You Don't Look 250, Snoopy

Jimmy: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This is Unpacking Peanuts. Today we're celebrating the 250th birthday of the good old US of A. 

And I'll be your host for the proceedings. My name's Jimmy Gownley. I'm also a cartoonist who did things like seven good reasons not to grow up. The Dumbest idea ever. Amelia Rules. And you could read all my new comics and, GVILLE comics over there on Substack. 

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 creator of the original comic book price guide, the original editor for Amelia Rules, and the creator of such great strips is Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River. It's Michael Cohen.

Michael: Say hey.

Jimmy: And he's executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000. A former Vice president of Archie Comics and the creator of the Instagram sensation Sweetest Beasts, it's 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: So, guys, you know, happy, happy fourth of July. Happy Independence Day. Are you guys having some hot dogs or in hamburgers doing anything? We have a. We have a wide variety here. We have our mid western boy, we have our two expatriates living on the continent, and then there's me here from the home of Liberty itself. Good old Pennsylvania.

Harold: Yeah, yeah.

Michael: We're expatriotic here, so. But we have had a, traditional annual fourth of July with our Brit friends just so we can rub it in. Ah, I'm not sure that's happening this year.

Liz: Yeah, they've decided that they don't really want to celebrate it anymore.

Jimmy: That's not that fun for them.

Michael: But usually there is a hamburger, or what passes for a hamburger made by an English person.

Jimmy: Nice. How about you, Harold? Are you doing anything fun?

Harold: We've been talking about it. Of course, we're recording this a little early, so we haven't quite nailed down everything that we're going to do, so we're looking at our options.

Jimmy: Nice. There's always fireworks in the state capitol here and the beautiful park.

Harold: And a beautiful state capitol, too. That Pennsylvania state capitol is one of the loveliest ones.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's gorgeous. Based on St. Peter's lovely. And, there's a. A park, the highest point in Harrisburg, and it overlooks the city and you can even see down to the river. And they send the fireworks over that. It's fantastic. It's a great park. It's also where they do Shakespeare in the park. Anyway, so. All right, well, you know, it's an interesting time to be an American here in, in 2026. I have some of my earliest childhood memories were of the bicentennial. Do you guys remember anything about that? The old bicentennial? 76.

Michael: Yeah. I was a. I was a kid. I was 35.

Jimmy: Young boy of, ah, 35.

Liz: I was in downtown Philly for the parade.

Harold: 35. You were not 35.

Jimmy: No. You were 26.

Michael: Yeah. Oh, I was 26, yeah.

Harold: Okay. No better than me.

Michael: Well, I felt.

Harold: I know you did the first comic price. Comic book price guide, but wow, 

Jimmy: Thank God we have someone who could do math.

Harold: I equate the bicentennial with Disney world, because we went down, I think, in 75. But they were, they were celebrating early for the bicentennial. And I do remember everything decked out, red, white and blue and all of that. And our first, first time as a little kid, I was. I think I was like nine years old when we went down there. So I, I just forever have that connected in my, in my head.

Jimmy: Yeah, I was, I was big on the bicentennial. I remember being all in on it. One of the things I was really excited about, I. There was a chain of grocery stores in Pennsylvania called Acme, which is slightly different than the ones that supply Wile E. Coyote. and they had all kinds of little, you know, 200th, anniversary tchotchkes. And they had these little figurines, I mean, the cheapest little plastic blister packed toys called the men of 76.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: And like, you can get, you know, George Washington and you could get Cornwallis and the horses. You get Molly Pitcher. That's a deep cut, but really fun.

Harold: Yeah.

Michael: Could, you get a slave?

Jimmy: Oh, no, but you could get a Native American. And I, I had these still by the time I was in fifth grade, years later. And we had to make a plantation as like, a project. There were like, it was a group project. And each group had to make one of the original, of one of the original colonies. And we got Virginia. So and I brought out my, men of 76 figures. And, oh, yeah, we had a slave uprising in ours. It got pretty violent in one of the fields in Virginia.

Michael: Wow.

Jimmy: Plantation that we put together. It was great. We won. We came in first.

Harold: Oh, congratulations. That's cool.

Jimmy: What do you remember about the parade, Liz?

Liz: I don't remember-- I remember exactly where I was standing except I don't know Philadelphia well enough now to, see it. It was a good location they had-- Each state sent their own band and float. And, it was very exciting. I didn't decide to go until the very last minute. And my best friend and I took the high speed line in and we're really glad we did.

Jimmy: Very cool. I'm bringing up the bicentennial, I think, partly because it's so difficult to talk about being an American.

Liz: Yes.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. You know, but, but, but it was very important to Mr. Charles Schulz. you know, he, he served this fine country in World War II, so we thought we would bring this out. I have a variety of little quotes he came up with about patriotism, about America that I'm going to sprinkle throughout. 

One thing I thought was really funny, that's just, a little adjacent to this, but I was talking to a friend of mine about, doing this, and he goes, oh, well, that's going to be really rough, you know. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. And he goes, would you have a lot of listeners like, outside of the US And I'm like, yeah, actually we have quite a bit. A bit. And he goes, well, they're not going to want to listen to that. Everyone outside the US hates America. And I'm like, well, yeah, we know that. That's why there is America. Because you hated a group of people. They said, we gotta get the hell outta here. And then they came to America. So that sort of thing kind of, I think, bounces off us. But we're gonna get it together. You just wait and see. Everything will work out in the end. And until then, let's celebrate what we've accomplished, so far. And by we, I mean, you know, previous generations, not us. And also look at some good comic strips. Does that sound fun?

Michael: Yeah.

Liz: Yes.

