Understanding Snoopy #1- Super Minimalist Snoopy

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. It's your old pals from Unpacking Peanuts. We are back. It's a new era. The future lies unwritten before us. And, and I'm so excited that you're here with us. I'll be your host for these exciting, adventurous proceedings. My name is Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist. I did things like Amelia Rules, Seven Good Reasons not to Grow up, the Dumbest idea ever. And of course, you could read my new comics over there on gvillecomics.substack.com.

Joining me as always, are my pals, co hosts and fellow cartoonists. He's a playwright and a composer 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: I should have something new. Instead of say hey, 

Jimmy: all right, well. You think about that.

Liz: We'll come back to you.

Michael: All right, Say hey.

Jimmy: And he's executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former Vice president of Archie Comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts is Harold Buchholz.

Harold: Hello.

Jimmy: And making sure we stay out of trouble and everything runs smoothly, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.

Liz: Howdy.

Jimmy: Now we are, you know what, are these new hellos and stuff? I should have approval of these.

Michael: Wait a minute. I know exactly who that is. That's from Hee Haw.

Liz: Opry.

Michael: Grand Old Opry.

Jimmy: Oh, yes. Minnie Pearl.

Harold: Minnie Pearl. Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy: All right. I'm sure the young people out there are like, finally some Minnie Pearl content.

Harold: That's right.

Jimmy: So welcome back to the show. we have completed our great Peanuts reread. We are now in uncharted territory. Yeah, I'm excited. I think it'll be fun. I'm happy that we're doing Snoopy. I think that's really exciting. I think it's going to be, it's fun because I think Snoopy has become such an icon yet again in recent years, particularly with younger people. But not a lot of them are super familiar with the strip. So should anyone happen upon these podcasts, in the great distance future and they want to know about Snoopy, we'll be here to tell them. 

What are your Thoughts, Harold, are you excited about Snoopy? Are you excited about, do you have any other thoughts about some of our other things we might be doing coming up? Any. Any directions you want to take us on?

Harold: I'm going to let you kind of guide the way for a bit here. I'm just enjoying the ride. And Snoopy is a great way to jump out of 50 years of 17,897 strips and into topics, because I can. We agree. Snoopy's greatest cartoon character of all time.

Jimmy: I think, has to be, I mean, completely original, has very few, if any, antecedents, lasts forever, is loved around the world. Yeah.

Harold: I'd love to try to answer the impossible question. Why? We've obviously dipped into it, but here we've got five dedicated episodes going through highlights of his career in the strip. Why. Why is this character just. I don't know anybody who said, I don't like Snoopy. I don't think I've ever heard that. That phrase. I'm sure there's somebody. There's always somebody.

Jimmy: Yeah, well, the contrarians, sure.

Harold: Oh, sure. Yeah. Or maybe you had a Snoopy plush toy and the head fell off and it … or something. Who knows? You know, I had a Mickey Mouse that did that to me, so I don't hold it against him at this point, though.

Jimmy: Yeah, I'm excited. I do have one other thing which is completely unrelated, but I think this will be fun for people who have followed our podcast, you know, thus far. So, Michael, I was reading this comic strip the other day you may have heard of, called Strange Attractors, Ring a Bell? And it was so. It made me laugh out loud. It was not a joke, but it's, funny if people know you. But, you know, the gang is involved in a little adventure. Well, an epic adventure. And Sophie says something like, well, can't you just magic our problem away? And then Pirate Peg goes, no, even in magic, there has to be rules. It's just like physics. And I'm like, wow, there is an in universe rant about there being rules. That was awesome.

Michael: Well, we had a Dungeons and Dragons group for many, many years, and three of us were Dungeon Masters. And for years and years afterwards, we just get together and talk about how you can improve the game. And we made a million changes, but a lot of discussions on magic and how important it was to have some kind of restraint on it, because if you don't, then basically there's no suspense. You can just get out of anything. Yeah. So we always say, you know, well, there's got to be some kind of kickback if you use it. There's a, there's a risk of something bouncing back at you. It had to be dangerous anyway, so that, that sort of came out of years and years of discussion about magic.

Jimmy: I feel that at, four years old you would have done that. I don't think there needed to be any discussion. That would have been you out of the womb. There's gotta be rules.

Michael: No, no, I didn't have rules when I was in the womb.

Jimmy: All right, well, so with all that said...

VO, it's Snoopy Watch.

Jimmy: We are going to go through these Snoopy strips. We're starting back at the beginning in this episode. Michael has picked, the strips, but we're gonna keep them going forward. I'm gonna pick some. And our goal is to just try to figure out, you know, like Harold said, what's going on with this Snoopy, why is he so popular? And, can we help put our fingers on it?

Michael: So wait, wait, before you read it in, I'm going to do a little prelude.

Jimmy: All right, go ahead.

Michael: Okay. So we started off with Snoopy1950s. Because the 50s was the decade where I discovered Peanuts.

Jimmy: You don't say.

Michael: And, this was a little tricky actually. It was very difficult, doing the 50s. And part of the problem was there was too much for me, way too much for me. But I had rules, of course. And one of the rules was we're not going to redo any strips we've already talked about. I confess my, intention was to check the Google sheet after I picked a strip to make sure we didn't talk about it. And I might have missed one or two. Sorry. And then, the other rule was, we're gonna limit it to 20 per decade. And what I myself imposed rule was I wanted to cover the various, phases of Snoopy's career in the 50s. And which meant that I did pick some very early strips, not because I think they're in the top 20, but because there's two distinct Snoopies in this decade. And the transition happens pretty smoothly but pretty quick. 

Harold: So, I guess this is the decade Snoopy changes the most, right, Michael, Would you say that?

Michael: Well, he goes from puppy to like insane person.

Harold: That's extreme.

Michael: He goes from cute to not cute at all.

Michael: There'll be more morphing in the future, but this is pretty extreme. you wouldn't recognize them as the same character if you showed them to someone who'd never seen Peanuts, he'd say, there's two dogs.

Harold: Yeah, right.

Michael: Clearly.

Harold: Huge difference.

Michael: The huge difference. And the thing is, the classic 50s Snoopy has virtually no relationship to later Snoopy. Again, it's a completely different body type. And personality wise, this is the decade where Snoopy was the funniest character in the strip. For me, this is the Snoopy that I grew up with and I relate to the most.

Harold: the crazy one or.

Michael: the crazy one. The cute Snoopy, you know, lasts a couple of years. And they weren't particularly funny. It was just, they're cute. That's why.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: You know, people do like cute animals in comics, as Harold knows well. But within a few years, he morphed into just an amazing comedian, purposely trying to be funny and also being insanely manic. So this is like, most of this is pre doghouse. Doghouse didn't even come into the late 50s. So when we see Snoopy, he's usually dashing around dancing, furiously knocking stuff over, trying to knock people over, ruining their games, making funny faces. And even when he's by himself, he's just nuts. And I'm thinking he reminds me of kind of the burlesque period of comics that extended into, like, TV and in the 50s where a lot of the guys came out of, you, know, the burlesque comedy shows where you had, you know, three, four minutes and you had to be as funny as possible. And there was really two schools. There was a very intellectual school where you had people like, you know, Mort Saul or even Jack Benny, who was very cool and, you know, maybe his expression was funny and he's. He's mostly reacting to other people's humor. And then there were a couple of comedians who, like, just totally manic, like Jerry Lewis or Danny Kaye, who were always on and trying to just overpower everybody with how crazy they were. And I think that's what Snoopy became, was like he was just being hilarious all the time and enjoyed annoying people, but he enjoyed making people laugh too.

Harold: Yeah, it's like Charlie Brown kind of starts as the wiseacre, and Snoopy quickly takes over that role.

Michael: Yeah, seems like. So you'll see. You know, I felt I had to a cover some of the cute Snoopy puppy strips.

Harold: Thank you.

Michael: And then when we got into the meat of the stuff, there were so many and we already covered a lot of them, so I had to skip those. But I wanted to pick a variety of the famous Snoopy schticks. I think this is like a good Sampler.

Harold: Great.

Michael: Okay.

Jimmy: Sounds good to me. All right, let's get started with those strips. 

August 4, 1951. We see good old pigtailed Violet running in, and she says, I thought I told Snoopy to stay out of that bird bath. And then in the next panel, we see Violet chastising Snoopy, and he is, in fact, sitting in the bird bath. And she says, you get out of there, Snoopy. You're not a bird. And then, Snoopy is, in fact, out of the bird bath in the next panel as Violet starts to walk away, and she says, no one is allowed in there unless he has wings. And then Violet turns around to see Snoopy back in the bird bath, and he has his ears out, mimicking wings.

Michael: Yeah. And he's fluttering them. Yeah. I mean, Snoopy, part of his 50 schtick is imitations. And this is. I don't know if it's the first, but it's very.

Jimmy: Is this the first? I cannot believe it's the second time through and we're saying. I don't. There's no way to know. Is this the first? It's impossible to tell.

Michael: Nobody could possibly know.

