1997 Part 3 - Just Out of Curiosity, What Did You Have For Breakfast?

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts. Today we are wrapping up good old 1997, and I'll be your host for the proceedings. My name is Jimmy Gownley I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, Seven 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 such great strips as Strange Attractors, the Gathering 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 is Harold Buchholz.

Harold: Hello.

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

Liz: Hey, now.

Jimmy: Now, I have a question. Are you just trying to settle on one, or are you gonna right now commit to coming up with a different one?

Michael: Well, these are the classics.

Liz: I'm, I'm. I haven't found one that really fits.

Michael: Hey now is one of the greats.

Jimmy: well, you know, I'm excited, to get back to talking about Peanuts, how about we're gonna shake things up a little bit here. We're gonna go off book, and we're gonna do the anger and happiness index right off the top of the show.

Liz: That makes me angry and happy.

Jimmy: Well, we are committed to innovation here, so here we go. Harold, what do we got?

Harold: Well, we know some things about this year that are a little unusual. Right. We know that Schulz did what we might have thought was unthinkable. He asked for a holiday. For a vacation.

Jimmy: Yep.

Harold: So with that opening, this is the first year since 1950, we haven't had a full year of strips. That's a. That's kind of a big deal.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: but with all this stress, and leading up to a vacation, I just wanted to throw it out as I do every year. How many strips. Let's. Let's do it here. Here's what I'll do. I'll give you the raw numbers, because we have 330 strips instead of 365 or 66 strips this year. But I'm going to adjust them up. Since those are the numbers we've been using, then I'll give the raw numbers as well. But I'll just assume we did 365 and I'll just move the percentages, you know what I mean? Yeah. So it's kind of sounds like the equivalent of what we had. So 1995 we had, 83 strips with anger. And in 96 we had 79 strips. But given what we know, when you were reading them or based on what, you know, what he's going through, did it feel like it was any more angry? Any less angry?

Jimmy: I think it's up a little bit in anger.

Harold: How about you, Michael? Any thoughts of how this, this particular round of strips felt to you?

Michael: Well, I kind of object to the whole concept here.

Jimmy: A little late for that.

Michael: I'm a little, A little late for that. But I don't know if an artist's mood, it really affects their work.

Harold: Interesting. Well, that's why I'm doing it. I'm kind of trying to get a sense of that somebody might be.

Michael: If somebody's really depressed, they might try to do something funny.

Michael: So I don't know, this analyzing how this, what's going on in Schulz's life is going to affect whether this strip is showing anger or happiness. He's probably, I mean, I don't know. But you know, he's going to die in three years.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: Does he know that? Is he starting to worry about that? I mean, that's pretty serious stuff. Yeah, I'd expect that to affect the amount of energy he has.

Harold: That's interesting.

Michael: But you know, it's very. Well, he might, if he's feeling bad, he might want his characters to be happy.

Harold: I don't know.

Michael: So I really can't guess. I'm basically, you know, I'd say, well, it's probably the same. Probably very close to the same.

Harold: Well, you know, this is why I've been doing this all through the years was just to try to get a sense of. Is, was there a trajectory? Was it, was it random with the dots? Just look random on the chart. in terms of how this. Because the strip changes in tone, I think we'd all agree that with that. Right? over the years, I mean, Michael, you've got some favorite years. Late 50s.  I think mid-60s is where my favorite stuff has been. I don't know. Where would you peg yourself, Jimmy? Would you say there's a certain sweet spot I think we've talked about this before, but.

Jimmy: Yeah, I've decided I'm never gonna pick a favorite of anything in my life ever again. I really have decided this. My, my. Like my new Lennon or McCartney? Both. Which is your favorite Beatles album? All of them. Like, that's just where I'm gonna be now.

Harold: Sally, your new.

Jimmy: Yes. That's my new philosophy. Yes.

Harold: Because, I mean, it's interesting to me, Michael, you, know, if. If we were to hit around 1958 or so for you as. As the sweet spot of Peanuts, that's his angriest 170 strips. Almost over half of the strips were angry. We're now been hanging around the 70s and 80s in a period now. That's. Obviously that's not the reason you don't particularly like these strips compared to 1958, but there's something in the tone that's changed.

Michael: Yeah, but, you know, this is all very subjective from. From your point of view. So, we don't know who. If we did our own anger and happiness. If we get anything near your count.

Harold: Yeah, I don't think it would be that far off just because, you know, you're looking at a little line going down somebody's eye. The context. But you're right. I mean, we would have different numbers. Well, okay, I'll given all of that. This is the second angriest year since 1968. So the equivalent, we went from what was 79 in 1996 to the equivalent if he had done a full year's worth of strips of 102.

Jimmy: I suspect it's going to continue in that way till the end.

Harold: Interesting. Okay. After his vacation, it's going to be interesting to see if anything is.

Jimmy: It'll be like six weeks of everything being great bliss.

Harold: Or he's like, I'm behind.

Jimmy: Yeah, either that or could be maybe as a bad vacation and like Snoopy loses his luggage for.

Michael: I don't know. I mean, it seems to me that. I mean, is your theory that he is angry at something?

Jimmy: Mine?

Michael: No, I'm talking to Harold or you guys. If you're thinking this is relevant to Schulz's day by day life. Do you think indicating more anger in the strip indicates that he's angry?

Harold: I think so. Just because, you know, Schulz said these characters are notes on a keyboard. He's playing the keys. This strip feels deeply personal. I think it's one of the reasons I love this strip so much, is. Seems to be in some strange, marvelous way, a reflection of a man in his life. This strip was Charles Schulz's life in a lot of ways. He obviously had a lot more of a life. and, but somehow he was able to put himself into this strip in ways that I haven't seen other artists do. And that's why I've enjoyed going through this all, all of these years, over the years that he did it, because I'm constantly marveling at Schulz being in the strips. He makes the strips live in ways that I don't see in other strips. You know, Beetle Bailey is a different kind of strip. We say it a lot.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: You know, the gag a day thing, it's clever, incredibly well drawn, slickly done. But Schulz somehow seems to be in this strip. I mean, I can see strips that seem to be in. In spite of themselves. Someone's going to continue to do a certain thing. Schulz just seems to somehow put the essence of himself into the strip.

Jimmy: Well, not just somehow. I mean, it's his goal. He has no co writers. He doesn't pick gags from anybody. You know, it's not somehow. It's his. It's his. It's his life's goal. It's what he does every single day. I think it's, you know, we go back to when he was a little kid and, you know, he thought he had a face that was so plain no one would remember him. you know, this isn't just about his characters being seen. I don't think it's ever been just about his characters being seen. I think it's about him being seen too, in a way that it's not for Mort Walker. 

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Mort Walker was a commercial artist who was great at what he did, but 

Harold: a team player, he would bring people together and they do it together, which was. This is usually a solitary job. He was kind of the opposite. He's like, I'm going to create an atmosphere of a gang. Yeah, yeah. And we're going to do this together. And that. That in itself is an amazing feat.

Jimmy: Absolutely.

Harold: So second. Second angriest since 1968. And on the happiness side, it's the least happy year ever. It's, it was it the. It was least happy last year at 71. This would be the equivalent of 64. So it's circumstantial. It's just points, dots on a graph for one year. But given what we do know about Schulz in this year, it suggests that, yeah, they're. There's something of him reflected in this through me. Just picking anger and happiness there's so many other things you could pick out of the strip to say, hey, how has this shifted over the years? This is just the ones I chose. But it does seem like something's going on.