Jimmy: So if you guys want to follow along with us as we do these episodes, what you can do is go over to unpackingpeanuts.com and sign up for the great Peanuts reread. That'll get you one email a month letting you know exactly what strips we're going to be covering. Which is even more important in this era of post reread unpacking Peanuts. Because you never know what we're going to do. It's Madness. So if you could sign up for that, that would be great. All, right. With all of that out of the way, how about we get to these comic strips?

Liz: Let's do it.

January 5, 1997. It's a symbolic panel of Snoopy atop the doghouse, we assume. But the doghouse has been replaced by an igloo. It's a very cold and wintery, day. Sally is inside playing with her crayons, and something attracts her attention outside. And she looks outside the window and says, it's still snowing. Then she goes in the TV room to talk to Charlie Brown and says to him, where's your dog? And Charlie Brown says, outside. Sally says, outside. She goes to look out the window again and says, poor dog, standing out there in the snow all alone. I wonder what he's thinking. And then we see Snoopy out in the yard wearing a, ah, three corner Revolutionary war style hat, holding a musket and saying, here's the Revolutionary War patriot standing guard at Valley Forge. 

Jimmy: Valley Forge. Also PA. Yeah, a lot of Philadelphia related stuff here.

Harold: That's right. Yeah.

Michael: So this is the first.

Liz: This was the first Patriot soldier.

Harold: Wow, that's late in the Strip. 1997.

Michael: Yeah. So this has nothing to do with the bicentennial?

Jimmy: No. None of these strips will be bicentennial related?

Harold: No.

Michael: Okay.

Jimmy: They're just him being a, patriot. I don't think he did anything really for the bicentennial.

Harold: I think.

Jimmy: I don't remember. Yeah, well, we didn't have a national celebration. It was like every city was left to their own thing.

Michael: I remember.

Harold: Yeah. But, boy, was it everywhere. In the schools.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: I mean, it was a big, big deal.

Michael: Yep.

Jimmy: So, you know, as we talk about the differences between 1976 and good old 2026, I have two quotes here. These are not from Charles Schulz, but they are about Charles Schulz. See if we can guess who said them. Ready? Here's number one. Through the years, you have brought joy and laughter into millions of homes worldwide with your comic strip, television specials and books. Characters like Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Lucy have a warm place in our national heart. Anyone know who said that?

Liz: I'm assuming it's a president.

Michael: It's Ronald Reagan.

Jimmy: one guess for Ronald Reagan.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: Anyone else?

Harold: Bill Clinton.

Jimmy: One interesting. One guess for Ronald Reagan. One guess for Bill Clinton. Liz, you want to get in on this action?

Liz: My guess is a generic president.

Jimmy: Generic president.

Harold: A speechwriter.

Jimmy: Yeah. Speech writer for a president. Well, Michael, you are correct. That Was President Ronald Reagan.

Michael: No kidding.

Jimmy: Yep.

Michael: I had no idea.

Harold: Do you know the occasion, by any chance? I wonder how that happened, that he gets called out. Did he get, like, a Medal of Freedom or anything like that?

Jimmy: Posthumously, unfortunately.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: Yeah. And here's the second quote. Whether through newspapers, television, books, or movies, Peanuts has made us laugh, challenged us to think, and encouraged us to dream. Any guesses?

Michael: Thomas Edison.

Jimmy: Thomas Edison. That's like betting $1 on the price is Right. And I hope everybody else goes over.

Liz: Steve Jobs.

Harold: Steve Jobs, I'm gonna say, is. I believe he. Did he write an introduction to one of the Fantagraphics books? Did Barack Obama say that?

Jimmy: Barack Obama. you're all wrong. But you were. But you were very. Harold was closest because it was Bill Clinton.

Harold: Oh, okay. there we go.

Jimmy: So my point being, President Ronald Reagan, President Bill Clinton both found joy and art and sustenance. All kinds of stuff in this. Yeah. Both of these were probably written by staff, but. And if you see the originals and you can find them online, they each wrote handwritten notes. And, he had personal contact with at least Jim-- Well, no, I thought it was Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Reagan, that I know of. That he was at the White House with and worked on projects with. Amazing, amazing person and an amazing thing to imagine. And let's hope we get there soon.

Harold: a cartoonist. I mean, come on, a cartoonist.

Jimmy: You know what I'm saying?

Harold: Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Jimmy: Very cool. I wonder. What. What do you think? I think a lot of his attention towards this Patriot Snoopy stuff has to do with his aging and his thinking about his time in the army, even though obviously this, you know, isn't. You know, this was long before. It's not World War II stuff, but it's still army stuff.

Harold: Well, it's interesting that the Patriot Snoopy, it's almost always in the snow. And this first one, he's not bundled up the way he is in later strips, which really gets you feeling like he's. He's really cold, you know, because he's. He's got. He doesn't have shoes. He's got, like, who knows? Bandages, it looks like, wrapped around his feet. And I just. Every time I see that, I just feel incredibly cold. This first one, strangely, where he has nothing on, he doesn't feel as cold.

Jimmy: Yes. Yeah, it's true. It's true.

Michael: Yeah.

Jimmy: Well, when you see someone shivering and hunched over, too, you know, that just.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Emanates cold. 