Harold: These are three classic early, cute Snoopy drawings. You got the little profile looking straight into Violet's eyes with a little eyebrow and a cute little upturned smile. Then the next panel is the mouthless, kind of sad Snoopy. It's adorable. And then you've got the little side eye comma eyed Snoopy doing the airplane. It's all very, very cute. And obviously, Schulz knew how to do that really, really well.

Jimmy: And we're in this early period where he's totally in space saving mode, you know, no backgrounds whatsoever. The only thing is the bird bath, because obviously you need it for the gag to be sold, but otherwise it's a blank square.

Harold: Yeah, it's not even the full height of a square like we were seeing in the later strips. It's a rectangle where you. Yeah. You didn't benefit from extra width. You just had it chopped off at the top even more. You know, it was a space saving strip when they sold it, right?

Jimmy: Yep.

Harold: Was not a very good sales, tool, apparently, since it started in so few newspapers. But he was stuck with it, you know, and he made the most of it. And I think his style came out of his limitations, right?

Jimmy: Oh, it absolutely did. Absolutely did. You know, if he had a half of a sheet of paper, I think he would have gone for, you know, the mid-50s Sunday styles, I think, probably. But it was, It was actually a huge benefit to him because it made it instantly iconic.

Harold: I wonder at what point he did get the pre printed, since everything was always the same, so he didn't have to rule that out because he's got that famous Peanuts in quotes in white. White serif font against black in the upper left hand corner, which he had for so long. Either he had to paste that down or some at some point, like, oh, wait a second, I can actually. I don't think at this point, he could probably afford to go somewhere and say, hey, could you please print on Bristol Board this thing over and over again so I don't have to do it? I would guess this would be too early for him to feel like that was a luxury he could figure out, but looks good.

Jimmy: I still am interested in that. The brush strokes that are used for Violet's hair, if it's a really super flexible pen. But I think he's just putting those in with a brush.

Harold: That looks like a brush, too.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Looks super brushy. I don't really like it. It just calls attention to it.

Jimmy: Yeah, it does.

Harold: Yeah. it's for an artist anyway. Maybe someone who's not. Doesn't know what brush strokes in their pure form look like.

Jimmy: Wouldn't even think about it. Yeah.

Harold: Yeah. Does it bother you, Liz? I mean, is it something that when you look at the first panel of Violet's hair, does it seem odd with the white and the black?

Liz: I don't think I would have understood what it was that bothered me. But it isn't as attractive as some of the other ways of doing hair. But I am struck by how cute Violet looks in that last panel.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Liz: I mean, she's angry in the first three, but she's adorable in the fourth.

Harold: Yeah. Because, Violet and Michael have that in common. They would stay out of that bird bath. You can't be there if you're not a bird.

Jimmy: These are rules, people. 

May 26, 1953. Charlie Brown notices that Snoopy is listening to a record player. Charlie Brown thinks. Then he comes over to Snoopy, who is beyond excited, as Charlie Brown says to him, all right, we'll play it once more. But just once more. That's all. And the music plays again. And Snoopy, is just delighted about it. And then Charlie Brown walks away saying, 300 times is enough for anyone to listen to Doggy in the Window.

Michael: I'm surprised this did not get picked the first round.

Harold: Okay, so what do you think is going on with the ears, Michael, we just jumped ahead a little less than two years.

Michael: Pretty big, huh?

Harold: Yeah, it's like that second panel, he's almost got a Mickey Mouse kind of.

Michael: Yeah, well, this is the origin of him being able to imitate Mickey Mouse.

Harold: Yeah, but it's like he's got a bouffant on his ears or something.

Liz: He looks a little like Beethoven in the first panel.

Jimmy: Yeah, very much. I don't think, looking. I don't know that I would agree that he's a completely different character. I think he looks like a puppy version of the adult Snoopy. And, you know, he does have a totally different body type, but, you know, so do I, like. You know what I mean? I think. I think it's. It reads a Snoopy to me.

Michael: Well, the point is now I think. I don't know if that's an actual puppy quality, but it's very different than his later snouts.

Jimmy: Yeah, it's very different, but I still think people would know it's Snoopy.

Harold: But even in this strip, the three panels we see of Snoopy, each version is. Is different. Like you mentioned the pointy snout in panel two, and it's a little thicker and rounder in panel one. And then you get a totally different angle of Snoopy in panel three. That makes me think of Ernie Bushmiller. Yeah, maybe because the eyes are perfect round circles, and the faces are kind of wide there, and the ears are wide. It just looks like he dropped right into a, Fritzy Ritz Nancy comic really easily. But, yeah, this Snoopy, to me is from. Cuteness is a regression. He's. He's not. I mean, he's still cute in that first panel, very much. And he's pretty cute in the second one. But from that first strip, it's kind of a step back in the cuteness.

Michael: well, he's less cute, but he is moving towards less cuteness. So that's two years later. So this is. Yeah, sort of an in between phase.

Harold: But if you were looking at. In that first panel, you're looking at the first half of Snoopy's face, and you didn't see the ear. And then you pulled back to reveal the ear, you'd be like, whoa, that is not what I was expecting to be on the back of his head there.

Jimmy: I just did that with my hand. It real. When you do that, it really highlights how weird that it. That is. I think we talked about this. I called it the Larry Fine.

Harold: Well, the other thing that strikes me is that, Something that I really started to notice and just take for granted because Schulz is such an amazing cartoonist, and he seems to be so good at finding what works, even though it breaks the rules because it looks good. He wants to emphasize certain things that when he had a profile and you had the little back legs, in the end, the back legs were, like, tiny. They were tiny, like 16th the size of the front leg. And here he's following the rule that the back leg has to be in the. And the paw has to be the same size. Exactly. And at some point, that doesn't. That's not meaningful anymore to him. And he's able to break that drawing rule and that rule of, you know, the model of the character has to follow. You know, if you have a front paw, the back paw's got to be the same size. That goes away at some point.

Jimmy: Yeah, well, the other thing that goes away, is just, his perspective here, like, you know, where he'll be putting characters behind other characters. Like in panel 3, he does it, but rarely later, you know.

Harold: Yeah, that's true.

Jimmy: And then in the 50s, I think, you know, we're still right here, ah, at this super minimal, modernist look. But eventually, as we get into, like, the Sunday pages of the 50s, you'll see, like, really elaborate backgrounds. So he was still interested in, like, that type of drawing, you know, but eventually it becomes all iconography again.

Harold: And one other thing that looks unusual now is his word balloons. He set a rule for himself after a while, and now, you know, the strip started to be square instead of wide rectangles at the beginning here in the later strips. But he created the rule for himself that the text is almost always going to be starting at the upper left hand corner, running all the width of. Until I run out of text to write. And then I'll have a little, you know, line with a pointing balloon underneath it. And you won't see a floating balloon or you won't see the edge of. Of the circle of the balloon. Like you see in the second panel here in the upper right hand corner. And, you know, the fourth panel, he's got a totally floating balloon. And for some reason, I guess, he decided that that was taking away from the characters by having design in the balloons. And so he became kind of rigid in that way. So you're just focusing on the characters, and the balloons are just delivering the text and not becoming an art element.

Liz: Well, isn't it related to the fact that there's no backgrounds? I mean, he can do more things with balloons when there isn't anything that it's covering.

Harold: I think so. I think that's true. Yeah. He is super minimalist in this beginning. And he is working technically with less space, at least related to his peers right on the comic strip page, because they've chopped off the tops of his strip, and in some cases, they're running it in a column. So he has to design, assuming the editors might stick it into a tinier space than the massive cartoons that were still being printed in newspapers in 1952 and three.

October 11, 1954. Charlie Brown is operating one of those fantastic new Brownie cameras. I don't know if it is, but it's a camera. And he's taking a picture of Snoopy, who is, glowering at him. And Charlie Brown says, come on, Snoopy, give me a smile. And then Snoopy gives him a smile, but he's actually just making a ridiculous face. And then Charlie Brown, getting annoyed, says, oh, come on, give me a big smile. And then in the next panel, Snoopy gives him an absolutely insane face. This is something you're really gonna have to look at to get the full value for it. Wild eyes, fangs bared, tongue sticking out, ridiculous, smile. And, that sends Charlie Brown into a rage. He's chasing Snoopy on. You drive me crazy. And as Snoopy runs away, he has a big smile on his face.

Michael: This is like mid period Snoopy already. And we're like four years. yeah, that little sausage upper mouth. Skinny, whereas it's really globular. Later on, by the way, when I saw panel three. Makes me laugh still. You know what reminds me of. It's Basil Wolverton.

Jimmy: Yes.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: Doing these MAD magazine cover. I think some covers and illustrations were basically. It was like the most grotesque.

Liz: Oh, yeah.

Michael: Images you can imagine. Of a form.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: That was very popular.

Jimmy: Yeah. Famously, Al Capp had a character called Lena the hyena, who was supposed to be, like, the least attractive person in the world. And they did a contest of who could draw the ugliest character.

