0:05

SPEAKER_2: The podcast where three cartoonists take an in-depth look at the greatest comic strip of all time, Peanuts by Charles M.

0:15

SPEAKER_2: Schulz. Jimmy: Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.

0:21

Jimmy: Is it the future or 1999?

0:24

Jimmy: No, it's neither, it's 1985, so we are going back to the future.

0:28

Jimmy: I'll be your host for the proceedings. Jimmy: My name is Jimmy Gownley, I'm also a cartoonist.

0:32

Jimmy: I did books like Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up, and The Dumbest Idea Ever.

0:37

Jimmy: Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts, and fellow cartoonists.

0:41

Jimmy: He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast.

0:46

Jimmy: He's the co-creator of the original comic book price guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells, Entangled River.

0:56

Jimmy: It's Michael Cohen. Jimmy: And he's an executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics and the creator of the Instagram sensation, Sweetest Beasts, Harold Buchholz.

1:09

Harold: Hello. Jimmy: So we are here in 1985.

1:13

Jimmy: If you guys have been listening out there religiously, week by week, you might know that we announced recently, we are going to start just taking our time with these strips.

1:24

Jimmy: We were happy with the two episode a year format.

1:27

Jimmy: But you know what, we're going to slow it down. Jimmy: And I'm excited that we're actually slowing it down now because we probably, we definitely missed some classic strips over the first 35 years.

1:40

Jimmy: But a lot of people have already discussed those strips.

1:43

Jimmy: There's books and books and movies made about how great that the era of peanuts is.

1:49

Jimmy: This part is a little less documented.

1:51

Jimmy: So I think it's exciting that we're going to, we're going to slow things down and take an even deeper look.

1:56

Jimmy: So guys, the one thing I want to talk about there, I quoted a great movie of 1985 off the top there, which is Back to the Future.

2:05

Jimmy: And the whole premise of Back to the Future is how different 1985 was from 1955.

2:13

Jimmy: And yet Schulz predates that with peanuts by an additional five years.

2:21

Jimmy: And I just want to talk about, that's super inspiring to me.

2:26

Jimmy: I can't imagine whether we talk about whether or not he's lost a little off his fastball or whether he's not the absolute pinnacle of his powers, but it's an astounding achievement to be this close to the heart of pop culture for three and a half decades.

2:45

Michael: Yeah, well, I mean, he's conscious of pop culture, but I don't think he's really into it.

2:53

Michael: Whatever was happening in the 80s was probably not on his mind, but he probably heard it from it.

2:59

Jimmy: No, but I just mean the fact that his work, whether it was on his mind or not, predates the rise of the hula hoop as a trend, and now we're at the Duran Duran.

3:12

Jimmy: You know, Paul McCartney's follow-up band to the Beatles has been gone for a half a decade now, and Schulz is still plugging away.

3:19

Jimmy: It's amazing. Michael: Things are going downhill fast, that's for sure.

3:22

Jimmy: Things are going downhill fast. Michael: Yeah, I mean, hula hoop, come on, great.

3:26

Jimmy: Duran Duran.

3:30

Jimmy: You know what, I will give you that one. Jimmy: I do think the hula hoop beats Duran Duran.

3:36

Jimmy: Harold, does this area of conversation interest you at all?

3:39

Harold: Yeah, it's interesting. Harold: I do think that he was trying to stay on top of things.

3:44

Harold: I mean, when I see things like Flash Beagle, from Schulz, I don't think he was a huge Flashdance fan.

3:53

Harold: I think he's looking at what's going on in the culture and he's responding to it.

3:57

Harold: He's interested in what people are talking about and watching and he does, I think, want to be relevant because otherwise I think he would only be picking things that he personally was really interested in.

4:14

Harold: I don't think he was a huge Flashdance fan.

4:18

Michael: But the fact is- Jimmy: Now though, hold on, no, no, no, no.

4:22

Jimmy: We cannot pass this by because I really just want to think about Schulz, the huge Flashdance fan.

4:31

Jimmy: I picture him like, Jeannie, Jeannie, I worked it out.

4:34

Jimmy: And now he's like doing the dance in the living room.

4:36

Liz: Leg warmers. Jimmy: Yeah, right. Jimmy: The whole thing he's pounding him down.

4:40

Jimmy: She's just, okay, Sparky. Harold: You're a maniac on the floor, Sparky.

4:46

Michael: Well, look, I think the culture was way more united.

4:50

Michael: I'm talking about that everybody was being fed the same stuff on the same three channels and the same few magazines.

5:00

Harold: Absolutely. Michael: So, even though I was not into pop culture in 1985, I still read Newsweek in Time.

5:08

Michael: And so, whatever was big in the culture, everybody was reading, you know, grandmas were reading about, they knew what Flashdance was, because, you know, that's what people were talking about.

5:21

Michael: What's the big thing right now? Harold: Right, but if you look at the other strips that were his, I guess, most direct competition, if you want to call it competition, I don't see as much of that in, say, Beatle Bailey or Family Circus.

5:37

Harold: There might be some references to things, but it does seem like Schulz does it more than others.

5:42

Harold: And it does seem like he's trying to stay relevant with people in the moment.

5:49

Harold: He's taking advantage of the fact that this is a daily strip that on the same day, this is dropping into tens of millions of newspapers.

5:59

Harold: And that I really find interesting about him, that even at 35 years in, he's not in his own little bubble.

6:07

Harold: He's not in a crazy cat bubble where nothing changes.

6:10

Harold: There's no sense of time. Harold: He is trying to, I think, reflect the culture and find ways to get people re-engaged with the strip.

6:20

Harold: It seems like he's just a very competitive in that way.

6:25

Harold: And I find that fascinating.

6:28

Harold: Going dating back, we remember the Davy Crockett thing 30 years ago.

6:31

Jimmy: Right, that's what I'm saying. Harold: It's a different world, yeah.

6:35

Jimmy: A completely different world, the Davy Crockett years to this.

6:39

Jimmy: The other thing I sort of want to talk about, Michael, you said we were feeding, being fed the same few choices by these big monolithic networks and stuff like that.

6:50

Jimmy: And that's true of there were big, gigantic record labels and big, gigantic movie studios.

6:57

Jimmy: If I think about the 80s though, if I just, let's think about either movie or music rather and comics, there were really, really strong, mainstream things going on.

7:12

Jimmy: This was the era of things like in comic books, like Watchmen and Dark Knight and all that.

7:17

Jimmy: But there was also a counterculture going on, things like Love and Rockets and Seribus.

7:22

Jimmy: And that was the same way in music and stuff like that.

7:26

Jimmy: And I was thinking recently like, is there a counterculture these days?

7:30

Jimmy: And then I thought, well, how could there be a counterculture?

7:33

Jimmy: There's no culture. Jimmy: Like Taylor Swift and Beyonce can't carry everything.

7:38

Jimmy: And I just think that it feels like not having big things that everybody can, or not everybody, but that gigantic millions and millions of people can relate to even hampers the stuff that's pushing against it, if it doesn't exist, you know?

7:59

Michael: Yeah, no, everybody can live in their own niche of culture and ignore the rest.

8:04

Michael: And you still have a support system that kind of confirms your opinions or your opinions.

8:12

Michael: But yeah, nobody's listening to every kind of music.

8:17

Michael: But back in the day, we were force-fed everything.

8:23

Michael: I mean, I'm talking further back in the day than you're talking about, but basically just top 40 could have a country song.

8:32

Michael: It could have a Frank Sinatra song, could have a psychedelic song.

8:36

Michael: It's just whatever we're selling is what you're gonna hear.

8:40

Michael: There wasn't any niche way of getting pop culture.

8:46

Jimmy: Right. Harold: Yeah, it's fascinating how now the only thing we can do to get some sort of common culture again is to reboot something from the 80s or earlier.

8:59

Harold: Right. Harold: Which version of the Addams Family are we gonna redo now?

9:03

Harold: Or all these Marvel's Spider-Man characters and all that stuff that kind of came from this, the collective experience of these characters through comic books and maybe an animated series and they had a live action show on TV.

9:19

Harold: That's all we've got right now is something that was known decades ago.

9:25

Harold: And it's very rare to see something somehow break through like Baby Shark, you know?

9:32

Michael: Yeah, but I think at this time also that there were some niche cultures that were coming out.

9:39

Michael: Like, you know, we're talking about Love and Rockets, which was focused kind of on the punk movement.

9:45

Michael: And that was a niche culture.

9:47

Michael: And I think, you know, a lot of readers were attracted to that because nobody else was doing it.

9:54

Michael: So it really stood out. Jimmy: Yeah, and that's what I feel.

9:57

Jimmy: Yeah, like, you know, the fact that Love and Rockets was a rare thing, and I'm just using this as an example.

10:05

Jimmy: It could have been RM. Jimmy: It could have been anything that was a niche thing in the 80s.

10:09

Jimmy: Because it was a rare example, it made it so much more important to the people who found it.

10:16

Jimmy: But now there are web strips that we've never heard of that have millions and millions of readers that they might not even have any artistic value whatsoever, but they just exist and they're huge, but they're not culturally significant.

