Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. It's Unpacking Peanuts. We are going to begin 1980 today. I couldn't be more excited. Hope you're doing well. I'll be your host for the proceedings. My name is Jimmy Gownley. I'm also the cartoonist of Amelia Rules. Seven Good Reasons Not To Grow Up, and The Dumbest Idea Ever.
Joining me, as always, are my pals, co hosts, and fellow cartoonists. He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast. He's the co creator of the original comic book Price Guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells, and Tangled River. It's Michael Cohen,
Michael: say hey.
Jimmy: And he's executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie comics, and the creator of the instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts. It's Harold Buchholz.
Harold: Hello. How are you doing?
Jimmy: I'm doing good. So we arrive here at the beginning of another decade. this will be our fourth decade of Peanut strips that we have read every single one of. And I just kind of wanted to talk to you guys a little bit at the beginning of this kind of about the idea of decades. I find them strange and creepy in a way, in the sense that sometimes, well, we always-- It feels like we define them with a few words. And we said that these ten years were like this. And what's creepy about it is that it sometimes seems to work so well. And in Peanuts, it really works because it started in 1950 and it ends in 2000. So it's really easy to look at it decade by decade. But part of me knows that's false and wonders about that. I just wonder if you guys had any thoughts about that. As we drift from the 70s into the 80s.
Michael: I don't think we can get too serious about decades. It seems to work better when there's a change of president on the decade year, the turn of the decade year, because you can go 1980, definitely a shift. 2000, definitely a shift. Yeah. When we're talking about 1980, yeah, I think the 70s kind of leak into the few years, which is fairly common because we're always talking about the sort of struggle with the thought of. Is 1961 actually the sixties?
Jimmy: There's definitely two versions of the 60s. There's the Dick Van Dyke era, and then there's, like, the hippie era.
Michael: Yeah. So, I mean, there's sort of this twilight zone in between. So, yeah. Getting into the 80s, I was keeping my eyes open for some kind of shift. And there are a few things, but I don't think he went, like, oh, new decade.
Jimmy: Right.
Michael: Time to change pens or something like that.
Jimmy: Right. Harold, what about you?
Harold: Yeah, I think it's fascinating that we try to make collective sense of things together and we kind of bounce it off of each other, and that's fascinating. What I find interesting is, as somebody who looked back into popular culture a lot from a pretty young age, I was interested in what happened in the past, and especially things that aren't anymore that were of a time. And there's a portal into them, like, old time radio that just basically was a period that just had a sharp cut off point because tv came out. Silent film. Another thing that's really interesting to me, and when I think about it, I go back and look on those decades and I have these sharp delineations because people tried to define them, and I kind of bought into that. What's interesting to me, as I've lived the decades, especially as I grow into adulthood, what the 2010s were or the 1990s becomes much foggier to me. I mean, the last period I can think of as a decade, I don't think. What were the mean? I don't know. What were the thoughts? I don't think of it that way because I lived it, and that overwhelms the--
Jimmy: Well, the 90s were the summit of western civilization. I'm sorry. I forgot...
Harold: Wow. Are you serious?
Jimmy: The 90s? omigod Yeah.
Harold: What do you think it's better
Jimmy: why? This is a different podcast. Why? Because I was in my 20s, That's why.
Michael: You also got pre 1990s is pretty much pre Internet.
Jimmy: Well, once you get to the Internet, boy, then, it's industrial revolution style shift.
Harold: Yeah. But I think in my case, it's like, lived experience way outweighs the collective consensus of a decade I didn't ever live in. Right. So I think of it much more as this shifting continuity because that, was what your life is like, right? You don't have the experience on New Year's day. Everything's shifted. But it was super helpful for me to think about the. As I was growing up, not really having experienced that, to be able to then go back and look at pieces of that culture and compare it against whatever that consensus was. And that's cool. I love that about decades but I don't know what people say about the ods.
Jimmy: Yeah, that's definitely past the time that we would have been at the center of the culture, both, I think, in our interest of what's going on and also in the fact that that's when it started to be made for millennials as opposed to Gen Xers.
Harold: That's the era when we start to actually have an impact.
Jimmy: Right. Okay, well, that's another thing. No baby boomer culture was made by baby boomers, and very few little Gen X culture was made by Gen X people. It's always those people who are either on the cusp or right at the tail end of the last generation, which then he gets into the whole Idea of generations, which are even less useful than decades because they even shift the dates of when they started constantly.
Harold: Yeah. And yet there is some kind of agreement that, okay, we're going to say this is when the generation begins and ends and we're going to label it. I actually find a generational theory fascinating. I mean, especially the idea that there were four generations that just repeat each other and that, there's a book called Generations written a long time ago, probably in the early nineties. And it's fascinating because it is predictive as well. So I remember reading that book a little after it came out and they were describing where things were going to go in terms of how kids and parents got along. This was in a time when there was quite a bit of separation between kids and parents. And they're saying, well, they're going to get closer. And that seems so alien to me because that's not what I was seeing in the culture. And sure enough, it did go that direction where there were tighter bonds between parents and kids than say they were maybe when I was growing up, or say, during the baby boom.
Jimmy: So, for example, they didn't have to make commercials reminding parents that they had children anymore.
Harold: Yes, right. Yeah. And I remember seeing the baby on board sign showing up for the first time and how that was such a strange thing. Kids didn't want to be kids when I was growing up. You couldn't get out of childhood fast enough. It seemed like, there weren't G rated movies, even things that you would expect to be G rated were like rated PG, because that was just the way the culture was at the time.
Jimmy: Well, it's interesting, Schulz himself said that. He said in some interview that when people talk about the, he doesn't really know what they're talking about. He was just out there living his life. And that's definitely also someone who has the kind of job he has and who was a father.
Harold: And he's the one who's creating the culture.
Jimmy: Well, that's another thing, too.
Harold: That's a little more, down in the nitty gritty instead of having the 30,000 foot view.
Michael: One thing I did notice this year is Snoopy looks markedly different than he did back in the happy dance days. It doesn't look like he can happy dance anymore. I think he, being a dog, I think he's middle aged.
Jimmy: I see that.
Harold: Yeah, I can see that as well.
Michael: He sleeps a lot. He lies on his dog house. He plays around writing memoirs. He doesn't seem to do happy dances or run around and bump his head in croquet fields or whatever you call those things. Wickets.
Harold: He makes Woodstock do that.
Jimmy: And he's also having regrets, right? He's saying things like, oh, I never bit anyone. Oh, I missed out on one of the great joys of life and all.
Harold: Yeah, right.
Jimmy: That is interesting.
Harold: Yeah. And actually, one thing that did start the decade for Schulz, the National Cartoonist Society gave, him the Elzie Segar Award for outstanding contributions into the field of art, which is one of those kind of lifetime achievement things. So that's kind of where he is in his career when people are giving him retrospective awards like, oh, it's not for what I'm doing now. It's for my lifetime.
Jimmy: One thing I love to do is, just put on YouTube in the background while I'm drawing or whatever, and it just plays a playlist of random stuff and you never know what's going to come up. And, I watched Paul McCartney receiving a lifetime achievement award from the grammys in 1990. He was like 48 years old, younger than me. And I'm like, no, this is awful. My God. Because it's almost like they're trying to play off, hey, congratulations. Now get out of the way.
Harold: Make room.
Jimmy: Well, and this is going to be a decade where there's going to be a lot of new, blood coming into the comics page, really. I mean, you're going to have Calvin and Hobbes and you're going to have the Far Side. At the very least, you have things like on, the weekly alternative comic side, things like Life in Hell.
Harold: yeah, we were talking about competition for Schulz that had been influenced by Schulz. That's really starting to pick up around this time. People who read growing up Peanuts, and they've incorporated his style and influence into their work. And now he's competing against himself.
Jimmy: He's competing at himself, but, younger versions of himself who have learned everything that he taught just by producing this strip.
Harold: Yeah. And that's an interesting place to be.
