I’m Just Pretending It Never Happened: The Weirdest Peanuts Strips Ever

Strips we discuss and the original episode dates:

Truffles - March 31 & April 1, 1975 - 1975 Part 1

Spike and Woodstock on the Moon - October 6, 1995 - 1995 Part 1

Pencil Sharpener - January 25, 1990 - 1990 Part 1

Tapioca Pudding - September 4, 1986 - 1986 Part 1

School Building - January 8-9, 1976 - 1976 Part 1

Finale of Mr. Sack - July 5, 1973 - 1973 Part 1

Sentient Blanket - March 17, 1965 - 1965 Part 1

The Whirly Dog - March 14, 1960 - 1960 Part 1

Schroeder Meta Strip - October 1, 1952 - 1952 Part 2

Charlotte Braun — November 30, 1954 — 1954 Part 2

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. My name is Jimmy Gownley and I'm a cartoonist. And you can find all my new work, including this year, new Amelia Rules over on Gville Comics on Substack. And joining me, as always, are, my pals, co hosts and fellow cartoonists. He's a playwright and a composer, both of 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 keeping it running smooth and keeping us out of trouble is our producer and editor, Liz Sumner. 

Liz: Howdy, 

Jimmy: guys. We are going to be doing a special all weird episode because there's lots of things you can.

Liz: Something new and different.

Jimmy: Yeah, weird used to be a seasoning, but this time it's the meal. We're just having a whole podcast, the Weird, and we couldn't be more excited about it. Do you guys, what do you think about. About the strips you've picked? We've each. What we've done is we've each picked three strips that we talked about in the past on this show. We're gonna use the old time machine to. To clue you into what we thought about it at the time. So, guys, what, how did. What was your criteria when you were picking your weird strips?

Michael: Well, I didn't ponder it too much and I didn't do any research. There were two real obvious ones, and

Liz: Jimmy stole one of your ideas.

Michael: Yeah. But these, ran as a series, so it was more than one strip. The third one, I probably could have given it more thought, but I did come across a really unusual reference in a Schroeder strip, which I thought. I think this is the only time this happened in Peanuts, even though it's kind of a trope in a lot of comics.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: He refers to being in the comic strip.

Jimmy: that's right. Yeah.

Michael: Yep. And it's not weird for. I mean, a lot of comics do that all the time, but it's weird for Peanuts to do it once.

Jimmy: Yeah. Just once.

Michael: Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy: Harold, what about you?

Harold: I just went in and searched. You know, Liz has been making transcripts of this, which. Which is kind of cool that it's. There's, like a searchable text for these. So through that, I was like, when did we say something was weird? Jog the memory. And sure enough, there were some really cool ones in here. So that was my criteria. And then from that, I picked the ones that I'd wanted to talk about or at least bring back out into the world. Cause they were fun conversations.

Jimmy: And, what qualifies as weird in a comic strip with a dog that sits on top of the doghouse and writes novels like. But, that. Because obviously that didn't count, qualify as weird.

Harold: Yeah. And we're going to talk about this a lot in these sequences, you know, where weird is unacceptable. Weird is really cool. You know, we have lots of different perspectives.

Michael: For me, I mean, since, yeah, it is all weird, you know, and the bunnies are weird and the little scouts are weird, for me, what defines weird as within the context of this world. You know, a world where it's all weird, but things that kind of break. Break the rules of the world. Things that you think would happen again or would have happened before, but never did, just happened once, then they kind of disappeared.

Jimmy: Yeah, it's interesting. It would be like if a surreal thing happens in a surreal world, it's so surreal that the people within the surreal world go, that's odd.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Well, this is fun. I'm really excited to get back to. To talking about some of these strips because. Because they were good the first time around. And, you know, you can never look at Peanuts too much now, if you want to figure out, or maybe you can, that that had. We're going to medically prove to see if that's true. See if we develop a Peanuts allergy.

Harold: What's interesting to me also is that the ones we picked collectively, you know, we each picked three. They represent the run of the strip pretty well. Started 1952 and end of 1995. Every decade has, at least one represented. So it's kind of neat.

Jimmy: Oh, that's very good. Very good. Good to know he was weird from the beginning, and we maintained it.

Liz: And Jimmy, how did you choose your weird strips?

Jimmy: I sat, in a chair, for about 10 minutes, and I closed my eyes and I tried to remember what things I thought were the weirdest. And then I wrote them down, just like, you know, how I could describe it. One sentence. And then I looked to see if we had talked about that on the show, and, if we had, I included it.

Harold: One other thing I'd like to just add as going back over these, and I see it in the conversations that we're going to be listening to today, is a sense for me of permission as a cartoonist to do things from the guy I admire the most as a comic strip cartoonist. I just feel permission from Charles Schulz that you can. You can try things. You can do things that are unexpected, maybe considered out of character or just out of character from the strip. And maybe that's not a, bad thing at all. Right. To break the rules every once in a while. And the funny thing is, you know, if there had been one strip of Snoopy in the Sopwith Camel, it would be on our list.

Jimmy: Oh, yes, absolutely.

Harold: It was something weird that became normal.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And I love that. That Schulz, he. These are the ones that just didn't catch on. Yeah, he just. One offed and that was it. Maybe it would have caught on if he continued it, but he just. He did say what he wanted to say, and he moves on. And I really appreciate having that perspective on somebody I admire so much that he. He would try. He would. He would swing for a strange fence. Maybe it was behind the plate, but it shows that, you know, a genius like Schulz would not keep himself inside his box. He keeps moving the edges of the box. Sometimes it's so outside the box, he didn't even, you know, there's no box. Yeah, there's no box. And it's just. It's fun to see him playing and just see what happens with your characters. Even if it's not just something you put in a notebook, it's something you put out for the world to see.

Jimmy: Well, yeah. And I think putting stuff out into the world is the final stage that you gotta do as a cartoonist. Because you don't know. I mean, there's a really good chance you could, as someone like Charles Schultz even, do the first World War I flying ace and go, all right, well, I'm not gonna put that out. It's too weird. And you wouldn't know the success it had until it got out there. And you know, what Michael said about the, the one off strip, about, you know, being in the comic strip, that's actually something that I guess you could do, really, on a web strip these days, which is you try something, you throw it out there. Unless, you know, people are reprinting the entire thing 50 years from now, you can ignore it, you can utter in a comic strip, you can utterly ignore it and go, oh, that was stupid. I shouldn't have had Schroeder say that and never do it again. And, you know, in like a week that's sort of forgotten.

Harold: Sure. And you kind of expect that. And did I ever tell the story on the podcast? My experience writing on Mystery Science Theater 3000, where there was a rule we were given that was if you were in the process of writing and you decide, oh, no, I don't know. And you don't. It was like, don't erase. There's no erasing. so if you're collecting the information, you never edit yourself. You put it out there. Because what we did is we kind of built a database of jokes. And then some of them we might pitch in person to each other to see how people are going. And some of them might just be on, you know, written out.

Jimmy: Right, right.

Harold: And then they're selected by somebody outside of the room where we're all just kind of having fun and bouncing off of each other. And I really took to heart when he said that He's. Because he said, you know, you may be. In this case, this is collaborative, so you may think of something that you think is like, you know, you're going down this path and you're like, oh, well, that's a dead end and you back your way out and you know, to try to keep safe face or whatever, you get rid of it. And he said, well, that might be a springboard. You might have heading toward a joke and you don't find the joke, but maybe you. What you did was a springboard for someone to find the joke. And that was super freeing because there's no judgment and there's a demand that anything you think of that you got down as far as collecting, you know, in words stays in. In that world, in that database to be chosen from. 

