Sidekicks #3 - Roy: A Good Temporary Friend

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. It's Unpacking Peanuts. Today we're continuing our look at Sidekicks and Second bananas with our focus on Roy. Yep, we're all the way down to focusing on Roy. That's what happens after four years. 

I'll be your host for the proceedings. My name is Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. You can find all my new work over on Gville Comics on Substack. And you can order The Amelia Rules 25th anniversary editions that are out right now. 

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 of Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River. 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: Well, I am-- keeping close.

Liz: Almost.

Harold: Almost.

Jimmy: And, keeping us out of trouble, making sure everything runs nice and smooth. It's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.

Liz: Howdy.

Jimmy: Well, guys, we're talking about Roy.

Harold: Roy.

Jimmy: I mean, we've always built towards the one day we would focus on Roy.

Michael: Where can one buy the Roy merch?

Jimmy: I bet there is Roy merchant there. I mean, if they have Olaf merch, they've got to have a Roy shirt out there somewhere.

Liz: If they have a Mr. T. Snoopy, then they've got to have Roy.

Jimmy: Now, Michael, this. Do you relate to Roy's look? I could see that being your look as a kid. Not the sailor hat, of course, but I think he has like a Michael look. He's got the curly hair.

Liz: Did you ever wear a sailor hat?

Michael: God, no.

Liz: Well, but your dad had a. Had a. Army navy store.

Michael: No, I didn't have any of that, but I did have army jackets. I mean, all my clothes were supplied by Value Center, so I had lots of army gear. But no, no, I never went for the hats. I had my Giants cap.

Jimmy: I have to admit, I did, when I was very little, wear a sailor's hat around like an idiot.

Harold: It looks like an upside down dog dish. I was thinking Snoopy went like this camp.

Jimmy: And is it even a thing at camp that people wear sailor hats? Like, I don't. I don't know that there's an official camp hat.

Harold: That's a good. That's a good point. Yeah. Why are they wearing these? I guess it's a thing. Would he make that up?

Liz: I think he made it up. Look like they were someplace away, away

Jimmy: from home, somewhere else.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Liz: As the camp expert on this podcast, no one ever wore hats.

Michael: Well, I think looking over this sequence, this might be the first time they went out of the neighborhood,

Harold: really, in 15 years. That's something.

Michael: I mean, the Marcie and, Peppermint Patty stuff is much later than this.

Jimmy: It's next year, I guess. Yeah.

Michael: Oh, much later.

Harold: Wow.

Jimmy: Yeah, that actually. And that is the importance, really, of Roy, is he's the bridge between the Charlie Brown universe and the Peppermint Patty universe. And obviously, I don't think, Schulz had any inkling that he was going to expand the Roy verse.

Harold: Right.

Michael: Earth R, we call it.

Jimmy: Yeah, Earth R. 

Liz: For any of our listeners who haven't done the entire reread, please explain who Roy is.

Jimmy: So every summer. Well, not every summer, but many summers, Charlie Brown has to go to camp, and he often does not have a good time there. But in good old 1965, the sequence we're going to be looking at today, he meets a friend, a kid named Roy, who is, you know, one of the straightiest, straight men who ever, ever straightened.

Harold: He.

Jimmy: He, His basic function is to be someone that Charlie Brown can be a good friend to, which is kind of an interesting way to create a character.

Harold: So he's the Shermy of the Peppermint Patty verse. Is that kind of sort of.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Harold: Wow.

Jimmy: Unless we can come up with some sort of unified Roy theory that makes it so that everything revolves around Roy.

Harold: Well, I do like the Roymometer. The idea of the Roymometer.

Michael: The Roymometer.

Harold: If we did the Shermometer, why can't we do the Roymometer?

Jimmy: Okay, so before we get into these strips, I want to just have a general discussion. what makes a good straight man?

Michael: Well, Carl Reiner, who's, you know, critical in the history of comedy on tv, realized that he had a place that for. To, you know, just pitch to Mel Brooks. Pitch softballs to Mel Brooks. And he never tried to get out of it because he was so good at it. I mean, it was like a real talent.

Jimmy: And if you guys aren't familiar with what Michael's talking about there's comedy recordings of, it called the 2000 Year Old Man. And basically that's exactly what it was. You know, Carl Reiner would just lob these softball questions to Mel Brooks about anything in the last 2,000 years. And Brooks would just improv and riff on, riff on it. And it was brilliantly funny. Yeah.

Harold: And they become the best of friends all through the rest of Reiner's life. they'd hang out and watch Wheel of Fortune together.

Jimmy: Yep.

Harold: They were just buddies. But then Carl Reiner also, he started on your show of shows with Sid Caesar in the 50s and created the Dick Van Dyke show and was on it. So. Yeah. Quite a long, long run.

Jimmy: Yeah. And then directing movies like the Jerk with Steve Martin.

Harold: And he could be quite funny in his own right. You know, we've certainly seen him play characters, but it's usually. He's usually like an anchor and everyone else goes crazy around him. And I think that is what makes a good straight man.

Jimmy: Right.

Harold: Is that it gives some gravity to what's happening and reality to it so that the zany person just doesn't seem annoying.

Jimmy: Right.

Liz: Sincerity and, not tongue in cheek, not anticipating the joke, just allowing the other person to really take off.

