1996-2 - Angel Food Cake With 7- Minute Frosting and a Side of Attempted Murder

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking, Peanuts, the show where three cartoonists look at every comic strip created by Charles M. Schulz between 1950 and 2000, and we discuss the ones that we find the most interesting. the best, the weirdest, all that kind of stuff. 

I'll be your host for the proceedings. My name's Jimmy Gownley. You know what? I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons not to Grow up, the Dumbest Idea Ever. And you can subscribe to all my new comics right now for free over at gvillecomics.substack.com 

And 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 the 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.

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

Liz: Howdy

Michael:  y'all.

Jimmy: Howdy, y'all. So we are right here in, 1996, in the middle of our last regular season of Peanuts. And I know every time I look at the strips and I just feel the inevitable just creeping around the corner. I'm talking about death, of course, but also our regular seasons of podcast. But I'm happy to be here to talk, with you folks about it. Harold, what's going on with Mr. Schulz's life here in good old 1996? You know what? I'm suspecting it's going to be a boring, quiet year with nothing going on. That's what I think.

Harold: Oh, well, There is something very momentous that happened in Schulz’s life in 1996. It by its nature is lurid, but it speaks volumes about who Charles Schulz is as a man. I think he made some choices in what his response to this was. That says a lot about who he was. That's why I'm bringing this up. And it's not a very well known story, maybe for good reason. but in 1995. Schulz, had a financial advisor working, for him, and he also had a secretary. And, he had multiple people helping him get the strip out and manage all of the massive amount of fares is multi, multi million dollar business for Schulz. So two of those people are his financial adviser and his secretary. Well, it comes out that the two are having an affair. And Schulz tells that he tried to warn the business advisor in particular. He said, you know, cut this off. You know, you're married to another person. You need to end this. Because he was, he was concerned, you know, if only from a, an HR perspective, you know, he could be liable for, like, sexual harassment based on the nature of the relationship between the two of these people. So that's going on. He's got to deal with the stress of that. And he's, you know, he's friends with the business manager and his wife. 

Well, the business manager decides to break up with the wife. The wife knows about this affair, and it turns out that she is so upset and distraught that she goes out, gets a permit for a gun and comes, to Schulz's office in 1995 with the gun, with the intention to kill her husband. And she finds him, shoots him twice in the back and then shoots herself in the chest. she was intending to end her own life. Pretty miraculously, both of them survive. And of course, as you can imagine, there was a major trial and Schulz was a witness at that trial. And what we learned from this was that Schulz actually put up a two million dollar cash bail for the wife of this man who had shot him in the back twice. And he testified in on her behalf, basically saying this was extremely out of character for her. He'd known her for years, and she was, you know, she was up for life in prison. The result of that trial where he was a witness was a hung jury. I think it was nine to three to actually acquit, given some pretty extreme circumstances. And she then, before the next trial came up, this time around, she pled guilty. She got a year sentence. She served six months and 3,000 hours of community service as a result of that, and then she went on to live a long life. And the business manager actually wound up marrying the secretary.

Liz: What's your source for this?

Harold: So, 

Michael: National Enquirer. 

Harold: The Editor and Publisher magazine had the article on Schulz being the witness, which is, which tipped me off to it. And then I went online and there's a long article in, Oxygen True Crime. There's, an article, called I hope he's dead. Woman attempts murder, suicide at Peanuts headquarters. That tells the fuller part of the story. But Schulz's response to this, how many people in that? It's his offices, it's people that are working for him, it's people that he knows. An extreme thing like this happens, how would you respond? You know, would you try to distance yourself from this? There's potentially scandal connected to this. There's certainly liability connected to this. Schulz's response is to put up 2 million dollars bail for the woman who perpetrates the crime.

Liz: Did he fire the financial consultant?

Harold: I believe, yes, 

Jimmy: she did.

Michael: Now, I heard about this in, Santa Rosa Babylon. The lurid doings in the cartoonist business.

Harold: But number one, how many people are in a position to put up $2 million cash bail then? If you have the ability to do it, how many people would actually have done what Schulz did? And then goes in to testify on behalf of the woman who committed the crime? Really? In an effort to create some sort of forgiveness and reconciliation for something that's super heinous.

Jimmy: Can you imagine the testimony? She almost never shoots people in the back. Well, in the front, that's a different story. We're not talking about, that.

Michael: Yeah, that's pure Western.

Jimmy: Exactly.

Michael: You don't shoot ‘em in the back.

Jimmy: Exactly. Wow, that is an unbelievably dark story. It is very. It is something to contemplate. wow, it's thrown me for a loop. I did not know about any of this until, what, two minutes before we started recording. so it's a wild, wild scene.

Harold: He's involved in a lot of things because when that much money is floating around you as a person, lawsuits seemed to kind of come out of the woodwork. Right?

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: But I had no idea that he'd ever been a part of something like this. And how traumatic that must be for everybody involved.

Liz: This gives me new insight into why Harold kept his subscription to Editor and Publisher.

Jimmy: Finally, though, we have a true crime element to this podcast. Yeah. So we can go trend, baby, trend. And we will be doing a 40 part series on this. Yes.

Liz: And updating the categories.

Michael: Any other cartoonists, involved in murders?

Jimmy: Oh, let's see. I bet there's gotta be a bunch. There's. There was the. Not a cartoonist, but the guy who formed the-- He was either a murderer or murdered. So maybe we shouldn't slander him since I don't know if he was the victim or the perpetrator.

Harold: That's probably a good idea.

Michael: Now, we're just making stuff up. Yeah, like Jack, Kirby shot at Stan Lee.

Jimmy: Oh, no. Wouldn't have missed.

Michael: well, the gun was, like, bigger than that.

Jimmy: Oh, that's what it was, right? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Wow. That is. That is wild. Well, with that said, how about we just hit the strips? 

Okay, so if you want to follow along with us, there's a couple things you need to do. The first thing you need to do is go over to good old unpackingpeanuts.com and sign, up for the great Peanuts reread. And that will get you, one email a month that'll let you know what we're going to be covering, and then you can follow along with us. And the way follow along with us is you just go over to good old gocomics.com and then. 