Jimmy: Well, it's such an advantage, for people that come after him. Keith Richards always says you know I didn't know how to be in the Rolling Stones because there never was a band like the Rolling Stones before that that just went on and on and on.
Harold: Right.
Jimmy: So there's no model for it. So you're going to screw up or you're not going to screw up, but whatever happens, other people are going to be able to see it and learn from it.
Harold: Right. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. The other thing I noticed there's a lot of, legal and lawyer stuff this year.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: And, I was like, oh, no, what is Schulz going through right now with all this? There's contracts and for shoveling a walk and. Yeah. Fascinating stuff.
immy: Yeah. I wonder when his contract with United Features would have been up for renewal, because it did change at some point.
Harold: Yeah. And, I don't know, with issues of divorce and all this stuff, I just don't know what he's having to deal with. And obviously, he's overseeing this massive empire. Who knows what's coming up when someone's bugging him about this or that?
Michael: Do you think the day will come when it's public domain?
Jimmy: Yeah. Well, it has to.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: Well, that's going to be interesting.
Harold: Right. Well, I guess the big talk, of course, for those have been following news and pop culture is that, as of a day before we recorded this, Mickey Mouse and steamboat Willie has gone into the public domain.
Michael: David Hahn, who's a very good comic artist, had a post today, says, yeah, I'm working on my, Mickey Mouse project where Steamboat Willie goes upriver to take out Colonel Kurtz.
Harold: Really interesting. Everyone's saying the irony or not irony, but basically the Idea that Walt Disney took all of these things that were in the public domain, like Snow White, and these famous fairy tales, and he turned them into, something new and fresh. And we had this, interesting experience now that it's happening to Disney work, so it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Michael: Well, okay, I'm going to throw a hypothetical at you guys.
Jimmy: Okay.
Michael: Imagine Peanuts goes into the public domain tomorrow. Would you do anything with it?
Jimmy: No.
Harold: yeah, I would
Michael: really?
Harold: I would take our Unpacking Peanuts things, and I would reprint.
Jimmy: I would do that. Oh, sure. Absolutely. Wait, I revise my answer to that. I wouldn't make a Peanuts strip.
Michael: Would you attempt one? I mean, just for fun? Like one?
Jimmy: No, I did one for fun. I've got it.
Michael: It's fine.
Harold: One and done.
Jimmy: I know where my level is for that. That's okay.
Harold: Yeah, that seems pretty daunting.
Liz: Would you, Michael?
Michael: oh god. No, but it would be interesting to single out one character and give him...
Harold: Well, maybe the bunny wunnies. Maybe I would take it. Well, I'm dealing with public domain right now. I don't know how much I've said on the podcast, but I've got all of these public domain storybooks I've been collecting. I'm looking at shelves of them. And, those of you who were on our live event, where our backers joined us for a live event, which was lovely, on December 30, behind me were well over 100 public domain books that I picked up that were kids storybooks that were, like, the mass market things, like little gold book type things. And that is, something that I find fascinating. I love the public domain in the sense that you can engage with these prior works in ways that you can't with current works because of the copyright law.
Jimmy: Well, yeah. And I think, I mean, the public domain is a great Idea that, gives us resources to our own culture.
Harold: Oh, absolutely. And I think the Internet has often softened a little bit of that. Things were so rigid, and Disney was part of extending the copyright from 75 years to 95 years. Nothing went into the public domain for 20 years. And I think the culture kind of suffered for it. But I think that's why when the Internet showed up, there was this massive push to be able to use other people's current works and a reaction video to someone's reaction of something that they were reacting to. There's tiers of people experiencing other people's things, even if it's as simple as unwrapping a product that somebody else made. We need that in the culture. And we had this dearth, for 20 years, thanks to the Sonny Bono copyright extension act that Disney was.
Jimmy: Is it really the Sonny Bono copyright extension?
Harold: I believe it is, yes. Sonny was looking after his people. but we had this period where we just didn't have the ability to take the culture. And what's really fascinating also is when I look back on culture in the 19 hundreds, let's say, maybe when you hit the 20s, that's when things are starting to push their way into our culture in the sense of their relevance. You read a 1910 novel or look at a 1910 magazine. What are you going to pull from. But in the 20s, that's like the beginning of this modern era that we can somewhat relate to.
Michael: well the reaction to the war
Harold: We hit the 30s, that's the ramp up 40s, it's going to be taking off like crazy. Yeah. So I'm really going to be interested to see what happens is a lot of stuff is going to start to come into the public domain, and we're going to start to incorporate it into a new creative culture that is going to be reflexive and responding to what I guess is modern popular culture.
Michael: Yeah. Anybody can, reissue silent movies and.
Harold: Put in their own dialogue now, right? Yeah. Pretty much the entire canon of silent film is now public domain.
Liz: Let's take a moment to appreciate copyright laws, though.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. it works both ways. It seems reasonable to me. I'll own Amelia, and then my kids will own Amelia, and then good luck. Right. Like halfway through the next generation, right?
Harold: Yeah, I think we took it too far. I think 75 years was pretty good. They had a pretty good deal. It used to be 28 years, and then if somebody cared enough to renew it, you get it for another 47 years, and then it's done. That's 75 total. And then they got rid of the 28. It was just 75, and then it was 95. So, I think they went too far. I think the corporate culture had a little bit too much of an influence, and it does, a hampering to it, hampers the discourse. So, yeah, I'm not anti copyright, I'm just anti too much copyright. And I think we went a little too far. I'm 95. We've gotten there. All right.
Michael: Let our grandchildren write their own comics.
Jimmy: Yeah, write your own things, kids. All right, well, thank you for, talking about that with me. I'm very interested in these sort of tangential things that come up just because we're looking at a work that has gone on for decades and decades, and it's such a rarity to be able to talk about something like that in depth. And then, since we're doing it, I love that we get to talk about all that ancillary cultural stuff around it. So thanks, guys, and thank you all out there for listening, as I, go through my cultural therapy once a week.
Now, what we're going to actually do, though, for the rest of the show, is we're going to talk about the comic strips by Charles M. Schulz that he drew in 1980. So if you want to follow along with us, there's a couple of things you can do. First thing you could do, you could go on over to our website, unpackingpeanuts.com. You can sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread, and then you'll get a newsletter once a month, and it'll tell you what strips we're going to be covering in the upcoming episodes. You can follow along if you decide to go out there and buy the Fantagraphics books. They're nice and bougie and look very good on your shelf. But if that's not your speed, you can go to gocomics.com, type in the dates we're talking about, and follow along there for free, because that's the amazing part of the 21st century. So you guys do that and come on back here. And then away we'll go.
January 6. we start off with a classic symbolic panel, which is Peppermint Patty. but she looks a little bit like a dandelion. It's just her head atop a plant. Then in panel two, we see her looking at herself in the mirror, in her bathroom, in the medicine, cabinet. Then it's Peppermint Patty and Marcie walking to school. Peppermint Patty says, “you know what I am, Marcie? I'm a weed.” Peppermint Patty continues, “the world is filled with beautiful plants and flowers, but I'm just an ugly weed.” They continue walking. It's now in silhouette. Peppermint Patty says, “I'm a poor, ugly weed. Trying to push her way up through the sidewalk of life.” Finally, Marcie responds, “that's a great metaphor, sir. Do you know that weeds have a wide tolerance for environmental conditions and the rare ability to exploit recently disturbed terrain?” Peppermint Patty says, “what in the world does that mean?” To which Marcie says, “you can roll with the punches, sir.” Peppermint Patty thinks about it and then says, “by golly, Marcie, I think you're right.” We're now in class with Peppermint Patty, and she says to the teacher, “I've got my confidence back, maam. Ask me anything. Give me your best shot.” And then in the last panel, we see her leaning up against the wall outside the principal's office as she says, “I'll bet the principal would be surprised to find a weed growing in front of his office.”
Harold: This is interesting, talking about decades, that this is how Schulz begins the Sundays for 1980s. I think it's a nice strip. He spent some time on this one. There's some really beautiful backgrounds, in the list of things that are famously done inside of homes. I would also add the lovely fuzzy 1980s hand towel in the bathroom.