And my favorite story for that is we were doing our. Our first national live tour and we had the super secret surprise show because we hadn't gotten the rights in time to advertise. And, it was a really cool movie called Argoman, the Fantastic Superman. And when I was finishing up writing and what I would do is I would write for 20 hours watching the movie, stopping it, watching the movie, stopping it. Takes me 20 hours to get through it. So every time I was reacting something, even if I just had gone three seconds forward in the movie and stopped it and then wrote a joke, I. It would be fresh to me in the sense that I don't know where the movie's going. Ah, those are my own personal rules. Everybody had their own thing. Some people just told jokes in the room and, you know, they never even saw the movie at all until they were live and someone was collecting the jokes as they were saying them. But you had the, you had the right to write in advance and that was more my speed. And so here I am at the end of Argoman the Fantastic Superman, which is such a fun movie, but it's so goofy. And at the end I was literally giddy watching this thing for 20 hours. And I remember this very last shot of the film is this camera zoom in on a mantelpiece where this antique clock is. And there was this running joke about time in the film, which I won't go into. But I was so in such a weird place. I, I just wrote the, the silliest ending and, and essentially something like, you know, hi, it's me, Clocky. You know, it's like, it's time to wind up this film. And it's like, good night, God bless, and may the good Lord keep you ticking. So that was my riff. 

Now Diane, my wife, she, she had transcribed the movie, so she already seen it. One of like the only people who had seen it before the writers, because she had to put the script stuff in to give us something to write around in the collection of the jokes. And so I went down and I still in my giddy state, and I showed her that last joke and she was like, no, you have to erase that. Joel's going to fire you. That's terrible. And I was like, nope, not allowed to in my giddy state. And then two weeks later, we're in the office and the walls are kind of thin and I'd, completely forgotten about it. And Joel was going over the jokes with, with one of his top writers, editors, and they were selecting the gags, trying them out. And all of a sudden I hear Joel in this high pitched voice going, hi, it's me, Clocky. I was like, oh. And the weird thing is that was the last joke of the show. Word for word, that was the end of the show. it actually got in there, you know, and I, and if I had taken it out, you know, it wouldn't have been there. So I'm grateful for the process of being able to be silly and be goofy. And, you know, it's seasoning, right? You wouldn't want every joke to be that. But every once in a while, maybe where you were is where you think somebody thinks the audience is. And something that wouldn't normally goes in is the perfect place to put it.

Jimmy: Well, that is a fantastic insight into that process and adding the collaborative element. That's very cool. Well, thank you for sharing that. 

All right, well, if you guys want to follow along with the shenanigans that go along with this podcast, the first thing you got to do is go over to our website unpacking peanuts.com, sign up for the great Peanuts Reread. That will get you one email a month that will let you know what we're up to so you could be prepared even if things get really weird like they're going to. Right now, here is our first sequence, the truffles sequence. This is between. This is from 1975, all, Right. Who selected the truffle sequence?

Liz: I did.

Jimmy: Ooh, very exciting. Tell us, your thoughts behind that.

Liz: Well, when I was preparing the script for what we were going to be talking about, I remembered that Michael had suggested, you know, if we did an episode of just the weird strips,

[SFX]

Michael: but if we do a special episode on the weirdest peanut strips, this would. I would definitely nominate these.

Jimmy: well, first off, we gotta do that now. That's an episode for sure.

Michael: Well, we maybe get some reader input, Listener input.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, that's. What do you think is the weirdest, most un. Peanuts. Peanuts sequence?

[SFX]

Liz: I wanted to include that you acknowledge

Harold: the origin of this episode all those years ago.

Jimmy: Well, that is awesome. So what it would be. In a second, we'll take, a trip in the old Peanuts time machine back to what we were saying. But, do you guys have anything else to say about Truffles? I remember being really intrigued and having a lot to say about her character design.

Harold: Yeah, it was a great conversation. As we're going to hear. I think my memory of this is what I guess you'd call Fever Dream. This is Fever Dream Schulz, where something happens that isn't logical. It's more coincidental because it's tangential. And so Schulz is, just messing with your mind here, where you just feel like, yeah, the logic of this doesn't really add up, but you kind of see where he's going. It's weird. Weird.

Jimmy: It's weird. All right, let's take a trip back in the time machine and see what's what.

[SFX]

March 31st. okay, now we're in the middle of another kind of long sequence. This is the beginning. Ish. Of a long sequence. Linus and Snoopy are on the Hunt. Because Linus has decided he's gonna go out and find some truffles, and, he needs a truffle hound. So, of course, he gets Snoopy to go with him. But in fact, they come up, and they meet a young lady whose name is Truffles. That's quite a coincidence. And, here they are. Truffles is sitting under a tree, and, Linus and Snoopy are talking with her. Truffles says, I said, if you find anything, just remember that you're digging on our property. Truffles says, actually, this is my grandfather's farm. Linus now stands up and says, gee, I apologize. I didn't even think about trespassing, or, we're hunting for truffles. And Truffle says with a smile on her face, well, you found one. Linus says, we did. And then she reveals, that's my name, Truffles. To which Snoopy, and probably a lot of readers says, oh, good grief.

Michael: Also, they were trespassing in someone else's comic strip. Because this is not a Schulz character. This is like.

Jimmy: I love that. This is not a Schulz.

Michael: This is like a Broom hilda character.

Jimmy: Oh, I love. Yeah, I love this character design for some. I mean, I get what you're saying. It doesn't matter, but it's so goofy. It's a really cute character. I think the fact that her mouth touches the bottom, like, it's so much lower than any other Peanuts character. The nose, the eyes.

Harold: So weird.

Michael: Well, this reads in Comic Book World because, let's face it, they all look like freak, Freaky monsters. But this reads is ugly. And so I was surprised when later on, they talk about how beautiful she was because, this reads. Is reads ugly. I mean, in comic book language.

Jimmy: All right. I don't know if I see that.

Harold: Well, you know, in the first three panels, she doesn't really stay the same character in terms of the design. He's just kind of winging it as he goes here. Yeah, I think it's a really odd design. I mean, for whatever reason, I don't know, some of these strips that are in the 1971, 75 books are all in line. The incline. It just seems like we're not seeing his incline. We're seeing his incline. That has been reproduced and smudged.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And very much out. And that does not do Truffles justice, I will say. But she. She. I will give her that. She's wearing a cool Mondrian dress.

Jimmy: Mondrian dress.

Harold: Yeah, that's pretty cool. And. But I will say my favorite part of this strip is in the first panel, Snoopy peeking around Linus. who's peeking around the tree at, Truffles. That is a darn cute snoopy.

April 1, Truffles continues. she says to Linus, do you think Truffles is a funny name? And Linus says, no, I think it's kind of cute. Truffles says, my grandfather likes me. He says, I am as rare as a truffle, so he calls me Truffles. 

Jimmy: Old people calling their daughters or granddaughters rare?

Harold: Yeah. Why is that a thing?

Jimmy: Yeah, I don't know. interesting. 

In the next panel, Linus says, well, my name is Linus, and this is Snoopy. He's sort of an unusual dog. Truffle says, can he do tricks to it? Snoopy says, see this coin? Now watch carefully. 

Jimmy: I don't know why. That just really makes me laugh. I have mixed feelings about this whole sequence. There's the weird Linus, Snoopy rivalry, because what ends up happening is Linus falls in love with Truffles for some reason, and Snoopy also, loves Truffles. And Snoopy won't take him back. Linus back to visit Truffles. And Linus can't find his way back because this genius, who can write her a letter so he has her address, cannot find his way back to her house. Can't do it. It's impossible.

Michael: It's a very, very weird sequence.

Jimmy: Very weird sequence. And I love, though, that, What I love at the end is that Snoopy was just there for the cookies. I think that is. Yeah, that's one of those instances when I think the punchline at the end is like, all right, that's really fun. I really like that.

Harold: Yeah. I like it when stupid gets shivved by the weather vane. The rooster, Weathervane. Yeah.

[SFX]

Jimmy: My favorite part of any discussion is when we look at something by Schulz, and Michael goes, this is not Schulz. It's not the rules.

Liz: It's not following the rules.

Jimmy: So that was good to see this. So is this tough for you, Michael, or is it. Are you able to enjoy it as just the weird exercise? Or is this, like. Could this also be subtitled your least favorite strips?

Michael: Well, it's not always the case of my three. I have. I love one of these sequences, and I hate another one. 

Jimmy: Very exciting. you'll tell us which one when we get there?

