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Peanuts (the comic) Part II · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the Peanuts Cast. I'm Josh, there's
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Chuck been sitting in and this is part two of
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: two the Deuce, as we call it sometimes, about stuff
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: you should know about Peanuts.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: That's right. If you remember where we left off, Charlie
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Brown had just murdered Snoopy and was on the run
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: from the law. No, of course not. We had made
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: up and surely no one's going to listen to this
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: one first, but just to catch you up, we covered
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: most of Charles Schultz's early life, the birth of Peanuts,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and we had gotten up to Snoopy character wise, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: here we go with that little black and white beagle
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: that is probably the weirdest comic character of all time.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we said before he was based on Schultz's
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: dog Spike, who apparently could eat razor blades without getting sick.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: He had another dog, know that. I guess Spike ate
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: razorbikes And they were like, oh, okay, he's good. That's
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: what he was in Ripley's believe it or not, for
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: eating razor blades, yeah, not getting sick. He had another
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: another dog named Snooky. Snooky and then just like the
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Jersey short character. And then apparently his mom suggested that
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: as she was dying that if the family ever got
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: another dog, they should name it Snoopy, like s n Upi,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: which apparently is a term of endearment in Norwegian. So
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: you put all those together, you mix them up, put
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: him in a blender, blend it, and then regret that
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: immediately you've got Snoopy.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, Snoopy was a black and white beagle who slept
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: on top of a doghouse. Yeah, apparently that came around
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in fifty eight. For the first few years, Snoopy actually
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: slept in the house and if you wonder why Snoopy,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: he was on top of the house so you could
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: see Snoopy right. Very weird to have a cartoon drawn
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: inside of a doghouse, So it was just sort of
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a utilitarian decision. Snoopy was, like I said, one of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the weirdest character in comics, I think, because Snoopy had
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and my favorite thing about Snoopy was this weird fantasy
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: life that Snoopy lived where he had these alter egos.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I think there were more than one hundred Snoopy alter
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: egos that range from being a world famous it was
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: always world famous, usually a world famous tennis star. He
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: was a world famous surgeon, an attorney. The Fierce Vulture
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: is one of my favorite alter egos, a famous, world
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: famous author. Joe Cool was one I wasn't super into. Actually,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: it was probably my least favorite altar.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: That's funny. My grandma called me Joe Cool because I
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: sent her a card once as a kid and identified myself.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I think I signed it as Joe Cool. It really
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: called me Joe Cool from that moment on.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But the really weird one was the Flying Ace alter ego,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: in which Snoopy was a was an air airplane fighter
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: pilot from World War Two that had an ongoing I
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: was about to say beef, but just ongoing battle with
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the Red Baron fighter pilot from Germany, and that became
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: a big hit song in nineteen sixty six. It was
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a novelty song by the Royal Guardsman that hit number
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: two in the United States, Which is I mean I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: had this forty five that It was a time and
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: we've talked about some famous novelty songs in the past,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: but it was a time when a novelty song could
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: be like a legit number one hit.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or number two at least. Yeah. So that flying
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Ace thing. One of the things that Peanuts is known
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: for is it was genuine, generally not political. It was
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: much more universal than that. It wasn't so narrow as
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: to like discourse on politics.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: But during the Vietnam War, and Charles Schultz, remember he
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: was a veteran of World War two, very proud veteran,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: and during the Vietnam War he gave official approval for
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: the Air Force to use Snoopy as a mascot in Vietnam.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And at the same time, as it became clear that
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: the United States strategy and involvement in Vietnam was just
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: a catastrophe and disastrous and being led by people who
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: were completely amoral, even Charles Schultz became dissatisfied or against
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: the Vietnam War, and he used the World War one
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Flying Ace to comment on the Vietnam War like there
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: was it went as it became as overt as there's
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: there's one where Snoopy as World War one Flying Ace
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: has cursed the stupid war, and eventually it even spilled
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: out from the flying Ace. There's there's strips where Lioness
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: and Charlie Brown are discussing the prospect of being drafted.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, like he got pretty anti war as a
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: matter of fact during the Vietnam era, which was really
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: out of character for not just him but also for Peanuts.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: But like that, I think that just kind of goes
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: to show how unpopular the Vietnam War was that even
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Charles Schultz, this conservative methodist World War Two veteran, was
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: speaking out against it through his characters.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Franklin's dad was in Vietnam during the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: comic strip exactly. Yeah. And by the way, I think
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I said world War two instead of World War One.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: So in choke correction, Oh did you say too? I'm
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: sorry I didn't correct you. I really know that I
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: missed the chance. Hey, you mentioned Joe Cool. There was
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: an offshoot of Joe Cool from the nineties, wasn't there.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know was here.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta gotta mention Joe Grunge.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't run for Joe Grunge.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I wasn't either, But I mean, I'm aware he existed.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: I wasn't aware he existed.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Well, now.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: That's good. Sounds like he rolled with the times. So
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Snoopy had a family. We mentioned Spike. He had a
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: whole litter that he was born with, Spike, Bell, Marbles,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: olaf Andy, Molly, and Rover, and Spike was the one
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that I love. Spike became he became like arguably a
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: main character in the in the nineties basically, but he
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: debuted in nineteen seventy five and was you know, he
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: always had that hat on, and he had those whiskers
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that sort of looked like a little beat nick mustache. Yeah,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and he lived alone in the California desert and he
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: was usually by his big cactus, and it was just
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: he was he was sort of an altar of Snoopy
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: like in demeanor.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure, but Snoopy. It's not like Snoopy
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: was high strung or uptight. He was different. They were
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: very different, though, But I'm not sure how one was
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: a foil to the other. I think they were just different,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't think there were foils. I think yeah,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And I think Snoopy, I mean, I think he was precocious.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But again, it almost felt like a spin off within
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the old thing, within the within its own thing, because
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: he and Woodstock were commonly you know, I mean He
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: would interact with the other characters, but he was often
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: doing his own thing, right.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said with Woodstock, do you I have
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: a question for you. When you were going up? Did
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: you have the Snoopy snow cone machine?