Jimmy: That's a good one. Very good one.
Harold: But got some stone walls and fir tree type things sticking out from there. Just a lot of interesting detail that gives the world a feeling of fullness in this strip.
Jimmy: Oh, I really like that first panel on the third tier there. I think that's a really nicely designed panel.
Harold: Yeah. And we always have talked about how Peppermint Patty's world seems a little rougher around the edges. And you get some of that feel here with these scrubs and things inside of the lawns and. Yeah, it just has a slightly different feel than when he's drawing the world of Charlie Brown. But just, I just also like the conversation. This is a thoughtful strip. And I like the fact that you've got Marcie and Peppermint Patty getting into these kinds of conversations. It's just adding another level and layer to the strip with personalities we didn't have.
Jimmy: Know, the other thing that's kind of interesting is that Marcie does not-- I'm just thinking of this right now, but Marcie doesn't negate Peppermint Patty's thoughts and feelings. She just says, okay, maybe, but here's the good side of that.
Harold: And we haven't seen a lot of that right in the strip. It's usually competing ways of seeing the world that don't have this kind of merging and growing like a weed.
Jimmy: Well said.
January 13. Charlie Brown is carrying his good old snow shovel through the snow. He walks up to a house and rings the bell. “ring” and then we see it is in fact, Lucy's house. And he says, “shovel your walk.” Lucy says, “sure, but you have to sign this contract.” And she hands him a stack of papers. Or she at least shows him a stack of papers. In the next panel, she's reading them and says, “you will work for a flat fee, provide your own lunch, and pay your own insurance. If it snows within 24 hours, the sidewalk must be cleaned again without charge. We also have exclusive rights to your shovel. We reserve all tv, motion picture, radio, and video cassette rights in perpetuity. If you whistle while you work, all recordings become our property. The area to be shoveled runs from the porch to the street. Here, sign on the bottom line.” She hands the contract to Charlie Brown, who looks at it, thinks for a moment, and then says, “the contract is longer than the sidewalk.”
Harold: This is great.
Jimmy: Well, if anyone's out there, been a freelancer for Disney, you might understand, some of that.
Harold: Working at Archie and working on Mystery Science Theater 3000, I saw a lot of this stuff cross desks. And it changes the course of your job if you catch or don't catch these little clauses, because it changes everything. Ownership. It's crazy. But to me, this is a mature strip of somebody who's living this now. And it's very funny and it's very insightful. But this wouldn't have come out in 1950 or 1960, that's for sure. This is a new version. but it's still the kids dealing with adult ideas, right?
Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely.
Harold: The boredom of Legalese. And just think it's very funny and very insightful. And I'm sure he's living it.
Jimmy: Oh, 100%. There's no question about that.
Harold: And I love his little mitten doorbell ring there. Doesn't quite have it pulled up onto his fingers. It's got that little dip in that. He's oversized. Maybe he got him for Christmas. He's going to grow into him.
January 19. Snoopy's atop his dog house, and he's looking off panel at something and says, “oh, no, don't tell me.” In the next panel, we see Woodstock has arrived, holding something. In panel three, Woodstock is playing away on what looks like some sort of little handheld game. And we just see, much to Snoopy's consternation,”boop, beep, boop, boop, boop, beep, beep, beep, boop, boop, boop, beep, boop, boop.” Whatever. And then Snoopy says, “I hate it when he brings over his electronic games.”
Jimmy: I picked this one just because that's 1980 to me. I was eight. That is exactly. Except it would have had to have a little [sfx] for shooting, stormtroopers with Star Wars.
Michael: I like seeing Woodstock happy.
Harold: There's such cute little pictures of Woodstock in the third and fourth panel. I also like the Idea that Woodstock can fly without using his wings because he's holding on to his electronic games. It looks like someone just threw him in from off stage.
Jimmy: I like that he just got tossed in. Oh, my gosh.
Michael: What was out at 80? When did Asteroids come along?
Jimmy: Yeah. Okay, so 79, I think I got the Atari 2600. And that had, like. It came with space invaders, but I also got, like, asteroids and combat. But, like, the little handheld electronic games were things. Like. There was, like, a football game, which I loved. There was real sports base, not real sports. Baseball. Head to head baseball, which I loved. There was a basketball one, which I could not comprehend. There was a thing called Merlin, which was like a big. It looked like a big red phone. And you played like tic tac toe and really lames. I had that, yeah.
Harold: For those youngsters. When we say a Milton Bradley, say football game handheld, it looks like a stadium with all of the seating around this, rectangular screen. And there are red dots, three lines of LED that go across maybe, I don't know, eight wide, maybe, literally lines. And you're supposed to hit the buttons to go up and down to get across these blockers, which is other lines.
Jimmy: You can't touch them.
Harold: That takes a tremendous amount of imagination to think of it as football. But I had it probably around this time and I didn't have any of like, the plug in your tv ones. I just had the Milton Bradley football game, like Woodstock has here, that you could carry around and change out that nine volt battery every once in a while.
Jimmy: Yeah, it's like they invented the game and then said, well, what is this? Could we call it football? Yeah, sure. We'll brand it football and then say football. I knew one kid who actually learned how to pass on it, which was next to impossible.
Harold: I see it. Really? You could pass on it?
Jimmy: Yeah. But you had to be hardcore. Shout out to Jim Dwyer if you're out there.
Harold: I missed out on an entire level of the world's simplest game.
Jimmy: No, you have to really dedicate your life to learn how to play.
Harold: That shows why you should read the instructions. Boys and girls, you lose out. You think there's nothing to this. But, man, yeah, that was a game changer, right? All of a sudden there's these electronic things that you're playing against. It's just now starting and it's going to change our lives. As Michael said in a previous episode, video games are bigger than going to movies. Now it's a much bigger.
Liz: Michael, when did you start writing computer games?
Michael: It was around this time, probably around 82. Yeah, I just wanted to write, adventure games, like text adventure games, which at that time were very popular, but there was no graphics whatsoever. So I spent years--
Harold: describe a text adventure game to those who haven't experienced these.
Michael: Yeah, I remember the first time I saw one. My friend Mark just bought a Mac and they just come out and he said, look at this. And there's like a sentence on-- just a text saying like, you were on a beach. And then now he says, like, type go left. So I type go left and it says, like, you were on the left side of a beach. And I went like, oh, my God, this is mind boggling.
Harold: That's cool. So did you get other people to play the games you were writing?
Michael: I worked on it years. I went back to school. I actually got a degree in programming. And by the time I was done with school, graphics had come in and everything I had learned was totally useless.
Jimmy: So what, like right up to the Mac, it was 80 to 84, something like that. That would have been when you were in.
Michael: Yeah, I graduated around there, 85 or six. But I remember working, on this one game and I'd hit the max. I did everything, switching drives and it finally went like, it cannot take any more information. My file was so huge. It was one meg. And I sort of finished it, but I couldn't actually finish it because it was a whole meg and there's no way.
Harold: Wow.
Liz: It was a great game.
Michael: That's great.
Harold: So you didn't cut down your synonyms that are shorter?
Michael: Yeah, I was trying to do a thing
Harold: shorter way to say beach.
Michael: Yeah, well, no, I mean, I was having a thing where you could have, a box in your pack and you can look in your pack and there's a box and you take out the box, you can open the box, there's another box in the box. So I had basically a city with no graphics, just describing the city and some of the rooms you could go into.
Liz: And the underground city too.
Michael: Yeah. Anyway, I loved it. I absolutely loved the fact that I was creating this world. But I think like two people ever played it.
Jimmy: I played it a little bit.
Michael: You did?
Jimmy: I played it, yep. You had it on an old-- boy. I don't even know what computer it.
Michael: Was up in New Hampshire. Yeah, a couple of people played it and that's it. I didn't remember you doing.
Jimmy: Yeah, because you weren't even sure if it was going to run. but, it did.
Harold: So what year would this have been when you were playing it?
