Goodbye, Charlie Brown

More than Peanuts

The Beagle has landed. Snoopy, the comic-strip canine created by Charles Schulz in his fabulously successful Peanuts cartoons, will have no more adventures.

Having announced that he was suffering from cancer of the colon last December and consequently planned to retire, Schulz's last strip was published yesterday, after he'd died in his sleep.

There may be plans for the worldwide syndicated Peanuts series to be re-published, but there will be no more original ones because the master has gone.

There is no-one to draw Charlie Brown and Co, or to put words of whimsy and wisdom into their mouths. No more will Lucy lord it over Charlie, or Snoopy constantly get the better of him. No more will Woodstock chirp.

The Peanuts strip was an oasis of innocence in a sly and knowing world. Yet Schulz's gentle humour could poke fun at pomposity, too.

More than that, Charlie Brown and Charles M Schulz provided people with a smile to start the day.

And that amounts to a whole lot more than peanuts.

By George Frew

Challenges and comforts

If happiness is a warm puppy, as Charles M Schulz told us, then unhappiness must surely be the end of Peanuts.The cartoonist who drew and wrote America's most popular comic strip for almost 50 years died in his sleep on the very day his last ever Peanuts cartoon was published.

Schulz, 77, had announced his retirement in December after being diagnosed with colon cancer last month and was undergoing outpatient chemotherapy near his home and studio in Santa Rosa, California.

In a statement to fans and fellow cartoonists, he said: "Although I feel better following my recent surgery, I want to focus on my health and family without the worry of a daily deadline."

United Features Syndicate, which distributed Peanuts to 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries and 21 languages - including the Daily Mail in the UK - said it would not be replacing him.

"It is really shocking,'' said Mort Walker, creator of the Beetle Bailey strip. ''I just thought he would go on and on for ever. It's like losing a child or something. I looked forward to reading the strip every day." What readers got every day was a look at the challenging yet comforting world of Charlie Brown, his role-playing dog Snoopy and their band of eternal friends.

Charlie Brown's kite always got caught in the tree. Lucy always snatched the football away before he could kick it. Sally could never get the attention of blanket-carrying Linus.

"Peanuts changed the comics pages for ever," said Cathy cartoonist Cathy Guisewite. "It was the first strip where the characters voiced real vulnerabilities. There were emotions; people related to it in a personal way. It was our expression of ourselves."

In a simple yet whimsical world of white picket fences and a dog who dispensed more wisdom than any human, Schulz "defined happiness dozens of ways", according to Rheta Grimsley Johnson in her book Good Grief: The Story of Charles M Schulz.

"Warm puppies, piles of leaves, finding the little puzzle piece with the pink edge and part of the sky and the top of the sailboat.''

But Peanuts wasn't confined to a two-dimensional newspaper world. The strip spawned a mega-congolomerate that includes 50 animated television specials, 1,400 books, four feature films and 600 licensed products including clothing, golfwear and greetings cards.

Peanuts merchandise has generated $1bn and will continue to be sold, according to Diane Iselin of United Features Syndicate. There are also Snoopy-themed areas at four US amusement parks and seven in Asia. The Peanuts characters have long been spokesmen for a giant insurance company. ''Peanuts has been a part of the American scene for so long that for at least a period of time after the strip it will still have a great deal of appeal,'' said Seth Siegel, co-chairman of The Beanstalk Group, a licensing and merchandising agency.

''In the long term, the question is whether it will become like The Wizard of Oz, which is as popular or even more popular today as a pop culture icon that when it came out originally, or become like Lil Abner, which in its day was a leading strip but today appears hopelessly dated.''

And a Broadway remake of the hit musical You're a Good Man Charlie Brown! won two Tony Awards last year.

"I personally look at (Peanuts) as America's favorite pastime,'' said actress Kristen Chenoweth, who played Charlie Brown's sister, Sally. ''Even more so than children, adults can relate to his sense of humor that enables us to laugh at ourselves.''

After Schulz's retirement, many newspapers planned to rerun strips from the heyday years around 1974.

''He was one of the only cartoonists that did the strip totally on his own,'' said Jeanne Greever of the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Fla., which is hosting a 50th anniversary exhibit of Schulz's work.

''It's been something that's so much a part of him that no one could really ever take it over and do because it's something that comes from his heart,''

But his secretary Lorrie Myers said Schulz had a clause in his contract dictating the strip had to end with his death, which may change all that.

After serving as an infantryman in World War II, Schulz began drawing cartoons for The Saturday Evening Post. His first foray into comic strips began in 1947 with Li'l Folks, a strip drawn for his hometown newspaper, the St Paul Pioneer Press. It was renamed Peanuts - a title he didn't care for - after being sold to the syndicate. It debuted on October 2, 1950, in just seven newspapers. The series quickly became a staple of American pop culture. "Happiness is a warm puppy" is even in John Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. His 1965 CBS special, A Charlie Brown Christma,s is a holiday tradition and its jazz soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi is one of the most recognizable scores in TV history.

Schulz had a reputation for being a bit of a recluse, most like the character Charlie Brown.

"If you were to read the strip, oh, for just a few months, you would know me, because everything that I am goes into the strip," he said in an interview in October. "All my fears, my anxieties, my joys and even my experiences go into that strip."

Fellow cartoonists paid their own tributes to Schultz, known to friends as "Sparky".

Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau said: "For 50 years, Peanuts has shown us the way. There is not a cartoonist alive who is not indebted to him and all of us will miss his gentle and wholly original talent."

And Garfield cartoonist Jim Davis added: "Way down deep, we're all Charlie Brown. We weren't looking at the newspaper every day. We were staring into a mirror."

By Cesar G. Soriano

www.usatoday.com

Story date: Monday 14 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.