Jimmy: Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it's such an important aspect of these comedies. I mean, if you're doing comedy this way and, you know, I think of Seinfeld, where Seinfeld was clearly the least talented and experienced actor on the show. Right. But that his presence is what makes the rest of the stuff palpable. You know, it all revolves around him. when they would do things like give Michael Richards a TV show where he's the star, but he's really playing the Kramer character again. Well, that's like, oh, you like salt on french fries? Well, how about a plate of salt?

Harold: Yeah. Or Jerry Lewis without Dean Martin. You know, some people can't take it and some people just love it, you know, because it's just so nonstop insane. But, yeah, it's hard to maintain that without, some anchor to keep you focused and like, okay, this is. I can see myself in this sane person in this insane world.

Jimmy: Now, the other weird thing or interesting thing I should say, I guess, about what Schulz does here with this first sequence with Roy, is he basically gives a straight man a straight man. you know, it's not that Charlie Brown is 100% a straight man, but he is certainly the sane hub around which everything else wobbles.

Harold: And he has to leave his own neighborhood in order to find that person.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. Yep. A Charlie Brown is not without honor, saving his own land or whatever.

Harold: Right.

Jimmy: Well, all right. With that out of the way, how about we decide to look at this first 1965 sequence featuring good old Roy and Charlie Brown. If you characters want to follow along with us, there's a couple things you should do first. Go over to unpackingpeanuts.com sign up for the Great Peanuts Reread. That'll get you one email a month, which is our newsletter letting you know what shenanigans we'll be up to and what strips we're going to be covering. So you can follow along with us. Once you do that, Come on back here. And we could just start right now with 

June 10, 1965. Charlie Brown is already off at camp. And, this is just a setup to explain where he is. So he gets a letter from Linus that says a letter from Linus will all be dear Charlie Brown says the letter, how are you enjoying camp? I suppose you are worried about your baseball team. And the letter continues, well, don't worry, we're doing fine. In fact, yesterday we won the first game we've won all season.

Michael: Oh.

Which leaves Charlie Brown on the edge of the dock alone. And he just sighs to himself. 

Jimmy: So this is baseline Charlie Brown at camp.

Harold: Right.

Jimmy: You know, and it's so, I think it's so funny because you can imagine Linus being, being a good friend and going, I'm going to write to my pal Charlie Brown and tell him the good news that we won our baseball game.

Liz: Yeah.

Jimmy: And of course, it has the exact opposite effect on Charlie Brown. yeah. 

June 11, 1965. Here's where things heat up, people. The first appearance of Roy. Roy is sitting there on a stump and he's sniffing. He seems to have just, finished crying a little bit. Charlie Brown comes up behind him and kind of has a question mark going, oh, what's going on with this poor sad kid? And then he says to Roy, excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing you crying. What's the matter? And Roy stands up and says, I don't know. I guess I'm just lonesome. To which Charlie Brown juts out his hand for a handshake and yells, friend.

Harold: Sending Roy's hat into the air. I love this.

Jimmy: I do too. What?

Harold: a breakthrough. Fifteen years into this strip, Charlie Brown has found somebody who maybe needs him. and he can't wait to take on that role. It's just really, really cool, given what we've been through with him up until

Jimmy: now, because Charlie Brown seems to want to be some sort of caretaker or leader or hero.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: You know, and he never has that opportunity. Well, he has millions of opportunities, but they all fall, you know, flat. So it's very nice to just see this. This moment.

Liz: I just keep thinking, is it Son of Frankenstein that where he goes, Friend, friend?

Jimmy: That is some big lettering in that last panel, and I love it. It looks really good. He's obviously got the old. Whatever it is, C5 lettering pen that he uses, the big thick one. And he's doubling it up.

Harold: The C1. C1.

Jimmy: There you go.

Harold: Massive. He's probably doubling up, though, right?

Jimmy: Yeah, he's definitely doubling up. You can see that on the F, Right? Definitely.

Harold: Yeah. He does an outline, fills in the blacks. He wants to get it right.

Jimmy: Now, what do we think about the way he's done the very light pen work for the background, the trees?

Harold: Beautiful. It is beautiful.

Jimmy: Michael, you know what that inking reminds me of? This is like outside the box.

Michael: Yeah.

Jimmy: Reminds me of Chick Stone.

Michael: You think it's Chick Stone inking.

Jimmy: It has a Chick Stone vibe. He had an almost, like, clear line style in some background.

Michael: Yeah. Thick outlines was his trademark.

Jimmy: But more in the front, in the foreground figures, it seems like. It seemed like he would be able to do.

Michael: Yeah, well, that was a kind of a rule as. Yeah, the foreground figure should be thicker, which, you know, I don't think too many people actually follow up on, but,

Jimmy: yeah, I don't think so. But I do think it gives depth to the page. Yeah, it certainly does. That's what struggle. Something I struggle with is drawing deep into a page. You know what I mean? Well, I struggle with perspective, but even just getting, like, things in the distance versus things that are very close. Yeah, I think that's hard to do.

Harold: Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking Vince Coletta, he was raised trees entirely.

Michael: Yeah.

Liz: A nice aloha shirt, right?

Harold: Yeah. We got a nice Hawaiian shirt there on Roy. Very. It certainly draws you to him, with his dark jet black hair and busy shirt. I like Roy's design a lot.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: I think it's just really cool. And this, to me, kind of predates that meeting with Franklin. About six years later. You're where you got. Because it's interesting. Yeah. It's like two straight men hanging out with each other.

Jimmy: Yes. Yeah.