Michael: Well, it has to. I mean, obviously the mood has changed, but you know, that's the difference between being fairly young and fairly old. Yeah, you know, it's not going to go on forever. I don't, I don't understand about the index. I might as well bring it up now in 1996. I don't see those as dichotomies in any way.

Harold: What do you mean by.

Michael: I mean, they're certainly not opposites.

Harold: What, anger and happiness? Yeah, I think in some ways it is. You could say it is.

Michael: I mean, anger. I mean, it's just like happiness and sadness. Yes.

Michael: But you chose to do an anger index rather than a sadness index.

Jimmy: While we're at it, why is this a podcast at all?

Michael: Yeah, why don't we have any sponsors?

Jimmy: As long as we're, as long as we're thinking about things we should have thought of 40 months ago.

Liz: why don't we do the strips in alphabetical order?

Jimmy: Rather than even better, why not the first word?

Michael: And why should we care about a, funny strip?

Jimmy: We are going to go, I mean.

Michael: Really, this is like 30 second read for what.

Jimmy: We are going to go back and we're going to chart peakishness and ennui in the Phantom. And that's what we're gonna do. but before we do that, what we're gonna do is we're gonna actually get to these comic strips that you came to hear us talk about. 

Now if you wanna follow along with us, a couple things you can do is you can go over to unpackingpeanuts.com and sign up for the great Peanuts reread. You'll be a little late to the party, but do it anyway and then it'll let you know, once a month, what strips we're going to be covering till the end of the run here. And what else? Is that all they have to do? Yeah, that's all you have to do. Because you used to be able to go to gocomics.com for free and get these strips. But that, now that is a paid service. It's $4.99 a month and you get not just Peanuts but everything else. But if you look around cleverly, you might be able to find them on the Internet. 

So with that said, let's start with the strips. 

September 4th Lucy and Charlie Brown are seated in a baseball stadium. And, no one else is there because it is raining. And Lucy is looking at her ticket and it says, holder of this ticket assumes all risk incidental to the game of baseball. And Charlie Brown is reading his ticket and it says, if regulation game is not played on this date, this ticket may be. And then we also see a ball coming out of the sky and bonk hitting Lucy on the head.

Michael: So where does this bonk fall in the conversation? Is the bonk in between?

Jimmy: Yes.

Michael: So he hasn't noticed it?

Jimmy: No, he has not noticed it. You know, the thing I wanted to bring up about this, other than that's pretty nice drawing of a bunch of seats in the stadium. I wouldn't have tried that. but are they on a date?

Michael: That was my question. The circumstances here. They don't like each other.

Jimmy: I think they're on a date. I think they're giving this crazy thing a try.

Liz: Maybe he's showing her what somebody in right field is supposed to do.

Michael: I mean, what's the nearest ballpark to these guys? Major league ballpark. I don't think they'd print that on a minor league ticket. I might be wrong.

Jimmy: I'm sure they would.

Michael: They would. Yeah.

Jimmy: Why wouldn't they?

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: because they don't have any money. It costs money to print.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, they do.

Harold: There's a famous Peanuts strip. Just Charlie Brown and he's in the bleachers. It was like a Sunday. I don't even remember what the gag was. But was he look. Also looking at his ticket or something?

Jimmy: I don't remember.

Harold: It was like. Like it's a Sunday. Yeah, it's. It's from. I think it was just. Just him going to the. Going to the baseball. He's getting his hot dog, he's doing all this stuff and then he gets in his seat and then the rain's falling and, then he's. I think he might be reading his ticket. So. So the scenario here is everyone's left because it's raining, but the game is still going on, I guess because Lucy just got hit on the head by a baseball.

Michael: No kidding. I just. Yeah.

Harold: Good. Charlie Brown is reading the ticket to see if it's deep enough into the game that he's going to get his money back.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

Harold: so, okay, so that you get a lot of information just from this one panel of what's actually going on.

Michael: Well, you actually know that they're not sitting in center field on the cheap seats. Because the ball's coming from one side.

Harold: Wow.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, I guess it could be. so they're out, and they're actually probably on the right field line.

Michael: I thought they're on the left field line.

Jimmy: Sure. Hey, they're both. Just out of curiosity, what'd you have for breakfast today? You know what? I don't like comic strips at all. I'll tell you another thing. I was never on my tickets, I swear to God. You kids, you millennials and younger, 

Liz: Get off my lawn

Jimmy: get off my lawn. I'll show you anger and happiness. You will see my anger. And then when I kick your butt, I'll be happy.

Harold: We didn't need legal people to figure out our relationship with the baseball game. We fought for our money back.

Jimmy: Right. We could tell if it was raining, and it didn't matter. We sat there and we liked it. 

September 5th. So Rerun is hiding under his bed again. And Lucy comes into his room and says, why are you hiding under your bed? And we see from under, the bed. School starts next week. And Lucy says, you hid under your bed last year and it didn't work. And then Rerun says, I'm better at it now.

Michael: This doesn't look like the same cartoonist as the last one. This is just very spare.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: Very few lines.

Jimmy: I thought this one felt, the staging felt, like a 50s strip for some reason. I'm not sure why. I'll tell you one thing. I wouldn't have drawn that weird bed, four times, especially if I was struggling with something, with drawing. I wouldn't want to keep, drawing the same thing four times, but he manages to do it.

Harold: It's weird looking at this strip normally, you know, the panels look clean. Even the panels here have jaggies on them. It's like he's struggling. How do you. How do you not do a straight line with a ruler?

Jimmy: Straight line with the best of them. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know how you do not do a straight line with a ruler? You're using a dip pen.

Harold: Well, yeah, Yeah.

Jimmy: I mean, that's the thing. That's crazy that he's even trying that.

Michael: There's a couple of strange things here. panel three, where part of the furniture was cut off around her nose.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: And almost.

Harold: Oh, yeah.

Michael: It was an overlay.

Harold: Yeah. So you would just white it out around it.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. It does kind of look like that. Or a color form that was stuck on and has a little. Yeah. Now, if you were doing that, would you prefer it to go. It's. You know what? I think what happened there is he put on the zipatone at the end. And if. Cause if he. If you extended the line up, you know, and then the line over to make that a complete rectangle, it would, like, hit her right on the nose.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: And I think it would look like a weird tangent, which is why he's doing that. 

September 7th, it's a Sunday, and we are in Rerun's kindergarten classroom, and he gets bonked in the head with a chalkboard eraser. Then he's back home telling his big sister about it. And Lucy says, an eraser. And Rerun says, And on the first day of school, I decided we all need to show more respect, to be more considerate, more polite. So when the teacher came in, I stood up and greeted her, good morning, ma' am. I looked around and I was the only one standing, so I sat down. The teacher didn't say, and we're seeing this. This is actually a flashback we're seeing in Rerun's mind as, he explains it to Lucy. And then he continues. The teacher didn't say anything. She. She just stared at me like maybe she was in shock. And, then we flash back to Lucy and Rerun on the couch. And Rerun concludes with. That's when I got hit on the back of my head with an eraser.

Michael: That's weird, isn't it? It's kind of a surprise ending.

Jimmy: Yeah. It's very strange. He's never. He doesn't really do this.

Jimmy: I can think of one or two episodes, with Spike, where he, switches to a different location for the visuals and, you know, the narration stays. But that's super rare.