[sfx: msg ding] Oh, hold on one second. Oh, from the hotline, super listener Sawyer Honeycutt and, super listener Mary from Colorado have both alerted us. Go Comics is no longer free.

Harold: So.

Jimmy: So, yeah. Oh, no. So, all right, guys. So everyone's gonna have to rethink. We got so far, so far doing it for free. But you know what? In this world, nothing's guaranteed. And, you know, it's good to pay for art, right?

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: So it looks like the situation here is that, Andrews McMeel, who owns, Gocomics.com have decided to go to a subscription model. Oh, how much is it?

Harold: 4.99 a month.

Jimmy: 4.99 a month. And for that, you not only get all of Peanuts, but you get everything else that, the site had to offer. Right.

Liz: And it's upgraded. It's easier to use.

Jimmy: Yeah. So it is a bummer, that you're not going to be able to just go over to Go Comics and read this for free. If you're clever, you might be able to find strips. If not, you got. Still, your options of the Fantagraphics books are out there that collect every single year. Costco has collections of Peanuts books by decade. They, don't have the Sundays, but they're very inexpensive, and you can get, you know, a decade's worth of daily strips in each volume. So we're going to muddle through to the end of the regular seasons, here. And we appreciate that you guys, have stuck with us so far and are going to continue to stick with us because you're nuts like us. But it is a bummer. And if you think about it, it's still going to be the cheapest way to have ever read the entirety of Peanuts. I mean, even buying a new. The only other thing would be like going to a library every day for 50 years and looking at the paper. you know, even if you just bought a newspaper every day, it would cost more than what, it would be for the few years we have left. So.

Liz: And Go Comics is giving a seven day free trial. So you can just, you can read all 17,897 strips in seven days.

Jimmy: Or just read those if you're, if you've been diligent and been sticking with us, just read those last few years, which you actually could easily do in a week. All right, well, thank you, Sawyer and Mary, they both let me know within seconds, of each other, that we were gonna have to make this announcement. So I appreciate that. we're gonna just move forward though and get, started with the strips. Let's hit them. 

April 22nd. So we're picking up in the middle of that sequence where Charlie Brown has been invited to the sweetheart dance, with the little girl from his dance class who we believed, everybody believed she may have been imaginary because she didn't show up, at, ah, the last dance. But here she is and she likes Charlie Brown and they're out dancing. But unfortunately, as the dance starts, we hear the PA system, make this announcement. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Does anyone here own a small white dog? Charlie Brown already looks a little worried about this panel. Two with long black ears. And then in the last panel, Snoopy comes in, with a lovely young lass, in hand, and they're dancing and he's wearing his French Foreign Legion hat. And the announcement says who seems to be a sergeant in the Foreign Legion.

Harold: That's an expert announcer, there.

Michael: What I want to know is who's that tramp he's dancing with? Come on, this is not like grammar school. Get up there.

Harold: So do you think she's French?

Michael: Wait, what do you think is, might be Algerian.

Jimmy: All weird.

Harold: So we, we know now that, yeah, she's, she's not a figment, of Charlie Brown's imagination, which I'm actually quite happy about.

Jimmy: Is her name Emily? Was that it? Or I can't remember.

Liz: Yeah, I think so.

Harold: Yeah, apparently neither is the, is the girl dancing with Snoopy? It's a strange world of Peanuts, right?

Jimmy: I don't know. I don't see what's so weird about that girl with the curly hair. Like, I don't know, like, what's she wearing. That's the weird person here. Dressed weird is Charlie Brown. Snoopy looks better than Charlie Brown because.

Harold: You can make an argument that she's a figment of Charlie Brown's imagination. Snoopy's just dancing by himself.

Jimmy: Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Harold: We can go on down all sorts of rabbit holes.

April 23, Charlie Brown and Snoopy are kicked out of the dance. Like, literally kicked out and shown the curb. And they're out there lying on the curb, and Charlie, Brown says, now look what you did. You got me kicked out of this sweetheart ball. And then they're walking along the sidewalk. Charlie Brown's ranting after Snoopy. I was having the best time of my life. I was having fun. And Snoopy says, how can you have fun in a place where dogs aren't allowed?

Harold: Yeah, exactly.

Jimmy: Good question.

Harold: I love that drawing of Snoopy in the Foreign Legion hat in this second panel where he's just kind of looking. Looking blankly at Charlie Brown.

Jimmy: I love all three drawings in, this strip. I think it's really nicely composed.

Harold: It's fun to see a strip where Schulz seems to really put a lot of additional care into the background backgrounds.

Jimmy: And, yes, this.

Harold: This was a sequence that meant, something to him.

Jimmy: Obviously, usually the arc of. And, You guys can disagree with me if I'm wrong, because I could be wrong, but it seems to me that usually the arc of a visual artist. Well, let's say a comic book artist, is they start with whatever their rough style is, you know, their. Their earliest nascent style. And then it gets more refined and more sophisticated and often more elaborate. And then it reaches a point where they start pairing it all away and it becomes, They simplify everything. But it seems like Schulz did that and then started on the upswing again to put more detail in. And I think it's part of. Is the reason is because of the tremor. Like, more information actually hides the tremor in a way that a stark pen line won't.

Harold: Yeah. And as a hard worker. And as a guy who is very competitive, he's. He's not phoning this in. You do get the impression that certain cartoonists fell out of love with their work or they moved on as a person beyond whatever it was they were creating when they sold this idea in the first place. And that's, always sad to see where you just feel like the joy is not in the strip. And that's a battle that a lot of syndicated cartoonists have to make who are working today. Because your income is shrinking. Right. As you lose newspapers and they're less competitive, and what's being paid is getting smaller and smaller. How hard is that? To stay focused and intensely interested in what you're doing and not let that kind of pull pull away from you? Some of it's just financial, right? I mean, you. You may have to be doing another job or two on top of putting out a daily strip. But in Schulz's case, obviously, he's worked his way up to incredible income, which is its own burden, because he's got to manage it all. but he is not skimping on the strip in these later years, and I love that.

Jimmy: You know what? I'm the kind of guy. I would sacrifice it.

Harold: I would.

Jimmy: I would bear that burden.

Michael: Yeah. I'm not gonna feel sorry for him.

