Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts. We're talking about 1974 today. We are just just almost at the halfway point in this magnum opus, and I'm excited to be here today talking to you about it. I'm Jimmy Gownley. I'm your host for these proceedings. You might also know me as the cartoonist behind Amelia Rules, The Dumbest Idea Ever, and Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up.
Joining me, as always, are my pals co hosts and fellow cartoonists. He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast. He's the original editor of Amelia Rules, the, co creator of the original Comic Book Price Guide, and the current creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells, and Tangled River. It's Michael Cohen.
Michael: Say hey. I almost said hey there.
Jimmy: And, he is an executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics, and the creator of the instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts. It's Harold Buchholz.
Harold: Who me?
Jimmy: It is. So, guys, we have read a lot of comic strips.
Harold: You're not kidding.
Jimmy: How many are we at? That like 8000 somewhere.
Michael: We are at the halfway point. Almost exactly.
Jimmy: Almost exactly.
Harold: Amazing.
Jimmy: That is insane. I want to say the thing that has really struck me, thinking about all these strips and this massive time period, we're in 1974 now, right? So, like, last year in 1973, the biggest movie in the world, or one of the biggest movies anyway, was American Graffiti. And now we're talking about a, decade that has Happy Days on the horizon or actually on the air right now, becoming a phenomenon.
Harold: I think it was 74 with Happy Days. Was 74 with Happy Days and 73 with American Graffiti.
Jimmy: Yeah, well, definitely 73 with American Graffiti. So I think it might have been 74, 75 with Happy Days. But the point being, we're now in the middle of a, trend in the is retro 50s, but it's still actually referencing things that Peanuts predates, okay? Like Happy Days and American Graffiti are the late 50s, very early 60s. Peanuts started in 1950. It is such an unbelievable accomplishment to stay in the zeitgeist for so long when so much has changing. And I really feel like we've sort of forgotten how hard a job it is to be a daily cartoonist. And it's sort of sad that so many of them are not even thought about at all. I mean, there's very few podcasts that are going through daily comic strips anymore, but, what an accomplishment.
Harold: Steve Roper is probably the notable exception.
Jimmy: Well, that's my well, all right, spoiler alert here. We are starting Roper cast. It's the only podcast that's about Steve Roper and the TV show The Ropers.
Harold: And absolutely no Mike Nomad ever. It’s off limits.
Jimmy: So, look for that later this summer. But anyway yeah, you know what I'm saying? It's a huge accomplishment, not just for Schulz, but anyone who's doing this, is an enormously difficult job to have.
Harold: Yeah. And how he's grown into it is phenomenal to this this year in particular, I just feel like he just feels looser and freer in what he's doing. More than we've ever seen. There was always kind of a stiffness and formality originally, and he's just kind of in this particular zone that, we haven't seen yet. And, at least that's the way I'm interpreting this year.
Jimmy: Yeah, it feels like the last few years have been a transition period, and now we're into a new sort of I don't know if plateau is the right word, but a new sort of zone. That's how it feels, to me.
All right. So, Michael, what do you think about the strips of 1974?
Michael: it's definitely drifted into a new terrain. The change is very subtle. I mean, it's a little hard to pinpoint when and where the shifts came. I think these 70s strips certainly have a different feel than the 60s strips, and there's no confusing them, but it's just like Snoopy's evolution from a puppy. And through all these different phases of Snoopy's life, you don't see the changes as you're reading them, but they happen pretty fast. And so, yeah, I feel a little nostalgia for the old days, but, trying to keep an open mind on this stuff. This modern stuff from 1974.
Jimmy: a lot of end of the world stuff. Both there was some last year, there's some this year, and there's going to be even more next year. So I'm curious as to what that's all about.
Michael: well, nuclear war was still hovering over us.
Jimmy: Yeah, for sure. Well, I enjoyed the year. I think it's been my favorite probably since the late 60s. What are you guys feeling about-- here's my question then. Okay. We are in a new era. We have many new characters from where we started out, different types of values in the storytelling and whatever. How do you guys feel now, seeing, let's say, those classic four characters versus how they were maybe in the late 50s or mid 60s or something like that? What do you think is the difference between Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy?
Harold: Charlie Brown seems about the most balanced character now, which is that's a huge change. He's still dealing with that sense of doom and defeat and always, never giving up. But that's pretty remarkable. I was just looking at this year with Charlie Brown, and he's like this anchor, like this anchor for this strip that's kind of going off in all these crazy places. And that's different to me than the Charlie Brown before. He certainly was at the center of things, but it just seems like this I'm not trying to think of the right word, but he's giving some sort of, a, steadiness to the strip that I really appreciate, given all of the amazing, crazy, sometimes totally surreal places Schulz has taken this.
Jimmy: Absolutely. What do you think, Michael?
Michael: I think Lucy is the one who's changed the least. She might be occasionally a little nicer, but she's still nice and nasty. And I appreciate that. I mean, it looks like Schulz is not quite sure where to go with Linus at this point. And so I think Rerun might be a reflection of that, that he wants a Linus-like character who's not Linus. Maybe he's played out all his ideas for Linus.
Jimmy: Um hmm
Michael: Yeah. I mean, there's no more Big Four. I mean, the rule was for our listeners is that those four characters were at least one of them, was in every strip and there were very few exceptions to that. There might have been one Schroeder solo strip, but essentially Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus and Lucy one of them or combinations of them were in every single strip. And that's no longer the case.
Jimmy: With that out of the way, all that prelude, how about we, get into the strip? Oh, no, before we get into the strips, there's other things we need to do. Hey, we got some more listener comments and reaction. So that's good. one is, through YouTube. Okay, so this is from, Puey McCleary, who writes “okay, I thought I was the only one using Chat GPT for Peanuts-related nonsense.” Oh, this is, in reference to me having concocted a few strips.
Harold: Now, Chat GPT at this point is not able to send out its own messages to people, right?
Liz: we don't know that,
Jimmy: “so okay. I asked the chat a bunch of questions and it kept telling me that the little red haired girl's name was Marcia or something like that. I told the Chat that she's called Heather in the television special. So if in the future Chat calls her Heather, it may be my fault.”
We also got a text through the peanut hot line. Hey, Liz, what's that Peanuts hot line number?
Liz: That number again is 717-219-4162.
Jimmy: Now, if you call that, you leave a message. You can do that, but you could also just text it, right? Now if you do text it. This is what happened with our next, correspondent. They didn't tell me what their name is, so I'm not going to say someone's phone number out there. So if you want credit for this, whoever you are, just text back and give me your name. But this is the question for you guys. Are you ready?
Michael: Yeah.
Jimmy: What's the second most fascinating pen nib.
Harold: The second most fascinating pen nib?
