email a month. And that email will tell you what we're going to be covering as far as we know, at the time of publication location anyway. So you want to do that. If you want to email us, you can do it at unpacking peanuts gmail.com. if you want to call or write the hotline 717-219-4162. You can leave a message or send a text. If you send a text, remember to identify yourself. And of course, you can follow us on social media. We are @unpackpeanuts on Instagram and Threads and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, blue sky and YouTube. And, we'd love to see you there. 

So that's it for this week. Come back next week for more 1996 and more about the rules of Peanuts. For 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, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael. 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 unpackingpeanuts.com have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

M&L: Cool