January 12, 1997. Here we see Patriot Snoopy, and he is, in fact, all bundled up. This is the official Valley Forge look. Valley Forge being the famous freezing cold winter that George Washington and the troops huddled up outside of Philadelphia. And we see Snoopy in that attire inside, like a barracks, I guess. And he's riding home, Dear Mom, I've never been so cold in my life. And he looks outside and we see some evocative snow on the ground and some birds in the air. It just looks very wintry. And Snoopy thinks to himself, at least it stopped snowing. Then he takes, up his position and says, here's the world famous Revolutionary War patriot standing guard at Valley Forge. Tell General Washington one of his men wants to see him. Yes, sir. I have a little suggestion. This is Snoopy talking to good old George now, and he says, you may or may not have noticed that there's a lot of snow here. My idea is we build a skating rink out there. We could organize a hockey team, maybe even start some kind of figure skating club. Snoopy's getting into it at this point. He's like, we could even invite some of the chicks from town for a skating party. I think what happens in the next panel is Washington slams the door to his barracks, sending Snoopy flying and his musket soaring through the air. And then Patriot Snoopy, lying in the snow, thinks to himself, I didn't get a chance to tell him he could drive the Zamboni. 

Jimmy: We could even invite some of the chicks from town for a second.

Harold: I mean, the fact that was the straw that broke the camel's back with General George Washington. These strips are strange that Schulz obviously goes out of his way to do this. He's trying to evoke something, and then he's consistently undermining it with these silly. You know, I wouldn't say undermining it, but, you know, he chooses. This is where he chooses to go with it. Right. He chooses to go with these silly anachronism. And then the very fact that Snoopy's talking to General George Washington in his imagination. But the thing he's suggesting to Washington is, yeah, they need to get a hockey team going.

Jimmy: You know, what it does make me think of. And Schulz would have known this far more profoundly than I, but when you end up, I imagine getting caught up in a war like this, especially when you're drafted, you were doing something. You were in the middle of your life doing something else, and now all of a sudden, you're doing this.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: And I. I Think that would be hard. I, obviously that would be next to impossible to imagine. And I think that sort of comes through here with, with Schulz. I'm sure there's a lot of times he was in the basic training or a God in Europe during World War II, thinking, Boy, I'd like to be home on the ice rink.

Harold: Yeah. And also that he's. The idea that you've got your own thoughts about what's going on. You have absolutely no real input. You just have to read. You're just, a tiny, tiny cog in a massive, massive event.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And no one's asking your opinion. No one's asking if you want to have a figure skating club or something.

Harold: It was nice for General Washington to give him some time.

Jimmy: Yeah, he did, you know, that's nice. So what do you guys think of the birds? I think they make it look very forlorn and wintery and sad.

Harold: Yeah. And, ah, I wasn't going to say anything, but that, that top right panel on the right is, are those two birds one in front of the other? Because either that has the longest lopsided wing I've ever seen.

Jimmy: I think that's two. Yeah, that's two birds.

Harold: Okay. Yeah, yeah, that's.

Jimmy: Oh, wait, but no, no, no, it's not. That's all of them. That's how he's doing it. Look, it's just that one got out of control.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: But every wing has like a broke. Every bird has like a broken wing if you look really close, because, I

Harold: mean, to my eye it almost looks like one's in front of the other. Otherwise, one of the wings as we see it is double the length of the other one.

Liz: I think it's that the bird is turned. and so we see the left wing more than we see the right wing.

Harold: Gotcha.

Jimmy: Well, I think that's a new saying. I'm going to say, how are things going? The bird has turned. Is that good or bad? I guess. 

February 16, 1997. Snoopy at Valley Forge again. Bundled up over a sad little fire outside. And then he's walking back to camp and he says, I have to know. And he's trudging through the field saying, here's the world famous patriot soldier at Valley Forge. I must see General Washington. He's continuing to hike. I have to know. He crosses a bridge of a, fallen tree crossing an iced over stream. And then he falls to his knees outside Washingtons barracks and says, tell me, sir, I have to know. Did the mail arrive? And in the next panel he says, did I get any Valentines? 

Jimmy: Were they giving out valentines in the 1700s?

Harold: I don't think Hallmark had gotten into business yet,

Liz: but if anybody got Valentine's, it would have been Snoopy.

Jimmy: He is all in here in 1997 on Patriot Snoopy on, Sundays.

Michael: Yeah.

Harold: Yeah. And I mean, I guess I'm so used to Snoopy having these flights of fancy that to step back, try to step back and look at it afresh. It's such an interesting display of who Snoopy is. You know, why would he place himself in the desolate part of, of a war in the wintertime mixed with his hubris of calling himself the world famous Patriot soldier. And, and that in his flights of fancy, he's, you know, he's getting thrown out of places.

Jimmy: Right.

Harold: He's, you know, he's, he's, he's very, he's just very humble in what he's actually doing. It's, it's a fascinating mix of things that come from Schulz over the years building this picture of Snoopy. And you know, the whole world famous thing at first doesn't really strike me because I'm just assuming he's going to say that, but in this context it's a little odd. Right.

Jimmy: Actually, it's even odd to think if anyone could have possibly been world famous in the 1700s other than maybe, you know, the King of England.

Liz: Ben Franklin

Harold: Yeah Ben Franklin, Yeah. and then he's. This is such a fascinating late Peanuts character. And when he's alone on his own, we just see him. Of course we're not gonna see George Washington. Yeah. It just feels incredibly lonely and bleak.

Liz: I wish that we knew what inspired this.

Jimmy: Well, it's funny you should mention that because Harold just described it loneliness. And I think this might have something to do with it because here's Another quote from Mr. Charles Schulz. The three years I spent in the army taught me all I need to know about loneliness. And I think, I think there's a. As you get older, people start falling away. and the loneliness you probably feel. Ah. From being ripped away from people when you're young and thrown in the army. Isn't that dissimilar to having people who are close to you leave this mortal plane? You know, And I think those things get mixed up in his head as. He's not mixed up in his head in a bad way, but I mean, combined creatively, you know, as he gets older and it comes out in this. Why it's set during the Revolution. It might just have to do with the fact that it was the one he hadn't done yet. And it might also have to do with the fact that that seems like an old guy thing to be into. 