Jimmy: You guys have a question? I'd go with the Hunt 102.
Harold: I’d say the turkey quill.
Jimmy: Ever ink with one of those Hawk Quill pens?
Harold: With the Tony Hawk? Limited edition or limited edition? Yeah, I have not.
Jimmy: Michael, do you have a pick for a second most fascinating pen nib?
Michael: It's probably been 20 years since I used a pen nib.
Jimmy: Doesn’t mean you're not fascinated by them.
Harold: Was there, like, a 1290 that was super flexible that had, like, a curved tip to it? Did you ever use that one?
Jimmy: Oh, I don't know the number, but I do know what you're talking about. That had, like a brass, rather than the steel.
Harold: It was super flexible. it was like, the one pen nib I even had a ghost of a chance working with because it wouldn't dig into the paper and spray everything the way Charlie Brown would always do when he's practicing his penmanship.
Jimmy: Well, I just have two things to say about that. One thing I find that hard for me to personally understand, because those pen nibs were much more difficult for me, because what I would do, because it had that flex, I would get the big blob of ink well, and the stiff Hunt 102 took my roughness a lot easier.
Harold: So what did you do with your Hunt 102? What did you draw with the Hunt 102? Because I know you used it quite a bit.
Jimmy: Yeah, a lot of Amelia. Actually, no, most of Amelia was the 512. That was the early stuff, which was me trying to find something that was similar to the 914. And then the rest of it was that magic zebra brush pen. But for--
Harold: you really were looking for the same kind of line you were seeing in Schulz's work.
Jimmy: What I was looking for was something that I could draw quickly with, and I thought that was a good way to go, because obviously he was doing that. But then when I switched all of the Shades of Gray stuff, and then all of Dumbest Idea and all of Seven Good Reasons were done with a crow quill with the Hunt 102.
Harold: Did you find it fast? Did you find that a fast--?
Jimmy: No. God.
Harold: Okay. Yeah, I was wondering yeah, I had such little luck with dip pens. I got a whole rapidograph set when I was a little I was a teenager, I was like, oh, this is exciting. I don't think I ever once got the thing to work
Jimmy: Rapidographs. If you're not cleaning constantly, they are so finicky.
Harold: But I just bought the thing. Was there some trick you're supposed to run some solvent through it or something? I was just terrible. now, I did go into the brush and did a lot of stuff with brush and found that much easier than pen nibs. And brushes is not easy.
Jimmy: Yeah. Brushes I find harder. But the second thing I just wanted to say was, other than telling you about my second favorite pen nib is I love the fact that this was a sarcastic question--
Liz: And still we talk about it for 15 minutes.
Jimmy: Easily.
Harold: I don't know that that was sarcastic. I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt.
Jimmy: All right, so whoever you are out there, well done. All right, so let's get to--
Harold: I got one. Our friend Joshua Stauffer had sent us a question. He says, I don't know how many people have asked already, but what happened to the voting page on the website? Has voting for the Strip of the Year been discontinued?
Jimmy: As we move into the 21st century, we, like many leaders around the world, find voting to be inconvenient to our needs and ends. So we've eliminated it,
Michael: but it's fixed anyway.
Jimmy: Yeah, nobody was into voting, really. That's what happened there. Nobody was into it. So you know what? Too bad. You don't want to use it. We'll take it away.
Harold: Golly. Wow.
Liz: Joshua, you can continue to tell us your opinion.
Jimmy: That's right.
Michael: Sure.
Harold: People can hotline us or message us, and if they want to give their, two cents after we go through the.
Michael: and if you're the only voter, then you win every time.
Harold: That's right. 100% of the vote goes to…
Jimmy: What I would say, is that we would love to hear from you guys in any way you can. So if you want to do that, you can go to the old Unpacking Peanuts website and where you can't vote, you can email us a letter. A letter? Yes. That's what you email these days, a letter. And we'll answer your questions right here on the air. Or you could follow us on social media. We're at UnpackPeanuts on Instagram and Twitter. We're UnpackingPeanuts on Facebook.
So, yeah, especially as we get into these. The second half of the strip is I'm the only one who's read all of it. And I've only read all of it really once, maybe twice, but I think just all of it, I could just say for sure once. So if some of this stuff is your stuff, the stuff you loved and read a thousand times, like we did the earlier stuff, we want to hear from you. Let us know what we should be covering, and then what it means to you. So while you're doing that, we're going to start on the strips.
Now, if you want to follow us week by week, what strips we're going to be covering, what you can do is you can go on to, what is known as the World Wide Web. You could find these discs around. They're, AOL. You put it in there, that'll get you on the World Wide Web. Then you find a place called GoComics.com and type in Peanuts and 1974. And that's how you'll be able to follow along with us. Now, if you want to know exactly what strips we're talking about ahead of time, then you can sign up at our website for the great Peanuts reread. And, my good pal Harold Buchholz will send you a little newsletter once a month, letting you know what strips we're going to be covering in advance.
Liz: Let me interrupt for a second. If they lose their newsletters, the newsletter is posted on the website.
Jimmy: Oh, how about that? I learned that. I didn't even know that. So there you go. So you can even get caught up on your old newsletters. This is great. Are we a full service podcast or what? We do our best. All right, so with all that out of the way, let's hit it. 1974.
Harold: Now, I would like to say at the very first strip this year is a rare self referential strip.
Jimmy: yes, and it is a Peanuts obscurity. Let's just say we didn't pick this strip, but go for it. Explain it, Harold.
Harold: Well, it's basically Lucy, and Linus are at their TV set, and they are watching, the Rose Parade. And the question comes up, who is the grand marshal? And the reply is, nobody you've ever heard of. Well, the grand marshal of the parade was Charles Schulz. So Amy, was there with him as well. The theme of the Rose Parade was Happiness Is. So Schulz obviously knew he was going to do this quite a bit in advance. So he was able to hit on January 1, that strip, if they were getting the morning paper, they might be reading that while they had the Rose Parade on. And Charles Schulz was waving at everybody. So that was pretty, cool. And in a weird way, it reminds me of that very last strip he did, that, Sunday strip he did with some help, because, he was so ill. And basically, he's talking directly to the readers through Snoopy, visually. But, yeah, the idea that, you always say Schulz is a character in the strip, Jimmy, here we are with, him inserting his existence into their world, which I think is pretty cool.
Jimmy: Oh, very much. And that brings us all the way here to January 2. This is fun. To me, this is a conversation between Harold, and me and Michael.
So Linus is talking to Snoopy and Woodstock, who are hiding under a sack, because they believe the world is coming, to an end, because the comic Kohoutek is flying by. Linus says, “Tell me something. If the world comes to an end, what good will it do to have a sack over your head?” Then he calmly walks away, leaving Woodstock and Snoopy to contemplate this question. Then in the last panel, Snoopy thinks, “I hate questions like that.”