Harold: That's good of you guys.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: Actually, I disagree with Jimmy's arc of the cartoonist get

Jimmy: Lay it on me. 

Michael: The first part of the arc is you copy someone.

Jimmy: Oh, that's a great.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: Who inspires you. But Schulz never did.

Harold: Yes, true.

Jimmy: Yeah. No, that is 100% true. Yeah. The first part is definitely, trying to draw, like your heroes.

Harold: And we know those heroes are. But you don't really see it in the work, do you? I mean, you can't peg Schulz to one artist, can you?

Jimmy: No, no. Even in those very early days. And in some way, his early stuff was. I mean, really radical because it was so minimal. I mean, that looks nothing like Popeye or Little Orphan Annie or Krazy Kat or any of the stuff that he would have liked, you know, growing up or.

Michael: Yeah. You couldn't tell who his influences were.

Jimmy: No.

Michael: At all artistically or even someone like R. Crumb was actually copying cartoonists who nobody knew about.

Jimmy: Right, right.

Michael: 1930s guys.

Jimmy: Right? Right. Yeah. That oftentimes something new in quotes in a culture or in an art form is really something old put in a new context and a new frame or whatever. 

April 30, Peppermint Patty and Marcie are in class, and Peppermint Patty fully turns around to Marcie in the middle of a test and says, quick, Marcie, I need the answers to 5, 7, 9, 10, and 12. And, Marcie says, I don't have those yet, sir. And Peppermint Patty, annoyed, says, what kind of student are you, Marcie? 

Jimmy: It's out of control, I'm telling you, in the Peppermint Patty school. But, like, wow.

Harold: And what an unobservant teacher. She's just turning around, talking in the middle of the test.

Jimmy: Maybe the teacher stepped out for a minute or she takes long blinks behind her desk during these tests.

Harold: She's busy building some horrible lessons plan for next week for Peppermint Patty.

Jimmy: I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that they're still cheating up a storm in Peppermint Patty universe.

Harold: It's crazy.

May 3rd. Sally is pushing Rerun on the swings. I love seeing everyone's little interactions with Rerun. And she pushes him and says, that's a nice shirt you're wearing, Rerun. And Rerun responds with, thank you. Actually, it used to belong to Linus. He's still being pushed by Sally. And he says, I'm the youngest, so all I get are throw ups. And then Sally says, hand me downs. And Rerun says, whatever.

Michael: He learned that from Sally the whatever line.

Jimmy: Yeah, I got hand me downs. I was an only child who got hand me downs because I had cousins, that lived like, in the next town over and like four older boy cousins. And I always got their hand me downs. There was a bunch of.

Harold: It would have been better if it were unannounced where it came from. And you just. Here are your new clothes versus, okay. This was your cousins?

Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, no. You know what the worst thing ever was? I got from them the one I actually liked? The one item of clothing as a child, actually, it was a brown leather jacket. Just like frickin Fonzies, man.

Harold: It was so. Wow. How old were you?

Jimmy: Five or six. I loved it. So I could go to, like, first grade in a leather Fonzie jacket.

Harold: And you wore it all the way through high school, right? Because it was so cool.

Jimmy: I'm still, I'm wearing it right now. Then, I went to my cousin's house wearing the jacket. And I was so happy, like, hey, look, I'm wearing the old jacket. And you know how your cousins have a cousin, but they're on the other side of the family? Well, it was his. And I hated that kid. I hated him. I despised him. So I was just, I never, I could never get the same joy out of it.

Harold: Oh, yeah.

May 5th. It's a Sunday. And the Sunday starts off with one of those symbolic panels. It's, two musical notes. and the bottom of the, of the notes are made from, the heads of Lucy and Schroeder. And then it starts up, with Lucy and Schroeder in their classic position. Lucy leaning on, the piano, and Schroeder, pounding away at the keys. And Lucy says, think about this. Let's say you and I were married, and let's say you are a famous concert pianist, but suddenly your career begins to go bad. No one wants you anymore. Instead of playing in beautiful concert halls, you're forced to play in sleazy joints. This has gotten Schroeder's attention. He has stopped playing.

Harold: A little miffed looking there, I think.

Jimmy: Yeah. 

And Lucy continues. And, she says, and I have to give up my lucrative teaching career at the university and take in laundry to support us. 

Which really a bad idea if you have a lucrative teaching career, first off.

Harold: A lucrative teaching career.

At this point, Schroeder is just shocked. And Lucy still continues. How do you think that would affect our marriage? Let's talk about this. To which Schroeder just pulls the piano out from under Lucy Bonk, sending her falling to the ground. And then a daze Lucy lying on the floor says, musicians never want to discuss anything.

Liz: So true

Michael: This strip could have appeared just about any place in the run. Yeah. Almost exactly the same.

Jimmy: Yep.

Harold: And this is one of, I think, the best Lucy Schroeders, certainly in a long, long time. And I. I think at one point, didn't somebody posit here in this. In the podcast that the Van Pelt parents were professors?

Jimmy: Oh, yeah. I don't remember who did, but, yeah, that is true. And it doesn't make sense. Right. That's what Lucy is seeing in her mom or something. Right.

Harold: So now we see that Lucy might. Yeah, might be following in the footsteps, but you can see Lucy as a. As a university professor, and certainly she went the whole way, got the PhD, got the most lucrative gig she can get teaching. and, but why she gives it up for taking in laundry to support. I guess it's not so lucrative if laundry is more lucrative than, a teaching career.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, that would definitely, could have been her field x

Michael: Where she foresaw the collapse of the university system.

Harold: It's like getting out while the getting's good.

Jimmy: Yeah. I mean, like every business, her little, psychiatric help booth just became a website at some point, and then eventually it was just on an app.

Harold: You know, I kind of shudder to think of having Lucy as my professor.

Jimmy: Yeah, I don't think you'd learn. You certainly wouldn't learn the right things. I don't think, you know, seeing this, and Michael saying, you know, this could have appeared at any point in the run. And it is true. This is one of the, you know, real staples going back to the 50s of setups. And I happen to be listening to, a bunch of Jean Shepherd shows, old Jean Shepherd radio shows. And for those of you who don't know who Jean Shepherd is, he was, a radio broadcaster in New York from the Midwest, became a big celebrity in broadcasting. He did stuff for pbs. And if you say, I never heard of him, you probably have at least have heard of A Christmas Story, you'll shoot your eye out. That is, adapted from a book of his called in, God We Trust. All others must pay Cash. And he's the actual voice of the narrator in the Christmas Story. Well, so I just have these things playing in the background and listening to one after the other. And lo and behold, one comes up and he's talking about the influence of the comic strips.