Harold: And I kind of like that vibe, given what Peanuts usually is, if I think it was all the time, but it's a nice seasoning. strangely, to be bland.

Jimmy: Yes, yes.

Harold: You know, to have the characters who, you know, normal, more or less, for Peanuts normal, or being normal with one another. They're not making each other crazy or whatever. They are just figuring out how to be friends together. And to see Schulz navigating that in his strip is refreshing.

Jimmy: So Michael found an old ad, and we talked about this on one of our new shorts. So if you're on any, of those evil apps like TikTok or our YouTube shorts or whatever, you're going to be able to see us, do see us live in video talking about these things. But in one of those, we were talking about an ad Michael found where. What did they compare Peanuts to? A tranquilizer.

Liz: better than a tranquilizer. The Peanuts books by Charles M. Schulz.

Jimmy: which really implies that these are like sedate calm strips, which a lot of them are. And, maybe it was more calm seeming in context with the all the crazy stuff around.

Michael: This book is going to put you to sleep is not. It's weird ad for it.

Jimmy: Yeah, really weird ad.

Harold: I mean, so a tranquilizer, I'm assuming people would have thought in 1953 today is. Makes you tranquil. Right.

Michael: Mother's little helper 

Jimmy: That's right.

Harold: But through artifice, you know, through something that's artificial.

Jimmy: Right.

Michael: You know, what drug was popular in the 20s to keep your little baby quiet and sleeping through the night?

Harold: What?

Michael: Heroin.

Michael: Oh, it was the brand name of a tranquilizer for babies.

Harold: Ooh. Well, Michael, are you saying that heroin was made with heroin?

Michael: Yes, and he trademarked today.

Jimmy: Wow, that's so awful. 

All right, so then this continues the next day, and Charlie, Brown and Roy are still out in the woods. And Charlie Brown says to Roy, because Charlie Brown's now in just the, you know, life coach mode, Roy, you've got to snap out of it. A camp like this is the best place for someone like you. It helps you to break those old apron strings. Roy's just taking this in, and Charlie Brown says, life is full of experiences that have to be faced alone. And Roy says, but you said you were lonesome, too. To which Charlie Brown responds, I talk a good camp.

Harold: Roy is clearly depressed, rolling his eyes a little like, oh, I've been found out.

Michael: Schulz was suffering from this greatly. And, you'd say Charlie Brown was, too. But, him meeting another depressed person was kind of a revelation, I think.

Jimmy: Yeah. And again, not something you're going to be seeing in the other strips of 1965, I can't imagine. You know, and I also think this is real. I mean, if you take the time to really think about this particular strip. Right. I mean, it's very human and it's such an insight. It's like, yeah, Charlie Brown knows what has to be done. He can articulate it perfectly, but he can't really do it himself, which I relate to a hundred percent. You know, like, sometimes you'll find some pattern in your life or some behavior that you want to change, and you're like, I know what I want to do. I know what I need to do. Doing it is an entirely different thing.

Liz: Or when you see it in somebody else, you know exactly what advice to give them. but you can't do it for yourself.

Jimmy: Right? Right.

Harold: Yes, it's. Oh, just get it together, will you?

Jimmy: Come on, snap out of it.

Michael: All right.

Harold: And there's another thing that hasn't aged terribly. Well, the term of, breaking apron strings is. You just don't hear anybody saying that.

Jimmy: Yeah, boy, that's. That seems like it would have been an old saying in 1965.

Harold: Right. Well, I guess aprons were still happening and it's on the tail end of aprons as the, you know, in the pop culture, the happy wife in the kitchen.

Jimmy: Yeah. And I guess this is something that needs, does need to be explained. Yeah, that would just be a, A relatively common saying for a little kid that's too attached to his mother. Basically a mama's boy or something like that. So now this is, this is what I chose for Roy's, first appearance. And what I find interesting also about this is that Schulz sets up this world with Roy and Charlie Brown at the camp. You know, they're having a nice time, Charlie Brown meets his friend, and then Roy goes away for a year. He really is a camp friend that we don't see in the strip, outside of it, at least originally. I mean, can you think of anything like that that someone would do? Basically a seasonal character in a comic strip. Someone that, you know is only going to show up in summer or whatever.

Harold: Like an annual character.

Jimmy: It's like the old Justice League, Justice Society team ups. You always knew that, like, would come around and you'd get one of those.

Michael: Yeah, well, there is Santa Claus. He seems to be seasonal.

Harold: That's true. Yeah. He'll show up now and again.

Liz: Well, as a person who went to camp, there were people. I mean, camp seemed really, really far away. It was actually like in the same telephone exchange. It was like, 20, 25 minutes away from my home.

Jimmy: Yeah. But it felt like the other side of the world. Right.

Liz: And there were other campers that I was friends with and maybe visited once, but they lived on the other side of town, another 20 minutes away. And, I never saw them except at camp.

Harold: Right. Yeah. I mean, even sometimes school, you'd have your school friends, but for some reason, there were certain school friends that you wouldn't dream, even though you liked hanging out with them. But they were not the outside, of school friends. You could just see them in school, and that seemed right.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Liz: Ah.

Jimmy: And even. That continues even in adult life. If you're unfortunate enough to have to work in an office, you know, you'll have work friends that, like, you're not. They're not coming over your house for Thanksgiving dinner or anything, right?

Harold: Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy: And some of them are, in case any of my old work friends happen to be listening. I wasn't talking about you.