Jimmy: Well, that was when I played it.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: Well, we met in the 90s. I mean, I stashed it in the closet, the computer, it was gathering dust because I didn't want to throw out the old computer because that was the only place the game existed in the world.
Harold: Wow.
Jimmy: I remember that day because the other thing about it was Michael showed me his comic book collection, which, mean, stunning comic book collection. And I'm like, oh, I never saw this Steranko Captain America's like, oh, here he hands me one. Immediately the tape from the back of the bag sticks to the. I’m like NOooooo I got it off. Oh my God. The stress. Those text only games had a comeback a few years ago, as apps on, the App Store and Apple, I played one called in the dark room. It was really good, really interesting.
Michael: Well, there is a genre of, I think, mostly japanese, of stories, interactive stories, where you make decisions, and they're very popular, like romance comics. You're trying to get the girl, and they give you choices on what to say. Yeah. I mean, I haven't looked into it, but graphics, I never understood graphics. And I'm glad I stopped when I did, because I decided, after years of devoting my entire life to this programming, I decided maybe I should do something different. Maybe I'll try to publish a comic.
Jimmy: Always a good Idea. If I have any word of advice for you people out there. When in doubt, publish a comic. Makes everything better.
January 31. This is the middle of a sequence where Peppermint Patty is getting rained and snowed upon in school because there's a leak in the ceiling. And, she has called the world famous attorney, which, by the way, I never looked, how stern Snoopy looks in panel one. That's very funny. So she has called her attorney in to talk to the principal, and she, says to him, “yes, sir, Mr. Principal. We demand satisfaction.” She's dripping wet in panel two. She says, “I'm tired of sitting in a classroom under a leaking ceiling. My attorney and I have come to lodge an official protest.” And in the last panel, we see Snoopy given the side eye, and he says, if he calls me a pettifogger, I'm leaving.”
Michael: Is this an obscurity? Is that why that's here?
VO: Peanuts Obscurities Explained.
Harold: This is an obscurity. And also it represents, once again, after the contract with the shoveling, we're just a few weeks into the new year, and we've got more lawyering going on. I didn't know. Had you guys ever heard of this term before?
Liz: Never.
Michael: No, I think I've heard it, but I didn't know what it was. I know it was an old thing from, like, 1900.
Harold: Yeah, it dates back, like, I don't know, 400 Years?
Michael: Oh, really?
Yeah. And it's basically what you'd expect. It's a lawyer one, definition is you're petty, underhanded or disreputable. Kind of a shark or a shyster or doing trifling things, small things. Yeah. It's a funny word. And Schulz is always good at finding funny words. Too bad it wasn't in quotes, though.
Jimmy: Yeah. Then it would have. Yeah. To me, it sounds like something you would, use to get rid of. It's like a pesticide. Those old pettifogger.
Harold: Quick, Henry, the Flip.
Michael: I didn't like this sequence because I think there were actually laws of absurdity. Certain kinds of absurdity are okay. But what he's doing is he's doing what we call a compounded absurdity, where the rain falling on one student, drenching one student, leaking from the ceiling, is absurd because no one ever does anything about it. And then compounding it with her hauling in the lawyer is like, okay, this is too much. Like, there are different kinds of infinity. Did you know that some infinities are bigger than others?
Jimmy: Everyone who's read, A Fault in Our Stars, I think, has t shirts that say, some infinities are bigger than others.
Michael: Yeah. And so some absurdities are absurd. Some other absurdities. You can kind of. Yeah, Superman. Okay, he's flying.
Jimmy: Sure.
Michael: But I would say this is what I would call a second level absurdity.
Harold: I would agree with you, Michael, except I kind of enjoy when stuff like this can go to, basically an absurdity built on an absurdity. Built on an absurdity. It's taking you out on a limb, and I kind of enjoy that. I think we've mentioned it before, even something as simple as, like, a three Stooges comedy where they're playing off of something they had done ten years earlier, which is played off of something that was done before that, and we've seen it all. And so it's so removed from reality that that starts to become funny to me.
Michael: yeah.
Harold: That you're so far away, and yet you can kind of see how you got there. But it's like, wow, we got that far away from reality because somebody did a fantasy on a fantasy out of fantasy.
Michael: Well, this is an interesting topic because a lot of times in comic strips, the setup for the joke, somebody says something is absurd. No one would ever say that, right. Which kind of, to me, kind of kills the joke.
Jimmy: Yeah. It's like when someone walks up to you and goes, do you want to hear a joke? Not really. Like, if you want to be funny, be funny, but don't tell me it's a joke. And now I have to sit here and wait for it. I know exactly what you mean. It's just an artificial situation.
Harold: When, we used to talk about one of the classic comic strip tropes, but who knows who started it? As in the last panel, somebody says something, and the other person, you just see their feet as they're flying backward. But to me, it would be very funny if somebody just took all of those and then just kept building onto it. So the guy falls back, and then he hits the head, and then he loses amnesia. And you just go out on the limb a hundred times and see how far you can take it. The absurdity of it.
Jimmy: Speaking of absurdity, this might be a new feature. Or it also might not be. I got Michael, after years of prodding, to dip into Infinite Jest, my favorite book, and he's listening to the podcast Infinite Cast. Michael, just. Quick update. How are you enjoying it so far?
Michael: Speaking of absurdities, chapter 37.
Jimmy: Chapter 37.
Michael: Well, no. Excuse me. Podcast 37. Generally, they don't always get. So, anyway, we're talking around 20 hours into the reading of the book, and.
Jimmy: You're enjoying it so far?
Michael: there's some chapters that are really hard for me, and there's two things. I mean, the book is based on two things, both of which I have zero interest in.
Jimmy: Tennis
Michael: tennis and drug addiction. So considering that, I'm enjoying it a lot.
Jimmy: All right, so you guys tune in, for some later episode where we check in on Michael's progress on Infinite Jest.
Harold: Better than one word a day War and Peace way.
Jimmy: How great was it, having Mrs. Schulz in and having her tell us that story about him, leaving a voice message for Lee Mendelson? It's just one of the greatest, greatest things we've ever had.
Harold: So if you haven't listened to that one, go back and find our interview with Jeannie Schulz.
Jimmy: It's a banger. She's a delight.
February 9. Woodstock and Snoopy are atop the dog house. Woodstock is straining and making his eyes huge. And Snoopy says, “yes, I think you'd make a great owl.” And then the next panel, though, Woodstock looks all discombobulated with stars of pain shooting out from his head. And Snoopy, with concern, says, “but that hurt, didn't it? I should have warned you. When you open your eyes that wide, you let too much light inside your head.”
Michael: The big joke’s in the first panel.
Jimmy: Yeah, right.
Harold: And this goes to what you're saying about Snoopy. Right, Michael? Because it's like Woodstock is now kind of the little child, and Snoopy's kind of the parent or the big brother or whatever you want to call it. And so he feels a little more middle aged. He's not doing. He's coaching Woodstock.
Michael: Yeah,
VO: it's Snoopy Watch.
Michael: We'll see a lot of this Snoopy. And I think this is distinctively different than the earlier Snoopy. The many Snoopies. But sitting in this position, very much like a stuffed animal. And not moving.
Jimmy: Doesn't move. I actually did not notice that. Yeah, just a tail.
Harold: Right. Where do you think the, nose is placed, Michael?
Michael: It seems a little low to me.
Harold: It doesn't it? Yeah. No. I don't know how long he's been doing that. It just jumped out of me when you were talking about the look of Snoopy. And I was like, he doesn't drop his head to look at Woodstock. He just drops the nose, which is fascinating. The nose is not even pointing directly at Woodstock's eyes. It's actually pointing at maybe his little tail feather.
Jimmy: It's possible we're looking at these things too closely. Is it a little too late to bring that up?
Harold: Is that too how many hours later? Oh, man. We could be doing these in, like, ten minutes a show.
Jimmy: Now you see here he has a piece of fuzz attached to.
Harold: Whoa.
Michael: Wait a minute. What is a weird little thing in Woodstock's head? Above, in the last panel, there's like a snowflake and a little cloud.
