Mean Girls #1
Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. It's a new season of Unpacking Peanuts, and it's gonna be so fetch. We're doing Mean Girls, and I'll be your host for the proceedings. My name's Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, and you can find all my new comics over there on Substack at GVILLE Comics. And joining me, as always, are, my pals, co hosts and fellow cartoonists.
He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People, as well as for this very podcast. He's the co creator of the original comic book price guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells, and Tangled River. It's Michael Cohen.
Michael: Say hey.
Jimmy: 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, Harold Buchholz.
Harold: Hello.
Jimmy: And keeping us out of trouble and making sure everything runs smoothly, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.
Liz: Howdy,
Jimmy: guys. We're finally going to do Mean Girls. Michael, I know this is something you've been looking forward to. Are you excited?
Michael: Yep. Well, I was a big fan. These were some of my favorite Peanuts strips, and I was honored to be asked to pick them. So I picked, a whole bunch of them for the next.
Jimmy: Well, don't be too honored, because I just got sick of picking strips.
Michael: So, yeah, I realized there was no honor involved, but I wanted to.
Jimmy: So tell us, tell us about. Where did you get this affection for these characters in these early strips? Take us back to young Michael.
Michael: Young Michael probably would have been exposed to the earliest of these when I was reading the books, the original books that came out. And, yeah, I don't recall seeing this type of female character. Of course, you know, young boys don't particularly like girls, so this didn't want to have much to do with them. So this sort of, like, backed up my belief that girls are horrible, horrible things.
Jimmy: How do you feel about that, Liz?
Liz: 39 years, and I've kind of gotten used to it.
Michael: Well, when I was six and she was two, I would have thought she was a pain in the butt.
Liz: I was really cute.
Michael: Cute.
Jimmy: I. I do think that, that perhaps that, boy girl dichotomy is less these days in early childhood anyway. It's worse probably everywhere else in the world, but yeah,
Liz: interesting.
Jimmy: This is like the edgiest material I can imagine you consuming.
Michael: Like, I mean there were, there were bad girls. I mean, little Lulu was not a princess. This was kind of a new take on female kid characters for me. There were other comic book and strip female characters who were problems, maybe like to their parents. I think of Little Lulu, maybe little Iodine. But the fact that these girls were just viciously putting down Charlie Brown all the time, I found extremely amusing. the fact is that they didn't start out this way. Patty, who was actually started the same time as Charlie Brown and Shermie, from the first strip was kind of a bit of a tomboy. So she wasn't adverse to slugging somebody if, if it came to it. But she was basically a nice kid. Violet was introduced a bit later and she was kind of a love interest for Charlie Brown. This is the, pigtail Violet, who was very sweet and cute and made really good mud pies for people to eat and then she transformed. Now, I don't have the actual strip where they became mean. I started in 53 and I read up through the 50s and it turned out that the period of these strips was pretty short. It was like three years.
Liz: These strips meaning when they were mean
Michael: the Patty and Violet strips. And after 56 they became more and more rare. And I'm guessing I don't seem to recall any in the 60s. I think, I think Schulz played, thought it played itself out. And after 56 they were kind of just other supporting characters. They didn't have a whole lot of personality.
Harold: That's interesting because that Christmas special, which you haven't seen, does have at least a, few moments where Violet's being kind of snotty toward Charlie Brown in 1965. I'm wondering if that was like a well remembered element or if he was going back that far and remembering that version of her.
Michael: Well, I didn't check the 60s because it seemed like there were hardly any strips at all in, 58, 59 featuring the two girls together.
Liz: Well, maybe we should check Joshua's detailed notes about what strips were used in the Christmas special to see what year the Violet strips you're referring to are.
Michael: okay, so, but anyway, for the episode one, I ran through every strip from 53 through 59 and I picked the Patty and Violet being together and being nasty to Charlie Brown and occasionally to other characters. So that's what I've got. Episode two was going to focus on Patty and Violet appearing separately over that period and then going to go back and, see what Lucy was doing. She's not as cruel as these kids. I mean, I think Lucy, even though she's not a nice person, I, think sort of had people's. Had good intentions. I thought she was helping, but she wasn't.
Jimmy: But there's a larger project with Lucy. Yeah, especially as opposed to just slinging put downs.
Michael: Yeah, these kids are. Yeah, they're. They're out for blood, basically. I can't think of any other way to describe it is. There's no justification for this, except kids tend to feel better about themselves when they team up to put someone else down.
Jimmy: What do you mean kids?
Michael: Adults would never act this way. They would pretend they liked him.
Jimmy: Well, Harold, what. What are your thoughts on the Patty and Violet scenario?
Harold: I think I may have said this before, but when I was growing up, from the age of 4 to 11, I was in upstate New York in the Rochester area. And my memories of growing up there was that kids would tell you what they thought of you. You know, this did not seem unusual to me. And that was a. That was a hallmark of growing up, you know, for me, because that was just the culture. And then I moved to mid Missouri and Columbia when I was 11. And everybody was nice to you in Colombia, but just as many people didn't like you, you just didn't know which ones were. And that made me angry because, you know, I didn't have the social skills. I was upset because I couldn't tell. and that made life incredibly hard and put me incredibly on edge for the first few years I was there. Once I figured it out, it was a very pleasant place to live because people weren't being mean into your face, you know, but there was that transition that was hard. But the time I was reading these strips, which would have included these early peanuts strips with Patty and. And Violet, this would have been my Rochester era. So I, you know, this. This kind of resonated, I think, with me seeing this, because it was, you know, something I was kind of living.
Jimmy: That's really interesting. You know, I was. When I was reading these, before we recorded, I was thinking maybe an easy. Not an easy. Yeah, maybe an easy way to think about this is that Alan Moore thing where he said when he. He was tasked with, taking over a new comic book, he would just pick one element and change that, and that would open up all these new possibilities and I won I, I mean, I don't know if this was conscious with Schulz, but I think a way to look at it is he took something like Jiggs and Maggie, and what he changed about it was their children. And it's such a small thing, but it makes it so much more powerful because you can imagine a million things that Jiggs did to deserve, you know, getting a brow beaten from Maggie.
Harold: Well, that's the other thing. That's Jiggs deserves it in a way, in the sense that he's doing something wrong, at least in Maggie's eyes. Right.
Jimmy: And probably in our eyes. Just like Michael said, like, he just living. And these guys, they're just. They're out for blood, trying to. Trying to hurt him. It seems like it's. And I think it comes from just that it's so much crueler seeming because it's kids.
Harold: It's casual, too.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Liz: I have, I have a question about. Has it changed over the last 50 years? Because, I mean, there's movies of Heathers and Mean Girls and focus on people being-- girls, being cruel, particularly to other girls.
Jimmy: To other girls.
Harold: Yeah.
Liz: Yeah. I mean, I don't know anything about modern young children.
Jimmy: Nobody does. here's what I know about the youths. I saw an actual youth in the wild. Six, seven. I couldn't believe it.
Liz: How old was this person?
Jimmy: at college. Because I was picking up Anna from…
Liz: And it wasn't ironic.
Jimmy: No, it was, great. It was thrilling. I'm like, wow, an actual youth.
