0:02

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

0:15

VO: Schulz. Jimmy: It's another season finale here on Unpacking Peanuts as we wrap up 1980 to 1984.

0:28

Jimmy: I'll be your host for the proceedings. Jimmy: My name is Jimmy Gownley.

0:31

Jimmy: I'm also a cartoonist. Jimmy: I did Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up and The Dumbest Idea Ever.

0:36

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

0:39

Jimmy: He's a playwright and a composer for The Man Complicated People as well as for this very podcast.

0:44

Jimmy: He's the co-creator of the original comic book prize guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the cartoonist behind such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells, and Tangled River, it's Michael Cohen.

0:55

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

1:08

Michael: Hello. Jimmy: Well, guys, we made it to the end of another season of Peanuts, 1980 to 1984.

1:16

Jimmy: I'm the one who was most familiar with this stuff going into this.

1:20

Jimmy: So this is for you guys, basically, your first trip through these strips.

1:25

Jimmy: I thought we'd just maybe talk about it, what were our perceptions or your perceptions going into it, versus how do you feel now that we've read half a decade?

1:33

Jimmy: Harold, why don't you start? Harold: I was pleasantly surprised by the early 80s, and I did stop reading right around this time.

1:41

Harold: So this would be the era when I was like 14 to 18, roughly.

1:48

Harold: What I see in the strip is that it's mellowing out.

1:51

Harold: Schulz is still, I think, at the top of his game, and he's playing the characters.

1:57

Harold: He used to always describe them as notes on a keyboard, and I really feel that in this era.

2:02

Harold: They're so well balanced. Harold: He's got so many different places he can go with the strip, from all that he's developed over the last 30 years, and he's kind of enjoying bouncing around.

2:12

Harold: I think the humor is a little softer than it had been, and some things are a little less pointed in some ways, but it just feels comfortable.

2:21

Harold: I guess that's the best way I could describe it, and then you have that little extra kick of the thing that we hopefully aren't beating us like a dead horse, but as an artist, I'm fascinated by the struggle he was going through with this hand tremor that comes in in this era in a particularly strong way, and seeing the amazing choices he's making to incorporate that into his art as a genius artist would.

2:46

Jimmy: Absolutely. Jimmy: Michael, how about you?

2:49

Michael: Well, you kind of warned me off the 80s back in the day, because I'd never read anything after 1970, except, you know, occasionally when I happened upon a newspaper.

3:01

Michael: When Jimmy was laying out the big plan here, he was telling me that he loves the 70s, the 80s not so good, and then the 90s, the big comeback.

3:13

Michael: So I assumed, okay, 80s not going to be good.

3:16

Michael: I also knew at some point he was going to start using fewer panels and also adding Zip-A-Tone, which to me is a really alien look.

3:28

Michael: So I didn't know when that was going to happen. Michael: So I was thinking, okay, it's probably going to happen in 1980.

3:33

Michael: Anyway, we get to 1980, and I find art-wise not much difference.

3:40

Michael: I mean, it's evolving in certain directions.

3:42

Michael: The characters get a little, I mean, they are cartoons, obviously, but cartoon in an unSchulzy way.

3:50

Michael: But really, the main observation I have on this first half of the 80s is, I don't think they're particularly funny.

3:59

Michael: Then again, you know, who can maintain, you know, a super high level of creativity after 30 years of working on a project?

4:12

Michael: I mean, in almost every case, except maybe Mozart, somebody's going to start losing it.

4:20

Jimmy: And Mozart died at 37 too.

4:22

Michael: Yeah, he loses a little speed off the fastball.

4:26

Michael: And so, I'm sure he probably thought it was as funny as ever, but maybe our sense of humors are parting.

4:40

Michael: I don't find them particularly funny, but I don't have any problem with the art.

4:46

Michael: And it looks like there's not going to be any dramatic shifts.

4:50

Michael: I mean, definitely the wobbly lines, which I probably wouldn't even notice, you know, in the word balloons.

4:56

Michael: Yeah, I don't think I would have even noticed that he was having that tremor at this point.

5:01

Jimmy: Yeah, I mean, it is a big difference reading it once a day in the newspaper versus reading it in these giant chunks.

5:09

Jimmy: And it is, I mean, there's no real way to avoid that.

5:13

Jimmy: You're not going to read it again in real time and experience it.

5:16

Jimmy: But I think you're probably right that a newspaper reader back in the 80s wouldn't really have noticed a difference visually.

5:24

Jimmy: I hear what you're saying. Jimmy: I think the about the comedy, both of you are here.

5:30

Jimmy: Both of you are saying. Jimmy: But I think like it's sort of like he's, I don't think he would disagree necessarily because he's trying for something different.

5:43

Jimmy: And I think it goes back to what Harold said a little bit about the idea of balance.

5:48

Jimmy: He has balanced these characters now within the cast.

5:52

Jimmy: They all sort of have their roles and their places to kind of go off on these solo flights.

5:59

Jimmy: But it seems to me that it is more about the world and the characters and less about every day has to be a funny punchline.

6:10

Jimmy: And you know, you get different qualities from that.

6:12

Jimmy: But I think it's certainly a risk for a daily comic strip artist to take, I would think, because most people, especially for a humor cartoon strip, it's not the nuance and subtlety of the characters people are selling.

6:25

Jimmy: It's the daily gag. Michael: Yeah.

6:28

Jimmy: So it's interesting. Michael: Yeah, it's interesting.

6:30

Michael: And, you know, I was about to say, well, he seems to be going more for a mainstream line of humor, but nothing's been more mainstream than Peanuts as far as popularity.

6:43

Michael: To me, it's just kind of jarring that when you think back to the 50s, that it was so edgy and you'd think some people would be put off by that, but apparently not.

6:58

Jimmy: Well, that is the thing. Jimmy: There is some innate sense he seems to have of rioting the culture that he, like, yeah, it does seem like that would be Alien in the 50s, but it clearly wasn't.

7:12

Jimmy: And then the 60s strip sort of fits that vibe.

7:16

Jimmy: And I feel like the 80s strip fits the 80s vibe more than, so then let's say like a strip like Beetle Bailey, where I think you could probably take huge chunks of them and not see that type of development.

7:31

Jimmy: Because again, he's focusing on the, these are these characters, no development of the characters, right?

7:37

Jimmy: They're just archetypes and then they're just there to deliver the joke.

7:40

Jimmy: And I'm not saying that as a slam to Beetle Bailey.

7:42

Jimmy: I'm just saying that's what those strips are, right?

7:46

Michael: So, interested to see where it progresses from here.

7:49

Michael: I have no idea. Michael: I've never read these.

7:52

Harold: So, it's interesting to see some things that happened in 1984 with Peanuts.

7:58

Harold: One particular news item that jumped out at me that I had not seen before, that I think is really delightful.

8:05

Harold: This is from the June 30th, 1984 issue of Editor and Publisher, which was for editors and publishers of newspapers.

8:12

Harold: And the headline reads, Latin comic book showcases Snoopiest and Peanuts Kids.

8:19

Harold: And it reads, what cartoon dog walks on two legs, occasionally dances, and is fed by a boy named Carolus Niger.

8:26

Harold: Snoopiest, of course. Harold: Snoopiest, usually known as Snoopy, is one of the characters featured in a Latin Peanuts comic book published by Father Lamberto Pagini of Italy.

8:37

Harold: The book, one of a series that also features Mickey Mouse, which is Michael Musculus, and Donald Duck, done all this on us, is designed to help make the language of ancient Rome popular again.

8:50

Harold: Well, good luck. Harold: The person who translated Peanuts into Latin, Father Jose Maria Mir, has not had much contact with the modern world and thus knew little about Charles Schulz's United Featured Syndicate distributive strip.

9:06

Harold: Mir, a 72-year-old Spanish scholar, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as asking, what is a red baron and a sop with camel?

9:16

Harold: He added, the dialogue in Peanuts is so philosophical and at the same time so American that it is very difficult to render into Latin.

9:23

Harold: When I finished the segment of Snoopius, the publisher asked me to simplify the Latin.

9:29

Harold: I threw up my hands and said, I can't.

9:31

Harold: Snoopy is not simple. Harold: But I thought that was just a really cool little insight as to how far and wide Snoopy has gotten and Peanuts has gotten by 1984 that they're translating it into Latin.

9:44

Michael: How do you say good grief in Latin?

9:46

Harold: That's a very good question. Jimmy: Look, I am just so proud once again of my Catholic faith for being up to the minute translating things into Latin.

10:01

Jimmy: They have their finger on the pulse. Harold: Way to go, Matt.

10:06

Harold: Well, you know, in another news in the exact same issue of editor and publisher, we mentioned a reader's poll before and one of these came out.

10:16

Harold: I don't know if Peanuts was in this particular newspaper.

10:20

Harold: I'm guessing that it was not.

10:23

Harold: The St. Harold: Petersburg Times asked their readers.

10:27

Michael: So this is the Russian newspaper.

10:31

Jimmy: The St. Jimmy: Petersburg Times. Harold: So the question that was posed by the St.

10:36

Harold: Petersburg, Florida Times was, what is your favorite Sunday comic strip in the newspaper?

10:43

Harold: I don't believe Peanuts was a part of this strip because they had these regional areas where if there was a neighboring newspaper that was larger, they would bar the more local newspapers from having this strip.

10:56

Harold: And so I guess if the St. Harold: Petersburg Times could have gotten Peanuts, they would have.

11:00

Harold: But I don't think they're in here because it doesn't make the top five, which at this time I think Peanuts would have.

11:06

Harold: But the top five strips that were voted by 1,702 readers, number one was The Family Circus by Bill Keane.

11:16

Harold: So a lot of you are familiar with the little circle shaped Daily Comic by Bill Keane, very, very mild strip, but also beloved by a lot of people, obviously.

11:27

Harold: Number two was Blondie. Jimmy: That's true.

11:31

Jimmy: Yeah, it's hugely popular. Jimmy: Forget about that.

11:33

Harold: And number three was Dennis the Menace by Hank Ketchum.

11:36

Jimmy: Wow, two panels, not strips.

11:39

Harold: Yeah, right. Harold: And Dennis, of course, this was the Sundays.

11:42

Harold: So I guess they did have, they were supposedly being asked about the longer version of The Family Circus and Dennis the Menace.

11:51

Harold: Number four is Garfield, which has been out for five or six years.

11:55

Harold: I don't know how long it's been in this particular newspaper.

11:58

Harold: And it's been a phenomenon in its own right around this time.

12:02

Harold: And number five, which I know showed up in a lot of polls, and we kind of forget how popular this was in the 80s, was Hagar the Horrible by Dick Crown.

12:12

Harold: So I'm sorry, there were 5,599 respondents, but 1,702 of them voted for The Family Circus.

12:21

Harold: And they did want to point out that a majority of those respondents were over the age of 50.

12:27

Harold: So that might be skewing a little bit the results here.

12:34

Harold: But anyway, I thought that was an interesting snapshot of where the comic strip world is around this time.

12:41

Jimmy: Yeah, and we have to also just remember to restate that it is a never-ending series of humiliation for cartoonists at this point in the newspapers.

12:50

Jimmy: The strips just keep getting smaller and smaller, and the papers become fewer and fewer.

12:57

Jimmy: At this point, there was still a chance that you would have a spectacular career, someone like Bill Watterson coming up in 85.

13:03

Jimmy: But it was getting harder and harder to make any kind of impact.

