LIFE Peanuts: The World's Greatest Comic Strip

100 Pages·2021·159.986 MB·English

by  The Editors of LIFE

Peanuts
The World’s Greatest Comic Strip
Snoopy’s
Philosophy
PLUS

Inside the Is There a
Charlie Brown
Great Pumpkin?
Christmas

Special
The
Charles Schulz
Mystique

C O N T E N T S
Peanuts
4
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kostya Kennedy
INTRODUCTION
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Gary Stewart
LIFE ITSELF EDITOR Eileen Daspin
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Christina Lieberman
ART DIRECTOR Lan Yin Bachelis
WRITER Eileen Daspin
8
COPY EDITOR Diane M. Pavia
PICTURE EDITOR Rachel Hatch
IN THE BEGINNING WRITER-REPORTER Gillian Aldrich
62
ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Steph Durante
PHOTO ASSISTANT Charlotte Borge
SALLY
18 PRODUCTION DESIGN Sandra Jurevics
PREMEDIA TRAFFICKING SUPERVISOR Sarah Schroeder
DRAWING FROM COLOR QUALITY ANALYST John Santucci
66 MEREDITH PREMIUM PUBLISHING
EXPERIENCE VICE PRESIDENT & GROUP PUBLISHER Scott Mortimer
IT’S THE GREAT VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Stephen Orr
VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING Jeremy Biloon
PUMPKIN, DIRECTOR, BRAND MARKETING Jean Kennedy
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ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BRAND MARKETING Bryan Christian
SENIOR BRAND MANAGER Katherine Barnet
CHARLIE BROWN
GOOD GRIEFS
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kostya Kennedy
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Gary Stewart
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Christina Lieberman
70
34 EDITORIAL OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Jamie Roth Major
MANAGER, EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Gina Scauzillo
VIOLET
CHARLIE BROWN
SPECIAL THANKS Brad Beatson, Samantha Lebofsky,
Kate Roncinske, Tom Gilbert, Laura Villano
MEREDITH NATIONAL MEDIA GROUP
72
40
PRESIDENT Catherine Levene
SCHROEDER PRESIDENT, MEREDITH MAGAZINES Doug Olson
YOU’RE A PRESIDENT, CONSUMER PRODUCTS Tom Witschi
PRESIDENT, MEREDITH DIGITAL Alysia Borsa
GOOD SPORT, EVP, STRATEGIC &BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Daphne Kwon
74
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENTS
CHARLIE BROWN CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Michael Brownstein
PIGPEN
DIGITAL SALES Marla Newman
FINANCE Michael Riggs
44 MARKETING & INTEGRATED COMMUNICATIONS Nancy Weber
76
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENTS
SNOOPY CONSUMER MARKETING Steve Crowe
THE KITE-EATING
CONSUMER REVENUE Andy Wilson
CORPORATE SALES Brian Kightlinger
50 TREE FOUNDRY 360 Matt Petersen
PRODUCT & TECHNOLOGY Justin Law
RESEARCH SOLUTIONS Britta Cleveland
A CHARLIE BROWN
78 STRATEGIC PLANNING Amy Thind
STRATEGIC SOURCING, NEWSSTAND, PRODUCTION
CHRISTMAS Chuck Howell
WOODSTOCK
VICE PRESIDENTS
BRAND LICENSING Toye Cody and Sondra Newkirk
54 BUSINESS PLANNING & ANALYSIS Rob Silverstone
80
CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS Jill Davison
LUCY FINANCE Chris Susil
PEPPERMINT PATTY
STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT Kelsey Andersen
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS Alicia Cervini
58 VICE PRESIDENT, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Stephen Orr
82
CHIEF DIGITAL CONTENT OFFICER Amanda Dameron
LINUS DIRECTOR, EDITORIAL OPERATIONS & FINANCE Greg Kayko
FRANKLIN
MEREDITH CORPORATION
CHAIRMAN & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Tom Harty
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Jason Frierott
84
CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER John Zieser
PRESIDENT, MEREDITH LOCAL MEDIA GROUP
MARCIE Patrick McCreery