Harold: It's like a bird I've now heard. The Warble Throated nuthouse.
Jimmy: Exactly. Yeah. No, I do think it. It's. I think it's changed because gender roles have changed so much, and the 50s was so codified in people's minds, at least. And this is kind of brushing up against it, which also is part of what makes it feel modern, I think. Is that okay? I mean. Yeah. Yes. Obviously Patty and Violet are mean, but they're also smart, self possessed, not taking any guff from anybody. So that felt very modern, I'm sure, at the time.
Michael: Mm.
Liz: Yeah.
Michael: It's possible that he was seeing this in his. The family dynamics.
Jimmy: Well, sure.
Michael: And then grew out of. When the kids grew out of it, he stopped using it.
Jimmy: Well, that's true. Especially if the, Because the older sister or the oldest kid was a. It was a girl, and she would possibly be the one that would be talking down to the younger ones.
Harold: That.
Jimmy: That could very well be true.
Harold: I think he's also processing being married. Yeah. You know, he was a guy pretty much on his own. His parents were not super effusive, I guess. And now he's married a very strong woman, and she's got opinions. I'm sure they're butting heads on things, and that's something that's just new to him. So I'm assuming that's part of what's being processed here. And it gets, I think, more nuanced as we go along. And I think Lucy does kind of take on that role where she's, you know, she's not just being. She's not doing it to just be mean. It's just she is. She's got a lot of things going on, and it's. It's a more complex character, which would make sense if you are getting. If it's. If that person is inspiring you to do these stories. It's going to get a little more nuanced as you get to know that person. It's like, well, she's. She's not just being mean.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: There's something else here.
Liz: It'll be interesting to compare Violet and Patty, on their own, and what the meanness looks like versus how it is when they're a team, because I know.
Jimmy: And I think that you're probably going to find the worst of it is when they're a team. And that, again, is human nature.
Liz: Yep.
Jimmy: You know, two or three kids picking up. Picking on one kid when it would have. If it was just two kids together might have been no problem at all.
Michael: Yep.
Jimmy: I wonder if, too. The thing with Lucy is. And I agree with all of that. Ah. But I wonder if also from, like, a practical point of view, it's like he puts a new girl character in, and now he's like, well, I can't do the same thing again. You know, I got. I have to do.
Harold: Or.
Jimmy: Or he maybe finds himself doing the same thing again and realizes, oh, I have to start. I have to make some changes, or I'll just be repeating myself.
Jimmy: And, you know, it comes up with so many things for Lucy. Like, the only thing I can think of, really, is that, yeah, we know the girls play on the baseball team, but you rarely see them playing. And we know that Violet's good at mud pie making, but there's not a whole lot we learn in these early or anytime, really, about them. Interesting beyond that, anyway. Isn't that right, Michael?
Michael: Yeah. Well, Violet is based. When we come to this strip here, this is not anything at all like Violet was the year before.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: And so I Think he was taking the little romance element and deciding he couldn't do it.
Jimmy: Uh-huh.
Michael: It's making Charlie Brown too normal.
Jimmy: Well, yeah, and that's also interesting because it still takes that idea of, all right, we're just taking these adult type relationships and switching to kids, and sometimes it's going to have unpleasant overtones, and sometimes it's going to work. Yeah, and I think you're right, like, because he. He definitely. Even with Shermy and Patty, in the really early strips, there was an element of it that he was thinking, this is, like a cute strip about, like, kids having crushes on each other. And I don't think that's super fruitful. Well, obviously he didn't either, because he went in basically every other direction.
Harold: And you'd think, okay, this is something that he's growing into until you remember what the very first strip of this comic strip ever was. You know, that that is a shocking opening strip. You know, I don't know if he got to pick number one, but he probably did.
Jimmy: Oh, he did.
Harold: You know, I mean, when you do all the things for the syndicate and you send in a bunch of samples, who knows?
Jimmy: And they're numbered with his handwriting stuff.
Harold: Oh, so there it is. Okay. So that's a really, really, strange strip to come out with a 1950 out of the gate, a strip about kids. And it's not what's being sold, Right. It's not what they sold to the papers. They sold kind of a cipher of a strip, you know, is a space saver. What is this? You know, it's. It looks a little different, maybe a little modern, but what he's doing there is striking. And, it's totally in line with what Michael's picked here.
Jimmy: And then you see again in the second strip with Patty, you know, even more pronounced with it being a girl where she just comes down the street and socks a kid right in the eye.
Harold: Yeah, yeah, yeah. While. While, singing her own praises.
Jimmy: Yes, that's what little girls are made of. All right, well, what do you think? Should we just, get to these comic strips?
Liz: Let's do it.
Michael: Jump in.
Jimmy: All right, well, if you characters out there want to follow along, there's a couple things you need to do. The first thing you got to do is go over there to unpacking peanuts.com and, sign up for the great Peanuts Reread. That will get you just one email a month letting you know what we're up to here so you can read, these strips at your leisure and follow along with us. I said a couple things, but really, that's the only thing. You need to do just one thing. So you do that, and when you come back, we'll be right here. On
March 28, 1953, Charlie Brown, Patty, and Violet are outside on a beautiful spring day. And Violet says, would you like to join our club, Charlie Brown? And a, happy Charlie Brown says, why, sure. Absolutely. I'm very flattered that you should ask me. And then Patty and Violet confer amongst themselves off to the side. Patty whispers, huh? And then Violet says, uh-huh. And then they walk away from Charlie Brown saying, well, Patty says, we just took a vote. You've been rejected.
Michael: Okay, first of all, they planned this.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah.
Michael: Before the panel one, they knew what they were going to do.
Jimmy: So I think it's funnier if they didn't.
Michael: Yeah.
Liz: Yeah. Because why would they do the pss, pss, psst. Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. They're putting on a little show.
Jimmy: Well, that's. That's definitely what we're, you know, one way to interpret it.
Michael: I re.
Jimmy: And it's probably right, but I really think it's funny if they just, hey, let's get some people in a club. Oh, there's Charlie Brown. You want to be a club? Then they confer and go, yeah, not him.
Harold: Yeah. Cause you think, from Michael's take on this, you'd think that Violet might be upset or. Excuse me, Patty might be upset with Violet for bringing it up if she has that opinion.
Jimmy: Right, Right.
Liz: But she is smiling.
Harold: Well, that's what I'm saying. She's. She's smiling. But if. If someone invites someone into a club and they don't want them to be in the club, she. She'd be mad at.
Liz: At.
Harold: Ah, Violet. Right.
Liz: Yeah.
Harold: She. You might see it. You know, she's like, what.
Michael: What are you doing? Yeah.
Harold: But they do seem very simpatico, no matter what.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: They're a team.
Michael: This is planned. By the way. Schulz made a very strange artistic error. I would never say this normally, but in panel three, there's a line from Violet's chin, that runs directly into Patty's chin. So it's like the same line. It's a tangent, which is verboten.
Jimmy: Yeah. And what happens is when you see, what Michael's talking about there is right. Where Patty's cheek and ear kind of meet Violet’s. And. Yeah, you're supposed to avoid that, where two things on one plane, the lines touch because it makes some it makes that weird negative shape between their heads, and it. You can't tell where one thing ends and the other begins. The way to avoid that would be, in Photoshop, you cut out Violet and scooch her over a little bit towards the left. So that looks like.