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I did you, lucky kid, I'm pretty sure either that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: or a friend did. I can't remember.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: That stuff was addictive, those those plays fun. Yeah, same here.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I had access to one, but I had to like
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: go play at somebody's house to get a Snoopy snow cone.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think that. Maybe I didn't have one, or
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: if it was, it was a hand me down. I
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: know one thing for sure. My parents didn't go out
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and buy me that thing new right.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: They got it out of the yard sale and it
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: hadn't been washed out from the last time. Probably, So
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: there's I got one other little piece of Snoopy trivia,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: all right. Snoop Dog he was nicknamed by his mom
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: because she thought that he looked like Snoopy as a
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: young man.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I could see that totally on.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Once you hear it, you're like, oh my god, he
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: does kind of look like Snoopy.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very cute. Yeah, I agree, And Snoopy the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Dog loved smoking some wheat.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I think that might have been Woodstock,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: who I say we talk about real quick, you want
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: to sure?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I mean Woodstock. We talked a little bit about Woodstock
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: in the Woodstock episode because Woodstock was named for Woodstock.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Because June twenty second, nineteen seventy is when Woodstock the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: bird got its name. I think it he was around
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: in the cartoon before that but didn't have a name,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: And there were other birds in the cartoon that preceded Woodstock.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and when they finally debuted Woodstock's name, it's Snoopy
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: hanging out on the roof, and I guess Woodstock had
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: been around for a while. And he said, Harry thinks
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: I finally found out what that stupid birds name is.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: You'll never believe it. And apparently it was absolutely based
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: on Woodstock.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: And there is a an author named Michelle Abate who
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: wrote a book on Charlie Brown and like analyzing Charlie Brown, Blackheads, Beagles,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: and sweet Baboos, New perspectives on Charles M. Schultz Peanuts,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: where Michelle says like Woodstock represented the younger generation, like hippies,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: like straight up hippies, that's what Woodstock represented. They were
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Woodstock was a like innocent and naive and just kind
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: of childlike and having fun and doing doing their own thing.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: And then like even more r Kinley, the fact that
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: when Woodstock spoke, the only person that could understand Woodstock
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: was Snoopy and the reader can't. It's just these little
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: kind of chicken scratch lines.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: You remember that, yeah, or Woodstock scratch.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So Michelle Obate makes the case that Charles Schultz, in
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: some way, shape or form, is making commentary on how
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: the older generation can't understand the younger generation. But for
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: him that was just kind of like an unusual, an
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: unusual nod, a kind nod to the younger generation to
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of people his age and from his his
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: his political bent, didn't think very highly of but apparently
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: he did.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: All right, that's one of those that's like what I
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: was taking English classes in college when I was like, okay, yeah,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: if you say so.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: It's analysis, it's interpretation, like yeah, all that stuff. You
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: can make a pretty good case for it. You can
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: also you could also say like it's almost like a
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: fan theory.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well I think it's for sure is. But that's
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: just what commentary is, right.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I think, well, it's a fan theory in an academic
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: book form.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. That's the only thing that separates fan theory
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: from just printing it in a book or typing right. Right.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: But suppose there's one other thing more than once Snoopy
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: refers to Woodstock as a hippie bird. Yeah, did that
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: persuade you even further?
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: No? No, no, I didn't think he wasn't non hippie, but
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the whole like the generational chicken scratch representing like I'm
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: just not sure about that.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, I gotcha, But I love it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I love talking about that stuff. I do too, So
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: do you like talking about Peppermint? Patty and Marcy love it?