Harold: I've never seen that before. That's an original.
Jimmy: Yeah. Is that supposed to be the pain like that? Like the dots are like a star that's fading out or something?
Michael: I don't know.
Harold: It does look like the star is starting to, dissipate like a little cloud because he draws now, what do you guys think about the rounded stars? That was something he also did that was not typical of comics. The pointed star of pain was typical. Here he's got rounded five point stars.
Michael: I can’t see that close.
Jimmy: I prefer pointed stars, I think.
Harold: Me too. But it does feel very Dating Game.
Jimmy: Oh, it's absolutely those vinyl flowers that you would get and put in your shower walls and stuff like that.
Harold: Maybe that's what he was seeing every morning when he woke up. Took a shower.
Jimmy: That's a good oh, now coming up here we have a long sequence with Peppermint Patty. Who wants to be taken on a date to, her school Valentine's day dance. And, she has Charlie Brown set her up with some groovy guy. And she made it clear she did not want it to be his weird dog Snoopy. Snoopy was disappointed about because he loves disco. So we pick it up here on--
February 13. With Peppermint Patty sitting on the front steps of her house in a little black sleeveless dress, looking just as cute as can be. She says, “I think I'll sit here on the front steps and wait for my date. A boy likes to know a girl is interested enough to be ready when he calls,” says Peppermint Patty. Where she got this advice, no one knows. Then in panel three, she's rolling her eyes up with a sense of playfulness and says, “I wonder who it's going to be. I hope he's a good dancer. It'll also help if he's a real sharp dresser.” And in panel four, we see who Charlie Brown set her up with. And it's Pig Pen who shows up saying, “hi, my name is Pig Pen.” To which Peppermint Patty says, “Augh.”
Michael: This was a real shock. I was stunned. I mean I thought Pigpen was gone for good, but now.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, yeah, right. I'm not sure if it's this one, but it's, one of the ones in this sequence that I was looking on the Peanuts wiki, that it's an anniversary appearance of Pig Pen. How many times do you think Pig Pen has appeared from 1950 to this sequence, total?
Michael: How many times?
Harold: Wow.
Michael: Got to be a couple of hundred.
Jimmy: Harold says 36, and Michael says, narrow it from a couple of hundred.
Michael: I'll say 200.
Jimmy: 100. Only 100.
Harold: Wow.
Michael: Okay.
Jimmy: Yeah, with that huge nine year gap. But he makes a big comeback, and I think this is a real smart way to reintroduce him to the gang. And I think he fits in real well with Peppermint Patty because they're iconoclasts
Harold: yeah, he's, And he loves disco. So this was this time to come back, right?
Jimmy: Absolutely.
Harold: Snoopy and Pig Pen and Peppermint Patty disco dancing.
Jimmy: Which we see on Valentine's day itself,
February 14. Peppermint Patty and Pig Pen are dancing. Pig Pen is doing the classic John Travolta point at the sky look, Peppermint Patty says, “this is some weird date that Chuck got for me.” They continue dancing in panel two. Peppermint Patty thinks to herself, I must admit, he can dance, though. Then in panel three, she starts to strike up a little conversation. “What's your sign, Pig Pen? Do you come here often?” And the last panel, she's lost him in a cloud of dust and just says, “where did he go?”
Jimmy: I picked this one. I had this book when I was a kid. And what's your sign, Pig Pen? Do you come here often? I don't know why, always made me laugh out loud. It also has something to do with the weird dance Peppermint Patty's doing, which kind of looks, a little bit like the twins dance from the Christmas special.
Harold: Yeah. Pig Pen might be wearing the white suit from Saturday Night Fever as well. We just don't know.
Jimmy: He's definitely wearing a blazer, which is real nice. I think it's great, that Pig Pen.
Harold: now, is this before Labor Day or after Labor Day on February 14?
Jimmy: That's like that movie. Gremlins don't feed them after midnight. Isn't every moment of the day after midnight?
Harold: Right?
Jimmy: Isn't that, like, the worst possible?
Harold: That's problematic.
Jimmy: So I don't know. He can wear white anytime. Well, it won't be white long with Pig Pen anyway. And then after the dance,
February 16, we see Marcie with no glasses on, answering the phone at three in the morning. She says,”hello. Who's calling? It's 03:00 in the morning.” of course, it's Peppermint Patty calling, who says, “hi, Marcie, it's me. I know it's 03:00 in the morning, but I can't sleep. You know why I can't sleep?” And then in panel four, we see a ridiculously beaming Peppermint Patty saying, “I'm in love.” Marcie basically falls asleep on the floor with the phone on top of her head and says, “I'm sure you'll be very happy, sir.”
Jimmy: Now, the double cartooning joke here is that the, punctuation in Peppermint Patty's I'm in love panel is hearts, and the punctuation in Marcy's panel is Z's, indicating sleep.
Michael: That's cute. I want to concentrate on panel three. Yeah, that is not a Schulz face. Is he giving tribute to another cartoonist?
Jimmy: No, I think he's just trying to do it. Do you have one in mind?
Michael: Well, it looks like one of the Mad artists did that kind of smile with the teeth like that. And I can't remember who it would be. Drucker or somebody?
Harold: Mort Drucker.
Jimmy: No, I don't think,
Michael: I mean Schulz has never done a smile like that. Or is there another strip like Kathy or something that looks more like that?
Harold: Yeah, maybe. I think of Kliban, who was the cat guy before Garfield in the 70s, but, I don't know. It does have that kind of grunge we were talking about. The mean Peppermint Patty is all. He probably drew this right before the clock ticked over after midnight.
Jimmy: Well, it's a double whammy. What's making it look atypical is he's got the whites around the eyes, which is weird. And when he does the smile with the teeth, which he will do, but it's a giant smile with the teeth, because the mouth is not open as wide. It makes them look like very small teeth, which is.
Harold: And it's messy. Right. You got the shaky line, and the teeth seem to be kind of not straight. It's a little creepy.
Jimmy: Now, speaking of the shaky line, I don't see a big, change between last year and this year.
Michael: No, I never noticed it.
Harold: Okay. Yeah, I've been noticing it. It's funny. Mostly I see it on the bottom of the word balloons.
Jimmy: Oh, yes.
Harold: The thing that struck me this year, and I was noticing it before, and I was not enjoying the line thickness in the dailies because it seemed like everything was thicker, but it was less varied than the past. But now I'm looking at what you guys pulled out. I'm reading it from the Fantagraphics books, and they pull out the copyright notice, so you don't have to look at it that's been taken out. This is not really part of the art here on the Go Comics. You see the copyright notice, and it's ridiculous how thickened the line is because you could actually see the font of copyright 1980 United feature syndicate ink. And it is so thickly blurred that that would suggest that Schulz, actually was working much thinner. But for whatever reason, the photostat machine that they were using, either on Schulz's side or a United Features, which is probably United Features, is thickening the lines. I don't know if that was a choice they were making because the strips were getting smaller and other people weren't adjusting the way Schulz was. And so you get this muddy looking artwork, which for, people who've seen the originals, maybe we've lost a lot of the detail because everything's just kind of getting thicker because they was it underexposed the camera or whatever. But, the Sundays look way different. The Sundays have the crispness that I'm used to, which is interesting. But I guess he's working larger compared to smaller, maybe in a different ratio than he did in the know.
Jimmy: Dave Sim did a book called The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, which is about the, well, it's about a lot of different things, but it's primarily organized around the Idea of the, photorealist newspaper strips from the 40s to the 80s I guess. And one of the things he talks about is how reliant the artist was on whoever it was, the engraver, or who was taking that original art and making it into something that could be reproduced in a newspaper. And to be fair to the people who are trying to do that, it's like one of those things, like, if you go too thin, you'll have the nice thicks and thins, but the real thins will disappear. And if you expose it too much, then those thins will appear, but everything else will thicken up. Everything was much more difficult.
Harold: Right.
Michael: He talks about something I've never heard before. Is it called angel strokes? Angel something.