Michael: I wonder why I didn't do that.
Harold: Yeah. You don't think it's. It's creating. Creating them as a, the Borg or
Michael: Siamese twins there?
Jimmy: Well, here, this, I relate to this strip. This is what this makes me think of. In, like, 2003, I heard from a network that was interested in Amelia is a TV show. And I was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. So I sent a bunch of packs of this stuff to them. And then a couple of weeks later, I got a call going, and they were, like, almost annoyed that they're calling me. And they're like, yeah, we're not going to do this. You know, you need to have more in it than just kids, like, running around. And I'm like, you called me. I didn't look for any of this. so they reached out to me just so that they could reject me.
Liz: I'm sure that's what happened.
Jimmy: I'm certain it is.
Michael: Well, you should use that in, one of your autobiographical comics.
Harold: One of the jokes we got in our household is whenever. Whenever we're at some. Some event that's like, super timed and. Or do you just have this. This weird sense that you're. You're here for commercial reasons for their purposes, and. And they have the welcome. And then, as soon as it's over, it's like, get out. So it's like, welcome m. Get out.
August 31, 1953. Charlie Brown and Patty and Violet are outside. Charlie Brown has just started that one book he will be trying to read through the next 50 years. Patty says, you're crazy, Charlie Brown. And Violet, with her hands on her hips, says, yes, you're crazy Charlie Brown. And then Patty says, and you talk too much. Violet agrees, yes, you talk too much. Charlie Brown's just enduring this with his eyes closed as they surround him. Then they stand up and Charlie Brown's still sitting there, and Patty says, and you've got a funny face. And then Violet says to Patty, say, you and I have a lot in common, don't we? And then they walk off just as happy as can be, with Violet saying, we both dislike the same things about Charlie Brown. And then Charlie Brown's sitting there in the background, and he just sighs to himself.
Jimmy: a classic Sigah.
Michael: So this is kind of the origin story of their little team.
Liz: Yeah.
Jimmy: Yes.
Harold: Is that another tangent for you, Michael?
Michael: I don't see any tangents.
Harold: Violet’s finger touching Charlie Brown's ear in the far distance in the fourth panel.
Liz: Oh, a little bit.
Harold: he's cramped.
Jimmy: And these little panels. Yeah, I mean, these are tiny little panels.
Michael: Yeah. But anyway, this should come before the other one, because it really. It looks like this is the first time they.
Jimmy: They realized that at long last, the origin of the. Patty. Violet.
Michael: Yeah.
Jimmy: Really. Not a dream, not an imaginary tale. You will gasp in amazement.
Harold: I have to say, those little. Two little lines for closed eyes in the second panel for Charlie Brown.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Is also. Seems like a really modern choice. Like, who else did that when someone was just taking abuse, Verbal abuse. Is that you would imagine them.
Jimmy: They'd be, like, hunched up or scrunched up or somehow. You know what I mean? He's just, like, enduring it.
Liz: Yeah.
Harold: Yeah.
Liz: It's a good word.
February 24, 1954. It's a snowy day, and our trio are out in a field somewhere. And Patty says, this is a wonderful picture of you, Charlie Brown. And then her and Violet look at it together with a beaming Charlie Brown looking on. And Violet says, I think so, too. It's the best you've ever had. Taken Charlie Brown's, like, over the moon at this point. And then Violet says, it's a wonderful picture. Absolutely wonderful. And Patty says, huh? Uh-huh. And then Violet says, it doesn't look a bit like you.
Jimmy: That or no. They both say it. I just noticed.
Harold: They both say in unison, yes.
Jimmy: All right. What do you guys think of that?
Michael: Yeah, it's a great gag. Sort of makes you wonder if this is another thing they planned.
Liz: Yep.
Harold: Yep. They're saying it simultaneously. Either that or they really are simpatico.
Michael: Yeah.
Liz: And there's a Christmas tree in panel two and a full background in panel three.
Jimmy: I love that background in panel three. It looks so nice.
Harold: Nothing in panel four. Think he's particularly proud of this one because he's spending a lot of time embellishing.
Jimmy: Well, I mean, it's a great punchline, for sure. Absolutely. My gosh. I love the. The two panels, two and three of Charlie Brown, but particularly three. It's just so great. I wonder how much he was experimenting with these backgrounds. Just, like, even three years in going, all right, I'll put a really detailed one in one panel and kind of see what it's like. How does that affect readability? I mean, because it-- Realistically, it does. I mean, clearly, like, two panels, two and four are the easiest, most readable things in the world. And, you know, panel three, if you're just, like, glancing. Does gray out. But it's just.
Liz: But it is a wonderful picture. I mean, that. That one is. Is the. Says what Violet is saying.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: What do you think?
Liz: Yeah.
Jimmy: Blew my mind.
Harold: She's commenting in her.
Jimmy: Well, I think this is the weird period, though, with, his profiles. I don't like the Pac man mouths like, you see. I don't like either of the mouths in, the last panel. either of the mouths within the realm of Schulz. If I did a panel that good, I would, you know, tattoo it on my forehead. But, you know what I'm saying?
Liz: Yes.
Jimmy: I like later versions of the profiles better.
Harold: What do you think of his choice in telling this gag? He's in the first panel, he's surrounded by the two of, them. Then he's off to the left for the next three panels. Why? So he could have. He could have placed Charlie Brown anywhere he wants based on what he's done here. Why do you think we see him first in the last panel and then the two of them speaking versus his response, which is pretty blank, isn't flipped, so that he's the very last thing we see.
Jimmy: I mean, if we go back to our last episode, it would imply that they're, you know, they're an impediment to him. They're going the opposite way of the reading. So it actually stops you and you feel a jar subconsciously, perhaps.
Harold: So it's going against the grain.
Jimmy: It's going against the grain.
Harold: You know, kind of like also that CC Beck.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: You're flowing through.
Jimmy: You're flowing through. Right. And then suddenly you're going the other way. But, you know, the other thing is that just practically, you have to get Patty and Violet together to look at the picture. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Michael: So.
Jimmy: And you have the issue.
Harold: But they could do that on either side, though. He could. They could be doing it with Charlie Brown booking from the. From the. Right, right.
Jimmy: Yeah, but, But it could. But I'm just saying, you know, he could have done it and then got to the fourth panel, and, you know, that's just where they were.
Harold: That's. That's where they were. Yeah. You know, no need to redo it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're right, it does create an extra tension of them, just standing in front of him and he's facing right, and they're Facing left.
Jimmy: What do you guys think of the little shading he would do on these early strips? Like on the coats and stuff?
Harold: It's nice. It's quite a contrast from the faces.
Michael: Yeah.
Harold: They're so, so iconic.
Michael: Yeah.
Liz: Pre Zipatone.
Jimmy: I like Charlie Brown's little jacket, actually. I like all their little coats.
Liz: I like Patty's hat.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Yes. Was that now that being considered? That's not a beret. It's. It covers her head there.
Liz: Yeah.
Harold: Very cute.