Michael: Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy: All right. Well, that's pretty good. All right, so that is the Truffles sequence from 1975. So if you haven't done the complete reread, first off, what's wrong with you? But secondly, you gotta get hip to Truffles. So let me ask you guys this, and all three of you can weigh in. What, what do you think is the weirdest Peanuts decade?

Michael: Ooh, M. That's tough. Yeah. It's kind of hard for me to think in terms of decades because they kind of slide into one another. Yeah. There's definitely these in between periods, which is neither one nor the other. No, they're scattered around. In the 90s, he was doing stuff, which I don't think any of us picked because they're almost too weird. The one where Snoopy's, like, coming in with the D day forces.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael: And stuff like that is like, he's not even trying to keep this in the world. He's just doing whatever he wants.

Jimmy: yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, I, I sort of agree. I think that last two or three years of Peanuts, especially, I think the Sundays, which were, you know, they're, a huge physical toll to do that Sunday page. And, you know, one week, you might have to just slap a giant picture of Eisenhower and call it a day.

Harold: Yeah, I'd agree. I would agree. The 90s. Because it's the decade that I least experienced as a younger person where I just absorb it and it's not weird anymore.

Jimmy: Right.

Harold: Some of this was undigested.

Jimmy: Right. I think. I agree. That's probably most weird is the 90s, even though that probably won't be reflected in this episode. But I think you could make a case that the, first five years. Well, they say 50 to 53, to a general audience might seem weird just because it looks so different and so much of the characters.

Harold: Like, I think, yeah, Charlie Brown's acting Weird. And 50 to 52.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Compared to what we know now.

Jimmy: You know, it's shocking when we went back and saw how many, you know, 1954 strips were already, like, in the, you know, pantheon of great strips. But those first three years, I think you could find probably a lot of weirdness.

Michael: But that was. That was the case of Schulz still working out what he wanted this to be.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah. All right. Our second sequence. Oh, Speaking of the 90s, this is October 5th and 6th, 1995, and it's, Spike and Woodstock go to the moon.

Harold: Yeah. I picked this one just again, because of the search. It came up as one we talked about as weird. And this is a classic one. Where we have a really interesting conversation between, you know, what's. What's acceptable in the world.

Jimmy: And, that's also something I did discover, through the course of reading all these strips and discussing them with you guys, is that sometimes, the best strips didn't necessarily facilitate the best conversation. Because, you know, if you have people go, yep, that's pretty good. You know, there's less to talk about. But I did like it when we'd get into. And that's one of the reasons I was insistent that I want to read the whole thing. Because you have to go into these weird corners and go, what was going on here, man? What's up with Marbles? You know, I don't think you can fully understand the Schulz genius until you understand Marbles. All right, let's, take another trip back in the, time machine and see what's up with Spike and Woodstock on the Moon. 

[SFX]

October 5th. This is a sequence where Woodstock decides he's going to go to the moon. I actually really like this, weird sequence for some reason, partly because I just think Woodstock looks cute in the space helmet. But, here he is, and he's gone to the moon, and he meets who else but Spike? So we see him ask a question to Spike, and Spike answers, is this the moon? And Spike says, sometimes I wonder. And then, Woodstock asks the question, and Spike says, how did I get here? And Spike answers with, well, I like to think I came up the hard way.

Michael: This sequence really bothers me.

Jimmy: Why?

Michael: Even though the world is totally nuts and Peanuts, there's still certain rules. And, to me, this just is not even in the strip. I mean, this can't be in the continuity if this was a dream.

Jimmy: Well, I don't think he's really on

Michael: the moon, but he is.

Jimmy: I think he's just imagining it.

Michael: Why are they agreeing that they're on the moon? I mean, is he with Spike?

Harold: Well, this is what, you know, when I saw this sequence, and it started me thinking again. We've talked so much about the characters imaginative lives, as we've gone through the strips. And this was a really stark reminder that in the Peanuts strips, characters pull other characters into their imaginations, their reality.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: which is, I think, unique to Peanuts in a certain way. I mean, you see it, in how fluid it is right now.

Michael: The problem is, I think Spike was a bad choice because Woodstock and Spike have no relationship. And so if this is Woodstock imagining it, why would he imagine it with somebody he might have met? I don't know, once.

Jimmy: No, I think 

Michael: He lives far away. So it's clearly not Spike really there.

Jimmy: No, I think it is Spike really there. And Woodstock, like Harold was saying, is bringing him into his play. He's like.

Michael: But Spike doesn't know Woodstock,

Liz: Or Spike is hallucinating.

Harold: Well, Spike does have an imaginative bent to himself out in the.

Jimmy: Yeah, he's talking. He.

Harold: He's interesting because he pulls himself in and out of his. His dreams. Right. He's trying to have a more grandiose life out in the middle of nowhere. And so he invents characters he doesn't know.

Michael: Now, that, to me, this violates the rules.

Jimmy: Okay.

Harold: So you have to know someone in order to be pulled into their reality. It's part of the rules.

Michael: Okay. The Marcie and, Snoopy. The. The Air Ace stuff bothers me a bit because she's in clearly in his. His World War I fantasies and seems to be joining him in the fantasies. But at least they're in proximity to each other. And people seem to be able to read his mind.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: When he's thinking. I don't know if all of them can.

Harold: It comes and goes, doesn't it? I mean, this year you got Snoopy saying. Character's thinking about something or saying something out loud. A human character. And then Snoopy is replying, essentially in a way that makes it sound like, well, you can't know what I'm thinking. And I'm like, really? In the Peanuts world, this turns on and off.

Michael: It's just that Spike's never been involved in any of those relationships. There's no point in picking him.

Jimmy: That's why, though, because he goes, and he doesn't know who he is.

Harold: Well, what about Spike in the World War. a trench where he's a fighter.

Michael: Didn't like that at all either.

Jimmy: Okay, hold on.

Harold: But if it's. If it's breaking the rules multiple times, then maybe it's a rule.

Michael: You don't have to have your rules. I would not do this if I was Schulz.

Jimmy: What? I think the reason that he picked Spike is because he doesn't know Woodstock. And that's why he goes there and is able to ask him, is this the moon? He wouldn't ask Linus necessarily, is this the moon? But Anyway, moving on. 

October 6th. they're standing in the desert/the moon, and Spike says, and there's Earth. 

Jimmy: Well, there's not Earth. That's the moon. I think that we're seeing Spike pretend.

Harold: I don't know, I see a zipatone Australia.

Michael: It's clearly a map of Earth. I mean, it's totally detailed.

And Spike says to Woodstock. Yes. We're standing on the moon and that's the Earth we're looking at. Before you go back, there's something over here you shouldn't miss. And Spike tries to sell Woodstock, some moon rocks.

Harold: Yeah. When you're out in the desert, it always ultimately comes down to souvenirs.

Jimmy: Yeah, you got. All right, well, since we, don't need to discuss that further since we don't want to hurt Michael's head anymore.

Michael: No, I'm just pretending it never happened.

Jimmy: All right,

[SFX]

Jimmy: No, I'm just pretending it never happened. That. See, that's what I'm talking about. You're not going to get that kind.

Harold: That's the title. That's the title. I'm just pretending it never happened. The weirdest strips of all time.

Jimmy: So sometimes there's fun journeys to other planets that, that fall under the umbrella of weirdness. And sometimes it's just absurd, and awful body horror. Like on, January 25, 1990, a real David Cronenberg esque peanut strip, which is Charlie Brown sharpens himself.

Harold: Yeah, this. This one also, I brought up. And this is a very, very weird sequence. Talk about fever Dream. So, yeah, Charlie Brown, as we're going to hear, is at the school pencil sharpener. And he somehow managed to get at least his shirt caught in there. And it's sucking him into the pencil sharpener. And the art is so strange. And, the thing that would have made this one step less weird is that if it had been an electric pencil sharpener under its own power. That is kind of the horror of the combine in the.

Jimmy: Yeah, it got pulled in. Right.

Harold: But this one has a little hand crank and it's impossible to have happened. What happened? Impossible. And that's what I think takes us to the level of weird that makes it to this show.

