How Snoopy Killed Peanuts
August 15, 2015 8:13 PM Subscribe
How Snoopy killed Peanuts. "By the end of its run in 1999, Peanuts was an institution. It had become an omnipresent part of American culture, and that’s not a compliment."
Those who do not learn from the Peanuts are doomed to repeat it via the Simpsons.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:30 PM on August 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by blue_beetle at 8:30 PM on August 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
Aw, I love Snoopy. I really disagree with this thesis, too - it didn't hurt Peanuts to add Snoopy's absurdism and fantasy elements, just as much a product of the 60s as nihilistic psychological ennui was of the 50s. I think in his condemnation of some strips he thinks are unfunny, he's missing the frame humor - the idea that Snoopy was not bound by the comic's rules was the funny thing.
I read Peanuts from the late 70s through its demise, and at that point, it was an entire world that I inherited fully formed, not something that was even capable of jumping the shark. It just was, like Bugs Bunny.
posted by Miko at 8:30 PM on August 15, 2015 [59 favorites]
I read Peanuts from the late 70s through its demise, and at that point, it was an entire world that I inherited fully formed, not something that was even capable of jumping the shark. It just was, like Bugs Bunny.
posted by Miko at 8:30 PM on August 15, 2015 [59 favorites]
*checks for criticism of Woodstock, finds none, puts away pitchfork*
edit: spoke too soon. where's my pitchfork...
posted by slater at 8:31 PM on August 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
edit: spoke too soon. where's my pitchfork...
posted by slater at 8:31 PM on August 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
"And as for Woodstock, he did the strip no favors either. Here, we had a character who didn’t use words at all, and primarily existed just to be cute."
posted by goatdog at 8:32 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by goatdog at 8:32 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Fair or not, and likely cherry-picked, I definitely prefer the early stuff pictured in the essay over the later stuff.
posted by oddman at 8:37 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by oddman at 8:37 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think the essay got it right. I grew up reading collections of the older strips, and thought--still think--they were wonderful.
Then I would read the current strips in the paper and think "What is this shit?"
posted by librosegretti at 8:39 PM on August 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
Then I would read the current strips in the paper and think "What is this shit?"
posted by librosegretti at 8:39 PM on August 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
The ellipsis thing is very telling...
posted by infinitewindow at 8:42 PM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by infinitewindow at 8:42 PM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
There is a cycle to all artists who produce great long running works: Inception. Greatness. Inevitable Decline. Having some unqualified, untalented hack on a second rate website attempt to critique your work.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 8:47 PM on August 15, 2015 [54 favorites]
posted by AGameOfMoans at 8:47 PM on August 15, 2015 [54 favorites]
well, there's nothing like spoiling the irony and pathos of a comic strip by developing a dog's character into someone who has a richer inner life than any of the human characters
posted by pyramid termite at 8:49 PM on August 15, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite at 8:49 PM on August 15, 2015 [16 favorites]
Jeez, these slate pitches are getting awfully petty and mean
posted by clockzero at 8:58 PM on August 15, 2015 [19 favorites]
posted by clockzero at 8:58 PM on August 15, 2015 [19 favorites]
The strip evolved and Snoopy evolved into serving a different purpose over time. I don't see that as "killing the strip." Now I'm not familiar with the strip through the 80s and 90s, but Snoopy's domination in the late 60's and 70's did not hurt the strip at all.
posted by tommyD at 8:59 PM on August 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by tommyD at 8:59 PM on August 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
The Simpsons fandom have pinpointed, with fascinating accuracy, the point at which The Simpsons became Zombie Simpsons: a single bad-by-Good-Simpsons-standards episode in Season 7, a decline in quality across Seasons 8 through 11, and total zombification by Season 12.
Which begs the question: can the arguable decline and zombification of Peanuts be pinpointed with such accuracy?
posted by BiggerJ at 9:04 PM on August 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
Which begs the question: can the arguable decline and zombification of Peanuts be pinpointed with such accuracy?
posted by BiggerJ at 9:04 PM on August 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
Schultz's comic would have been much better had his publisher not strongarmed him into using the inane name "Peanuts", and instead he had gone with his first choice, "Lil' Fuckers"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:04 PM on August 15, 2015 [42 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:04 PM on August 15, 2015 [42 favorites]
Snoopy didn't kill Peanuts. Schulz retired it when his health was too poor, and died the day before the final strip ran.
So it was cancer that killed Peanuts.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:05 PM on August 15, 2015 [42 favorites]
So it was cancer that killed Peanuts.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:05 PM on August 15, 2015 [42 favorites]
This is getting real dark real quick.
posted by No-sword at 9:06 PM on August 15, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by No-sword at 9:06 PM on August 15, 2015 [13 favorites]
To lighten the mood, here is a funny strip by some who refused to let any characters kill the strip.