Michael: Schulz really has sacks on his mind doesn’t he?
Jimmy: He's obsessed with sacks. Nothing but sacks. Boy, the two of you, last year, Harold's talking about bushes. Now he's obsessed with sacks. This is just taking a dark turn. It's Unpacking Peanuts after dark.
Harold: There's so much stylistically interesting in this strip to me, because you've got this kind of it looks like the Charlie Brown sheet over his head at Halloween, except we can see the eyes instead of just the black holes in the two little pupils. And looking at Linus, it's really, really cute. And this little side hump for Woodstock.
Michael: I don't think a paper sack would bend like that.
Jimmy: Well, does it have to be a paper sack? It doesn't say it's a paper sack. It could be a flower sack.
Harold: Could be a gullycat sack.
Liz: A pillowcase
Jimmy: Yeah, it's a pillowcase.
Harold: Pillowcase sack. Yeah. I love that. The eyes, Woodstock's eyes are almost as big as Snoopy's eyes. I think that's hilarious. I love that Linus asks the question of them and then leaves. Not asking for answer.
Jimmy: It was a rhetorical question.
Harold: It was great when Snoopy turns away from where Linus was. I love that Woodstock, to help the design, switches over to his other side, so it's visually more appealing. So there's a, lot of artistic choices here that are not obvious, but you just accept them. But it makes for a great strip. And it's Schulz's mastery of knowing what you can do in visual storytelling.
Jimmy: Absolutely.
January 13. Snoopy is floating alone through the cosmos in panel two, in an abstract, first panel. Panel two, he's just lying on the side of his doghouse rather than the top, sighing. Then at the start of the strip proper on tier two, he's leaning up against his dog house and he thinks, “my life has no meaning.” Now he's on top of the doghouse, stressing. “Everything seems empty.” Now he's perusing his books and he thinks, “even my bunny books seem meaningless.”
Harold: Oh, no.
“I searched the skies, but I can find no meaning.” Then he lies on top of the dog house and sighs. But then in the next to the last panel, the penultimate panel, if you will, something attracts his attention. He hears something coming. And then in the last panel, we see it is, in fact, Charlie Brown bringing his dog dish of food. And Snoopy says, “Ah, meaning”
Michael: Here's the weird thing. I can totally accept him lying on the top of the doghouse and typing or having a little bird with a typewriter on top of the dog house. I cannot accept him lying on the side of the roof and not slide off. He will slide off.
Harold: I think that little patch on his back is velcro.
Michael: It's got to be.
Liz: Now you understand what I was thinking.
Michael: Yeah, but our roof was not this steep.
Jimmy: Michael, you used to go sit out on your roof.
Michael: Well, during, the COVID when we were all locked down. Yeah. I’d go up on the roof. I need some sun.
Jimmy: Was it on an angle?
Michael: Yeah, but nothing like that.
Liz: Yes.
Harold: Liz, were you concerned for Michael?
Michael: There was no way I could have slid off. But this angle. Yeah.
January 21. So now we have good old Rerun making, some of his earliest appearances, in this sequence he is-- And this is actually one of my favorites. I always loved this when I was little. Rerun is riding on the back of his mom's bike. So that's what our sequence is. And in this one, Charlie Brown and Linus are watching this unfold, and Charlie Brown says, “is that your brother Rerun riding on the back of your mother's bicycle?” Linus says, “uh huh. She takes him wherever she goes.” They watch off panel as the bike speeds by, presumably. “She says, riding a bike is such good exercise that she's already lost three pounds.” Then in the last panel, we see Rerun in his stocking hat with it flying behind him, saying, and through sheer terror, “I've lost five.”
Michael: I would have preferred that to be a thought balloon. I don't think when Linus was that age, if he was actually talking, he was, I think, just thinking.
Harold: That's an interesting thought. Why do you think he has him speaking rather than--
Michael: I don't know.
Harold: Of course, the fact that--
Jimmy: Nuthin’s as good as it used to be
Michael: That’s true
Jimmy: It used to be a thought balloon!
Michael: when I was a kid, there were thought balloons.
Jimmy: Now it’s all willy nilly.
Harold: Well, and it's also that Schulz surreality of a character knowing what another character is saying when they probably couldn't hear them. We accept it.
Jimmy: This was animated in the Charlie Brown and Snoopy show in the mid to, the early mid eighties. I think it was like 83, 84 or something like that. And they did a really good job with these sequences, especially this next one, which always cracked me up.
January 24. Rerun still on the back of the bike, and we can see just the very hint of his mom's jacket in front of him. And Rerun says, “here we go again. Out of the garage and full speed ahead. Today it's a welfare league and a church breakfast. Then it's the League of Women Voters, followed by a visit to the library. From there we go to the hairdressers and the supermarket and then a rousing meeting of the PTA. Considering I don't do anything, I lead a very active life.”
Jimmy: That's, a line that has found its way into my life over the years. Considering I don't do anything, I lead a very active life.
Michael: we have to consider how weird the Van Pelt parents are.
Jimmy: They are deeply weird. Get into it.
Michael: Well do people put little babies on the backseat and go…
Harold: yeah.
Jimmy: Oh, God. That was a regular 70s occurrence.
Harold: That was a thing. My dad had it on the back of his bike and would ride us around.
Jimmy: My friend Jackie Swarehart had to have it on his bike as a kid because he was responsible for lugging his sister Heather around everywhere he went.
Harold: Oh, wow.
Michael: So I never experienced this riding in the back of a bike.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Well, going back and looking at that January 21 strip, we see the profile of Linus looking the same direction as the profile of Rerun. And they are pretty much indistinguishable, except that they're wearing different hats. And I kind of missed these strips. I don't remember reading them in the paper. I would have been, about seven, eight years old.
Jimmy: You were more in the financial section at that point.
Harold: Yeah, I was trying to see how technicolor was doing in the stock market. So when I would engage with a strip, say, from January 24, someone had posted I think I said this before someone had posted in our art department at college, had posted one of these strips with I thought it was Linus.
Jimmy: Oh, wow.
Harold: Because if you don't have Linus in the strip, he looks just like Linus. So I thought he was in the back seat, and I didn't realize that Rerun was in the comics.
Jimmy: Interesting. He never quite-- He's always kind of playing around with the Rerun design in a way that it's not necessarily evolving like the other characters do. It feels a little bit like he's looking for it, really until the 90s.