Jimmy: Now, let me ask Michael this before we hit the time machine. If you're reading along and you come along across a strip like this, will this set you off more? Or would like, say, Spike and Woodstock on the moon? Or is that the same. Is it at the heart the same thing, that it's defying the laws of the world?

Michael: this wouldn't bother me as much. I wouldn't think it was a good strip because of that. I'd say this is a terrible strip and a bad idea. But it's still mostly housed in reality. You know, there could be a mishap where the pencil sharpener just wouldn't be this extreme.

Liz: A Mishap with the Pencil Sharpener could be another title.

Jimmy: yeah, this was. This has. This does make one of my least favorite Peanuts strips. Just because like anything that. Oh, just the thought of Charlie Brown getting grounded up in a pencil sharpener is just too, too disturbing for me. I have a very delicate sensibility, you know. 

[SFX]

Jimmy: Okay. Yeah, here, we go now.

 January 25th, here we go. I can't wait to talk about this one. A bunch of randos that we have never seen are standing in line to sharpen their pencils. the first one says, why do we have to stand in line for everything? then the next one says, what's the holdup? And then the next kid says, probably an overturned voice vehicle. He really needs to get his pencil sharpened because he's like a whole handful of them. Then another kid says, push him out of there. And then the last one says, what's taking you so long, Charles? Which is wild that they call him Charles. And then, by the way, this is all one panel. And then, in the last part of the panel we see. What do we see? We see Charlie Brown's clothes being sucked into the pencil. Sharp, right? Is that right? Are, we seeing Charlie Brown himself being pulled into the pencil sharpener? I'm not sure. But anyway, the, the what's left of Charlie Brown, which does not have a head, says, I like a pencil with a fine point.

Michael: Well, this is part of a sequence. So this is the finale of a sequence, with this pencil sharpener, which is probably the weirdest sequence of dailies he did. I mean it certainly wasn't worth a week's worth of strips.

Harold: So how does it all start? How does the sequence start, Mike?

Michael: I don't remember anything.

Harold: Well, didn't have something to do with the little red haired girl. He was trying to, get her attention and he was going to go up and sharpen his pencil. That's what I remember. Anyway.

Michael: That works usually.

Harold: So she's in the classroom again. So little red haired girl who's hopping around from being in the, in the schoolyard or just being in the neighborhood. Now it appears that she's in his class.

Jimmy: Oh no. You know what? I think I just figured it out.

Harold: What's that?

Jimmy: Charlie Brown has face blindness and he just keep. They just new red haired kids moved into town and he's like the red haired girl's back. He doesn't know it's a different person.

Harold: Okay, man. Well, that. That kid in the middle of the five kids and waiting in line, I think is Marcie's brother.

Jimmy: You think so? Well, what about someone calling him Charles, like Marcie?

Michael: Well, that.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: I mean, that could. Could be Lydia, without the hair band.

Liz: Could be Marcie without the glasses.

Jimmy: They are all having a rough day, whoever they are. They look disheveled.

Michael: This is weird. This is the un. The least Schulzy peanut strip I've ever seen.

Harold: It's so.

Michael: It breaks every rule. If someone said this is what the 90s is going to look like, I would run the other way.

Harold: Wow.

Michael: I mean, one panel, zipatone. Characters you've never seen before. And this bizarre, headless Charlie Brown.

Jimmy: What has happened to him? What do you think we are.

Michael: Isn't he trying to get out of his clothes? Because he's trapped, So I don't know

Harold: how this works, but he's wearing a short sleeve sweater, right?

Jimmy: Well, they say it's a sweater, and then later we see that it's actually now has a long sleeve. I'm not sure if that's because it's destroyed by the pencil sharpener, but whatever. But he has a. Yes, he has a sweater which has his trademark stripe on it with a collar. And that's what's caught in the pencil sharpener.

Harold: Yeah, it's very odd. And then his other sleeve does not show any fingers or hand or arm.

Jimmy: No.

Harold: I don't know.

Michael: Struggling to get it. Take it off.

Harold: Yeah, I suppose.

Jimmy: Okay, so. Oh, okay. So you guys are saying Charlie Brown is tucked in there, or is that, like, the top of his head we're seeing?

Michael: Well, he's talking. You don't see his head. Well, yeah, you do see a little curve there.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: He's trying. He can't get away. And he's trying to take the sweater off.

Jimmy: I got it.

Michael: Oh, okay. Yeah, that would. This definitely goes in our weirdest strips.

Jimmy: yeah, like, no, I'm not joking. Like, I could not tell you what was happening. I was very confused. I'm like. Is like. Did he sharpen his hand off? It looks very grotesque to me.

Harold: Yeah. you could. You could read it that way, I guess. It's so surreal. Anyway, so you can put your own rules on it. Trying to make sense of it. Boy, I do remember that the pencil sharpener was an important part of the schoolroom. You know, this. It was a big deal for me to go up and sharpen my pencil. And the smell of the wood shavings and the graphite. And. Oh, boy.

Michael: It was,

Harold: I don't know why we. We didn't have those little tiny pencil sharpeners where you just had it at your desk. But it was the.

Jimmy: It was.

Harold: The communal pencil sharpener was a big deal. And I don't know if it still is.

Liz: They work better the. The mechanical ones rather than those little ones

Michael: they have apps for that it now.

Jimmy: You know, I don't think you can buy a Boston pencil sharpener anymore.

Harold: What?

Jimmy: The best pencil sharpener, as my, illustration professor would say, it makes a fine Roman spear point. But I was looking for one recently, and you can only find them used.

Michael: Hm.

Jimmy: No way.

Harold: Yeah. Wow.

[SFX]

Jimmy: Now, so sometimes weirdness takes you to other planets. Sometimes weirdness gets you ground up Fargo style. And sometimes it's just a weird new character, like here on September 4, 1986, where we get to meet good old Tapioca Pudding.

Harold: This also was one that I had nominated. I love this sequence. We'll hear about it. But just for the sake of the intro.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Tapioca Pudding, new character shows up for probably less than maybe five strips or less. And she's all about becoming a licensed character and being on lunchboxes. It's so fun to see this character. this is the world of when Calvin and Hobbes is coming out, and Bill Watterson is being very critical of licensing and being open about it. And I think it's in the air, and I think this is Schulz processing it and making a statement that, yeah, it's part of my world, but it's not the core of who I am and why I do the strip. And I love that it's him, able to editorialize within the strip about licensing and where. Where it fits in the world and where it gets a little crazy.

[SFX]

September 4th. Okay, now here we are. Here is the big moment. New character alert. It's Tapioca Pudding. So she's standing in front of class, and she says, good morning. I'm new here in this school. I shall now introduce myself. And she does in panel two. My name is Tapioca Pudding. With my name, my blonde hair, and my smile, my dad says, we can make a million dollars. And then in the last panel, she says directly to Linus, apparently, who's sitting in his desk. My dad is in licensing.

Michael: This almost reads to me. When I saw this, I went like, no, this can't be true. This is almost like a MAD magazine parody of Peanuts, right?

Harold: Yeah. That Schulz is doing it himself is Pretty neat. I really enjoy. It's a repetitive sequence, but it didn't get old for me.

Michael: But also, I mean, just. This was Frieda's schtick.

Michael: When Frieda was introduced, all she had was talking about her curly hair. And to everyone she met, she talked about her naturally curly hair. And this girl has naturally curly hair and is talking about her hair.

Harold: Yeah, yeah. And that gigantic smile. And it's funny, we know that Schulz was getting a little bit of heat for the licensing, maybe in smaller circles, but he was probably getting back to him that certain cartoonists were like, he's selling out or whatever. And it's interesting to show that Schulz is like, I'm not interested in the licensing. The licensing is the least interesting thing to me. And anybody who's into licensing is a little messed up.

Jimmy: Yeah, he. It seems extremely pointed. I mean, you know, it feels like he was definitely having a bad day about licensing or a couple bad days.