Harold: And Basil Wolverton won because we had never seen Lena. Right. They just talked about her.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

Harold: In the strip. And so Basil won. Is it Basil or Basil?

Michael: Basil. I don't know.

Jimmy: It could be. It probably is Basil. I think that.

Harold: I think it is Basil. I think I know somebody who was a big fan.

Michael: But panel three is not a cute Snoopy. This would not be on your T shirt.

Harold: Well, someone's T shirt.

Liz: It shocks Charlie Brown.

Harold: Yeah, Well, I mean. And if just three strips we've gone through in what year Was this here?

Liz: 54.

Harold: 54. So you're left just looking at this relative size of Snoopy to Violet and then Charlie Brown in the second and then this third one. Snoopy is getting to be as close, much closer to the size of the kids in this period. And also already that, that back haunch is starting to shrink in relationship to the front haunch. He's starting to break the rules even now. But it's still close. It's closer than certainly what we saw later. Still.

Michael: The ears are huge.

Harold: Yeah, yeah, the ears are still. What would you call them? Fluffy or big? Big. Almost huge. Yeah, yeah. They're these ovals. These like football size ovals. I guess he's a football year at this point.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Liz: And the Brownie camera has a strap on the top so that Charlie Brown can hold it and use it like a mallet.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Look at the size of Snoopy's, feet, especially in panel three. Yeah, he's going to be a big dog.

Michael: Yeah. But also the snout, the way he's doing the snout during this period. It's flexible.

Harold: Yeah. Panel four, it's pretty thin there. Right.

Michael: The first three we saw, it's kind of pointy. It's not gonna bend very much.

Michael: Now he's the 1950s Snoopy is. He can bend that snout in any direction he wants.

Harold: Yeah. That's really interesting. And it gives, gives a dynamism to his character. I mean, the Peanuts kids pretty much stay inflexible through the entire run of the strip. But Snoopy breaks free.

Jimmy: So let's stop for just a second and talk about. Are we. What would he have been influenced by to create a dog in a comic strip at this point? There was. How many famous dogs were there in comics before Snoopy?

Harold: There was the very first one I thought of Buster Brown, Tighe.

Michael: Yeah.

Harold: Blondie had Daisy and Daisy was in the movies and just people loved Daisy and then had pups. And that was a, that was a famous moment in American culture when.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And then there was the. Was it Fifi the dog and bringing up Father? That's just this little art deco pointy nose, looks like a mouse. It's beautifully designed but kind of forgotten today. But I'm trying to think there's things.

Michael: That Schulz Officer Pup and they're just.

Jimmy: All very much dogs.

Michael: Yeah, that's the thing. Snoopy at this point is no longer a dog. He was a dog in the first Three, even though, you know, dog's not going to listen to doggy in the window, he's still sitting much like a dog.

Michael: Who likes music. this is not a dog.

Harold: Right. And some. Who were the, who were the dogs that. Who were the dogs that broke the rules that might have.

Michael: I think it's just funny animals. I mean, you get Bugs Bunny, you got Woody Woodpecker.

Harold: Felix the cat. You know, try turn your tail into a question mark. And all of that sort of thing had been around.

Jimmy: But it's. Yeah, but that's. As he progresses, he becomes that way. But that would not have been. That are that early impetus.

Harold: What's that now?

Jimmy: Well, like he becomes more like, Felix the cat and whatever later.

Harold: Okay. I mean, because I was thinking of the things, the animals or the characters that would have given him the permission to go the direction Michael's describing. And I think like Eugene the Jeep. That's not. It's a jeep. It's a strange animal. Or the schmoo.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Are these, these oddball animals that break the rules, but they're cute and they're.

Michael: I think his influences at this right now 54 is animation, not comic strips.

Harold: You think animation. Why do you say that?

Michael: Because I think this is something. Faces getting distorted that much, you know, maybe for a second and then back to normal.

Harold: Like a Tex Avery kind of.

Michael: Yeah.

Harold: Exaggeration. Because. And then. And the interesting thing is that he designed the kids where he really couldn't do that much with them. But Snoopy, he's. He's slowly changing so that he can. So yeah, he's he seems to be slowly giving himself more permission to go on the edges of things. And it's fascinating to watch. And just these three strips are really good choices to give us a sense of what he's willing to do with Snoopy.

October 17, 1955. Snoopy and Lucy, are, In the first panel, Lucy has squatted down to Snoopy's level and she says, sit up Snoopy, and I'll give you a reward. And he does it. He sits up on his hind legs and does a little begging pose. And Lucy very excitedly says, that's the way. And then she says, here then is a dog's greatest reward. A pat on the head by a human being. She pats Snoopy on the head. Pat, pat. And then an outraged Snoopy, after she leaves in the last panel, thinks to himself, oh, good grief.

Michael: Yeah, it's anger. This is part of his character in the 50s is being treated like a dog.

Jimmy: Yeah, he does not like that.

Harold: When you look at that second panel, Snoopy, does it make you think of anything? Any particular character other than kangaroos? For some reason it makes me think of Huckleberry Hound, the flathead, which is right around this era for. From TV animation. It's, it's, it's slightly angular in the way he's designed it. That's a really interesting Snoopy.

Michael: Huckleberry hound’s from the 50s? I thought it was a 60s.

Harold: Oh, let me double check real quick. Okay. So they were just starting to stylize the characters in the way I was kind of describing. But Huckleberry Hound himself doesn't show up till 58.

Michael: Really? That's still there. Way earlier than I would have thought. Okay, well, let's talk about ears here. They seem to be a little thinner.

Harold: Yeah. A little more. What do you. I mean, it's now it's like a deflated. football on one side now. Yeah, it's like a kidney bean or something.

Michael: Yeah. The snout, definitely. This is a little longer.

Michael: Now it's growing.

Harold: Well, the back paw, smaller again than the one prior. It's shrinking, shrinking.

Michael: And still no backgrounds. But he's thinking. So you know, we made. I'm sure we picked the first Snoopy thoughts when we were picking year by year in the 50s. But yeah, at this point that's the classic. That's how Snoopy communicates from now on. There are a few panels, if you recall that they actually had regular word balloons like he was talking, but that didn't work.

Jimmy: Yeah, well, he was doing the, puffy cloud balloon with the pointer. Right. Those hybrid balloons. And that's just twice as confusing as it needs to be. You know, one of the things that's strange, I've been doing, that in the Real Dark night on Substack. And you know, it has thought balloons in it. And every time I do it, I like. You know, there's a whole generation of kids that grew up reading comic books without thought balloons. If they read Marvel and DC because.

Harold: They were bad, the guy just got rid of them kind of.

Jimmy: No, there was an actually like a fiat from editorial in D.C. that was like, thought balloons are stupid and childish, so don't use them in Green Lantern.

Harold: What?

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, yeah. Literally they were not allowed to use.

Harold: What a shame.

Jimmy: Oh, it's ridiculous.

Harold: It's one of the.

Liz: No thinking.

Jimmy: Yeah, no thinking.

Harold: Don't ever let a character think it's Stupid and childish.

Jimmy: Everything went well. Everything converted to captions as if it's like a voiceover. And then they put like the logo of the character in the balloon or in the box. So you know who's talking, who's thinking.

Harold: So what era would this have been?

Jimmy: It's. I think it's still going on.

Harold: Okay. So.

Jimmy: Yeah, that's.

Harold: That's interesting. I'm not a huge fan of superhero comics, but, those, those are things that I absolutely loved about those. I think of the early Spider Man. He's. He's thinking through his origin story. He's thinking through all of these things. And it's all his interior while he's.

Michael: Falling off this guy's grave.

Harold: Yeah. No one to nobody to talk to. Right. It'd be kind of silly if he was talking out loud while he's swinging between buildings and, you know, just talking into the wind. And then the other thing I always loved about early comics that I was told, maybe I heard it from you, Jimmy, that I thought, what a shame that this went out of style and was considered inappropriate was when you had the caption and it describes the thing you're seeing. You know, with an, you know, with an amazing show of, strength. Superman sweeps in under the bridge and, and rescues the children in the school bus and takes them to safety or something like that. To me, reading it and seeing it at the same time is. Is the magic of comics. And then they said, no, you know, don't. Why are you telling? Because you're showing. But to me, somehow the two are like magic when they're.

Michael: Well, I think it was the Hernandez brothers in the early 80s from Love and rockets who did away with meanwhile, two days later, on the other side of town. Those kind of captions.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: So it gets to the point where they're changing locations and even time. And there's no way to describe like five years ago.

Harold: No warning.

Michael: The guys were so good that you could tell from like the hairstyles that, oh, this is five years earlier.

Jimmy: I remember the first time I saw that in Love and rockets, where it's Izzy standing in one panel in one pose. And then the next panel she's standing in the same pose, but she's wearing different clothes and looks younger. And you're like, oh, this was 10 years ago. And thought, wow, that's, that's cool.

Michael: So I think that caught on. But it was kind of shocking at first.