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/12/07
Apologies for not linking properly. Doing this from my phone.
posted by 4ster at 9:11 PM on August 15, 2015 [10 favorites]
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/12/07
Apologies for not linking properly. Doing this from my phone.
posted by 4ster at 9:11 PM on August 15, 2015 [10 favorites]
Well, someone clearly got a bunch of the early Fantagraphics volumes recently.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:11 PM on August 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:11 PM on August 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
Things can't stay the same forever.
Artists can't create the same thing forever.
Sometimes an artist is done doing the thing you love and starts doing a thing you don't love, or don't even like.
Sometimes an artist is also a person who earns a living -- like Charlie Brown's dad -- and what he does to earn a living at one point in his life may not be the same thing he did to earn a living at another point in his life, even if it goes by the same name.
But those facts don't make clickbait headlines like "How Snoopy Killed Peanuts" I guess.
posted by edheil at 9:12 PM on August 15, 2015 [23 favorites]
Artists can't create the same thing forever.
Sometimes an artist is done doing the thing you love and starts doing a thing you don't love, or don't even like.
Sometimes an artist is also a person who earns a living -- like Charlie Brown's dad -- and what he does to earn a living at one point in his life may not be the same thing he did to earn a living at another point in his life, even if it goes by the same name.
But those facts don't make clickbait headlines like "How Snoopy Killed Peanuts" I guess.
posted by edheil at 9:12 PM on August 15, 2015 [23 favorites]
Snoopy is everywhere in Taiwan - self post (snoopy land)
posted by mattoxic at 9:12 PM on August 15, 2015
posted by mattoxic at 9:12 PM on August 15, 2015
"...it was only ‘great’ for a 15-20 year period"
Yeah, um, who is this Kevin Wong fellow and how many decades has he been Great for?
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:13 PM on August 15, 2015 [13 favorites]
Yeah, um, who is this Kevin Wong fellow and how many decades has he been Great for?
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:13 PM on August 15, 2015 [13 favorites]
Getting dark real quick? It is better to light a single candle... (one of my faves)
Also, Snoopy haters can take the first train back to Needles.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:15 PM on August 15, 2015 [22 favorites]
Also, Snoopy haters can take the first train back to Needles.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:15 PM on August 15, 2015 [22 favorites]
Bah. The first half of the article is right on (because he largely agrees with me), and covers why Peanuts was an amazing strip for 20 to 25 years. But blaming the decline on Snoopy is just silly.
In an interview with Gary Groth, Schulz mentions that he wouldn't have done some of the early strips again, because he found them too cruel. Which is pretty much why the later decades fell flat: he lost his dark streak.
If anything, Snoopy probably saved the strip for awhile. It's hard to keep making funny with a small cast of characters for fifty years. Snoopy let Schulz get some air in to the strip: he could suddenly explore World War I, or novel writing, or going off to Petaluma for the arm wrestling championship. It wasn't as easy to take the kids anywhere new.
posted by zompist at 9:16 PM on August 15, 2015 [33 favorites]
In an interview with Gary Groth, Schulz mentions that he wouldn't have done some of the early strips again, because he found them too cruel. Which is pretty much why the later decades fell flat: he lost his dark streak.
If anything, Snoopy probably saved the strip for awhile. It's hard to keep making funny with a small cast of characters for fifty years. Snoopy let Schulz get some air in to the strip: he could suddenly explore World War I, or novel writing, or going off to Petaluma for the arm wrestling championship. It wasn't as easy to take the kids anywhere new.
posted by zompist at 9:16 PM on August 15, 2015 [33 favorites]
One of my favorite Peanuts strips ran in its last years: Rerun tells Snoopy "Here puppy dog, fetch the stick" Snoopy takes it, drops it over a cliff, comes back to Rerun and his thought bubble says: "I am NOT a puppy dog".
posted by brujita at 9:18 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by brujita at 9:18 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I agree that the quality of Peanuts strips went downhill in the last decade, but I disagree with this article's reasoning. It felt like the author liked the "brutal" "cynical" "life sucks!" theme in early Peanuts strips, and just wanted that to continue forever. Anything that isn't in that style of humor reflects a falling-away from his ideal "kids are mean to each other" Peanuts. Even Snoopy's rich fantasy life is OK only if it points and laughs at the inevitability of failure.