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HUMAN RESOURCES
Dina Nathanson
86 SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER
Erica Jensen
WAY MORE THAN VICE CHAIRMAN Mell Meredith Frazier
PEANUTS
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Worldwide LLC © 2021
Peanuts Worldwide LLC.
There are two covers of this
Charles Schulz, 1962. Collectible Edition of LIFE.
3
I N T RO D U C T I O N
Life Itself
The Peanuts gang, with their neuroses, pettiness, and affection
for each other, express what it means to be human.
BY EILEEN DA SPIN
O
Peanuts
ne of my (many) favor- cues, and expert edits, car- they were neurotic. Charlie Brown,
Peanuts
ite strips shows toonist Charles Schulz captured his about four years old when the strip
joie de vivre
Snoopy in Happy Dance beagle’s trademark with a debuted in 1950, already was bewil-
mode. In the first frame, few strokes of the pen. As the leaf flut- dered by life and became famous for
he taps joyously and wordlessly, notic- ters to the ground, Snoopy bows gal- asking questions like, “How can we lose
ing out of the corner of his eye a leaf lantly, paw-to-waist, and addresses his when we’re so sincere?” Then there was
falling from a tree. In the second partner with a thought bubble: “Thank Linus. He was familiar with the French
frame, he twirls 180 degrees to wel- you for the dance.” Renaissance philosopher Michel de
come the leaf as his partner. In the No one nailed happiness like Montaigne and recited passages from
Hamlet
third, ears and arms raised, he swings Charles Schulz. Or anger or loneliness . But without his blanket, he was
around do-si-do style. or wonder or fear, for that matter. He reduced to anguished vibrations. As for
It’s the suave look on Snoopy’s face was a student of the human condition the rest of the gang, long before they
that gets me. It’s as if he’s Rhett Butler and spent 50 years exploring it through could pronounce, spell, or understand
Peanuts
reeling Scarlett O’Hara around the the hyper-articulate gang. unrequited love, they had experienced
Gone With the Wind. Pogo,
Atlanta gala in Other comic strips of the era, like it, firsthand, usually on the playground.
Beetle
But while director Victor Fleming mined politics for laughs, or, like It’s been more than 20 years since
Bailey,
closed in on Butler’s rakish charm with took on authority. But Schulz’s Charles Schulz’s last original strip was
Peanuts
the help of makeup artists, musical creations, they were funny because published, but continues as a
4 LIFE PEANUTS
cultural touchstone. It regularly makes As with all outsized success sto-
the lists of best comics ever. Snoopy ries, Schulz had his share of detractors.
and his doghouse, Charlie Brown and Throughout Peanuts’ heyday, the late
his zigzag shirt, Linus and his blanket— 1950s through the early 1970s, America
all iconic. Successive generations have was in turmoil, struggling with the war
committed A Charlie Brown Christmas in Vietnam, student unrest at home,
to memory. Some of this owes to the and political scandals. While Schulz
thriving Peanuts licensing empire— alluded to such topics, he usually did
which today by some accounts can so with a deft sidestep. (Example: At
top $100 million a year—that keeps the the height of the anti-war movement
characters in the public eye. Just this in 1970, Snoopy is giving a speech at a
year, Apple TV+ debuted The Snoopy rally for underdogs when a protestor
Show, six 22-minute episodes that lobs a dog-food bowl over the crowd,
revolve around the famous beagle, and hitting the beagle in the head.)
announced four specials celebrating The softball approach bothered
Mother’s Day, Earth Day, New Year’s some cultural commentators, who
Eve, and going back to school. took Peanuts to task for its omissions,
There’s also the baby boomer effect. as Blake Scott Ball points out in his
Americans who were born in the 1950s new book, Charlie Brown’s America.
and 1960s and who grew up with and “Hippies, Vietnam, Watergate,
loved Peanuts as kids have passed on impeachment, Iran-Contra, CIA spy
their affection for the characters to scandals, impeachments, elections,
their children and grandchildren never found a topical home here,”
and great-grandchildren. Yet to me, Ball quotes Newsweek’s Mary Voboril
the main reason Peanuts remains so writing in 1999. He also cites a critique
IN THE EARLIEST PEANUTS popular is because of its optimistic- from the Boston Post that dismissed
strips, Snoopy was emotional
against-all-the-odds world view. Or as the strip as an “escape hatch into a
and connected to the other
cartoonist Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell ‘make believe’ world of serenity and
characters, but as the
writes in the essay collection The laughter,” and points out that social
years passed he grew more
independent and self- Peanuts Papers, “At the end of the day, ethics professor Roger Shinn of Union
sufficient. He often danced by
you can either be disappointed, or you Theological Seminary faulted Peanuts
himself or hung out alone at
can be dancing, but you cannot be dis- for being too “detached” from real-
his doghouse, writing or taking
on an alter ego. appointed while you’re dancing.” world problems. Schulz, for his part,
5
was undisturbed by the criticism. He cranium— oversized because when movie’s hero, Charles Foster Kane.