Jimmy: Well. And the thing about things that catch on, the genius. This is like Eddie Van Halen, like wow, that's amazing to hear you do that. I don't want to hear the next 30,000 people who aren't as good as you try to do that. you know, I think that's a lot of problems. I think some people need those Meanwhile, on the other side of town.

Michael: Well, but there's those rules, and they are rules kind of sink in where, you know, no word balloons, because they don't use, I mean, thought balloons. No thought balloons, no descriptive captions.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: find other ways of doing it. And Jaime, in his first love and true Maggie story, makes it, All the captions are from a letter she's writing that didn't last long. But that was another way of getting around thought balloons and dialogue she's writing.

Jimmy: Well, I guess. And that also gives it the, feel that Harold is looking for, where it is very much telling you the story in those words, and then you're seeing a picture that confirms it. I never thought about that, but even though I felt. And to this day, that strip feels. It's called Mechanics, and it's in Love and Rockets number two. Feels like a super modern thing to me, but it's really looking back, I never thought about it that way until right now.

Harold: Interesting.

November 17, 1955. Charlie Brown and Snoopy are hanging out in the curb like they used to before the thinking wall was a thing. And Snoopy looks a little annoyed. And Charlie Brown says to him, I won't believe it until I see it. Do you hear me? And then, they both notice that Violet is walking down the street right past them. And then in panel three, Snoopy jumps up and joins her. He falls right in line behind Violet, and he takes his ear, which, is normally hanging down like a regular dog's ear. And, he makes it so it resembles the bun in Violet's hair. And he m. Mimics her facial expression and her posture as Charlie Brown watches. And then a kind of semi disgusted Charlie Brown says to Snoopy, after it's over, all right, I was wrong. You can do imitations. And, there's a big smile. 

Jimmy: There's no way we didn't do this strip.

Harold: It feels like something we would have picked.

Michael: No, he was doing. He was doing a lot of imitations. This was. I don't think this was one.

Liz: It doesn't matter.

Michael: But what's in-- 

Jimmy: the rules, Liz, The rules.

Michael: What's interesting here is what's implied in panel one. That Charlie Brown is hearing Snoopy’s thoughts.

Harold: Right. That's a really good point. Yeah. I won't believe it until I see it. Do you hear me? How would he know?

Jimmy: someone else saw it and said if, like, Linus saw it and said, hey, your dog does imitations.

Harold: Yeah. But then he's talking to Snoopy, saying, I won't believe it's.

Jimmy: Well, yeah, that's. Yeah, right. So Linus says that to him, and then he sits down next to Snoopy and, has a conversation which we don't see the beginning of the.

Harold: Well, then we can also see that.

Jimmy: My dad Was a war hero, by the way. And I'm like, you know, I think Charlie Brown. He must be so proud of me. I think Snoopy's snout is slightly too pointy.

Liz: Different strengths.

Jimmy: Different strengths. Yeah. One had some. Oh.

Harold: Well, then we can flip that and say that this strip at least makes it look like Snoopy can understand Charlie Brown.

Jimmy: Yes, definitely.

Michael: No, but he always could, I think. I think the other, Going the other way around. It starts somewhere, but this might not be the first time. But eventually, before too long, everyone can hear what Snoopy's thinking.

Harold: Yeah. It gets into that surreal, dreamlike territory. Now, once again, that rear paw’s about now 40% of the size of the front.

Jimmy: I mean, that's tiny.

Harold: Yeah. And it's going to get even smaller.

Jimmy: But it's also the pro. His. The feet. The front feet are way too big.

Michael: Panel three. They are. It's a reversal in panel three and panel.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Harold: It's interesting. Yeah. And it's interesting to see what he's doing and why that rear paw is so tiny. He has the arch of Snoopy's back going into his tail, and he does not want that broken by the. The rear haunch because he loves the design of this. The swoop of that back, and he does not want something to break that. And I. That's really cool, actually.

Jimmy: Do you know what I think? What makes it work? The fact that he has such fluidity, particularly with Snoopy's design. But everybody's design, really. It's that one. There is nothing else. No extraneous stuff. So everything that's there he, like, wants you to look at. But the inking is so smooth, and there's not a lot of, you know, filigree hatching and stuff like that. So it makes everything look intentional. There's no point where you're thinking. You're almost not even thinking about it as a drawing. You know, it's just it. That's not a drawing of Snoopy and Violet that's just Snoopy and Violet because nothing, you know, there's no. The wavy line isn't a thing. you know, there's no bad drawing choices like, say, I would make. you know, it's just the intentionality of it is so precise that you don't think about the fact that he's breaking all sorts of anatomical rules with these characters.

Harold: Yeah. And one thing that Schulz is, has been messing around a little bit in these early strips, and you really see it when he's imitating Violet is that really interesting black shape of the, of the ear and the nose where you add a little bit of the white on the edges and a sheen and somehow that just gives a little more pop to the things. You see it in the first panel with Snoopy's nose. It's definitely there and then it kind of disappears. And there's a little bit of white on the, the side and bottom of his ear in that first panel. But Violet, really nice design of her hair where you can see. You, know she's. You feel like she has jet black hair and she's catching the light of the sun and it's got sheen all around it, and it's got these design elements of the circle of the bush. She's got the bun on the top of her head there, and then this line around it that suggests that there, there's, there's. It's just really shining in the sun. And so when Snoopy gets behind her, all of a sudden his ear.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Has that sheen. And we're going to see more of Snoopy having that in the future. He does, he does it a little bit, but in these reproductions it looks like he's kind of halfway between. You can't really see it because it all smudges together and, and it really being defined like in the fourth panel is kind of like that. And he does that in earlier strips we were just looking at. But I feel like he kind of nails that later as part of that perfect Snoopy design.

November 22, 1955. Charlie, Brown is following his very self satisfied looking Snoopy. And Charlie Brown says, whoever heard of a dog doing imitations? It's silly. That's what it is. I don't know why I bother talking about it. And at this point, as Charlie Brown is ranting, Snoopy catches, his eye, catches something off panel. And then we see, in the next panel, Lucy sitting there on the curb just smiling behind the camera, her own business. And Snoopy sits next to her and arranges his ears in a perfect copy of Lucy's hairstyle. And Charlie Brown looks at the two of them and yells, oh, stop. It baffles Lucy, who says, stop it. Stop what? Charlie Brown and, Charlie Brown and Snoopy walk away with Charlie Brown saying, never mind. What you don't know won't hurt you.

Harold: Little happy Snoopy running off.

Liz: That was in the Snoopy Rinehart collection, where I'd first discovered Peanuts.

Harold: So it really stands out in your memory.

Liz: Oh, really. Yeah. A strong memory of that one.

Harold: Yes. Boy, that. That nose is getting there. It's long, getting elongated. The ear still is a little bouffanty.

Jimmy: But when we see this next strip, I mean, he looks like he has an eating disorder. There was something severely wrong with him. 

June 23, 1956. Snoopy is sitting on top of a croquet pole, and he's, just, having his own little sit in, I guess. And Charlie Brown comes up to him and says, so you won't come down, eh? Ah. And then a defiant Snoopy is still staying on top of the pole. And Charlie Brown shakes his fist and says, then, you know what we're going to do? We're going to ignore you. And then Charlie Brown walks away, and Snoopy watches him and, stays on top of the pole. And then the last panel, Snoopy has slid to the bottom of the pole and thinks to himself, rats. I can't stand being ignored.

Michael: Okay, imagine a 1970s Snoopy in that pose. I mean, I don't know if he could even do it because he's so bendable.

Harold: Yeah, this Snoopy is. He's not cute anymore, that's for sure. This is. This is such a different Snoopy than what we started out with here.

Jimmy: Well, this is, the part where Schulz calls that. He said he was appalled at the way he drew Snoopy in this era.

Michael: I love that so much.

Harold: It's very, it's very expressive. It's like this Snoopy in this time in the 50s means something different to Schulz in the strip. There's this independence in Snoopy, and. Yeah, I mean, the fact that he's not a cute little dog anymore somehow redefines him.

Michael: He's a chaos agent. That's what he is.

Harold: Yeah. And I mean, but you can use.

Michael: In the strip, because that just keeps things sound, like a croquet game, which is boring.

Liz: You love croquet.

Michael: Yeah, but it is boring. Boring to watch.

Harold: And it's fascinating to me that. Okay. That those rear. Rear Haunches we've been talking about been shrinking, shrinking, shrinking. Now with his butt kind of going down by sitting on just, this tiny little croquet post, he can angle the back feet as if they are also on top of the post. Possibly impossibly. I guess you could say he's just broken all of his own rules for this character. Now he looks so incredibly different.

Liz: I'm curious about the difference between panel one and panel two. They're approximately the same pose, but Charlie Brown is a whole lot shorter in the second, panel.

Michael: Yeah. That's weird.

Harold: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, he's trying to, I think, show the Snoopy's kind of regal, haughty pose, that somehow Snoopy has gotten larger in relationship to Charlie Brown, metaphorically. That's quite a panel.

Michael: Yeah.

Harold: Imagine that on a tote bag.