10:31

Jimmy: They have no cultural impact. Michael: I mean, there are millions of web comics from, you know, any.

10:38

Michael: Well, it's also, I mean, that reflects Japanese culture a little more, which was very early on.

10:45

Michael: Comic books were pretty much anything but superheroes.

10:49

Jimmy: Yeah. Michael: You know, you can have sushi chefs and baseball players, comics about them, because that was kind of a monoculture, but people were able to create identities by what they, what they liked.

11:05

Jimmy: Yeah. Harold: I remember, you know, people listening to pop music in particular.

11:10

Harold: It seemed to me, because I wasn't really, as we had talked about before, about our musical interests and, and my lack of any, any cache in the music field, but I just, it just felt so oppressive to me back then because there was this top 40 and it was playing in every restaurant and in our high school, in the hallways.

11:33

Harold: And it's like, well, whether you like it or not, this, this is the culture.

11:38

Harold: And then you've got people who were so passionately into these, these rock groups where, I mean, the level to which all of that was elevated.

11:49

Harold: I think people who were growing up today, they have no idea of what there was this own, there was this weird cultural peer pressure that doesn't really exist anymore in a way that's kind of refreshing, I think.

12:04

Harold: Is that true? Liz: That there isn't peer pressure?

12:07

Harold: Well, cultural peer pressure, I mean, individual peer pressure, I think in high school, I think still exists.

12:12

Jimmy: Well, but I think it just... Harold: The idea that, you know, you have a group that identifies themselves as the Who Freaks, you know, and there's another group that's totally into some other, some other band, and that you define your friends through that culture.

12:30

Michael: Well, I mean, it's still there. Michael: I mean, you got your Swifties, you've got the Jamba.

12:35

Jimmy: And I think the peer pressure stuff has moved on to online.

12:38

Jimmy: Yeah, like, you know, it's how you look and that kind of thing.

12:41

Michael: Yeah, but relating to comics in this period, now I'm not that familiar with the other strips, but I was very familiar with Bloom County, and I seem to recall there's quite a few popular references.

12:55

Michael: I mean, there was a start. Harold: Oh, yeah. Harold: Yeah, he was he was messing with all sorts of things.

13:02

Harold: What was the name of the dog? Harold: It's Odds McKenzie.

13:06

Harold: Yeah, I think he was messing around with that because there was all this controversy that there was this popular dog for, for was it for beer and beer?

13:15

Harold: Yeah, it was appealing, super appealing to kids.

13:20

Harold: What are you doing? Harold: I remember he was making fun of that.

13:22

Jimmy: Yeah, and the beer comes. Jimmy: You were like, why?

13:26

Jimmy: We don't really test market these ads or anything.

13:29

Harold: Kids like this Joe Camel fellow.

13:31

Harold: Who knew? Harold: We just thought Chester Cheetah was popular with the kids.

13:36

Harold: We had no idea that Joe Camel such a thing.

13:40

Harold: Yeah, but yeah, it really has changed.

13:44

Harold: It does seem in some ways that the pressure is a little bit off of what I remember as a kid.

13:50

Harold: But being an older adult, I don't know if that's true.

13:54

Harold: It would be interesting if we have some younger listeners that they kind of let us know where they're experiencing that kind of, you know, the power of culture on you, whether you like it or not.

14:05

Harold: Do you still experience that and in what form is it like?

14:08

Harold: I think you're right about the social media. Harold: We have a whole new world of inundation of information and, you know, the influencers.

14:17

Jimmy: I can't even imagine. Jimmy: Now, listen, we're going to have to, we're going to get to the strips, but this whole topic of conversation is going to come up a little bit later.

14:27

Jimmy: I was in a, I posted something on Twitter and it was, I said, make comics, not content.

14:35

Jimmy: And Super Listener Joshua Stauffer asked, what's the difference?

14:40

Jimmy: You know, I see comics as a type of content that, which he's not wrong about, right?

14:44

Jimmy: But he said, can you elaborate?

14:47

Jimmy: And I attempted to, but my night had already started, so it was a bad time to be tweeting.

14:52

Jimmy: So I said, we're going to just take this up on the podcast.

14:55

Jimmy: So when we get to the mail, we'll talk about that.

14:57

Jimmy: What's the difference between art and content?

14:59

Michael: I think the difference is that content is something needed to fill a space.

15:06

Michael: The next issue of Spider-Man is going to come out.

15:09

Jimmy: It has to be there. Michael: You had to fill it. Michael: Right.

15:12

Michael: Whereas the stuff we do, if we don't do it, there's nothing there.

15:17

Michael: There's zero. Jimmy: Right, right. Jimmy: Yeah, that's actually brilliant.

15:21

Jimmy: And it's also not an absence, because it doesn't have to be there, which makes what we do so much more special.

15:33

Harold: Anyway, we say as we do our weekly podcast.

15:35

Jimmy: Exactly. Michael: This is content. Jimmy: Yes.

15:40

Liz: But it's also a new buzzword for how to do multiple things with the same amount of content.

15:46

Liz: If you produce content, then you can do audio content, and you can do blog posts, and you can do articles on Reddit.

15:54

Liz: I mean, you can make an ebook. Liz: You can do multiple things with your content, and it doesn't really matter what it is.

16:02

Harold: Slice it and dice it.

16:04

Jimmy: Right. Jimmy: Yes, it doesn't matter what it is. Jimmy: Well, I guess we're talking about this now, Josh.

16:09

Jimmy: Oh, we're scared. Jimmy: But yeah, content to me is exactly what those guys were saying.

16:16

Jimmy: It is something that is there just to fill a space.

16:20

Jimmy: In some way, the comic strips themselves were content, right?

16:25

Jimmy: Because they're there to fill a space in the paper to get it.

16:27

Michael: And they had to be there every day. Jimmy: Every single day.

16:30

Jimmy: Now, within that, like Peanuts, here, Charles...

16:32

Harold: Yeah, Burke Brethead says he's busy making comics for tomorrow.

16:36

Harold: In the meantime, enjoy this blank space. Jimmy: Right, right, right.

16:40

Jimmy: Now, within that idea of this just content creation, art can occur like it did here with Peanuts.

16:47

Jimmy: And that's what I meant by comics. Jimmy: I was using comics as a code for art comics, meaning people trying to express something genuine.

16:56

Jimmy: I think the first 37 or whatever they are issues of Spider-Man are art.

17:01

Jimmy: After that, it becomes content. Jimmy: It becomes, all right, Spider-Man needs to exist.

17:05

Jimmy: Who's available? Jimmy: You know? Harold: So, Jimmy, what's the mindset you're putting across there in that tweet?

17:13

Harold: What are you saying regarding the creator?

17:16

Harold: How are you supposed to see what you make? Harold: That changes content into comics.

17:21

Jimmy: The comic has to be the thing you are focusing on.

17:24

Jimmy: I am drawing this comic.

17:27

Jimmy: I'm not creating an OC and this world because I'm an imaginary JRR.

17:35

Jimmy: Tolkien. Michael: Well, there's a huge difference.

17:39

Michael: And I think your Spider-Man analogy doesn't really work because these guys were surviving on a paycheck.

17:48

Jimmy: Yeah. Jimmy: Oh, I'm not criticizing them. Jimmy: Look, I agree.

17:52

Jimmy: I do Donald Duck comics, right?

17:54

Jimmy: But they're Donald Duck content because they tell me, you know what I mean?

18:01

Harold: Couldn't you, from your own mindset, make comics when you were assigned?

18:05

Harold: Well, it's just like Schulz, right? Harold: He's obviously in the content category because he's on a deadline.

18:11

Harold: But he's also making comics. Harold: He's making art.

18:14

Michael: Because he has the choice to do whatever he wants.

18:18

Michael: I mean, the editor might get pissed, but he's not fulfilling.

18:22

Michael: You know, you have to have Charlie Brown and Snoopy in every every strip.

18:27

Harold: Right. Michael: Yeah. Michael: It kind of breaks down.

18:30

Michael: Let me just mention that what he said about Spider-Man is the Steve Ditko issues, the man who pretty much created it.

18:40

Michael: But he was burned out at the end of that period.

18:44

Michael: And people kind of notice that the last three or four issues were just kind of they weren't as good, but he wasn't coming up on anything really brilliant or new.

18:54

Michael: He was just, you know, killing time basically.

18:57

Michael: So in that case, he was just doing content.

19:00

Michael: Well, I got to do another issue. Jimmy: Right.

19:03

Jimmy: Yeah, no, that's true, too. Harold: I'm still kind of lost in what you're in what you're saying about the mindset, that what what gets you to the better place like like the Donald Duck comic that you write.

19:15

Harold: If you looked at that Donald comic, which you do have to do because you've agreed to do it.

19:20

Jimmy: Yeah. Harold: Is there a way for you to look at it so that it maybe has a better chance of being the art that you're talking about?

19:25

Jimmy: I look what I'm doing it when I'm sitting there at my notebook and I'm writing a Donald Duck comic.