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: A lot of people love it because a lot of
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: people it's sort of, you know, has become one of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: these burdon or anythings where they're like, hey, listen, Peppermint,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Patty and Marcy are clearly gay young girls who just
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: maybe don't know it yet, and there's always been you know,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: fan speculation about about that. And I think you know,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: that's fine, that's all well and good. Charles Schultz himself
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: was interviewed in nineteen ninety seven and said that, you know,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: he understood that people talk a lot about that, but
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: he said sexuality to him just wasn't relevant to the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: comic because they were just children. And that's not to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: say that a child, you know, can't be gay, but
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: he was like it was the kind of thing that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: didn't enter his mind. I don't think he was like
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: offended or thought it was weird that people would speculate
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: about that, But it doesn't sound like that was his
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: bent when he drew this very sort of classic tomboy
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: character who was very good in athletics, who was called
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: sir By Marcy, which was always very funny to me.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: But either way, two great characters. One of the favorite
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: things for me with Peppermint Patty was how she would
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: invert names. She called Charlie Brown Chuck. She did the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: opposite for Lucy. She called Lucy Lucille. I think at
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: one point maybe it Schroeder calls her Patricia, which was
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: a little spin on that. But that's just a fun
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: little character thing that I always really enjoyed.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I always loved Peppermint Patty's voice in the TV specials.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, same, it was perfect.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So there was a little strip or a little
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: period of strips where Charles Schultz, who had by this
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: time befriended Billy Jean King, as Title nine was being
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: passed or was being discussed whether it should be passed
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: or not. Which was which allowed equal or demanded equal
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: funding for women's sports? And I guess just college, right.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it was just college and there was
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: more to it, but I think it was about equal
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: opportunities and funding for college athletics.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Right, which is nuts because we're talking about the nineteen
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: late nineteen seventies. Isn't that crazy? But anyway, Billy Jan King,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: who was a champion tennis star, was also a champion
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: of Title nine, and being her friend and supporter, Charles
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Schultz drew some Peanuts strips basically using Peppermint Patty as
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: a stand in. And a lot of people are like, see,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Billy Jean King was gay. She came out in nineteen
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: eighty one, so of course Peppermint Patty was and that's
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: what Charles Schultz meant. But no, he was using her
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: as a stand in for a woman athlete, as Billy
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Jean King was. And in that strip they're talking about
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: how Peppermint Patty is going to show all the men
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: that she can do anything they can do, and maybe
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: even better, and she's great at sports. And then I
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: think somebody asks Lucy, who's standing there, what she's going
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: to do because she's no good at sports, and Lucy
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: goes speak out so loud that Charlie Brown is doing
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: like a summrsault mid air. And that was just perfect
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: because you had Peppermint Patty, you had Lucy doing her thing,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: and then you had Charlie Brown kind of standing in
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: for the bystanding rest of us, who are now going
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: to be moved by the by the arguments in favor
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: of title nine.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool, amazing, So some more Peppermint Patty stuff. She
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: was one of three characters who did not go to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the same school as the rest of the Peanuts gang.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Peppermint Patty and Marcy and Franklin lived unquote at the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: other side of town, so they sort of represented They
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: never came out and said it, but they represented not
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: poor children, but it was definitely the other side of
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: town type of situation, like they had broken homes, they
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: were they didn't get to go to the same school.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I remember when Franklin visits visits Charlie Brown's neighborhood for
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the first time, he sees the psych booth, he sees
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: snoopy on the house, and the great Pumpkin has talked
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: about and he leaves the neighborhood and say to go home,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and said, this neighborhood has me shook. So it was
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: definitely like a demarcation line for Marcy and Franklin and
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Peppermint Patty. And also Peppermint Patty her mom was, I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: guess dead, like they never said, she said, but she said,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: my mom's not around. Oh really she lived. Yeah, she
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: lived with her father only, which was a very different
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: thing for a comic back then. And one of my
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: favorite things is even though we never hear parents speaking
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: to things, there are references to things parents say. And
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Peppermint Patty's father always called her a rare gem, which
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I thought was very sweet. It is sweet because she
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't very smart.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Peppermint Patty was. She was groundbreaking in a
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: lot of ways in that. So, yeah, she was a tomboy.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: She her she was the daughter of a single parent,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: her child of a single parent, and then on top
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: of that, she was one of the first comic strip
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: females who didn't who like made her own way, Like
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: she didn't need a man. She wasn't there to support
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: the man like Blondie did, Dagwood or anything like that.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: She was just her own person, making her own way
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: by her own terms. And that was another groundbreaking thing.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I think she came along in nineteen sixty six and
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: people hadn't done that before.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she had a crush on Charlie Brown, as did Marci.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Marci was very soft spoken and shy. She was very smart.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: In fact, she's the one I think that points out,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: like I feel kind of bad for Peppermint Patty because
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: she was written so unintelligently. Yeah, like her teacher gave
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: her a plaque at one point for being in the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: D minus Hall of Fame. Yeah, and she didn't realize
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Snoopy was even a dog until nineteen seventy four. What
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: when Marcy pointed out She used to say he was
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: a funny looking kid with a big nose. So they
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: write her really like not very intelligent. And I always
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: felt bad for Peppermint Patty, but Marcy was always her
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: loyalist friend. I don't know if I said, but also
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: had a crush on Charlie Brown and my favorite cute