May 20, 1997. Snoopy's still at Valley Forge. These are all Snoopy at Valley Forge, of course. And he's on guard duty, apparently. And he says, here's the world famous patriot soldier standing guard at Valley Forge. And he thinks to himself, these are the times that try men's souls. And then the last panel, he says, to put it another way, I hope I make the cut. 

Jimmy: What do you think the cut is? Not get shot.

Liz: Yeah. Or, be relieved

Harold:  that your soul is tried successfully, whatever that is. Right. Yeah. Looking at these, another thing that's really striking me is we talked about late Schulz a lot in terms of the waiver of his line. And because Snoopy is so bundled up, and we've also mentioned, like, the head of Charlie Brown stayed remarkably round. And so you would see the, the eyes and the nose and usually the mouth. It was really pretty clean still. Right. And then everything around it is kind of looks a little rough and bedraggled. And here, because Snoopy is so bound up and we, we don't see his ears, we just see all of the stuff he's wearing and carrying. There's not a whole lot of, the clean stuff that makes the strip look like it's still in control, I guess, in terms of his line. And even the stuff that he is drawing of Snoopy, like the bottom of his snout in that first panel is just rough. And I think that adds to this feeling of, this. He's just bedraggled and in a really tough situation because I. This is, I think, pretty much as far as you're going to go in terms of not getting to see the faces he's so good at. And because Snoopy is being so. What do you call it? He's just kind of stoic in a lot of these panels. It just has a different feel than most Peanuts strips.

Jimmy: It sure does. All right, how about we take a break there? We'll come back and answer the mail and do some more of these Revolutionary War Peanuts strips. Sound good?

Harold: Yep.

Liz: Yep.

BREAK

JFK: When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Jimmy: All right, and we are back. I'm hanging out in the mailbox. Do we have anything, Liz?

Harold: Hey, before. Before we. Yeah, there's something that's very important that we have not brought up yet that we absolutely want all of our listeners to hear. Jimmy Gownley has just been nominated for a 2026 Will Eisner Comics industry award for best digital comic of this year for in the Real Dark Knight, which is on Gville Comics. Congratulations.

Jimmy: Thank you, guys.

Harold: That's a huge honor.

Liz: it really is.

Harold: Just really quickly, the way that people choose the nominations for the Eisner Awards is they lock some people up together and they go through virtually, well, every comic that's been nominated or been sent in by somebody, they actually read every single comic. And then collectively, these experts in comics from all these different backgrounds, they pick the nominations. And then it's a popularity contest of who actually has read this, because the people voting on it haven't read 98% of the things that are being nominated

Jimmy: what they're voting on.

Harold: But to be nominated is a huge, huge honor because this means Jimmy's stuff stood up to every single other digital comic that is out there that was on their radar. So congratulations, Jimmy. That's a huge, huge thing.

Jimmy: Aw. thanks.

Liz: It really is.

Jimmy: Fifteenth time's the charm. Yeah, you bet.

Harold: Susan Lucci, come on.

Jimmy: By the way, if you want to hear the whole story of what it's like to lose 14 Eisner awards and Susan Lucci, a story to go along with it, my brand new podcast. It's an honor just to be nominated on Jimmy Gownley's Dumb ideas dropped-- Well, today that we're recording it, but it'll be a couple weeks from now.

Liz: And who votes for the Eisners?

Jimmy: Any professional, comic book person can vote. So cartoonists, writers, editors, 

Harold: and we have hundreds of professionals who have listened to this podcast. So for you guys, if you want to do Jimmy a favor, if you love unpacking peanuts and you love Jimmy, check out this comic. It is amazing. And vote. Vote for this thing. I want Jimmy to get his just desserts here.

Jimmy: Oh, well, thanks for bringing that up, Harold. I really do appreciate it, and I am pretty darn excited.

Harold: Yeah, yeah. me too. That's just cool.

Michael: Yeah. All right.

Jimmy: But do, we have anything in the mailbox?

Liz: We do. We do. We heard from Megan Bittner, who writes, I'm so happy you did an episode on the Beagle Scouts. When I was a kid, one of my first and favorite Peanuts collections was the Many Faces of Snoopy, which featured Snoopy in five of his alter egos, including the Beagle Scout leader.

Jimmy: Nice.

Liz: And she writes, I always read the July 23, 1978 strip where Marcie finds one of the birds in a sleeping bag as a follow up to the Sunday strip from the previous week where Olivier falls behind and Snoopy tells him that they'll travel a lot faster if he gets out of his sleeping bag. I always figured that Olivier was the one who Marcie found. And part of the reason Snoopy is annoyed is, is that he already told Olivier to get out of the sleeping bag.

Harold: That makes total sense.

Liz: yeah.

Jimmy: Amazing. That does make sense.

Harold: It's Olivier. Done.

Liz: Done.

Jimmy: Confirmed, 

Liz: canon.

Harold: That's right.

Liz: and we also heard from Lee on Spotify, commenting on the 1954 Part 1 episode and said, I was not a great athlete in school, but I greatly enjoy your conversation about baseball. And you have such memories of sports.

Harold: Meaning Jimmy.

Liz: Michael, too.

Harold: All right.

Michael: Okay.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

Harold: Not me

Jimmy: That's good. Hey. Pirates are simultaneously doing great and also in last. I don't know how. I don't know. They're doing better than they've done in, like, 10 years. But it's a very competitive division.

Harold: Well, they need. They need to take off those eye patches. They need some three dimensional.

Jimmy: You know, that probably does hurt with the depth perception, if nothing else.

Harold: And you cannot hit a ball out of the park with a scabbard.

Michael: A peg leg really sucks for sliding.

Jimmy: You guys know why they're called the Pirates?

Harold: Why are they called the Pirates?