19:31

Jimmy: I am trying to be the James Joyce of Donald Duck comics.

19:36

Jimmy: I mean, there are jokes in the Donald Duck comics that the editors didn't get.

19:43

Jimmy: I mean, I know that for a fact, but it'll never be much beyond that because then the editor is going to do what they have to do with it.

19:55

Jimmy: And then the legal department is going to do what they have to do with it.

19:58

Jimmy: And then it's going to go to an artist that I've never met and that I didn't know who it was before.

20:04

Jimmy: And they may be Steve Ditko or they may be Larry Ditko, Steve's less talented nephew.

20:11

Jimmy: And there's no way to control any of that.

20:15

Jimmy: Okay, all right. Jimmy: I posted that, then Fran Conner, a good friend of mine, a friend of mine for 49 years.

20:27

Jimmy: And a Shakespeare professor said, yeah, this is what you mean.

20:31

Jimmy: And he posted like every Marvel movie that's coming out for the next like X amount of years.

20:37

Jimmy: Every Marvel movie, every Star Wars movie, every DC movie.

20:43

Jimmy: They don't have scripts. Jimmy: They don't have casts.

20:46

Jimmy: They don't have directors, but they're coming out.

20:50

Jimmy: That's content. Michael: That's content.

20:52

Jimmy: Sam Raimi making that first Spider-Man movie is art, whether you like it or not.

20:56

Jimmy: It's pop art. Jimmy: It's you know, it's not the Mona Lisa, but it's it's it's everybody.

21:02

Jimmy: We're making a movie. Jimmy: They're just extending intellectual property.

21:07

Michael: But what you're I think what you're doing, I mean, the way I look at it is what you're doing on the Donald Duck stuff is you're amusing yourself.

21:16

Harold: Yeah. Michael: By seeing if you can put in some real creativity and no one will notice.

21:19

Michael: Hopefully no one will notice you're being creative.

21:21

Harold: I mean, the way I look at it is if you're an artist, let's say you're the director or screenwriter who gets to make his first Hulk movie because you've been doing other great things and they see you and they say, hey, how would you like to plug into this world?

21:37

Harold: The artist can't help but make art or comics or movies.

21:42

Harold: And, you know, having worn the hat of the producer, I mean, I think the producer looks at that very same thing as content.

21:48

Harold: Because that's the producer's job. Harold: But the artist, hopefully, is always, yeah, like is always looking at it as art.

21:56

Harold: No matter what they've been assigned, they're going to put their stamp on it.

21:59

Harold: They're going to make their own unique, like the Barbie movie, you know, who knew that somebody was going to discover something.

22:07

Michael: Hulk movie is ridiculed by probably the only, you know, genuine artist, you know, the Ang Lee.

22:16

Michael: But, you know, sometimes people just want to make some money.

22:20

Jimmy: Dude, hey, Martin Scorsese made commercials.

22:23

Harold: Yeah, I've seen some people say I'm going to create art.

22:26

Harold: And because they're saying I'm going to create art, that's when they get themselves in a ton of trouble.

22:30

Harold: Yeah, because they get a little too high minded and they kind of forget that there's content.

22:37

Jimmy: Yeah. Jimmy: But the other thing about that is that's OK, because you can fail and that's up to you.

22:43

Jimmy: Another thing is content is generally created or is called into existence by a corporation.

22:50

Jimmy: Like if they don't call me next month to do Donald Duck comics, it's not because Donald Duck comics cease to exist or I have perfected them.

22:58

Jimmy: It's just that they moved on to somebody else.

23:00

Michael: It's not just a corporation. Michael: It's a team. Michael: And it's hard to control art when there's, you know, 10 people in the room.

23:10

Michael: So someone like Schulz, I mean, these are the people who can create art.

23:15

Michael: I mean, first of all, they're financially secure and they've created the characters.

23:20

Michael: They know the characters. Michael: And if they want to risk their financial security, they can take it in any direction they want and not worry about the readers or the editors.

23:32

Harold: Right. Harold: So Jimmy, is this a way to kind of restate what you're saying?

23:37

Harold: I'm kind of still trying to get get what you're because that's that's such a that's a bold statement that it seems like.

23:44

Harold: Trying to say if you grasp what you're trying to say, that hopefully it's helpful to creators.

23:50

Harold: Is it just tell tell the story you want to tell and don't worry about where it fits?

23:55

Jimmy: Is that a good good way to create a comic, not content?

23:59

Jimmy: I am making a comic book. Jimmy: It's going to be however many pages I am.

24:03

Jimmy: It is going to be this story that I desperately want to tell.

24:07

Jimmy: It's going to contain these jokes or these tragic moments and all this stuff.

24:12

Jimmy: And I'm going to do it in the style that I want to do.

24:15

Jimmy: And it's going to be a complete unit in and of itself.

24:17

Jimmy: It is not designed to later be a happy meal and later be a lunchbox and later be a 16 parts prequel spin off series.

24:26

Jimmy: That all can happen. Jimmy: But that don't make that your goal because I'm sorry.

24:30

Jimmy: That's a stupid goal. Jimmy: And I know that there are millions of people out there who want that.

24:36

Jimmy: I know that there are people listening who desperately want that.

24:39

Jimmy: It's a stupid goal. Jimmy: Make something of value.

24:44

Michael: Well, I agree with that. Jimmy: Be a reality TV star.

24:47

Jimmy: Just be a Kardashian and that's it. Jimmy: It'll be easy.

24:49

Michael: But then again, there's people who think, you know, if I could just make a living doing comics, I love them.

24:57

Michael: If somebody wants to compromise, they go like, OK, I got a job at Marvel drawing, you know, their, you know, C level feature.

25:06

Michael: But at least I'm in the biz and eventually I can get to where I want to be.

25:11

Michael: I don't knock that. Jimmy: I don't knock it either, but they better be making great comics and not be trying to sit around and concoct a franchise because it's just going to be mush.

25:21

Michael: No, they're still working from someone else's script.

25:24

Michael: I mean, really, when I read comics or collect comics these days, almost without exception, the only exception being Alan Moore, is these are things that are written and drawn by the same person.

25:39

Jimmy: Yeah, and that's who I assume I'm talking to.

25:42

Jimmy: Like, you know, I'm not talking really about to the people who are working jobs.

25:48

Jimmy: Like I said, I work at a Donald Duck job and I am thinking of it as a comic, but I don't necessarily care if other people are thinking about their Donald Duck comics that way.

25:57

Jimmy: Because Donald Duck is a franchise.

25:59

Jimmy: Donald Duck is content. Jimmy: Donald Duck will exist long after us.

26:03

Michael: Well, here's the art of peanuts. Michael: I see it as the art of creating characters who you care about.

26:13

Michael: And what comes out of their mouth is consistent with their personalities.

26:18

Michael: I think we're in a period now where the jokes aren't funny.

26:22

Michael: And the art, even though it's still good, is to me going downhill.

26:28

Michael: But then again, he's creating characters that are extremely one of a kind.

26:37

Michael: And I think that's why peanuts is still popular because it transcends media.

26:44

Michael: It works on for movies, so I hear, or specials.

26:49

Michael: It works on lunch pails. Michael: It's the characters.

26:52

Michael: And so the art of Schulz's greatest contribution is creating dozens.

26:58

Michael: Well, I don't know if it's that many, but at least a dozen really memorable characters.

27:03

Liz: Yeah. Jimmy: All right, Joshua. Jimmy: So hopefully that answers your question.

27:07

Liz: I doubt it. Michael: What was the question? Jimmy: I don't remember.

27:11

Jimmy: But the one thing I will say, just create a dozen or so super memorable characters and you should be okay.

27:18

Jimmy: All right. Jimmy: How about we just take a break? Jimmy: Should we take a break now before we even get to this?

27:22

Jimmy: And then we'll start the strips and then come back with our new segment.

27:25

Jimmy: What flavor milkshake am I drinking? Michael: Our new segment.

27:30

Michael: Let's talk about peanut strips. Jimmy: And we're back.

27:39

Michael: All right. Jimmy: So with that simple philosophical conversation out of the way, how about we get to the strips?

27:45

Michael: Sure. Michael: Sure. Jimmy: All right. Jimmy: So if you guys out there want to follow along, what you could do is you hop on over to the old Unpacking Peanuts website.

27:53

Jimmy: There you're going to sign up for the great peanuts reread and that'll get you one email a month from us letting you know what strips we're going to cover.

28:01

Jimmy: That way, you can do a little homework ahead of time and read along with us.

28:05

Jimmy: Other ways you can follow along, you can go to gocomics.com, type in peanuts as I read the date.

28:11

Jimmy: You type it in there and away you go.

28:14

Jimmy: So let's get started. Jimmy: OK, we're start off.

28:17

Jimmy: We're going to read at least two in a row here because it's a little bit of a sequence.

28:21

Jimmy: January 7th, 1985.

28:24

Jimmy: Peppermint Patty is out in the schoolyard at lunch, sitting on a bench and eating out of a paper bag.

28:31

Jimmy: Marcy comes up clutching her lunch bag and says to Peppermint Patty, You won, sir.