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: thing ever because Marcie was the opposite of Peppermint Patty.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: You know, she was smart and she was not good
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: at sports, whereas Peppermint Patty was the jock, and Marci
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: called the Super Bowl in one comic the Splendid Bowl.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: She is pretty great. She didn't have a last name.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Peppermint Patty's last name was Reichardt. Marcy never had a
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: last name, and some people said that the reason why
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: is because that allowed her to be just kind of
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: this whatever Charles Schultz needed her to be or say
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: or do. But I think very quickly Marcy's character took
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: over and probably constrained Charles Schultz in a lot of
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: ways because she was just a weird little kid who
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: had just her own set of understanding of the world
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: that didn't really fit with anybody else's. It was just
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: totally hers. And like I said, Charles Schultz was once
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: asked like, why does Marcy call Patty Peppermint Patty, sir?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: And apparently his response was, I have no idea. Marcy's
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: a very strange little girl.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Again, he's a condo it I mean, it wouldn't surprise
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: me that just popped into his head.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And I hadn't realized this, but a
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: lot of Asian American kids took Marci to be Asian American.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Weird.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Why, I don't know. I'm not sure. I guess, I
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: don't know. Maybe I don't know. I have no idea,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: but I saw that in several places.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: All right, well, that feels like a good time for
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: a break. Oh yeah, sure, all right, Well we'll come
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: back and pick up with Franklin, one of my favorite characters,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: right after this.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Softly jaw.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Soft all right. We mentioned Franklin before is when it
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: being one of the only three that didn't go to
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the same school, lived in a different neighborhood. Franklin is
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: very famous, obviously for being the first black Peanuts character,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and that happened for a very purposeful reason. In nineteen
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: sixty eight, there was an LA school teacher named Harriet
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Glickman who wrote a letter to Charles Schultz. This was
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: just after Martin Luther King Junior had been assassinated, and
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: she said, you know, we need to overcome quote the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: vastie of misunderstanding, fear, hate, and violence, and I think
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you should you should draw a black character for Peanuts.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I think that would be a big step forward, in
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: a big move. And Chultz initially declined, and it wasn't
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: because he didn't want to, but he said that he
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: thought it might be sort of to patronizing a move,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: but then thought the better of it after you know,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: a little bit more thought and some advice from Glickman's
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: neighbor who was a black man. His name was Kenneth Kelly,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, I see what he's
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: saying about being patronizing. So if you're gonna do it,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: just do it in a very casual way. Don't make
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: it some big revel lutionary stand. Just all of a sudden,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: have this black kid in there. And that's what he did.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And doing that like that would have this twofold effect.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: One it would keep Charles Schultz from having to make
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: like a big social statement, but two, it would also
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: just show how utterly normal black kids and white kids
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: commingling was that there wasn't even any commentary about it.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: It's just this new character who Charlie Brown met happened
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: to be black. That was it, and that's how it happened.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: They met at the beach when Charlie Brown was on
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: vacation with his family and.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Can I read the comic strip? Yeah, go ahead, all right,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: it's four panels. Charlie Brown's on the beach shirt off.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: He's got a shirt off. You gotta take your shirt off.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: It was already off.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. So Franklin comes up with a beach ball and says,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: is this your beach ball? Second panel, Charlie says, hey, yeah,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: thank you very much. Franklin says, I was swimming out
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: there and it came floating. By third panel, my silly
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: sister threw it in the water, and Franklin says, I
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: see you're making a sand castle. And it's kind of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: a crooked tower. And in the last panel, Franklin says
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: it looks kind of crooked, and Charlie said, I guess
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: maybe it is where I come from. I'm not famous
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: for doing things right, just quintessential Charlie Brown.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: I acted all that up. By the way, you guys
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: just couldn't see it.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: It was great, but it was a very sweet way
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to meet. And then Charlie invited Franklin over to his
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: side of town, and that's where Franklin got shook.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: These are the strips that we learned Franklin's dad is
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: off fighting in Vietnam. Yeah, and Charlie Brown. We learned
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Charlie Brown's dad as a barber. I don't know if
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: that was the first time or not, but he mentions
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: this in response to Franklin talking about his dad, which,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: if you'll remember, Charles Schultz's dad was a barber. So
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: I think that's pretty sweet.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I love it. And you know what, at the end,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: we ad met at the beginning to read the very
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: first ever strip. Let's save that for the end.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, sadly, as we can attest, when you do the
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: right thing and promote social unity and harmony, oftentimes ugly
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: people will say ugly things about it. And Charles Schultz
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: was no exception. He got, he said, he didn't get
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: like a huge amount of hate mail, but it was
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: very vehement and that included some of the editors of
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: the papers that his column was syndicated in. He could
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: have lost like a significant amount of money by had
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: the had the wrong vibe been struck and like a
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: push against him been you know, really kind of founded
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: and carried out among especially Southern newspapers, like he was
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: getting letters from editors saying things like, I don't appreciate seeing,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: you know, black kids and white kids being portrayed in
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: the same school. What universe do you live in? Essentially,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: like where are you getting these kind of far out ideas?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: And he just basically he just shook it off. He
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: was like, whatever, some people are gonna they're gonna hate
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: it at first, but they're gonna get used to it
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: because I'm not stopping. And he didn't. Yeah, and he
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: was there's the He's looked two different ways for this
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: one that Franklin was never fully fleshed out to the