Michael: He couldn't be carrying. Snoopy in panel, too. Snoopy's bigger than he is.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. 

August 25th, 1956. Schroeder comes up to Charlie Brown, who's standing in the background with his hands on his hips, looking stern. And in the foreground, Snoopy is having a seizure. And Schroeder says to Charlie Brown, what's going on here? And, Snoopy continues to freak out, in panel two, as Charlie Brown answers, I walked two miles to bring Snoopy to this park so he could frolic. And then Charlie Brown yells, and when I walk that far for a dog, he'd better frolic. And then we see Snoopy frolicking like a maniac. That's what he's been doing.

Michael: The punchline is brilliant because nothing changes. Yeah, no one's reacting. It's just like.

Harold: It's like, now you know what Snoopy's doing.

Michael: Yeah, he's trying to annoy him.

Harold: Oh, you think he's trying to annoy him or if he's frolicking.

Jimmy: Are you out of your mind?

Liz: He's trying to do what he's supposed to do.

Jimmy: Yeah, he's being a good boy. He's trying to frolic.

Michael: You think so?

Jimmy: No, I know so. I know so.

Harold: But he's nervously doing it. He looks uptight while frolicking. That's true.

Jimmy: Yeah. Because Charlie Brown is stressing him out.

Michael: I think he's trying to get. To get his goat.

Jimmy: no, no, no. Like, there's.

Harold: Even with that first panel and the third panel, look where he's looking like he's super stressed.

Michael: Yeah, but it doesn't read his stress. It reads his.

Jimmy: Yes, it does.

Liz: Yes, it does.

Harold: What's it, what's it mean to you? Michael, when you see that first panel, what's Snoopy's expression like?

Michael: He's acting bizarre. He's not doing what Charlie Brown wants to do. He's not frolicking.

Jimmy: Yes, he is.

Liz: He's doing an imitation of frolic.

Jimmy: He's a hostage. Frolicking.

Michael: No, I disagree. I think he's trying to piss off Charlie.

Jimmy: You are completely. There's no way a correct reading. No.

Michael: Well, that's the beauty of it. It works both ways.

Jimmy: Yeah, it is the beauty of it being right. We're all satisfied.

Harold: We all love Snoopy no matter what. Well, yeah. Okay, now again, this version of Snoopy, he's not a good looking dog. He's. I mean, we were always talking about a, Rerun at the end of the strip. Gonna be an underground cartoonist. I could see that second panel, Snoopy being an underground cartoon. He'd fit well because he's kind of got this ugly, nice design look to him.

Michael: It's more like a Dr. Seuss draw.

Liz: It's more like weed claustrophobia.

Michael: Yeah. Well, we're gonna see some of that.

Harold: Yeah. So this Snoopy with these really blocky little kid characters, he just, he's popping so hard out of this strip. It's pretty remarkable.

November 18, 1956. Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy are out in a field. Charlie Brown has a little ball, and he throws it for Snoopy, to go fetch. And it goes into a giant batch of high, high grass. So we see Snoopy at first go into the high grass. He gets a little bit confused. Then he gets, a little nervous, and then he totally freaks out. And then he runs back what it looks like on top of the weeds. And then, in the last panel, he comes out with the ball. And Charlie Brown says to Lucy, when you have claustrophobia, you learn to walk on top of the weeds.

Michael: Okay, this is sort of magic happening already. not only is he not a dog, he's. He can suspend the laws of physics.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: Due to panic.

Harold: Yeah. He's got a full peanut snout now. That little peanut head is, is all there. And, and when he's at least stressed out, the, the back ears are super elongated. And when he's running toward the weeds. That's quite an evolution, what we've just seen in over a few strips. It's amazing.

Jimmy: This Snoopy feels ev-- I, don't know, like that. The one where it's just his head up there, that barely looks like it's holding together as a drawing, like, panel.

Harold: How do you mean?

Jimmy: Panel three on the second tier. I don't know. Like, it. It looks like a severed head. I think--

Liz: I can sort of see a body.

Jimmy: It partly has to do with. I think this is obviously a recolor, you know, because I put a little bit of, like, tone in the. In the grass or whatever. It just looked. I don't know.

Michael: Well, he. His head could not pop up above by him standing.

Harold: Yeah, there's some surreal stuff in here. Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. But the. The weeds. That's a running gag. Yeah. Which, I've always remembered as one of Snoopy's best, best schticks.

Jimmy: All right, well, one of our best shticks is to take a break. So how about we do that right now and then come back on the other side and, we'll. We'll, see if we can understand more about Snoopy. 

Liz: Alrighty.

BREAK

VO: Did you complete the great Peanuts Reread? Then show the world with our latest T shirt, a giant 17,897 emblazoned on your channel for all to see. When people stop you to ask what it means, you can tell them about the greatest comic strip of all time and the podcast that unpacks it. Order your T shirts today@unpackingpeanuts.com/store.

Jimmy: All right, well, I am hanging out in the mailbox, and I'm just wondering, do we got anything, Liz?

Liz: We do. We heard from a couple of people. We heard from Paul Castiglia. He's talking about our final episode of the Re-Read with the strips from 2000. And he says, I'll have you know, today's episode destroyed me, but in the kindest way possible. The way that reminds you your heart has been filled with humanity, empathy, and love all along the way.

Jimmy: Wow.

Harold: Wow. Thanks, Paul. Beautiful.

Liz: Very true. Yeah. And Frank Buccello writes, thank you for your touching wrap up a, sad but happy ending to the reread. An additional thank you to Michael. During your discussion about the challenges of aging artists keeping their work vibrant over a long career, Michael made a comparison to Beethoven's string quartets. While I'm a classical music lover, I never thought of using that comparison of early, middle, and late periods of the quartets, the with Charles Schulz's work. I immediately re listened to the quartets and found a new appreciation of them, along with more appreciation of the effort of Charles Schulz to keep the strip so interesting for so long. Peanuts and Beethoven in the same podcast. What More could anyone ask for?

Jimmy: That's amazing. I'm going to have to listen to that. That's really interesting.

Liz: So that's it for the mail. Anything in the hotline?

Jimmy: just heard from super listener Mary who said, thanks for making me emotional at work. Yeah. So if you want to keep in touch, you can shoot us an email or unpackingpeanutsmail.com and we are, on our hotline. We are 717-219-4162. You can text like Mary did, or you can leave, a voicemail. If, text, just make sure you introduce yourself. Other than that, that's it.

Liz: All righty.

Michael: All right.

Jimmy: Remember, I worry when I don't hear.

Liz: Thanks for writing and calling.

Harold: Yes. Thanks for those. Those are lovely, lovely notes. That was an emotional ending. We kind of knew it was going to happen, and we're so glad we could share it with you guys.

Jimmy: Yeah. Hey, Harold, where are you going to be?

Harold: those of you in the Connecticut area on the 11th through the 14th, I am going to be at the Berlin Country Fair in Connecticut. That's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday for September 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th, I'm going to be at the, Durham Country Fair, Agricultural fair in Connecticut, and looking forward to seeing people there.

Jimmy: All right, what do you say we get back to the old strips? 

November 25, 1956. Schroeder is plunking away at the toy piano, and Snoopy has his snout resting on it. He's enjoying the music, and he, enjoys the music slightly more with each panel. By the time we get to the fourth panel, he's kind of like, humming along, going. And Schroeder continues to play, and Snoopy continues to, self satisfied, hum. And then he, ah, goes with, ooh, you know, this is a fun one to read. And then a big sigh as Schroeder, finishes the picture piece. And then, Snoopy falls right off the piano and says, Chopin.

Michael: Well, I was six years old, so he said choppin, right? And I'm going like, oh, that must be a composer.

Jimmy: It should be what, what we say when we like music. That was choppin’, man.

Liz: Totally.

Harold: Now look, looking at the design of this, this feels like Charles Schulz is now at the forefront of his era of design. In a comic. He's found something that nobody else is doing, and he's made it his own. And Snoopy's like, the star example of that. There's nobody drawing quite like this, right?

Jimmy: No, there's nobody who would draw essentially the same panel over and over again with just one character. I mean, the both of them are moving, obviously, but it's, you know, Schroeder's staying more still, and Snoopy, you know, is kind of emoting all over the place. I would never want to draw this as a cartoonist. To draw the same, kid at a piano eight times in a row, that's very difficult. But it looks awesome.

Harold: Yeah. And one of the things we were talking about how after a while, when Schroeder and Lucy are at the piano, he almost always has Schroeder just kind of hovering over the keys. Well, I guess it's. It's more. More like Snoopy in the typewriter. You know, there's just one pose. And here, because Snoopy's responding to the playing, we got all sorts of different poses of where Schroeder's hands are that you can really feel like he's playing different moods and moments in the show.

Jimmy: It feels like this might be, one of the strips that they referenced for Schroeder in, like, the Christmas special.

Harold: I was thinking that.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. Particularly that shot on the second, tier, third panel. I can picture that being the, you know, the bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. That is the animation of playing those chords.