28:36

Jimmy: Peppermint Patty, without looking up, says, won what?

28:39

Jimmy: Marcy answers, I just heard that your essay on what you did during Christmas vacation won the All City School Essay Contest.

28:47

Jimmy: Marcy congratulates her in the next panel, saying, You wrote about looking at the clouds, remember?

28:52

Jimmy: Anyway, you won. Jimmy: Congratulations.

28:55

Jimmy: In the last panel, we see Peppermint Patty rubbing something on her face.

29:00

Jimmy: And Marcy looks at her and says, Don't wipe your tears away with your French fries, sir.

29:05

Jimmy: And we see that's exactly what a jubilant Peppermint Patty is doing.

29:10

Jimmy: And then we see it continues on to the next date, January 8th, where Marcy is standing in front of the classroom.

29:18

Jimmy: And she says, I've been asked to make this important announcement.

29:22

Jimmy: One of our classmates, Ms. Jimmy: Patricia Reichardt, has just won the All City Essay Contest.

29:28

Jimmy: Marcy continues, her essay on what she did during her Christmas vacation has won first prize.

29:33

Jimmy: A flummoxed Peppermint Patty sitting in her seat says, how did I win?

29:37

Jimmy: I got a D minus. Michael: My question on this one was, is this first time we heard her last name?

29:48

Jimmy: I asked that too. Jimmy: You know what? Jimmy: I don't think so because the Peanuts Wiki doesn't indicate that this strip says that.

29:56

Jimmy: But I am just so happy that we have now gotten to 1985 and we are still doing.

30:04

Jimmy: So is this the first time? Jimmy: And in that initial thing, I said, we would be the ones telling the listeners when the first thing happens, but we're not.

30:13

Jimmy: We just go, is this the first thing?

30:16

Jimmy: And whoever asks at the other to go, I don't know.

30:19

Jimmy: So I don't know. Liz: Well, then we ask our listeners.

30:21

Michael: We're just amateur peanutologists.

30:24

Michael: We're not experts. Jimmy: Yeah, there's real scholars out there.

30:28

Jimmy: But I think it's super cool that Peppermint Patty has a last name.

30:32

Michael: Very few characters do. Jimmy: Yes.

30:35

Jimmy: Yeah, you've made it to the top tier when you have a last name in peanuts.

30:40

Michael: I think five have last name. Harold: And that seems like a very specific last name, right?

30:49

Harold: Yeah. Harold: The other question is, did he know a Reichardt that he's honoring with Peppermint Patty?

30:55

Jimmy: You know, it's funny because we normally do the mail all in one spot.

30:59

Jimmy: But we actually got a letter or not a letter, a text to the hotline that addressed this very question.

31:04

Jimmy: It said, do you have any insight into how Schulz came up with such great character names?

31:10

Jimmy: And it was by that's from Ken Goldmere.

31:13

Jimmy: So I don't know. Jimmy: So yeah, answering like he does have a knack for names.

31:18

Jimmy: Peppermint Patty, famously, he saw the candy in a dish and thought, I better take that name before Mort Walker does.

31:26

Jimmy: Charlie Brown was named after a friend of his. Jimmy: Linus was named after a friend of his.

31:32

Jimmy: Frieda. Jimmy: So a lot of that, a lot of his naming does come from just people he knew, which is something I always tried to avoid.

31:40

Jimmy: Like, I would feel weird having a character named Harold, you know, because this guy's a real jerk.

31:48

Jimmy: You'd be like, gee, Jimmy, I don't know. Harold: Yeah, I know the name Harold is reserved for hand-packed husbands in St.

31:55

Harold: Bernard. Jimmy: So yeah, so I think he does have a knack for it, though.

32:02

Jimmy: He knows a good word and he knows a good name when he hears it, for sure.

32:06

Harold: Yeah, well, it's funny. Harold: I think the names are special to us because the characters are special.

32:11

Harold: To Michael's point, what he was saying, creating great characters, the names are special because the characters are special.

32:18

Harold: Simple as that. Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

32:21

Jimmy: I mean, it's hard to disentangle. Jimmy: To me, you hear the word Schroeder and it just sounds like it is associated with classical music.

32:30

Jimmy: But of course it does because the only time I ever heard the name Schroeder was associated with the character Schroeder.

32:38

Jimmy: Still, if the pianist was named Sticky Pete, I don't think it would be as good.

32:46

Harold: Oh, so here it is. Harold: Reichhart was the last name of his secretary Sue.

32:53

Jimmy: Oh, there you go. Jimmy: That's very cool.

32:56

Harold: What a tribute to her. Harold: Right?

32:58

Harold: That's really pretty cool. Harold: Now that makes me wonder.

33:01

Harold: I don't know how long he had that secretary, but I wonder if there were any traits of the secretary that got into the character.

33:09

Jimmy: Yeah, well, that'll be something we could maybe explore in a Peppermint Patty focus.

33:17

Jimmy: So this actually, this storyline also carries over from last year, which back on December 28th, Peppermint Patty actually delivers this essay to her teacher about looking at the at the clouds.

33:31

Jimmy: And Michael pointed out that he thought that was pretty prose when we covered it.

33:36

Jimmy: And apparently the people judging the essay contest agreed.

33:42

Jimmy: I also think it's funny. Jimmy: This seems to be a little bit of Schulz taking another kick at the old, do you not share my C?

33:51

Jimmy: You know, where the teacher grades at a D minus, but it seems through somebody else's eyes, it's an A.

33:57

Michael: I'm siding with the teacher. Liz: Why?

34:00

Jimmy: You've given her all D minuses. Michael: Well, the teacher's job is, I mean, you don't want to dumb down the students by accepting something that was not really special in any way and praising it.

34:14

Harold: Didn't you say you thought it was kind of special? Michael: The writing was nice, but it's not an award-winning essay.

34:23

Michael: Well, it is. Jimmy: It just won. Jimmy: It shows you.

34:27

Michael: I think it was fixed. Harold: Well, this is interesting.

34:30

Harold: Where my mind went, I thought, and I really got concerned for Peppermint Patty, is does this teacher have it in for Peppermint Patty?

34:37

Jimmy: Have it in for her, yeah. Harold: And that's really sinister, and that's kind of scary because, you know, I don't know if you guys have ever had that experience.

34:45

Harold: I've had that, at least that felt experience that there was a teacher that, you know, they don't like you, it's just a personality thing or whatever, and boy, you're going to have a really hard time in that class.

34:57

Harold: And seeing Peppermint Patty being held back by this teacher.

35:03

Michael: I'm still on the teacher.

35:06

Harold: And then the teacher, I don't know how the teacher changes their mind, but it sounds like she still has a teacher.

35:10

Harold: It's like the teacher went up a grade with her or something. Harold: I don't know.

35:13

Harold: But I just start feeling really nervous for Peppermint Patty if she's practically being flunked all the time.

35:21

Harold: And then this other group of people says, no, this is brilliant.

35:24

Harold: You're a brilliant kid. Jimmy: It also has to do with different criteria by which anything is judged.

35:30

Jimmy: And there is a great joke about this, about not listening to the critics, because a critic is just a critic, even if it's a teacher in a class.

35:43

Jimmy: But she may have gotten a D-minus based on the fact that the essay had to have 500 words.

35:51

Jimmy: And she didn't. Jimmy: It had to be typed, and it wasn't.

35:54

Jimmy: It had to be neat with no spelling errors.

35:57

Jimmy: You know what I mean? Michael: I think the essay contest might have gotten like, oh, she doesn't have a mother.

36:02

Michael: And let's just give her a little prize.

36:05

Jimmy: Do you think they filled that out? Michael: I believe this whole thing is rigged.

36:10

Harold: I just want to know how that essay got to the contest.

36:13

Harold: Peppermint Patty obviously didn't submit it.

36:15

Harold: And I would be surprised if the teacher could have just thrown all of the essays into a bin.

36:21

Jimmy: Well, actually. Harold: But if we had a big D-minus on it, you know.

36:25

Jimmy: I do sort of remember this.

36:28

Jimmy: Something like this sort of happened to me in high school in that we had to write an essay about who our American hero is.

36:36

Jimmy: And the teacher, everyone was getting submitted in the whole class, but it was for a $500 scholarship.

36:45

Jimmy: And she called like three of us up and said, I think you three have a chance of winning this.

36:50

Jimmy: Just like make these couple changes and blah, blah, blah.

36:53

Jimmy: And of course, we didn't win at all. Jimmy: It was some kid who just wrote my American hero's Vietnam vets.

36:58

Jimmy: And that was it. Jimmy: You can't beat that.

37:01

Michael: It was like Captain America, your obvious choice.

37:05

Jimmy: Oh, no, I picked. Jimmy: No, I'm not telling you.

37:07

Jimmy: But also, yeah, I mean, it's just it's different criteria.

37:13

Jimmy: It's I lost an Emmy Award once we did.

37:17

Jimmy: We did a story about a cool soul record company in Harrisburg.

37:21

Jimmy: And the one we lost to was the kid beating cancer.