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: satisfaction of a lot of readers. And then there's another
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: vein where Charles Schultz has looked at is really putting
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: his reputation in his entire comic on the line by
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: doing this because he thought it was the right thing
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: and that it was groundbreaking and open the gates for
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: other comic strip artists, particularly black ones, to follow in
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: his footsteps.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he threatened to quit at one point. There were
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: some papers that said they were gonna either not run
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: those strips or have them redone and he said, you're
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: gonna print my comics as drawn, or I'm done or
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you lose me for everything, And this was to the
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: actual syndication company, and so they backed down and allowed
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: him to keep going. But one of the cartoonists that
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was certainly inspired by them that you mentioned was a
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: guy named Rob Armstrong who did the comic strip Jumpstart,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And we mentioned that Marcy didn't have a last name.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Franklin was another character that didn't have a last name
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: for a while and eventually got the last name Armstrong,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: named after Rob Armstrong the cartoonist, which was just a
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: great tribute. Chultz came to him, they became friends, and
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: he said, he asked him first, you know, if you
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: don't mind, can I use your last name? And of
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: course Armstrong, what do you say to that? You're just
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: floored and was very very touched and honored that he
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: became his last name.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: It's a great story. And by the way, there's a
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: great article about Harry Glickman and her neighbor Kenneth Kelly.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: There's a great article in Las just from a few
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: years ago about this story and it shows them still
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: friends today, hanging out and there's a great picture of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: them with a little Franklin holding a Franklin stuffy.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: That's sweet. I think Harry Rickman passed in the last
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: couple of years, but that's sweet that they were friends
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: till the end.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this is in twenty twenty. Very cute.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: So who else? Can we talk up a little bit
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: about a couple more slightly minor characters I still think
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: are worth mentioning.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we definitely need to mention pig Pen,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: who was a very beloved character even though he almost
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: does nothing.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was another kid who had a great, perfect
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: voice in the in the TV specials, it was kind
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: of raspy and yeah, I can't describe it any other
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: way but raspy. But it fit him perfectly.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He can always dirty, always had that, the flies
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: and the dust around him. And I think everyone, especially
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: these days, kids are cleaner. But I remember in the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: seventies there were I remember the dirty kids. It just
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: always seemed to be covered in film.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and there was a strip. So he was introduced
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: in a series of strips starting in nineteen fifty four,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: so pretty early on. And he says that he hasn't
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: got a name. He says, people just call me things,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: real insulting things. Yeah, and I guess they never changed that, Like,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: his name is always pig Pen. But in one of
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the strips somebody's like, you know, they just presume that
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: he hates baths and he goes, No, I really like baths.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I just like getting dirty more, all right. So he's
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: like a cool little kid who also I've seen him
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: described as like maybe the most the one that's closest
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: to like self fulfillment and satisfaction and contentment of any
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: of the characters is pig Pen, which is pretty great.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: He seems like he's never pining for something like the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: rest of them are.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: He just goes and does it or gets it yeah
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: or whatever.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: And he was in Dave Did the Math. Zero point
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: five of the comic strips featured pig Pen. Yeah, a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: little over one hundred out of almost eighteenth thousand.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: There's also that Grateful Dead connection. One of the founding
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: members of The Grateful Dead was Ron mcnernan, whose nickname
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: was pig Pen. Apparently because he's a little smelly himself.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Is that way he got the name.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then Sally Man we got to talk about
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, with their naturally early hair, she was always proud
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: of that hair. Like I mentioned earlier, it might have
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: been the previous episode. Lucy was always jealous because Sally
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Charlie got this sweet little sister and she wanted a
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: little sister and not Linus. They all had little crushes,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: which is sweet. You know. We mentioned Lucy and Schroeder,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: but Sally had a big crush on Linus, which is
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: very sweet.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the other things about Sally that
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: was great was that she when she was upset, she
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: would go talk to the school building.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it would talk back.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it would. It would have thought bubbles, just like
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Snoopy does in response to her stuff. Like one time,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: I can't remember what she was talking. Oh, she said
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: she was scolded by her teacher for talking in class,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: but the teacher was mistaken. She hadn't been talking at all,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: and she was really upset about this, and the school thinks,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: poor sweet baby.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just sweet and.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Stuff like that. Like Sally just kind of attracted that
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: kind of thing.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Well, and the school thing kind of brings up the fact.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: And I know we talked a little bit about the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: minimalist style in the first episode, but so many of
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: his panels were just them in front of a brick wall,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: or them at that psychiatrist stand or Snoopy's doghouse or
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: just the picture's Matt right. It was all just very
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: sort of spartan, sparse stuff.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it worked.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I saw it described as that that universes. It's it's
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: bounded by those four panels and connected by the gutters
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: the spaces between the four panels. But somehow it just
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: seems like boundless. There's no there's no geography to it.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: You just are where you're where that that moment is
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: taking place. But you couldn't possibly imagine the Peanuts universe
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: in some mapped out way.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder if that's why it never occurred to
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: me to wonder where they were from. Yeah, yeah, I
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: mean have you ever thought about, like where was Peanuts based?