Harold: Oh, cool.

Jimmy: Yeah. And he is from 1972. And he talks a lot about the relationship between Schroeder and Lucy, who he unfortunately calls Lois, which sucks, because he actually knows his stuff. Like, you know, this is 1972. So these strips had never been reprinted. Cause one of his trivia, questions was, before Schroeder played the piano, which character in Peanuts played the piano? I mean, that is a hardcore deep question. 

Michael: He would have had to have been Linus. 

Jimmy: No, it's Charlie Brown. See, you don't even know, Yeah, it's Charlie Brown.

Michael: Linus went plink, plink, I think, didn't he?

Jimmy: No, that's Charlie Brown.

Michael: Oh, really?

Jimmy: Yeah, Yeah.

Harold: Yeah, Jean Shepherd-- independently of, Jimmy. I was. I was listening to a bunch of old time radio stuff and Jean Shepard--

Jimmy: Aren't we cool? Don't you wish you had our lives sitting back listening to old time radio? That's how, we roll.

Harold: There's a whole channel. Because he did a nightly show in New York City. And he was. He is an amazing extemporaneous, speaker. He's so fun to listen to. He will weave these stories and take you in all these different crazy places. And then he's ready to end it right on the, cutoff point while he's playing some crazy Lone Ranger ish kind of music. It's just magical.

Jimmy: Yeah, it is magic. When the ending theme song kicks in and you realize he's wrapping up at just that moment. It's like a magic trick every episode.

Harold: It is. Yeah. It's definitely worth checking out. There's lots of them on YouTube. There's ones you can listen to, mp3s and all that. But it's worth checking out, if you like that sort of thing.

Jimmy: And I sent, a link, to Liz and she's going to share it, in our social media for this particular episode. Really fun, worth listening to. It gets, you know, these are all just, saved by fans, you know, these old radio shows for the most part. so, you know, it gets cut out in part, but still worth listening to. 

May 8, Charlie Brown's trying to sleep and Sally's not letting him. She's in his room, he's covered up to the neck in his comforter, and she says, I did what you said, big brother. Oh, that's because, we have been having. This is a sequence where Sally has not been able to sleep. She's up at night worrying. And Charlie Brown, said, well, then go and worry. and here we are now. Sally says, I did what you said, big brother. I've been worrying about everything. I even worried about you. I worried that you'll never amount to anything and you'll marry the wrong girl and all your kids will be stupid. And then Sally, as she leaves the room, says, well, I think I'm starting to get a little sleepy. And Charlie Brown totally, consternated in the last panel, says, I guess I'll just lie here and worry.

Michael: Yep, she got it. She got it pegged. That's gonna happen.

Jimmy: I love that. The only expression change, in those first four panels is in panel three, Charlie Brown gets the parentheses around his eyes, indicating that this does not sound too good, that all his kids will be stupid and he'll marry the wrong girl.

Harold: What's interesting, in two strips in a row, we've got three characters, futures mapped out.

Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. Really, really funny. Sally and Charlie Brown's relationship is great when he. Like. The other thing I thought was great with Sally this year was when he goes to the. We didn't pick it, but when he goes to the dance and gets kicked out and then he arrives home early, I think that's what it is. She's already, like, moved some stuff into his room. She wasn't.

Harold: She's always doing. Always. Boy, she. I don't know what it is about Charlie Brown's room. It must be pretty nice.

Jimmy: Must be nice. Although it's haunted because he keeps hearing these voices. So I don't know. 

May 17th. We're another sequence in this one Rerun. is. Is so frustrated that it seems like everyone that he knows has a dog. but he is not allowed to get a dog. So. So he has come up with the idea, here that he is going to adopt Snoopy's brother Spike, because Spike's out in Needles and, doesn't have an owner. So this will be a perfect, fit. So this is now Rerun pitching this idea to Snoopy. And Snoopy's atop the doghouse with his little typewriter. And Rerun comes up to him and says, here's what you do. Write to your brother on the desert, tell him he can be my dog. Tell him we'll be pals. He can chase sticks and pull me in my wagon and learn tricks. And then the last panel, we see Snoopy starting to type the letter. Dear Spike, this was not my idea.

Harold: I laughed out loud when I read that.

Jimmy: it's really a good punchline.

Harold: It's perfect. But it's not the first thing I would have commented, come up with writing this. But of course, that's what Snoopy would start. If he's actually going to send the letter. Now, why is he sending the letter? That's interesting question. But the fact that he's got to. If he's going to do it, he's going to have to put, a disclaimer in right up front.

Michael: I got a little nervous because I thought, oh, God, if Spike moves back here, then he's going to be in, like, every strip. I didn't want that.

Harold: I would have loved to have seen a sequence with, one sequence with Rerun, and Spike. yeah. This is one of those deals where Schulz sets up an amazing premise that some people wouldn't milk forever. You know,  if this was Mary Worth. This would be six months. Right, Right. But no, he comes in, he dabbles in a fascinating idea, and he's out.

Jimmy: Yep. And what it is, is here on 

May 24, we see Spike has arrived. And, Lucy and Rerun are both there. And Rerun is actually hiding behind his big sister and just peeking out. And he looks at Spike and says, you know what? I don't think that's a golden retriever. 

Jimmy: Yeah. I actually would have liked to see this be a little long. I don't mean for years, but I mean, like two or three days more. you know, and I love the picture of Rerun peeking out. That's. That's really cute. And I love seeing him, you know, really treat Lucy as a big sister. It seems like a very little brother thing to hide behind her like that.

Harold: Lucy's looking at Spike like she's never seen him before.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Liz: Why would he think that Snoopy's brother was a golden retriever.

Harold: Good thought there Rerun is an innocent.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, he really is. 