Jimmy: Oh, Nightingale.
Michael: Nightingale strokes.
Jimmy: Okay.
Michael: Yeah. It's like these guys could do these lines. Essentially, it'd be one hair of the brush.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Masters of control. But I think they were sort of, like, competing with each other to see who can get the most delicate lines possible.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Here's another theory. 1980, it's possible that Schulz got, like, a photocopier in his office. So instead of sending the originals in and possibly losing them or causing trouble or maybe United Features, like, hey, if you send them in, we won't charge you. I don't know. But it's possible he was using a 1980 photocopier, and to get the blacks black, he had to crank it up. And so this is actually what he's sending to them with an inferior technology that might be harming the quality, because it just seems odd to me.
Jimmy: Yeah, it's amazing that, any of it ever in the 80s, if you start looking at some of the Marvel comics that were printed in the DC comics when they switched to flexographic.
Harold: Awful. Yeah, it's like the printing people, I don't know if it was cheaper. They just said, hey, we're switching over to this stuff. I think it was like the plates they used to print cardboard boxes, like craft boxes, like, you got the Amazon box back in the day. It was a really inferior process, but it was cheaper. And the other thing was the blacks couldn't print solid. So you get these weird things where you have this grayish black, and you can see the colors underneath where somebody had cut the litho for the color. And the blue is-- You can see the blue plate under the black. Yeah. Not a good time period for comics.
Jimmy: No. The blue plate under the black is awful. Cartoonist Tom Scioli calls that skin cancer black. See all the disgusting. Anyway, well, with that thought, we're going to take a break. so you guys just hang out right here for a second. We're going to go get a snack, and then we'll come back on the other side and pick up with the strips.
BREAK
VO: Hi, everyone. I just want to take a moment to remind you that all three hosts are cartoonists themselves, and their work is available for sale. You can find links to purchase books by Jimmy, Harold, and Michael on our website. You can also support the show on Patreon or buy us a mud pie. Check out the store link on unpackingpeanuts.com.
Jimmy: And we're back.
Jimmy: Hey, Liz.
Jimmy: I'm just hanging out here in the mailbox. So we got any letters?
Liz: We do. Don Kelly wrote to us and says, listening to Charles Schulz speaking at UCLA in 1971 on YouTube, someone asks why Violet, Patty, and Shermy don't show up too often. Schulz replies, because they are straight men and only get used when a straight man is needed for particular lines.
Michael: Boy, I wouldn't say they were straight men or straight women.
Jimmy: Yes, well, okay, see, I'm interested in that because. Right, okay, so here is Schulz saying this. This is what he said. was he speaking 1970? He said 71?
Harold: Okay.
Jimmy: So he's like, they are straight men. Now, having read every one of these strips, they're not for a long time. And then eventually they sort of become that. Or am I projecting that?
Michael: No. the straight man. No. They're instigating and they're making the jokes.
Jimmy: Very often. They're making the jokes.
Michael: Yeah. They're creating the situation and commenting on it. And often Charlie Brown is just standing there listening to them.
Harold: Michael, why do you think Schulz said that?
Michael: I don't, mean, I don't know why he cut those characters out, either, except all his female characters were kind of mean. Maybe he thought that was not a good look.
Harold: I mean, I could see if he said, well, I wouldn't say this if I were the creator, but I would say they're maybe more two dimensional, but straight man sounds a little more planned.
Jimmy: Yeah. I don't think there's ever been a straight man character in Peanuts that stuck around for any length of time.
Michael: I mean, that was Shermy's job pretty much. And Franklin also, who hasn't really appeared much in the last decade, was pretty much a straight man. I think Schulz gave him one or two punchlines, but that's about it.
Harold: I mean, to me, a straight man is the one who sets somebody else up for the joke. But maybe Schulz meant they're not inherently funny in themselves, but they're hilarious. I don't know. But I think in Franklin, I mean, Franklin seems to me to be a little more philosophical in some of them, and he's definitely a character, and you sense there's a depth and dignity to him, but because, of that, I think it's harder to give him a joke that is his right.
Harold: He might say something that's a little more profound or insightful, but it's not necessarily the punchline. Or if it is, it's going to be a soft punchline.
Jimmy: Right. And I do think that in upcoming years, that side of characters like Franklin becomes more prominent as Schulz figures that out. Like how to do that. And it's basically by doing a lot of stuff of Franklin and Charlie Brown at the wall.
Michael: But I think the big point is that the creator is not always the best critic of his own work.
Jimmy: Oh, 100%. That's true. A lot of times the worst. To be able to see what's going on. Well, yeah, I can think of elements like that in my own work where people have said things about it and I go, that's great. I wish I would have thought of that at the time.
Harold: I am a genius.
Jimmy: Brilliant. I didn't understand any of that, but great. So if you want to get in touch with us, you can email us, through unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com. Or you could follow us on social media. We're on blue sky and Instagram. We're at unpack Peanuts. And on Facebook, we're unpacking Peanuts and you can follow us on YouTube. we had some excitement coming up here. Good old, YouTube really did us a favor. And, we got a lot of new viewers for our Christmas episode, rerelease, which was great. And the other thing we did over the holiday break, we ran, our very first special live event for our Patreon subscribers, and it was a blast. Guys, do you want to just talk about that a little bit? Because we're going to be doing them more frequently coming up, and we would love to have, as many of you participate as possible. We had a real great crowd the first time.
Michael: Yeah, I was really happy with it. And, yeah, we ended up interviewing them.
Jimmy: Right.
Michael: Interesting bunch of people, creative.
Harold: Yeah, I'm fascinated to see. And we just scratched the surface of it, of how you, as listeners are interacting with the podcast. Are you driving? Are you working? Are you just listening? There's a really interesting different ways you can interact with this. You can read the strips in advance. Maybe you're just listening to the podcast, and then do you ever go back because we mentioned something, or are you just listening and it's in your theater of the mind? I'm guessing there's a lot of different ways people are interacting with it, but it's helpful to me to know from the people who listen, how do you engage with us? Is there anything in here that is particularly enjoyable, or is there something like, oh, no, they're doing that again.
Jimmy: now, I will warn you, though, if you say, oh, no, they're doing that again, I will just do it more.
Harold: Well, that's true. So don't be careful about how you get a feedback. Jimmy. Doubling down.
Jimmy: I wasn't feeling well over Christmas. I'm terrible stomach pain. And I went to the doctor, and they said, oh, yeah, I don't know. maybe just eat crackers for a couple of days. I'm like, okay, thanks a lot. So I came home, ate a ham sandwich, drank a coke. Next day, felt much better, and my daughter said to me, so you went to the doctor, I said, yes. Then you didn't do what he said? I said yes, and then you felt better? I said, yes. She goes, so you just needed an authority figure to defy. Anna. You get me. But I had a blast doing it. I was probably the least, into the idea of doing it. but I had maybe the most fun, which is, as is my want in life, to be dragged, kicking and screaming, but then have fun.
Liz: I love the fact that it was a wide cross section. We had people who were probably, barely 20 and people who were older than Michael. Can you imagine!
Jimmy: mathematically? No. I'm kidding.
Harold: Yeah, really different insights and people coming at it from all different angles. And we're all coalescing here and unpacking Peanuts, which I think is amazing and wonderful because we're enjoying diving in here. And the fact that we're not alone and there are people as engaged as we are is just boggling my mind.
Michael: We're all living in happy piggy land.
Jimmy: one of my favorite things to do for the podcast is name the episodes. All right, guys, what do you say? oh, well, first off, let me just say, so if you guys want to be a part of the next one, you could just kick in a little something on Patreon, right? Is that what it is, Liz?
Liz: Yeah, you can go to patreon.com/unpacking Peanuts and take it from there.
Jimmy: Awesome. We would love to see you at the next one. All right, let's get back to the strips.