Harold: Yeah, we did it also with Rerun, with the bully. He was telling the story of the bully this year.

Jimmy: Yes. Right. Yeah. yeah.

Michael: So is this implying that one. Well, with one of the students threw it at him. So he showed up?

Jimmy: Yeah, I think so.

Harold: Maybe it's the same kid. I can't remember how it falls in time before he. There's a story this year, I don't know if we picked any of the strips where it's a kind of a bullying kid. And Rerun stands up to the kid and actually feels good about himself for having done it. But then he finds out that he's being complained to by the kid's mom. How often does this happen in the world? And so he goes to the principal's office and ultimately finds out the mom has transferred the kid to Another school. Just because.

Jimmy: Did we not pick any of those? Those are. That was a good sequence.

Harold: Is it to come or did we already hit that? I can't remember.

Jimmy: I can't remember either. That was a pretty good sequence. Well, if we missed it, that's. You know, there's 17,000, almost 18,000 of these things. What is the yellow thing 

Michael: blood stains?

Liz: Well, I thought they were pain stars.

Harold: Yeah, I thought it was the.

Jimmy: No, no, no.

Harold: where.

Liz: It's a cabinet.

Jimmy: Oh yeah, with pain stars. Oh, it is a cabinet with the two doors. I see. Now you can really only see that in that one panel though.

Harold: Yeah, that's that Dating Game cabinet that they use.

Jimmy: Yes, the Dating Game cabinet with the pain stars.

Liz: And you didn't mention the little pig haired girl.

Jimmy: Oh, the little pig haired girl who's back.

Michael: The longer I look at this one, the weirder it gets. This is actually like time travel. This is one of those quantum paradoxes. Now look. No, this is weird. This is like as a Mobius strip, he gets hit on the head with the eraser. Right, we established that. And then he's explained to Lucy that after he got hit on the head with an eraser, he decided to stand up.

Michael: So then he stands up and he talks and then he gets hit on the head with the eraser.

Harold: Wow. we can just keep going and going. Yeah, it's like Pete and repeat were sitting on a fence.

Michael: Yeah.

Jimmy: Did you ever hear Alan Moore's five sentence or five word science fiction story?

Michael: Yes, but I can't.

Jimmy: Machine, I invented a time.

Harold: I have to say there are a couple of panels here where Rerun looks like he's got a comb over. 

Jimmy: Oh, just shave it off, Rerun. It's okay, we've all been there. Well, we all haven't, but I've been there. Yeah, no, this is. We're getting into full on Bird's Nest. and I think we could have stopped with his 96 design.

Michael: Well, it's the color on the Sunday that makes it more apparent.

Jimmy: Yeah, that's true too.

Harold: Yeah. I think every time somebody went, oh, I thought that was Linus, he just goes a little crazier. Yeah.

Jimmy: Yep. But I wonder like, because I could see it like sticking up more like let's say Pig Pen’s is. You know what I mean?

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: But it really does have a comb over look.

Harold: Yeah. I mean he could have given him. Was it Connor was the name of that character, that 90s kid who looked so 90s he could have given him the Connor look, but then he probably would have come across a little too confident, a little too with it.

September 15th. It's raining, and Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown arrive at Marcie's house. And Peppermint, Patty has a football. And she says to Marcie, come on, Marcie, we need the practice. And Marcie says, it's raining, and I hate football. Peppermint Patty says, what if you marry somebody who likes to go to football games? And Marcie answers, my husband will be very wealthy and own a luxury box. Then Peppermint Patty turns and looks at Charlie Brown. They're all just standing in the rain. And then she turns back to Marcie and says, don't count on it, Marcie.

Harold: Interesting year for Charlie Brown. And Marcie.

Liz: And Peppermint Patty is facing reality.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Yeah. These. These two, maybe, they're. They are the ones. There's also that strip, with Marcie, who she. She keeps coming back to Charlie Brown's house and. And asking him point blank, you know, the. What his feelings are for her. And at one point, he just kind of says, yeah, I like. I like you, and. But I got a TV show I got to get back to. And then she's, like, just this left sitting on the porch and. And saying, and here I am, you know, left sitting with a dog, essentially. And, And Snoopy says, no problem, sweetie. But I was just thinking when I saw that the second time, I was like, the fact that Schulz gave Snoopy sweetie. 

Jimmy: Uh-huh.

Harold: Seen, like, a little editorial where Schulz was like, yeah, Marcie's. Marcie's the best. And, And, yeah, and he. He wishes Marcie on his Charlie Brown. And I think that's. That's kind of cool. And, you know, whenever I see Marcie, I'm thinking Billie Jean King.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And I know they were good friends, and it's really interesting. Although Marcie's not good at sports, which is fascinating.

Jimmy: Maybe that's. He knew he could never actually beat Billie Jean King, so he compensated for it. 

September 16th. We're back in, kindergarten with Rerun and the little pigtailed girl. And Rerun, says, I'm sorry I was late, man. We had a little trouble at home. Our kitchen was full of squabbles. I just think that's funny. I just, like, Our kitchen was full of squabbles. 

Jimmy: That sounds like a 50s thing. That would be the title of a book, you know. Your kitchen is full of squabbles. Charlie Brown or whatever.

Harold: I'm really liking Rerun's view of the world. And he's hard to put into words because he is a rich character. But I really do like him. He is unlike the other Van Pelts and any of the other characters in this strip. He really adds something special and unique and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Jimmy: And I think it's the kind of character you couldn't create earlier in your career because it would come off as possibly ill defined. yeah, but it's not because every other character in Peanuts is so defined, you know, that he could have done it that way. And this is just such more, it's m richer and more realistic.

Harold: Isn't that fascinating that. Yeah, I think you're right. I think because the other characters were, were so starkly set out for people so that when he comes along, you, yeah, he's like, he gets the benefit of the doubt or something. I don't know.

Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Harold: I have a question. Why do you think the, the little girl has, is blonde in the Sunday strips and yet she has this dark zipatone in the dailies?

Liz: That bothers me.

Jimmy: well, maybe she just, is trying something.

Harold: It is 1997.

Jimmy: Right. She's given it, she, she's feels awkward about it. I don't know.

Michael: I think zipatone wigs are quite popular in the 90s.

Harold: That's true.

Jimmy: That was so Courtney Love had it, man.

Harold: Would these be called wigtails then? So I, I, I have a question. This is an artist's question. We were talking about Lucy having that cut out of white around her when she was up against, and you know, some art that would, the lines would have gone into her face if you had to draw just the way it is. And so he creates this halo of white around her face here. The choice on this cabinet we've been talking about with the flowers. In the first panel, he has the flowers. Second panel, the flowers would be hitting the edge of the panel and he opts not to draw them even though we they would be there. Is that simply because it would somehow be distracting to have them because they're, they're touching. He has to do it. There's their books on top of the cabinet, so the books have to go to the edge, but for some reason the flowers don't. What is that?

Michael: aesthetically, I mean, it's ambiguous whether you'd even see them in panel too, because it's a real close up.

Harold: but how about panel three? That's the one I'm looking at Michael,

Jimmy: Oh, I see.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: I mean, that's just classic cartooning. You know, things disappear and appear in backgrounds. Nobody cares.

Harold: Did you think that's. That's because visually, it's. It's going to take away from the impact somehow?

Michael: Well, no one's going to notice it except, like, a real maniac.

Liz: I think he had too much space in the first panel, so he had to draw little pain flowers on it.