Jimmy: They stole a player from Philadelphia. the night before he was supposed to sign, they came in and made him a deal he couldn't refuse.

Harold: Wow.

Jimmy: And the headlines in Philadelphia, because they were just the Alleghenies at the time, which is a terrible name, but the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a headline that said the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Liz: And finally, we heard from the very wise and extremely talented listener, Marcus Entrolazo, who sent us a copy of his strips called Butternuts with lovely compliments for Jimmy.

Jimmy: Oh, that was so nice. Should we read that? Should we do an unpacking? Peanuts of Butternuts. Give me a second.

Liz: Okay. He also sent a copy of himself holding the whole world's crazy. And what makes you happy? That he just bought.

Michael: Oh, cool.

Harold: Yes.

Jimmy: He's a very handsome young man. Very handsome. Okay, so here we go. This is Butternuts for. And there's even the date, just like Schulz. 

May 22, 2026. Our main character is very frustrated with--And we have one of them there symbolic panels with the character being very upset and seeing all kinds of art stuff floating around their head. And the next panel, he says, boy, wait till I tell him. And he comes up to his friend and says, I've decided to be a cartoonist. When I'm grown, I'm going to make comics like Charles Schulz and Jimmy Gownley. 

Here's a drawing of Amelia McBride I drew. And the kid looks at it and goes, the response from the kid looking at this drawing is, oh, God, it looks like she got hit by a truck.

Michael: No.

And then our hero yells, critic!

Jimmy: which is pretty. Pretty funny. And the only way he can handle criticism. I agree.

Liz: So thank you, Marcus. That was really great.

Jimmy: That was awesome. All right, are we going to get back to the strips? 

Harold: Sure. 

Jimmy: All right, well, if you want to be, a part of our show, you can call us. We're 717-219-4162. That's the unpacking Peanuts hotline. If you want to leave a message or text and tell us what you're up to, you could also email us@unpackingpeanutsmail.com and remember, when I don't hear, I worry. So I'd love to hear from you. All right, let's get back to the strips. 

May 22, 1997. Patriot Snoopy at Valley Forge. Snow everywhere, and he says morale is low at Valley Forge. The troops are hungry. Nothing to eat but fire cake and water. And this morning, General Washington gave us more bad news, and we see Patriot Snoopy looking into a little jar, and he says, we're all out of grape jelly.

Michael: Oh, no. Fire cake sounds pretty good right now. I'm hungry. What is it?

Jimmy: It's flour. I don't think it actually is good. I remember looking this up. But it does sound like something cinnamon. Cinnamony, possibly.

Harold: It's flour and water, salt if you got it 

Michael: Little hot peppers or something.

Jimmy: Yeah, you gotta think, right?

Harold: You'd think.

Jimmy: Yeah. Now, flour, water, and sometimes salt.

Harold: if you got it, sprinkle it. If you got it.

Jimmy: Wow, that's bleak.

Harold: Yeah, that's rough. Especially with the grape jelly. Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy: No grape jelly.

Harold: he should have saved a few packets from the Cracker Barrel.

Jimmy: I think I'm going to make some for the fourth.

Harold: Really?

Jimmy: I think I could possibly make this.

Harold: Yeah, that's something I could probably make.

Liz: I think I'm gonna find something else to eat on the 4th.

May 26, 1997. Snoopy at Valley Forge. It's another cold day at Valley Forge. I've baked General Washington a piece of fire cake. He says to me, where's the grape jelly? I tell him, we haven't had grape jelly for six weeks. Then he says, can't someone go over to the mall and get some? And then Snoopy says, it was too hard to explain. He goes back to warming himself over the fire. 

Jimmy: So I'm assuming the King of Prussia Mall is where he would be going, right?

Michael: Wow.

Harold: Yeah, that's right. Not too far from Valley Forge.

Liz: They used to bus us there for Christmas shopping, when I was at boarding school.

Michael: Really?

Harold: Wow.

Jimmy: That must have been, like, brand new.

Liz: Thank you

Harold: What are you saying? They didn't have malls back then?

Jimmy: They had shopping back then? Oh, my God. Not what I meant

Jimmy: I miss Everything about malls 

Harold: making a little comeback.

Harold: We'll see what happens.

Jimmy: You said Spencer Gifts. a couple years ago, Spencer Gifts opened up on its own. Like, not in a mall in Harrisburg. Isn't that weird? It did not last long, but it was like seeing something in the wrong habitat. It's just weird.

Harold: That's like a Sbarro in the wild.

Michael: Yes.

Jimmy: Yeah, right. Exactly. Why would you go there when there's other options? 

May 27, 1997. It's Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown. Peppermint Patty comes up to Charlie Brown's the house and says, can you believe it, Chuck? Can you believe it? And Charlie Brown says, believe what? And Peppermint Patty says, Marcie was named Outstanding Student of the Year. I thought I was going to win. And then Peppermint Patty, delusional as ever, sits down and says, I've never been so depressed in all my life. And then Patriot Snoopy appears and says, you should have been at Valley Forge.

Harold: Oh,

Jimmy: Michael, as a. As someone who has a. A World War II or had a World War II veteran father, do you find that that's sort of true? That, like, what are you going to complain about to your dad?

Michael: Having known what, like, everybody I know from his generation, he never talked about it

Jimmy: never talked about it, never. crazy. My, dad was the same way. It wasn't until a person from those days came up and visited that I even knew that he witnessed the atomic bomb. Like you'd think that would be mentioned, but I guess just trauma. And they didn't.

Michael: Yeah, my dad was like, at Pearl harbor when it got bombed. Not worth talking about.

Harold: Wow.

Jimmy: Insane.