February 22. Linus, Lucy, and Charlie Brown are all at the thinking wall. Charlie Brown, however, is walking away, and Linus and Lucy are just sitting there, sort of staring out into space. In panel two, Charlie Brown has left, and Linus and Lucy are looking out after him. And Linus says “one thing I have to admit about Charlie Brown, he is absolutely without guile.” And then in panel four, Lucy turns and looks off in Charlie Brown's direction again and says, “I knew he was missing something.”
Jimmy: That's a throwback, kind of. That's a classic.
Michael: Yeah. I was just going to say that it looks and feels very classic. Could fit in the 60s without anyone noticing anything.
Jimmy: Yeah, for sure.
Harold: I think I'd mentioned a few years back that I was noticing that the characters, as a rule, didn't lie to each other the way I'd seen other pop culture. Like, some things are based in lies, like watching old Bewitched episodes or I Dream of Jeannie, where the whole thing is you're trying to keep a lie from somebody, or Mr. Ed. That was just a thing. And this strip is kind of devoid of that for the most part. I think the one example that I said certainly disproves that to some extent, is Lucy with the football. But I have a theory that Schulz was not terribly aware of that part of Charlie Brown until he'd made the January 4 strip where Lucy is saying, Charlie Brown. Do you think I wasn't invited to a New Year's party because I'm too crabby? And Charlie Brown's response is, no, you were probably invited to nine parties. But all the invitations were lost in the mail. And then Lucy walks away kind of satisfied with that answer. And I remember when I read it, I was jarred because it looked like Charlie Brown was basically Lying to her.. And so I was struck by that because I was like, that doesn't feel like Charlie Brown. Well, this strip here comes out maybe seven weeks later. So it would have had maybe two to three weeks for people to write in when this thing actually came out. That's my theory, is that people wrote in and said, that's not like Charlie Brown. And then he says he's guileless. And then Schulz thought about it and did this strip. So that's entirely conjecture. When I read it, I was like, oh, good, I'm glad he's clearing up something. That was a misstep on January 4.
Michael: But can you prove your theory in a court of law?
Harold: Well, maybe somebody, a pettifogger, might be able to, but I don't know if there's anybody at the Schulz museum who has access to. I don't know. Did they keep mail like that? I guess they did. But anyway, I don't know if anybody on the inside would have any insight into that. If I'm completely off my rocker. Or maybe there's a little hint somewhere that is the case.
Jimmy: Well, whether or not you're completely off your rocker is independent of whether or not that’s Charlie Brown.
Harold: That's true. Yeah. I don't even have a rocker anymore. It's in storage.
February 25. Lucy is hanging out at Schroeder's piano in her classic position. As Schroeder is practicing away. And Lucy says, “I think I'd like to take piano lessons.” Then she turns to Schroeder and says, “wouldn't you like to give me piano lessons?” Schroeder, without looking up, says, “no.” Then in the next one, Lucy sits next to him, says, “we could sit side by side.” And Schroeder says, “I think I'll switch to the violin.”
Jimmy: So weird seeing Lucy sit behind the.
Michael: Yeah, it looks so wrong. isn't it weird?
Harold: I think Schroeder would agree with you, Michael. Yeah, that is true. You could take an eye out with a violin. That's someone that close next to you, Harold.
Jimmy: now, I'm not looking at this in the Fantagraphics book, although I have them and love them. I'm looking at this on Go Comics. But panel four, I'm really seeing what I think you're talking about with the thickness of the lines, actually. And panel three too, like, looking at,
Harold: And it's even varied here. And again, this kind of goes back to Schulz living with the fact that he has less control than he used to have because of the shake of the hand. He's got a lot of things to take into account when he's putting ink on paper. And I think he's working faster. A lot of times you see little blips and things that you didn't in the past where the ink dip is a little too heavy for the lettering and this and that, and it's just part of the strip now. And it's something that he's moving through and he's not letting it stop him.
Jimmy: I'm a fan. I want to see his hand in the work. I love that. I cannot take auto tune, like listening to modern pop music that is just tuned within an inch of its life.
Harold: Especially if they have the dial that's going between the notes while you're just holding it.
Jimmy: So bad. I was listening to a podcast, and they were talking about. I think actually, they were talking about the Beach Boys, I think. And someone was playing beach boys to their younger nephew or niece, and they're like, they're out of tune. Like the Beach Boys are out of tune?
Michael: Live they certainly were.
Jimmy: No, but they're just talking about the recordings on the albums. And what they mean by it is, it's not auto tuned. It doesn't sound like what they've exclusively heard for music. It's this constant elimination of the person, which I find very troubling. Which doesn't have to come from technology, by the way, because I was thinking about this. You know who's a brilliant artist, who, as far as I know, only does digital. Well, no, it doesn't. But the stuff they're known for is all digital. Steve Conley’s The Middle Age. That could only be done by Steve Conley. And it's completely digital. It's not like the tool is the problem.
Harold: It's what. Because you can put settings on those tools. Like you were saying, for those of you who don't use these art tools, there are literally settings you can make. If you're trying to do an arc and your hand is a little wavery, you can say, well, I want that to smooth by, it's a two out of ten or ten out of ten. And you'll get a perfect arc at ten. And. Yeah, it's a choice you can now make. That's not your actual hand, it's the computer. It's still a choice. Right. It's an artistic choice, but, it is taking information away from how you actually engaged with the program.
Jimmy: Now, I love the line quality in Tangled River. It has like a clear line style that I can still see. I can 100% see your hand in it. How much did you fool around, Michael, with adjusting line those controls Harold's talking about, or did you just look at it like, almost like this is paper, but digital paper?
Michael: Yeah, no, I never use those. I'm not even aware that they're there.
Jimmy: amazing.
Michael: Yeah. I mean, I'd like to have a tight line, but I, wasn't going to use tricks to get it.
Harold: What program were you using to draw Tangled River, Michael?
Michael: I was doing Pixelmator on most of those.
Harold: Pixelmator-- I’ve never heard of that.
Michael: It's like a Photoshop for Mac.
Harold: Okay.
Michael: Yeah, I do like to get a very precise line, but in a way, I probably overuse the line tool, for backgrounds and things.
Harold: And the line tool is essentially where you're creating a straight line.
Michael: Yeah. You're just pulling the line out and positioning where you want it. Yeah. That might affect the look of the strip.
Jimmy: It works in a science fiction setting, though.
Harold: Perfect, right?
Jimmy: Yeah, that's another thing.
Harold: Yeah. And intentionality is a huge part. Think how people engage with art. Does it say, I meant to do that. As my wife Diane Cook's teacher, said when she was doing studying art. It was like, is it the truth? Is another way they put it. Other people's art. That's what you're asking, whether it's successful. Is it the truth?
Michael: Yeah.
Harold: Right.
Michael: That's why I will accept, an abstract artist. I take him a lot more seriously. If I could see some early work where, yes, he can actually paint the vase, flowers.
Harold: Right.
Michael: And then he chooses not to. But rather than go like. Well, this guy who knows if he can draw.
Jimmy: Yeah. It's always interesting when you see something like someone who has this explosive way of working. That just changes everything. But that also, on the surface is fairly easy to copy. I think, like Picasso's some of his later. Like he's just going through all these different styles and periods and stuff like that. But then he leaves it all behind in his wake. And, a lot of people are able to go, I can do that. And then you sort of kill painting. Because is painting even what is painting in the 21st century?
Harold: Mondrian and Jackson Pollock make things a little problematic. Yeah.
Jimmy: Pollock is a great, better example even.
Michael: Yeah, but can Jackson Pollock actually draw like Captain America?
Jimmy: No. That's what I'm saying. I don't think so. I doubt it. Right.
Michael: I mean, Jack Kirby could probably do a Pollock easier than Jackson Pollock could do Kirby.
Harold: Oh, yeah.
Jimmy: Well, the greatest critique of all of this. Is the Norman Rockwell painting of the guy looking at the Jackson Pollock painting.
Michael: Yeah. Right.
