Showing posts with label Charlie Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charlie Brown. Show all posts

Oct 30, 2020

Charlie Brown Fun Facts

 Charlie Brown was modeled after Charles Schulz. “We always say that each of the characters represents a piece of our dad,” Craig Schulz, Charles’ son, says in a new book about the production of the new movie, The Art and Making of the Peanuts Movie. “Charlie Brown was his real self, while Snoopy was what he wanted to be.”

There are 17,897 Peanuts comic strips. They ran between 1950 and 2000, each one drawn by Schulz. Schulz died from colon cancer at age 77, the day before the last original strip ran.

Charles Schulz did not choose the name Peanuts (nor did he like it). Charlie Brown first appeared as a character in a comic strip called Li'l Folks, but when Schulz approached the United Feature Syndicate about a publishing deal in 1950, the syndication service thought the name was too close to two other comics it ran at the time, and changed it to Peanuts. Schulz never liked the new name; he thought it "made it sound too insignificant."

Iconic Peanuts characters like Lucy and Linus didn’t show up until years into the comic. The Peanuts gang in CGI in The Peanuts Movie (2015). Design by Tyler Carter, Color by Robert MacLenzie. © 2015 Peanuts Worldwide LLC. © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

The first Peanuts strip featured Shermy, Patty (a separate character from Peppermint Patty), and Charlie Brown. It ran in seven newspapers in October 1950.

In the early Peanuts strips, Lucy was younger than Charlie Brown. In her first comic strip in March 1952, Lucy was a toddler. Later, Schulz decided to make her Charlie Brown’s peer. Lucy would later be the character to observe “Happiness is a warm puppy” in an April 1960 strip.

Linus did not speak for the first two years of Peanuts strips. He appeared as Lucy’s security-blanketed younger brother in September 1952, but did not get a line in the comic until 1954.

Franklin’s first appearance in the Peanuts comic was in July 1968. In it, Franklin recovers Charlie Brown’s lost beach ball. At the time, Franklin’s inclusion was seen as controversial, and Schulz received letters complaining about the character.

Snoopy has his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame, right next to Schulz's.

Schroeder loves Beethoven (and his house at 1770 James Street is a nod to the composer’s birth year) but the first piece he played in the strip was Sergei Rachmaninoff’s "Prelude in G Minor."

In most of the Peanuts comics, Marcie has no eyes. Marcie’s glasses mask her eyes throughout most of the original comic, only appearing in rare moments, like a May 1980 strip where Peppermint Patty tries to convince her to wear her glasses on top of her head.

The little red-haired girl is never fully seen in the Peanuts comic strip. The daily strip only showed the object of Charlie Brown’s affections once, in silhouette, in 1998. He did get to meet her in the television special 'It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown', which aired in 1977.

Snoopy has five siblings. Spike was the first Snoopy brother, introduced in 1975 and named after Charles Schulz’s childhood pup. Snoopy’s other siblings include Marbles, Olaf, Andy, and his only sister, Belle.

If you look closely, you will notice that Snoopy’s eyes are on the same side of his nose. It looks natural in the comic, but was a particular challenge to animate in 3D.

Even the U.S. Postal Service loves A Charlie Brown Christmas. In 2015, to mark the 65th anniversary of the comic and the 50th anniversary of the television special, the USPS released Forever Stamps with images like Snoopy ice skating, Linus kneeling with the Christmas tree, and Charlie Brown checking the mail for a Christmas card. The Peanuts gang also got a commemorative stamp from the USPS in 2001.

Jul 27, 2012

Joe Shlabotnik

Charlie Brown’s favorite baseball player is a guy whose career was anything but spectacular. After batting .004 in one season in the majors, Joe Shlabotnik was sent back down to the minor leagues, where his most notable highlight was throwing out a runner who fell down between first and second base.

When Shlabotnik became the manager for the Waffletown Syrups, Charlie Brown finally got to meet his hero. While in the stands, Charlie Brown snagged a foul ball, and he wanted Shlabotnik to sign it. Unfortunately, Shlabotnik had been fired in the middle of the game.

Like all adults, he is never actually seen in Peanuts.
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Jul 6, 2012

Who was Charlotte Braun

She was written as a female version of Charlie Brown. In fact, she looked just like him, except she had curly hair. She was also ostracized by her peers, but it was because she was loud and obnoxious, a fact she constantly pointed out during her appearances in the comic strip.

Shortly after her introduction in 1954, Schulz received a letter from Elizabeth Swain, a young fan in Pittsburgh, who told him to get rid of Braun because Swain found the character annoying and unfunny.

Schulz wrote Swain a letter saying that he would soon “discard” Braun as requested. He added a touch of dark humor by saying that Swain would “have the death of an innocent child on your conscience. Are you prepared to accept such responsibility?”

Next to his signature, he included a sketch of Charlotte Braun with an ax stuck in her head. Braun showed up in the comic one more time, but then never returned. He really did have a sense of humor.

Jun 1, 2012

What's in a Name, 5

One of the characters in the Peanuts universe was “555 95472,” or “5” for short. Introduced in September 1963, 5 explained that his father was so upset about people being seen as “just a number,” he renamed the entire family as a series of digits.

The family’s last name is taken from their ZIP Code, though when spoken, 5 insists there’s an accent on the 4. The ZIP Code, by the way, is the real one for Sebastopol, California, where Charles Schulz lived at the time.

5’s sisters 3 and 4 made a few appearances in the strip before disappearing, but 5 was occasionally a background character until 1981. You’ve probably seen 3, 4, and 5 already and didn’t even know it. All three appear in the famous dance sequence in 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'. 3 and 4 are the twin girls in purple dresses, while 5 is the spiky-haired kid in orange.