Harold: Well, you would think it might be the other way around, but maybe not. But yeah, the fact that he chooses to make him look so much like Linus, obviously he's a family member. You'd expect they would have similarities. And with wearing the hat, he's removed the possibility of doing something different with the hair. yeah. So yeah, it's just weird that this is some bizarre version of Peanuts that I didn't experience where I thought I just totally mistook a character for years, thinking it was somebody I knew.
Jimmy: Very strange.
February 14. This is going to be something that happens more and more. And it's already been happening, but, we're coming in here in the middle of another sequence. In this sequence, Peppermint Patty has decided that the key to her success as a student will be handing in a nice typed report. And rather than, typing it herself, because she doesn't have a typewriter, she gets her pal Snoopy to do it. And Snoopy, unfortunately, just types a typing exercise out for her for some reason. And in this instance, Peppermint Patty has already got the bad grade. And now she is coming to confront Snoopy. Snoopy, who is sitting up on top of his doghouse with his typewriter.
Michael: Totally reasonable.
Jimmy: Totally reasonable.
Harold: No troubles here.
Jimmy: No, physics are okay.
And, Peppermint Patty comes up and says, “what kind of a typist are you? You didn't type what I wrote at all. You've ruined me. I got a failing grade. That was supposed to be my term paper.” Snoopy thinks, “poor lass. She seems strangely disturbed.” Patty is very disturbed and is ranting. “I'm ruined.”Then Snoopy says, “probably an unfortunate love affair or something.”
Jimmy: I love that Snoopy goes into his fantasies whenever something like this happens.
Harold: He's just blocking everything.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Wonder why he didn't do Valentine's Day there.
Harold: Well, the unfortunate love affair is in there.
Michael: Possibly. Has he consistently been doing Valentine's Days?
Jimmy: I don’t know. Listen to the podcast.
Michael: Well, we don't always pick it. Yeah, I mean, I read it, but I don't remember.
Jimmy: Well, obviously, if he's in the middle of a story, he's not going to stop, to do Valentine's Day for-- here's something for you, Michael.
Michael: Yes.
February 16. Woodstock and Snoopy are sitting on top of the old dog house. Then Woodstock, they look like Woodstock's thinking. Woodstock says something, question mark. And then Snoopy says, “A pelican?” As we see. Because Woodstock does-- you have to see it. You just got to look at it. He does an imitation of a pelican. Then Snoopy rolls his eyes and says “some of Woodstock's imitations can get pretty gross.” And Woodstock looks delighted at how good he did.
Michael: And Snoopy's jealous, obviously. I mean, that's vulture quality.
Harold: And the irony is he was going for Jay Leno.
Jimmy: It's really Jay Leno, isn't it? Wow.
February 20. Woodstock is saying something to Snoopy and it's a question. And then the next panel we see Snoopy reiterating. what the question is, “Who was the pilot of the plane that took Ronald Coleman to Shangri La and Lost Horizon?” Snoopy says, “good grief.” Then last panel, he thinks “I should know better than to play trivia with Woodstock.”
Harold: Woodstock has that big satisfied smile again.
Jimmy: I love that. Woodstock is apparently a trivia expert.
Harold: Yeah, right. I don't know how he's getting all his information, but that's pretty cool. It's also very cool. Two of my favorite things come together in this strip.
VO: Peanuts Obscurities Explained
Harold: because he's referring to a Frank Capra directed movie from 1937 Lost Horizon, which is based on James Hilton novel. So this I would include as a Peanuts obscurity in a way. Some, people would not know what this is referring to. But yeah, it was a 1937 film. I just watched it actually, like in the last few months. It's a great movie. And, the pilot, his name is Talu and he's a monk in the monastery who steals a plane to get Ronald Coleman to Shangri la. So that's the answer to Woodstock's trivia question. But I had to look it up because that is a really tough trivia question.
Jimmy: Never play trivia with Harold Buchholz
Harold: No, that one he, would have gotten me in that. I don't even think they name the character in the movie. So that's really dirty pool Woodstock.
Jimmy: Hey, just for our listeners out there, a lot of times I'll say something like, hey, Harold, what do you know about this random thing that no one would know anything about? And then he can talk about it for like five minutes. I never tell him those things ahead of time. I just spring those on him and. He always seems to know.
Harold: I didn't know this one. Woodstock's really good.
Jimmy: He's really good.
February 22 “Playing trivia with Woodstock could drive you crazy,” thinks, Snoopy. Woodstock asks another very long question, which Snoopy reiterates, “in the movie, Imitation of Life, Claudette Colbert treats someone to a stack of wheats. Who was the actor?” “I give up,” says Snoopy. “Who was it?” Woodstock tweets at him and he says, Snoopy thinks, “I'd forgotten all about Ned Sparks.”
Harold: Ned Spark, who was in also, some other Frank Capra movies, as was Claudette Colbert. So this is pretty cool.
Jimmy: All right. You know how Schulz is ahead of the Zeitgeist, so I picked a couple of he's always just a little bit ahead. So in the beginning of this year, on the second, 3rd, whatever, fourth, he's talking about the End of the World as We Know It, which is an REM song. The End of the World is being brought about by Kohoutek, which is an REM song. Imitation of Life is the first single off REM's 2001 album, Reveal.
Harold: Wow.
Jimmy: So my question is, did Schulz invent alternative rock?
Harold: Wow. That's impressive. Yeah. I thought Kohoutek was some sort of, children's technology organization or something.
Jimmy: What?
Michael: It was a big thing. There's very little news in those days.
Harold: So there are a lot of talk about Kohoutek in 1974.
Michael: Oh, yeah. There was like, doomsday cults.
Harold: Oh, wow.
Jimmy: Well, this is one of the things I do want to talk about next year, because I believe it's 75. He does the whole storyline about the camp. The kids are told the world is ending. And I think that has to do with the, Jehovah's Witness thing. Stay alive till 75. They had predicted the world would end in 75. And, I think Schulz that must have been in his mind, because he's constantly talking about the end of the world in this period.
Michael: Yeah, the end of the world comes every year, doesn't it?
Harold: Does it?
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: All right.
Jimmy: And then we start afresh. It's a beautiful cyclical way of looking at things.
February 23rd. [singing] in the dark days of December-- no, sorry.
February 23. Charlie Brown and Linus are hanging out at the thinking wall. Linus says, “I've decided how I'm going to make my fortune. I think my future lies in sports.” Charlie Brown says, “you think you can make a lot of money by becoming a professional athlete?” Linus says, “no, a knee surgeon.”
Michael: This strikes me as a kind of retro Peanuts. This could have come in just about anywhere in the strip.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: It seems more like a 60s or late 50s strip.
Jimmy: With the only possible caveat being maybe there were more injuries because football was much more popular. And that is definitely a sport where you're getting a lot of knee injuries.
Michael: uh huh.
Jimmy: You, know, football being very popular at this point. But yeah, it definitely does have an original Peanuts vibe.