Harold: So, yeah. These separations in our lives, and we're here. Roy is gone, like you said, for a year, you know, nice character. How did it end in 65? Did it end successfully? I kind of remember Charlie Brown and Roy. They had a good time, they say their goodbyes, and Charlie Brown's kind of satisfied with that. Is that how it ended in 65?

Jimmy: Then? Roy says he's the kind of person that makes a good temporary friend. Oh, well, it's a small victory. It's a small victory. All right, so that's the first, sequence of Roy strips from 1965. We're going to come back and see his next appearance, which takes another little twist after this break. And we'll come back, do the mail, and talk about more Roy. See you after this. 

BREAK

VO: Hi, everyone. I just want to take a moment to remind you that all three hosts are cartoonists themselves, and their work is available for sale. You can find links to purchase books by Jimmy, Harold and Michael on our website. You can also support the show on Patreon or buy us a mud pie. Check out the store link on unpackingpeanuts.com.

Jimmy: all right. I'm hanging out in the mailbox. Liz, do we got anything?

Liz: No, it's empty.

Jimmy: Oh, no. Well, let's go see if we got anything on the hotline.

Jimmy: We did. We heard from good old Captain Billy. You could always count on Captain Billy. And he says, hi, super fan Captain Billy here. Jimmy, you will be happy to know that in the latest Apple TV special, Snoopy Presents A Summer Musical. The original design of the characters appear in a flashback. And you're right, they are adorable. Keep up the good work, guys. And Liz. 

Jimmy: So that's good. So I. Yeah, my. This is referring to episode a few weeks back where I said they should do something with those very, very early Peanuts character designs and animation. because they're adorable and apparently they have.

Harold: Yay, that's great. I'm glad they found a way to do that. I'd love to see that animated. I’ll have to go into Apple.

Jimmy: Yes.

Harold: You're going to get that Apple subscription.

Jimmy: A Summer Musical. I'm not sure. Oh, it's the latest Apple TV special. So there you go. And that's it. That's all we got. We got one thing on the hotline, so if you want to read. So now you know, I'll only be semi worried because when I don't hear from you guys, I worry. But if you want to make for a more robust mailbag bag section next time you can write to us. We're unpacking peanuts gmail.com and you can call or leave a message on the hotline. We are 717-219-4162. So yeah, give us a call or send us an email. We would love to hear from you. Let us know what you, want us to cover next. We're doing all sorts of interesting things here in the post reread era. I have an idea-- because how about we do the reread again

Harold: backwards?

Liz: Backwards.

Jimmy: that's exactly what I was gonna say. All. Ah, right. Well, with the mail out of the way, let's go back to these strips. Now we're gonna skip ahead an entire year to 

June 20, 1966. And now instead of Charlie Brown at camp, Roy has met a new friend. And what we have here is Linus sitting on the edge of a dock. And Roy comes up behind him and says, hi, my name is Roy. How are you doing? And Linus, without turning around, says, oh, I'm doing all right, I guess. Roy sits down next to him and says, you'll get to like this camp after a few days. I was here last year and I thought I'd never make it, but I did. Linus says, oh. And Linus is looking a little forlorn at this point. And then Roy says, you know what happened? I met this funny round headed kid. I can't remember his name. He sure was a funny kid. Linus is taking this in. And then Roy continues with. He was always talking about this peculiar dog he had back home and some nutty friend of his who dragged a blanket around. And Linus's reaction indicates that he has figured out exactly who he's talking about.

Harold: What are the odds?

Jimmy: What do you think of this? I think this is amazing. So you see, panel two with Linus and then panel three or panel four with Linus. And in one, you can. In. In the last panel, panel four, you can see that he has a reaction to what Roy is saying, but the reaction is so unbelievably minimal. The only change is a little bit the. The line for the mouth is slightly smaller and the parentheses that he draws around Linus's eyes are slightly larger. That's it. And it reads a totally different emotion.

Harold: And the eyes.

Michael: He's also looking at the audience. 

Jimmy: Yes, he is looking out at the audience too. Right. Reacting to. I can't believe what this, guy's saying. This is my pal Charlie Brown.

Liz: And, because his face is slightly bigger, it sort of pops. It sort of. It's like he's reacting after he hears the words

Jimmy: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Almost like it's a minor zoom in on just how. Yeah, exactly.

Harold: This whole strip feels like you. You've got a drone that starts on one side of the dock and it's just following around the front and over to the side.

Jimmy: Yeah, it is like a tracking shot. Yeah. If he had included the background in the second and fourth panel, you would really have that feel. A, Cerebus. They would do that a lot because Cerebus was created by one guy who wrote and drew the characters and the other guy drew the backgrounds. And when I say drew the backgrounds, like, the level of craft that he put into these backgrounds was insane. And they did one whole issue that was just a tracking shot like this. Except for the fact that Gerhard put the backgrounds in photorealistically in every panel. So it really does feel like you're going around like.

Harold: Like a drone.

Jimmy: Like you say, wow. Nothing I would have drawn. I mean, that's setting yourself up for some hard work.

Harold: Beautiful background.

Michael: As long as somebody else is doing the hard work.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, right. That's why you gotta get one of those assistants. Yeah. I like the background grass kind of, you know, area that goes into the lake. That's very kind of unSchulz-y grass.

Harold: More textured, looks great. I like how it. It has a white outline around their faces, so they really pop in front of that. In front of the pylons, I guess, in the dock or whatever. They are. It's nice.

Jimmy: Roy sticking with the Hawaiian shirt.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: You only get one shirt in the Peanuts universe.