Jimmy: I think it's a beret. I just think that's how he's drawing it, but I think it's a beret.
Harold: Yeah. And. And the fact that they are all dressed so smartly somehow.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: Leans into the idea. Oh, people are looking. Trying to look nice in a photo and, you know, people dress up and want to look smart.
September 20, 1954. Patty and Violet are outside playing with something.
Michael: Fuzzball.
Jimmy: Is that. Is it a doll or a fuzz ball or, fuzzy ball?
Michael: It's a ball of fuzz, basically. All right.
And Charlie Brown really wants to be part of this scene. So. Okay, so they're out there playing with a giant ball of fuzzy. And Violet says, you can't play with us, Charlie Brown, because your dad doesn't make enough money. And this outrageous Charlie Brown who says, my dad makes more money than your two dads put together. And then Violet says he does. And then there's a beat panel as they both look at each other. And then Patty says, you can't play with us, Charlie Brown, because your house isn't painted green.
Harold: What.
Liz: What is with Patty’'s face in that first panel? Is that. Is that done later?
Harold: She looks.
Jimmy: He got out of control with the chins.
Harold: Yeah. Yeah. She looks like. She looks like she should be on the side of like a box of safety pops or something.
Jimmy: Yes.
Harold: The gigantic. The gigantic kid smile. And look at the smile on Violet
Jimmy: in the last one.
Harold: A little smug. It's like her mouth is almost up to her eye.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Michael: Yeah. By the way, I think that is a doll's head.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Liz: Makes more sense than fuzzball.
Michael: Yeah.
Jimmy: I didn't think it was a ball of fuzz, but.
Michael: Wait, can a bar how? A barber can't make much money.
Liz: No. But I'm, glad he's standing up for himself.
Michael: But is he lying?
Liz: Yes.
Michael: It looks like they.
Jimmy: I think he's a kid. He has no idea what the hell's going on. They don't know either. They're just saying things, you know, I mean Charlie Brown. And none of the like 6 year old kids or whatever would have any idea of what their parents make.
Michael: Okay, but we can assume that their parents aren't rich, though.
Jimmy: No, I wouldn't think so. But I would imagine Patty and Violet would have to be doing better than just a barber, I would think.
Michael: Well, this is.
Harold: I don't know if we ever brought this up. I mean, we don't have a ton of detail in these little neighborhoods, but what are these guys? Upper middle class? Middle class neighborhood. What does it feel like? I feel middle class, but yeah, slightly lower middle class.
Liz: 1950s middle class. Which is different from now.
Harold: True, true. Yeah, it was a middle class.
Jimmy: That was the big difference.
Michael: The house only cost five grand.
Liz: Oh, that's expensive. My father's house cost three.
Michael: Yeah, that's from the army loan that the father took out.
Jimmy: Yeah, the GI Bill. Which is what? All these little houses that you see in Peanuts are all from real life suburbs in the US that lots of guys coming home from World War II would get a GI loan and be, able to afford these little houses. Little tract houses.
Harold: Yeah. Now, some houses were really crammed together. That's one thing you don't get the feel of in this strip. They seem to have large yards, you know, giant rooms, actually, which kind of suggests Midwest. Right. you know, a lot more space than you might have in New Jersey or Massachusetts or whatever in 1950. But a lot of open spaces. And then of course, you know, his experience is Minneapolis growing up. And then he's in an incredibly spread out area in California, drawing most of this.
Jimmy: Yeah. All right. Hey, so that puts us about halfway through the strips we have for this episode. So how about we take a break, come back and we'll check the mailbox and then read some more Patty and Violet Mean girl strips.
Liz: Sounds good.
Harold: Great.
Michael: Yep.
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 thinkin wall. Collect them all, trade them with your friends. Order your T shirts today@unpackingpeanuts.com store.
Jimmy: And we're back. Some hanging out in the mailbox. Liz, do we got anything?
Liz: We do. It's been a while since we've done the mailbag and so we've got a bunch today. A friend of the show and longtime listener Paul Hebert writes. Hey, gang, I just wanted to thank you for giving me so many insights into Sparky's work. I wrote a little bit on my Doonesbury blog about Peanuts and how it influenced Gary Trudeau. And I couldn't have done it without what I learned from y'. All. And he sends us a link which I will put in the show notes of his article on his blog that's titled A World Where Rage Was Funny and Insecurity Was Lovable. Peanuts, Doonesbury, and the long 1960s.
Harold: Cool. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you for that. Now, did, did Gary Trudeau write one of the intros to the two years of book, Fantagraphics series?
Jimmy: I don't know.
Harold: I kind of think he did. Anyway, you probably know that if you did. But I do believe there's something out there. It's just cool to see cartoonists on, speaking on other cartoonists that were really seminal in that era. You know, what their takes are, what they focus on.
Liz: And then we, heard from Brandon on Spotify who points out that we made a mistake.
Jimmy: He said, no, Ah, we didn't. You're a mistake, Brandon. No, no, no, no.
Harold: Dead to rights.
Liz: In our newsletter, we ask people to point out any errors that we make. And thank you. Thank you, Brandon, for telling us.
Jimmy: Sign off on that. I would never. Can you imagine.
Liz: Okay. He's responding to something we said in the Understanding Snoopy number two episode, and that the Sunday ice skating strip that we say is from December 15, 1960 is actually January 31, 1960. Otherwise, your comments are spot on, describing the greatness of Schulz's expressive art.
Harold: Wow. Well, thank you for seeking that out for us. That's not easy sifting through 17,897 strips to find out where we might have misplaced you.
Jimmy: But sad. I will now spend the rest of my life inventing time travel to go back and change it so that your efforts are wasted. No. Just kidding.
Harold: Thank you so much for letting us know.
Liz: We could just, if you, Jimmy, say January 31, 1960, and I can insert it into that. Right.
Jimmy: Okay. January 31, 1960.
Liz: All right.
Jimmy: Sorry, Brandon. We don't know what you're talking about. We got it. Right. Thank you for that.
Harold: Thank you.
Liz: And also on Spotify, we have we heard from Lee, who writes, maybe you don't know this. Oh, and he's talking about 1958, part two. So he's gone back to the beginning and is listening to everything. Maybe you don't know this, but parochial school students, Catholic, were taught to write with the pen in the mid-1960s. Unfortunately, I have poor handwriting to this day. I went to parochial school for three years, and then I left and went to public school where there was no penmanship instruction at all.
Harold: Are you saying like a dip pen or fountain pen or. Or a ballpoint pen?
Liz: I remember that. All the Catholic school kids that I knew when I was growing up had gorgeous penmanship. They had perfect Palmer Method penmanship. And you could always tell where they came from if you saw something that they had written.
Harold: So was he saying that the method was being taught for. I mean, obviously, they had to teach us in public school, like, how to do.
Jimmy: I know. If I may. If I may, as someone who has some small, experience with the parochial school system.
Harold: Yes, go on.
Jimmy: Yeah. You guys learned how to make letter forms. We learned how to make scripts that would please the baby Jesus.
Harold: Okay.
Liz: This is why you were nominated, I'm sure.