was in the business of selling comics to Schulz found early success drawing, With the character Lucy, Schulz
newspapers, he said, and taking a con- his father warned him not to get a got even closer to the bone. Originally
troversial political position was the big head. Schulz’s alter ego not only modeled after Schulz’s young daugh-
surest way to lose customers. “You’re looked remarkably like Schulz as a ter Meredith, who alternated between
being hired by a newspaper editor, and boy if Schulz hadn’t worn glasses, he sweet and self-centered, Lucy began
he buys your strip because he wants carried much of the same emotional life as a sometimes-irksome toddler.
to sell his newspaper,” Schulz told one baggage, from self-loathing to loneli- But as she aged and the strip pro-
reporter. “So why should you double- ness. (“I wasn’t actually hated,” Schulz gressed, Lucy often resembled Joyce
cross him by putting in things that will said later in life of his school years. Halverson, Schulz’s first wife, to whom
aggravate him? That’s not my job.” “Nobody cared that much.”) The car- he was unhappily married for years.
Peanuts
was always a personal toonist also touched on his service in According to Schulz biographer David
affair for its creator. There are hun- the U.S. Army, his love of sacred texts, Michaelis, Joyce had little patience
Citizen Kan
dreds if not thousands of biographi- and the film e, a particular with Schulz’s bouts of melancholy
cal references in the strip, starting favorite because Schulz saw echoes of and complained “he was perpetually
with the shape of Charlie Brown’s his own emotional limitations in the sad and had no right to be.”
6 LIFE PEANUTS
“AT THE END OF THE DAY,
YOU CAN EITHER BE DISAPP OINTED,
OR YOU CAN BE DANCING,
BUT YOU CANNOT BE DISAPP OINTED
WHILE YOU’RE DANCING.”
—HIL ARY FITZGER ALD CAMPBELL
The dynamic played out in was set in prehistoric times, Johnny
Peanuts for years. Take the strip from Hart explored Christian themes; and
September 22, 1963. In it, Charlie in Wizard of Id, which started running
Brown, feeling glumly like an out- in 1964 and unfolded in an oppressed
sider, seeks advice from Lucy at her medieval village, Hart poked fun at all
psychiatry booth. At first Lucy appears things American.
supportive: She takes her patient to a What made Peanuts different was
wide-open field and points toward the how Schulz turned inside out the
sky. “See the horizon over there? See parental maxim that children should
how big this world is? See how much be seen and not heard. In the Peanuts
room there is for everybody?” Lucy world, it is the children who are front
asks kindly. She then pivots impa- and center going about their daily
tiently, reminding Charlie Brown business, while grown-ups literally are
there are no other worlds, and when silenced. As stand-ins for adults, the
he agrees, Lucy delivers her advice: characters are mature, immature, and
“WELL, LIVE IN IT, THEN!” Charlie full of important life lessons. No mat-
Brown, reeling from the blast of anger, ter how many times Charlie Brown
does a backflip. Lucy holds out her falls flat on his back, loses a kite, or
hand: “Five cents please.” doesn’t get a valentine, he always
Schulz was not the only cartoonist dusts himself off and tries again. No
exploring neurosis at the time. Up until matter what goes wrong in Snoopy’s
the 1950s, many of the more popular day, he can always perk up by laugh-
comic strips followed the adventures ing with Woodstock. All of the charac-
of intrepid detectives, superheroes, ters take time to wonder at the world.
rebellious kids, career gals, and for- Even Lucy, cruel tormentor of Linus,
lorn lovers; others were strictly gag is vulnerable to his love.
strips, like Bringing Up Father. But My favorite example of this is the
between 1911, with the debut of Krazy strip that starts with Lucy complain-
Kat, about a naive feline and a temper- ing to her little brother about how
amental mouse, and the appearance in nothing ever goes right for her. Linus
1948 of Pogo, about an opossum and his advises that when she’s down in the
swamp friends, cartoonists began to dumps, she should count her bless-
experiment with brainier fare. They ings. Lucy is having none of it. “You
IN 2019, APPLE TV+
debuted Snoopy in Space, became more comfortable incorpo- talk about being thankful!” she barks.
an animated series in which
rating satire, psychology, and cultural “What do I have to be thankful for?”
the famous beagle takes
commentary into their work. For Linus’s reply stops her cold. “Well, for
command of the International
nearly 50 years starting in the 1950s, one thing,” he suggests, “you have a
Space Station. Fifty years
earlier, NASA nicknamed the Jules Feiffer, in his strip, Feiffer, dis- little brother who loves you.” Cue the
lunar module for Apollo 10
sected social and political develop- tears. “WAAH!” Lucy cries as Linus
“Snoopy” as a way of getting
ments from a left wing perspective. ends the story with a smile: “Every
children interested in the
space program. With B.C., which debuted in 1958 and now and then I say the right thing.” l
7
L E T T E R P E R F E C T
Schulz, here at his drafting table, used one style of
pen for lettering and another for drawing.
When he learned that his favorite nib, or pen-tip,
manufacturer was going out of business, he bought
the company's entire inventory of nibs.