Harold: Yes, she did. A dog, a banjo and a shirt.

Jimmy: Yep. You're the striped kid shirt. You're the Hawaiian kid shirt.

 June 21, 1966. Roy figures out what's going on. He says, that blanket. Because Linus is standing there in classic thumb and blanket position. Roy continues, you're the one that round headed kid was telling me about. Boy, you'd better put that blanket away. If the other kids see it, they'll tease you right out of camp. And then Linus does his classic maneuver of using the blanket like a whip her rack and he knocks. He actually breaks a branch off  a living tree.

Michael: That is so classic.

And then Linus says, they won't tease me more than once. Roy is holding the severed brand, which is like smoking.

Harold: I love how again, he draws for effect. The. The smoke is floating not above the. Where the branch was cut off, but to the. To the right of where we see Roy. And then the place where it was cut, Roy's examining very closely. It's in front of his face. And Schulz is absolutely fine with. You know, there's, there's a smoke. You have to almost think that it was in this space to his right. And then he moved it closer to examine it. But the smoke remains or is.

Liz: Or it continues.

Harold: Right.

Jimmy: Or it's. Or it's like an abstract representation of the branch's last breath. Do you know what I mean?

Harold: Like, it's like, yeah, yeah, it just works. I'm just fascinated looking at these choices Schulz makes that I don't think other artists would make. And they're better choices.

Jimmy: It's funny, I decided. So we were talking weeks ago, like, oh, boy, if I did. The character's walking down the street and they're not actually on the street. You know, they're hovering above the street, which is how Schulz draws it when the character is walking. I'm like, that wouldn't work at all. And Harold said, well, or maybe it would. So I tried it and. Because, I'm doing this new Amelia Rules story for the 25th anniversary and I tried it. I had a bunch of the characters, like, walking out of school and down the steps. I don't know if I could do it all the time. But in that one instance, it's like, oh, it's magic. It's like they're bouncing down the steps. It's not that they're leaving school, it's that they're joyfully bouncing down the steps.

Harold: That's cool.

Jimmy: Yeah. Really. It might be the only time, you know, one of those things that you do it and try it again, and it'll never work.

Harold: I think one of the secrets of it is you're looking, like, head on eye level with them. for some reason, that's what you got to do to get away with it.

Jimmy: Yeah. Yeah. 

So now Roy has arrived back home, and it's now August. We're looking at August 22nd in 1966. And this is where Roy really makes his big impact, because, we meet his new friend. Or not his new friend, his old friend, our new friend, Peppermint Patty. And that's what we see. We see Roy sitting there writing a letter at a table, probably in his house. And Peppermint Patty comes up to him, first time we've ever seen her. And says, hi, Roy, who you writing to? And Roy says, I'm writing to a little kid named Linus that I met at camp several weeks ago. And then Peppermint Patty leans in and says, is he cute? If he is, tell him your very good friend Peppermint Patty says hello. And she leans on her forearms, holds her head in her hands and says, tell him what a real swinger I am. And then she walks away saying, put in a good word for me, Roy, and the next time we Indian wrestle, I'll try not to clobber you. 

Jimmy: This is amazing, because it's like, yeah, here's her personality.

Harold: Yeah. We learned so much in four panels.

Jimmy: Yes. And use of unnecessary quotation marks, which is always funny.

Harold: And it's only the peppermint of. Of, Peppermint Patty that she. That we find in quotes here. Another Patty. Why does he do another Patty? Just because he likes Peppermint Patties.

Michael: Yeah, that breaks--. That breaks all the rules of comic strips.

Harold: Yeah, it does, right?

Jimmy: Yeah.

Liz: Yeah.

Jimmy: And it's because he saw the candy bowl and saw Peppermint Patty in it, and it clicked that that's a name for a character. And, you know, he famously said, I knew if I didn't use it, Mort Walker would.

Harold: And he couldn't have that. Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: I love Roy without the hat. And he's got the really curly, chunky hair with the sheen of light on top of it, kind of like what you see in Lucy's hair. But in that second panel where Peppermint Patty's just leaning slightly in on him, and he's leaning slightly back, like he's intimidated by her strong personality.

Jimmy: Yeah. And it is just by her strong personality, because she's smiling. I mean, she's leaning in, and invading his personal space. But she is definitely not threatening to him. She's just a lot.

Liz: Yes, yes.

Harold: And then swinger, that, that's such an odd term for Schulz to give Peppermint Patty in that first panel because that's got a lot of connotations. Right. Even in 66.

Michael: Frank Sinatra in 1966.

Jimmy: Well, yeah, it's a little.

Liz: But also the Polaroid Swinger probably came out at about that time.

Harold: Yeah. And I think there was an Ann Margret movie that was called the Swinger came out around that time and it was. Would have suggested. Yeah. Pretty, pretty lively stuff. Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah. You're, you're. Yeah, it's, there's no way where, any version of Swinger is like a stay at home buddy daddy, whether.

Harold: And certainly not a child. You never. A child would not usually call themselves a swinger.

Jimmy: Right. I love that drawing of Peppermint Patty. I love all these drawings of Peppermint Patty, but I love the third one. I don't know, it just feels really real to me. She feels like a fully fleshed out character immediately.

Michael: Yeah.