Jimmy: Oh, no, here, I'll tell you. Fourth grade. So, So you start learning in second grade, and they teach penmanship all the way through fourth grade. Well, you were well aware of how to write, but you are just learning penmanship so that it's proper Palmer Method. And then every week, you would get a paragraph, and you would have to copy it out in perfect Palmer method and send it to the old nuns at the nun home in Immaculata, and they would judge it, and then.
Harold: Really?
Jimmy: Yeah. And then one kid would win a prize, and I struggled with the, Palmer method. And Mrs. Icke in fourth grade said to me, well, the one thing we know is you'll never win a penmanship award. Oh, yeah?
Liz: How little does she know?
Jimmy: Well, no, she did know, because I won the next week because there was no way I wasn't gonna not win the next week. Next week looked like it was printed by a machine. It was so perfect. And I just did it just to be a smug little jerk. And then I went back to my own terrible handwriting.
Harold: And then were nominated for how many Eisner Awards now?
Jimmy: But none of, You can't use the Palmer Method. I don't think anyone would be able to read it.
Harold: No. well, that's. That's impressive. I think I told the story. I think the only time I was ever judged on penmanship with a grade was when we moved from Rochester, New York, to Columbia, Missouri. And I. The week I was like, I was There for just a few weeks, the last of fifth grade. And it was a crazy thing. We were unpacking and I completely forgot about the assignment. Just come into the school, teacher says, turn in your assignments, and I have nothing. And I'm literally writing it while she's collecting the papers. And that was the only thing she had to judge me on was penmanship was almost the thing. I wrote in like three, three seconds to have something to turn in. Got a B minus in penmanship. It was not so bad, given what. That's not too bad. I was trying to crawl out on some lined paper in the 30 seconds I had. well, I mean, now it's super memorable.
Jimmy: If someone looked at my notebooks, they would think I was a serial killer. There's just no question about it. I mean, it just looks like outsider art.
Harold: Well, I'm still baffled by doctors. The doctors who write prescriptions that are like life or death. What they. What they tell that you give and. And how. How does somebody. Let's say in CVS Pharmacy.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: How many doctors are sending things over and how on earth are they in figuring out what this doctor is prescribing that could kill you if it's the wrong dose? It's in the most unreadable script ever.
Liz: Michael, did you ever learn Palmer Method?
Michael: No, matter of fact, I can barely when I'm handwriting, I'll just fall into, like, block letters in the middle of a word.
Jimmy: No, I do that now, too.
Harold: Yeah, Yeah, I never heard of Palmer Method until just this moment, so.
Liz: Oh, really?
Jimmy: Oh, that's the classic cursive. Beautiful.
Liz: Yeah, it is very beautiful.
Harold: You know, we had it up on the wall over the. Over the.
Liz: Oh, right.
Harold: Yeah, I'm sure that was the Palmer Method. Yeah, yeah, some lousy public school version of it that was like the Dollar Tree method or whatever.
Liz: And we heard from Spider Stomper again, who writes to us on YouTube and he comments on the Sidekicks number four Shermy episode and writes, I recall in one video, where Schulz was talking at UCLA in 1971, and a person asked, what happened to Patty, Violet and Shermie? He said something like, they're straight men. They're there to set up a gag when another character has too much personality in it. I guess he figured any other character had too much personality to set up the peanut butter sandwich strip.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Liz: And then John Merullo writes about the same episode on the Shermy episode, regarding the March 22, 1966 strip where Charlie Brown is having lunch with Shermy. And Charlie Brown tells Shermy, if he has to ask why peanut butter is the perfect sandwich to eat while looking at the unattainable object of one's affection, then he'll never understand. My friend Liz hit the nail on the head. Thank you, John. As to why Shermy, whose appearances were already few at this point, was used instead of another character. Linus would understand. So would Schroeder. Like Charlie Brown. They both are very sensitive. All three would be considered nerdy by today's standards. And all three have obsessions and neuroses Shermy just doesn't have. The only other boys in the neighborhood at this point are Pigpen and Five, neither of whom fit. In short, Shermy is a normal kid. No wonder he didn't last. Also, he's a hypocrite.
Jimmy: Just a normal hypocrite.
Harold: Yeah. Well, thanks, guys. Yeah, Shermy. Gotta love Shermy. I mean, absence makes the heart grow fonder, too. That definitely helps. Shermy's been a very special icon in this, podcast.
Jimmy: Absolutely.
Liz: And last but not least, we heard from Wally, who sent us a whole bunch of wonderful questions. But the only one I will read right now and we can consider it, is, what would you have done. He's talking to you guys. What would you have done to Shermy, Patty and Violet that would have kept them in the comic for longer instead of gradually disappearing?
Michael: Well, not being Schulz, it's a little hard to tell. He did add a bunch of characters. You know, Sally came in and Frieda came in, and I guess they had more personality than. I mean, if Patty and Violet were not evil monsters, they probably didn't have much going for them outside of that, because they're pretty much straight men after 56, like I said before. Yeah, but he had Frieda to play with. He had Sally to play with. and then Snoopy just started dominating the strip, and then he just, he cut them because.
Liz: But what could you have done to make them stick around? Could you have changed them?
Michael: Well, I would have kept the mean girl thing because I thought it was, hilarious. And I think once. It is weird to have two characters with the same name in a comic strip.
Liz: Yeah, that's true.
Michael: And once Peppermint Patty came in, Patty was doomed. Yeah, you couldn't have two Patties.
Liz: Except McDonald's does.
Michael: Yeah, that's true. Violet. Violet stuck around a lot longer than Patty was. Was, basically killed by Peppermint Patty. Violet didn't have much to do. He needed a. He needed straight people, he needed some to feed the lines, create the situations. And Violet, you know, the last 20 years, that's all she did.
Jimmy: Well, here's what I think, though, too. Also looking at these 1953, 54 Patty and Violet strips, they feel hyper modern in terms of 50s. This. This feels like a 1950s strip. I mean, obviously, thematically and quality wise, it's eternal. But I'm just saying, you know, with what the content is, I think once Frieda Sally and Peppermint Patty especially come along, they seem like 60s people, and it just is the 60s now, you know, And I think you have to also look at it not just as like, well, I could bring this back and bring that back because it's good or bad or whatever time has passed. You know, 15 years have passed. And, and, and not like, like, I mean, you know, right now, the difference between, you know, 2026 and 2011 is. Is minimal culturally, sadly. But between 1954 and, 1968 or whatever, holy cow, it's like it's night and day. And I think those three characters just fit the zeitgeist more.
Harold: Yeah. When I look at Patty and Violet here and look at Schulz, you know, if we were to do it, it wouldn't be Peanuts, right? That's. That's.
Jimmy: Yeah, well, we would do it worse, sure, no matter what we do.
Harold: But the, the reasoning of, like, why did. Why did Schulz leave these behind? I mean, those are all good points. I think one of the things about these two as they stand and that I think Schulz got more and more uncomfortable with, possibly because as he had children, I don't know, was that these two, could be cruel and be unrepentant and get away with it. And I don't think he was comfortable with that. I think if Schulz were to keep these characters, he would have had to find vulnerabilities for them. Like the other characters did have, their. What's their unrequited love. What's their. You know, maybe they could have been maybe from the 50s and they were not fitting into the 60s like they used to, which you can't do because over time, these kids are timeless. So it just gets kind of weird. But he would have had to find something in them where. Because Schulz was for the underdog, that was just certainly a theme in this. He certainly let the characters sometimes get away with some terrible things and they just hang there. But that's also kind of the power of the strip. I Think he, for his own sake, he needed to find something in them that he could find that was showing their. Yeah, their, their.