Harold: and the draperies here, the drapery here, that just. That with this art style, it just feels like he's of his era and defining something for this era that's kind of exciting.

Liz: This may be sacrilegious, but Snoopy is expressing cat behavior in this.

Jimmy: Yeah, that's very true.

Harold: Yeah. Yeah, I can. I can see that. I can see that, you know, because I draw cats in my comics, and they act like dogs, so go figure.

Jimmy: You know, it's funny, we were talking about Snoopy, enjoying art and stuff like that. And, you know, we have a cat. And Stella showed me that animated movie, Flow, that won the Academy Award, last year, I guess it was, which is all about animals, like, surviving a flood. And our cat watched the entire thing, like, was.

Harold: Oh.

Jimmy: Stared right at it, jumped up, was looking at, like, would get up on the table, that was holding the tv. We'd have to take her down. She was totally into it.

Harold: Wow. And I think I'll shut up about this after I mention this, because this is the ultimate strip to show what Schulz is thinking for those hind haunches. It's all about, what can I fit into the shape of the back without crossing the line at the back. With the haunches because it changes every single drawing since he's all over the place. But you can see if he's got room to put a big, you know, big haunch because he's got a big arch in the back like in panel five. He'll do it if he doesn't have it like in panel three. He'll make it as tiny as he has to make it because he is.

Jimmy: Not going to break that big smooth line of his back.

Harold: And this is the first time I noticed what he was doing with that because it's clear now to me. He loves the arch of the back. And that's never going to get violated no matter what. For the back paw.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Never saw that before.

Jimmy: Yep. 

March 17, 1957. Charlie Brown is behaving like a kid from the 1870s by rolling a, barrel stave, wheel or whatever with a stick, a hoop and a stick I think is the game what it's called, hoop and stick. And Snoopy, chases after it. And as Charlie Brown is rolling the hoop, Snoopy is zooming through it. Then he's racing it, then he's lying on top of it as it rolls beneath him. But then of course, all good things come to an end and it causes Charlie Brown to trip and they fall over each other and Charlie Brown screams. And then they land in a pile of dust with Snoopy on top of Charlie Brown's stomach. The, the hoop, around Charlie Brown's head. The little stick shattered. And Charlie Brown says, you drive me crazy. 

Jimmy: This is another example of him drawing the same. One character is the same drawing essentially for almost the whole strip. It's Charlie Brown with the handout and the hoop.

Michael: Okay. Well, I'm just admiring how long Snoopy's body is.

Harold: Yeah. And how he could arch it in that animation kind of line of action way. Like when he's, he's floating above the hoop and his entire body on its back is mimicking the angle of the hoop. Great. Love it.

Jimmy: I wonder who the first person to use speed lines was. You know, we just assume that that reads as a dog racing. Right. Charlie Brown running, all that. But it's just, it's pure graphic design. It's not imitating anything visual that you could actually see.

Harold: And is it very common what he's doing? Like that upper right hand corner panel where the speed lines don't begin behind him, they begin like at his neck and they go through his body. I guess everyone has a different way of doing it, but that's I think.

Jimmy: That feels like it's extra fast. And it also may have been that he didn't like how stretched out Snoopy's body became, and he masked it.

Harold: He didn't have much space in the panels to put.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true.

Harold: I love him going through the hoop, especially the first time. And Charlie Brown has a big question mark. Talk about elongated. And. And again. But the cute Snoopy is kind of still there, you know?

Liz: Is he whistling in that bottom? The first panel on the bottom, he's.

Harold: Humming, at least to himself.

Michael: Okay, this is off topic, but it's showing off how, my art history classes, the guy named Lyonel Feininger invented a modern art technique called futurism.

Jimmy: Yep.

Michael: and futurism was showing motion in the paintings.

Harold: Uh-huh.

Michael: It was depicting motion. Feininger had a comic strip in the 20s.

Harold: He did.

Michael: Yes.

Harold: Wow.

Michael: and it'd be interesting to look at it and see what he's using for motion lines. Yeah. And it was beautiful. Of course, in the 20s, there was, you know.

Harold: Oh. Oh, he was the. He was the guy who did the Kinder Kids.

Jimmy: Yeah, the Kinder Kids. Right. Yeah.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Super stylized. Yeah.

June 16, 1957. Charlie Brown is blowing some bubbles out of a bubble pipe, and Snoopy is chasing them. the first one he catches ever so gently in his teeth. but then he swallows it. And, he doesn't like that taste. Then this starts up all over again because we have that weird issue of the strip, being the top tier being cut off. And Charlie Brown says to Schroeder, snoopy's the only dog in the world who can retrieve a soap bubble. And, we see this Snoopy, goes to catch a bubble, has it perched in his teeth, and then he swallows it again. Gulp. And then we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 panels that you really just gotta see. Great cartooning of Snoopy freaking out, having just, swallowed a soap bubble. Beautiful coloring. Even turns green in the last two panels. And then he's leaning, nauseated, up against Charlie Brown's stomach in the last panel. And Charlie Brown says to Schroeder, of course, it's not one of those things you can do all day long.

Michael: Okay, so, Harold, you're the animation expert. I've seen this in cartoons. Somebody drinks something and they get all distorted. Can you think of what it is? It's like a Bugs Bbunny or something.

Jimmy: Ickity ackeity. Oop.

Jimmy: Ah. Ah. Ziggity. Zaggity zoop. ah ah, ah ah.

Jimmy: Squeak.

Jimmy: oh. Flippity flappity floop. It's yours. Daffy Duck in Ali Baba Bunny.

Michael: I thought would have been Harold, but Jimmy--

Harold: impressed. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. This is a tour de force of art styles. And again, Schulz is not afraid to make Snoopy look odd. To look ugly. To look, you know, just to express something that. That last panel in the, in tier.

Jimmy: Two, that could be in the 70s of not Peanuts.

Harold: yeah. I don't know what he's imitating, but when I see it, I see influence on other people, not influence on him. So I see that last panel and makes me think of all things. DePatie Freleng Ant in the aardvark.

Jimmy: Oh yeah, sure.

Harold: I don't know why, but that kind of weird, stylized, angled, somewhat ugly design.

Jimmy: The really ugly one is the one after that first panel and panel on the third tier where he looks like he had his head stuck in a Pringles can or something like that. When I say ugly though, like, it totally is all work. Like this is great. I don't, I don't dislike it. I love it. The ones I actually, that I think are actually adorable drawings are, the last two, the green ones, I, I love both of those.

Harold: Yeah. You really feel for him. He's so messed up.

Jimmy: I don't think this top tier works. Like, I think it's better if you cut the top tier off.

Harold: Yeah. I don't, I don't mind a few more drawings to be. Just because they're, they're so fascinating, but.

Jimmy: Oh yeah, they're great. But I'm just saying, you know, they're.

Harold: Obviously unnecessary because they're all right.

Michael: But look at the blue one, the number two on the top and number three on the middle.

Liz: Oh yeah.

Michael: That's as close to a photocopy as I've ever seen.

Jimmy: He's missing one.

Harold: Yeah. Ah.

Liz: And he doesn't have the motion lines.

Michael: Yeah.

Harold: What do you think of the, the third panel in the bottom? I highly, highly recommend. If you're listening, go back and look at this one because this is crazy amazing.

Liz: June 16, 1957.

Harold: This is one of the. Thank you. That's one of the peak, Snoopy strips of all time. And that third panel in the bottom tier as well makes me think of so much stuff like from slightly later in cartooning. And I don't know who was doing it at this point, but it shows what he's capable of and what in the links he's willing to go to get across a comic idea. He's not. He's not restrained by the design of Snoopy. He is willing to break rule after rule after rule. It's just master cartooning. He's obviously very, very confident in what he's doing. He's inventing things for himself. And, you know, it's hard to do that sometimes as an artist, too. Sometimes we are trying to look like something else. We often are trying to look like something else. And when you do something different, you think it's wrong because you haven't seen it before. It takes a genius to be able to. Or somebody who just can't do it otherwise. Yeah, I think it's more. He's on the genius side. I think that he's finding looks of things. I mean, you can just go through this strip over and over again. The top panel, on. On the right were these bags under his eyes that actually overlap each other, which suggests not only is he really put out and knocked out from what he's just done, he's super knocked out. That the bags. I've never seen anybody draw the bags under the eyes of a character overlapping.

Jimmy: Well, he's also drawing. The more expressive Snoopy gets, it looks like the faster he's going. I think that's what's given you that, like, 70s. Like, if there is a controlled carefulness to Charlie Brown and Schroeder, and it's just pure abstract art when it comes to Snoopy, as he gets, you know, more and more freaked, out by swallowing the bubble.

Harold: And I think the juxtaposition, like you said, of that fixedness of the. Of the human characters against Snoopy makes Snoopy all the more fantastic because he's living in that world and he's breaking the rules that no one else is.

Jimmy: Yeah, I would definitely get a T shirt with that next to last Snoopy, the one with the tongue sticking out. No one would recognize it. It'd be a great shirt anyway.