13:08

Harold: Yeah, that's true. Harold: And when you look at it today, 1984 looks like a golden era, but by 1984 they were getting a little nervous about the shrinking newspaper audience as well as the shrinking strips themselves in size.

13:24

Jimmy: I just have to say, I think that was so dumb.

13:28

Jimmy: So cutting the nose off to spite your face.

13:31

Jimmy: I think if they would have started maybe even printing the strips larger, they could have held on a little longer because people were buying the newspapers because of the comics.

13:40

Harold: Yeah, I remember Gary Trudeau, wasn't he like the one guy, Jimmy, who fought back and said, if you're going to print my strip, you're going to print it at this particular size.

13:52

Harold: And they pretty much did it. Harold: A lot of them moved that strip off of the regular page because it would look odd, you know, placed against the other strips that were smaller.

14:02

Harold: They weren't going to bump them up to match Doonesbury.

14:05

Harold: So often it went over to the editorial section, that sort of thing.

14:08

Harold: But he was one guy fighting for it.

14:10

Harold: And I think the jury's out on, you know, how that affected readership of Doonesbury.

14:16

Harold: I really don't know. Jimmy: Yeah, well, Schulz did not like it.

14:20

Jimmy: Schulz considered that request unprofessional.

14:22

Harold: Like a hubris kind of thing, you know. Jimmy: Yeah.

14:25

Jimmy: And the same thing later with Bill Watterson.

14:28

Jimmy: But Watterson had a different approach. Jimmy: His was the Sundays.

14:31

Jimmy: He wasn't even complaining about size.

14:34

Jimmy: He was saying, I don't want to have to break the strip up.

14:37

Jimmy: We talk about every week when we talk about these Sunday strips.

14:40

Jimmy: The top tier can be removed and there has to be specific panel breaks on the other two tiers.

14:45

Jimmy: And he was just like, no, forget it. Jimmy: You take the whole strip or you don't take it at all.

14:50

Jimmy: And in some places he gained size.

14:52

Jimmy: You know, people who are big fans of the strip and their editors that knew it was popular.

14:57

Jimmy: But in some other places they were like, well, forget this guy.

14:59

Jimmy: And they ended up running it smaller. Jimmy: So his into his his sort of stand for artistic integrity was more towards I just want size.

15:09

Jimmy: You know, and I just want it to look like I intended to look.

15:14

Harold: Yeah. Harold: Tried lightly with newspaper editors.

15:16

Harold: You never know. Jimmy: And they're not thrilled with having you to begin with.

15:21

Harold: Well, that's true. Harold: They're more into the news. Harold: So, yeah, often there's a little bit of resentment with the comics that can be taken out on.

15:29

Jimmy: Well, I would not have picked any of those strips to make.

15:31

Jimmy: Well, Garfield, I probably would have. Jimmy: But the other ones I don't think I would have remembered, even though I believe Doones or Blondie was probably the second most circulated strip around this time.

15:41

Jimmy: Blondie was hugely popular.

15:43

Jimmy: And on Sunday pages, you would often see it as like the second strip on the front page.

15:48

Harold: It was at the top on the front page where I grew up.

15:51

Harold: Yeah. Jimmy: Well, that is extremely interesting.

15:55

Jimmy: Thank you for that, Harold. Jimmy: So we actually have quite a bit to discuss today.

15:59

Jimmy: We're going to talk about things like the future of the podcast, what's coming up next, what are we going to do when we get to the end?

16:07

Jimmy: All kinds of stuff like that we'll discuss. Jimmy: We have a ton of mail to get to.

16:10

Jimmy: And then as our little treat, like we like to do at the end of these seasons, we are going to go ahead and look at some comics from the mid-80s and discuss them and see where Schulz is in relations to a new generation of cartoonists that he's inspired.

16:27

Jimmy: So we're going to do that right after the break.

16:30

Jimmy: Come back and we'll continue.

16:33

Liz: Hey, everyone. Liz: I wanted to let you know about our upcoming schedule.

16:38

Liz: We're taking some time off over the next few weeks.

16:41

Liz: Instead of releasing a new episode every week, we're going to alternate a week off, then a week on.

16:47

Liz: But only for a month. Liz: Don't worry. Liz: We know you miss us when you don't hear from us.

16:52

Liz: And I didn't want it to come as a surprise next Tuesday.

16:56

Liz: We'll be back to our regular schedule in June.

17:03

Jimmy: Hey, we're back, Liz. Jimmy: I'm hanging out in the mailbox.

17:06

Jimmy: Do we got anything? Liz: We do. Liz: We have the most wonderful, engaged listeners.

17:11

Liz: I think mostly that they don't want you to worry.

17:14

Liz: So they are... Jimmy: I do worry when I don't hear from them.

17:19

Liz: So we heard from our friend Shaylee, who says, Hello gang, it's your pal Shaylee.

17:23

Liz: When it comes to relating to Peanuts characters, I don't recall if I mentioned this or not, but I relate to Marcie.

17:30

Liz: I admire how she's blunt, straight to the point.

17:33

Liz: And while she isn't perfect, her heart's in the right place.

17:36

Liz: I remember in the Easter special, she kept on cooking the eggs in different ways that aren't hard boiled and how she ate the boiled egg with the shell on.

17:44

Liz: It was goofy, but it was charming. Liz: I can see why people see her as a character with an invisible disability.

17:51

Liz: I think some people believe that she's autism coded, which would explain her monotone way of speaking, lack of social cues.

17:58

Liz: And she has a strong fascination of literature.

18:02

Jimmy: Well, with that, first off, always great to hear from you, Shelly.

18:05

Jimmy: I love Marcie. Jimmy: I've always loved Marcie. Jimmy: I think Michael has the most recent conversion to enjoying the character of Marcie, right, Michael?

18:14

Jimmy: You weren't that familiar with her. Michael: Yeah, no, I mean, I think the character is growing.

18:19

Michael: I can identify with her. Michael: And so her and Woodstock are my two current favorites.

18:27

Jimmy: Those are good picks. Jimmy: How about you, Harold? Jimmy: Are you a Marcie fan?

18:30

Harold: Yeah, Marcie's a great character.

18:32

Harold: And I really have enjoyed the fact that she's been set up as somebody interested in Charlie Brown as a friend or a boyfriend.

18:42

Harold: That, I think, is really charming. Harold: I kind of like the dynamic between them, even though Charlie Brown is so maddeningly clueless.

18:53

Jimmy: Me too. Jimmy: I love that. Jimmy: Well, thanks for writing, buddy.

18:56

Liz: Then we heard from Michael Webb, a new listener or a new correspondent.

19:01

Liz: Good griefians. Liz: Thank you for the podcast.

19:04

Liz: I'm a Peanuts fan of Long, Long Standing, a love I inherited from my father, whose 15-cent original vintage paperbacks I still have on my shelf.

19:13

Liz: I feel like the show is one I would have made myself if I were smarter or more talented.

19:19

Jimmy: I believe neither of those things are a requirement.

19:23

Jimmy: Trust me. Liz: Listening to brilliant people diving deep on an artistic work that I feel like forms part of my personality is an absolute unfettered joy.

19:34

Jimmy: Well, thank you.

19:36

Liz: And then he says, at one point, I'm still catching up.

19:40

Liz: Michael says, who writes letters anymore?

19:43

Liz: And I would like to say, humbly, me.

19:45

Liz: I have a couple dozen pen pals from around the world, and I'm a member of several penpalling organizations, including one, the League of Extraordinary Pen Pals, whose newsletter I contribute to.

19:57

Liz: I don't really care. Liz: He wasn't wrong that letter writing is rare, but we're out there.

20:02

Harold: That's wonderful. Jimmy: That's so cool. Liz: And then Tim Young writes to us, and he says, back in the 80s, the group Sade released a song called The Sweetest Taboo.

20:13

Liz: I quickly renamed it The Sweetest Baboo.

20:16

Liz: It must have been sung by Sally. Harold: Very cool.

20:23

Harold: Now, I'll never hear that song the same way again.

20:26

Liz: He adds, by the way, on this week's show, the guys were talking again about spotting blacks.

20:32

Liz: I understand what it means, but what's always confused me is why is it called that?

20:38

Liz: Spot in what sense? Liz: To see, notice or recognize something or to mark something with spots?

20:44

Jimmy: Yes. Jimmy: To mark it, yeah, to spot it would mean like I'm going to put a spot of black over on this side and a spot of black over on this side.

20:53

Jimmy: It's the act of intentionally choosing where you place your blacks to lead the eye, to balance the panel, et cetera.

21:01

Liz: Yeah. Michael: It's like spotting a target. Michael: I need to put something there.

21:04

Liz: Then Simon Lunt from Yorkshire did his homework.

21:08

Liz: Hi, everyone. Liz: I was delighted to hear you discuss my question on how and why peanut translates so well across the pond.

21:15

Liz: Michael asked me about the perception of the baseball strips in the UK.

21:20

Liz: They were indeed printed, and largely the technicalities of the game went way over the heads of us largely cricket and rounders playing Brits.

21:28

Liz: This is probably no coincidence, but I'm actually an avid baseball fan.

21:33

Liz: Subconsciously, my love of the game was no doubt directly influenced by Charlie Brown's perpetual failure at the mound, which probably explains why my chosen team are the Baltimore Orioles.

21:45

Jimmy: Hey, last year, though, Orioles won 100 games.

21:50

Jimmy: They got crushed by the Pirates in the beginning of this season, though.

21:53

Jimmy: So go Pirates. Liz: And finally, Mark Heffernan, I think he's a new contributor.

21:58

Liz: He writes, I've been enjoying revisiting the 1980s peanut strips with the Unpacking Peanuts crew.

22:04

Liz: Peanuts was no longer the first comic strip I'd read when I opened the comic strip page, Bloom County was, and I think that's a big reason why I view the 1980s as a lesser era, especially in comparison to the 70s and what was to come in the 1990s.

22:19

Liz: And then he adds, good luck to Harold on his new Kickstarter project, the Robot Monster 3D comic.

22:26

Liz: I've already pledged for a copy. Liz: Here's hoping the comic makes its Kickstarter goal.

22:32

Harold: Oh, thank you so much for your support on that.

22:34

Harold: And for those of you who are wondering what we're talking about, we just launched a Robot Monster comics and 3D Kickstarter, which is running right now.

22:42

Harold: You can go over to Kickstarter and just search for that term Robot Monster comics or Robot Monster graphic novel.

22:49

Harold: It's something that is the labor of love of a lot of people.

22:52

Harold: It's based on this 1953 3D movie that it's very iconic.

22:57

Harold: You may have seen images of this monster before.

22:59

Harold: It's essentially a guy in a gorilla suit with a diving helmet on it.

23:04

Harold: But it was a 3D film during the 3D craze of 1953.

23:09

Harold: Check it out, if only to see the amazing covers.

23:12

Harold: I think I mispronounced his name. Harold: My apologies. Harold: Last time we talked, Jeff Slemons and Mitch O'Connell, they both did two very different to absolutely gorgeous covers.

23:24

Harold: So this movie was inspired by 3D comics and comic books.

23:28

Harold: And it's only appropriate that finally after 70 years that Robot Monster gets his own comic.

23:35

Harold: And it's cool because we've got the human star of Robot Monster, a little boy named Johnny who's played by Gregory Moffat.

23:42

Harold: He is still with us and he is signing copies and certificates of authenticity for film sales as well.