Harold: Right. And we talked about this before that the version of Peanuts that you experience in licensing, if you never read the strip, is much different than the feeling of the strip that you get if you just read the strip. and her gigantic smile and, you know, when she presents herself to the world. My name is Tapioca Pudding. She's got her arms outstretched. She looks like a little plush toy, you know, a little doll. And I think, I think, I think it's funny and fascinating and I think this is actually probably a smart move for Schulz to do if this is how he was feeling about it. He didn't really say anything. He's making fun of it. At the same time, he's not. I wouldn't be happy, obviously not gonna stop doing the licensing.

Michael: I wouldn't be happy if she was a regular character.

Jimmy: No. I don't even feel like he intended her to. To be a, an ongoing thing. It feels like this feels like Joe Rich Kid, like, hey, I'm coming in here to do my bit.

Harold: Well, he's done that so much with recent characters. They, you know, they are. So one note. You got Maynard, the, The tutor. you're not seeing sides of characters. The way we've gotten to know Linus and Lucy and Snoopy and Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty.

Michael: It's like a one week affair here.

Harold: Yeah. It seemed like as he was developing new characters less and less, maybe because it wasn't necessary, because he had these nuanced characters that whenever he introduced somebody else, it had to represent something they didn't and so it was one thing, you know, and Tapioca Pudding obviously could have developed a, personality and had a few more things going for her, but that's not what Schulz is doing.

Michael: She does have the unique ability to levitate, though.

Harold: Yeah, right.

Michael: I mean, and the second one too, the, the. Where Linus is sitting, you don't see the bottom of the desk, but you see her feet at the same level as the middle of the desk.

Jimmy: Yeah, that doesn't bother me because it's just faked perspective. But the third, the last one, she's definitely floating at his mid, his desk. Or at least it looks to me more that way. But what are you gonna do? 

September 6th, there's more Tapioca Pudding. She comes up to Snoopy and says, hi, my name is Tapioca Pudding. Someday, wouldn't you like to own a lunchbox or T shirt with my picture on it? Snoopy just walks away looking a little delicate, dismayed. And Tapioca yells after him. Licensing is very big these days. 

[SFX]

Jimmy: So from the ridiculous to the really dark, we have January, 9th, 1976, which is the, the, the demise, the ultimate demise of the original school building that, Sally goes to, which I, to this day I find kind of shocking, is in Peanuts.

Harold: Yeah, I agree, I agree. This is, this definitely deserves to be in this list. It is, it is on a lot of levels, really unnerving.

Jimmy: but, you know, I looked at it a different way when I was thinking about these strips because although the Peanuts school building does take itself out of this mortal coil, apparently it's still immortal because it's consciousness. It still goes on. So, you know, there's some, hope. Anyway. 

Okay, so next, what's up Is, a sequence that's a little, Well, it's very off the beaten path. And I just want to give a little heads up if people are sensitive about things. this. Weirdly enough, this sequence talks, about suicide. So if that's not something you want to hear about, just skip ahead a few minutes and, we'll meet you there. 

But for the rest of you, we go to 

January 8th. It's Sally's, school building, and we see some of the kids wandering in for the start of a school day. And the school building thinks to himself, here they come again with their peanut butter lunches. How depressing. The principal complains that I don't have enough rooms. The teacher Sam called, the building inspector always criticizes me. The custodians hate me. I'm really depressed. I'D cry, but I hate to streak my windows.

Michael: I was assuming somehow it wasn't the entire school that was thinking it was this particular wall. So I was kind of shocked, like, oh my God, he's the whole school.

Jimmy: Well, here, let's go to the second just so we could figure out what happens here. Because then on 

January 9, Charlie Brown walks out in his jammies to his front step and he picks up the morning paper and he reads the, headline that says, school building collapses during night. Good grief. He goes in and reads to Sally, don't bother to get up, Sally. Our school fell over last night. Listen to this. Then we cut back to the school which has been reduced to a pile of bricks. And, the bricks are just thinking to themselves, I had all I could take. 

Jimmy: And it even goes on later in this sequence where Sally is doing a presentation, because they have to go to a different school. And she describes it as her school committing suicide. Which, talk me through all of this. I'm not sure this kind of truly scrambled my brain in a way, because I just, you know, I guess if someone had asked me, hey, how many, suicides are there in Peanuts? My answer would have been zero. Even though I've read this before, it didn't strike me as it did this time.

Michael: But it seems to me that the bricks themselves are sentient. So he's not really dead.

Jimmy: It's not really gone.

Michael: He's broken down into his component beings,

Harold: which takes the edge off a little.

Jimmy: It does take the edge. Well, you know.

Michael: Yeah. The bricks will be used in another building. And then, So he lives on.

Jimmy: Well, I don't mean talk me through it as a. I'm not sitting here thinking about it.

Michael: Jimmy. It's okay. The bricks are still alive. 

Jimmy: Thank you, Michael. Thank you. I appreciate it. Isn't this a weird. Isn't this weird me? This is weird.

Harold: It is. You know, and I, I was reading these course chronologically, and the first one that you just read, Jimmy, was one I picked because, you know that little moment there where you're seeing his thoughts and he's just talking about how depressing this is to him, that he's just kind of lost his joy of being a school building. And he'd say, I'd cry, but I hate to streak my windows. I mean, that strip just by itself, if nothing had happened after it just kind of hit me, it's like, wow, that's Schulz's having us empathize with the, With a sentient building that's pretty amazing. And then the surprise, that he just falls in a heap, or I

Jimmy: guess it's a he.

Harold: I don't know if we ever know anyone calls him a he or a she. But that, yeah, just that one little moment was like, that Schulz is willing to go to this place that nobody, Nobody in comics would have and maybe wouldn't have gotten away with. Right.

Jimmy: Oh, wouldn't have gotten.

Harold: Well, I was. The level of trust that. That people have put in Schulz, based on these 25 years of making the strip, somehow he can take us to this place. He's. He's earned this right to say things to us with his strip that I don't think others can't.

Jimmy: And can you imagine anyone even considering it? Right. Like, it's. It's very strange. The other thing about it is I do, like, personally have a very, very, like, pitch black sense of humor from my. Just in my personal life that one of my therapists actually once said, do you think it's good to make jokes like that? And I actually really had to think about it. And, to me, it's like, such a huge relief because you're. You're taking the power away from it, and you're not. Especially something like this, which is so dark and so, you know, unthinkable. If you can find a way to make it a joke, in some ways, you're not there. You know what I mean? You're not in it. you're not being held down by it. I think it's interesting that Schulz went to this place after he's married again in a happy location. He's doing okay, you know what I mean?

Harold: And we've heard stories of. He's the kind of guy that would just, late at night, just like Snoopy sometimes when he's sitting in the dark and he's just asking these existential questions.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Schulz kind of said, that's who I am. You know, I have these lots of dark nights of the soul.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm glad that he was in a place at this point where he could talk about this type of thing and not feel like it was, you know, a yoke on him personally. At least that's what I'm, you know, inferring from all this.

Harold: yeah. And then, you know, to see Sally the next day, just running to the school, you know, saying, school, school, school. Why did you do it? Why did you do it? Even there, there's like this.

Jimmy: Yeah, that's devastating.

Harold: School building It's. It's sad, but it's also. Somebody cared about this school, you know, it is very.

Jimmy: It is like when you. It's a little girl crying because her school building committed suicide, but it's not. It's a cartoon drawing of a little girl upset because her school committed suicide. Actually, it's just ink lines. When you get to the absolute abstraction of what is making us have these emotional and intellectual reactions, it really is like magic.

Michael: Well, the magic is if everybody. If you consider everything being alive, which is very Zen, I believe.

Jimmy: Well, it's so funny for. Yeah, it's an Eastern or maybe even like, Native American type of worldview. This rock, this pitcher's mound has a soul and an identity. it's a pretty wild place for him to go. Good old Charles Schulz from St. Paul.

Liz: May I pose a different way of looking at it?

Jimmy: You sure can.

Liz: You haven't mentioned that the message that I took out of it, which is this is Schulz talking about the crisis in the school. School's not getting enough money to funding. Yeah.

Jimmy: you know, wow. When you think about it as just, the crumb. The crumbling infrastructure of roads and schools and stuff like that, that could very well been something on his mind. Well, we have done this for quite a while now. So how about we take a break, come back, and then we'll finish some more weird strips.