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: I like, I never even wondered that.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: I never thought that or wondered that. But I saw
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: in a number of the essays that they presumed that
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: it was in the Midwest because the seasons like there
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: was there were there were definite seasons and Peanuts and
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I think as a kid that was one of the
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: things that really got to me because I love the
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: seasons too. So to see the Peanuts gang like hanging
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: out in a pile of leaves, or ice skating or
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: something like that, or it was summer and there was
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: like an apple on a tree or something like. Yeah that,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: even like you said, even though it's minimalists and you
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: can't even begin to imagine where they're from, it it
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: would evoke like how those kids were feeling. Like it
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: it added an extra layer to the dialogue or the
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: action or something like that, because you, as a kid,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: knew how you felt when you were standing next to
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: a pile of leaves and it was chilly out and
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Thanksgiving and Christmas were just you know, coming right down
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: the pike.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: So we know it's not Peanuts is anywhere USA except Florida,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: southern California, and Hawaii.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think we said right, Charles Schultz is
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: from the Minneapolis Saint Paul area.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure it was just sort of that.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean that's that's generally where it was set.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: He eventually, I think, I think, not too long after
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: getting married the first time, moved to Santa Rosa, California
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: or northern California. Santa Rose is where the Charles Schultz
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: museum is and never never looked back. But even still,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: he never the Peanuts gang never suddenly ended up in
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: California like they were still where they were.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: You know that's funny. All right, let's do our final
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: break and finish up with part two of Part two
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: of Peanuts. Right for this, we'll be.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Right back in two and two.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Softly jaw.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Soft so chuck. If I can remember all the way
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: back to part one, the first episode in this pairing.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I think minutes ago.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: I think I mentioned, how do you know that I.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Got a little ticker on my I got a timer.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: I want one of those.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I got an egg timer?
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Is it a snoopy egg timer?
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: It is?
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Uh? So? I mentioned that there's no adults in the
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Peanut world and that if they're if an adult is
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: is around, it's they're either being mentioned like a real
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: life adult or an adult in the Peanuts universe like
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: somebody's parent, or in the TV specials. You can hear them,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: but they're off camera. You don't see them, and the
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: only way you hear them is that muted trombone sound effect.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there is one strip in the Peanuts pantheon in
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: the eighteen thousand comic strips. There's one where adults are shown,
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: and even then it's just their legs.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and even that, I think kind of like Franklin
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: was shook. I think Peanuts people were shook.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: For sure, for a number of reasons. One this whole
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: series where Lucy is participating in an adult golf tournament
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: for some weird reason, there's way more scenery, way more
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: stuff going on in all the panels, right.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's not a four panel. Was
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: it from one of the books.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know. It's from nineteen fifty four, so no,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: it would have been before the books.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: All right, I know. Oh, it's a Sunday strip. So
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the Sunday's were more than four panels from May sixteenth,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four. And in that they're playing golf and stuff.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: She and Charlie Brown are Lucy was famously a bad
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: athlete as well, because she was always screwing up in
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: center field or in right field. But Charlie said she
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: played center field for some reason. And in the last
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: panel it shows them with three or four pair of
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: adult legs standing around, and it's just it's almost surreal
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: and disconcerting to see human legs and peanuts. Yeah, it's
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: just odd to see it is.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: They're wearing pants with crisism and everything. It's just it's
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: not it ain't right, and I guess it ainate right.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Charles Schultz realized immediately that it ain't right. I can't
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: believe it even got out, you know, but he never
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: did it again.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he got death threats.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I'm sure.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: How dare you show leg Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: a very weird thing. I mean, I remember one thing
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I remember was because I was close to my one grandfather,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: my mom's dads before he died, and Charlie Brown and
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Franklin are always talking about their granddads, which I always
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: thought was really great. Yeah, that is very sweet. We
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: did mention the movie the TV specials. We went in
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: depth into the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and do you
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: remember what year it was, what Christmas episode that was?