Harold: And you just get the idea that she's imagining herself as she's holding her head in her hands kind of, you know what version of her she is that she's going to sell to the round headed kid early on. This is Linus. Sorry, she's right into Linus.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

Harold: And I love that Roy is holding up his paper like, kind of like, can I fit this in? He's, he's contemplating whether this is a possibility.

Jimmy: That's a lot to write. So. Okay, so let, let's try to just speculate wildly based on nothing. Do you think? What's the process? So he has Roy. He obviously likes Roy enough to, to bring him back. Is the process. This is just a guess, I'm guessing. You know, we, we don't have any info, but is the process. I have this character, Peppermint Patty. How could I introduce her? Oh, I know she'll be Roy's friend and that'll explain why she's not in the strip before this. Or is he like, let's bring Roy back and then this just happens?

Michael: I think I would guess because she does seem pretty developed that he just started playing around with, you know, in the sketchbooks and he went like, yeah, I like this, this girl character a lot. Maybe because all the other girls, maybe not Sally, but are, basically are evil.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Harold: Well, I like the idea. Now, of course, Schulz probably didn't have any idea whatsoever that Peppermint Patty would become such a major part of the strip. I mean, the fact that it is another Patty almost suggests that that dilemma isn't even a thing. She lives in another neighborhood, and she's just a fun character that he thought up that kind of seems like maybe jumped out whole cloth to him. And he's like, wow, what a fun character. But maybe a little too overpowering or a little different than what Peanuts has been up till now. And so what safer way to do it than, Well, he's kind of setting up the idea that she's an outsider, and then that remains the rest of the strip. She's kind of popping in and out of the neighborhood. And I guess, I mean, how do you guys feel about Peppermint Patty toward the end? Does she seem like she's another neighborhood or does she seem to be really just part of their world, even if she's walking a couple streets over to. I don't think to say hi to.

Jimmy: Yeah, I don't think the general readership thinks about her as living in a different neighborhood, but I think because, like, for me personally, because I'm so familiar with this strip at this point, you know, she has to be in another neighborhood. Because for me, it keeps. Even if it's not acknowledged in later years or whatever, it keeps the integrity of the original neighborhood completely intact. You know, because the Peppermint Patty stuff, like I said this before, it's like it's happening in another strip sometimes. And if it was, I think it would, whether you wanted it or not, if she moved into Charlie Brown's neighborhood, it just by her force of personality becomes the Peppermint Patty strip. And that would be bad.

Harold: And going back to Roy, he, design wise, he's a really interesting character. He just looks really good in the strip. And I do get the feeling, I don't know when Roy kind of comes and goes, I don't know, there was not a whole lot of him. The fact that he's attached to Peppermint Patty, who becomes a huge character in the strip, gives me the thought that he very well could have been an ongoing character. Just like Marcie comes into that world, he's not as far away as anyone else. He could have been there. I kind of do get that vibe, though, that, you know, by five years later, anyway, Franklin kind of takes on that role, of the kind of the level headed friend who if they want to go to the thinking wall and talk about granddads or whatever. Franklin's close enough. He's certainly unique. But, you know, it seems like he fits that, that key on the keyboard for Schulz to the point where unless he had played with Roy and given him some, some quirks and traits that we never really get to see. I mean, what's the quirkiest thing we ever learn about Roy? Is it just that he, he happened to be sad about going to camp?

Jimmy: I think the quirkiest thing is that tomorrow he will still be wearing his camp sailor hat at home.

Harold: That's really interesting. Yeah, he likes the look there. I do like the look of the, the curls popping out from under the, the white hat.

Jimmy: I love the curls. I love. Like I, I drew a character in Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow up that has black curly hair, and I can't get that kind of with a white highlight. Mine just looks unfinished and sloppy. But, so I didn't do it. but I wish I could have because I think that looks really good.

Harold: Well, it's interesting to look at the black outlines when there's so much white around it that they make sense on their own. Like, you take away the white outline, his hair would look pretty fine, right?

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And then he goes crazy on the outside with this extra loopy outline of white, which, if you took away the black, also would work. I think that's maybe the secret to it is that they work individually as well as, as a unit.

Jimmy: I think you're right. That's interesting. And it, gives it that backlit effect, you know?

Harold: Very much so.

Jimmy: Ah, yeah, real nice. 

August 23rd. So Peppermint Patty's just hanging out with Roy now. They're sitting in a chair talking, and Patty says, you say you met this Linus kid at camp. And Roy says, yes. And the year before, I met a friend of his named Charlie Brown. Roy continues. He was a strange, round headed kid who never talked about anything except, baseball and this awful team of his that always loses. Now they're up, and Peppermint Patty is pushing Roy towards the phone and she says, I love baseball. Get on the phone quick. Tell him your friend Peppermint Patty has volunteered to help. She's already into it. Taking over the strip last panel. She says, I really love baseball. I'll take over this kid's team and show them how to win.

Michael: Whoa, that's like a cliffhanger there. First of all, why would Roy have Charlie Brown's phone number?

Jimmy: Maybe put it on the letter. Maybe Charlie Brown sent him a letter.

Harold: Yeah, if you think about it, it's kind of sweet, you know, Charlie Brown wants to continue the relationship, and he is writing Linus. Interestingly, of course, he was the most recent one he met. But we don't know that Charlie Brown and Roy ever met because he couldn't remember his name. And now he remembers his name. That's his name. I guess Linus is drilling it into him.

Michael: He's, not looking at it up. He just goes right and dials.

Harold: yeah, maybe he's got one of those really memorable.

Michael: That's the first trait. That's the first Roy. Roymometer. He's got an amazing memory.