Harold: So how did that make you view your fathers given, you know, say, oh, here I'm living this life and they lived that life. I mean, just what does that make you do in terms of, like, you can't help but compare yourself. Right. Especially as you grow older.

Michael: Well, I mean, clearly they had good reason to hate me.

Liz: Well, but he also understood why you didn't want to fight in Vietnam.

Michael: Yeah, he understood that. but basically, you know, my problems must have seemed like, ridiculous, like, oh my God, I don't have enough room for all my comics in the closet.

Jimmy: Yeah, right. But, yeah, I mean, there's no question that we are sad little wussies compared.

Harold: I mean, yeah. I mean, and there's. And mixed with some tremendous gratitude that they did, you know, that we have not been in that space for a while to the extent that we'd have drafts and. Yeah, that's a, that's a huge, huge thing that millions and millions of people have been through.

Liz: Yeah.

Jimmy: And everyone should kind of remember that and make sure those people are taken care of in their old age. There's not that many of them left and they haven't been treated that great, to be honest.

Michael: I think.

Harold: But there are from, you know, Korean War and.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Lots of, lots of. In Gulf War and. Yeah, yep.

Jimmy: And Iraq and Afghanistan for sure. So give them a thought.

Liz: Here in Italy, there are some people who really appreciate the Americans who came and fought.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah, yeah. Norm MacDonald, that comedian, talks about going to Holland after his dad passed away because they would do a, celebration day honoring all the allied forces that came in and liberated the country. Yeah, it was amazing. It is, it is great.

Harold: But yeah, to being depressed. That's the connection that Patriot Snoopy has.

Harold: To Valley Forge in this comic.

Jimmy: Going back too. To Schulz being lonely in the Army.

Jimmy: And yet when he decided, you know, what his final resting place would be, it doesn't say, Charles Schulz, beloved creator of Peanuts. It says, you know, Staff Sergeant Charles M. Schulz, which is amazing.

Liz: Where is he buried?

Jimmy: A cemetery, last I checked. I don't know what it is, but, you know, somewhere in California.

Harold: I'm sure our listeners know somebody. Somebody's got that.

Liz: Yeah.

May 31st, 1997. We're back with Peppermint Patty and she says, I suppose having a dog Helps to make you feel better when you're depressed, Chuck? To which Charlie Brown says, I wouldn't know. And we see Snoopy, musket on his shoulder, marching away, saying, say goodbye to Valley Forge, men. We're moving out.

Harold: What shoulder?

Jimmy: Yeah. What is that balanced on?

Harold: Yeah, there's depressed again four days later.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Makes you feel better when you're depressed.

Liz: I wonder if that was a Memorial Day.

Harold: Could be.

Jimmy: You know the other interesting thing about this and that I'm looking about this now, all of this Valley Forge stuff that we did, the last one, three, four, five strips, they're all in May.

Michael: Yeah, right.

Jimmy: these winter strips in May with

Harold: Memorial Day built in.

Michael: Well, your imagination knows no season.

Jimmy: I wonder if he was cold when he was. You know what I mean? Like, he was doing these in, like, February or March and it was freezing. And he's like, especially as you get older, California.

Harold: You're saying if he bought a Snuggie, there would have been none of these strips?

Jimmy: None of these strips, yeah. 

November 23rd, 1997. We see the world famous patriot at Valley Forge with his musket and reading something. And then in the next panel, we see him keeping watch over a hill with those very sad, forlorn birds in the sky. And then the strip starts on the second tier with Snoopy thinking, here's the world famous patriot soldier standing guard at Valley Forge. Suddenly, he receives word that General Washington wants to see. See him build a fire. This is Snoopy at Washington's barracks again. Build a fire. Yes, sir, I can do that. So he runs off with some sticks and says, if I can just get it started, I can build a good fire. And we see him getting it going in the next panel as he sighs to himself. And then in the last panel, he says, all my old comic books. 

Liz: don't do it, 

Jimmy: Michael. That's gotta. That's gotta hurt.

Michael: Well, it's revolutionary war comics.

Jimmy: Captain America punching the King of England.

Harold: All those Benjamin Franklin comics.

Michael: Yeah, those were good.

Harold: Don't Tread on Me comics number three,

Jimmy: Thomas Paine. Those, they were like Cerebus. Too much words. What do you think's going on? That second panel on the top tier is very odd. Is that like a low hanging winter cloud? cover, maybe.

Harold: That works for me, you know? Yeah. It looks like a grayish cloud over that bleak blue.

Michael: Yeah.

Liz: And the bird with the extra long wing.

Harold: Yeah, there it is again, hanging around.

Michael: But notice the sky, that it gets darker and darker. So the storm's moving in.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah. I didn't notice that. That's a really nice catch. Oh, wow.

Harold: That's really cool.

Michael: Yeah.

Jimmy: Yeah, good catch. Boy, I really like that. The color of the blue on the third panel in the second tier, that kind of grayish, dusky blue. That looks nice. 

Liz Marine.

Harold: And it's interesting. You know, usually Schulz creates the outlines for whatever is colored. But like, if you look in that last panel when we're saying, again, he's not doing the Sunday coloring at this point as we understand it, he's just made some really thickety kind of scraggly lines for bushes. I'm guessing those are bushes and somebody has filled in an evergreen in and having to make some choices too of what the edges are because he's not provided them that way. It's interesting. And, obviously he was good with them. He would have told them if he didn't like what they were doing. But I like it. It's cool. But little artistic choices being made there by whoever's coloring that.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah.

Liz: Because it could have been just sticks because it was winter.

Jimmy: Yeah.