Harold: Yeah, just do a. Just do a collage of those. Can you imagine? Don't have any dialogue. That would be an amazing. They've probably done that one. I hope they have. That's great.

June 28, 1957. Here's a seminal moment. Charlie Brown is teaching Snoopy how to walk in his hind legs, and he's very gently holding his front pause. If Snoopy gets upright and Charlie Brown says, stand up, Snoopy. I'll teach you to walk on your hind legs. And Then, of course, Snoopy just does it instantly. Great. And it with various emotion. And Charlie Brown is annoyed. And by the fourth panel, he says, it's no fun teaching you anything. 

Jimmy: Now, Charlie Brown should have known this was happening since he's already seen Snoopy walk upright.

Michael: Yeah, but he's really got that imitation thing down. I mean, the way this is almost like R. Crumb-type cartoon. The way people walk, you know, they're depressed or bouncy.

Harold: Yeah. again, I'm thinking 50s. This is Snoopy in the 50s.

Liz: Yeah.

Harold: You think almost like 90s. Snoopy would be more likely to be kind of this. The thing he's going for in the 50s. I don't know. But looking at this, you think like, Mort Saul, like you say, it's like. It's just that third panel. Snoopy is nuts. And it takes me back to Schulz saying, I did not make this strip for kids. I would not even begin to know how to make a strip for kids. And then I look at this, I'm like, oh, okay.

Jimmy: As an artist, it's the first thing you have to do is interact with your own culture. Right. If you're going to be successful, you have to somehow find something that will speak to the people who are reading it at the time. But then, you know, you're also probably slave and, you know, you're just associated with all of the kinds of, tropes and stylistic tricks and everything that are for that era. It's wild to see something that was resonating in its time, but still really, really feels timeless. I've been reading a bunch of 80s comics on, the Marvel and DC apps, and you have to completely get yourself in the mindset of what these things are, and you kind of have to overlook things and maybe you skip some of the captions or whatever, and you can approximate a good time, but this requires none of that. You just read it. It's perfect. It's great. There it is.

Harold: Yeah. Like, great cartooning is just stripping away all the barriers to accessing someone's mind.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: You know, visually and with words. And this is like cartooning at its finest.

Michael: I, laugh every time I look at the. I saw them recently.

July 3, 1957. It's raining, and Snoopy's walking in the rain. It's just all coming down on him. And then we see Charlie Brown and Lucy run by in their swimsuits and they're singing. It's pouring, it's pouring. The old man is snoring. Snoopy watches as they dance by him. And then he continues on his way, thinking, idiots.

Michael: Oh, man. the LA version was. It's raining.

Jimmy: Yeah, that's what I know, too. It is. It's raining. It's pouring. and we've definitely discussed this one, because I remember that.

Liz: Yes, I'm sure. Because we've had that same conversation.

Michael: Yeah. Anyway, this. This is indelibly cemented into my brain.

Liz: Idiots.

Harold: Yeah. Again, I mean, Schulz talked about sophistication in the strip, that he was proud that he felt he was adding a sophistication to the strip. And at first, when he was talking about that as we were starting the Great Peanuts reread, that's not a term I would have thought of. And then with that in the back of my head as I'm reading these and seeing these, all of a sudden, it kind of does feel like that we, like. We know he read Mad magazine at the time, and Mad. Mad seemed to be on a cutting edge of a style of humor that was on the fringes of 50s culture. And he's reading that, and some of the attitudes of that. That'll come out of characters that you just would not. This would not show up in Blondie, right?

Jimmy: No, no.

Harold: And here Schulz is doing it, and it's done with that strange mixture of innocence of the characters. But also, you know, some sharp words that seem to have a lot of weight coming out of Snoopy.

Jimmy: I would love a strip of Dagwood being late for work, and he's running and he's bumbling all over, and he shoots out the door, giving Blondie kiss, and she's like, have a great day. Okay, get him. Closes the door. Idiot. 

November 9, 1957. This was the middle of a little sequence where, Charlie Brown made the mistake of saying, dogs are a dime a dozen or something. Or Snoopy.--

Michael: Dogs like Snoopy are a dime a dozen. Because he's not up to...

Jimmy: He's a pet. That was my dog. it was pet quality, which made her a quality pet.

Harold: Pet quality.

Jimmy: That's what they said. No, 

but Snoopy's annoyed by a dime a dozen. And he just keeps headbutting Charlie Brown, racing from side to side and plowing into him, saying, a dime a dozen, eh? Thud. Charlie Brown goes flying in the air. Snoopy from the other direction. A dime a dozen, eh? Thud. And the third panel coming back again from the left. A dime a dozen, eh?

Michael: Thud.

Jimmy: Charlie Brown's flying in the air, and the last panel is Snoopy. Thuds him one more time. Charlie Brown says, somehow I have the feeling that I have offended him.

Harold: Man. Angry Snoopy.

Michael: Yeah, no kidding. So on your anger indexes.

Harold: Yeah. Well, I do think. Was it 58 or something? Like that was, like, peak anger. It was, off the charts. And I guess Snoopy had a lot to do with that. And again, great cartooning. He's making choices again. Both characters are very stiff in the drawing, so it looks like you really feel the impact. It's crazy.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. He's longer than Charlie Brown is tall.

Harold: Yeah. That first panel and the third panel, it's crazy how long he is.

January 23, 1958. This is another little sequence where people have been calling Snoopy Fuzzy Face. And, he's annoyed by it. And he thinks to himself, here comes Charlie Brown. If he calls me Fuzzy Face again today, I think I'll scream. And Charlie Brown says, good morning, fuzzy Face. Snoopy's ears shoot skyward. And then in the next panel, Snoopy screams, eee. And Charlie Brown walks away a little shaken and says, that's the first time I ever heard a dog scream.

Michael: But I'm seeing a little evolution in the snout here. Panel one, it's a lot fatter than it's been. It's been kind of sausagey. And he's starting to get that big peanut shape.

Jimmy: This is, getting towards my favorite. Like, this is getting closer to what they do in the animated special, you know, and stuff.

Harold: What do you think of panel two? Snoopy's face.

Michael: That's a weird. That's a weird drawing.

Liz: That's sort of like Halloween.

Michael: Yeah. The head doesn't seem to connect with the neck in the right way.

Jimmy: You know, the one thing he doesn't do ever is put any highlight in the eyes. Everybody does that. Or almost everybody does that. And he never does it. It's just pure black eyes.

Harold: That is interesting. Yeah, he's. And that second panel, I think, strangely, what makes the look on Snoopy's face so arresting? No eyebrows.

Jimmy: Right.

Harold: For some reason that if he had put eyebrows floating above his head, it would somehow have less impact than what he just did here, where they. They're elongated and the ears are straight up, but there are no eyebrows. There's this weird, creepy looked. It's. It's amazing. It's great. Great cartooning.

Michael: It is a weird look. Like, mentally, I'm getting white out and kind of reshaping the head.

Jimmy: I once was doing a school visit, and I've done hundreds and hundreds of school visits, and I'm drawing Amelia and someone raises their hand and goes, why do her eyebrows go above her hair? And it just like froze me like, I don't know. That's just…

Harold: I've been found out. I have no words.

July 18, 1958, Snoopy, is lying on the ground with his head on top of a rock like it's a pillow. He says, let's see now. There are a quarter of a million dogs and cats born each day in America. That's 10,000 an hour. Then he's actually like leaning up a little bit. This is shocking him so much. And then he says, or 166. A minute. Good grief. And then he lays his chin on the rock and he looks forlorn and thinks I'm not unique.

Michael: I see this leaning towards his 60s style. absolutely not just drawing. I'm talking about Snoopy's, you know, punch lines are generally his thoughts from from here on in.

Harold: Interesting.

Jimmy: This could have been on the doghouse if it was a few years late.

Michael: Yeah. And there's no doghouse. That's the difference. But it could be a static four panel doghouse roof. Yeah. He's starting to move it move Snoopy in another direction.

Harold: In panels one and two, you finally see the fulfillment of the title of this strip is Peanut Head, especially panel two. And it's such great design. It's, it's just amazing design. And he's in different poses, all four panels. And the rules change for the drawing every time.

Michael: I am very confused. What's going on with the paws in the last panel? I don't know.

Harold: His chest is facing out toward us.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Very, very. I don't think this probably the only time he ever did this, but yeah. Isn't it weird looking?

Liz: Oh yeah.

Jimmy: Well, later on I think he would eliminate one of those paws and we would just assume that it's on the other side. He was trying to go for something that he was thinking too much about it maybe.

Harold: Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy: It's still a really good job. I could.

Harold: Right? Yeah. Tons of experimentation going on here. And I think the fact that he kind of keeps the other paw totally inside the, the shape of the body for really, it, it doesn't hurt.

Jimmy: Right.

Harold: And when you look at it, it's actually you kind of admire it, but you have to figure it out. And you're not used to having to figure out something in Peanuts. Design wise.

Michael: I don't know if a neck would actually work like that if you could actually do that. Of course. He can do anything. But yeah, I always, I now looking at it now, I just went like, is there like an extra part?