June 16, the Beagle Scouts are out for a hike. And Snoopy calls back to them. Come on, keep coming. And they've now climbed to the top of a summit. And he says, from here you can see everything. Directly in front of you is beautiful Turtle Lake. And off to your left are the famous running rocks. And on your right is the magnificent Silver Cloud Waterfall. And then he says, and if you look behind you, you'll see the most wonderful sight of all. And who should it be? But Harriet is back. And she has brought a cake. And Snoopy says, the angel food cake that Harriet brought along. 

Jimmy: Love seeing Ms. Harriet back, with her angel food cake with the seven minute frosting.

Harold: I was just wondering, is this a place? Can we add those up or do they have any, geographical meaning?

Michael: They're not in Minnesota, I'll tell you that.

Harold: There is a Turtle Lake in Irvine. Okay, so maybe that's it.

Michael: Nowhere near Santa Rosa. I don't believe these are real places.

Harold: But the cake is real.

Jimmy: That's all that really matters. Silver Cloud Waterfall. the Thac Bac Waterfall Silver Falls in Vietnam.

Michael: Wow.

Jimmy: AI crushing it yet again. All right, so you know what, how about we take a break here and we split some of that angel food cake that Harriet brought along and then come back and finish up the strips for this episode. And of course, check the good old mailbag.

Liz: Alrighty.

Jimmy: Alright, we'll be right back.

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Jimmy: All right. And we're back. Hey Liz, I'm  hanging out in the mailbox. Do we got anything?

Liz: We do. We got an email from AA Forringer. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. And AA says, have you guys seen this article? There was talk about John Hughes doing a live action Peanuts movie back in the 90s and he links to an article from March 30th on MSN. and I'll put that in social media as well. And it talks about how it was going to happen but fell apart, which I'm very grateful for. Because while I love John Hughes, I really don't think I would have wanted to see a live action Peanuts movie.

Michael: I cannot visualize it being good.

Jimmy: No, it would be good.

Harold: But I mean, I wonder if it was. You know, Hughes kind of had a machine going at that point because he could write a script sometimes in like two days. He was just that kind of Ferris Bueller. A writer. Yeah. And so here he is. And for those of you who don't necessarily most, most of you, many of you may know John Hughes, but he did. We can rattle off some of the films that he's known for. 

Liz: Sixteen Candles, 

Harold: Breakfast Club. Early on he was a writer for what, National Lampoon.

Jimmy: Yes. Oh, Vacation. One of the Vacation movie is based on a National Lampoon article. 

Harold: So yeah, he was. And he certainly did lots of kids stuff. Home Alone.

Harold: So it's interesting that I'm assuming this was something he could do anything he wanted at this point in his career that he was looking at Peanuts. That's kind of cool that that was something of interest to him. Now he was having a lot of stuff produced at this point, I think. Right. So he was overseeing his empire and other people were actually often directing the films. But he'd still direct. But it's just kind of cool he was interested in Peanuts. It's nice to hear that. Yeah.

Liz: But live action Peanuts?

Harold: Yeah. I mean, in 1992, what would Snoopy have been? That's kind of scary. Pre Toy Story.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah.

Harold: You know, what would that have looked like? What would they have done? A little puppet.

Jimmy: I don't know.

Harold: They could have animated.

Jimmy: Because 1994, I think, is when they tried to bring back the Little Rascals and they made that Little Rascals movie and they're like live action cartoon characters. Oh, wasn't it?

Harold: No, not really.

Jimmy: I don't remember much about it, but I knew it existed. Yeah, I, you know, I think it's. It's really cool to know about because, it's fun to think about.

Harold: But, yeah, supposedly he met Schulz apparently at his house.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Says here. So that's. I would love to have been a fly on the wall to see what he was pitching. You think Schulz probably put the kibosh on it? I don't know.

Jimmy: Maybe. I tell you what though, I don't know, I think John Hughes is a really good writer and I like a lot of his movies. I don't think he has the Schulz sensibility, like at all. Yeah, very interesting.

Liz: So that's it for the mail.

Jimmy: All right, well, I got some stuff from the good old hotline we, got. In addition to letting us know that the Go Comics was now a subscription, Sawyer Honeycutt wrote and said, I was wondering when you all started cartooning, did you have a full time job or did you just decide, I'm going to start cartooning and make it work. Do you want me to take this?

Harold: Good question. Yeah.

Jimmy: Sawyer. Sawyer, my friend. Yeah, so I started cartooning. Well, first off, you can find out how I started cartooning by buying the dumbest idea ever available now from Scholastic Books. But yeah, I was 15 years old when I started, so I was just selling them out of my locker. And I was 36 when I quit. 36, something like that. Yeah, 36 to become a cartoonist full time. And for years I would work a job and I'd work nine, ten hours a day and then come home and do a complete page of comics. Comics, are really fun. They are the best art form in the world. it is very, very hard, to make it as you're living. And it's it's. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a slog.

Harold: Talking with, with Jimmy. I was working in the business, as the frustrated cartoonist who went off and helped other people get their stuff out there, including, including Jimmy. The thing Jimmy said when he hired me is, just find me a way so that I can work in comics full time. That was your goal?

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Yeah, that was what my goal was for Jimmy in any way I could help to get him there. And so.

Jimmy: And two years later it happened. Which is amazing. Like, you know.

Harold: Yeah, right. It was just an incredible thing to be, you know, just peripherally a part of, you know. I started drawing when I was three and like I said, I mean, I was working at a publishing company when I sold a comic book that was selling so few copies, I was just doing it on the side. Then I realized that I could actually work full time in comics, like I said, supporting other people, helping them get their voices out there. And so I started a printing brokering business specifically for all ages comics. And then that led into where I got the job, with Jimmy helping run his company and which Michael was instrumental in starting Renaissance Press.

Jimmy: Yep. It was started with me Michael and Karen Gownley and a bunch of investors. And then a few years in, we hired Harold to be our director of publishing and operations.

Michael: Yeah, the investors didn't really have much to do with it.

Harold: No, the investors, well, without their money that wouldn't have happened. So it's something. It's not nothing.

Jimmy: No.

Harold: Thank you to those guys that they, they put it, put up the funds and then you're able to navigate it.

Michael: Our genius.. That made it happen.