Harold: Or it would look imbalanced.

Liz: But on, the third panel, there isn't enough room for those. So he says, oh, what the heck.

Harold: Don't need to have it.

Michael: Yeah, no one will notice.

September 17th, we're in a courtroom, or we're in my mind, when I have about 104 fever. And this is moments before I see the tunnel of light, because there is Snoopy as a lawyer. And let's just go with a girl sitting next to him, and we'll discuss it later. And then Snoopy, says, yes, your honor, this is my client, Alice, the injured party who fell down the rabbit hole. We intend to prove negligence on the part of the property owner for failing to post a warning sign by the rabbit hole. And we cut to just Linus and Snoopy, the lawyer outside on a bench. And Linus says, how'd your case come out today? And Snoopy answers. The judge told me to take my hat off in the courtroom. 

Liz: That's so creepy.

Michael: It is creepy.

Jimmy: She is creepy.

Michael: And it defies the Alice stereotype because she doesn't seem to have blonde hair.

Harold: Yeah, that's right. Well, I don't know. That's the same zipatone as the blonde.

Liz: Dark blonde.

Jimmy: She's just trying something, too, you know.

Michael: Of all the fictitious characters in the world, Alice is the most recognized, recognizable, just because the, Jonathanille drawings, you know, what she's wearing, you know, what color everything is.

Harold: So, Jimmy, how do you describe what we're looking at? For those of us who are not looking at the strip as we hear.

Jimmy: This, There was a 1970s game called Mr. Mouth, which was a smiley face sphere that would just open on a hinge, and you would have to, like, shoot chips into it. That's her head. And then there's a, sad mop on top of it. I mean, it looks like I do. I have a lamp here in my studio that's just from the 70s. It's a smiley face bulb lamp. If you just put a mop on top of it, it would look exactly like this drawing of Alice, really.

Liz: It's very creepy. It's very frightening. Horror. Horror movie, kind of.

Michael: Oh, yeah.

Jimmy: Yes. Like Coraline. Yeah, like that. Yeah.

Michael: Or at least Raggedy Ann.

Liz: Yeah.

Michael: It just doesn't have any.

Harold: Yeah. I mean, the mouth goes from one edge of her hair to the other. There's no. There's no end of the mouth smiling in this kind of. But the. The two eyes made out of coal. Frosty the Snowman is all I can say about her eyes because they are black circles. I mean, big black circles.

Jimmy: Well, yeah. really scary. Really scary.

Harold: But she. I mean, it's an interesting choice. What do you think he's doing here? Because she is. She's a fictional storybook character. He's not drawing it the way you would see Alice normally, but she does look like a rag doll.

Michael: Or.

Harold: He's. He's trying to. It's almost like he's trying to say this character isn't real in the Peanuts world.

Liz: Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're probably right about that. Yeah.

Harold: I mean, maybe he tried drawing it the other way, and it opened up this box of. Oh, now everyone now wants to see Alice living in Peanuts world. It's almost like he wanted to make Alice look like a doll of Alice so that you couldn't even go there.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: I don't know. I mean, he did. Alfred E. Newman. This is a straight copy of Alfred E. Newman.

Harold: But he was a sun. Yeah. You know, a sun wouldn't necessarily. I mean, it does. I'm gonna. He did have the one. You worry. It's such an interesting choice.

Jimmy: Really strange. But, I'm kind of glad, that we. We got it. But this makes me think of something going back to our Poetics of Peanuts. So I was, reading. And I'm actually not gonna look at it today, but read from it rather today. But I was reading the, 50th anniversary book. 50, years of a Golden Celebration, I think it's called. And Schulz talks about, in a couple places. He just kind of alludes to the fact that. Yeah, yeah, you just drop the stuff that you don't like. So I think that's got to be part of it. It's implicit in the design of a comic strip that you can sculpt your own version of it. Because even the artist is doing things that gets left behind or gets forgotten or gets thrown away or gets retconned out of existence. So I think Michael, when he says, all right, I'm just gonna have to decide. This never happened. I think that's, allowed by the form and specifically by this particular cartoonist. So I think that's part of it.

Michael: Well, but if something is so long established that I would take it for a rule. 

Jimmy: So five seconds, 

Michael: I could say the no adults in the strip Peanuts is a strip which has no adults. But it did have adults early on. And you know, it's. So you could say, well, that can't be a rule because you already violated it. But, you know, we're talking 50 years of no adults.

Harold: That's pretty good. Yeah. Ah, it's, it's. It never happened.

Jimmy: Like I said. Yeah, you just, just ignore it in your own head canon. Peanuts seems to allow that you can have your own version. That's specific kind to you, which is kind of cool. other comic strips can do it too, obviously.

Harold: Well, it's fascinating you say that. I never really thought that about that. With comics, I was instantly started thinking about animation where you have this continuity of motion. And so the fun of animation is often how you can distort within the m. Living, moving world things that you couldn't do in real life. But you're saying in the panel comics world, where you read things in. By definition, they're. What do you call them? They're staccato. They're broken up into their own little vignettes.

Jimmy: Episodic. Yeah.

Harold: Somehow what we've discovered is that comics can have something happen and then the next time you visit, it doesn't happen. And the rules seem to be different in a lot of artists minds and a lot of readers minds. That. That's okay, right? That's cool, right?

Jimmy: Exactly. And the other thing I was thinking about, forgive me if I've told the story before. Stop me if I have, actually, but we talk about like things. This, we would. This character would act out a character. This is different. This one. I ever tell you about the Greg Williams Al Pacino story?

Liz: Doesn't sound familiar.

Jimmy: All right, so this is. So this is my rule of, you know, if something's out of character, maybe it's not because I was in second grade and we were sitting there in Mrs. Eicke's class and there was this kid, Greg Williams, and he was really quiet, never said much, never did anything. Just kind of sat in the back of the class and Mrs. Eicke went out in the hall one day and said, be quiet, students. I'll be right back. And Greg Williams walked to the front of the class, pulled his shirt up all the way. And then did a little dance and said, Al Pacino. Al Pacino. Al Pacino looking down, Al Pacino. And then he put his shirt back down and sat down.

Harold: Wow.

Jimmy: There's no rules in my life that allows for that to happen.

Michael: Well, there are medical situations, but it happens.

Jimmy: Medical situation.

Harold: That's. That's wild. So anyway, he was one of those kinds of kids that nobody would dare go up to him and go, what was that all about?

Liz: did he have anybody eat with him at lunchtime?

Jimmy: I think everybody just chose to ignore it like it never happened. I don't think our 8 year old brains could process it.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Because I don't remember it having any impact on anybody. Just like, okay, Greg did that. Well, okay, back to math.

Harold: Wow. Yeah.

Jimmy: So I think, you know. Yeah, it's like when you're, writing, I guess you have to also allow for just some random weirdness. And I do think actually Schulz does that sometimes. Not just like the. Not a surreal thing necessarily like the Greg Williams Al Pacino thing, but just a totally out of character, incident or remark that is in character. Because everybody's that rich. It's just strange.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: It's hard to pin down in a cartoon character, certainly.

Liz: Good Lord.

Jimmy: I just really wanted to share the Al Pacino.

Liz: I'm trying to figure out what I can do with that.

Jimmy: Wait, that's me too, Liz. I've been trying to figure out what to do with that for 40 years. 