23:50

Harold: We actually have 1953 prints that are a little broken up and we've actually are selling the cells along with a signed certificate by Johnny.

23:59

Harold: We got the DVD and the Blu-ray, which just came out from the same people that are doing this Kickstarter 3D film archive.

24:06

Harold: And I'm doing a 10 page spoof using actual movie 3D frames from the original.

24:12

Harold: So it's a lot of fun and for me it's personally something I'm hoping we're going to have the opportunity to do, but it only happens if you guys support us.

24:20

Harold: So if you're interested at all, or you know anybody who would be interested, please do go over to Kickstarter and check us out.

24:25

Harold: Thank you. Liz: And how long is it going to be up for?

24:28

Harold: I believe it runs until the 8th of May.

24:31

Liz: Great. Jimmy: I remember that movie from when I was a kid.

24:35

Jimmy: There was a show, a syndicated movie show that local stations would pick up called Dialing for Dollars.

24:41

Jimmy: I don't know if you guys remember Dialing for Dollars?

24:45

Jimmy: And they would have theme weeks. Jimmy: So you'd have like Jerry Lewis week or you'd have horror week or whatever.

24:50

Jimmy: And they had 3D week one summer.

24:53

Jimmy: And it was a big deal because you had they had to distribute 3D glasses because no one had them in the 80s.

24:58

Harold: Right. Jimmy: But that was a big one. Jimmy: Gorilla at Large.

25:01

Jimmy: I can't remember the other ones, but loved it.

25:04

Harold: Yeah, boy, you know, that's the original show that would bribe you to watch.

25:12

Jimmy: Yeah, you would win by they had gerbil races and there would be three gerbils in Habitrails that were just long straight ones and they'd name them after the characters on the show and a caller would pick one and they let them loose.

25:27

Jimmy: And if you're gerbil one, you'll win some money.

25:29

Jimmy: And then it was right back to the movie. Liz: Oh, I also have to do a shout out to our dear friend listener, Bernie Adama, for sending us his idea for an Unpacking Peanuts graphic and I'll put that on social media.

25:44

Liz: It's dear to our hearts because it's a Beatles album cover with the Unpacking Peanuts crew on the cover.

25:51

Harold: Thank you, Bernie. Jimmy: Liz suggested we do t-shirts for all of the Beatles album covers to me and I said, well, I already have the White Album done.

26:00

Liz: So you can buy that one on our store. Harold: Or you can buy it at Walmart if you want in a three-pack.

26:06

Jimmy: It's great. Liz: Anything from the hotline?

26:11

Jimmy: So got a couple text messages. Jimmy: First one, if you had to get a Peanuts tattoo, because it was the law, what would each of you get Liz to be of great cheer?

26:23

Jimmy: Jim Meyer. Jimmy: Jim trying to get a little bonus point by giving us great cheer.

26:30

Liz: And by mentioning me. Jimmy: That's right.

26:34

Jimmy: Very good job, Jim. Jimmy: So I want I actually have an answer.

26:38

Jimmy: I've thought about this. Jimmy: But do you guys you guys go last?

26:41

Jimmy: You guys go first. Jimmy: Michael, what would your Peanuts tattoo be?

26:44

Michael: Because I'm dying to know it's the iconic image of the Snoopy vulture.

26:48

Jimmy: Oh, of course. Jimmy: Of course. Michael: I don't know which one.

26:54

Michael: That would definitely be a Yeah, sure.

26:57

Michael: Yeah. Jimmy: That's a good pick, Harold.

27:00

Harold: I would never do a tattoo.

27:04

Harold: But if it was absolutely required in an act of defiance, I would do the bug or piece of fuzz as long as I could get it.

27:15

Harold: Liz? Liz: I do Woodstock as a Pelican.

27:25

Jimmy: So I have thought about this. Jimmy: I also will never get one.

27:27

Jimmy: But if I was going to get one, I would get a Snoopy and Woodstock dancing.

27:34

Jimmy: And I would have, in Schulz lettering, the movement you need under it.

27:39

Jimmy: And I placed it on my shoulder.

27:45

Michael: Is there an iconic Snoopy and Woodstock dancing?

27:48

Michael: It's not coming to mind. Jimmy: Yeah, I'm sure there's many, yes.

27:53

Jimmy: But I would find a good iconic, say, 1971, 1969, something like that, and the movement you need.

28:00

Liz: Well, there was a Woodstock dancing that was a strip of the year from somebody's pick.

28:05

Harold: That was me. Harold: That's right.

28:07

Harold: That is a great little Woodstock dance.

28:09

Harold: So just put that aside. Harold: The happy dancer Snoopy, you've got an amazing tattoo.

28:13

Harold: Yep. Jimmy: That is really good. Jimmy: This is actually starting to sound like a good idea, which I don't like.

28:20

Harold: Thanks for putting that in our heads. Jimmy: Now there'll be a text message in a few nights from me to the other guys going, oh no, I made a dream come a mistake.

28:35

Jimmy: And we also heard from listener Mary from Colorado.

28:38

Jimmy: She wants to know what we're going to do after 2000.

28:41

Jimmy: And she suggested maybe we do a season and focus on another cartoonist.

28:46

Jimmy: Maybe someone who was influenced by Schulz, which could be interesting.

28:50

Jimmy: And since we have this question, why don't we go ahead and kind of discuss this now, what we're going to do for the upcoming episodes of the show.

28:59

Jimmy: So we decided it was all going by too fast.

29:03

Jimmy: And we didn't want to just end it and, you know, then just be floating out in the wind.

29:09

Jimmy: And in case you guys didn't notice, we enjoy talking.

29:16

Jimmy: We enjoy talking to each other and we just enjoy talking in general.

29:20

Jimmy: So what we've decided is we're going to slow things down.

29:23

Jimmy: This is going to do two things. Jimmy: One, it's going to allow us to have more episodes for each year.

29:29

Jimmy: So if it takes three years to get through 1984 or three episodes to get through 1984, four episodes, that's just what it's going to take.

29:36

Harold: Three years. Harold: It might take three years, with no holds barred, really getting to the boys.

29:45

Jimmy: Exactly. Liz: Panel a day. Jimmy: Panel a day, yeah.

29:48

Harold: Panel a day. Jimmy: This will do a couple of things.

29:51

Jimmy: It'll do that, allow us to go on for a little bit longer before we have to do some thinking.

29:56

Jimmy: It'll also hopefully make the editing a little bit easier for Liz, that she won't have to wait through epic hours of conversation and whittle it down to just two episodes.

30:06

Jimmy: I think that's going to be fun. Jimmy: How does that affect you, the listener?

30:09

Jimmy: Not really at all. Jimmy: Just Tuesdays, we'll still be here talking about goofy stuff, but it'll just be going on for a little bit longer.

30:19

Jimmy: Post-2000, because it will still arrive, I'd love to hear from you guys.

30:25

Jimmy: What do you want us to cover?

30:28

Jimmy: John Esparza, super listener, just recently posted on social media, he wanted us to cover the Arbor Day special.

30:37

Harold: That's a good year right there. Jimmy: Pretty far down on the list.

30:43

Jimmy: What about you guys, you three? Jimmy: Do you have any particular thoughts about what you'd like to do after this?

30:48

Michael: Well, I think it would be nice to go back and deal with some topics.

30:54

Jimmy: Yeah. Michael: Like, you know, try to pull out our best Schroeder at the Piano ones or baseball ones or kite flying.

31:02

Michael: Each one of those, I think we can easily get an episode out of.

31:05

Jimmy: Yeah. Liz: I've been keeping a list of the ones that we mention now and then, and we've talked about doing a weirdest strip sequence.

31:16

Jimmy: Yeah, I think you could do something with the Peanuts calendar.

31:18

Jimmy: We've talked about it, you know, how every year he would hit certain themes, obviously at certain points of the year, seasonally and whatever.

31:24

Jimmy: That could be an interesting thing. Jimmy: Go through a year with the Peanuts calendar, like all the New Year strips, then all the, you know, Beethoven's birthday strips or whatever for each month.

31:35

Jimmy: Or not. Jimmy: That day we don't have to. Jimmy: The deafening silence.

31:44

Jimmy: Harold, do you have any thoughts? Harold: Well, in the dead horse category, yeah.

31:49

Harold: No, I like all of those ideas and I just want to see how it plays out.

31:52

Harold: I'd love to hear from the listeners if there's anything that does stand out to them.

31:57

Harold: You know, you guys have gotten to know us as well as we've all gotten to know Peanuts better.

32:03

Harold: If there's anything that you've heard or has resonated with you, we'd love to hear from you.

32:08

Harold: Your feedback really does help us understand where you guys are coming from and what it is that you're enjoying.

32:14

Michael: Yeah, we could go in depth on some longer sequences.

32:18

Jimmy: Yeah, that's true. Michael: We also touched on the duos at one point.

32:23

Michael: So maybe like the best Sally and Linus ones.

32:27

Jimmy: Yeah, the best of sweet baboos. Michael: I don't think we're in any danger of running out of material.

32:33

Liz: And we have more guests to interview, too.

32:37

Jimmy: I'm making an ever-growing list of the people I want to talk to.

32:41

Michael: So hi, me. Michael: If you're out there, call us.

32:43

Jimmy: He's at the top of my list. Jimmy: I would love to get Lynn Johnson on.

32:46

Jimmy: I would love to get Patrick McDonald on. Jimmy: And, of course, I threw down the gauntlet to Bill Watterson in like 1954.

32:54

Jimmy: I don't remember what I said, but...

32:56

Liz: No, it was about the sled. Jimmy: So he's got to come on.

33:02

Jimmy: Just stay tuned for that one. Jimmy: Anyway, whatever we do, it's going to be lots of fun.

33:07

Jimmy: And thank you all for being a part of it. Jimmy: It is just my favorite day of the week, and I always love hearing from you.

33:14

Jimmy: So if you want to keep this conversation going, you could do that.

33:18

Jimmy: By emailing us through unpackingpeanuts.com, sending us a message on Twitter, Instagram, Blue Sky, any of those places that you can find us, or calling or texting the hotline.

33:29

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

33:34

Jimmy: So we would love to hear from you. Jimmy: And remember, when I don't hear, I worry.

33:40

Jimmy: So now we have arrived at the finale of this episode, the finale of this season.

33:44

Jimmy: We're going to go ahead and look at some comic strips.

33:48

Jimmy: We have two different things. Jimmy: Harold has pulled out a Sunday section he found for us from 1984.

33:55

Jimmy: Where is that from, Harold? Harold: This section is from Illinois.

34:01

Harold: It was the Galt-Harold and the Elk Grove Citizens combined Sunday comic section.

34:08

Harold: And as you might expect, this is a suburb of Chicago.

34:12

Harold: So the comics that they are able to pick from are not the top comics of the era.

34:19

Harold: These are the strips that didn't have that, say, Tribune or Sun Times in downtown Chicago, getting the territorial rights that absorb Galt and Elk Grove.

34:31

Harold: So it's fascinating to see the strips that were being done largely by journeyman artists, a few new ones that the big guys didn't want to try out, that shows where we are in comics compared to Schulz, which we've been looking at.

34:45

Harold: It's pretty fascinating. Jimmy: Well, I'm looking at it right now, and I think we'll probably be able to just grab some caps of this and put it up on the Obscurities page.

34:56

Jimmy: It's a, what is it, a one, two, three, four, it's a four-page Sunday section, and the second and third page contain six strips.

35:06

Jimmy: I don't know any of them. Jimmy: I've never heard of them.