Michael: Yeah. Plus, Linus was sort of the smart one. So this is actually in character that he'd consider becoming an MD of some sort.
Jimmy: Yeah, because he has mentioned being a doctor in other ones.
Harold: Right.
Jimmy: He's going to be a big, famous doctor that's really humble.
Harold: Did his mom want him to grow up and be a doctor? Was that part of her thing? I don't remember them actually putting the notes in his lunch. I couldn't remember if she ever came out and said, help you be a doctor or a lawyer?
Jimmy: No, I don't think so. But I mean, who knows? Again, what's going on.
Harold: You can be whatever you put your mind to. She was being much more open ended for him. That was nice of her.
Jimmy: Right.
March 8 Snoopy is walking by Lucy, and, Lucy is in her, classic crabby mode. She yells, “you stupid, Beagle. You fat, no good, worthless hound. You flea bitten, good for nothing canine.” She's shaking her fist. Snoopy, walking away, thinks “that's the trouble with being sensitive, even the slightest remark can hurt your feelings.
Michael: He's not fat.
Jimmy: He's getting a little portly there.
Harold: He's just big stomach.
Jimmy: So what do you feel about this design of Snoopy, Michael? Is this, like, foreheads and other parts, included?
Michael: I think it's still closer to the older Snoopy than the soon to come Snoopy.
Harold: It's just such a really nice design. All of these characters just generally look really nice at this point. They definitely look looser. And then he was drawing them certainly earlier. But I kind of like the looseness of the line where he is right now.
Jimmy: Yeah, I think it's great. And that is some classic, Lucy insults. So that's two in a row that we have that are kind of, a bit of a throwback.
Michael: Yeah.
March 13 So now we're in another sequence. So in this sequence, Peppermint Patty has decided school is not for her, and she's going to live the Snoopy life. So she is going to just hang out on the top of, Snoopy's dog house with them. So what we have here is Marcie coming up and trying to put an end to this. So we see Peppermint Patty and Snoopy atop Snoopy's Doghouse. Marcie comes up and says, “now what are you doing, sir?” Peppermint Patty throws her arms around Snoopy, giving him a hug from behind. And she says, “I'm not doing anything, Marcie. I'm just going to sit here for the rest of my life with my old friend Snoopy.” Marcie implores her, “don't do that, sir. Come down. Come down and go to school with me.” Peppermint Patty says “nope.” Then she hugs Snoopy again, saying, “I'm going to stay right here because old Snoop is the only one who understands me.” Snoopy says, “I do?”
Michael: Now, at this point, correct me if I'm wrong, she still thinks he's a boy.
Jimmy: She discovers it in this storyline, though.
Michael: How a boy could have those ears, I don't know.
March 14, our scene continues with Marcie speaking to Peppermint Patty on the doghouse. Marcie says, “sir, please come down and let's go to school. If we hurry, we can still make it to second period.” Peppermint Patty is having none of it, and with the scowl on her face, she says, “I hate second period. Besides, I've already told you I'm going to sit here with Snoopy for the rest of my life. We're just going to sit here and beep each other on the nose,” which she then does BEEP, to which Snoopy thinks, “Thrillsville 74.”
Michael: I will pick any strip with the word thrillsville in it. Now, is this an obscurity? Because when did they start tagging movies with the subtitle of the date?
Harold: Well, it goes back to the 30s, does it? The Gold Diggers of 1936 or whatever. But I think with just putting the year after it, I think, well, there was Airport, right?
Jimmy: Airport 75 or something. Right?
Harold: Yeah. But that was again, he's ahead of his time. Maybe someone saw this and goes, that's the way we need to name these movies going forward. I can't remember a film that just put the year after it until the airport movie. Which was it 75?
Jimmy: Was there 75?
Harold: Airport. There was airport 75. But was there one before that that did a year? I can't remember one. Our listeners probably could, fill us in.
Jimmy: Airport 75, which came out in 1974. I'm just, double checking here. Yeah.
Harold: Because they didn't want the film ever to feel dated. So you have to put the year ahead.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: He might have heard about the production in Variety or something.
Harold: Well, that's true. He was probably getting the trades. He was probably Lee Mendelson's filling him in.
Jimmy: Could just be that it's, him using his old punchline again. And it's 1974 when he's doing it.
Harold: Yeah. And starting a new trend, as usual.
Jimmy: As usual. He's already invented alternative rock, so now he's changing how movies are...
Harold: Isn't that amazing? No, I know this year they said that he did some traveling. He appeared at Comic Con this year in San Diego, which is pretty cool. That would have been amazing.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah. This is like the famous instance where he met Robert Crumb and said, hello, Robert. And Crumb, like, almost lost his mind because he couldn't believe Schulz knew who was.
Harold: That's amazing. He, also goes to Oregon this year to do research for the feature Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, which shows you how far in advance they are working. Because I don't think that movie came out till like, four years.
Jimmy: 77.
Harold: That comes out 3 years later. Yeah. So, that's impressive. So he's doing some traveling because he's kind of been known for a guy who hated travel. So I thought it was interesting that he is traveling. I'm, wondering if Jeannie's going with him as well, but, yeah. I love Marcie's little dejected head in the lower left corner of the last panel. She's just cut off at the chin like she's drowning in this madness.
Jimmy: Now that we've seen Marcie for a few years, what do you guys think of Marcie?
Harold: I like Marcie.
Michael: I like her. She is not doing a whole lot this year.
Jimmy: I like your take on her being slightly neurodivergent.
Michael: I think she is that little blank look at the I mean, not having eyeballs.
Jimmy: Really.
Harold: Yeah. And it's interesting how stoic she can be, but at, other times how actually absolutely animated she can be, not so much happy. Her happiness is she has those moments, but they tend to be smaller moments. But she can get really angry, as we're going to see shortly.
Jimmy: And we saw her beat up old Thibault last year.
Harold: She she warns you when she's going to get angry.
Jimmy: She plans it and she schedules it's. Not she will put up with things to a point, I think, less so than the others. I mean, Charlie Brown would put up with people till he was 90. It would be like, a Back to the Future situation with Biff. But Marcie's like, day two.
Harold: No? Yeah. I am going to become angry on Thursday. That's unique for these characters.
Jimmy: I think so.
March 21. Now, what has happened here is Marcie has been trying to pull Peppermint Patty off the dog house to get her to go to school. And it has destroyed the dog house. So the doghouse is destroyed. Marcie looks at it, she's disheveled. She says, wow. And then from the rubble, Peppermint Patty pops up and says, “all right, Marcie, I hope you're satisfied. You've destroyed Chuck's guest cottage.” We see Snoopy's little feet sticking out from the rubble, and Marcie has had enough. And she says, “it's not a guest cottage, sir, it's a dog house. And Snoopy is not a funny looking kid with a big nose. He's a beagle. When are you going to face up to reality?” Then in the last panel, Peppermint Patty looks at Snoopy's feet sticking out from the rubble and says, “A, beagle?” And Snoopy says, “Woof.”