37:24

Jimmy: You don't beat it. Jimmy: You know what I mean?

37:27

Jimmy: I didn't go to the award ceremony because I knew how that was coming.

37:30

Michael: Man, you didn't want to boo the kid.

37:32

Jimmy: Yeah. Jimmy: What a rip off. Jimmy: Oh, and here we go.

37:38

Jimmy: Leading to that conclusion from Snoopy, we have January 9th.

37:43

Jimmy: So Peppermint Patty is explaining this to Charlie Brown and Snoopy, who's standing there.

37:46

Jimmy: And she says, explain this if you can, Chuck.

37:49

Jimmy: Everyone in our class had to write an essay on what we did during Christmas vacation.

37:53

Jimmy: When I got mine back, the teacher had given me a D minus.

37:56

Jimmy: Well, I'm used to that, Chuck, right? Jimmy: She continues in panel three.

38:00

Jimmy: Now guess what? Jimmy: All those essays went into a city essay contest and I won.

38:04

Jimmy: Explain that, Chuck. Jimmy: And Snoopy sums it all up lying atop his dog house.

38:09

Jimmy: Never listen to the reviewers. Jimmy: I take it back.

38:13

Jimmy: If I was going to get a peanuts tattoo, I would get...

38:17

Jimmy: Never listen to them. Michael: Oh, but I rely on the reviewers to tell me what I thought.

38:22

Michael: I mean, really, I can't form my own opinions.

38:28

Jimmy: Don't you hate it when you go to a movie and you're like, that was really good.

38:31

Jimmy: And then you read a review and you're like, oh, I guess I didn't like it.

38:35

Harold: Well, I really appreciate that Schulz did this for Peppermint Patty, you know, because she's constantly, constantly struggling in school.

38:42

Harold: And that not only one person, but whoever was this committee that decided, they gave her the thumbs up.

38:51

Harold: And that Schulz is saying, hey, look, you know, you might be judged by somebody, but that doesn't mean that you don't have worth or value, or maybe you're special to someone in your own way, you know.

39:03

Michael: Here's my little autobiographical thing.

39:06

Michael: Amongst my friends in school, there were some A students, there were some B students.

39:11

Michael: I was like a C student. Michael: And there was my unnamed friend, unmentioned friend, D minus all the time.

39:21

Michael: I mean, he was Peppermint Patty. Michael: He got D minuses on everything.

39:24

Michael: He didn't do any homework. Michael: He's by far the most successful of anybody I know.

39:32

Harold: Yeah.

39:35

Jimmy: Oh, I truly do believe if anyone tells you any platitude, just do the opposite, pull a George Costanza and do the opposite.

39:42

Jimmy: It's almost always wrong. Jimmy: You know, never listening to the reviewers.

39:46

Jimmy: This made me think of something a few episodes back we were talking about putting personality into your art and how sometimes people, it rubs against people the wrong way.

39:55

Jimmy: And Harold asked if that ever happened to me. Jimmy: My lovely daughter Stella reminded me of our favorite one.

40:02

Jimmy: And it makes me laugh to just even think about it.

40:05

Jimmy: It was a review that said, you know, I just didn't vibe with the main character.

40:11

Jimmy: Frankly, I think he was a bit of a prick.

40:14

Jimmy: Now, that would be one thing, but it was my memoir.

40:21

Michael: It was my memoir. Jimmy: Yeah, the guy goes, maybe it was the writer being self-aware, but yeah, maybe.

40:34

Michael: Well, if there are any podcast reviewers out there, just ignore everything we're saying.

40:39

Michael: We love reviewers. Liz: Podcast reviewers are the exception.

40:44

Jimmy: January 13th. Jimmy: A pretty cool, it's a Sunday strip, a pretty cool panel of Snoopy, Lucy and Linus, their heads atop three snowman bodies of varying sizes.

40:57

Jimmy: Nice looking drawing. Jimmy: Another great looking panel of Lucy sneaking out, peeking from behind a tree in the snow.

41:03

Jimmy: It looks like there's going to be a snowball fight going on here.

41:07

Jimmy: Next panel we see Linus and Snoopy revved back, ready to throw a snowball, and Lucy facing them the other way.

41:14

Jimmy: Linus says, go ahead, throw it. Jimmy: Then very smugly, he says, there's two of us and only one of you.

41:20

Jimmy: We've got you outnumbered. Jimmy: But then, unbeknownst to Linus, behind him, Snoopy decides to bail.

41:25

Jimmy: He says, I think I hear a chocolate chip cookie calling me.

41:28

Jimmy: And then Linus continues, okay, Snoopy, let's show her that.

41:32

Jimmy: But then Linus turns around, sees Snoopy has left, and Lucy just pastes them with a snowball from about two inches away.

41:40

Jimmy: And then we see Linus in the last panel, climbing atop the dog house with a giant snowball balanced just on the peak, and Snoopy's underneath it, and he has no sticking out.

41:54

Jimmy: And Linus says, come on out. Jimmy: I have another cookie for you.

41:57

Michael: I don't see Linus as being this vindictive.

42:04

Michael: Sorry, it's the snowball missed him. Harold: Yeah, I thought this was a funny one, but I was a little struck by Linus taking his revenge on Snoopy there.

42:14

Jimmy: Yeah, I know. Jimmy: But you guys have very wussy views of Linus.

42:21

Jimmy: Well, he's a much more rounded character than someone who just sits there and thinks sweet thoughts and stuff like that.

42:28

Jimmy: I think he would love to pace Lucy with a couple of snowballs.

42:32

Jimmy: I think he wishes he had all the Beagle Scouts behind him as well.

42:36

Jimmy: I don't see anything out of the ordinary here.

42:40

Harold: Well, the two things strike me in this strip.

42:44

Harold: One is when Lucy throws the snowball at Linus, it's still completely intact after it's paced at him.

42:51

Harold: So I think that's a lot of ice in there. Harold: That was probably a very painful snowball.

42:57

Harold: So maybe that's why. Michael: It looks like he dodged it.

43:00

Michael: I mean, it's not deflected.

43:02

Michael: Look at its course. Jimmy: Oh, that's how hard it was hit.

43:07

Michael: No, I don't think he did. Michael: I think he dodged it.

43:11

Harold: And the other thing that stands out to me, and this is in that world of that these characters live in the mind of Charles Schulz, and so they all have a common experience that's beyond what you would have in real life.

43:24

Harold: Snoopy is just walking away saying, I think I hear a chocolate chip cookie calling me in the last panel.

43:29

Harold: Linus somehow knows that that's what Snoopy was thinking when he walked away, even though Linus didn't even know he walked away, but somehow he knows that Snoopy left because of the chocolate chip cookie.

43:41

Harold: The surreality of that and the way that Schulz lets the characters somehow in on the minds of the other characters creates, I don't know what it creates, but it's kind of this magical world that does not line up with the world that we live in, in the sense that somehow you can think the thoughts of a dog character and know what he's thinking, even though you're not aware what he was thinking when he left you.

44:09

Harold: You know, it's wild. Harold: I mean, unless possibly Snoopy did come back with a chocolate chip cookie in a panel we didn't see.

44:19

Jimmy: January 20th. Jimmy: I don't know who picked this one, but I'll never forgive them.

44:23

Jimmy: So Snoopy's out on a golf course and he says, stupid tree.

44:27

Jimmy: He's looking at the tree while he says it. Jimmy: Then we see him take a big swing with the driver.

44:32

Jimmy: Then the next panel, the strip really starts because it's a Sunday.

44:35

Jimmy: They say, not again. Jimmy: Snoopy is has his little golf ball right up against the tree.

44:40

Jimmy: And he says, every shot I hit seems to end up behind a tree.

44:43

Jimmy: And then two panels later, we see that's the same case again.

44:47

Jimmy: He goes, I can't stand it. Jimmy: Sometimes I think that as soon as I hit a shot, a tree runs out and stands in front of my ball.

44:54

Jimmy: Then next panel, Snoopy takes a mighty swing.

44:56

Jimmy: And we see the tree doing just that, running out on its big, ridiculous feet with Mickey Mouse hands, which are actually just leaves.

45:08

Jimmy: And in the last panel, of course, it arrives right in front of Snoopy's ball, blocking it and Snoopy rolls his eyes.

45:14

Harold: So what do you think of this one? Jimmy: I think it's a golf strip.

45:18

Michael: No, I think it's because we didn't realize that Tolkien was a big influence on the show.

45:23

Jimmy: Oh, my gosh, it's an ant. Jimmy: I didn't think of that.

45:33

Liz: Well, it's also amazing. Liz: A week later than the previous strip and the season has changed dramatically.

45:41

Jimmy: I was going to say this is, this is, and I say this with all love, this is a rich guy in California cartooning.

45:51

Jimmy: Hitting the links with a nice sweater on in late January.

45:58

Jimmy: Although my dad would have probably would have hit the links in January.

46:01

Jimmy: If there was, if there was no snow or permafrost on the ground, he would have been out there.

46:09

Harold: And again, this is like where Schulz kind of has a character will something into an existence in a way.