October 4th. Charlie Brown is lying awake at night in his bed. And he thinks to himself, sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask questions. Is there any one thing a person can do to make his life successful? And then in the last panel, we see just his thoughts. but it says back exercises. but they're in quotes.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: And I don't know why the little thought balloon bubbles are on the bottom. It doesn't sound like it's a voice. Because you would say it was Schulz.

Jimmy: Right.

Harold: It looks like he's speaking in panels one and three. Right.

Jimmy: I thought, I was thinking I wouldn't really say it. Yeah.

Harold: His mouth is open and it seems there's a little indentation there.

Jimmy: Yeah. don’t know if that counts as open.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: but it's definitely as a cartoonist. The reason I'd say this is Schulz is because, boy, a cartoonist needs to do back exercises.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Whenever you hear about, what, can I do as a cartoonist? You know, use this pen, use that. No one ever says do back exercises. Walk around a lot. Stretch.

Harold: Yeah. The wisdom of 47 years is now coming out full force.

Jimmy: Exactly. Back exercises. So how. Okay, so you guys, how would you handle the last panel? how would you handle this way? A different way.

Michael: I mean, he's done this setup several times, and it seems like the voice, the answer is coming from outside of him.

Jimmy: Right. And because he usually does it like this, he usually says, then the answer comes to me. Back exercise. Or then the voice says, back exercises. This time he just doesn't have any kind of.

Liz: I think you can assume that it. It's coming. It's the voice of God.

Jimmy: Because of the quotes. Yeah.

Liz: No, no, just because. Because of the. The number of times this has happened.

Jimmy: Right.

Harold: Or the voice of Schulz.

Liz: Yes.

Harold: I was thinking about that. Because it feels like whoever is speaking to him doesn't have a lot of authority, but also has a lot of authority. It's surprising. I think every time he does that, I'm surprised by what the answer is. Or it'll vary enough that it's like, is it a different voice? Is it coming from a different place? But I think you said something a year or so. Year or so strip's worth ago, Schulz was maybe the voice. And that all of a sudden, that it's like, okay, that's a strange answer. That somehow makes sense.

Jimmy: Yeah. No, I really, really do think that the idea of Schulz being a, part of this strip literally is a key to understanding it. You know, even a key to understanding why he would keep doing it all those years. You know, it's just, at this point, not only was he a part of it, it was part of him and probably maybe the largest part of him. Should we take a break?

Liz: Yes.

Jimmy: All right, we're gonna take a break, and we'll be right back.

BREAK

VO: Hi, everyone. Have you seen the latest anger and happiness index? Have you admired the photo of Jimmy as Luke Skywalker? Or read the details of how Michael co created the first comic book price guide? Just about every little known subject we mention is referenced on the unpacking Peanuts website. Peanuts obscurities are explained further and other stories are expanded more than you ever wanted to know. From Albert Pacenter Huhn To zipatone. Annette Funicello to Zorba the Greek. Check it all out at unpackingpeanuts.com/obscurities.

Jimmy: All right, and we are back. empty mailbox today. So I'm going to be worried for a week. But, if you do want to get in touch with us next week, you can give us a call on our hotline, 717-219-4162. Or you could, just leave a text message there. Just make sure you identify yourself if you do. And you can shoot us an email. We're unpacking peanutsmail.com and of course, we'd love to hear from you. 

Oh, you know what? I always realized something about 1997. There was another hugely successful comic strip that came out this year. This was the year Zits debuted. And, I did not know this, but within one year, that comic racked up 1700 papers.

Harold: What?

Jimmy: Isn't that crazy?

Harold: By 1988, it didn't seem like things were that fluid by that time. That's amazing.

Jimmy: I want. I think they may have benefited from people. I mean, Calvin and Hobbes ended at the end of 95.

Harold: And Far Side was before that, right?

Jimmy: Yeah. So there is space in the newspapers that maybe has not been claimed by any one particular strip. and they certainly made, ah, a play for a lot of those papers, which is great. 

When I was a guest out at the Schulz the Museum, I don't. I don't know if I've ever told this on the podcast, but I have. I hate sketching in public. Like, at a comic book show, if you have to, like, draw, it's. Oh, my gosh, my hand cramps up, like, to the point that I stopped sketching at conventions. but we're leaving. And Mrs. Schulz said, oh, make sure you sign the guest book. And I'm like, okay, well, I'll just do, like, a little tiny, like, Amelia smiley face. And I open it up and. And the guys who did Zits were there, like, the week before me. And they had this beautiful, ornate figure of the main character lounging in the chairs at the house with word balloons telling how much I was like, you guys, come on. I just wanted to draw a smiley face and get out of here.

Harold: So what did you do? Do you rise to the occasion?

Jimmy: No, I have a really, really ugly Amelia drawn in, that. That book, if it still exists. The Panic set in. The Panic is real. All right, how about we get, back to these strips, though?

Liz: All right.

October 15th. And it looks like good old Andy and Olaf have come back around. They've arrived at the doghouse. And Snoopy says to them, andy, Olaf, what are you doing here? And Andy says, we couldn't find the desert. And Snoopy says, that's ridiculous. And then, Olaf says, actually, what we found was the wrong desert. And Andy says, have you ever seen the pyramids by moonlight? 

Jimmy: That's nice that they went on a little trip around the world and found their way back and they saw the pyramids. But that, continues in this one. On October 16th, we see Snoopy atop the doghouse, typing away, and he lets us know what happened. And so Andy and Olaf set off once again to find their brother Spike. This time, however, I provided them with an experienced guide to show them the way. And there we see their guide is Woodstock dressed as a beagle scout. And they are heading off in search of Spike again. I just thought that was really cute.

Michael: prove that's Woodstock.

Liz: Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, I would have given him Conrad.

Michael: It's Conrad, clearly.

Liz: Yeah. or Olivier.

Harold: I think I see a little angel food cake sticking out of the pocket.

Liz: you need provisions.

Harold: Looking back on the 15th and looking at some really wonky paw drawings. Look at Snoopy's paw in the second panel when he's raised it up in surprise.

Liz: Is he giving to the finger?

Jimmy: Yeah, he doesn't have enough.

Harold: It's got some strange angles on it. Yeah. And then, of course, Andy's paws. Schulz has a field day with those because everything's so fuzzy. But that fourth panel is pretty-- Or third panel is pretty crazy.

Jimmy: Why are hands so hard to draw? Even cartoon hands are hard.

Harold: You know them too well. Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah, I think so. It is.

Liz: I wonder if there are any listeners who are comic artists who love to draw hands.

Jimmy: I actually love to draw hands. I'm not particularly good at it, but I do. Like, I. And I had to force myself to do it for this book because, like, hands are seen quite a bit. But I don't. I don't mind doing it, especially when it. You achieve it. It's success. It feels very good. I don't achieve it very often.

Harold: It's one you almost have to learn. You can. You can not learn how to draw a good vase or, you know, or a tree even. But hands are hard to get around. I mean, the one strip I can think of that just leaned into, like, childlike hands was. Was Cathy.

Jimmy: Cathy.

Harold: but that was kind of the signature was that you had this. These mittens or whatever.

Jimmy: Yeah, right.

Harold: Gloves or. Yeah, it's just this different looking thing. But, yeah, they are hard. That was one thing as a cartoonist who struggled learning to do the basics. Hands were. Hands were tough.

Michael: Yeah. I get to the end of an issue of Strange Attractors. I've penciled and inked 24 pages, and on the last day, I had to go and draw all the hands because they were all, like, blank.