Liz: Sounds good.

BREAK 

VO: Hi, everyone. You've heard us rave about The Esterbrook Radio 914 and, what episode would be complete without mention of the Fab Four? Now you can wear our obsessions proudly with unpacking Peanuts T shirts. We have a be of good cheer, Pen nib design. Along with the four of us crossing Abbey Road. And of course, Michael, Jimmy and Harold at the thinking wall. Collect them all. Trade them with your friends. Order your T shirts today  at unpackingpeanuts.com/store.

Jimmy: All right, we are back. Shall we get back to these comic strips?

Michael: Let's do it.

Liz: Let's do it.

Jimmy: Let's do it. All right. Well, we're going back hard with a real weird one. July 5, 1973. Sometimes Weird is body horror. Sometimes weird is a dog and a bird on the moon. And sometimes weird is just Alfred E. Neuman appearing in the sky. You know, I still think I. I love. I really do love Mr. Sack sequence. I understand why it Schulz is favorite. I'm not 100% sold on this ending, but.

Harold: Yeah, I think there are different ways you can look at it. I think one of things ways we Were looking at you. This is Charlie Brown basically wearing a paper sack over his head. And all of a sudden, becoming super popular at camp. And, you know, one of the things you could take about away from that is that, it's the look of Charlie Brown. It's the way he looks. That if he wears a sack, all of a sudden, he can become popular. Which is not always the best moral of the story, but it also could be. It's not so much how they are reacting to him, but how he's presenting himself when he knows he's not seen. So lots of ways to look at it.

Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely. 

[SFX]

July 5th, it's getting light. The sun is coming up. Charlie Brown covers his eyes and says, I can't look. I can't stand the suspense. But I have to look. I have to know, will I see the sun or will I see a baseball? What will I see? Panel three, we see. He finally pulls his hands away from his eyes. He looks. And in panel four, instead of the sun, we see Mad magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman saying, what me worry? And Charlie Brown just says, good grief.

Michael: Oh, man.

Jimmy: So what do you think about that, Michael?

Michael: The Alfred E. Neuman?

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: looks like he traced it.

Jimmy: He probably did, right?

Michael: Yeah. It's not in the Schulz style at all. I don't know. This is not my favorite sequence. It seems to me that, you know, Schulz said something about it didn't have a message, but it seems the message to me is that it was his face that's been holding him back his whole life, which is something you can't do anything about. It's sort of like all his problems are caused by the way he looks.

Jimmy: well, I think of that as being symbolic. It's all his problems are caused by him being Charlie Brown. And he is a bald kid at age eight. You know, so, I mean, I'm sure there is a weirdness factor to it, but I think what it is is just to me, it's like that mask allows him. You know, the same way like a, superhero would wear a mask. Right. It allows him to be something else to people rather than his mundane self, which is constantly ridiculed and picked on him. And as we see, like you said, as soon as the kid sees.

Michael: Forget it. I don't know if that scans because the kid nominates him for camp president solely because he's got a sack on his head

Harold: which has its own meaning.

Michael: He's said anything or done anything to earn this on,

Jimmy: Well, he did. He's wearing a sack on his head. I think that, I mean, that is what it is.

Michael: It made him stand out.

Jimmy: Yeah, right, right.

Harold: Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. You think about the idea of wearing a sack as a statement, say in 1973. That's a fashion statement. There's something bold about that. There is something to wearing a sack and sticking with it. That is, I can kind of see, I can't see the adults accepting it, but the kids accepting it is kind of a strange thing that I could kind of get from what I remember what it was like to be growing up in 1973. There was just, a lot of change, a lot of uncertainty and people were. It was the idea of making statements through fashion, your own thing. It strangely kind of does flow with the times. And the fact that it ends with Alfred E. Neuman. It's interesting that he puts what me worry over Alfred E. Neuman. It's like he needed a little help, I guess, for get people to where he was going with this strip. He wanted to get as many people over the finish line as he could. But once again, I mean, Schulz is like right on top of the zeitgeist. There were two years that Mad magazine had a circulation of over 2 million copies. And it was in 1973 and 1974. So once again, Schulz is just right on the pulse. And just for some reference, there was no other comic book or comic magazine that was even half that it was a Mad magazine was its own phenomenon in this era.

Jimmy: Well, to me it is proof of my, my hypotheses of, Schulz is a character in Peanuts. I mean, I think this is absolute proof. I mean, who would make the sun look like Alfred E. Neuman with lettering above its head? It's Charles Schulz. Right. And who would put Charlie Brown through this thing? It's Charles Schulz.

Jimmy: You know, and it's weird because it's almost like. And ah, by the way, like he'll know if he's crazy or not. And what he saw was the icon of Mad.

Michael: Yeah, right.

Jimmy: I mean, that's not encouraging. Right?

Harold: I would love, I would love to know at what points Schulz knew where this was going. You know, did he go all the way and then sit and noodle at his desk the very last day? And that was like. Because I think if I were Schulz, I would be really questioning this. That made him laugh, but he's like, can I pull this off? Can I actually get away with this as the final joke in this long sequence? he must have thought it was pretty daring.

Jimmy: Yeah, it is daring. I mean, I don't know that. I love it as a punchline. I love it as confirmation of my theory.

Harold: Well, there ya go.

[SFX]

Jimmy: We're heading Back to the 60s now for a little bit of classic monster movie stuff. This is where Linus's blanket comes alive and starts attacking Lucy, which I think is truly, truly weird, disturbing, and the Harold said Fever Dream earlier. This literally, does feel like something Schulz could have dream up when he was under the weather and loaded up on Thera Flu. 

[SFX]

March 17th. Linus is standing in his living room in classic thumb and blanket position. Lucy is looking on. She's scowling and upset. She says, now look here in panel two, she's yelling at Linus, saying, when you're not around, you keep that blanket locked up in your room. Do you hear me? It's a menace. It hates me. the third panel, Linus is standing in front of the closet door and says, okay, how's that? And in the last panel, we see the blanket sneaking out from underneath the locked closet door.

Harold: It's the blob.

Michael: Yeah, I love. He's doing a horror strip for these few. This ran for a while, actually. You know, we're coming in in the middle. Yeah. This blanket turns in. I mean, for good reason hates Lucy.

Jimmy: Michael, give us the whole setup of what this sequence is about.

Michael: Well, Harold mentioned it's the Blob, which was one of the most popular horror flicks.

Jimmy: But in the context of these strips, what is happening with the blanket and Lucy and everything?

Michael: It's, it's sentient. The blanket hates Lucy and it's a, It's turned into some kind of horror creature.

Jimmy: The fact that you like this blows my mind. Blows my mind. I was listening. I was reading these last night and thinking, oh, my God, Michael must hate these strips. And we're just going to talk about how terrible they are. I can't believe you like it, Harold. What are your thoughts about these?

Harold: I remember this as a kid and I remember, boy, this had a huge impact because, yeah, it is this creeping crawling thing that does not like Lucy, and she's genuinely frightened by this thing. Yeah, it is.

Michael: This reminds me, there was a Dick Van Dyke episode that was a horror episode.

Liz: Walnuts.

Jimmy: Yeah, the walnuts. Right. Where people are being, like, body snatched by the aliens and only eating walnuts or something like that. 

Liz: I'm looking at you. 

Jimmy: Yes, that's right. Eyes are in the back of their heads.

Harold: Yes.

Michael: Yeah. So no, I would like to know why the blanket lost its sentience later. I have no problem with the blanket being a character.

Harold: So you don't, you don't mind it gaining sentience. You just want to understand why it's

Michael: lost it or why it was just ignored afterwards. I need reasons here.

Jimmy: All right, well, this is my take on it. Quentin Tarantino, I think this is obvious from reading Amelia, but one of my huge influences is Quentin Tarantino. And I was, listening to an interview with him when he's talking about Brian De Palma, who's his favorite director, and they're talking about Bonfire of the Vanities. And he says only a truly great artist could go that wrong. 