Harold: It's like it was done by AI.

January 3rd, 1959. Lucy walks by Charlie Brown and she has a whole ream of paper she's carrying and she looks very pleased with, with herself. And in the next panel, Charlie Brown looks to see where she has gone because she walked off panel. And then third panel we see Snoopy chasing Lucy, snapping at her butt as Lucy runs away with the paper she was carrying thrown in the air. And then Snoopy walks back to his doghouse or wherever, leaving a shaken Lucy next to Charlie Brown. And Charlie Brown says, some people don't like to have their faults broke, pointed out.

Michael: Look at that peanut head in the last.

Harold: Yeah, I'd never seen that before.

Michael: Really extreme.

Harold: Wow. That.

Michael: I think he, that's changed. Pouting or something.

Harold: Yeah, that snout is, is, is about the thickness we're going to expect 20, 30 years later.

Jimmy: That's really peanut-y.

Michael: Yeah. So that's a two year jumper. This is 50. We said no 58s here. 59. Yeah, he's, he's getting ready for the 60s.

Jimmy: It's crazy. Like this next one.

Michael: This is, look how compact the body is compared to some panels.

Jimmy: Well, yeah, if you check out the body of him racing after Lucy compared to the body of him racing after the bubbles, it's, it's much more compact now.

Harold: What do you think of the, the rounded but very, obvious teeth, you know, that he doesn't fang them out to make him look totally scary.

Jimmy: You know what? I think I probably prefer the rounded ones.

Harold: maybe for Snoopy. I do.

Jimmy: Because the whole strip is round, you know, and curves and it looks a little less jarring and violent. 

January 16, 1959. Snoopy is, hugging Charlie Brown and has been hugging him for a while now. Charlie Brown's getting a little sick of it. Charlie Brown is walking around the neighborhood dragging Snoopy, who has his forearms, his front paws wrapped around Charlie Brown's torso. And Charlie Brown says, anybody around here like dogs? Next panel, Charlie Brown standing there. Snoopy's still hugging him. And Charlie Brown continues, how about it? Are there any dog fanciers around here? Any real dog lovers? How about it? He continues walking. Snoopy's still dragging behind him as he hugs Charlie Brown. And Charlie Brown yells, what do you say? Anyone around here like dogs? How about it? Huh? Huh? What do you say? And then he continues walking and just sighs. With Snoopy still attached to Him. And then we see Lucy, Violet and Schroeder all hiding behind a big rock.

Michael: Yeah, Charlie Brown said something nice about dogs, and Snoopy's, just like latched on to him. I'll let go. So he's trying to find someone else to transfer.

Liz: That's unusual. Snoopy doesn't usually show that much affection.

Jimmy: Well, yeah, and I also noticed that he calls him Charlie Brown earlier. So the round headed kid is way in the future.

Harold: Yeah, so he's, he's got his heart on his sleeve here in 1959. And the deep feeling you just get of Snoopy here again, why? What makes Snoopy the greatest comic strip character of all time? Greatest cartoon character of all time. He certainly runs the gamut of emotion. He's certainly an underdog, which, gives him, I think, the freedom to be things that if he was bigger, would make him more off putting. But he, he's, I mean, here Schulz is letting him show this incredibly heartfelt, need and gratitude. How can that not make you want to kind of bond with this character in some way even, and then play it off of the fact that the characters in the strip can't handle it? Yeah, you really kind of have this opportunity to feel for Snoopy because Snoopy's in a world where this is not appropriate.

Jimmy: Right.

Harold: I think that's genius.

Jimmy: The simple fact of it is too, that people love dogs. Like, you know, I saw the new Superman movie and that Krypto, putting the dog in it was a genius idea. As soon as the dog is on screen, you're just disarmed because people just. Dogs are just lovable and loving. And if you can get a dog that has a lot of character, you know, create a dog that has a lot of character, you're well on your way, I think, to having something special.

Harold: Yeah, I mean, it makes, makes me want to let Snoopy come and. Yeah, give me a hug, you know. But it's also funny because in, in, at least in this world, in this moment, in, the Peanuts neighborhood, that is just so inappropriate. Maybe because he's half human in a way. You know, he's going in that direction and how inappropriate that is.

Jimmy: Yeah, right, right, right, right. 

June 26, 1959. Lucy, has put a bonnet on Snoopy. So now he is acting like a baby. And Charlie Brown is holding him like a baby, roughly. And Charlie Brown says to Lucy, look, this is your baby, not mine. I have my own baby sister at home. And he plops Snoopy on the ground. Snoopy's just Standing there looking ridiculous in his bonnet. And Charlie Brown says to Lucy, you were the one who put the bonnet on him. Now you take care of him. Lucy just turns and walks away saying, I'm not interested anymore. I have other things to do. And then Charlie Brown takes Snoopy's paw and yells after Lucy, you're a poor excuse for a mother. And then a. Ah. Very upset. Snoopy thinks to himself, mama?

Harold: That last panel looks like. Makes, me think of, like, Chuck Jones--

Jimmy: Oh, yep.

Harold: Character who's got the. The.

Michael: I was thinking this could be like a Pogo schtick 

Liz: or Sweet Pea.

Harold: I love that Snoopy is stiff as a board, lying on his back in Charlie Brown's arms, too. There's something hilarious about that. It's like he just took a drawing of him standing and turned it 90 degrees. That's hilarious.

Michael: Pretty short. He's pretty, compact.

Harold: In fact, every drawing of Snoopy in all four of these are absolutely amazing. The little smug look on Snoopy's face, as if he thinks Lucy has to take him back as he's her baby.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: And then that little look on his. And then you get the impression of an eyebrow. At least I do. On that little baby bonnet just coming out of it again, floating above his head. And the. And the elongated eye that looks like the pupil. Everything's just kind of enlarged when he realizes his mother is leaving.

Michael: And you don't see his ears, which make him look more baby.

Harold: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, this strange. Partially human, but a dog. So I can get away with anything, I think is part of that magic of Snoopy. He's human, but you can't. You can't put human rules on him. And therefore he gets away with things that a human couldn't in a comic.

Jimmy: Absolutely. Well, that brings us to the end of this particular episode. I have a new segment I'm going to introduce here, guys, that you are not prepared for.

Michael: Ooh, I like segments.

Jimmy: We're never prepared because we don't have. We're not going to do strip of the air, obviously, or mvp, because obviously the MVP would be Snoopy. But we are going to pick panel of the episode. Oh, what is our favorite drawing?

Michael: Oh, man, I gotta go through…

Jimmy: Well, I can. I can start since I knew, my first. I mean, I. First off, there's no. There's no choice as to me, it's absolutely the green face, Snoopy with the big tongue on the soap bubble strip. I like all the drawing in the soap bubble strip. I love how it goes from the smooth, controlled Snoopy to the out of control, expressive Snoopy. And nowhere is that better exemplified than Tier 3, Panel 3 on the June 16, whatever year it was strip.

Harold: wow.

Jimmy: That is my panel of the month or panel of the episode.

Michael: Well, I'm just flipping through quickly. I really like it when he says idiots, because the difference between that panel and the first panel is you can't really even see it. But he looks angry in the last panel, and he doesn't look angry in the first panel.

Jimmy: And listen, nobody draws rain like Charles Schulz.

Harold: Yeah, there's so much good stuff in here. we just looked at it, and it's as good as anything. And I won't steal another soap bubble panel because there's so many brilliant ones in that I'll do the last panel we just read. That's a good Charlie Brown yelling off to Lucy with some of the most amazing, bold, cartoony, lettering that is in Schultz's unique style. I don't think anybody else is lettering quite like that. I love that. And that little. That little drawing of Snoopy looking out at us, wide eyes and a baby bonnet and with a little tie underneath and his little paw in Charlie Brown's hand is genius.

Jimmy: Liz, how about you?

Harold: Yeah, Liz

Liz: November 22, 1955, with, Charlie Brown saying, oh, stop it. When Snoopy is doing Lucy.

Jimmy: That's another great one.

Harold: Oh, my gosh.

Michael: Oh, my. And you should have seen the ones I had to cut in the last minute. I got it down to 30, and then it was torture getting it down to 20.

Jimmy: Well, I will tell you what, it says a lot for the work of this cartoonist that after 170 some episodes and going through the entire thing from beginning to end, we're still entertained by it and still want to talk more about it and find new things in it. That's just, you know, that's what art's all about. And no one did it like Mr. Schulz. 

So that's the first episode of Understanding Snoopy. We're going to be back in two weeks where we pick up where we left off, and we take Snoopy into the good old World War I flying ace era and, all the fun stuff of the 60s. So, be there and we'll, be looking out for you. All right, so see you in two weeks. Until then, from Michael, Harold and Liz. This is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer. Yes, yes, yes.

Michael: Be of good cheer.

Liz: Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz, and Liz Sumner. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark. For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads. Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue sky and YouTube. For more about Jimmy, Michael and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.

Jimmy: That was choppin, man.