Harold: Oh, wow.

Liz: Really?

Michael: It was the worst because I was like, oh, God, I have to draw, like, 100 hands.

Harold: So you. You said, like, this is. This is hand day.

Michael: It had to be. I put it off to the last minute.

Jimmy: So it was fully drawn inked figures with just no hands.

Michael: No hands.

Liz: Look, Ma.

Harold: That is. That is original, Michael. I don't know if I any. I've never met a cartoonist who, who, just did hands.

Michael: Well, I just didn't have a clue.

Jimmy: And then I.

Harold: Did it work for you? I mean, did you get in the groove and then. Right.

Michael: Looking at my hands in the mirror and.

Liz: I was a hand model for a brief period of time.

Harold: What did you model that story?

Liz: I worked for an advertising agency, and, they liked my hands.

Jimmy: Oh, that's fantastic. My gnarled stubs would not be good for, selling anything, I'll tell you that much.

Harold: I. I played the, the hands of, Of the Antichrist. For a commercial. Well, yeah, as. As one does.

Jimmy: It's a really tough way to sell fried chicken. 

Liz: Did you have to audition when the.

Harold: No. They were like, no, this is the guy. Nobody need applying. This is the hand I need.

Jimmy: You know, you've learned so much after doing 47 hours of these things or whatever it is.

Michael: No.

Jimmy: 47 what? 157 hours?

Liz: 158, I think.

Jimmy: 158, boy. Now you learn that, you have two people who are hand models, and one of them. It's a whole dubious situation. But back in the Peanuts world, it continues here on 

October, 17th. And now, the Bird Scout. I'm going to continue to say Woodstock, since I have to read the strips. Woodstock. And the two dogs are at the edge of a cliff, and Olaf says, what's he saying? And Andy says. He said, this is as far as we can go because the earth is flat, and if we go any farther, we'll fall over the edge. And Andy just peers gently over and he says, I wonder if he's right. And then the next panel, Olaf just goes for it with a big cannonball. There's only one way to find out. Olaf!

Michael: Olaf has no fear of falling.

Liz: Yeah, but he didn't go head first this time.

Michael: He assumes he's just gonna bounce.

Liz: Oh, and Woodstock's little hat flies off.

Harold: Yeah, I love the flying hat. But, boy, you know, I guess, Olaf, I don't know what Olaf's thinking. Is he trusting the science or but even if you trusted the science, that could be 85ft down.

Liz: Yeah.

Jimmy: There's nothing good about Olaf's decision making in this panel.

Harold: No, he's, he's.

Jimmy: A great day for a cartoonist using zipatone, though, because you don't have to cut those little shapes out very closely at all because they're over black. So if you saw these originals, I guarantee that those would be very rough cut shapes on the hats, because the black dots would disappear over the black ink.

Harold: And yet, look at that. They, it's cut so that there's a little sliver of white on the edges, so it can't get away with much of that. It's at least not on that last panel. I do like that. I do. I, I really do like the zipatone choices here. I, I, I never saw another artist who, who would go for shading within zipatone, like a shade of a shade.

Jimmy: I like the scratchy lines on the, on the cliff too. I think it's very evocative. 

October 22nd, we're back in school with Rerun. and Rerun says, no, ma'am, I don't have a blanket for nap time. My brother is the only one in our family with a blanket, and I don't want to end up like him. So then Rerun sits in his little kindergarten chair and pulls out the newspaper and says, I'll just sit here and read the paper. And then he continues. 64 convertible, hard top, black and red interior, 19,000. You should check into it, ma'am.

Harold: Yeah, Rerun's so small he has to read a tabloid.

Michael: So what happened to Olaf?

Jimmy: we'll find Olaf will return at a late as I can't remember was there.

Michael: What was the follow up to him jumping?

Harold: The follow up was that he proved that the earth was, was round and not flat. That's all I remember.

Jimmy: Yeah, but Rerun we have here, he, says he doesn't want to turn out like Linus. What do you think of that? All right, good.

Harold: Not a bad, choice. Yeah, he, doesn't want to play with Snoopy that way, I guess, because imagine he always wants to play with Snoopy. And yet if he just grabbed that blanket, Snoopy would be playing tug of war.

Jimmy: That's true. Well, he wants to do it his way. 

October 24th, a little leaf falls from the tree, a last leaf on a birch tree and hits the ground. And Snoopy looks at it and says, now what?

Michael: I picked this. As a big Leaf fan, and we haven't seen one in a while. This is just the classic leaf strip. Could have come from anywhere in the last 40 years.

Liz: That sounds sort of like a Sally philosophy-- now what?

Harold: Yeah. Too bad she wasn't there to hear him think it. I love, love, love the zipatone on that tree. That little birch tree. So nice.

Jimmy: yeah. Just a little bit down the right side to give it dimension and shading. Really pretty.

Harold: A lot of care.

Jimmy: And that is a beautifully composed, comic strip. And, boy, I mean, he's drawing those trees every time. And, it's not a photocopy. It's. It's. That's not hard. Not easy to do. And it looks really great. I love a good birch tree.

Harold: Yes, me too. Yeah, for some reason there's. There's. Well, what's going on there? Oh, wow. It's very subtle shading on the middle fork of the branch in the first panel, but it's there.

Jimmy: Yeah. Real nice.

Liz: Now, if he's in Santa Rosa, would that be an aspen rather than a birch?

Jimmy: I don't know.

Michael: He's not in Santa Rosa because the snow. So who knows?

Jimmy: Oh, yeah. Who knows? That's in the.

Harold: But there's a beach. There's an ocean.

Michael: Yeah.

Harold: Surfing. I don't know.

Jimmy: No, it is a lake, right? Isn't there at one point a lake?

Michael: No, there's surfing.

Harold: Well, they do mention the lake, but there is surfing, so I don't know.

Michael: Yeah.

Jimmy: Well, I just watched Apocalypse Now, so maybe they're in Vietnam. By the way, that's my new thing I watch. I'm to make myself like, sure, I'm cheery. I watch nihilistic 70s movies before I go to bed at night. Like, darker the better.

Michael: Oh, watch The Conversation if you want.

Jimmy: I watched The Conversation. I didn't know that Shirley was in The Conversation. I did watch it, and, I. It's great because they thought everything was so terrible then, and we made it.

Liz: Yep.

Jimmy: So it's like. I mean. So anyway, my pick. Hit the click. Apocalypse Now. Laugh riot. Good time. Why were we talking about that? Why did I bring that up?

Liz: Birch trees.

Jimmy: Birch trees.

Harold: That's it. Birch trees.

Jimmy: There must have been some reason. We'll review the tape at a later date.

Liz: Okay.

October 28th. we're back in the classroom with Rerun and the little pig haired girl. I just want to call her the pig haired girl. The little pigtailed girl is not there, but there's some sort of, some bully sitting next to Rerun. And the bully says, hey, kid, give me a red crayon. And then Rerun just tosses it and says, okay, I threw it into the teacher's wastebasket. If you want it, go get it. The bully says, you looking for a punch in the nose, kid? And Rerun says, try it, and I'll trade you one for two. And, Bully says, well, maybe I like this green one. 

Jimmy: The look on Rerun's face is just great. He's so happy and delighted with himself.

Michael: Yeah, he figured it out.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Yeah. Why is he trading one for a--

Michael: … until he gets pummeled like, the next day

Liz: Yeah.