And that's how I feel about this sequence. Like, I. This was nuts to me. This whole thing I don't get. I think is weird. I'm so glad it never came back. Larry Rutman hated it at the syndicate. He called it monster stuff. weird. And it's so. But I. But it's so worth talking about. A, because I'm totally fascinated that you liked it. I think that's so cool. And B, I want to know. You only become a great artist by risking huge failure. Like, to be a great artist is to constantly be courting failure because you're constantly pushing at the edge of what you can do. It doesn't matter what if you're just doing something that's very cute, but you're pushing to the absolute edge of cuteness, that's a risk. If you do something that's violent and you're pushing the violence, that's a risk. You're going to get to a part where you start maybe alienating some people, but you got to do it because you don't know. If you don't explore, you're not going to find what fruitful stuff, there is to find. And this fantasy stuff for Schulz does pay off in huge ways later.

Harold: Yeah, and it's really interesting to see how Schulz deals with this character because it, it does remind me of, of the. These horror films. I mean, mainly I think of, like, horror and sci fi films of the 50s, where essentially they're, they're morality plays, sometimes in disguise and sometimes not at all in disguise, where you have somebody getting a comeuppance through some, you know, through some, some means that is absolutely out of people's control. 

And what you see in this strip, in this series of strips is that this, you know, we know Lucy's not been kind to Linus. She's been rough on Linus. And it's like, Schulz can't have Linus get. Get the comeuppance. And so he creates something that's already in the world and imbues it with this power that is taking on Lucy. And essentially, it's vengeance. To me, the way I read it is it's vengeance for Linus, where Linus himself would not do the vengeance. And so. And what you see in the strips, I think this is what makes it work for those that it does work for. And these totally worked for me as a kid. because, you know, as a kid in particular, I was just accepting Peanuts for Peanuts. I wasn't saying, well, that doesn't work here, or that I wasn't in that space. I was just experiencing Peanuts. And because this was happening, that was part of the world, and it was genuinely frightening, but it was in the sense like this blanket was after her because Lucy is Lucy toward Linus and to see. And the thing that makes it work for me is look at how Linus responds. If Linus were like, this is my blanket, and in my blanket's gonna mete justice for me. He doesn't do that. He's just almost as frightened as Lucy is, even though he's not the one being attacked. The classic Linus hair just going straight out in the air we see over and over again in these strips. He's genuinely, genuinely shocked by this thing. And yet the weird thing is he's shocked by it, but it's not like he's trying to get rid of it. It's still. It's his blanket. It's this really weird dynamic. But if Linus was into this thing, I think it would just totally turn everybody against it. But the fact that Linus himself, this thing he's attached to, it's like this extension of himself is somehow his id, is coming out and attacking Lucy and is, You know, you can read it that way or you don't have to, but that, to me, is kind of what makes it work for those that it would work for.

Jimmy: Well, a security guard would attack people who attack you, so I guess a security blanket should be doing the same.

Michael: Exactly. Yeah. I'd like to see this as a graphic novel, starting with, you know, the blanket being exposed to an atomic bomb test, gamma rays or something. No, it's a great. It's a great little story.

Jimmy: Well, you know, the way it does work for what you're saying is, like, why it gains and loses sentience. It does go back to my meta theory and what Harold is saying. It does, because Charles Schulz says it can for this little period of time, and then it just stops.

Harold: You know, it's like it's done what it needs to do, and so now it can go back to what it's normal. And that is so sci fi of the 50s and early 60s.

[SFX]

Michael: Yeah, that's one of my favorites, and it doesn't bother me at all. Matter of fact, I'd love to see that blanket come back.

Jimmy: Alright. Well, this is something I know you don't like. Michael, we're going now to March 14, 1960. It's the whirly Beagle. What do you have to say about Snoopy as a helicopter?

Michael: Boy, I'm sure we went into depth on this one. I don't have to add much. So, anyway, I was horrified when that came back. But, then we saw the last of it.

[SFX]

March 14th. Lucy is standing outside, and Linus comes up to her and says, that's the first time in my life I've ever seen a whirly dog. Lucy very confidently closes her eyes and says, not whirly dog. Whirly bird. Panel 3. Snoopy Zooms by about a foot and a half off the ground, using his ears as a top rotor, like a helicopter. Linus now takes the composed and superior position and says, I think if I had meant whirlybird, I would have said whirly bird.

Michael: Jumping the shark.

Jimmy: I knew this would. This. Michael's brain hurts. Here's what I will say, and this is why Charles Schulz is a genius. If I said to you guys, all right, here's the assignment. You need to draw a dog, but the dog is actually a helicopter. Go. It would be next to impossible to think of how to do that. And you know exactly what that is.

Michael: Well, aerodynamically, it doesn't work.

Jimmy: Neither do bumblebees.

Michael: It's okay. No, this is like, a bridge too far for me. Snoopy's, imitations have been one of my favorite parts of the strip. So I guess Schulz ran out of animals.

Harold: You know, I have a theory about maybe what's going on here. If you look at the first three months of the strips in 1960, and in particular, I see a lot of panels in these strips, or even jokes in these strips that are based on a very, experimental, iconic drawing of a character. And we know that Schulz, in later years, revealed that he did a lot of just sketching to get ideas. And I'm wondering, especially since he was around a group of artists who were all hanging out in his new. His new converted, was it photography studio in Sebastopol that maybe. Maybe around them or one of them, or maybe because they were all working together, he was drawing sketches to show them what he was thinking. And he was realizing he was coming up with some really fascinating ideas just by playing with the looks of the characters. And like Linus Floating with Ms. Othmar is an example of where I think he might have drawn that and then worked backwards to find out how you get to a joke to show it in the strip. And you see that over and over again in these early strips. There's a lot of really fascinating visuals that, to me, suggest he's playing without thinking of what he's going to do, and then he backs into it after he comes up with an amazing drawing.

Michael: Yeah, sounds reasonable.

Jimmy: And this goes into my theory of Schulz, is a character in the strip. He's actively playing with things to sort of. He's interacting with his characters like, I'll break the rules of gravity for you here. I'll, you know, point out that it's just a comic strip over there. He's always in the strip in some way. And that's why the fantasy stuff doesn't bother me, because it's been established. The number one rule, if you want to talk about rules from things that have been established before, is that this is a comic strip. There's multiple times it's been pointed out that it's a comic strip. So in a comic strip, a dog can fly.

Harold: Now, would you say that that's unique to Schulz? Like, when you think of other comic strips, are the author's characters in the strip the way Schulz is?

Jimmy: Well, no, because what's interesting to me is I don't think Schulz even sees this. One of the, Schulz quote that I use as the epigram for my memoir, the dumbest idea ever is cartoonists don't live anywhere, they aren't real people. Which I think is one of the wildest things you could say. And I thought about it for years. What does he mean by that? Cartoonists don't live anywhere, they aren't real people? But I think for him, he was saying that, to the general public, the comic strip is the cartoonist. They don't think about the cartoonist at all. And I think he would have thought it was an impossibility, actually, for you to put yourself in the. In a strip. He didn't see it in other people's Examples, anyway, put it that way. But I feel that that is exactly what he's doing, is that he is consciously interacting with these characters because he's doing this in a different way. He's not sitting there like Al Cap or whatever with a story, meeting or writing a script first. Like Harold says, he's drawing these things. And sometimes these things are complete flights of fancy. Okay, so if you had asked me before this reread, and keep in mind, I've read the entire thing. If you'd asked me, when did Snoopy first become a helicopter? I would have said 1975.

Jimmy: I would never have said 1960. I was shocked by that. So I have to move up the introduction of what I thought was the second Peanuts strip. I think my nomination of March 14, 1960, right here, this is where Snoopy starts. This is now an entirely different strip because the basic premise of the Snoopy strip is that Snoopy is not really either interested in just being a dog in this comic strip or is somehow, at ah, the very least, trying to transcend being a dog in a comic strip. That was, in the background sort of theme before. We saw that, starting with the. With the impressions. Right. But now we're getting to the point that he is rebelling against the very laws that the other characters are subject to. And that's just going to continue. 

[SFX]

Jimmy: All right, now we're going. Going super meta. 