November 22, 1998. Valley Forge. Snoopy is where? No, I don't see it. And then in the next tier, he starts, this is a Sunday again. He's patrolling. He says, here's the world famous patriot soldier at Valley Forge. And then, someone gets his attention. And Snoopy replies, all right. I said I'd tell him and I will. And then he's walking and he says, I still don't think he'll listen to me. And we're at Washington's barracks again. And he's like, yes, sir, I'd like permission to see General Washington. Well, yes, I'd say it causes suffering. Yes, General, I understand. Then he walks away saying, I knew he had other things on his mind. What I said was, sir, we keep losing these white ping pong balls in the snow.

Liz: No.

Jimmy: Well, yes, I'd say it causes suffering. Very, very funny. I'm getting into this. Washington is becoming one of my favorite Peanuts characters at this point.

Harold: Yeah, it's playing off again that Snoopy doesn't have it hard, you know, so all the things we're talking about for ourselves. Seems like he's laying that on Snoopy. He's got a simple life, little life of imagination. This is a strange question, but a perspective question. That last panel, you see this green sided ping pong table, which probably a lot of us have played with the folding one, you can see the little folding arm, on one of the outside Legs. But in the middle legs, what's going on? Because there's one perspective for the legs going on underneath, and then one perspective for where the net is going. It's like they don't.

Jimmy: That is his Cezanne influence.

Harold: Oh, Is that what it is?

Jimmy: Yeah.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: That's everything I've ever drawn in perspective. Michael, you have an answer for that. I'm sure you actually know how to do this.

Michael: Well, I'd assume the net, the far side of the net is where the. The leg should be.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Harold: And there should be a clamp, right. Traditionally, the ones we had had a clamp on each side to hold it down. And maybe he's favoring himself over Woodstock on the other, who we don't see on the other side by making the net a little bit further into his space. Yeah.

Jimmy: Anyone good here at ping pong?

Liz: No.

Harold: No. I love to play it. It's fun. Fun game. We used to have one in our basement.

Liz: Yeah.

Michael: But, when someone's good, you just can't beat them.

Jimmy: Can't beat them. No.

Harold: My friend Wayne Mayfield, in high school, he was. He was better than me in tennis. He was better than me in table tennis as well. And he knew the way to get me. Every time, I would just crumble. As he said, this is a pivotal point. As soon as I heard that, I would choke.

Jimmy: That's amazing. A little psychology.

Harold: It was, of course, never a pivotal point. It's like, you know, six, five, or, you know,

August 1, 1999. Now we get to see Patriot Woodstock. And what's cuter than regular Woodstock bundled up Patriot Woodstock. And we see him sitting there with Snoopy out at Valley Forge, by the fire and warming their hands. And Snoopy says he wants us. And then they arrive at Washington's quarters and says, Snoopy says, Patriot. Snoopy and Patriot Woodstock reporting, sir. And then it continues. Yes, sir, we can do that. General Washington, Snoopy says to Woodstock, wants us to deliver this message to Thomas Paine. And Snoopy reads Washington and Payne's mail, which he reads it and says, dear friend, I am concerned of your welfare. Are you well?  Tell me your thoughts. Snoopy arrives at Thomas Paine's house and says, Mr. Paine, a message from the general. Do you have a response? And he writes back, these are the times that try men's souls. Snoopy looks at it and says, that's too depressing. I'll change it a little. And then he arrives at Washington's bunker and says, here you are. Sir. And then Snoopy says to Woodstock, see, my message made him feel better. Then Woodstock asks, what did he write? And Snoopy says, I said, no problem. Have a nice day. 

Jimmy: Oh, man. I don't know why. That really makes me laugh.

Harold: So Liz as an editor. Can you relate to this?

Liz: But Jimmy did, like, interpret what Woodstock said, right?

Jimmy: That's true. We don't actually.

Harold: chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp, question mark. So.

Liz: Yes.

Jimmy: Oh, man. Now, for those of you who don't know, Thomas Paine was one of the, good old founding fathers, and he was the reason I compared it to Cerebus. He was a self publisher, basically cranking out.

Harold: Yeah.

Jimmy: Pamphlets like they were going out of style. Common Sense, the most famous title of them. And he's the one who famously said, we must hang together or we will surely hang separately.

Harold: That's some colloquialism. Let's hang.

Jimmy: Yep. He also invented the hand jive.

Harold: I did not know that.

Jimmy: Yeah, yeah. And was one of the impressionists.

Harold: Yes. He invented the word fofana.

Jimmy: All right, we are. I think we may have reached the end of this episode. hey, it's been a while. We haven't done our, world famous segment, Unpacking Peanuts recommends. Do you guys have anything?

Liz: I do.

Jimmy: All right, give me something, Liz.

Liz: I think that anybody who has not yet seen the Ken Burns documentary the American Revolution.

Jimmy: Oh, yeah.

Liz: really needs to watch it. It's wonderful. I studied, as I'm sure we all did the American Revolution in school, but I never understood it or got any kind of appreciation for it until I watched this documentary. It's really wonderful.

Jimmy: Yeah, I'll second that. It's great. Anything else any of you guys got?

Michael: Oh, I'll do something quick. There's a podcast. I've listened to almost every episode of it. It's called Super Context. Like, maybe every fifth or sixth podcast, they'll do a, comic. And it's so in depth. It's way beyond any kind of review or any kind of analysis you've ever read. These guys are really smart and they go back and, you know, they will tell the story of the artist and the publishing house and how the issue came to be and how the. What the critics said and what sales were like. And one of them is a cartoonist. Even, though he doesn't. That's not his main. He doesn't talk about that that much, but he. They know their stuff. So. Yeah. If you ever get bored and you want to waste like a hundred hours of your life. Yeah. Search for the podcast called Super Context. And just go and look. You know, if you just want to watch the comic book ones because they, they do movies, they do music, they do books and. Yeah, the. I think the first thing I read was a review of From Hell, which was really, you know, I'd read it many times, but really thoughtful.