Michael: How come he's not falling off of the pool table?
Jimmy: That's the basement. That's below there.
Harold: Yeah. I'm concerned about the Van Gogh. Or has that already been burned up? I forget.
Jimmy: Yeah. Now. It's an Andrew Wyeth. That's all in the rec room below. I'm sure there's a door. That's fine.
Harold: Well, it is a “wreck” room there falling apart. (sigh) But I like that Marc--.
Jimmy: I wanted to see how silent I could make it.
Harold: I like how Marcie is laying into reality with Peppermint Patty, but is still calling Peppermint Patty sir while saying it.
Jimmy: I was going to say, that brilliant. Right? Yeah. Because we can always see everybody else's problems, right?
Harold: Yeah. You may know what others don't, but you don't know what you don't know.
Jimmy: Exactly. So, we're going to go back one after that, because I didn't want to interrupt the flow of that sequence.
But March 17 is a Sunday, and we see, there's going to be a show of some sort because there's a curtain perched atop Snoopy's dog house. And then in the next panel, Snoopy has begun the show, and we see what looks like a man with a mustache and a Russian hat. and now there's two little puppets, two different characters that he's waving around. And he continues to do this through all the panels. Charlie Brown and Lucy are watching this show. Lucy says to Charlie Brown, “you know what?” Charlie Brown says, “what?” Now Snoopy even has one on his foot. He actually has a Napoleon puppet on his foot. Lucy says, “6 hours is a long time to stand here.” Charlie Brown says “that's true.” And in the last panel, with Snoopy now balancing four different puppets, Charlie Brown says, “but where else are you going to see War and Peace performed with hand puppets?”
Jimmy: Great drawing of Snoopy doing this with puppets.
Harold: and great drawing of Napoleon.
Jimmy: Oh, my gosh, Napoleon the puppet is a brilliant drawing.
Harold: It makes me think of those Mighty Manfred, the Tom Terrific cartoons, from the early 60s. So they were on Captain Kangaroo.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah. And there's actually a collection, that was created by Gene Deitch, who was a cartoonist and father of Kim Deitch, who a lot of people know.
Michael: You're pronouncing it, right?
Jimmy: Yeah, well, yeah. And, I had German in high school, so I know.
Harold: Me too.
Jimmy: And he created it, Tom Terrific, as a comic strip first called Terrible Thompson. And it ran for just a few months, but you can get the collection of them from Fantagraphics. And it's a really neat. It's that UPA style supermodernist look, but it's a really fun comic strip. Yeah.
Harold: It was done by Terry Toons. Not too far from where I live in New Rochelle.
Jimmy: New York. New Rochelle, home of the Dick Van Dyke characters,.
Harold: You know, New Rochelle claims, Carl and Rob Reiner and Mighty Mouse. I think I like
Michael: and How to Succeed in business without really trying.
Jimmy: Oh, wow. There you go. Everything's coming up New Rochelle
March 31. So Marcie is standing in front of the baseball bench, and she's holding a sign that says, play me, trade me, forget me, who cares? In the next panel, she's looking off panel and says, “oh, no.” And Peppermint Patty comes up, she's holding a bat in her hand, and she tosses Marcie a baseball glove and she says, “guess what, Marcie, I've decided to give you a try at center field this year.” Marcie says, “I don't play baseball, sir.” Peppermint Patty says, “I think you'll be a real natural.” Marcie says, “I hate games. Sir.” Peppermint Patty sends her out to the outfield and says, “why don't you just trot out there on your little Billie Jean King legs, and we'll see what you can do?” Marcie says, “I can't do anything, sir, because I hate baseball.” Peppermint Patty is ignoring it totally, and she is holding the ball and the bat because she's going to hit a few fly balls out to Marcie. She says, “Just remember, Marcie, that winning is everything and losing is nothing.” Marcie says, “I don't agree, sir. Winning just doesn't mean that much to me.” Peppermint Patty hits the fly ball out to her with a mighty swing, saying, “okay, there's a nice high one. Get under it fast and then wing it on home.” Marcie does just that, making what looks like a great play, and says, “I have no interest in getting under it fast and winging it on home.” Then, as she prepares to wing it on home, she yells, “I don't play baseball, sir.” Then in the next panel, she fires at home, actually knocking Peppermint Patty over Charlie Brown style. Peppermint Patty yells, “the job's yours, Marcie. Congratulations.” Then, from the ground, Peppermint Patty looks up and says, “by the way, just because I'm the manager doesn't mean you have to call me sir.” Marcie says, “yes, sir.”
Michael: Sigh. One of Marcie's best moments. Yeah. And I love the fact, I mean, there are people in this world who will not listen to what you're saying, which I encounter all the time. It's like people always say, you should really listen to this obscure blues record. It's great. And I go like, I don't like blues.
Harold: Yeah, well, then, you haven't tried this blues record. I know you hate mashed potatoes, but these mashed potatoes will blow your mind.
Jimmy: Well, Peppermint Patty, that's one of her central, I think, character traits, is that she really will steamroll people, and she in a Snoopy like way, kind of, but maybe more forceful. She really insists on her version of reality.
Harold: Yeah. It's also interesting to me that Marcie, as this newer character, is the counterpoint to this massive amount of sports strips that Schulz has been putting in. I'm guessing he may have gotten a little feedback from people saying, hey, hold back on the sports strips. And he's letting Marcie maybe, be the, avatar for those people.
Jimmy: Yeah, it was almost how many was it last year? Well over a hundred, right?
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: Oh, yeah. It's serious major league sport here all the time. This is the year after I gave up on sports.
Jimmy: Absolutely.
Michael: And I wonder if Schulz was affected by the fact the Giants traded Willie Mays.
Harold: I think he was affected by the fact that you had gave up on sports. That's what it was.
Jimmy: He's like, if Michael's out, I'm out.
Michael: It’s so liberating, not to give a damn about any sport at any time.
Jimmy: Well, that's true about so many things in life. Every once in a while, you're scrolling through social media, and everyone's really upset about who's playing Batman, and it's so great to literally you could not care less. It's wonderful.
Harold: I remember someone's like, why aren't you into sports? And I'm like, well, if somebody wins and somebody loses, the average is always going to be 50% for the teams if you put it all together. So it's like you can't get anywhere with it.