35:10

Jimmy: I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to read to you guys what strips were in the Galt, Harold and Elk Grove Citizen comic section of 1984.

35:21

Jimmy: They led, their top strip was Donald Duck.

35:25

Jimmy: So not what you'd consider current, although I currently write Donald Duck, so I shouldn't be saying such a thing.

35:35

Jimmy: Can you believe it? Jimmy: These losers with Donald Duck have written, I think, 1600 pages of Donald Duck comics.

35:44

Jimmy: And then of course, that's followed up with Mickey Mouse.

35:47

Harold: Yeah, so they take up the front page of the Galt, Harold, Elk Grove, Citizen, Sunday comics.

35:54

Harold: Disney, we don't necessarily know who these artists are.

36:00

Harold: It's possible. Harold: I would be just guessing.

36:03

Harold: I don't think it's him. Harold: It kind of looks like Al Hubbard.

36:07

Harold: But, you know, Walt Disney gets the credit, not the artist who wrote and drew these.

36:11

Harold: So that was just the way it was done. Jimmy: So yeah, so here are the strips I don't know.

36:16

Jimmy: Catfish, Lolly, the Smith family, which is written by Mr.

36:22

Jimmy: and Mrs. Jimmy: George Smith, the Evermores, what's this, Dungans, no, Dunnigan's people.

36:30

Harold: Off the record. Jimmy: No, off the record.

36:32

Jimmy: Oh, there is Bringing Up Fathers there as well.

36:34

Jimmy: But I knew that one. Jimmy: It is, it is a who's who of who.

36:44

Harold: Right. Harold: So these these strips on the inside pages, as Jimmy was saying, he wasn't familiar with them.

36:49

Harold: I am familiar with the Smith family and Dunnigan's people.

36:53

Harold: But we had that there was a syndicate named NEA, that Newspaper Enterprise Association.

37:00

Harold: And they had a whole roster of strips that they offered, certainly in the 70s and 80s and beyond and probably before as well.

37:11

Harold: But it was a pretty large roster of strips.

37:13

Harold: But often the smaller papers who didn't get the big guys, they would buy them as a block and you could basically print whichever ones you wanted.

37:20

Harold: And that's what I think we're seeing some up here in this paper.

37:24

Jimmy: I'm reading off the record here. Jimmy: I'm going to share a few off the records for you.

37:29

Jimmy: Now, this is one of these strips.

37:32

Jimmy: Actually, it's very similar to what Little Folks was, the original Proto Peanuts in that it is a Sunday style strip, but it's just a bunch of single panel gags that are just each panel is disconnected from each other.

37:49

Jimmy: So like the first one, I hope you're sitting down because like the level of hilarity is going to kill you.

37:56

Jimmy: So there's two people, a man and a woman, on what appears to be the top of a lighthouse.

38:01

Jimmy: The man is hugging it for whatever reason.

38:04

Jimmy: The woman is on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor of the lighthouse.

38:08

Jimmy: And she says, I don't do windows.

38:12

Jimmy: They would say it's really hard to get a syndicated comic strip.

38:17

Harold: Was it? Jimmy: Next one, next one.

38:22

Jimmy: In same strip, there's just a circle and there's a toddler slash middle-aged gnome walking and his name is Tucker.

38:32

Jimmy: And it said, this is the caption from Tucker.

38:35

Jimmy: I'm on solids now, Cole, slippers and chair legs.

38:41

Harold: What? Jimmy: I believe the cartoonist, it's sad.

38:44

Jimmy: He had a stroke in the middle of writing that caption.

38:49

Harold: I'm on solids now, Cole, slippers and chair legs.

38:53

Harold: That is, that's very difficult to understand.

39:02

Jimmy: Share something personal, share something from your life, and it will be universal.

39:07

Jimmy: I feel like this isn't. Jimmy: Does he have a child that was eating Cole slippers and chair legs?

39:13

Jimmy: Because that's not normal. Jimmy: That child needs to be seen.

39:17

Harold: I get you're on solid, you'd be sitting on solid chair legs, right?

39:22

Harold: I get that you maybe instead of natural gas, you're using Cole, which is a solid.

39:26

Harold: But slippers are like the softest shoe you could have.

39:30

Harold: So I guess it's still solid and he's still standing on them.

39:34

Harold: Is that the? Harold: I don't know. Harold: Well, I mean, I think isn't that the setup?

39:39

Harold: And then he surprises you that he's just walking on solid.

39:44

Jimmy: No, I think this kid eats chair legs. Harold: Well, Steve, that's the genius of it.

39:49

Harold: It has all these levels. Jimmy: Yeah, that's the genius. Jimmy: It's a statement of fact.

39:52

Jimmy: Michael, you awake here? Jimmy: He's like, the hell with it.

40:00

Liz: I'm thinking that maybe he's appreciating Schulz's humor in the 80s.

40:07

Jimmy: Seems pretty good. Jimmy: Now, here's another one for you.

40:10

Jimmy: OK. Jimmy: If you prefer.

40:13

Jimmy: Oh, my God. Jimmy: This is just a woman, I guess, at a job interview.

40:17

Jimmy: And OK, this is really wild because she's at a job interview.

40:22

Jimmy: And her caption is, If you prefer a blonde or redhead, I have wigs.

40:28

Jimmy: Which is a disturbing, but B, she is a redhead in the drawing.

40:33

Harold: Yeah, I don't think the colorist was. Jimmy: Reading the one line of dialogue underneath it.

40:40

Harold: Well, you saw redhead and say, Oh, that's the that's the way to go with these.

40:44

Harold: Yeah, it's so funny.

40:46

Harold: And this is the thing. Harold: It's charming to see these.

40:50

Harold: I mean, this looks like a guy who for years has done magazine cartoons.

40:54

Harold: And the way you did magazine cartoons is you would just think up as many jokes as possible.

40:59

Harold: You either do them in pencil or you have to do finished ones.

41:02

Harold: And you would just mail them to magazines that might print these little single panel comics.

41:09

Harold: An incredibly hard job. Harold: But there were people that made a living doing it.

41:13

Harold: And Ed Reed, who did this off the record, just looks like that's the world he knows.

41:18

Harold: And I also get the sneaking suspicion that maybe he was reusing things from the era of Jackie Onassis.

41:25

Harold: There's a guy in another strip who's wearing a bow tie.

41:28

Harold: It just feels like early 1960s. Harold: There were like 20 years beyond that.

41:32

Harold: But maybe he's pulling from his file of old gags that didn't sell them to the magazines.

41:38

Jimmy: Well, listen, that's pretty good.

41:41

Jimmy: But it's not as good as Done Against People. Jimmy: Now, I don't know.

41:44

Jimmy: I've never seen Done Against People in my life.

41:47

Jimmy: But I will tell you the story of the guy who created Done Against People.

41:53

Jimmy: He worked really hard and he got a comic strip.

41:56

Jimmy: And he said, oh, yes. Jimmy: And then he got to week three and he's like, oh, shit.

42:03

Jimmy: He is out of ideas here. Jimmy: This is a Sunday strip.

42:07

Jimmy: Now, at one point, Sunday strips were full pages, glorious pages of like Hal Foster artwork.

42:14

Jimmy: These are three panels. Jimmy: He's barely struggling to get through it.

42:17

Jimmy: Panel one, it looks like he's open in a box.

42:20

Jimmy: Panel two, he got a tie with some silly circle polka dots on it.

42:25

Jimmy: And he says, I love it. Jimmy: And then the punch line is who picked it out?

42:30

Jimmy: And it's his daughter and I guess his wife. Liz: But I'm pumped.

42:35

Harold: So I guess the daughter did because it's full of polka dots.

42:40

Jimmy: So that's a bleak look at comics in the 80s in 1984.

42:45

Jimmy: These are now legacy strips, right? Jimmy: Because we're looking at Popeye.

42:49

Jimmy: The guy who created Popeye has been dead at this point for 60 years.

42:52

Harold: Yeah, pages one and four are all done by artists who did not create these characters.

42:56

Harold: They're kind of journeyman artists who've taken it on after the other persons moved on or passed away and retired.

43:03

Harold: But these were the strips. Harold: If you were living in Elk Grove, this is what you were reading every Sunday.

43:08

Harold: If you didn't get the Tribune or the Sun Times as well.

43:11

Jimmy: Talk about a strip mellowing over time.

43:13

Jimmy: There's both Popeye and Bringing Up Father are unrecognizable from where they started.

43:20

Jimmy: Bringing Up Father was really like a rowdy, rough, lower class kind of South Park-ish for the early 1900s.

43:32

Harold: Yeah, it was pretty wild strip. Harold: It's a brilliant strip by George McManus.

43:38

Jimmy: Yeah, now it's this, which is just someone getting a paycheck, which is fine.

43:44

Harold: Yeah, beautifully drawn, I will say. Harold: Frank Fletcher did a really nice job of continuing the look of George McManus' art long after he passed away.

43:53

Jimmy: And the only reason I feel okay to make fun of people like this is because, again, I've written 1500 pages of Donald Duck, so my glass house is thoroughly shattered.

44:02

Harold: There's no problem. Jimmy: Okay, so how about now we take a look at what Michael has done.

44:09

Jimmy: Well, Michael, why don't you explain what you've done and what we're about to read?

44:13

Michael: Okay, well, I was going to randomly pick a date in 1984 and check out the peanuts from that date and then find a whole bunch of other strips, like funny, whatever contemporary strips on that date and see what peanuts was up against.

44:33

Michael: So I had to search for it. Michael: I couldn't find anybody who'd posted like an entire day's worth of comics.

44:39

Michael: So the first thing I posted, I searched for was Calvin and Hobbes and discovered it didn't even start yet.

44:45

Michael: I decided to grab a Calvin and Hobbes from December 3rd, 1985, which was the first week of the strip.

44:56

Michael: And then I took that date and tried to find some of the other of Schulz's contemporaries who had strips on that day, including Schulz.

45:07

Michael: So I've got about six or seven strips that were, you know, same genre, funny, not adventure strips, pretty much standalone, four panel, three, four panels.

45:20

Jimmy: So we're going to go ahead and I'll tell you what strips we're going to look at as I read them.

45:24

Jimmy: And then we're just going to kind of read them and just give her thoughts, see how they compare with Schulz, see where they came from, et cetera.

45:32

Harold: So you can find these all on gocomics.com? Jimmy: These are all on gocomics.com.

45:36

Jimmy: So you can go over there and type in these dates as I read them.

45:41

Michael: Well, the last two, actually, I couldn't find them on gocomics, so they're just images from Heritage Auctions.

45:49

Jimmy: And if you want to follow us along and learn what we're going to be talking about ahead of time, go ahead, go on to our website, sign up for the Great Peanuts reread, and that'll get you the once a month newsletter that'll let you know what strips we're going to be covering and any special things like this when we know in advance anyway.

46:07

Jimmy: So here we go. Jimmy: This was Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 3rd, 1985.

46:15

Jimmy: Calvin's in his little wagon, his little red wagon, and Hobbes is getting ready to give him a push.

46:21

Jimmy: And Hobbes says, or Calvin says to Hobbes, there's a new girl in our class.

46:25

Jimmy: And Hobbes says, well, what's her name?

46:28

Jimmy: Calvin yells, who knows? Jimmy: And they're at this point racing along on the wagon.

46:33

Jimmy: And Hobbes is pushing and Hobbes jumps in the wagon and says to Calvin, is she nice?