Harold: They're in the same area code. So maybe Charlie Brown's phone number spells welcome.

Jimmy: Well, look, at the risk of talking about one of the things we talk about too much, there's a great moment in the Dick Van Dyke show where he hears a song that he wrote in the army on the radio, and he's outraged. So he goes over to call the radio station, but the actor Dick Van Dyke, forgets that he's supposed to look it up in the phone book. So he just goes over, picks up the phone and dials a bunch of numbers. And as he's standing there, he opens up the phone book, like, to a random page and looks at. And goes, right.

Harold: Oh, that's great.

Jimmy: the look at his face. He just barely stays in character because the audience goes nuts because they know what's happening. Really fun. I have to find it for you. It's so good.

Harold: They'd seen a couple takes already, I guess. That's great. It's so fun to go to a. Have you guys ever been to a live taping of a. Like a comedy show or anything?

Jimmy: not a sitcom, but we. The three of us went along with Karen Gownley. Went to, Colbert years ago, but that was when it was Colbert.

Harold: that's fun.

August 24, 1966. Charlie Brown receives a call from Roy. He says, hello, Roy. Well, what a surprise. How have you been? Roy just goes right to it. Charlie Brown. He's given Peppermint Patty Patty the side eye, by the way, while it's almost like he's a hostage and is doing this against his wall. And Roy goes, Charlie Brown, I have a friend here who wants to meet you. She loves baseball and wants to play on your team. Her name is Peppermint Patty. And then Patty grabs the phone and just goes, hi, Chuck. To which Charlie Brown responds, Chuck? And he has his tongue out like it's literally disgusted him.

Harold: Oh, man, look at that. That little smile on Peppermint Patty in the second panel and then that gigantic, gigantic grin in the third panel. It's such a. It’s full blown. This is a great looking strip. Yeah, all the characters really look good and the expressions are great and the art, even from 65 to 66, when we jumped from the camp scenes with Charlie Brown to the camp scenes with Linus in here. Now at the end of the summer in 66, it just seems like his art style is loosening, as you know, quickly. And Peppermint Patty is the perfect match for a loose art style.

Jimmy: Oh, absolutely. Now this little black, blobby thing that Charlie Brown has on a pedestal and up to his ear, that is what the telephone used to be.

Harold: What do you know about that?

Jimmy: You couldn't even take video on it or be outraged at the government.

Liz: Well, you could, but you could slam it pretty well.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah.

Harold: Yes. And you could also double it as like a fidget spinner because it was a rotary dial. I don't know if some of our younger listeners have ever had the joy of sticking your finger into this disc and turning it to the end where it had a little, a little finger sized stop and then letting it go in here and going.

Jimmy: I remember.

Harold: So nice.

Jimmy: So I grew up in a very, very small company like a coal mining house in Pennsylvania. So there was not a lot of room. So my idea of having privacy on the phone was I would take the phone off the wall and then go into the laundry. It's basically a closet where we had our laundry. And I would sit on top of the laundry and the washer and close the door as if this was privacy. But I also would leave the door open a little bit so I could spin the, the cord. You know, if you get one of those coils

Liz: like a jump, rope.

Harold: Oh, yeah, those things.

Jimmy: Yeah, I remember one.

Harold: Another joy of having a phone. Yeah. Think of all these things we've lost.

Jimmy: Oh, totally. I was talking to a lovely young lady in high school on the phone and I hear this knock on the, the door and I open it up. I'm spinning the crap out of this, this cord. And my dad just goes, hi, Jimmy. Like, hi, dad, I'm going to murder you. Like, oh, oh.

Liz: Just that they also didn't make any noise when you press. I mean, because you're not pressing buttons. It all you get is that you don't hear that.

Jimmy: Yep.

Harold: Right. Because the phone line, the system was listening to how many there were to know what number you dialed. Has anybody thought of like, of creating a, a device for your, your cell phone to plug in with this twisty cord that would go into some physical thing and you can just.

Jimmy: Yeah, it's the twisty cord. Bluetooth is very satisfying.

Harold: Well. So Roy, back to Roy. This poor guy is about to be muscled out after just barely getting to get a little finger hold. Peppermint Patty is not going to be denied here. He served his purpose.

Liz: Maybe he's happy to pass her off to somebody else. Maybe she's a little too much.

Jimmy: That's true. That's.

Harold: Yeah. Roy might have had a full life. he's probably hanging out with Marcie on the off days.

Jimmy: Yeah. And she makes everyone call her Peppermint.

Liz: Why?

August 25, 1966. This continues. And Roy, his entire, job in this panel, is just to give Peppermint Patty the side eye. As Peppermint Patty Patty continues. Now listen, Chuck, I'm going to solve your baseball problem. Problems. You need a take charge guy, don't you, Chuck? Coach Charlie Brown says, chuck, I'm heading across town right now. So you get your team together. Tell them Peppermint Patty is on her way. So long, Chuck. To which Charlie Brown responds, hanging up the phone, Chuck. 

Jimmy: Yeah, he got muscled out. That was amazing.

Harold: So how much more Roy do we get to see after this?

Jimmy: 14 more strips.

Harold: Wow.

Jimmy: No, I just made that up.

Harold: Well, it's not a lot. Right, we know that. Wow.

Jimmy: But how many times do you think Roy has been animated?

Liz: We have listeners who would know.

Jimmy: And this goes all the way up to A Summer Musical.