Jimmy: That's a weird way to look at it. I like that you guys are both weird, but we all knew that. Hey, you know what else we know? We know that it's now time for a break, because I need to get some water and a snack, and you, guys can do that, too. So, why don't you go do that, and, we'll come back on the other side and, go back to the strips.
Michael: Sure.
Harold: Fantastic
BREAK
VO: Fantastic. Hi, everyone. We all love listening to Jimmy describe what's going on in a Peanuts strip, but did you know that comics are actually a visual medium? That's right. You can see them anytime you want at gocomics.com or in your very own copy of The Complete Peanuts, available from Fantagraphics. Plus, if you sign up for our monthly newsletter, you'll know in advance which strips we're talking about each week, learn more about the great Peanuts reread at unpackingpeanuts.com.
Jimmy: Okay, we're back. Let's get right back to it.
April 11. Marcie and Peppermint Patty are going for a walk in the neighborhood, through some trees. Peppermint Patty says, “I'm trying, Marcie, but I'm still doing lousy in school.” Marcie says, “Maybe you need to eat a better breakfast, sir, or have your eyes checked, or start going to bed earlier.” Peppermint Patty is frustrated. She turns to Marcie and says, “you've never understood, have you, Marcie? That when a person complains, he doesn't want a solution, he wants sympathy?” Then Marcie says, “no, I admit I never understood that, sir.”Peppermint Patty says, “stop calling me sir.”
Harold: You probably should stop using he when you're discussing
Jimmy: that's what I was just going to say.
Harold: Although I guess that was well, then no wonder Marcie's confused.
Jimmy: Yeah, Marcie, you know, Peppermint Patty might have herself to blame there. Luckily, it doesn't affect their friendship.
Harold: Yes, and that is a good thing to learn, what Peppermint Patty is trying to share with Marcie.
Michael: This is so true.
Jimmy: Yeah, it yeah. Yeah.
Harold: Well, sometimes you want a solution, but never there are no solutions, just misery.
Michael: Who the hell wants to actually do something.
Jimmy: I think the worst thing-- It’s when you’re initially--, it's all about the vibe. You can tell when a person's just complaining, and then you could tell when a person's like, I really don't know what to do.
Harold: unless you're Marcie, and then maybe you can't.
Jimmy: unless you're Marcie
Harold: or me
Jimmy: Or you. I wasn't going to say anything. April 29.
Harold: You know what the problem is? Because you don't say anything if you just said something, you'd solve oh, never mind.
Jimmy: Well, how many problems we would solve by just simple, direct, clear and honest communication. Oh, most of them. But who's going to do that, Harold? Come on. that's crazy talk.
April 29. It's a movie line, and in this particular movie line, we see Sally, Linus, Franklin, and possibly
MIchael: Pa--
Jimmy: the back of Patty, original Patty.
Harold: Oh, he said movie line. I thought it's like frankly, Scarlett.
Sally says, “Is there a lot of throwing up in this movie?” She's saying this to Linus. She continues, “I'm not going to pay good money just to watch some stupid actor throw up.” She continues, now she's annoyed. “If I want to watch someone throw up, I can watch the kid who lives next door to us. He has the flu.” Then Linus leaves saying, “I'm going home. All your talk is making me sick.” Sally throws her arms out and says, “don't go. Maybe there won't be any throwing up. Maybe there'll just be killing!”
Harold: This is a veiled Linda Blair reference, isn't it?
Michael: Well, did people throw up before then in movies?
Jimmy: I'm certain someone threw up somewhere before The Exorcist.
Michael: I think it was probably a discreet, I'm going to be sick and leaving.
Harold: It's the old over the side of the ocean liner gag with the finger over the expanded cheeks.
Jimmy: I have to say, I agree with Sally. I do not like watching someone throw up on screen.
Harold: I don't know if you guys nominated this one, but I definitely did. Sally-- This made me laugh so much, just going off on it, and I think she just did, Linus some service. If she's correct, you really don't need to see all that pea soup. You can just buy some Liptons and save some money.
May 6. Joe Cool is hanging around the dorm, and he says, “here's Joe Cool hanging around the dorm.” In the next panel, we see him taking off his sunglasses, and he thinks, “Joe Cool always keeps up with the latest campus fads.” In the next panel, we see him laying his sunglasses on the ground and removing his collar and saying, “and what's the latest campus fad?” And then in the last panel, we see Snoopy sans collar running and saying, “Streaking.”
Michael: The 70s never let up. It's like fad after fad.
Harold: Yeah. He likes to show off his physique.
Jimmy: There are tons of, ah, fads in the 70s, right? I mean, Streaking was a fad. CB radio was a fad.
Harold: Pet Rocks, Mood rings.
Jimmy: Mood rings. Yeah. There was a thing, called lids, where you'd put them in your eyelids to prop your eyelids open, and they were, like, decorative that didn't last very long.
Harold: Wow, I don't know about that one.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, they showed it on the PM magazine.
Harold: Okay.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Well, then there was Lidsville, that I know about.
Jimmy: I think we're now ten years out from the height of the, British invasion and all that kind of excitement, the 60s excitement. And I think people are now, like, it's been ten years. What's the next thing going to be? And they're trying to make it happen, trying to make something happen, and it's just not happening.
May 10 Peppermint Patty is thrilled. She runs up to Marcie saying, “Marcie, look, I got an N.” She's holding a piece of paper with us on it. And then in the next panel, she's holding it, looking at it. She's so proud. She says, I got an N on my English test. That's the highest grade I've ever gotten. Marcie says “it's not an N, sir. That's a Z. You have the paper turned sideways.” Poor Peppermint Patty is now crestfallen, and she says, “Rats. For one brief, exciting moment, I thought I had an N.
Michael: That punchline sounds very familiar.
Jimmy: “one brief, shining moment is from Camelot
Michael: No, no I think he used that in Peanuts. For one brief, exciting moment, I thought Charlie Brown did something like the kite flew or something.
Harold: I can't remember. You think that brief, exciting moment is a Peanuts term that has been used before.
Jimmy: All right, listeners out there, find it okay. If you could find where Charlie Brown or someone said brief, exciting moment, let, us know.
May 29. Linus and Lucy are hanging out, outside. Linus is in classic thumb and blanket position, and Lucy says, “Linus, do you think I should have my ears pierced?” Linus says, “I have a better idea. Why don't you have your mouth boarded up?” Panel three. Lucy just slaps him. POW. But then from the ground, Linus, a big grin on his face, says, “that was worth one hit. Two hits? No, but it was definitely worth one hit.”
Michael: Ah yes, This really takes me back to the good old days when he was getting slugged all the time for snarky remarks.
Jimmy: I love how she looks so calm in panel one. And then the next time see her in panel three, it's just pure violence. She goes from zero to 100. Look at the word balloon, the left hand side of the word balloon in panel one, and you really start seeing that shake in that line.