Jimmy: That's a good one to do.

Michael: Anyway, that's my recommendation.

Jimmy: Nice.

Michael: How about you, Howard?

Jimmy: You got anything?

Harold: Yeah, kind of bridging that. I did a lot of driving this past week, and for those of you who like podcasts and that sort of thing. Have not delved into old time radio. Back in the days before TV and even overlapping, I discovered something I really had not listened to before. I think one of the longest running Western on TV was Gunsmoke, but a lot of people don't realize it was also the longest running radio show and predated by a little bit. And do you know who played?

Jimmy: I did not realize that.

Harold: The, Marshal Matt Dillon on the radio program.

Michael: Ronald Reagan.

Jimmy: Not James Arness?

Harold: No. Bill Clinton. No. it was played by William Conrad, known mostly for Cannon and Jake and the fat Man.

Michael: but I can't see him on a horse.

Jimmy: Wow.

Harold: I think that's why James Arness was the star of the TV show, because William Conrad was a fairly large man, so. But he has an amazing voice. And these are what they called kind of the first, what they would call adult Westerns of the time. It's a, you know, Gunsmoke. It's a violent show and it's about Dodge City, Kansas, probably around turn of the century or so, and he's the marshal. And there's. It's just a very thoughtful, sometimes very bleak radio show. Very well told. So if anybody wants to try old time radio and doesn't mind giving a Western a try, I was, I was really impressed.

Jimmy: All right, cool. Well, I'm going to, pick something to listen to as well. I go through this thing usually around in spring. I pick one of my favorite books that I've read a million times over, and I read it again, like for years it was Harriet the Spy, then Huckleberry Finn, then the Fellowship of the Ring, whatever. for the last few years it's been the same book. And I found a really, really good audio book of it. And you can find it on YouTube. And I, I hear a lot of. Apparently a lot of men in the 21st century don't want to read fiction, but I think this book, it would. They want to read like self help books.

Harold: Okay.

Jimmy: This might be a, this might be a great bridge, huh? Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Michael: I love that book.

Jimmy: One of my all time favorite books. The audiobook's incredible. It combines my two favorite genres. One, nothing happening, people just talking. And two people on a cross country trip, somewhere and they do both of this.

Michael: Nothing happens and yet they go heading towards the mountain.

Jimmy: Yeah.

Michael: What's going to happen when they get up in the mountains?

Jimmy: And it's so good when they get in the mountain. Right. That's the best part.

Michael: Yeah.

Jimmy: Yep.

Liz: Who's the author?

Jimmy: Oh, Robert Piersig.

Michael: Okay. Wrote two books.

Jimmy: Yeah. I started the second one.

Michael: Not good.

Jimmy: Yeah, I can kind of sense that coming in. All right, well, ah, what are you going to do?

Michael: Zen is one of my top 10 all time books.

Jimmy: Yeah, me too. Me too.

Michael: All right.

Liz: Where are you going to, Harold?

Harold: On July 11th, I will be in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania under my tent. The first time this year I pulling out the tent at Blobfest celebrating the 1958 movie starring Steve McQueen. It was shot around that area, including in the movie theater where you can see the film during Blobfest. So come out on Saturday, July 11th between 11 and 5. I will be there and I'll be there for a part of the shows as well.

Michael: So.

Harold: And you can run out of, the theater. The famous scene in the movie where everybody runs out in terror as the Blob takes over the projection room and Moot goes down into the theater space. That's the place they shot it. So everybody gets to recreate the running out of the theater on Friday and Saturday night. You have to get tickets for it or whatever, but it's fun. It's a fun, really fun festival. Well, we're on in Phoenixville is a beautiful town, so come on out.

Jimmy: Another great thing about Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, in addition to giving you Liz and myself, also, gives you working democracy and the Blob. Come on. 

All right, well if you guys, want to keep this conversation going, there's a couple of different ways you can do it. The first thing you can do is go over to unpackingpeanuts.com the Great Peanuts Reread. Get that one email a month that'll let you know what the heck is going on over here and what we're going to be covering. You can also just, if you want, have something to say you'd like to be a part of the show. You can write to us, at unpackingpeanuts gmail.com. you can also call us on the Unpacking peanuts hotline at 717-219-4162 and you can follow us on social media. We're at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads and and unpacking peanuts on Facebook, Blue sky and YouTube. 

So that's it for this episode. But I would just like to end by wishing everybody a happy Independence day. And for those of you who are listening around the world, I hope you have a wonderful summer. And I just want to end with this. Charles Schulz received a letter. I lost the date, but I believe it's in the 70s. But he received a letter from a 10 year old boy named Joel Lipton who asked him, what does it take to make a good citizen? And Charles Schulz, being the thoughtful person that he was, wrote this back. Dear Joel, I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes a good citizen than it has ever been before. Certainly all any of us can do is follow our own conscience and retain faith in our democracy. Sometimes it is the very people who cry out the loudest in favor of getting back to what they call American virtues who lack this faith in our country. I believe that our greatest strength lies always in the protection of our smallest minorities. Sincerely yours, Charles Schulz.

Harold: That's the best.

Jimmy: If you don't want to be disappointed by your heroes, pick better heroes.  that's Charles Schulz. That's it for Unpacking Peanuts. Thank you all for listening. Happy 4th of July. And for more, Michael, Harold and Liz, this is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.

Harold, Michael and Liz: Yes, be of good cheer.

VO: Unpacking Peanuts is copyright Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz and Liz Sumner. Produced and edited by Liz Sumner. Music by Michael Cohen. Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark. For more from the show, follow Unpacked 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.

Harold: This is a pivotal point.