46:16

Harold: He imagines it and then it becomes real.

46:18

Harold: And I don't know how you look at that, but he's willing to go into this kind of surreal, height eating tree.

46:24

Michael: This definitely fits into the weird peanuts.

46:27

Michael: I just have the date written. Michael: It was a big question mark after it.

46:32

Michael: What was he thinking? Jimmy: Well, he was a rich guy out on the golf course in January, and he kept hitting the ball in front of trees.

46:40

Jimmy: I mean, that's what it like. Jimmy: You know what I mean? Jimmy: This was not an attempt, I don't think, to entertain the masses.

46:45

Jimmy: However, that next to the last panel with the hose hands, which look like Mickey Mouse gloves, but are just leaves.

46:55

Jimmy: That's so cool. Jimmy: That makes me laugh.

46:58

Harold: Yeah, me too. Harold: And it's again, it's that classic Charles Schulz run where you put both of your arms up and let your hands drop below you like 90 degree angles.

47:09

Harold: That's so Charles Schulz. Harold: You know, we were just talking about it the other day with Charlie Brown.

47:14

Harold: When you see a character running, an animation person would have like one arm in the front, another arm in the back, you know, at different angles.

47:24

Harold: And we don't, we don't see that in Schulz's running.

47:29

Jimmy: Well, it's so strange too, but it's hilarious.

47:32

Jimmy: I have so much running in the Emilio comics.

47:35

Jimmy: And if you don't do contrapposto, meaning the left leg is out, then the right, then the right arm is forward.

47:42

Jimmy: You know, if you have like both, if you do anything weird, like what Schulz is doing, I find it looks wrong and just awkward, but he just has this iconic, he just came across that goofy pose and it's so funny.

47:55

Harold: It's so great. Jimmy: February 21st, Linus is out making what looks like a little stone wall and Lucy is going to come up and of course, criticize it and she says, why may I ask are you building a useless rock wall?

48:11

Jimmy: And Linus says, I discovered that I have the ability to pick up a rock and to carry it from one place to another.

48:17

Jimmy: Then I discovered that I could pile them up and make a rock wall.

48:20

Jimmy: It's ugly and useless, but who cares? Jimmy: Lucy walks away saying, when you're done, you can make a second wall with the rocks in your head.

48:29

Jimmy: I picked this one because I've seen this rock wall.

48:33

Jimmy: Charles Schulz, and this is written about in his book, or not his book, but in the biography by Rita Grimsley Johnson called Good Grief.

48:44

Jimmy: He talks about he was doing this as sort of like a meditative therapy exercise, just picking up rocks around his property and turning them into this wall until I think it was Jeannie or maybe one of his kids said, hey, you're building the wall from the strip, but it hadn't occurred to him.

49:00

Jimmy: So when I got to stay out there, I got a picture of my little girls at the thinking wall made by Charles Schulz.

49:10

Jimmy: I just really wanted to just brag about that.

49:14

Jimmy: That's why I picked that strip. Jimmy: Also, I love the way the rocks are fun to draw.

49:19

Liz: Michael used to love building rock walls.

49:22

Michael: It was the greatest therapy.

49:25

Jimmy: Yeah, really. Michael: Just walk around in the woods behind our house and go, a great rock, it's flat.

49:31

Michael: Then I'd lug it over. Michael: I was rebuilding the well, which had mostly fallen apart.

49:35

Michael: Yeah, I love looking for rocks. Jimmy: Well, I mean, New Hampshire has those everywhere, right?

49:40

Jimmy: I mean, there's walls, stone walls all through New Hampshire.

49:43

Michael: And some reason I can understand why, because it's very therapeutic to lug rocks and put them in a nice little shape.

49:51

Jimmy: Schulz agreed, apparently. Jimmy: February 28th, Snoopy's lying atop the doghouse and Lucy comes up.

49:58

Jimmy: She's in a real crabby mode this month. Jimmy: And she says, sleeping again, and Snoopy says, till now.

50:04

Jimmy: Lucy's outraged. Jimmy: She says, is sleeping all you ever think about?

50:07

Jimmy: And a really groggy looking Snoopy says, only when I'm awake.

50:12

Jimmy: Then he rolls over and says, want him to sleep? Jimmy: I don't think about it.

50:15

Michael: Yeah, this goes along with my theory that sleep was one of the main topics.

50:19

Michael: Peanuts. Michael: Sleep is really important.

50:23

Jimmy: Absolutely. Jimmy: It is one of the, well, I think it's one of the great joys of life.

50:27

Jimmy: An afternoon nap on a sunny day or a rainy day or a snowy day.

50:34

Liz: What about cloudy days? Jimmy: You know what?

50:37

Jimmy: Those I try to stay up for. Jimmy: Oh, man.

50:44

Jimmy: Okay, so let's take our, we're going to take a second break here.

50:47

Jimmy: It's unprecedented. Jimmy: Then we're going to come back.

50:49

Jimmy: Then we'll finally do the mail and that fantastic milkshake challenge you've been waiting for and then do a couple more strips.

50:57

Jimmy: All right. Jimmy: We'll be right back. Liz: Hi, everyone.

51:00

Liz: We all love listening to Jimmy describe what's going on in a peanut strip.

51:05

Liz: But did you know that comics are actually a visual medium?

51:09

Liz: That's right. Liz: You can see them anytime you want at gocomics.com or in your very own copy of the complete peanuts available from Fana Graphics.

51:19

Liz: Plus, if you sign up for our monthly newsletter, you'll know in advance which strips we're talking about each week.

51:26

Liz: Learn more about the great peanuts reread at unpackingpeanuts.com.

51:33

Jimmy: OK, we're back. Jimmy: We're going to check the mailbox.

51:36

Jimmy: But first, our brand new and beloved already segment.

51:41

Jimmy: What flavor milkshake am I drinking? Jimmy: Remember, there are three choices.

51:45

Jimmy: Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

51:48

Jimmy: I'm going to ask my pals, co-hosts, fellow cartoonists and producers what they think I'm drinking.

51:55

Jimmy: And we'll see who's right. Jimmy: You can play along if you want to.

51:59

Jimmy: But please remember, no wagering.

52:03

Jimmy: Michael, what do you think? Jimmy: Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry.

52:06

Michael: That's vanilla. Liz: Chocolate. Jimmy: Harold?

52:09

Harold: I'm going with the Box Odds chocolate.

52:12

Jimmy: It is chocolate. Jimmy: You know, we added that and we don't charge any extra.

52:20

Jimmy: That's a whole new segment. Jimmy: Same free price for you.

52:25

Harold: All right. Jimmy: But I am hanging out in the mailbox enjoying my milkshake.

52:27

Jimmy: So we got anything? Jimmy: We do.

52:30

Liz: We got a lot this week. Liz: Let me see. Liz: OK.

52:33

Liz: So do you remember Paul Hebert?

52:36

Jimmy: I do. Liz: He's the guy who wrote a while back and mentioned his Doonesbury blog.

52:40

Liz: And based on our discussion of the Doonesbury strip, the relationship between Honey, the person we couldn't remember her name, right, Duke's translator, and Marcy is something he dug into at length.

52:53

Liz: And he has given us the link. Jimmy: Oh, awesome.

52:56

Liz: And I will put it into the show notes.

52:59

Jimmy: Oh, thank you, Paul. Jimmy: That's fantastic.

53:01

Liz: He also adds, Everyone is quick to point out how breath had borrowed from Trudeau, but fewer people talk about what is clearly his biggest influence, Walt Kelly.

53:10

Liz: Without Pogo, there is no Opus.

53:13

Harold: That's interesting. Harold: I wonder, has breath had talked about that influence from Kelly?

53:17

Harold: Because I'm a huge Walt Kelly fan and I never put the two together.

53:20

Harold: So it's interesting. Jimmy: Oh, really? SPEAKER_2: Yeah. Jimmy: I always thought there must have been because the politics and the animals, the animals are much more, not just Opus, but, you know, there's the groundhog, there's the rabbit, all in, you know, Opus has obviously built a cat and stuff like that.

53:36

Jimmy: So he does have a little like mini Pogo cast within the larger Bloom County cast.

53:43

Harold: Yeah, much different flavor of humor in a lot of ways, but that's interesting.

53:48

SPEAKER_2: Yeah. Jimmy: Just speaking of Doonesbury, we were talking about, you know, talking if we're going to do other cartoonists and stuff.

53:54

Jimmy: If I were to pick a sequence to re-examine from another cartoonist, there's a sequence from about 20 years ago in Doonesbury where Beatty goes to Iraq and is wounded, and I think it might be the best comic sequence ever.

54:07

Jimmy: It's profound.

54:09

Jimmy: It's really, really, really good. Jimmy: And it's not a super partisan political thing.

54:15

Jimmy: It's a real human story, and I love it.

54:17

Jimmy: So we should look at that in our free time.

54:20

Liz: I will make a note. Liz: Then William Pepper, friend of the show, writes, I have a question.

54:26

Liz: When Jim Sasseville and Dale Hale were working on the Peanuts comic books, did they also use Schulz's preferred pen nib?