Michael: so you do.
Jimmy: Yeah. And that feels like a tremor to me, as opposed to a choice. and you will be seeing that more and more, and the first place you start to see it, I think, is actually in the word balloon.
Harold: When did he start doing that? On the boards on the side of the dog house, where he'll go for a very brief run of the line, and he'll start it over again and do it. So you see it like four different takes of the line of that board, instead of it just going all the way across as a single move, because I've been noticing that this year, but I didn't know if he had been doing it all along. But it was more controlled.
Jimmy: Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. You're talking about the lines on the-- oh, I see what you're saying. because I'm looking at the puppet show thing. Yeah. As opposed to one line that goes across. He's doing it, like, a third of the way. Then another extension of the line is that yeah, exactly.
Harold: Or maybe he never lifts the pen, but he moves it, then he moves it again. Moves it again. And each time the line has just a slightly different arc or angle to it. You can see where the ink might pool just a tiny bit, but that's a new thing.
Oh, and Michael, by the way yeah. before you said other people look it up. You are not crazy. That brief, exciting moment has appeared at least twice before. With the same gag, the same line, same full line from it was 51 and 59. So that goes back a ways.
Michael:Do you have the actual punchline?
Harold: I do, yeah.
Michael: What is it?
Harold: well, the first 1951 Charlie Brown-- I'm on the Five Cents Please website, but it says, the strip is it says Charlie Brown looks at his face closely in a mirror, and then reports to Violet that it turned out only to be dirt. But for one brief, exciting moment, I thought I needed a shave. And then in 59, Linus looks at himself in a hand mirror, decides he's only seeing a little dirt, and reports to Lucy for one brief, exciting moment, I thought I needed to shave.
Michael: So he did it twice.
Jimmy: OK, well, there you go. Well, actually, since we just saw Linus getting slapped upside the head, do you want to do the anger meter?
Harold: sure. We can do the anger meter. So what do you guys think? How does this year feel to you? Does it feel angrier or I mean.
Michael: This anger is only in one panel. Does that make the whole strip angry?
Jimmy: No. How do you not know the rules?
Harold: We'll go over the rules once more for our new listeners.
Jimmy: If a strip shows anger.
Michael: But is this happiness, too, because he's happy in the last panel?
Jimmy: Yes.
Michael: Is it both?
Harold: Yes. It can be both. So basically, the anger count that I'm doing every year I've been doing every year, is if at least one character in one panel is showing what I would consider to be anger, I will count that as a strip that has anger in it. And if the strip shows a character, who is happy for even just one panel, I will consider that happiness. So I'm just trying to be consistent throughout.
Jimmy: I just love that Michael does not know the rules, but consistently is right. I completely understand the rules. I have gotten it right twice, but.
Michael: They're not my rules, so I don't pay attention.
Harold: Well, I'll go back to 1973. So, I think we had 73 angry strips, which is just. 20% of the strips had a character showing anger, which is really low for the strip. And 92 or 25% for showing happiness. So if we were at 20% in 73, how many do you think where are we in 74? Does it feel any different?
Michael: I'd say 64.
Harold: What do you think, Jimmy?
Jimmy: I think that overall, this is going --you know what? I think we're holding steady.
Harold: Holding steady. Well, the number has gone from 73 to 95.
Michael: No way.
Harold: 26% of the strips are angry. And then the happiness index was at 92 and 25%. What do you think we are this year?
Jimmy: I think we're holding steady.
Michael: 93.
Harold: You're, not far off. It's 102. So it's up 3%. So this kind of goes with my theory, and we have been talking about this before. Schulz had been going through an awful lot in his life, and he'd just gone through in a divorce. And this is the first full year he is remarried. He's kind of building a new life for himself. He's moved to a new place. And I just get the sense that he's maybe a little bit freer with his emotions than he had been earlier. And we're seeing a little bit more of that in the characters, it seems like. My sense is, in the earlier strips, when a character showed anger, you had the sense that the anger was maybe wrong. There was just kind of that underlying sense that it's not right for the character to be angry. Here. I just get the sense he's letting the characters, if they're angry, just lets them be angry. There's not an underlying sense of, well, you shouldn't show emotion like that. I don't know if that makes any sense.
Michael: I sense a doctoral thesis at work here.
Harold: No, Please no.
June 17. This one's very important in my life. Panel one, POW. Charlie Brown gets leveled by, a line drive. He's flying on the pitcher's, man. All his clothes have left him except his little shorts. In the next panel, we see Lucy running after what should be a fly ball, but is in fact, Charlie Brown's shoe. She catches it, which is amazing, right? She comes back and she says, “Look, Charlie Brown, I caught your shoe.” And Charlie Brown, sitting on the mound in just his shorts, says, “maybe I should pitch my shoe instead of the ball.” Then Lucy walks away saying, “that's a good idea. Give him the old Knuckle shoe.”
Jimmy: This was on the cover of, the front of, my lunch can of my lunchbox for kindergarten.
Harold: This was the name of my doctoral thesis.
Jimmy: All right, give them the old Knuckle shoe. So I looked at this every single day for, like, I think, two years. I used that lunch can. I think that first drawing is one of the funniest drawings anybody's ever how ridiculous the toes are. You know what I mean? I studied this in the way only a kid can study something forever.
Harold: It's like having the same cereal box for two years.
Jimmy: Yeah. Right? And I love that lunchbox. So thanks, dad. And I love this strip. I thought it was really cute. And you know what else I love? I love hanging out with you guys and talking comics. And I love that we have so many listeners who are out there listening every week, more and more every week. And I'm so grateful for that. We know it's not because of our charming personalities. It's because of Mr. Schulz. But still, it means a lot that you guys, are tuning in and listening. so thank you.
We're going to break it right here for 1974, and we're going to come back next week and finish the rest of them. But if you want to hang out with the gang between now and then, what you can do is you could go on our website, unpackingpeanuts.com, and you can send us an email and sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread. You can find, us on instagram and twitter, where we're at, unpack peanuts, or Facebook, where we're Unpacking Peanuts. And we would love to hear from you. What do you think about the 70s? What do you think about us? What do you think about that motorcycle that's driving by? Whatever you have to say, we want to hear it. so, yeah, other than that, come back next week. Now there's a jackhammer. All right, so we're doing a lot of work here in the Amelia verse. So anyway, come back next week.
Harold: What I can't hear what?
Jimmy: For Michael and Harold I'm Jimmy. Be of good cheer.
Harold and Michael: Yes be of good cheer
VO: Unpacking peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley. Michael Cohen and Harold Buchholz. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional Voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark. For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Twitter. Unpacking peanuts on Facebook and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com. Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.