Beloved comic strip Peanuts – featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and others – turns 75 this week – but here are six things you might not know about it.
In October 1950, seven US newspapers, including the Minneapolis Star and Washington Post, carried a new strip cartoon called Peanuts. Readers back then – and the creator, Charles M Schultz – could have little suspected on how that four-panel strip would go on to be a global phenomenon and still making children and adults alike laugh 75 years later.
While Schultz sadly passed away in 2000, Peanuts is still as popular as ever, with classic strips rerun in newspapers and on fan sites, as well as new compilations of strips being published regularly.
But how much do you know about Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang? Here are some facts you may not know.
L’il Folks
Peanuts was not Schultz’s first comic strip. For three years from 1947, Schultz – writing as ‘Sparky’ – produced a strip called L’il Folks. The strip carries a lot of similarities to Peanuts – it features small children talking in ways beyond their years, although there weren’t recurring characters in it. However, a kid was referenced in it as ‘Charlie Brown’ on one occasion, and a dog bearing a resemblance to the initial drawing of Snoopy also appeared.
Schultz hated Peanuts name
When Schultz pitched his strips to the United Features Syndicate (UFS) they were interested, but there were concerns about the L’il Folks name – which was similar to a retired strip from the 1930s called Little Folks. UFS decided a new name would be required for the strip. At the time, a TV show called Howdy Doody was popular, which featured an audience of children, referred to as ‘peanuts’. A UFS production manager took inspiration from that for renaming the strip – much to Schultz’s annoyance, who contended that the name only made sense if there was a character named Peanuts. In later years, whenever anyone asked Schultz what he did, he said he ‘drew the comic strip with Snoopy and Charlie Brown in it’.
Second greatest of all time
In 1999, a poll commissioned by The Comics Journal ranked the ‘greatest comics of the 20th century’ – and Peanuts came in second place. Schultz was thrilled with this and agreed with the decision. The winning strip was Krazy Kat, which had influenced Schultz in his early days.
Social progression
Peanuts was, in its own quiet way, socially progressive during its history. For instance, Charlie Brown had girls – and a dog – on his baseball team alongside the boys, years before it became common. In 1968, the first black character, Franklin, was introduced – which was, in part, in response to letters he received from fans asking for Peanuts to be integrated. Peppermint Patty too broke barriers in the 1960s, with her confident nature, boyish attire (shirt, shorts and sandals) and love of sports – far from the usual comic strip girl character.
First dog on the moon
The space race captured Americans’ imaginations in the 1960s, and this included Snoopy. In 1969, he became the ‘first beagle on the moon’ – well, in his own imagination, at least – in a famous series of strips. However, Snoopy’s association with NASA is real and continues to this day. Since 1968, Snoopy has been the personal safety mascot for NASA astronauts, and NASA has a Silver Snoopy award it gives to employees that promote flight safety. The Apollo 10 lunar module’s call sign was Snoopy – the command module’s was Charlie Brown. In 2022, a plush Snoopy was a ‘zero-g indicator’ on NASA’s Artemis I mission.
Linus blanket
One of the most beloved characters in the strip is Linus, who is most famous for carrying a security blanket with him most of the time. Linus’ love for his blue blanket helped to make security blankets acceptable – something Schultz was proud of – and now security blankets are often referred to as ‘Linus blankets’ in the US. As with much of his work, Schultz drew from his own experience – his children had them.