54:36

Liz: If so, did they have to buy their own, or did Schulz give them some of his private stuff?

54:41

Liz: If or when they were using a different pen, can you tell and how?

54:46

Jimmy: First off, William Pepper, host of, it's a podcast, Charlie Brown.

54:49

Jimmy: Great podcast you need to be listening to if you're a Peanuts fan.

54:54

Jimmy: I bet that Schulz, I bet a lot of that would have been up to the artist doing it.

55:01

Jimmy: I think from what I look at, when I look at the Sassaville stuff, it looks more to me like a Hunt 102, which is like a slightly stiffer, thinner, scratchier instrument, but that could just be how Sassaville is using the pen that he's using, and it's not the pen itself.

55:23

Jimmy: It is hard to tell. Jimmy: They talk about the first Led Zeppelin album selling a million Les Pauls, but there's no Les Paul guitar on the record.

55:32

Jimmy: It is hard to tell, and I think when we know that Schulz always used that Radio 914, we maybe assume it was used by Sassaville, but I think it would probably be up to Sassaville, whatever he wanted to use.

55:46

Jimmy: What do you guys think? Harold: I have no idea.

55:49

Harold: Yeah, I'd have to pull up some Sassaville stuff to look at.

55:54

Harold: It's interesting, given Schulz felt so highly about that, well, maybe he offered it and they said, I can't draw with this thing.

56:03

Harold: Then you just ultimately have to let the artist use what they used.

56:08

Jimmy: Yeah, or they are using it and that's the closest they can get.

56:11

Jimmy: It is really hard to say without a photograph or a direct testimony from someone.

56:18

Harold: Jimmy, you've drawn Peanuts characters with that Radio 914 nib, right?

56:22

Jimmy: Yeah. Harold: So what was your experience when for the first time you're trying to draw Peanuts character using the same tool that Schulz did?

56:30

Harold: Did it seem to make like, oh, it all makes sense now?

56:34

Harold: Or were you like, how on earth did he do this? Jimmy: At first, I couldn't get it to put any ink on the paper.

56:40

Jimmy: I was like, okay, I don't understand.

56:42

Jimmy: And I had inked at that point, I don't know, hundreds of pages with a crow quill pen like an idiot in the 21st century.

56:49

Jimmy: But I couldn't make that thing work.

56:52

Jimmy: And then I put it away. Jimmy: I got like five of them and I put it away.

56:56

Jimmy: And then I was reading that interview where I don't know if I was reading it or it was in a video I saw or something where he says it was a writing pen.

57:04

Jimmy: And I thought so I pulled it out and was like, well, let's write my name.

57:07

Jimmy: Let's write. Jimmy: And I like, oh, wait a second. Jimmy: I see what it is.

57:11

Jimmy: It's really actually you have to sort of unlearn the stuff you learn for a regular dip pen.

57:16

Jimmy: It's actually more intuitive than a regular dip pen.

57:20

Jimmy: You can have more freedom with it. Jimmy: But what was frustrating is, yeah, you get the lines and you're like, oh, my God, those are peanuts lines.

57:27

Jimmy: But it only highlights all the more that you're not Charles Schulz, you know, because there is some magic.

57:34

Harold: Well, that makes a lot of sense because I could never I could never get a crow quill to work.

57:38

Harold: I would they would I would fight with them and I ultimately just gave up.

57:42

Harold: And when I I also got some of the 914 nibs and like you said, it was much more intuitive and I instantly could start using it.

57:52

Harold: And when I was drawing, trying to draw a peanuts character as well as I could, it really looked like a peanuts character.

57:59

Harold: I was like, oh, yeah, that's very amazing.

58:03

Jimmy: Yeah, that's the best answer I could give, though.

58:07

Liz: And Jim Pui McCleary writes, I vaguely remember my headmaster slash Latin teacher having a book with a bit of peanuts in Latin.

58:16

Liz: I do remember at the time that the Holy Grail was to collect albums issues of asterix that were translated into Latin and also Esperanto.

58:28

Liz: Schulz was, of course, familiar with one phrase in Latin as it appears in his January 11th, 1965 strip.

58:36

Liz: Felicitas est parvus canus calitus.

58:41

Liz: Happiness is a warm puppy. Harold: That's cool.

58:45

Harold: And of course, he had a lot of them in when Snoopy is a lawyer.

58:51

Liz: And he adds, Considering that Linus is a Latinate name, now I'm wishing that the strip had taken place in classical antiquity.

58:59

Liz: Snoopy's flashbacks to the Gallic Wars would be especially exciting.

59:04

Jimmy: My advice would be go for it. Jimmy: I think that's a fan comic weight and a half.

59:10

Jimmy: All right. Jimmy: Well, if you guys want to get in touch with us, what you can do is you can go over to our website, unpackingpeanuts.com and just fire off an email.

59:21

Jimmy: We're UnpackingPeanuts at gmail.com.

59:23

Jimmy: We would absolutely love to hear from you.

59:26

Jimmy: And of course, you can always either send us a text or shoot us a voicemail.

59:32

Jimmy: And that number is 717-219-4162.

59:38

Jimmy: All right. Jimmy: Let's get back to the strips. Jimmy: March 2nd.

59:41

Jimmy: Lucy and Charlie Brown are hanging out at the thinking wall.

59:44

Jimmy: And Charlie Brown says, In a good conversation, one person talks while the other listens.

59:50

Jimmy: Then that person talks while the first person listens.

59:54

Jimmy: Lucy takes this in and says, I like talking.

59:57

Jimmy: I hate listening. Jimmy: Charlie Brown says, I realize that.

1:00:01

Jimmy: Lucy answers, what? Jimmy: That's brilliant, right?

1:00:08

Michael: Brilliant, but pretty obvious too. Jimmy: Yes, but also great.

1:00:13

Jimmy: It's a joke that you would do a million times as a kid.

1:00:17

Jimmy: I didn't hear you. Jimmy: But in a comic strip, that just struck me as really funny.

1:00:25

Harold: It's weird that Charlie Brown rolls his eyes in the fourth panel and you draw that little line down from the pupil to show that.

1:00:32

Harold: He's missing it on one side. Jimmy: Yeah.

1:00:34

Harold: That's really odd. Harold: It's like he left it off.

1:00:37

Harold: It is weird. Jimmy: I think maybe it's impossible to really know, but it seems like it might be the kind of thing where he was trying to draw him, not just rolling his eyes upward, but he's rolling his eyes upward and to his left or right.

1:00:55

Jimmy: And to do that, the part of the parentheses would then conflict with his nose.

1:00:59

Jimmy: So he did it that way instead.

1:01:02

Jimmy: Because it's a different look if you put them the other way.

1:01:05

Jimmy: If you just flip the eye and have the parentheses on the outside, you know?

1:01:11

Harold: Yeah. Harold: So maybe he tried it and then he whited it out.

1:01:15

Jimmy: March 5th. Jimmy: Sally and Eudora are at the Tiny Tots concert.

1:01:19

Jimmy: Sally says to Eudora, Every time we come to one of these concerts, they play Peter and the Wolf.

1:01:24

Jimmy: They must think we don't understand anything else.

1:01:27

Jimmy: Sally says, Don't you like Peter and the Wolf? Jimmy: And Sally says, I don't know.

1:01:30

Jimmy: I've never understood it.

1:01:36

Jimmy: Those are two back to back good punchy jokes.

1:01:40

Michael: As far as I can tell though, Eudora has no personality.

1:01:44

Liz: But she did get a haircut. Jimmy: She did.

1:01:48

Jimmy: I like a good no personality character.

1:01:50

Jimmy: I want to do an episode where we have to draft a comic strip using the Peanuts characters.

1:01:58

Jimmy: So we'd each have to pick a main character, a supporting character, a comic relief, whatever.

1:02:05

Jimmy: And see if we could come up with a, each of us come up with a unique different cast that would make its own comic just using the Peanuts characters.

1:02:13

Jimmy: I could find a spot for Eudora. Jimmy: She gets on base.

1:02:16

Michael: Well, either her or Schroeder. Michael: I mean, Shermie.

1:02:19

Jimmy: Shermie, yeah. Michael: There's the Shermie slot.

1:02:22

Harold: So is Eudora active in the Nirvana era?

1:02:27

Jimmy: She's around. Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jimmy: She's around.

1:02:30

Jimmy: We're getting there now. Harold: She grew into it.

1:02:33

Harold: Yeah. Harold: With that little hat and that hair.

1:02:36

Liz: Yeah, I think you were right about the Imperial Margarine, though.

1:02:39

Liz: I think it's closer. Jimmy: We're only six years away from the Nirvana era at this point.

1:02:46

Jimmy: Well, actually, we're only four years away from their first album.

1:02:50

Harold: We're probably about ten years from Imperial Margarine.

1:02:55

Jimmy: March 10th. Jimmy: Charlie Brown's atop the mound and he lets one rip.

1:03:00

Jimmy: It turns out to be a high pop.

1:03:02

Jimmy: He yells, a pop fly. Jimmy: I got it. Jimmy: It's all mine.

