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Playing with Peanuts (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: I'm Roger Basseg and I'm Gillian Woodward. Spotlight uses a
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: to understand no matter where in the world they live.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Charlie Brown and Lucy stand on an empty field. Autumn
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: leaves are scattered on the ground. Lucy holds an American football.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Charlie Brown wants to kick it, but every time Lucy
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: holds it on the ground for him to kick, she
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: pulls it away at the last second. Charlie Brown shakes
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: his head.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: No, absolutely not. You must think I am crazy. You
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: say you will hold the ball, but you will not.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: You will pull it away and I will break my neck.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Why Charlie Brown, how you talk? I would not think
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: of such a thing. I am a changed person. Look
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: is this not a face you can trust? All right?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: You hold the ball and I will come running up
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: and kick it.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Charlie Brown races as fast as he can towards the ball.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: He pulls his leg back. He tries to kick the ball.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Lucy pulls it away. Charlie flies into the air and screams.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: She did it again.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: He crashes to the ground. Lucy looks down on Charlie.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: I admire you, Charlie Brown. You have such faith in
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: human nature.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: This is a scene from the comic strip Peanuts. Today's
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Spotlight is about Charles Shule's creator and author of Peanuts.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: We talk about the history of comic strips. We examine
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: how Shules started writing. We discussed the impact Peanuts had
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: on other comic strips and on society. We look at
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: why Peanuts is the most popular comic strip of all time.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: A comic strip is a row of little boxes on
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: a piece of paper. The boxes have drawings and words
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: that tell us story. They are usually in newspapers, comic books,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: or on the Internet. The first comic strips appeared in
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the late eighteen hundreds. Two of the first strips were
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: called The Yellow Kid and the Kats and Jamma Kids.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: These became popular. Soon newspapers started publishing daily and weekly
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: comic strips to attract readers.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Over the next thirty years, comic strips became a regular
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: part of American newspapers. Comic strips such as Popeye and
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Flash Gordon were beloved. In Britain, the comic strip Pop
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: was popular. Andy Capp also became a favorite in Britain
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: and later America. Tintin was famous in France. Valentina was
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: popular in Italy.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Some of the most famous comic strips were created in
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties. These include Pea Nuts,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Dennis the Menace, and Dick Tracy. They all became popular,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: but Pea Nuts was the most famous.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Peanuts was written by Charles Schultz. It is the story
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of several children living in the same neighborhood. The main
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: character is Charlie Brown. He always wears black shorts and
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: a yellow shirt with a big black pattern across it.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: He has a dog named Snoopy that is very smart.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Linus is Charlie's best friend. He carries his special blanket
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: with him everywhere. Lucy is Linus's sister. She likes to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: chease Charlie as much as possible. There are many other
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: characters with fun personalities in the comic strip.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: When it was first released, Peanuts was different from other
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: comic strips. It dealt with emotions that were not usually
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: expressed in cartoons. Writer Matt Blitz said.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: At a time when comic strips were ruled by stories
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: involving action, adventure, and marriage, humor, Peanuts was different. The
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: comic expressed sadness, anger, depression, loneliness, and other complex emotions.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: For example, in one Peanuts strip, Lucy sets up a
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: small building where she offers advice in exchange for money,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Charlie Brown tells her he has feelings of depression. He asks,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: what can I do about this? Lucy says, stop feeling
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: that way five cents please.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: At the time, most people thought that if someone felt depressed,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: he just needed to stop feeling that way. They thought
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: that being depressed was a choice, But Schultz understood the truth.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Depression is a mood disorder that causes someone to feel
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: sad most of the time. Treatment often requires special drugs.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Schultz was the first comic strip writer to address this
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: type of topic.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Shules was also a strong follower of Jesus. His faith
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: is evident in a television film that he wrote called
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a Charlie Brown Christmas. The film first showed in nineteen
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: sixty five. It was the first time a television network
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: aired a program based on a comic strip. In the program,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Charlie Brown and his friends must put on a Christmas show,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: they get distracted with decorations and music. Finally, Linus quotes
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: a passage from the Christian Bible about the birth of
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Jesus christ Christmas marks this event for followers of Jesus
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Linus reminds them of the real reason for their show.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Some of the television executives did not want to include
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: this scene. They were afraid it would offend some people,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: but Schultz insisted they include it. He would not let
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: them air the show if the executives did not include
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: this scene. These people finally agreed with Schultz.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: The network that aired the show was not sure the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: program would be successful. No one had ever tried anything
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: like it before, but they were wrong. Nearly half of
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: all American television sets played A Charlie Brown Christmas that year.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: The program later won several awards. In the coming years,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: more networks showed animated holiday specials each Christmas. A Charlie
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Brown Christmas still plays each year on television to this day,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: more than half a century after it first aired. Many
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: families include watching A Charlie Brown Christmas as one of
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: their annual holiday traditions.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Schultz also turned pe nuts into films and books. He
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: made more television programs, such as A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: and It's the Great Pumpkin. Charlie Brown Schultz became one
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: of the highest paid entertainers in America, making thirty to
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: forty million dollars a year. Pe Nuts was translated into
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: over twenty languages in seventy five countries. It appeared in
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: over two thousand, six hundred newspapers.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Schules was able to address the complicated nature of human
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: relationships through the eyes of the children in Peanuts. The
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: comic made complex issues much easier for a mass audience
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to understand. According to the writers at Africa Nova.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: It redefined the comic strip. It introduced a level of
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: depth previously unseen. Short's ability to mix humor with life's
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: darker issues connected deeply with readers. It entertained people it
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: reflected on human experience.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Schaltz died at the age of seventy seven, but Charlie Brown, Linus,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Lucy and Snoopy live on. Schultz wrote and drew nearly
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: eighteen thousand Peanuts strips. Future generations can learn important life
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: lessons from his comic strips. Bill Wasson, famous writer of
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, said.
• 8:55
  Speaker 6: Things that we now take for granted reading the thoughts
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: of an animal, for example, there is not a comic
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: strip writer who has done anything since nineteen sixty that
• 9:05
  Speaker 6: does not owe Schultz a great debt.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Have you ever read Peanuts? Do you have a favorite character?
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen at Charlie Brown? Christmas? You can
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: leave a comment on our website at www dot Spotlight
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: tik tok, Instagram, and x You can also get our
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: our free official Spotlight English app.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: The writer of this program was Peter Anderson. The producer
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: was mitchio Osaki. The voices you heard were from the
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: called Playing with Peanuts.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: We hope you can join us again for the next
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Spotlight Advance. It's to program. Goodbye, h