What makes Peanuts interesting is the way Charles Schulz could do new things with his old characters as the decades went on. There's Snoopy's pastiche of different tropes, of course, but also Linus's intellectual, ecumenical theology, Schroeder's flights of fancy with music, and Lucy's glib, unhelpful, self-satisfied psychology. Peanuts was even more popular in the late 60s - early 70s than in the "dark side of childhood" 50s, and not just popular as a tie-in marketing empire, but in ways that really spoke to the adults of the time.
I suppose it's unreasonable to speculate about the author's own psychology, but I've noticed that friends of mine who are somewhat Depressed, or just have negative personalities, tend to love grimdark humor, and see more optimistic takes on life as phony sell-out bullshit lies. I heard a lot of their voices echoed in Kevin Wong's rhetoric.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:19 PM on August 15, 2015 [17 favorites]
What makes Peanuts interesting is the way Charles Schulz could do new things with his old characters as the decades went on. There's Snoopy's pastiche of different tropes, of course, but also Linus's intellectual, ecumenical theology, Schroeder's flights of fancy with music, and Lucy's glib, unhelpful, self-satisfied psychology. Peanuts was even more popular in the late 60s - early 70s than in the "dark side of childhood" 50s, and not just popular as a tie-in marketing empire, but in ways that really spoke to the adults of the time.
I suppose it's unreasonable to speculate about the author's own psychology, but I've noticed that friends of mine who are somewhat Depressed, or just have negative personalities, tend to love grimdark humor, and see more optimistic takes on life as phony sell-out bullshit lies. I heard a lot of their voices echoed in Kevin Wong's rhetoric.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:19 PM on August 15, 2015 [17 favorites]
Peanuts and Mad Magazine; where the stuff I saw in the early 70s as being the pinnacle of human endevour was actually shit because I'm informed that the dark, anxious stuff from ten years previous was much better. Just fuck off.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:21 PM on August 15, 2015 [19 favorites]
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:21 PM on August 15, 2015 [19 favorites]
I felt the same way about the X-Files, which I believe steadily declined in quality each season it was on the air. My response to that was to stop watching somewhere around season three or four. My response was not to become a member of a web forum devoted to having it removed from television, because Life. As snarky as it sounds, if you don't like it, don't read it, watch it, or listen to it, but don't expect it to go away because it no longer amuses you.
As to Peanuts, I hope the new film is good, and I hope it's a hit, because then we'll get more, because capitalism.
posted by Beholder at 9:22 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
As to Peanuts, I hope the new film is good, and I hope it's a hit, because then we'll get more, because capitalism.
posted by Beholder at 9:22 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Which begs the question: can the arguable decline and zombification of Peanuts be pinpointed with such accuracy?
It PROMPTS the question.
If you are going for precision in your crit, BE PRECISE.
posted by notyou at 9:34 PM on August 15, 2015 [29 favorites]
It PROMPTS the question.
If you are going for precision in your crit, BE PRECISE.
posted by notyou at 9:34 PM on August 15, 2015 [29 favorites]
This has been a thing since they started reprinting the early strips; I'm pretty sure there was a similar article in The Comics Journal at one point. While I agree that the early stuff was better, I started buying The Complete Peanuts when Fantagraphics started the line and stopped buying them when they hit the mid 1970s, I doubt the strip (or Schulz) would have survived as long as it did if it hadn't changed. I certainly don't remember anything else that dark in the 1980s funny pages.
Schulz had an affair and divorced his first wife in 1972. He remarried in 1973. Odd that the author didn't think to mention that.
I think about how my dad was with his children vs how he is with his grandchildren and it's not hard to see Grandpa Schulz take over the writing of the strip.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 9:42 PM on August 15, 2015 [11 favorites]
Schulz had an affair and divorced his first wife in 1972. He remarried in 1973. Odd that the author didn't think to mention that.
I think about how my dad was with his children vs how he is with his grandchildren and it's not hard to see Grandpa Schulz take over the writing of the strip.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 9:42 PM on August 15, 2015 [11 favorites]
Let it go, notyou. English speakers have decided that "begs the question" doesn't mean "engages in petitio principii" anymore. And "begs the question" was kind of a shitty translation of "petitio principii" in the first place, so maybe it is better this way. Let "begs the question" mean what it sounds like it means, and let's find other battles to fight.
posted by edheil at 9:48 PM on August 15, 2015 [33 favorites]
posted by edheil at 9:48 PM on August 15, 2015 [33 favorites]
I kind of want to drive up to the Schulz Museum tomorrow and forget I ever read this. Good grief.
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:50 PM on August 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:50 PM on August 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
"Every now and then I hear that Peanuts isn't as funny as it was or it's gotten old or something like that. I think what's really happened is that Schulz, in Peanuts, changed the entire face of comic strips, and everybody has now caught up to him. I don't think he's five years ahead of everybody else like he used to be, so that's taken some of the edge off it. I think it's still a wonderful strip in terms of solid construction, character development, the fantasy element...Things that we now take for granted--reading the thoughts of an animal for example--there's not a cartoonist who's done anything since 1960 who doesn't owe Schulz a tremendous debt."