Harold: And then that, you know, helping Jimmy led me to be director of publishing and operations at Archie, which in some ways helped me get to Mystery Science Theater. Then I'm done with Mystery Science Theater and all of a sudden I realize I've got a window of time I can get my own voice out there. And that's why I'm going around the country, with my tent, selling my wares.

Liz: And where are you going to be after April 29th?

Harold: After April 29th. if you are in the New York City area, Queens, has an amazing food night market. And it's from 4 to midnight on Saturdays. And I will be there on not every Saturday, but Saturday the 3rd of May, from 4 to midnight. Then I think I will be in Westfield, New Jersey at the Spring Fling on Sunday the 4th. And that's what's coming up in the month of May. So. And Michael, what's your story with the world of cartooning and gigs and jobs?

Michael: Well, actually I made a living as an artist in a very, very niche field which kept me going. So I, in my spare time was able to do comics. But my goal when I started comics was to break even. That was all I wanted was like, boy, I could work really hard for free, but it would be worth it if I can get some comics out.

Liz: What was your niche field?

Michael: my niche field was engraving on ivory.

Harold: Scrimshaw.

Jimmy: Scrimshaw for all you Moby Dick fans out there.

Michael: Yeah. Which paid the bills, well...

Harold: it did pay.

Michael: It did pay. Yeah. So the cartooning, I had hopes that maybe something will happen here, but I really didn't count them on it.

Jimmy: Yeah, I think when we were in the 90s it was, unlikely it was starting out that you could do anything. It just seemed impossible to get to the point that you would be able to be a professional full time cartoonist.

Harold: Just because, yeah, you could number them in the hundreds.

Jimmy: Maybe less, probably. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, the bottom line is you're going to if, you want to ever be a cartoonist. It's a long slog and you have to do it purely for the love because then you'll be happy one way or the other if you do it for a whole lot. What's the joke? You want to know how you make a small fortune in comics? Start with a large fortune. So. 

All right. So we also heard, from super listener Joshua Stauffer from good old Lancaster, Penn, who writes. Hey guys. About that marble sequence. That story was in fact adapted in the 2006 special He's a Bully Charlie Brown. It was the final special produced by Bill Melendez and the last one designed for analog TVs in the old 4 by 3 aspect ratio. Be of good cheer Joshua Stauffer.

Harold: And that marble episode is the one where Charlie Brown gets, the marbles back for Rerun after losing to a marble shark from out of town.

Jimmy: And then the ends with P.S. we do have an FYE store at Park City center in Lancaster, Penn. So that is the same one from the 90s that I got the line of security blanket. So they are, FYE is still hanging in there. Way to go.

Harold: Good for them.

Liz: We also heard from, William Pepper telling us about the He's a Bully Charlie Brown, the animated special where the marbles story is told.

Jimmy: Excellent.

Harold: Oh, thanks. Thanks, William. Thanks. And thank you, Josh. Yeah.

Jimmy: All right. that is all we got. So if you wanna reach out and keep this conversation going, there's a couple ways you can do it. You can, of course, call us on the old hotline or leave a text message as Joshua did. 717-219-4162. You can shoot us an email over at unpackingpeanuts@gmail. dot com. We would love to hear from you because remember, when I don't hear, I worry. 

So how about we get back to those comic strips? 

June 23rd, it's another Sunday and Woodstock is out and he's picking up some twigs and leaves from the ground. Some sticks from the ground, really. And, Snoopy is watching him go back and forth. He's, doing something with these leaves. And then in the last panel we see Woodstock has assembled them into.

Harold: The Twiggywood bowl.

Jimmy: Yeah. 

A proscenium arch of an amphitheater. And he is putting on a little musical performance.

Michael: Playing the one note samba.

Harold: That is so beautifully drawn. I love how he's drawn that. It really gives you the sense of three dimensionality of these little twigs. He spent a lot of time on this.

Jimmy: Yeah, it looks great. It looks great. And it looks really good with having all that detail in one panel on the one item, and then, like, it's spare throughout the rest of it. And really spare in that last panel.

Harold: Yeah, you just have some shadow and little tufts of grass around Snoopy and a tiny shadow on Woodstock. And there is no background, there's no cloud. There's nothing except for that, which I think is a great way to go, because it's all about that thing he built.

Jimmy: Yeah, I love it.

Liz: Could be E flat.

Harold: It could be.

Jimmy: Harrisburg has a great little amphitheater in Reservoir park. And every year they do Shakespeare in the park there. It was a Gownley family tradition. And I think Woodstock would be a great opening act.

Harold: Yeah.

June 29, Woodstock and Snoopy are atop the doghouse. And Snoopy is pointing to the sky, and he says, look at those two little birds chasing that big bird. And then Woodstock says something, and Snoopy answers, I'm with you. Let's hear it for the little birds.

Harold: Schulz is definitely for the underdog. Yep, an under bird. That's very interesting. I mean, I keep thinking of Mr. Rogers and Schulz kind of having their time in the same era. At least the second half of Schulz's career is kind of around the same time as Mr. Rogers. And two people who so far have held up well historically in terms of how people see them. And they both seem to have that same emphasis on, respecting and honoring the. The little things in life. And that's. That seems to go over well. Or the Bob Ross kind of. You know, 

Jimmy: I just watched an episode of Bob Ross the other night. It's absolutely meditative and relaxing. There is something about the whole vibe of that show that you don't even. You do. It's you.

Liz: a happy little tree.

Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: I want to kill the guy, tell you the truth.

Jimmy: Why? You don't like his paintings?

Michael: Oh, I didn't know. I never thought to look at him. I found him annoying.

Harold: How did you know anything about him if you hadn't seen his paintings? It seems like those two go hand in hand.

Jimmy: Michael's only a fan of his potato salad. He didn't know he was a painter at all.

Harold: Bob Ross's potato salad with seven minute frosting.

Jimmy: That's right.

Harold: Now, in this strip, you, see in the first two panels, this interesting waiver in the bottom of Snoopy's snout that has become more common because he does it twice in a row in those first two panels. I just start to wonder if Schulz is choosing to does that is the way he wants to draw it. It looks a little odd to me because it usually a snout is a pretty straight shot for, a dog. but, you know, I would assume it's not intentional. But you do see it twice, so I don't know.