Jimmy: Well, yeah, that guy could. But I'll trade you one for two. Is a ___ Gownley saying. Yeah, it's so funny. All right, you try it, and I'll trade you one for two. I said to him, that's absolutely.

Harold: Well, can you explain one for two?

Jimmy: Well, you hit me once, I'll hit you twice. It's a version of, you know, I, There'll be. If you do that again, there'll be two hits. Me hitting you and you hitting the floor.

Harold: So. So is he. So was he giving one for two? Because I would think Reruns the one. But maybe you only need one and no, give to the other guy.

Jimmy: No, no, that guy say, you hit me. He's saying to the kid, yeah, me once. I will hit you twice. That's what he's saying.

Harold: Okay. So I thought. Okay. I thought he was.

Jimmy: Yeah, we were saying, you trade you two for one. Well, you know, don't be so pedantic. But,

Harold: All right.

Liz: I think this is good advice for how to deal with bullies.

Jimmy: Absolutely.

Harold: This is escalation. Well, it seems to work here quite well until the later developments, but, yeah, yeah. Look at. Look at that smile on Rerun. He. He's like.

Jimmy: He just.

Harold: Look, he figures something out here.

Jimmy: Yeah. It's like, I can't believe it worked. Also, that's a really great look for his hair in that last panel.

Harold: It's a little more Conner-y, right?

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks like he's trying to do something as opposed to the other one.

Liz: He's got a part.

Jimmy: Yeah, he's got a part.

Harold: Yeah, Yeah, I like that. That's nice. It's like his hair. His hair is happy too, Right?

Jimmy: Exactly. but this continues, you know, actions have repercussions. So here on 

October 29th, Rerun has been sent to the principal's office. Yes, sir. Mr. Principal says Rerun. Well, this Big kid was taking all the crayons. See, then he was going. Then he said he was going to punch me in the nose. His mother complained about me, sir. You know what I think? And then Rerun concludes with, you and I should go out to dinner sometime and talk about this.

Harold: It's an old soul.

Jimmy: Yeah, he's brilliant. I mean, my God, you would have to love this kid. That is just so funny.

Harold: Yeah, he's adorable.

Jimmy: The best.

Liz: Well, this big kid was taking all the crayons, see.

Michael: Who would play.

Harold: What famous actor would play Rerun?

Liz: Edward G. Robinson.

Jimmy: And, this continues on 

October 30th. Rerun's back in bed at home, and Lucy's there with him. and he says, no, I can't go to school. I've been suspended again. For one day. Another whole day says Rerun. Then he sits up and says to Lucy, years from now, you know what people are going to say about me? And he lays back down, says he's one day dumber than he should be.

Harold: Aww.

Jimmy: Aren't we all, though?

Harold: At some point?

Jimmy: Yeah, I'm more than one.

Michael: I never understood this as, someone who's never been suspended. Why is that a punishment?

Jimmy: No idea.

Liz: It wasn't when I was suspended.

Jimmy: Oh, wow. Is that a good tale, or is that one that's in the vault?

Liz: Well, my friend Nancy and I thought we were hiding well when we were smoking cigarettes on campus, but we weren't.

Harold: Something wafted. Oh, man.

Jimmy: Oh, that's so funny. All right, well, your suspension is suspended. Here. You're fine.

Liz: Oh, but while I was suspended, I was called and cast as the lead in the senior play.

Jimmy: Oh, wow.

Harold: What? All right, where's Liz? You know where you can find her?

Jimmy: Going back to Michael's point. I don't know the answer. To take a day off. Yep. I guess that is on your permanent record, if that's such a thing.

Harold: Oh, well, I think you've written about that, Jimmy.

Jimmy: I have, Yes.

Harold: I really like this. This strip. And again, Rerun. I'm just getting to know Rerun better and better, and I really. I really like him. And you. You have to feel for him, given the circumstance of what we just saw him go through. He's. He's just doing things his own way, and it rubs the wrong way. And for whatever reason, with Rerun, it gets amped up more often, I think, even than, like, Peppermint Patty. Like, Peppermint Patty and Marcie are getting into scraps in. In the classroom. We've seen that and they both wind up at the principal's office. Maybe it's just because we don't see what happens after that brunch, but it just seems like Rerun, you know, he does things, he's marching to his own drum, and there you go, you wind up, wind up running right into the system.

Jimmy: Maybe Sally will end up with a younger man someday. I could see that.

Harold: Yeah, there won't be much of an age difference there once it goes a little further into Life.

Jimmy: Just what, 20 years, 

Michael: 40 

Jimmy: or whatever in the strip or in the real world.

Harold: Yeah, I have a new philosophy. Go for the younger guy.

November 7th, Charlie Brown is, in class and he's talking to his teacher. He says, no, ma' am, I didn't get my homework done. Well, I had to feed my dog and take him for a walk and then read to him. Then he nonchalantly leans his elbow back on his chair of his desk and says, yes, ma' am, I read to my dog every night and I never ask him to write a book report. And then last panel, surprised at what he said, Charlie Brown says, sorry, man, that just sort of slipped out.

Harold: A little unexpected sass from Charlie Brown, even to him. That's great.

Jimmy: Oh my gosh. And, that's a pretty good looking comic strip. It's crazy to me when you see that Charlie Brown had no shake it all. Compare that, the smoothness of that strip in general with the next one we have to select here, which is 

November 10th. 

Jimmy: This is one of my all time favorites. I remember reading this in the newspaper at the break room at work and laughing my head out, okay? 

And so it's Rerun and the pigtailed girl and they're sitting doing their arts and crafts project in school and Rerun's, drawing and he says, this is a border collie, see? And these are the sheep he's guarding. Suddenly a wolf comes. So the border collie gets on the phone and calls in an airstrike. And then the little girl says, we're supposed to be doing watercolors of flowers. To which Rerun says, it all takes place in a meadow.

Harold: I think he'd be do a pretty good job pitching TV series to executives.

Jimmy: Absolutely, absolutely. Oh, man, that just makes me laugh. Just the fact that the border collie calls in an airstrike and that he's technically doing the assignment. It all takes place in a meadow.

Harold: Yeah. What else do you got? It takes place in outer space.

Jimmy: Right. 

November 11th, it's Veterans Day and Snoopy has his little army hat on. And he's thinking to himself, every Veterans Day, I go over to Bill Malden's house. In the next panel, there he is with his root beer mug raised high. And he says, we coif a few root beers. Then I tell him what happened yesterday. And then Snoopy continues. I went to a bookstore to get something by Ernie Pyle. They never heard of him. And then Snoopy says, I don't know, Bill. I just don't know. 

Jimmy: That is Schulz inhabiting Snoopy.

Harold: Oh, wow. Yeah

Jimmy: Now who's Ernie Pyle?

VO: Peanuts Obscurities explained

Harold: So Ernie Pyle was a, journalist. And he. I think he went all around the country, before World War II, just kind of capturing life in the United States. And he did such a good job. People loved him. And he was in lots of newspapers, syndicated. Then the war happened. Then he was out traveling during the war, and really late into the war. I mean, this is like late night, you know, toward the end of 1945, just before it all ends, he's taken out by a sniper. And, when they covering the Japanese side of the war. And he was. It was very--. He was very. He was mourned. I mean, the. The nation mourned over him because he was a really special writer. Wow. but again, you know, he's one of those writers who was very, I guess, very temporal. I'm sure there are collect. Collected books, as, you know, as we will see here, because people really did want to honor him and wanted to reread what he had to write. But, you know, unfortunately, it's one of those things. The end of his career was over a super temporal issue of war.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And the earlier stuff, he just didn't get remembered. It's hard for those little essays to somehow survive. you know, people don't tend to read a lot of essayists for some reason after their era.