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: It was either December fifth or ninth, nineteen sixty five
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: when it first seme.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: No no I met ours when we recorded our Christmas
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: special where we talked in detail about the christ Special.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, December fifth or ninth, nineteen sixty five.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: We had a podcast in nineteen sixty five.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have the way back Machine. They're all over
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: the place. We have an episode from seven twenty CE.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, Goody Clark and Goodie Bright.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah that was a wild wild ride. Uh.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I don't remember which Christmas special we had it in,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: but in one of them we we detailed Charlie Brown
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Christmas and so we don't have to go over here.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: But the one sort of surprising thing if you didn't
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: listen to that app was that they thought it was
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: going to be a big failure.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, so there was no laugh track. But this
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: is a cartoon featuring kids, ostensibly four kids, and there's
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: no laugh track to the jokes? How are the dumb
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: little kids going to know when to laugh? And then
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: it has like like one of the best jazz soundtracks
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: of all time. Yeah, but that's not exactly like what
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: the what the eight year olds are into? Right in
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five? Right, so yeah, the TV executives were like,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: this is going to go no, and boy were they wrong.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I mean is there aren't many more iconic
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Christmas records than that one.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: No, and not just Christmas records. The Great Pumpkin Waltz
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: is in there, which is just, for my money, the best,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: the best one of the whole album, and that whole
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: album is great, from the first note to the last.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't restrict that to Christmas listening. No, I don't
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: know if it can. That would be weird. But I
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: mean I probably listened to that full record at least
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: twenty times over the month of December. Yeah, maybe more,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: probably more than once a day. Yeah, if I'm thinking about.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: It, I'm really almost religious about it because I don't
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: I don't ever want to get sick of it, so
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: I'm really careful, like how often I listen to it.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, I just pound it. I'd never get to it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: It also has a song that has nothing to do
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: with Christmas, Linus and Lucy, which is what most people
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: who are generally aware of Peanuts and aren't like hardcore
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: fans consider like the Peanuts theme.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Oh interesting. Yeah, and the uh, you know, the the
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: cultural icon that is the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: that's become part of the lexicon for a sad little
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Christmas tree.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can buy a Charlie Brown Christmas tree
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: too and put it on your tabletop, which we've done.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, like a recreation or just a sad little tree.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: It's well, you could do that and just call your
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: sad little tree Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But you can
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: buy one and it's.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Like like the actual Yeah.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: It's got like a wooden X that it connects. It
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: has like a little blue blanket. Linus is blanket that
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: you put around the bottom like he does. It comes
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: with a single red ornament. It's it's wonderful. You know what, buddy,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I know what you're getting for Christmas.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can put it next to the leg lamp.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: That'd be perfect.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Actually, wow, that's great. Yeah, all right, I mean cheese.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: We could sit around talk about peanuts all day long
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: if we're not careful, but we should wrap it up
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: and talk a little bit about the end of peanuts. Sadly,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Schultz said he was retiring. Announced it in December of
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine. He was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I don't even think we mentioned that he had a
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: disease throughout most of his career, right, that was like
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: had hand tremors.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, So in nineteen eighty one, he was diagnosed with
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: essential tremor, which is a tremor that affects you when
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: you try to do something with your hands, most specifically,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: and he I could draw it, yeah, like drawing seven
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: comic strips a week, all the every week, and you
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: can actually see very clearly it's a progressive illness as well,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: progressive neurological disorder. So it just gets worse with time,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and you can see through the progression of peanuts the
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: line started getting much more squiggly. But if you look
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: at tests of people with hand tremors, I think the
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: most prevalent test is it's like draw like a circle
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: from the inside out.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: What the hell is that called spiral?