46:38

Jimmy: And Calvin screams to the sky, who cares?

46:41

Jimmy: Not me. Jimmy: Then Hobbes with a ridiculously goofy look on his face says, do you like her?

46:48

Jimmy: And Calvin screams, oh, with some great lettering.

46:54

Michael: OK, I was not up on Calvin and Hobbes at this period.

47:00

Michael: I read some of the collections later, but it was years after it came out.

47:03

Michael: But looking at it in context of Peanuts, the first thing I noticed, number one, it's much more dynamic.

47:11

Harold: Yes. Michael: I mean, he's really into getting the action right in your face on these panels, which Schulz occasionally does, but a lot of times they're just standing there.

47:24

Michael: And also that Calvin acts like a kid.

47:29

Michael: He talks like a kid. Jimmy: Well, in this one, he doesn't in all of them.

47:35

Michael: Okay. Michael: But anyway, I'm not that familiar with it.

47:39

Michael: So that was my impression. Michael: Yeah, good strip, but it's mainly carried by that dynamic drawing.

47:46

Jimmy: Yeah, I agree with that. Jimmy: I think the highlight of Calvin Hobbes is the drawing more than the writing.

47:52

Jimmy: I love the way he cartoons. Harold: Yeah.

47:55

Harold: I mean, he's definitely influenced by editorial cartoons that had kind of a rougher brush line sometimes.

48:02

Harold: Beautiful, beautiful strokes on this that are a mixture of precision and kind of roughness that is so uniquely Bill Watterson's from the comic strip page.

48:15

Harold: And then also, I think he's a little more influenced by Schulz's than in the world of animation in the sense that he's following some of the rules of animation it makes for dynamic drawing.

48:27

Harold: We mentioned it before, there's a term called line of action.

48:31

Harold: And line of action essentially is drawing curves into your artwork that direct your eye from one thing into another that flow beautifully.

48:39

Harold: And you see it in panel four with Hobbes' arch of his back with the beautiful stripes on the back.

48:47

Harold: It's just a really pleasing arc that leads from basically kind of from his butt all the way through his head and then his eyes looking straight into Calvin's and then down Calvin into his body.

48:58

Harold: It's just a really amazing visual arc that Schulz really didn't do based on his character designs.

49:06

Harold: And even though he was somewhat influenced, I think, by his own animators doing his comic strip, Schulz, yeah, didn't usually go there with that style.

49:15

Harold: And this, I remember when this came out, I was in college and the artwork was just so dynamic and just drew you in.

49:25

Harold: And it's so appealing. Harold: I think Watterson is just an absolute genius when it comes to these things.

49:31

Harold: And he puts so much life and verve into these.

49:35

Jimmy: I love him. Jimmy: My favorite Calvin and Hobbes is, like we were talking earlier, when he went ahead and said, no, no, if you're going to run my Sunday Strip, you're going to run it the way I draw it.

49:46

Jimmy: That era of Sunday Strip is, I think, why Calvin and Hobbes is considered such a masterpiece to this day.

49:57

Jimmy: Nobody had the commercial clout or someone like Schulz who had the commercial clout wasn't willing to push newspaper editors that way.

50:07

Jimmy: And it allowed him to do some spectacular cartooning in the last half of his 10-year career.

50:16

Jimmy: I love how the little wheels are off the ground when he's pushing it.

50:20

Jimmy: But now, Michael, does this comic strip break your brain?

50:25

Jimmy: Because the whole premise isn't logical.

50:28

Jimmy: Like, sometimes Calvin sees Hobbes as real, nobody else does.

50:34

Jimmy: And sometimes Hobbes gets Calvin into situations that couldn't have really happened if Hobbes was a stuffed toy.

50:42

Michael: Yeah. Michael: This is right at the beginning of the strip.

50:45

Michael: So I don't know if he established that right away.

50:49

Jimmy: Yeah, I think he establishes it like in the third strip.

50:51

Jimmy: It's actually pretty cleverly done how he does that.

50:55

Michael: Okay. Michael: No, the concept is great.

50:58

Michael: But then you just assume none of this is happening.

51:00

Jimmy: Right. Michael: Yeah. Jimmy: But there's.

51:03

Jimmy: Ah, yes. Jimmy: But there's like sometimes he'll end up like tied up.

51:07

Jimmy: How did he get tied up if Hobbes isn't real? Jimmy: I don't know.

51:10

Jimmy: I think there's a whole podcast in this. Michael: All right.

51:13

Michael: Well, we'll work on it. Michael: We got time.

51:18

Michael: All right. Jimmy: Here is a good old Garfield on December 3rd.

51:22

Jimmy: Okay, this is a three panels daily strip.

51:24

Jimmy: And Garfield is wearing a sweater that says, I hate dogs.

51:31

Jimmy: And he proudly marches out the front door of his house.

51:35

Jimmy: And then there's a silent panel where we don't see what happens.

51:38

Jimmy: He has left the house. Jimmy: And then he comes back in and he has been mangled and mauled.

51:43

Jimmy: And he thinks to himself, gee, I didn't think dogs could read.

51:49

Michael: Probably influenced by Snoopy and the cat because you never see the cat.

51:56

Michael: I don't quite get it. Michael: I mean, why is he wearing this weird blue thing?

52:02

Michael: At first, I thought it was an apron. Jimmy: Well, yeah.

52:05

Jimmy: What did I call it? Jimmy: A sweater? Jimmy: Is it a sweater?

52:08

Michael: I don't know what it is. Michael: It's like a baby thing.

52:13

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. Jimmy: Yeah, it's very odd.

52:16

Michael: Yeah, I never procured for this strip. Michael: So this is seems kind of typical for Garfield.

52:22

Jimmy: And I believe by this point, Jim Davis was operating an entire studio of cartoonists, right, Harold?

52:29

Harold: I don't know when that started for him.

52:32

Harold: This strip started with a 1978.

52:34

Harold: So we're about seven years into it. Harold: Again, I remember when this thing came out, you know, as we were saying, Calvin and Hobbes just took the newspaper world by storm this year in 1985 when it debuted.

52:48

Harold: Garfield did the same thing in 78. Harold: And we mentioned before, I found his early stuff.

52:54

Harold: I mean, the early, early Garfield, if you guys look back, you type in Google, like 1978 Garfield, he's almost unrecognizable.

53:01

Harold: But seven years in, Garfield has really dialed into his own studio, Jim Davis' own style.

53:07

Harold: It's more dynamic, I think, even in the seven years in than, say, the strip that I would read today, where it's so often Garfield's sitting on a countertop and talking to John or hanging out in bed.

53:21

Harold: It's very much the I Hate Mondays kind of lazy Garfield who has something sardonic to say.

53:28

Harold: And this era, I mean, this was, I mean, Garfield era is right around this.

53:33

Harold: Maybe this is kind of on the tail end of the Garfield phenomenon.

53:37

Harold: But this strip still kind of reflects to me as just a tiny little piece of it.

53:43

Harold: But people just went crazy for Garfield.

53:46

Harold: And certainly people who love Garfield, he's at the top of the game in the newspapers today in terms of people's favorites.

53:52

Harold: But boy, he was a phenomenon right around this time.

53:57

Harold: And I remember that. Harold: I mean, I had my little plush Garfield.

54:00

Harold: I had my plush Odie. Harold: I loved Odie, the little dog friend, if you can call that, to Garfield.

54:06

Harold: Davis was on top of something in the early 80s.

54:10

Michael: But cat people usually like cute, and this is certainly not cute in any way.

54:15

Jimmy: Yeah, that's interesting, because it's not like a cat person's strip.

54:21

Jimmy: That's true. Jimmy: I don't know if like hardcore cat fans were like Garfield fans, right?

54:25

Harold: Well, you know, again, I think, I mean, his roots really do visually, I think, come out of underground comics.

54:31

Harold: And then it kind of moves its way into something a little bit more mainstream.

54:36

Harold: But still, I mean, he's an angry, selfish, me generation cat.

54:41

Harold: And people really responded to that, I guess.

54:45

Harold: I mean, our listeners, I'm sure we have cat lovers.

54:47

Harold: I wonder what they think of Garfield. Harold: But yeah, I think we've, it's easy to forget.

54:55

Harold: And we've said this a lot. Harold: When you see something that is maybe not in its moment in the culture, like if you look at a Garfield today, it's just part of the culture.

55:07

Harold: But in this moment when Garfield was out in his first years, it really was riding a wave of something.

55:15

Harold: It was capturing something that people hadn't quite seen before.

55:19

Harold: And I want to give Jim Davis props for that.

55:21

Jimmy: Sometimes I feel like we have lived thousands of lives.

55:25

Jimmy: Do you remember when we did videos for the Professor Garfield website?

55:30

Harold: Yeah. Jimmy: Michael made the music for it.

55:33

Jimmy: We shot the things in green screen in my house, and it was like, where do ideas come from?

55:37

Jimmy: I think we did three different videos for their website.

55:41

Jimmy: I don't even know how. Jimmy: How did Jim Davis' people cut?

55:47

Jimmy: How did that occur? Harold: It's just one of those hazy moments in the past.

55:52

Harold: It's like, yeah, it's like me thinking, I'm a Hollywood producer of a Netflix television show.

55:57

Harold: And I still, when I say it to myself, just laugh.

56:00

Harold: Really? Harold: It's so strange.

56:02

Harold: You look back on these things that you've done. Harold: And I met Jim Davis.

56:05

Harold: I think I mentioned it in a previous, I was at the Rubin Awards last year.

56:09

Harold: And I met him and he shared a Schulz story with me, how he helped him when he was trying to figure out how to animate Garfield.

56:17

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, great story. Harold: He's a very nice guy.

56:19

Harold: And I think he's been very true to his own vision of what he, you know, it's so funny.

56:26

Harold: Like if you take Jim Davis and you take Bill Watterson and their philosophies of what you should do with a comic strip, what the right thing to do is, in some ways, they're polar opposites, right?

56:39

Harold: Because everybody wanted a plush Hobbes doll.

56:43

Harold: And he refused to do it because I think he said, hey, if I create the plush Hobbes doll, then I'm coming down on one side or another of whether Hobbes is real.

56:52

Jimmy: That is a Michael-level thought.

56:56

Michael: I really respect that. Harold: And I respect it, but I also am disappointed by it because I think it's not wrong for Davis or Schulz to say, I've created something that people love and people want it in forms.

57:12

Harold: Who am I to deny them that? Harold: And I think that's legitimate as well.

57:17

Harold: So, yeah, I mean, I wish there had been licensed Calvin and Hobbes things and we didn't have these knockoffs of Calvin peeing on whatever you wanted him to pee on in the back of your car on a sticker.

57:27

Harold: I mean, that's what we got because he wouldn't go there.

57:31

Harold: And so the few people who are willing to sneak in and do a knockoff that wasn't authorized, that's really all we have outside of the strip.

57:39

Harold: But it does keep the strip pure. Harold: You know, people know this, know Calvin and Hobbes for the strip.

57:45

Harold: And that says that's something. Jimmy: You know what Calvin was doing in the original panel that is the famous peeing panel?

57:51

Jimmy: What is that? Jimmy: He was filling a water balloon.

57:55

Harold: Well, that's kind of appropriate. Harold: Well, then I'll have to always consider he's just basically squeezing that boon.

58:04

Harold: That's all that really is. Jimmy: Thankfully, that's trying to sort of, I haven't seen one of those in a long time, thankfully.