Jimmy: That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's hard for anything to survive. Like, the. The most famous writer from where I grew up is John O' Hara, who did Butterfield 8 and Appointment in Samarra and stuff like that. But nobody reads any of his books anymore. he was huge. 

November 15th, it's a panoramic. And Spike is out sleeping in the desert, head up against the rock next to his favorite cactus, and in the background, walk by his brothers, not noticing him at all. And Andy says, I've been thinking about something. If I saw that coyote wearing Mickey Mouse shoes, couldn't that mean we're getting close to where Spike lives. And then Olaf says, I doubt it. If we were close, we'd know it because we're well bred hunting dogs.

Liz: Oh, that's sad.

Jimmy: That is sad.

Harold: Oh, they're so close.

Jimmy: So, Harold, do you want to explain the Mickey Mouse shoes thing? We have not covered any of those strips.

Harold: So Snoopy keeps setting up Spike as having met Mickey Mouse. And there were Mickey Mouse shoes, including extra pairs.

Jimmy: Yes.

Harold: I mean, three pairs Mickey Mouse gives to Spike. Either that or Spike went to Disneyland and told a tall tale, which he's known to do. But he's got three pairs of Mickey Mouse shoes and he's gonna. I think that's how it works. And he's gonna share them with, Andy and Olaf when they show up. But, they're just a few meters off. And miss sleeping Spike against a rock. That's not to be.

Jimmy: Yeah, the zipatone looks great on the cactus.

Harold: I love that. Yeah.

Jimmy: The lighting off the moon.

Harold: Boy, I'm so glad zipatone was in this final era because again, he needs something that looks consistent.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: To help give meaning to the rougher lines.

Jimmy: Yeah, it's just solidifies things. It brings, it really ties the room together. Zipatone.

Harold: Yeah. And that he didn't have a rough panel. Now a lot of strips like BC, this was the era of the, the rough panel outline. So everything is kind of organic. And I'm glad he's got a solid line. I'm glad he's got. I mean, he was started out as a professional letter. He taught lettering and he's, you know, it's not as clear and clean as it used to be, but it's still darn good. And it. If that looked wavery, he'd be in trouble too. So all of these things are working in his favor. And even the little copyright 1997 United Features Syndicate adds a little cleanliness to the strip.

Jimmy: Yeah. And our last one for this episode, 

November 16th. It's a Sunday and Sally's lying in her bed and she says to no one in particular, that's what you think. Then we see her walking down the hall saying, tell me about it. Then she walks up to Charlie Brown, who's lying in the, beanbag chair watching tv. And Sally comes up and says, oh, yeah, that's what you think? Charlie Brown says, what? Sally says, that's my new philosophy. Oh yeah, that's what you think. And then Charlie Brown says, why are you telling me? And then Sally says, what? Charlie Brown repeats, why are you telling me? And then Sally says, I like it. That's a good philosophy. Why are you telling me? Oh, yeah, that's what you think. Why are you telling me? And then Charlie Brown says, I can't stand it. And Sally says, what? I can't stand it. And then Charlie Brown's feet go shooting out in the beanbag chair as he slumps down into it.

Jimmy: I like that. Now, this is like verbatim used in the more recent versions of youf're a Good Man, Charlie Brown for philosophy song.

Harold: Yeah, so they keep updating. They kept updating the. You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Jimmy: Oh, yes. It was always being updated. And like when the revival with Kristin Chenoweth playing Sally, which is, I, believe the thing that made her a known person and a star, it riffs on this exact strip. And it's so good. It's so, so good. I'm sure we could find a clip of it somewhere. It's fantastic. 

And that's it. So that brings us to the end of another year, another great year. And before we, wrap it all up, the first thing I want to tell you guys, since I'm going to be worrying this week, I want you all to get out there and, contact us. You can do it any number of ways. You can call the good old hotline where we're 717-219-4162, and you could, leave a voicemail or you can text that number. Just make sure to identify yourself. You can email us. We're unpackingpeanuts@gmail.com and, of course, you can follow us on social media. We're @unpackpeanuts on Instagram and threads and unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, blue sky and YouTube. 

So that means all I need, from my friends here is their picks for Strip of the Year and Most Valuable Peanut. Harold, why don't you go first?

Harold: Okay. my strip of the year. Maybe it's because Schulz was building tension for so long about Rerun trying to get Snoopy to come out and Play. But on July 20, when they are playing their own, little card game, throwing down the tens and the jacks and the queens and the kings and sending each other flying and just having a wonderful time. This is the late Peanuts that I do know and love, and I just love to see Snoopy and Rerun playing together. They are the best human canine, team in Peanuts history and super happy to see this happening. And for my Peanut of the Year, I have been giving Snoopy short shrift. Snoopy has been holding this strip together through the years in so many different ways, wearing so many hats. and he's wearing a little card hat at the end of this particular strip. I'm going to go ahead and give Snoopy this year. As much as I love a lot of stuff going on with Charlie Brown, going on with Marcie, going along with Rerun, I'm going to have to pick Snoopy just because I. I've been ignoring Snoopy.

Jimmy: All right, well, that sounds pretty good. Pretty good. How about you, Michael?

Michael: Well, I'm going way back to the beginning of the year for my strip of the year, and I'm going to February 2nd. And here we see Charles Schulz completely summing up the game of hockey. There's nothing more to say about hockey after you read this strip. Apparently it's a great sport. I just never played it. I guess you had to be on the field to really, appreciate it.

Harold: It's funny, we both chose strips where there's some crazy game action going on and everybody's happy at the end.

Michael: Yeah, right. That just shows you. I mean, you couldn't do this with baseball.

Harold: Right?

Michael: Couldn't sum up baseball in 10 panels, however many there are. So. And normally. Let's see if I'm picking my most valuable peanut. I think Rerun's coming to the fore, and he's staying at the fore. He's an interesting character, but I'm not going to pick him because I picked him last year.

Jimmy: All right, so.

Michael: And then deference to Jimmy, in honor of Jimmy, I am going to pick Olaf.

Jimmy: Awesome.

Michael: There's only two years left and he hasn't gotten his strip, most valuable Peanut yet.

Jimmy: Well, I appreciate that and I'm actually going to agree with both of you because I had planned to give the Snoopy family MVP as a unit, because I enjoyed seeing them all together. And I really enjoy, Olaf and Andy going off on a quest with, Woodstock. I think that could be a Lord of the Rings style graphic novel, you know, because my favorite genre. A bunch of people walking somewhere is my favorite genre of literature.

Harold: So you just like to draw pyramids?

Jimmy: I also draw some pyramids, but for my strip of the year, it's going to be. It all took place in a meadow. Well, I don't know what date that was. I. Whatever day that was. 

So that's it. End of another year. Only two more full years left of the strip. Yeah. before we have to figure out what we're going to do with the rest of our lives. But until then, keep the conversation going with us on social media and whatnot, and we'll see you next week. For Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer. 

MH&L: Yes. Be of good cheer

VO: 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 unpackingpeanuts. Com. Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

Jimmy: Why were we talking about that.