Jimmy: And he did find that with vulnerable side. Lucy has all of this attitude and, you know, forthrightness and no nonsense and. And meanness. But she also loves Schroeder and is bad at baseball and, like, she has, you, know, trying to tell teach Linus things, but doesn't know anything. That's, like, so much richer that I think, but also did this. I. I think it. She was just more like, just a more, you know, economical solution, really, you know?
Harold: Yeah. I mean, there's kind of a fascination with these two, that they are. They are getting away with being cruel in this little community, and it lasts for a while. And then Schulz is like, I'm not. It's like, I'm not comfortable with this anymore. That's kind of the vibe you get. He's like, I. I just. How can I do this and be comfortable in this little space I've made?
Jimmy: Well, with me. My characters. In Amelia, there were these two bully characters at the beginning, Bug and Iggy, that I just eventually just wrote out. Not wrote out. They're always around, too. But it's just as. Could be just as basic as, like, oh, I can't think of anything else.
Harold: right. Yeah. The more two dimensional they are and less you. I mean, there's tons of cartoons that have two dimensional characters, Bluto or whatever. You know, it's just the same thing over and over again. But that wasn't Schulz, you know.
Jimmy: No.
Liz: So that. That's it for the mail. Do you have anything on the hotline?
Jimmy: We do. We heard from Captain Billy and Shaylee Robson, but then my iPad died, so we're good. It's a cliffhanger. We're going to get to them next time.
Liz: Oh, dear.
Jimmy: But if you guys want to be a part of the show, there's a couple different things you can do. Go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for that reread, figure out what we're going to be talking about. If you have something you want to say to us, you can email us@unpackingpeanutsmail.com or you could just comment wherever we post our stuff on social media and on YouTube. So I'll give you the litany of that stuff at the end of the show. But we'd love to hear from you, because remember, when I don't hear, I worry.
All right, let's get back to the strips.
July 24, 1955. It's a Sunday, and it starts off with Snoopy doing double Dutch with Paddy and Violet. Or maybe it's just jump rope. But anyway, he's jumping the rope and they're holding it on either end and he's flipping upside down and he's smiling because he's soaring above them. And now he's doing like a happy dance. And now he's out of control. He's all over the place. And then wham. He lands on flat in his back because he just had, too much excitement while he was doing jump rope. And then Patty and Violet look at his forlorn, decrepit form as it just lies there smoking on the ground. And then Violet looks at Paddy and says, well, what do you think? Shall we do something else for a while? And then they walk away with Patty saying, we might as well. Let's go over to my house for some lemonade. And then Snoopy kind of gets it together and then thinks to himself, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when will I ever learn?
Liz: That could be Charlie Brown's line.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.
Michael: Great strip. What would you think if this strip, the third tier, had three panels? The first 3. I think it works because that's the gag.
Michael: And then it's like an epilogue and he has a second gag.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Harold: Michael, why do you think he tacked those last three on?
Michael: Well, it becomes a Snoopy strip.
Michael: And you know, Snoopy is the most popular character without those last three panels. It's a Patty and Violet strip, which I think is just as good. But he definitely wanted to see what Snoopy's take on this was, which is kind of weird. I mean, it's. He's blaming himself. Rather than blaming them for being heartless. Yeah.
Jimmy: He's not even so much worried that they're leaving. He's just more upset that he lost control and hurt himself.
Harold: Right.
Jimmy: Because they're not doing anything that made him crash. He just. Right. He just lost it.
Liz: Yeah. Trying to show off or something.
Jimmy: And, ah, he doesn't essentially even react to them leaving, I think. Or not as much as he does to the fact that he knocked himself silly.
Harold: That's really interesting. And this seems to be kind of like a transitional strip in a way, in that, their, their casual cruelty is not the joke. It's not the focus, really, other than he's apparently done this before.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: And they have no trouble setting him up to do it. Again, you know, they get their. Get their entertainment and then they head out. So in that way, it's kind of something he's been through before, and he knows they're just going to leave and they're not going to do anything different this time than they did before. But, yeah, it's an interesting strip. I mean, and this goes back to, I think, what we see in the last 45 years of the strip. There's more and more emphasis on. Instead of letting, the cruelty just kind of hang there, he focuses in on the one who suffers the most and lets them have the final say. And I think that is something that makes this a uniquely. Just a unique strip. I mean, it's a strip of empathy. And if you look at the first five, four or five years of the strip, maybe not so much. It's there, quite a bit. You know, you feel for the character who's getting put down. I think that's always there. But it seems like he really does focus in on it. And maybe that's why we, again, we lose Patty and Violet, because they're, they're. It's just a little too black and white here. And as we go through the remaining strips will be interesting to see are they getting the last. The last laugh. And you could be laughing with them. you could be laughing. You know what I mean? There just seems to be this, this--. Focus on the person being hurt that is unique to Peanuts, that we relate to Peanuts and change comics from here on out. It's like the, you know, the sufferer is the one who's going to get a little bit more attention.
Jimmy: Yeah. Side note, but I really always like Patty's dress. The little, you know, chain link fence pattern, the. So cute.
Liz: I was just appreciating her Rose Marie bow in her hair.
Michael: Yeah.
August 22, 1956. Charlie Brown is getting yelled at by Patty. Ah, who's saying, you're dumb, Charlie Brown, and you're useless. And by the way, as this is happening, Violet's walking up from the distance and then she reaches the other two. And then Patty turns and says to her, say, what time is it getting to be? And then Violet says, I think it's almost noon. Then Patty says, I have to go home, I guess. Why don't you take over? And Violet steps right in and says, you're stupid, Charlie Brown and hopeless. And. And Charlie Brown just looks at us like, can you believe this?
Michael: It's a good team. I mean, these guys really work together.
Jimmy: It reminds me of that Warner Brothers cartoon Where the. It's the sheep or it's the wolf and the sheepdog or whatever. They clock in, right? Very funny.
September 1st, 1956. It's this golden three out there in a field. And Patty says, isn't it amazing? And she continues, we both have the same dislikes about you. Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown just looks slightly stupefied by this. Patty continues, she dislikes the same things about you that I do. Isn't it amazing? And then as they walk away, Patty says, we should have uniforms. Charlie Brown just sighs.
Michael: It's the team spirit. Yeah.
Jimmy: I have heard this joke used many times.
Liz: Really?
Jimmy: Yes. And I wonder if this is where it started. Like, you know, any random group of things. We should all get you. Oh, we all like broccoli on our pizza.
Liz: Yeah, yeah. Have heard that.
Harold: Yeah. And this. This is so 50s versus, like, you're saying, like, the late 60s. You know, this. Hey, we're. We're.
Liz: We.
Harold: We have the same mind on something that's wonderful versus, hey, I'm doing my own thing. Let my fake flag fly or whatever.
Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the conformity police, right? Exactly.
Liz: But this was the same thing that they said in the 1953 August 31st strip that, we both dislike the same things.
Michael: It kind of runs things out because they don't. There aren't too many more of these.
Jimmy: Did they ever say what it is? Like, I mean, he's hopeless, but they don't really list. Like, Lucy would go in and get through, you know, list all his faults.
Michael: Well, he's the Charlie Brownie.
Harold: Well, you're useless and stupid and.
Jimmy: Oh, I don't. You know, that's barely registered.
Harold: that's nothing.
Michael: It's got a funny face, unlike Violet in panel three.
Harold: Well, it's interesting. You know, we were talking about, you know, Liz, what. What's changed today? And, you know, certain words have been determined. Just unusable. I think stupid is one of those ones that's been questioned heavily. Oh, I would say question.
Jimmy: Like when I. Well, I don't know about right now, but, like, when my kids were in school that you might as well have said, like, the S word or something. It was just not.
Harold: Oh, it is the S word. Stupid.
Jimmy: Yeah. The other S word.
Harold: Silly.
Michael: No.
Harold: Yeah. I love the smile on Violet. It's kind of this little happy, almost smug. I mean, you look at, like, panel two, that makes me think of really early Lucy. There were a lot of drawings of her with that big, tight smile.
Liz: It makes me think of Matt Groening.
Harold: Uh-huh.
Liz: It looks sort of like a Simpson's face.
Liz: Yeah, I can see that with that over bite.
Harold: So what do you think, Michael, of that third panel where now you've got Patty's hand going into Charlie Brown's chin and now he's deciding to have a little white rim around it so he doesn't get that.
Michael: Well, that's a tough decision to start doing that. A lot of people do that. But you got a small panel with three characters, and there's not much you can do to. Unless you made them smaller. There's that much to. You can give a little more space to him.
Harold: Mm, yeah. Cause in certain spots, he doesn't mind things touching. And I think that again, that's interesting that, you know, Patty and Violet is a unit. They're touching almost tangentially, like you were saying in panels two and four. But because they're a unit, maybe he wants it to look like they're like, you know, they're. They have. They're the same. Yeah.
September 14, 1956. Patty and Violet are sitting on a curb, and Patty says people should be more kind to each other. She continues, everyone should try to be gentle and considerate. And Violet agrees. That's true. And then Charlie Brown appears from the ether right next to them, pleasant smile on his face, shocking them both. And then they yell at him. Well, Patty yells at him, but Violet's right there backing her up. Get out of here. Can't you see we're talking?
Michael: this isn't quite the same gag as the other ones. They're hypocritical. I guess that's the joke. It's not so much aimed at him. It might have been anyone, but probably not.
Jimmy: This really also, to me feels like a, Schulz entering the strip thing and on literally making Charlie Brown appear out of thin air just to test their resolve. And of course, they fail immediately.
Harold: And just seeing that first panel takes you back to that first, very first strip from October 2nd, 1950. They're sitting on. They're sitting on the end of the sidewalk.
Michael: Yeah.
Harold: And he. But instead of seeing him from far off, he just like, poof. Appears right next to them, which assaults their. Their sensitivities.
Jimmy: It makes it so much funnier, that you don't see him at all. And then suddenly he's there.
Liz: Yeah.
Jimmy: You know, like, I can pick like Monty Python. You wouldn't do it on air. Like, you wouldn't do it like, point. Like he appears. But you could edit it in a right way that. Oh, he's been here the whole time. If this were animation or whatever.
Harold: Yeah, yeah.
Jimmy: But within the strip, the way Schulz does it now, it just kills me.
Harold: Yeah, but what another just artistic thing I was noticing on Violet. You see it in the first, first panels, actually. This is maybe true for everything, but I. You really notice it in panels one and two. And we talked about Snoopy and how his back, he doesn't violate this. The arc of Snoopy's back from a profile. So his little, his little hind haunches might be like 20% of the size they should be so that they don't bulge out from the back. It's true for Violet's. The puff of her sleeve, it's like you get this straight line going down her back, and it's almost like this upa kind of Picasso-esque curve on the front of her arm, but then the back just drops right into the line of the, back of the arm. Upper shoulder goes right into the back of the character. And so it makes this incredible silhouette that's unbroken. And I hadn't noticed that before. I'm assuming he's doing it all the time, but it just. As a cartoonist, I'm like, okay, he is taking some detail away so that something seems a little smoother, a little more iconic. And that's his choice over what would have realistically been drawn.
Jimmy: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. He loves keeping those silhouettes perfectly clean, which is, which is smart because you can really identify these characters and really, really tiny, tiny pictures.
Harold: Yeah. Now, she does let the Rose Marie bow go slightly out in the first panel, but other than that on the hair,
Jimmy: for, for those of you who are perhaps slightly younger and you don't get that reference, that Rose Marie is a, wonderful actress who played Sally on the Dick Van Dyke show, which we talk about a lot.
Harold: And there's a fantastic documentary on her. She, she lived to ripe old age, and they came out with a, a documentary just a few years ago, and she was involved with, like, the mob performing in Vegas. And it's a very interesting story. You want to check her out? Rose Marie.
Jimmy: Yeah, she, she's, she's a hoot. I followed her on Twitter before she passed away. That was great. All right, our final strip.
December 4, 1959. Charlie Brown approaches Patty and Violet outside, and they both look annoyed, but Patty says, well, what are you doing here? And then they both launch into him. Go on home. we don't want you around here. Who asked you to come by in the first place, Nobody. Go on home. And then Charlie Brown walks away with his head hanging low and the cloud of miserable despair over his head. And then Violet says, you know, it's a strange thing about Charlie Brown. You almost never see him laugh.
Jimmy: Awesome.
Harold: Oh, man.
Michael: Well, this might be one of the last Mean Girl strips. I didn't go past this, but there had. There hadn't been any for, like, a, two years, so.
Harold: Wow.
Michael: This might be his final statement. They're so oblivious.
Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. Ah, they just, one panel later, and it doesn't occur to them that they are the cause for Charles Brown's mystery.
Harold: You know, maybe that's supposed to be the right response. Why don't you just take that in in playful stride?
Jimmy: Charlie Brown,
Harold: we. In unison. Yeah. Assaulted you verbally.
Jimmy: now, you see, like, from between 1954 to, 1959, now he's got the classic peanut side mouths.
Harold: He.
Jimmy: He can do them. You know, if you look at Violet in that last panel, she just looks like Violet, as opposed to, like, that Pac man mouse she had a few years ago. It's crazy how long it takes you to get, Well, you never get settled. It's crazy just how it shifts and flows over the years.
Harold: Do you prefer this version of the mouths, including the T. Rex mouths? They've got a channel, too.
Jimmy: Yeah, I like the T. Rex mouths.
Michael: Yeah.
Jimmy: I think they look good.
Harold: Michael, does this one feel more intense to you than the other strips?
Michael: Are you talking about the gag or.
Harold: No, the vehemence or the strength of how it comes across, of how I
Liz: think it does because of that first panel. The expressions on their faces. That's meaner than some of the previous panels.