1:03:05

Jimmy: Now we see Charlie Brown trying to maneuver under the ball to make a spectacular catch.

1:03:10

Jimmy: He says to himself, if I catch this ball, we'll win our first game of the season.

1:03:14

Jimmy: He's positioned himself underneath it, but he is a little shaky.

1:03:18

Jimmy: He thinks, please let me catch it. Jimmy: Please let me be the hero.

1:03:21

Jimmy: Please let me catch it. Jimmy: Please. Jimmy: On the other hand, do I think I deserve to be the hero?

1:03:26

Jimmy: The ball's still in the air through all this. Jimmy: But the kid who hit it doesn't want to be the goat.

1:03:31

Jimmy: Is a baseball game really this important?

1:03:34

Jimmy: The ball's still in the air. Jimmy: Lots of kids all over the world never even heard of baseball.

1:03:38

Jimmy: Lots of kids don't get to play at all or have a place to sleep or...

1:03:42

Jimmy: And at that, the ball lands in Charlie Brown's mitt, but then bonk, pops out and hits the ground.

1:03:49

Jimmy: Schroeder comes out to the mound and says to Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, how could you miss such an easy pop fly?

1:03:55

Jimmy: Charlie Brown says, I prayed myself out of it.

1:04:00

Jimmy: I think, judging by the ones we picked, he's on a roll.

1:04:06

Jimmy: I think this is another really funny strip and another really funny strip that I would only see in peanuts.

1:04:14

Michael: It didn't need the punch line, I don't think. Michael: I mean, the funny thing is he's like wavering and thinking about all kinds of different things while there's balls in the air.

1:04:26

Michael: Praying himself out of it doesn't seem to work because he doesn't really pray, does he?

1:04:35

Harold: Well, he does have Please Let Me Catch It, so it does look like he might be talking to a higher power here.

1:04:40

Michael: That's in one panel. Michael: I think it's funnier that he's thinking about kids all over the world, not having enough food.

1:04:47

Jimmy: Yeah, because actually I didn't think about it that way.

1:04:49

Jimmy: But really, the only panel that could be thought of, really, I would think as praying is that third panel on tier two.

1:04:59

Jimmy: Everything else is him talking to himself. Harold: I don't think so.

1:05:03

Harold: Why wouldn't he continue to be talking to who he's talking to in the other panel?

1:05:07

Harold: I could totally see this as a prayer. Harold: He's continuing the conversation.

1:05:11

Harold: It's one sided, like with Lucy, conversations can be.

1:05:14

Harold: But yeah, he totally could be. Harold: I mean, that was a revelation to me at the end.

1:05:19

Harold: It was like, oh, this whole thing was a conversation with God.

1:05:22

Jimmy: The problem with all of Charlie Brown's problems are he's always focused on the wrong thing.

1:05:28

Jimmy: He doesn't have to think about being a hero or asking a higher power to be a hero.

1:05:33

Jimmy: He needs to catch the ball.

1:05:36

Jimmy: He goes 12 steps down so far.

1:05:39

Jimmy: I mean, you know, I'm yelling at him like he's a real person.

1:05:42

Jimmy: This is a brilliant comic strip that's creating this character.

1:05:46

Michael: One thing people around the world who never heard of baseball don't appreciate.

1:05:50

Michael: It's like one of the hardest things in the world to judge where a fly ball is coming down.

1:05:54

Jimmy: Yeah, that's true. Harold: You've got to like, especially if it's been a high up in the long enough for you to say always.

1:05:59

Michael: You get to judge its trajectory and you can use the sound of the bat to tell you how far it was hit in the wind condition.

1:06:07

Michael: I mean, to me, that's magic because I always had I still have nightmares about a high fly ball and just not being in the right place when it comes down.

1:06:16

Jimmy: We had the worst Teenar League Baseball field in the world.

1:06:19

Jimmy: I mean, it was just basically rocks and behind home play or not home play.

1:06:24

Jimmy: Behind right field was a creek, as we would call it, a creek that was just filled with sulfuric water from the mines and open sewage.

1:06:34

Jimmy: So that was right field, right?

1:06:36

Jimmy: It was a dump. Jimmy: I mean, I grew up in the coal region.

1:06:40

Jimmy: It was really a poor place. Jimmy: One kid played left and so left field faced exactly west.

1:06:45

Jimmy: So the sun would set and you couldn't see anything out there.

1:06:48

Jimmy: And he invested in flip up sunglasses, you know, which were pretty expensive at the time.

1:06:53

Jimmy: And I remember standing in center field and a fly ball went to left field and he flipped the sunglasses down and he just stood there hitting his glove.

1:07:02

Jimmy: And I'm like, is he ever going to put his glove up?

1:07:04

Jimmy: And he didn't. Jimmy: He just, he just completely lost it.

1:07:06

Jimmy: And it hit him right between the eyes.

1:07:09

Jimmy: He had, I think I've told this on this podcast before, he has like a butterfly scar in between his eyes for those, where the glasses were for the rest of his life.

1:07:19

Harold: Oh my gosh. Harold: This may be controversial, but I actually kind of admire Charlie Brown because of this whole sequence, because he's going, he's going through a lot of really deep stuff that's more important than the game.

1:07:32

Harold: So I kind of like, okay, you go Charlie Brown.

1:07:35

Jimmy: But it's not more important than the game because everybody's there for the game.

1:07:40

Jimmy: That's the part that's problematic.

1:07:42

Jimmy: Like I think Charlie Brown often assumes his personal, moral and philosophical quandaries, his emotional problems are the most important thing.

1:07:54

Jimmy: They're actually not. Jimmy: There's 18 people there that are there to play the baseball game, not worry about the people in China who don't know baseball.

1:08:02

Michael: But it landed in the glove.

1:08:05

Jimmy: Yeah, but it's out. Michael: So that was not the problem.

1:08:08

Michael: The problem was he has a bad glove.

1:08:11

Jimmy: He's a bad glove. Jimmy: He didn't break it in.

1:08:15

Jimmy: He didn't any rub. Michael: He's like a basket catch, which, you know, really amazing.

1:08:18

Harold: Also bad. Harold: Well, I'll respectfully disagree, Jimmy.

1:08:22

Harold: I think he was he was going into something that was actually more important than the game.

1:08:26

Jimmy: And if that's the way it plays, the way it's the way he can do that, a great place to go through something more important, the game would be any place other than the game.

1:08:34

Harold: That is what the rest of the world is always about the game.

1:08:38

Harold: Right. Jimmy: Go outside these fences and you can contemplate anything you want.

1:08:43

Jimmy: In the meantime, he's still he's still trying.

1:08:46

Harold: What are you talking about? Harold: Charles Schulz being a character in the game.

1:08:49

Harold: Let's say God is a character in this and God says, OK, you learn something very important.

1:08:53

Harold: I'm going to let you drop the ball so you remember what's important.

1:08:55

Harold: You know, we talk about all the different ways you can read a peanut strip.

1:09:00

Harold: And this is definitely one of those two, I think. Jimmy: Catch the ball, Charlie Brown.

1:09:05

Jimmy: All right. Jimmy: So how about we contemplate our existence and the fate of the universe and people who do or do not like baseball or know about baseball for a week and come back and pick up this conversation.

1:09:19

Jimmy: I don't know how everyone else is going to like it, but I like this new format.

1:09:22

Jimmy: I love that we get to talk longer about all this stuff that's, it's peanuts as Jason, but it's part of peanuts.

1:09:30

Jimmy: Like Charles Schulz has given us a lot to chew on.

1:09:34

Jimmy: So I'm more than happy to listen and chat with my pals in even greater detail in the coming weeks and months.

1:09:42

Jimmy: So if you want to keep this conversation going, you could do it a couple of different ways.

1:09:47

Jimmy: The first thing, like I said earlier, is you can go over to our website.

1:09:51

Jimmy: You could sign up for the great Peanuts re-read.

1:09:54

Jimmy: And that will get you an email once a month that will tell you what we're going to be covering in the upcoming episodes.

1:10:00

Jimmy: You can also just follow us on social media.

1:10:03

Jimmy: We're Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads, and we're unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.

1:10:10

Jimmy: We would love to hear from you there. Jimmy: And of course, you could call the hotline or leave a text message, and that number is 717-219-4162.

1:10:21

Jimmy: And remember, when I don't hear from you, I worry.

1:10:24

Jimmy: So, OK, so that's going to be it for this week.

1:10:27

Jimmy: Come back next week where it will be more of the same.

1:10:30

Jimmy: Until then, for Michael, Harold, and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

1:10:35

Michael: Yes. Liz: Yes. Michael: Be of good cheer.

1:10:38

Liz: Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted by Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, and Harold Buchholz.

1:10:43

Liz: Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Liz: Music by Michael Cohen.

1:10:47

Liz: Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.

1:10:50

Liz: For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.

1:10:55

Liz: Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.

1:10:59

Liz: For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.

1:11:03

Liz: Have a wonderful day, and thanks for listening.

1:11:06

Michael: Hopefully no one will notice you're being creative.