October 1, 1952. This is Schroeder who decides to quit the strip and get transferred to a new one. October 1st. Schroeder is playing the piano. He hums a note. While he hits a note on the piano, he excitedly runs to Charlie Brown and says, hey, Charlie Brown, I've got perfect pitch. Charlie Brown, reading a book, doesn't even glance up and says, you mean a perfect pitch. Besides, who cares? The baseball season is over. Schroeder walks away in disgust, saying, sometimes I think I should put in for a transfer to a new comic strip.

Michael: Ooh, meta. meta. I, think this is the first meta strip.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: It is not something that happens often outside of the characters looking at the reader and speaking, but it does happen now and again. There are instances of the eyes being referred to as little dots of India ink later. So every once in a while he goes, so far as to say that this is a comic strip.

[SFX]

Michael: If he would have said, well, you know, maybe I could transfer to another city. It would have been a bad joke. Wouldn't have been a good punchline, but you'd go, okay, yeah, it's just the fact, that characters realize they're in comic strips, which I've seen so many times. From very early on, it was really common to have comic strip characters be aware of, or maybe pick up a comic and they see themselves in it. Something like that.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: Just. It was. He could have gone in that direction, and that could have been just part of the strip, where they're all aware they're in a comic strip. It could have worked. Yeah. I mean, like, a big, influence on my youth was early Fantastic Fours. And in number 10, Kirby and Lee are in there.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: They become characters, and they're writing a Fantastic Four comic. And, like, Mr. Fantastic comes in, gives them some ideas,

Jimmy: but that's actually kind of better. Right. Because it's not like they're saying the Fantastic Four comic in the world is the same. Right. Isn't that like, It's almost like a promotional item for the Fantastic Four in the comic.

Harold: Right?

Michael: Yeah. No, you can. You can believe in a world like that.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael: I mean, I don't know what other strips did this, but I bet there's lots of them.

Harold: Yeah. This one does kind of read like, this is something that my colleagues have done, and I am going to do it, too, you know, and it's. It's definitely. He hasn't done it before, which makes it weird for the strip, but it is almost like a. It feels like you're. I'm part of the fraternity now, you know, I'm going to do my gag.

Jimmy: Well, yeah. Another comic strip, because I, have my professional comic and Schroeder could get transferred to Dick Tracy, you know, and that's like, we're peers,

Harold: and that's kind of cool.

Jimmy: Schroeder and Dick Tracy. That actually would be amazing.

Harold: Wow. You know, Jimmy, how many have we racked up in the last few years? That could have been really. Could be really fun books, graphic novels, TV shows.

Jimmy: That would be amazing. you pick it up right at the end of this strip, and Schroeder's. Someone goes, okay, Schroeder, come on. And he's suddenly. He's pursuing Flat Top.

Harold: We should do an entire. An entire episode where we just find all the times we say, this should be a --. Collect all of those and see what we've got. You know, if someone just wants to troll through them. 

Jimmy: Yeah, right, right, right.

Jimmy: Well, something, though, that is not a great idea that we think needs to see its own thing is what we're wrapping up with here. And that's 

November 30th, 1954. Good old Charlotte Braun. November 30th, Charlie Brown is walking down the sidewalk. He spies a little girl he hasn't seen before. Charlie Brown says, ahem, you're new around here, aren't you? He reaches out his hand in friendship and says, my name is Charlie Brown. All my friends refer to me as good old Charlie Brown. The little girl, who has a very loud voice, as indicated by her bold lettering style, says, that's what my friends call me too. Huh? Asks Charlie Brown. The little girl says, good old Charlotte Brawn. Charlie Brown says, oh, no.

Michael: This is the second big misstep of the year after the golf tournament.

Jimmy: yeah.

Michael: Schulz doesn't introduce very many characters, and usually when they come in, they might be sort of a one joke bit, and then they evolve. This was a character who supposedly her name was funny and who talked loud. And that seemed to be the entire thing. These were never reprinted, I don't think.

Jimmy: No, I don't think so.

Michael: So we're going off the Fantagraphics collection, which has everything. So I'd never seen these before. Yeah, there's just nothing funny about this. And I think Schulz realized that. So she appears a few times next year in 55. And then she's gone forever into that magical place with Shermie and the other ones.

Jimmy: This was actually worse than I remember it. And here's why. In my mind, from the last time I read these strips, Charlotte Braun looked exactly like Charlie Brown, but, like, in drag. And that's actually kind of a funny idea. But when I looked back at it this time, it's like, no, she's just a little girl. I mean, she has a similar shaped head, but there's. The facial features aren't the same and her body type isn't the same. So it really is just that she has a similar sounding name to Charlie Brown and she's loud.

Michael: Yeah. No, I think Harold should answer the philosophical question of where do Peanuts characters go when they disappear?

Harold: Well, I don't have the answer to that, but I do have. This was courtesy of. I believe it was the Schulz museum website and the Library of Congress, which has a letter from Charles Schulz to a complaining reader who apparently was somewhat. I'm just guessing. We don't have the original letter. At least I haven't seen it. That was written complaining about Charlotte Braun, how she should be basically dropped from the roster. And, it gives a little bit of insight into Schulz, where he was willing to go, with a reader. 

I'm assuming this was a playful, snarky letter, given his response, but this is what he wrote back to the person who did not want to see any more of Charlotte Braun. He said, I am taking your suggestion regarding Charlotte Braun and will eventually discard her. If she appears anymore It will be in strips that were already completed before I got your letter or because someone writes in saying that they like her. Remember, however, that you and your friends will have the death of an innocent child on your conscience. Are you prepared to accept such responsibility? And then he does a little drawing of Charlotte Braun at the bottom, with a gigantic ax in her head. Look it up.

Jimmy: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

Harold: She's just kind of standing there impassively.

Jimmy: can you imagine getting that back?

Harold: Well, it's at the Library of Congress, so somebody thought much of that letter probably was on her conscious the rest of her life. There was never another Charlotte Braun.

Jimmy: Well, it's really funny. And look, it's so great to hear from readers, but every once in a while you have to answer back with a little bit of snark.

[SFX]

Jimmy: Is there anything that can be said about Charlotte Braun that we haven't already said?

Harold: Well, I mean, it's a really interesting insight into him and a reminder of, you know, what he will and won't put into a strip, you know.

Jimmy: Well, guys, that's it. That was our. Our weird strip journey. It was really fun. I enjoyed looking at these strips again. It's. It's crazy that they still provide entertainment and enjoyment after seeing them so many times, but, yeah, a lot of fun. Do you guys have anything else to say to wrap up Weird Week?

Michael: I wish this episode never happened.

Jimmy: Oh, man. Well, it happened, baby. So we'll be back in two weeks, where we're going to be starting our new season. Is that correct?

Liz: Yes.

Jimmy: And we're going, to announce. Remember, we said it was going to be a choice. It was either going to be Marcie, it was going to be Woodstock, or it was going to be Mean Girls, and we're not doing any of those. We're going to do Sidekicks.

Liz: Well, we're going to do several of them, all wrapped up in one.

Jimmy: There you go. So you don't want to miss that. And the way you're not going to miss that is by going over to our website. Sign up for that great Peanuts Reread. That will get you that one email a month that lets you know what we're talking about from show to show. And remember, you can also write to us. We are unpacking peanutsmail.com you can also go ahead and call our hotline, which is 717-219-4162. And if you want to follow us on social media, we're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads and npacking peanuts on Facebook, blue sky and YouTube. So, Harold, where are you going to be coming up?

Harold: I will be at the Tidewater Comic Con in Virginia beach on Saturday and Sunday, May 16th and 17th. So if you are in the area, please stop by. I'd love to say hi.

Jimmy: And I will be doing free Comic book day at Beyond Comics in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I'll be there all day signing books. The new Amelia anniversary editions will be there.

Liz: What date?

Jimmy: Preorder them, whatever day. Free comic book days, May 2, I think. So if you're available, come see us at those places. That's it for this week. So for Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

Michael: Yes.

Jimmy: Yes.

Michael: Be of good cheese.

Liz: Be of good cheese. 

VO: Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumdon. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukrala 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: Isn't this a weird. Isn't this weird? To me, this is weird.