Harold: so you're in love, Charlie Brown. He's in that. We know that. Our listeners will know how many times Roy gets to be in that world.

Jimmy: According to this, you're in love. Charlie Brown is not listed.

Harold: Oh, I'm, I'm literally looking on the wiki end the strip. And the what?

Jimmy: Here's what I see on the wiki.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: He's your dog, Charlie Brown. It's a short. It was a short summer, Charlie Brown. I don't remember seeing either of those. Snoopy come home. He's silent in most of these. You're a good sport, Charlie Brown. Race for your life, Charlie Brown is this. Goodbye Charlie Brown. Now he has been silent in all of these, except one. Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show Season 2. Also silent. He's a bully. Charlie Brown 2006 Snoopy's presents, it's the Small Things. Charlie Brown, Lucy's School, and Snoopy Presents a summer musical. Yeah. So according to that, it's 11.

Harold: Okay, well, maybe this is even more sad because it does say in the wiki that, the last two strips you just read are adapted and you're in love. Charlie Brown. And he was written out of his own strips.

Jimmy: If that's true, it's unbelievable.

Harold: If that's true, our listeners will know. I know we've got some real Peanuts special experts, so they can let us know the extent of Roy's voice acting anyway. Boy, that's interesting. Poor Roy. But I do like Roy.

Michael: Poor Roy.

Jimmy: Poor Roy. Well, you know, it goes to show you, though, that anytime you're working on something, you have no idea really where it's going to take you. Yep. I do not think he ever meant for Roy to be the bridge to an entire another aspect of the strip,

Harold: but it's very, very cool.

Jimmy: This is completely unrelated, but I want to wrap. So I was looking up Roy things online for this, and one of the things I came across was actually a model sheet for the Bill Melendez Production Studios. And what it is is it shows the relative height of all the characters and animation. Now, I'm gonna each of you give a guess who. I'll tell you right now. Roy is closer to the short end. He's slightly above five. And Pigpen. Who though is the tallest character in Peanuts?

Liz: Shermy

Harold: I would guess Shermy.

Jimmy: Michael, you have a guess.

Michael: Snoopy when he's dancing with his head up.

Jimmy: Probably Jim. Shermy, two Shermies and a, Snoopy. No, Shermy is the third tallest.

Harold: Oh, okay.

Jimmy: The tallest, according to the Bill Melendez, character sheet is Patty with 

Michael: the ponytail counts.

Harold: Wow.

Michael: Oh, Patty.

Jimmy: Ponytail Violet almost is almost as tall as Patty. Yes.

Harold: And then is she second?

Jimmy: Yes. And then Shermie and Charlie Brown.

Michael: Yeah. Well, girls are taller than boys at that age, generally.

Liz: At that age. Yeah, definitely.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: So they are the older kid bully characters as far as Melendez is concerned. And when would this have existed, do you think? When would this, model sheet have been?

Jimmy: 68 this was written.

Harold: Okay, that's really interesting. So they are considered older kids by the end of their major run in this strip.

Jimmy: And then there are actual little. It's actually very interesting because there's little notes that says when Lucy is with Charlie Brown, she can be more noticeably smaller.

Jimmy: When Linus is with Lucy, he can be more noticeably shorter. So they'll actually adjust it depending on who they're in frame with.

Liz: But that's only true in the animation or.

Jimmy: Yeah, this is for the. I mean, as far as I know. I don't. I don't know, but I. I think it.

Harold: Liz, it's because that is what Schulz did.

Liz: Okay.

Harold: And I love that Melendez was the kind of animator who would be willing to throw out a rule that some animators would not allow themselves to do, because those model sheets are the consistency. And since Schulz broke the consistency in so many different ways of how he drew these characters, creating all sorts of insane problems for Melendez. He does do an amazing job of just keeping the strip, the flat strip that it was, and whatever those ineffable things are that, you know, if you change it, you don't know what you're losing. Yeah, he just leans into Schulz's eccentricities and just tries to teach them to his animators and say, yeah, I know, right?

Jimmy: Oh, I'm sure. I love that they included Roy in the, in the lineup of characters. They thought 68 Roy could be making a comeback anytime here. 

And we could be making a comeback, too. As a matter of fact, we will. In two weeks, we will be back where we're talking. We're going to wrap it up actually, on the Sidekicks and a second banana season with possibly the quintessential the goat of sidekicks and second bananas. That's right. We've heard your cries. You wanted a Shermy episode, you're getting an all Shermy episode, so come back for that. 

In the meantime, if you want to keep this conversation going, there's a couple different ways you can do it. First thing you gotta do is you gotta go over to unpacking peanuts.com and sign up for the old great Peanuts reread. That'll give you one email a month that will let you know what shenanigans we're up to on the podcast, what strips we're going to be covering. You can also email us@unpacking peanutsmail.com or you can call our hotline, which is 717-219-4162. Leave a message or a voicemail. And if you do leave a voicemail, make sure you identify yourself. And of course, as always, on good old social media, we are @unpackpeanuts on Instagram and threads and unpacking, peanuts on Facebook, blue sky, and YouTube. 

That's it for this week. It's always fun hanging out with you guys. Come back soon and we'll talk more about this great comic strip for Michael, Harold and Liz. This is Jimmy saying, be of good cheers.

LH&M: Yes, yes, yes. Be of good cheer.

VO: Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional voiceover by Aziza 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 unpacking peanuts.com. have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

Jimmy: They won't tease me more than once.