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: A spiral? Thank you? You started to center and go outward
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: with the spiral, and they'll put that next to somebody
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: who doesn't have an essential tremor and what that looks like,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: and it's just like night and day. So the fact
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: that he can even continue on for twenty years is amazing.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, jeez, unbelievable. So, yeah, ninety nine diagnosed with cancer.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: He had a big backlog of comic strips that he
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: had drawn, so they were able to keep publishing through
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: his illness until the day the day after he died. Actually, yeah,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: February twelfth, two thousand, he was seventy seven.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Isn't that remarkable, Like they both died at the same time,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: or they both expired at the same time, Peanuts and
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Charles Schultz.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Like they had that he had that many backlogs that
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: it just worked out like that.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he had that many days left.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty amazing unless a family was like there were
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: one hundred more and they just shoved him in a
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: drawer and said, it's really kind of a great story
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: this way.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: I'm hoping that's not the case me too.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: His family was smart though, because they said, you know what,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: we don't think anyone else should ever draw this, like
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Peanuts should should stop because he's not around anymore. And
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: that's what happened. That syndication company, unbelievably almost honored that request.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: When you see new Peanuts stuff now, whether it's like
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: movies and you know, the brand is still a thing,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: but those those comic strips, if you see them, are
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: all reprints.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly it's a billion dollar brand.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I believe it.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: And I read a quote from Bill Waterson from Calvin
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: and Hobbes, who basically was like, like merchandising cartoons and
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: stuff you can thank Charles Schultz for that.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Amazing.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And then we mentioned one more thing before we
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: finished that. There was a tribute to Charles Schultz and
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Peanuts among basically all the working comic strip artists on
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: November twenty six, twenty twenty two.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Very emotional.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you can go to the Charles Schultz Museum website.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: They have links to all of them, and just some
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: of them are amazing, but a few stood out to me.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: We talked about the Gilthorpe one, which, now that you've
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: heard these two episodes, go look up that Gilthorpe November
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: twenty six, twenty twenty two, comic strip tribute to Peanuts
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: because finally Charlie Brown gets to kick the football and
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: it's just the sweetest, sweetest thing. I can't believe that
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: they thought of doing that. It was just so perfect.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Great.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: There was one from Curtis. You remember we talked about
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: how a lot of black comic strip artists credited Charles
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Schultz with introducing Franklin is kind of breaking that ceiling
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: for them. Sure, Curtis has one where Curtis, the comic
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: strip character, asks Charlie Brown to hang out and or
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: he goes, hey, Charlie Brown, what you do? And Charlie
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Brown goes just chilling, Homie, let's hang out. And as
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: they're walking away, Curtis turns to you, the viewer and
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: is like that Charlie Brown's a lot cooler than you'd think.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: When he's away from that Peanuts strip, Thatch Garfield has
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Snoopy bringing out like one hundred year birthday cake.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that one's surreal looking.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: And then to me, it is to me the one
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I give it like the most appropriately awkwardly formal award.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Mary Worth was that Merriworth.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, I thought it was so.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Maryworth is like the most bone dry soap opera and
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: comic strip around to begin with, and just in total
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Merriworth's style. Merriworth is sitting on the couch and it
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: just explains how this is Charles Schultz's hundredth birthday and
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: they're all celebrating it. So, happy hundredth birthday, Charles Schultz.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: It's just so.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: It was very Yeah, it was very dry. And then
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: family Circle, I think Jeffy tripped over Snoopy's dead.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Body, which Charlie Brown was on the run from.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: So I promised i'd read that very first comic strip,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: because it's really emblematic of like what Charles Schultz was
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: going after, Like his debut comic strip for his baby
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: was this, And it's very a little more crudely drawn obviously.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: But panel one, these two kids are sitting on the
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: sidewalk and you see Charlie Brown in the distance walking up,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: and the kid on the sidewalk goes, well, here comes
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: old Charlie Brown. And then Charlie Brown is kind of
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: walking in front of him. Good old Charlie Brown, Yes, sir.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: And then he walks by and they're watching him pass,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and he goes good old Charlie Brown. And then the
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: kid on the sidewalk in the last panel says, how
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I hate him. That's the debut through the world.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: That's really amazing, pretty amazing, everybody. That was a great
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: way to end it, Chuck.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Hey, thanks.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: If you want to know more about Peanuts, just go
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: start reading Peanuts comic strips. Even if you didn't appreciate him,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: you'll probably learn to like him more just by forcing
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: yourself to. And since I said that, it's time for listener, ma'am.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Short and sweet one. Here. Hey, guys, hope you're well,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: your podcast, it's been a steady presence in my life
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: for almost four years, has got me through one many
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: study sessions and kitchen cleaning weekends over the years. My
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: friend and now partner introduced me to your show, and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I'm so thankful she did. Being long distance, it's nice
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: to have something to talk about and learn a few
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: things along the way. Of course, whenever we do see
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: each other, we make it a habit to put on
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: an episode and listen together. So I just wanted to
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: say thank you guys for everything you do. You make
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: learning about the common to the obscure exciting and fun,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and I look forward to many more years listening to you.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Have a wonderful day. This is a course for my
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Canadian our new friend, Olivia c and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: North America, Planet Earth.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: Very nice, Thanks Olivia, that was very kind of you.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: What a great one to add to the Peanuts episode. Chuck, Yeah, yeah, Well,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: if you want to be like Olivia and get in
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: touch with this and just say that you appreciate us,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: we really love to hear that kind of thing once
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: in a while, you can wrap it up ghenttly caress
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: it on the bottom and send it off to stuff
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: a production of iHeartRadio.
• 45:09
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• 45:13
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