Jimmy: Yeah, I'm not sure. I wanted to see if those hash marks made it to something, but it doesn't seem.

Liz: Yeah, I tried to figure it out and I couldn't get it.

July 5th, the gang's at the beach. We see Linus, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy all hanging out on sand. And, Linus has been vexed throughout this year. as you may recall, he hears the coyotes howling outside his house at night and he gets sad. So here he is on the beach and he looks a little forlorn lying up against the picnic basket, and he says, I heard the coyotes howling again last night. And Charlie Brown says, maybe they were depressed. And Lucy, annoyed, says, why would coyotes be depressed? And then Snoopy with his shades on, leaning up against the rock, says their mom probably never read to them.

Harold: One of the stories that I tell a lot when I'm out and about with my books is that I can't remember if I've mentioned it here, but there is a study that was done quite a few years ago that followed children through adulthood and they collected information on them to try to measure the ones that, by whatever their measure was, were successful in life. And then go back and see which of the factors in their lives were most common for those who were successful. Whether it was their socioeconomic background, where they went to school, what type of school they went to, all of these different things. And they came up with the one common factor that was most likely an indicator of success was how much the child was read to.

Jimmy: I believe that. I absolutely believe that. It's powerful parents out there. It is one of the best. It is like, it's so fun. It's one of the great joys of being a parent.

Harold: And it's not just as young to six year olds, there are families, there's a whole movement right now where families will sit down and they will read to one another.

Jimmy: Yeah. And not only. Yeah. And if it's a kid situation, the parent who's reading, they will have such a great memory of it, even though the parent isn't actually, like you say, sharing anything of themselves other than their time. But the time is the most important thing. And you know, they, like my kids, have fantastic memories. They know all the story, all the books we read to them growing up. And yeah, it's definitely great.

Liz: I can remember in clear detail the stories that my father used to tell me.

Jimmy: Oh, that's amazing.

Michael: It never happened to me.

Liz: Really?

Michael: Not once.

Harold: No.

Michael: I can remember.

Liz: I'll read to you tonight.

Jimmy: There you go.

Michael: Well, that's why I like podcasts. Somebody reading to me 

July 8, Talking about hanging out with your friends. Linus and Charlie Brown are hanging out under some, really nice little birch trees. and then Snoopy is lying up against a larger tree, and Linus poses the question. I've always wondered who the best all around athletes are. Basketball, hockey, football or soccer players. And then Snoopy answers border collies. 

Michael: I'm a big fan of border collies, but I did find a pattern in these, one panel strips. Okay, There's a bunch of people sitting around, hanging around, and they take turns saying something and Snoopy gets the last comment. And it's often about dogs. This one is the one the previous one wasn't, but Snoopy will make it, refer back to dogs in reference to what the other people are saying. So look for that.

Jimmy: That's interesting, you know, yeah, that's interesting. So I wonder if he thinks that, like, going in, you know, like, okay, I want to do one of the panoramic Snoopy dog strips. He probably would, I would think, you know, I mean, do you think he's.

Harold: Thinking about that or he just taking an idea through and then his _____ the whole more often and they're not as Snoopy.

Jimmy: I think he. Yeah, I think he realized. I mean, I didn't realize until Michael said it, but I do see it now. I think he must have realized that's what he was doing and kept on it. you know, the other interesting thing I think about this is this is like, all right, if time is conflated with space in comics, right? So, like, you know, a panel is a moment or a series of moments. then the next panel is a different moment or series of moments. And, you know, the gap between the panels, you know, a thousand years could have passed or two seconds could have passed, but he, is employing something just by. Without the break between the panels giving their, that extra space, which is just Charlie Brown and the tree not responding. It gives it a much different feel than if, like, Snoopy was right next to Linus.

Harold: So does that feel just more relaxed and like in a timeless moment that you can keep kind of floating inside the panel because you're not hopping?

Jimmy: Yeah, I think it is.

Harold: Yeah, that's interesting. What's fascinating to me Is, can you imagine having the job of doing a single panel character based comic strip for 50 years?

Jimmy: No.

Harold: And talk about limitations. and yet when I see Schulz doing his version of a single panel, he's doing what you're just describing in ways that I don't see in, other strips. This is very unique to Schulz, and he does it over and over again. And I think it's just natural to him. I don't think he was thinking, well, I'm going to do it differently than everyone else. This is just when he was living inside of a single panel. This is where Schulz went. And as influential as Schulz was, this is the era when Schulz, I think, is less influential. People are looking back to the stuff from the 50s and 60s, but he's doing something very revolutionary here. And it just kind of lived its life. And I don't know of anybody who was reading Peanuts and said, oh, unconsciously.

Jimmy: I wonder if that has to do. Do with the fact that he had 40 years of characters built up in people's minds before he started doing this sort of stuff. You know, Linus has this certainly, in his mind. Yeah, right. You know, and I think in the minds of the readers, too. You know, Charlie Brown sitting there, is different than Peppermint Patty sitting there. You know, it's so subtle like that. You know, Charlie Brown is thinking about it. You know, Lucy, there would not be a moment there thought. Right. She would just answer whatever her sarcastic answer, by the way. I think the answer is basketball and soccer, and I really love that. he didn't even mention baseball.

Harold: Yeah, that's off the table for before you even start, Linus is. He's already ruled that one out. Look at Charlie Brown. we've talked about how Schulz will draw what is most interesting and not necessarily what is anatomically correct. Look at the feet and the legs, and how they're almost like straight out at us. And then Charlie Brown's. His head is at one angle. The body's even further away from the angle of the feet. And that is one wonky drawing. But it looks good. And that seems, it just seems to be what. That's all that matters to Schulz is That looks best.

July 9, Charlie Brown and Schroeder are sitting on the baseball bench. Charlie Brown is indicating that his elbow, is starting to bother him. And he says, my arm hurts. I'm not sure I can pitch today. And then he closes his eyes and sticks out his tongue because he's suffering. And he says, I Think throwing all those curve balls put too m much strain on my elbow. To which Schroeder replies, those were curve balls?

Michael: Do you think Schulz remembers every strip he drew? Because this is actually a replay.

Jimmy: Is it?