Michael: Well, I think it is. The T. Rex mouths in panel two and the giant lettering for the whole panel. Yeah, they're. Yeah. That's intimidating. I mean, I would. Yeah, it would kill me.
Harold: Yeah, me, too.
Michael: People were doing that. Just one. Imagine one wouldn't do it, but two could do it.
Harold: Yeah. And they're on both sides of him. And Schulz draws Charlie Brown's head pointing at both of them in that classic double. Double motion way. it's strong. I mean, it's interesting that. Michael, you're saying this is kind of the end of it, and yet it's not petering out. It's almost like it goes so far. He's like, I can't go there again. I don't know. It's just weird.
Michael: Yeah. This might be the most severe of all the strips, because, I mean, you can see he's destroyed that little black.
Jimmy: Oh, my God.
Michael: Tangled in the balloon.
Harold: Yeah.
Liz: Previously, he's just had a grimace. but this is his emotions.
Harold: And then again, it's going to this whole empathy thing. You know, when you just look at that lone Charlie Brown and panel three, it's. It's. Yeah, you. You feel something. It's just devastating.
Liz: And the, the thing about him, you never see him laugh is kind of like the. The laughter of. Of little children. Yeah. Strip.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Harold: And Michael, you know, as we know, when was Charlie Brown laughing in the strip the most? It's like the first few years.
Jimmy: Yeah. First few years.
Michael: Well, he was a prankster. He was like a prankster.
Harold: And it's like they took it out of him.
Jimmy: They took it out of him. It really does feel that way when you read it in totality. Yes. Which is sad.
Michael: Yeah.
Harold: That they helped make the Charlie Brown we know for the next 40 years.
Jimmy: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That is total despair. Panel three, just amazing. Amazing. I can, to lighten it up. I can never. And I try it because sometimes you just gotta try it. But that. The double face thing from panel two, I can. It always. I just can't do it right. You can't do. It never looks right.
Harold: It's.
Michael: It's hard.
Harold: It's hard. I want to ask the group, get given what we are seeing here, can you. Can you remember a time when anything close to this happened to you?
Liz: Nope. never happened.
Jimmy: I would say. Yes. There was a weird period in seventh grade where my friends just decided they didn't like me for, like, months. And I don't know why or what, like, even to the point. Like. Yeah, like they wrote like, graffiti on the fence by school, by the school with my name on it and stuff like that.
Harold: Oh, my gosh.
Jimmy: These were like my best friends.
Harold: Wow.
Jimmy: but it was this bad.
Harold: Yeah. And there is that kind of blood in the water thing. Like we were saying, if one kid seems to get something, a vulnerability or an angle on somebody, it's always, you know, the nicknames everyone takes on that nickname. That's just you wish you didn't have. And you as a parent, try to name a child something that is nickname proof and there's no way to do it, can't be done yet. You know, they're gonna find something to say. And. And yeah, sometimes we just. I. I had. I had a, you know, occasional tormentor here and there, but they were on their own. You know, it's just one on one. And it wasn't. And it was more subtle and more, you know, the kind of subtle insulting, like you don't, you don't have a clue what's going on. Which I didn't.
Michael: Right.
Harold: But, but to see have two people just yelling at you from both sides in unison.
Harold: And it's like, it's me. Right. It just feels like it has to be majority rule. They're right, I'm wrong, or, you know, this is terrible. And then you see that in Charlie Brown from, you know, that's who he becomes. He's like.
Jimmy: And there's nothing he can do about it. They just don't want him there. Like, oh, your dad doesn't make money. Oh, then your house isn't green. Oh, your house isn't green.
Harold: There's no defense.
Jimmy: You're wearing a yellow shirt. It doesn't matter. We just don't want you here.
Harold: Yeah. So Michael, did you like, just lay low for the most part and not, not get in the radar?
Michael: Yeah, well, this is why I strove to be invisible.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: That was my tactic.
Jimmy: But you did.
Michael: I would not walk up to two people who were. Look at panel one. Okay. These. He knows these girls hate him that he walks up and stands there.
Harold: Yeah.
Michael: Why would he do that?
Harold: Right. So you just avoid that. That's the best policy if you don't want to experience this kind of stuff.
Michael: you go to your room and you lock the door. That's what you do.
Harold: Well, it's so funny that Charles Schulz said many times that he felt invisible when he was in school, that he was so plain that nobody noticed him. And here he is with a character that I'm sure he relates deeply with. And it's almost like he's, putting his fears and his sense of not fitting in. And it's like this is what they're really thinking if they notice me. But this, the intensity of, oh, yeah, we notice you, but we don't want you here. Get out. I mean, that's a deep, deep, felt thing that I think, we all can relate to. Right?
Liz: Yeah.
Harold: I mean, Liz, you said very quickly, no, you never had that type of setting where the people around you chose you to be singled out as treated poorly and ganged up.
Liz: I was lying. but I'm. As we're discussing this, I am appreciating my cousins when I was in grade school and my dear friends that I'm still friends with when I was in high school who gave me the love and support so that if and when, people were teasing me or cruel, I had people who loved me too.
Harold: So were they on the spot? In other words, when this would happen, like at school or whatever, did you have those allies nearby or did you have to kind go go home or go. Go somewhere else to get that support?
Liz: I. I only remember one cruel. I mean, one solo cruel situation where somebody was. Made fun of me when I. I didn't realize. I thought that. That we were being. Having a friendly conversation and, and. But we weren't. And she was laughing at me.
Harold: Oh, gosh. So, but just the two of you, There was not an audience?
Liz: Yeah, no, there was. There was no audience. But one. One memory out of however many years it's been is, I chalk that up as pretty good.
Harold: Yeah, that's a pretty, And we know well, our listeners, for those of you who've been in this situation, maybe you've been Charlie Brown or maybe you've been Patty and Violet. If you want to get it off your chest, share your stories and how you relate to this particular strip. Love to hear from you. If you want to do some mea culpas publicly, you're more than welcome to step in because I know there's all sorts of stuff.
Liz: We are not Psychologists.
Jimmy: We are not medical professionals. But what I will say is I also was not a meek Charlie Brown. Like, so I took up a lot of space m psychically and people. So like. And when it came at me, I gave it back so that maybe that is escalation and prolonged it. So, you know, I'm just saying don't pity me. Who knows? I may have had some culpability, but that's it.
All right? There's more mean girls to come, and you got to hear from Shaylee and Captain Billy when I charge my iPad. So you guys come back in two weeks when we're going to do that. It's going to be a lot of fun. In the meantime, remember, sign up for the Great Peanuts reread over at Unpacking Peanuts. You can email us@unpackingpeanutsmail.com and if you don't do that, I'll worry. There's a bunch of, social medias you can follow. But again, my iPad did die and I'm not charging it clearly until the end of this episode, but you can figure that out. and until next time, this is Jimmy from Michael, Harold and Liz saying, be of good cheer and don't be mean.
Liz: Yes, be of good cheer. And don’t be mean
Harold: Be of good cheer and don't be mean.
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 thread 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.
Michael: I forgot to say it.
Liz: Say it.
Michael: Be of good cheer
Liz: and.
Michael: And team up with somebody if you're gonna destroy a person.
Liz: Yeah, it takes two, baby.