58:11

Jimmy: December 3rd again, 1985.

58:13

Jimmy: Now we're talking Bloom County.

58:16

Jimmy: I actually remember this is part of a sequence where Steve Dallas, who is the local heathenistic lawyer, is looking to get himself a mail order bride.

58:27

Jimmy: So he is sitting there at a bar having a martini and flipping through a catalog of brides, and Opus the Penguin is watching this occur.

58:38

Jimmy: And Steve says to Opus, See, first I pick out a girl from these picks, write her a few letters, propose, send some dough to the, in quotes, bride broker.

58:49

Jimmy: Next panel, he continues, and then fly her over here and we get married.

58:53

Jimmy: Thus she gets America, and I get lifelong devotion and pampering.

58:57

Jimmy: And Steve looks to Opus and says, So what do you think?

59:01

Jimmy: Opus yells, I think white slavery is immoral, and morality makes my feet itch.

59:07

Jimmy: And then in the last panel, we see Opus scratching the heck out of his feet, and he says, which of course makes me secretly wish that several lovely go-go dancers would massage them, which of course is just a typically embarrassing moral contradiction I'm always caught in.

59:22

Michael: I like your Opus voice, by the way.

59:25

Jimmy: Thank you. Michael: I love this strip.

59:28

Michael: This is a rare case, though, I think, of a blatant copy.

59:33

Michael: Which I think first people went like, copying Doonesbury.

59:38

Michael: Surpassed the original. Michael: Yeah. Michael: This became my favorite comic in this period.

59:46

Michael: I wasn't reading Peanuts, but I definitely was reading Bloom County and Doonesbury.

59:50

Harold: Yeah, what did you like about Bloom County? Michael: I liked the fact that it was unhinged from reality, completely, where Doonesbury was definitely, you know, the daily story, which was great.

1:00:01

Michael: I loved them both. Michael: But the fact is, it's Opus.

1:00:06

Michael: My vote for the greatest comic character of all time.

1:00:10

Michael: And I'm dropping. Michael: I think Opus is absolutely brilliant.

1:00:15

Liz: Why? Jimmy: Yeah, Opus is a great character.

1:00:18

Liz: Why? Michael: I can't even explain why.

1:00:22

Michael: It's just it's totally original. Michael: I mean, we've seen a million cartoon animals that can talk.

1:00:29

Michael: Opus is not like any of them. Michael: He's really a significant personality.

1:00:36

Michael: And it's just open to the most preposterous situations.

1:00:40

Michael: He kind of accepted because he was a penguin talking.

1:00:44

Jimmy: Yeah, to me, like, if I thought if I had to say what comedy was in the 80s, the thing I would think of is David Letterman.

1:00:53

Jimmy: And Opus and Bloom County reminds me of like a comic strip David Letterman, where it was the form of what was a regular old talk show, but it was deeply weird.

1:01:06

Jimmy: And it was commenting on older talk shows.

1:01:09

Jimmy: And sometimes the joke was that the joke wasn't funny, which now doesn't seem that seems so hacky and it's nothing.

1:01:18

Jimmy: It's sort of but back then it just seemed unbelievably fresh and unhinged.

1:01:22

Jimmy: It felt like literally anything could happen. Jimmy: And that's what I feel like in Bloom County as well.

1:01:27

Harold: Yeah, my favorite and I was just thinking about this as we were looking at those 1984 comics from Elk Grove.

1:01:33

Harold: I don't know if you saw this one, Michael, or anybody here saw this one, but it's my all time favorite Bloom County strip.

1:01:39

Harold: It's from October 4th, 1987. Harold: You can find that as well on Go Comics.

1:01:45

Harold: But again, it's just unhinged off the wall.

1:01:48

Harold: You have no idea what's going on. Harold: But basically the premise of this Sunday strip was that somebody took over the strip for Burke Brethead, a guy named Mort Svensson.

1:02:00

Harold: And it says, notice to client editors, the regular artist of this feature is on vacation for 10 days at PTL's Heritage USA in South Carolina.

1:02:09

Harold: Filling in for Mr. Harold: Brethead this week is Mr.

1:02:12

Harold: Mort Svensson, 73, whose cartoons have appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and Parrot World.

1:02:20

Harold: And so you have this very, very cartoony 1950s magazine cartoon style.

1:02:28

Harold: And it's this cheesy joke of these two characters talking.

1:02:32

Harold: He says, can you keep a secret, Dinkley?

1:02:35

Harold: Opus has tickets to Cats. Harold: And he goes, Opus the Penguin, the secret is safe with me.

1:02:42

Harold: And then he runs off and yells as loud as he can to his dad, who's sitting in a lawn chair smoking a pipe.

1:02:48

Harold: He goes, hey, Pop, Opus caught rickets from Cats.

1:02:51

Harold: And the father goes, hmm. Harold: And he goes, say, Steve Dallas, Mom's the word, but Opus has crickets the size of rats.

1:02:58

Harold: And then Steve's like, ah. Harold: And then he's saying, Opus is being picketed by rats.

1:03:03

Harold: And then you see the classic people, like clip art of people whispering in each other's ears.

1:03:08

Harold: And then you see three guys wearing hats and ties and suits, classic 50s style reading these newspapers going, hmm, woo, aha, as they see these articles that say, Opus tickled by bats.

1:03:20

Harold: Opus picked too fat. Harold: Opus pickled in bats.

1:03:24

Harold: And then this hilariously drawn Opus.

1:03:27

Harold: He's like, say, why is everyone laughing?

1:03:30

Harold: And then the actual Opus rolls the last panel of the strip up.

1:03:35

Harold: It looks like the paper has been rolled back so you can't see the full panel.

1:03:38

Harold: And then Opus is wearing a Heritage USA hat.

1:03:41

Harold: And I still heart Tammy's shirt with a little PTL pendant.

1:03:45

Harold: And he said, we kind of just figured we should get back a tad early.

1:03:53

Harold: I mean, that's nuts. Jimmy: Yeah, that's what I mean by anything could happen.

1:03:58

Harold: Yeah, definitely. Harold: It's like David Letterman. Harold: It's a funny skit.

1:04:02

Harold: He's thinking outside the box, super inventive.

1:04:06

Harold: You never know what you're going to get in Bloom County in the 80s.

1:04:09

Jimmy: And I had a talk about the merchandise and whether it's important.

1:04:14

Jimmy: When I was 14, actually, if you want to read Dumbest Idea Ever, you could get a longer version of this story.

1:04:20

Jimmy: But that was my memoir of how I became a cartoonist.

1:04:23

Jimmy: I was wildly depressed when I was 14. Jimmy: And Cerebus was a lifeline and Bloom County was a lifeline.

1:04:29

Jimmy: And I wore my Opus T-shirt.

1:04:31

Jimmy: It was just open. Jimmy: And I would kill to find one of these to this day.

1:04:36

Jimmy: But it was the day I first went to a doctor to see what was wrong with me.

1:04:40

Jimmy: And my mom, because she felt bad for me, took me to a place in the mall where you used to go and you'd pick out a color shirt and they would just iron the decal on.

1:04:50

Jimmy: So I don't even know if this was a legit item or if it was just a bootleg.

1:04:54

Jimmy: But it was just Opus wearing a big tie.

1:04:57

Jimmy: And I wore it like a tote.

1:04:59

Jimmy: It was like my shield against the horrors of the world.

1:05:03

Jimmy: Love, love Bloom County. Jimmy: Inexplicable to me what he did with it.

1:05:08

Jimmy: Like he ended it early like Watterson did.

1:05:11

Jimmy: But then he tried to do a version of it called Outland and then he brought it back.

1:05:14

Michael: Yeah, but Outland was brilliant. Jimmy: None of them ever really captured the magic of Opus.

1:05:19

Michael: I loved Outland. Michael: Nobody else seemed to take it seriously.

1:05:22

Michael: But I thought it was really good. Michael: Yeah, and then Opus came back and it was Opus again.

1:05:28

Jimmy: Yeah, I'll have to go back and check those out.

1:05:30

Jimmy: They ran in my college newspaper, but I haven't read them since then.

1:05:35

Jimmy: All right, and that brings us to good old Doonesbury, Bloom County original formula.

1:05:40

Jimmy: Okay, now I cannot remember the name of Duke.

1:05:44

Jimmy: Okay, so it's Zonker and Raul Dukes, or Uncle Dukes rather, Secretary.

1:05:49

Jimmy: I cannot remember. Michael: She's the Vietnamese girl, isn't it?

1:05:55

Jimmy: Yeah, she, yes. Jimmy: Yeah, she's totally Marcie.

1:05:59

Jimmy: She's completely Marcie, and she is normally with this Uncle Duke character who is a parody of Hunter S.

1:06:06

Jimmy: Thompson. Jimmy: We are getting layers within layers in this episode.

1:06:09

Jimmy: Holy cow. Jimmy: So Zonker is on the phone.

1:06:12

Jimmy: This is obviously a long sequence.

1:06:15

Jimmy: And he says, 23 million? Jimmy: Mom, are you sure there hasn't been some mistake?

1:06:20

Jimmy: And then I, whoever she is, I can't remember her name, says, that's certainly a remarkable prize.

1:06:25

Jimmy: Sir, sir. Jimmy: Then Zonker says, Mom, I want you to have half of it.

1:06:30

Jimmy: No, no, I absolutely insist. Jimmy: 50%.

1:06:33

Jimmy: And she says, that's very generous of you, sir.

1:06:37

Jimmy: And then Zonker says, what? Jimmy: No, Mom, no.

1:06:40

Jimmy: And the other character who I've got to while we discuss this, I'll Google.

1:06:45

Jimmy: I just hope it all works out for you. Jimmy: Then Zonker says to his mom on the phone.

1:06:48

Jimmy: Okay. Jimmy: 60%. Jimmy: But that's my final offer.

1:06:52

Jimmy: And the other character says, they say money can really change people.

1:06:55

Michael: It is mercy. Jimmy: It's totally mercy.

1:06:58

Michael: Yeah. Harold: What do you think of the Zip-a-Tone here, Michael?

1:07:01

Michael: It didn't stand out. Michael: I mean, it didn't affect anything.

1:07:07

Michael: I'm just wondering why the little nuts in the bowl turned into french fries.

1:07:12

Harold: Yeah. Harold: He's having fun with that. Jimmy: Oh, that was the thing.

1:07:15

Jimmy: I don't know how long that went. Jimmy: But in the 80s, when he came back from his sabbatical, he took a fairly long sabbatical in the early 80s.

1:07:25

Jimmy: And when he came back, he updated the strip entirely.

1:07:29

Jimmy: It was previously set at a commune, the Walden commune, on a college campus.

1:07:34

Jimmy: It was very crudely drawn. Jimmy: When he came back and it was like this really sophisticated graphically strip, he had an anchor that helped him out with that.

1:07:44

Jimmy: And it was just a radical change with Doonesbury.

1:07:49

Jimmy: And one of the things he was doing during that time was he would have one panel where he would just change something in the background.

1:07:55

Michael: Oh, really? Jimmy: Brethead also does that. Michael: Well, I'm really looking at it more intensely than I ever have.

1:08:04

Michael: Normally when I read comic strips, I just whip through them.

1:08:08

Michael: I had the books of Doonesbury and books of Bloom County.

1:08:12

Michael: Yeah, I didn't stop and think. Michael: I just wanted to whip through them.

1:08:15

Harold: Yeah, I think one of the things that people said who were critical of Doonesbury is how static it was.