Michael: Oh, yeah. No, he's saying, like, Schroeder's saying something about, like, he's. He's catching, Charlie Brown's pitching. And, he's saying, oh, yeah, those slow balls are really good. how about using your fastball? And Charlie Brown says, well, that was my fastball.

Jimmy: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And there's another one where he comes out and he's like, all right. One finger will mean a straight ball. Two fingers will mean a straight ball. three fingers.

Harold: And Schulz's pain stars are not pointed.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: They're like the Dating Game.

Jimmy: Yep, that's exactly what they look like. Are 70s shower flowers.

Harold: Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: They got little pain flowers.

July 18th. Linus and Rerun are sitting there watching television. Very cute. Linus in classic thumb and blanket position. And Rerun says to him, I like these nature programs. You see things you never thought could. And then. And the next panel comes in. Snoopy Clomp, stealing Linus's blanket and hauling him away. And Rerun watches that, confused. And then goes back to the tv saying, happen.

Michael: So when did the Rerun hair get fixed?

Harold: It's kind of. I was trying to see if there's a starting point for the bird's nesty kind of thing, as Jimmy describes it, on top of the head, where he doesn't have so much on the side. It's like the fades we have now, except it's faded to nothing.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: It's not a clear progression. You see it kind of moving in that direction. I believe it was this year.

Jimmy: This year, yeah.

Harold: It's starting to get there, but he's gradually getting there.

Jimmy: I think this is, fine. I think that hair in this era would have been. Keep it like this. It's fine. I love that we're actually seeing them next to each other so we can see the difference.

Harold: Yeah. And yet Linus is still so uninvolved with his little brother. He's just watching tv, sucking his thumb, and holding his blanket. He's just disconnected from his brother for the most part. I don't know if that changes at all in the later years, but it's. It's interesting to see that that is. That is Linus. he's really not engaging. There's. There's not a lot of interesting Stuff going on between them and I Also, whoever is doing the zippitone, with Schulz on the Clomp lettering is having a field day giving this kind of weird 3D shady feel because there's lots of white areas around.

Jimmy: I first thought that it was stipple. It's because I never saw anyone do that with zipatone.

Harold: I like it.

Jimmy: Yeah, it's cool.

Harold: Yeah, it's not easy either. Someone is really spending a lot of time on the zippitone.

Liz: How can you tell it's not stipple?

Jimmy: It's too regular. You'd have to zoom in super close to see. I think it's too like. Actually, here's. Okay. Talking about crazy. If you look at the dots on the left side of the exclamation point, you can see the regular pattern. That's a real good place to see it. But, it is really hard to see.

 July 26th is a sequence. Spike is not, feeling at all well here in the war. so his infantryman is laid up in the infirmary and, Snoopy as the World War I flying aces come to see him and says, guess what, Spike, I wrote to mom and she's coming over here on a troop ship to see you. In the next panel we see a, troop ship and we literally see what, like 10 or 11.

Michael: There's 12.

Jimmy: Are, there really snoopies? 

And then his mom in the middle, wearing a little fur hat.

Michael: Such a sweet.

Harold: With those little wide saucer bell eyes.

Michael: Coming from Ukraine.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: Anyway, I saw. I don't, I don't like these.

Michael: You probably guess that by now, but.

Harold: And that's because of the. Where's the imagination in all of this?

Michael: No, it doesn't. I mean, thinking that every dog looks like Snoopy, this is his fantasy, obviously, but it's a dime a dozen. That's the old dime a dozen. She's. There's a dozen and they're all exactly alike except for her.

Harold: How could you have done the gag.

Jimmy: If there is only 11?

Michael: There's a gag.

Harold: Point toward there's 11.

Michael: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Well, including 9, 10, 11, 12, counting them.

Harold: 12.

Jimmy: Oh, you're counting his mom.

Michael: I don't get the hat, tell you the truth.

Jimmy: What do you mean you don't get it?

Michael: What does it signify? It signifies Russian to me.

Jimmy: Yeah, I mean, it looks like. Oh, that looks like the classic picture of an immigrant woman coming over on a boat. If that immigrant woman was a cartoon beagle.

Michael: But she's got those weird eyes. I mean, we've never seen her, but this is a fantasy.

Harold: Her.

Michael: But she must have looked something like that with weird eyes.

Jimmy: Yeah, because the other Belle has those eyes, too. Snoopy's sister.

Harold: and. And, Lucy started that way, too.

Jimmy: Yep. And speaking of strange zipatone. We wrap things in this episode up with 

August 3rd. Charlie Brown and, Sally are sitting in the chair. Charlie Brown's reading a comic book book. And Sally, says, I now have three philosophies. Life goes on. Who cares? And how should I know? Sally, very pleased with her, says, pretty profound, huh? Huh? And Charlie Brown says, maybe a little too profound. To which Sally says, who cares? How should I know? Life goes on.

Michael: Yeah, I picked this just because I like Sally's as a philosopher. But, I mean, I missed the high point of the strip, which is that zipatone.

Jimmy: Isn't that crazy?

Liz: Wow.

Jimmy: Really patterned that.

Michael: Must have just come on the market or something.

Jimmy: It's really detailed. I wonder how that looked in newspapers across this great land of ours. I'm a bit smudgy in a lot of them.

Jimmy: But it's looking pretty good. It's feeling pretty good. You know what else feels pretty good? Getting to spend every Tuesday hanging out with your pals talking about comic strips, especially your favorite one, Peanuts. 

So we're going to stop doing that this week, but just so we can rest up and come back next week, where we are going to wrap up. 1996. Absolutely hard to believe. now listen, if you want to keep this conversation going between now and then, then there's a couple things we'd love for you to do. Go on over to unpackingpeanuts.com Sign up for the Great Peanuts reread. that'll get you that one email a month lets you know what we're going to cover. And you can also, if you want to, just talk to us, you can call at 717-219-4162, leave a message on the hotline or, a text message. Email us at unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com or follow us on Instagram and threads where we're unpackpeanuts. And on Facebook, blue sky and YouTube where we are unpacking Peanuts. And remember, when I don't hear from you, I worry. So don't make me worry. And for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

Harold: Yes, yes.

Liz: Be of good cheer. Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley. Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner 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 unpacking peanuts.com have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

Michael: Come on.