Jimmy: It's brilliant. All right. Anyway,
March 23. Snoopy is standing out inside, what looks like a little parking lot. And he says, why did he do that? And he walks on what looks like I don't even know what. And he says, “I just don't understand.” Then Snoopy walks over to his doghouse. And, he finds Woodstock. His old pal Woodstock, waiting for him atop it. And Snoopy says to Woodstock, “you're a bird. Maybe you can tell me. I just saw a bunch of quail over in a parking lot.” Snoopy now hops up on the doghouse and starts talking further to Woodstock. Saying, “a big truck came along. And instead of flying, they ran like mad. They didn't take off into the air until the last minute. Why do they do that?” Asks Snoopy. “Why don't they fly? They're birds. Why do they run? I don't understand.” And then Woodstock gives a huge explanation in chirps to which Snoopy says, “I see. He doesn't know.”
Harold: Also Jimmy Gownley.
Michael: This seems to me, again, that middle aged Snoopy, because you sit around going like, these kids today, these birds today, why do they do this stupid thing? When I was a kid, the quails would fly.
Jimmy: But now.
Harold: Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near.
Jimmy: That one just made me laugh out loud. Oh, okay. But now we're coming to March 27. I'm telling you now, this is my strip of the, year. No one's calling it. This is mine.
Charlie Brown is at the thinking wall, and he looks absolutely depressed. Lucy comes up holding a piece of paper, and she says, “I figured it out, Charlie Brown. If you stay depressed for two more days, you'll make it into the book of world records.” Charlie Brown hears this, lights up, and says, “wow, that's great.” Big smile on his face. In which panel four, Lucy throws the paper over her shoulder and says, “you just blew it.”
Michael: He can’t even get depressed right.
Jimmy: That is a real condensation of the Charlie Brown character in four panels. I love that.
March 31. Oh, so it's 1980, so, of course, it's census time, and Snoopy, has become a census taker. In panel one, he says, “here's the world famous census taker making his rounds,” and he's wearing a fedora while he's carrying his clipboard and papers. He rings the bell. Someone answers the door and says, “yes.” And then he counts them by putting a paw print right on this rando's forehead and says, “one.”
Michael: That's why I picked this, actually. I went, is this somebody we know? I mean, it looks a hell, of like Charlie Brown, except for the hair, maybe.
Jimmy: Charlie Brown's trying something.
Harold: That's Charlie Brown's bedhead. Woke him up.
Jimmy: I love the hat. Snoopy and a fedora. That's good stuff.
April 6. Peppermint Patty and Marcie are hanging out at the caddyshack. And then we see in panel two, because they're caddying at a golf club, in panel two, we see a shrub talking that says, “I was always sure that I'd be tall. Actually, I had always hoped that it'd be a giant redwood,” but this is just, in fact, a shrub. So, in the next panel, we see Peppermint Patty and Marcie doing their caddying and saying, “a good caddy, Marcie, should know every inch of the course.” Marcie says, “I can appreciate that, sir.” Peppermint Patty says, “we should know every tree and bunker on the course.” Marcie says, “what about that little tree over there, sir?” And as they say this, they're carrying these large golf bags full of clubs up the hill in the next panel, Peppermint Patty says, “they have those on each fairway. Marcie. They tell the golfer that he's 150 yards from the green.” In the next panel, as they walk by the little shrub, the shrub says, “I refuse to accept that. My mother didn't raise me to be 150 yard marker.”
Michael: See, I draw the line here. I totally accept the school building thinking.
Jimmy: Sure.
Michael: I will not accept the shrub thinking. I'm sorry.
Jimmy: And why is that?
Harold: The shrub is talking. It's not thinking. Beagles think. Shrubs talk. In Schulz’s world.
Michael: Yeah. This is absurd. Well, I think the building has more of a history. The building's been around, but the shrub.
Jimmy: Do you know what? I think your tolerance for absurdity is in direct relation, to your blood sugar.
Michael: I'm starving.
Jimmy: As we get closer to Michael's dinner time. This is ridiculous. Yeah, I don't know, but I can't really defend the talking shrub, either.
Michael: I mean, there's every tree, all those little flowers in panel five. Are they all thinking things they should?
Harold: what about the soda cans next to Marcie?
Michael: Where do we draw the line here?
Jimmy: Well, there are many philosophies in which, people believe that everything has sentience and has a soul.
Michael: So maybe the golf clubs.
Jimmy: Golf clubs, too. Especially golf clubs. Anyway, what I really want to say is. May 7.
Harold: Hey, wait a second here. But, see, Schulz is prescient because he's got Caddyshack, on the wall there, which it's like, three months before the movie comes out. Maybe he had to subscribe to Variety magazine and knew it was coming. I'm done.
May 7. Snoopy's playing tennis. This is a series of strips, where Snoopy is going to join some tennis tournaments. And, Charlie Brown's questioning about it. He says to Snoopy, “a woman's tournament? You can't enter a women's tournament. You think you can pretend you're Billie Jean King or someone?” And in the last panel, we see Snoopy, who has tied his ears up into pigtails, and he says, ”Tracy Austin.”
Michael: I drew a blank on that.
Jimmy: Oh, Tracy Austin was, like a young phenom. she was like a teenager when she hit it big. I don't believe, though, that her career panned out over the long term as well as people thought it was going to.
Harold: And it seemed like tennis really was. This was, like, the peak of tennis in american culture. Right.
Jimmy: John McEnroe was also referenced in.
Harold: Yeah. And then Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg. it just seemed like more people were following tennis than any other time in this era.
Jimmy: And if you want to read, David Foster Wallace, like Michael is, you can check out Tracy Austin Broke My Heart. an essay he wrote about her memoir, which is great.
Harold: Yeah, I don't know how he does it, but Snoopy does look like Tracy Austin in that last panel.
Jimmy: It's amazing. He looks like John McEnroe in the one before. He's a brilliant cartoonist.
May 12. Oh, we have the entire bird scout troupe is here, and Snoopy is, kind of calling roll. He says, “all right, men, answer as I call your name. Woodstock. Bill, Conrad, Olivier.” And then we hear another chirp. And Snoopy says, “Harriet. Who's Harriet?” then Snoopy says in the third panel, “and why, pray tell, should Harriet be invited to join our group?” To which, I guess Woodstock, or one of the birds says something, and Snoopy, with a big smile on his face, says, “right. Anyone who brings along angel food cake with seven minute frosting is welcome.”
Michael: Now, I didn't understand this at all.
Jimmy: What don't you understand?
Liz: That's because your mother was a horrible cook.
Michael: My mother never baked a cake in her life.
Jimmy: Oh, really?
Michael: Really
Jimmy: No. Was that a health thing or just
Liz: She was not competent.
Michael: Yeah, she was not going to bother.
Harold: So that makes it unrelatable.
Michael: It’s not like we didn't have cake. But they have nice cakes at the store. I mean, come on.
Jimmy: They do have nice cake. You can't go wrong with an Entenmann's now and again.
Harold: Yeah. Although you don't know how many minutes it took to make the frosting.
Jimmy: That's right. Angel, food cake with seven minute frosting. I've never had angel food cake with frosting of any kind.
Michael: True.
Jimmy: I've had angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries, but.
Harold: Something that's a thing right now in the United States seems to be. Bundt cakes made a comeback. Yes.
Jimmy: I didn't know that.
Harold: Nothing Bundt Cakes chain is.
Michael: Yeah, well, the Nazis are coming back, too.
Jimmy: Bundt cakes and nazis. Well, that's not going to be the title of this episode, but, we've reached the end of this one. I'm really excited to get back to it because we still have our picks of the year and our MVP and the anger and happiness index and all of that to get to, but that'll have to wait till next time. So between now and then what I want you to do is, go onto our website and sign up for the great Peanuts reread so you can get that fantastic once a month newsletter that'll let you know what we're studying. I would love to hear from you at any and all of our social medias. Or, you can call us on our hotline, which is 717-219-4162. So you give us a call and we'll check in next time and we'll get through the second half of 1980. Lots of good stuff coming up. Until then, for Michael, Harold and Liz,
I've been Jimmy. Be of good cheer.
M H & L: 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 Threads. Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com. Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
Harold: I'm done.
Comments