1:08:22

Harold: And so he's playing with that by changing background elements and giving you little Easter eggs if you're looking.

1:08:29

Harold: Like the pen disappears from the pocket of the lady character in the last two panels as well.

1:08:37

Harold: And the ships are sailing in the background on the sea.

1:08:43

Harold: That's moving. Harold: So yeah, he's trying to add some vibrancy and something original.

1:08:50

Harold: If you're looking, you're going to maybe enjoy just seeing his little pieces here and there.

1:08:56

Michael: He was always taking shortcuts. Harold: Did he actually ever do photocopy?

1:08:59

Harold: Because I know people kind of claimed it looked like that.

1:09:02

Harold: This one obviously is not, and he has the ink for now.

1:09:05

Michael: Well, look at those bottles. Harold: Yeah.

1:09:08

Michael: I don't think he redrew those. Michael: Those are just...

1:09:11

Harold: Yeah, they're different. Harold: I can see different inking.

1:09:15

Jimmy: Oh yeah, no, if you look at the labels, the label on that one that curved, you could see in the fourth panel, it's touching the side, and in the third panel, it's not.

1:09:25

Jimmy: No, he redrew it, but again, he does have an inker for this.

1:09:30

Jimmy: And I think it was the same inker. Jimmy: I can't swear, but I believe it's the same inker the whole time.

1:09:34

Harold: And I'm guessing what he did is he drew, he penciled once the rough background and then let the inker see it through, you know?

1:09:45

Jimmy: There's a Doonesbury book, I can't remember what it's called, but you could see online, you could see examples of this pencil artwork.

1:09:52

Jimmy: He actually pencils it pretty tightly. Jimmy: It's sort of shocking.

1:09:56

Jimmy: I think he really did not like the fact that people criticized the art.

1:10:01

Jimmy: I mean, that was the thing, oh, it's brilliantly funny, but boy, it's not a good-looking strip.

1:10:05

Harold: Yeah, he took steps to really to fix that.

1:10:08

Harold: I mean, in ways that you don't normally see an artist to do.

1:10:11

Harold: I mean, in terms of artists who really cleaned up their act, the other one I could think of is Bob Montana, who created Archie.

1:10:19

Jimmy: Oh, yeah. Harold: He goes off to war.

1:10:22

Harold: His early comics are really, really rough-looking and the characters look very crude.

1:10:26

Harold: He goes off to World War II, and when he comes back, it is the most gorgeous artwork.

1:10:34

Harold: It is like the late 40s Archie Sundays are amazingly drawn.

1:10:38

Harold: It's the same guy. Harold: You know, he didn't have a ghost artist as far as anybody knows.

1:10:43

Harold: He just got really, really good. Jimmy: Yeah, it's amazing.

1:10:47

Jimmy: It's really fun to watch, and it shows that comics is not all entirely about talent.

1:10:54

Jimmy: A lot of it is skill and putting in the hard work.

1:10:58

Jimmy: And sometimes, you know, continuing without change and just having an immaculate consistency is the goal.

1:11:07

Jimmy: Which brings us to Cathy, December 3, 1985.

1:11:11

Jimmy: Cathy is in her boss's office, and she says to him tonight, No, I cannot work late tonight, Mr.

1:11:17

Jimmy: Pinkley. Jimmy: Irving had to work late all last week, and I have a big self-righteous speech planned for tonight.

1:11:24

Jimmy: She continues in panel three. Jimmy: If I have to work late, it ruins everything.

1:11:28

Jimmy: It upsets the whole balance of equality.

1:11:30

Jimmy: And the boss says, It was your turn to cook dinner.

1:11:34

Jimmy: And then Cathy says, It was my turn to have the tantrum.

1:11:38

Michael: Never liked this strip. Michael: Looking at it now.

1:11:43

Michael: I mean, okay, you're limited. Michael: You're a cartoonist.

1:11:46

Michael: You're limited. Michael: The characters have to be very simple so you can draw them a million times.

1:11:52

Michael: And so they're instantly recognizable.

1:11:55

Michael: So you do things like, okay, no eyebrows.

1:11:59

Michael: Eyebrows on the side of the head. Michael: Right.

1:12:04

Michael: How about the eyes touch each other?

1:12:07

Harold: And no nose. Michael: No one's done that before.

1:12:09

Michael: That is the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life.

1:12:13

Harold: I don't mind that look. Harold: I don't mind the eyes touching.

1:12:16

Harold: But the one thing that's surprising to me is hands.

1:12:20

Harold: Now, as an artist, when you're getting started, one of the harder things to draw is hands, because we know our hands so well.

1:12:26

Harold: We look at them all the time. Harold: And Cathy Geisweide, who draws the strip Cathy, when she started out, she looks like kind of a beginning artist, and that's part of the charm of it, I think.

1:12:38

Jimmy: She did not draw. Harold: I'm sure she was getting better.

1:12:41

Harold: Yeah, she was getting better as she went, but at the same time, you now have a look.

1:12:45

Harold: And so it's like the Doonesbury question, his early stuff that he did for the Yale newspaper and then the early syndicated strip in the early 70s is very sparse.

1:12:54

Harold: It's very rough. Harold: It's kind of charming, I think.

1:12:56

Harold: I kind of like early Doonesbury very much, more so than the polished stuff later in terms of the art style.

1:13:02

Harold: But Cathy's hands are, you know, you see four little circles at the bottom of a sleeve, and those are her fingers.

1:13:10

Harold: And it's like I think she made a choice.

1:13:14

Harold: As much time as she was spending drawing, she could have figured that stuff out.

1:13:18

Harold: But once you establish something, maybe she said, I shouldn't mess with this.

1:13:23

Harold: This is, I should be consistent. Harold: And, you know, Schulz changed so much over the 30 years.

1:13:29

Harold: When I look at Cathy, I don't really remember strips that looked a lot different than this over a period of 30 years.

1:13:35

Harold: And yeah, it's kind of an, it's amazing that she kept the consistency of kind of this, it's almost like, I guess you could call it like a primitive style.

1:13:47

Jimmy: Yeah, like the naive school. Jimmy: It also has a, reminds me of South Park in a way, where it's, you know, the most basic construction to get the content across.

1:13:58

Harold: Yeah. Harold: And in terms of gags, I mean, I think one of the jokes is that there's, she's constantly doing variations on things of Cathy freaking out and this and that.

1:14:09

Harold: And certain people love that because that's a place where they are and they feel stressed and they relate to Cathy and they want to see a fresh version of that every time.

1:14:17

Harold: This is a very controversial statement, but I think story-wise, Cathy is the crazy cat of the eighties.

1:14:26

Harold: Because it's just very narrow themes, tons of variations.

1:14:32

Jimmy: She's definitely given us the finger in the third panel.

1:14:35

Michael: You think so? Jimmy: There's no way. Michael: Which finger?

1:14:38

Michael: Third to tell. Jimmy: The finger, she only has one.

1:14:43

Michael: I mean, to me, I never had paid any attention to the strip.

1:14:48

Michael: The way it's staged, the fact that there's four panels of people talking and they're looking out at the reader.

1:14:55

Michael: They're not looking at each other.

1:14:57

Michael: They're not moving, really. Michael: To me, this is just bad cartooning.

1:15:01

Harold: To me, they are looking at each other. Harold: You guys have also said when the Peanuts characters are kind of in that pose where they're just slightly off, head on, I don't read that as them looking at me usually.

1:15:13

Harold: And same thing for here. Harold: I feel like these characters are cheated toward us like you would at theater, but they are looking at each other.

1:15:21

Harold: I don't feel like it's perfect.

1:15:23

Michael: This looks like a stage. Jimmy: It does look like a stage.

1:15:28

Michael: You know, Burns and Allen or something. Michael: Yes.

1:15:32

Jimmy: Burns and Allen were comedians back in the day.

1:15:36

Jimmy: George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen. Jimmy: That's an excuse.

1:15:38

Harold: Yeah, our own obscurity is explained. Jimmy: Well, if you said that you never looked at this, and we were making controversial statements, I never looked at Garfield.

1:15:50

Jimmy: Garfield was blank to me. Jimmy: It just whatever.

1:15:54

Harold: When did you first see Garfield, do you think? Harold: Was it like right when it came out or it was a while before it came into your world?

1:16:01

Jimmy: It made so little impact on me, I don't even remember.

1:16:04

Jimmy: By 1985, well, it was only in the paper we didn't get to.

1:16:10

Jimmy: There were actually two papers in the Gerard Valeri at that time, if you can believe it, and it was in the one we didn't get.

1:16:15

Harold: The first Garfield book, which I think may be called like the Garfield Treasury or something, to me is a revelation if you've only seen the more modern versions of it.

1:16:25

Harold: It just shows you where he was coming from, and he does kind of homogenize it, really homogenizes it over time, but that early stuff, I mean, I can see why it became a sensation, but there are a lot of people that never experienced that version of it that then, once it was getting popular, is when he kind of settled into this space that we know so well as Garfield.

1:16:47

Jimmy: That brings us up to old BC. Jimmy: Now, BC is about a caveman, drawn by Johnny Hart, who was also involved in a strip called The Wizard of Id.

1:16:57

Jimmy: And in this one, our caveman, named BC, is riding along on what looks like some sort of self-powered unicycle that he's invented out of a stone wheel.

1:17:08

Jimmy: And then he's zipping along, and in panel two, screech.

1:17:11

Jimmy: He screeches to a halt because he has seen something off panel.

1:17:16

Jimmy: And then in the last panel, we see he has reversed direction and is going back the way he came, because he has seen a sign that says, no studs past this point.

1:17:25

Harold: Now, how many of us guys have picked up a stud finder and made the joke?

1:17:34

Jimmy: Of course. Harold: Turn the thing on. Michael: Yeah, this doesn't work.

1:17:39

Jimmy: But what I don't understand is, what's a...

1:17:42

Harold: That would be like a tire stud. Michael: Yeah, it took me a while to figure this out, but not a good gag.

1:17:48

Michael: I mean, this guy's been doing this for 30 years, and there was no character development.

1:17:54

Michael: It was still my second favorite strip after Peanuts in the 60s.

1:17:59

Michael: You didn't even know... Michael: Is that his name?

1:18:02

Michael: I mean, you didn't even know his name. Jimmy: Yeah. Jimmy: Yeah, it's BC.

1:18:05

Harold: Yeah, nice art style. Harold: It's very loose.

1:18:08

Harold: Even the panels are obviously hand drawn.

1:18:11

Harold: So it's got this kind of rough handmade feel that I think was also pretty edgy in its time.

1:18:18

Harold: And I think it started in the late 50s.

1:18:22

Harold: And yeah, he was pretty consistent with gags.

1:18:25

Harold: I have, I think, also the very first BC collection.

1:18:29

Harold: And reading through that, it was consistently well done.

1:18:33

Harold: I mean, it had an attitude to it.

1:18:36

Harold: I mean, there was some snark in it that you didn't really see much in newspaper strips.

1:18:42

Harold: I think he was kind of the first one to introduce the half-opened eye snarky character.

1:18:49

Harold: I attribute that to him. Harold: I don't know if there was someone before him that really was really big in that area.

1:18:54

Harold: But that's what I think it was. Michael: Yeah, I can't really remember why I liked it so much.

1:18:57

Michael: And was it a bled? Michael: But it just brings back...

1:19:00

Harold: I think it looks good. Michael: Yeah, it looks good. Michael: And it doesn't seem to have changed very much graphically since the 60s.

1:19:07

Harold: Yeah. Harold: Yeah, he's pretty consistent. Harold: I mean, that looks pretty close to the late 50s version.

1:19:13

Michael: Oh, I had to put a Nancy in. Michael: I'm sorry, but...

1:19:17

Michael: Oh, yeah. Jimmy: Here's Nancy by good old Ernie Bushmiller.

1:19:22

Jimmy: Some cartoonists will tell you he is great.

1:19:25

Jimmy: So here it is. Jimmy: Nancy is reading a book.

1:19:28

Jimmy: And she says, Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

1:19:33

Jimmy: Then in panel three, we reveal that there's actually been a Christmas tree there the whole time.

1:19:37

Jimmy: We just haven't seen it. Jimmy: Nancy says, Come to think of it, a poor little mouse doesn't have much fun.

1:19:44

Jimmy: And then in the fourth panel, we see a little mouse peeking out of a classic mouse hole in the baseboard of a house, like Tom and Jerry cartoons.

1:19:54

Jimmy: And Nancy has placed her magically appearing small Christmas tree next to the hole along with a piece of Swiss cheese that says, Merry Christmas.

1:20:06

Jimmy: And the mouse is confused by this. Jimmy: I love Ernie Bush Miller now.

1:20:11

Jimmy: I'm sold. Jimmy: I get it. Jimmy: You get it?

1:20:13

Michael: No, it's the anti-peanuts. Michael: If you put them together, they'd like both destroy each other.

1:20:21

Jimmy: No, why do you think it's the anti-peanuts?

1:20:26

Michael: It's so static, and there's no emotions, and she has no personality.

1:20:33

Michael: But it's funny, in the last few months, I've stumbled on some early Nancy strips from the late 40s, which are actually funny.

1:20:42

Michael: Yeah, and it's totally unfunny.

1:20:46

Jimmy: Imagine if Nancy puts that book down, and look at that arm that she's got.

1:20:50

Jimmy: Imagine the size of that arm and what lurks beneath this panel.

1:20:56

Jimmy: I truly think this character is a nightmare-inducing monster.

1:21:02

Jimmy: I would rather eyes touching and no eyes, or no nose, than this line.

1:21:09

Jimmy: This looks like an alien attempting to document humanity.

1:21:16

Michael: AI could come up with something better, maybe.

1:21:18

Liz: I'm sorry, Todd.

1:21:23

Jimmy: Todd will have. Michael: Is this the same Ernie Bushmiller who did Fritzie Ritz and Nancy back in the 20s?

1:21:31

Michael: How old is this guy? Jimmy: Well, he may have had assistance at this point.

1:21:34

Michael: I don't know. Harold: To be fair, we're looking at 1985 strips.

1:21:38

Harold: When I was looking at this, he got crisper and crisper as he went on.

1:21:42

Harold: And when I was looking at this, I was kind of scratching my head.

1:21:44

Jimmy: Oh, this is old. Harold: Yeah, this is old. Harold: This is not 1985.

1:21:48

Jimmy: It's 1965. Michael: It says December 25th.

1:21:54

Michael: Oh, this is an old one. Michael: Because I unherited it.

1:21:58

Michael: It said it was 83 or 85.

1:22:01

Michael: Yeah. Harold: And to his credit, I couldn't read if this is 45 or 65.

1:22:06

Harold: If it's 65. Harold: As he went on, I think this is what some people absolutely love about his artwork.

1:22:13

Harold: It's so incredibly crisp and iconic in its storytelling.

1:22:19

Harold: And when I was looking at this, I'm like, this is not the essay I remember reading in the 80s.

1:22:23

Harold: And there's certain things he's doing here that he won't do later.

1:22:26

Harold: Like, for some reason, the second and third panels do not have the full line, you know, the full gap of space in between the panels.

1:22:34

Harold: He just draws a line between them. Harold: I don't think he would have done doing that in the 80s.

1:22:41

Harold: I can't remember when he stopped. Harold: I might be...

1:22:43

Jimmy: And just like the idea, like, oh, where does the copyright go?

1:22:46

Jimmy: Well, how about right over the main character?

1:22:48

Harold: And the lettering got better as he went.

1:22:51

Harold: This looks a little bit rougher than the Nancy I know.

1:22:55

Harold: So, I mean, I give him points for that just, I don't even know what you call it, but that iconic, crisp art in the later era because he, I think he said and Todd and others who know Nancy and have written essays and things about Nancy, he's going for something that's so simple and so pristine and so accessible.

1:23:22

Harold: I think he was well aware that this was probably the easiest strip to read on the page.

1:23:29

Jimmy: The famous quote is that it was harder to not read Nancy than it was to read Nancy.

1:23:36

Harold: Yeah, so if a three-year-old was being introduced to the newspaper page, I think Bushmiller had taken on himself that he was going to create the first strip that a child could understand, let's say.

1:23:46

Harold: Hats off to him for that. Jimmy: You know who it reminds me of?

1:23:49

Jimmy: Reading Nancy is like every conversation I have at comic book conventions.

1:23:55

Jimmy: No, like it feels like an artificial simulation of a legitimate piece of communication.

1:24:03

Jimmy: It causes me physical pain.

1:24:07

Harold: I see where you're coming from on that. Harold: But yeah, I am interested in those people who have really adopted Nancy in recent years.

1:24:18

Jimmy: So we're going to wrap it up by looking at December 3rd, 1985, which is Peanuts.

1:24:23

Jimmy: And it's Sally and Snoopy's strip. Jimmy: And this is how we'll bring our season to a conclusion.

1:24:28

Jimmy: So Sally is writing a letter to Santa. Jimmy: She says, Dear Santa Claus, I saw a recent picture of you in a magazine.

1:24:34

Jimmy: You look fatter than ever. Jimmy: She continues, I know how you usually fly through the air with your reindeer and sleigh.

1:24:42

Jimmy: In the last panel, she says, I'll be surprised this year if we even get off the ground.

1:24:47

Jimmy: To which Snoopy, who has been watching this whole thing, just has a ridiculously happy smile on his face.

1:24:52

Michael: That's a weird little expression for Snoopy. Michael: I haven't seen that before.

1:24:56

Michael: He doesn't really look like he's happy.

1:24:58

Michael: I mean, he's smiling, but anyway, I think he got a kick out of Sally.

1:25:04

Harold: Yeah, I mean, to me, these strips about characters being fat are Schulz at his most callous and insensitive.

1:25:11

Harold: I don't think it dates well. Jimmy: It sure doesn't date well these days.

1:25:14

Harold: The show Snoopy approving of Sally is Schulz's way of saying, no, I mean this.

1:25:23

Harold: I do not like it when people are fat. Harold: That's not a good thing.

1:25:27

Harold: And he's done it before we've seen it in previous years.

1:25:30

Harold: And of course, we've been saying he's been super conscious.

1:25:33

Harold: He's super active. Harold: He's a very fit guy himself in terms of sports and activities.

1:25:38

Harold: He's created an ice rink in his community. Harold: He's all about fitness.

1:25:42

Harold: And he will take a pretty mean dig.

1:25:46

Harold: And the fact that, I mean, if it was just Sally, it could be, okay, Sally's a little, you know, she's a little, she's not totally on top of what's appropriate to say.

1:25:57

Harold: But with Snoopy, that big smile, that's, to me, that's just a twist of the knife that Schulz is putting in there.

1:26:03

Michael: He never did introduce a fat character.

1:26:05

Michael: I mean, there was a few beanbag strips.

1:26:09

Michael: Yeah, but it was a short gag.

1:26:12

Michael: He never had a permanent character. Harold: Yeah, although you could say Snoopy's a fat character.

1:26:16

Harold: I think that's fair to say. Harold: But obviously, Snoopy doesn't think so if he's, necessarily, if he's enjoying what he's writing.

1:26:25

Jimmy: When David Letterman retired, Jerry Seinfeld came on and did stand-up, and he did the first stand-up he ever did on Letterman, which was about the fattest man in the world.

1:26:34

Jimmy: He's 1,200 pounds, ladies and gentlemen.

1:26:37

Jimmy: The man has let himself go. Jimmy: He's like, what do you do if he loses 400 pounds?

1:26:41

Jimmy: Say, wow, you're really looking great. Jimmy: And after the interview, after the stand-up set, he sat down and Dave said, oh, that's great.

1:26:48

Jimmy: It still holds up today. Jimmy: And Jerry goes, no, it doesn't.

1:26:51

Harold: Well, it makes me think of the Joan Rivers era when she was attacking Elizabeth Taylor for being bad.

1:26:58

Harold: It just kind of has that, that why is it this pallously just pushing in your face?

1:27:05

Harold: It's just like, this is something that genuinely bothers Schulz about people.

1:27:09

Harold: And he's got to say something. Harold: That's the sense I get.

1:27:12

Harold: And he usually doesn't do that sort of thing. Harold: He's usually very, he identifies with the character who's in pain or falling short.

1:27:20

Harold: But not in this case. Jimmy: No, what's great about that, though, is the fact that he's a person, like a real person with, like this is drawn by a human being who is saying some things.

1:27:32

Jimmy: And sometimes he's going to say things that we don't agree with, right?

1:27:36

Jimmy: Or not just don't agree with, but that it doesn't work.

1:27:39

Jimmy: But it feels still true to him.

1:27:41

Jimmy: And I think as long as that, as long as it's 90-10, positive to negative, I think you're good.

1:27:47

Jimmy: I think it's a little seasoning. Jimmy: I think what happened when it gets to like Al Cap, or like where you're saying, like the Joan Rivers thing, when it's just an unrelenting mockery, it's like, you know, take it back down a notch.

1:28:01

Harold: Yeah, yeah. Jimmy: Unless it's Ernie Bushmiller, then he's got it coming.

1:28:08

Jimmy: Oh, listen, thank you all for listening to us talk for another whatever it was, six, seven hours.

1:28:15

Jimmy: I really appreciate it. Jimmy: You guys are growing in bigger numbers every week.

1:28:20

Jimmy: I'd love to see that. Jimmy: Please keep writing.

1:28:23

Jimmy: We love to hear from you. Jimmy: And like I say, I worry when I don't hear.

1:28:27

Jimmy: So if you want to keep this conversation going, email us through unpackingpeanuts.gmail.com.

1:28:33

Jimmy: Follow us on social media. Jimmy: Liz will give you the info at the end there.

1:28:37

Jimmy: OK, so we are going to go on spring break where we're going to take a couple of weeks off, right?

1:28:42

Jimmy: And then we're going to come back with, what is it, 1950?

1:28:45

Liz: We're doing alternating weeks. Liz: We're going to be off a week, on a week, off on a week, off whatever.

1:28:51

Jimmy: There you go. Jimmy: We're alternating weeks. Jimmy: You'd think I'd know that.

1:28:54

Jimmy: I know I signed off on that at some point, but some days everything's new to me.

1:28:58

Jimmy: OK, so that's what we're going to do.

1:29:01

Jimmy: Come back when we're back. Jimmy: We'll be diving into the second half of the 80s.

1:29:05

Jimmy: And until then, from Michael, Harold and Liz, I'm Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

1:29:09

Liz: Yes, be of good cheer.

1:29:12

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

1:29:17

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

1:29:21

Liz: Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.

1:29:24

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

1:29:28

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

1:29:32

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

1:29:37

Liz: Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

1:29:40

Jimmy: A who's who of who? Liz: Who?