--Bill Watterson
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:56 PM on August 15, 2015 [65 favorites]
--Bill Watterson
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:56 PM on August 15, 2015 [65 favorites]
I never understood why anyone ever thought Peanuts was funny, until Schulz died and the strip went into reruns. Everything I ever saw of it in the 80s and 90s was utterly flavorless.
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 10:04 PM on August 15, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 10:04 PM on August 15, 2015 [10 favorites]
The early years of "Peanuts" are so sad - really so unrelentingly bleak - that I've always assumed that Snoopy's rise to prominence was the result of some kind of midlife crisis on Schultz's part. That he either decided that he wanted (or needed) to be more commercial, or that he wanted (or needed) to be less hopeless.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:09 PM on August 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 10:09 PM on August 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
Tons of previouslies.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:09 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:09 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I will say one thing Schultz did really well is to have a variety of female characters. When I was growing up in the 80s I was crazy about the Muppets, right? The Muppet Show was the funniest thing on television. By 2015 as I'm looking at the new Muppet Show I can't help but think how apparently all these years later my choices are whether I'm a Piggy or a ...Janice, I guess? But in Peanuts there's Lucy and Sally and Frieda and Violet and Patty and Marcie, and even though I never found the humor in Peanuts nearly as compelling it's a nice feeling to see someone from that era thinking of women as equal drivers of the story and not just an afterthought.
posted by MsMolly at 10:21 PM on August 15, 2015 [60 favorites]
posted by MsMolly at 10:21 PM on August 15, 2015 [60 favorites]
As I child I loved reading paperback collections of Peanut comics from the library and wanted to check some oldies out. I randomly picked August 1, 1965. The strips are pretty Snoopy focused and funny. Snoopy is even trying on a human identity. This time he's a surfer. His talk/think bubbles use a lot of ellipses to convey Snoopy's style of thinking. According to this article, 1965 lies solidly within Peanut's golden age but the author cites all of these devices as examples of the comic strips later decline. I think most creative endeavors must lose their edge after decades of material. I think there probably is a greater reliance on the absurdity of Snoopy in the late era. But a quick dip into the archives reveals how simple it is to use the mountains of available material to sculpt an argument in your favor.
posted by firemouth at 10:26 PM on August 15, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by firemouth at 10:26 PM on August 15, 2015 [11 favorites]
I guess this moron never thought about the possibility that maybe Schulz liked success a hell of a lot more than being eternally mired in existential angst -- or at least that he liked projecting the illusion, through his strip and his licensing empire, that he liked success (from my understanding of his bio, he was pretty much in a more-or-less constant state of anxiety and dread most of his life). His fans liked that too. Not all that complicated. Snoopy as Joe Cool is a lot more appealing than Charlie Brown constantly staring into the abyss of depression, alienation, and despair, as much as I love that era of the strip.
The other thing that this guy ignores is that every December, the original Charlie Brown Christmas is still broadcast on CBS, it's obviously still watched by millions, and it's about as bleak as an animated cartoon on a TV network gets. That doesn't exactly fit his theory that Peanuts eventually became all about nothing but the cuteness. If that were the case, CBS would have yanked the thing off the air decades ago.
posted by blucevalo at 10:41 PM on August 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
The other thing that this guy ignores is that every December, the original Charlie Brown Christmas is still broadcast on CBS, it's obviously still watched by millions, and it's about as bleak as an animated cartoon on a TV network gets. That doesn't exactly fit his theory that Peanuts eventually became all about nothing but the cuteness. If that were the case, CBS would have yanked the thing off the air decades ago.
posted by blucevalo at 10:41 PM on August 15, 2015 [6 favorites]
In defense of Schulz's later years, I really liked when he left the constriction of four-panel layout behind. He was a remarkable artist and there were times when I felt that Schulz and Watterson were old friends.
posted by SPrintF at 10:55 PM on August 15, 2015
posted by SPrintF at 10:55 PM on August 15, 2015
I think the Christmas special remaining intact is more a result of Tradition having an unusual amount of weight where that holiday is concerned. People expect to watch the same movies, unmodified, that they did the year before. I mean, in some ways it's kind of a baffling cultural artifact, what with the aluminum trees and such.
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 10:58 PM on August 15, 2015
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 10:58 PM on August 15, 2015
I agree that Snoopy wasn't the problem, though. I mean, if I'm gonna be honest, probably the main thing that made me dislike Peanuts as a kid was the life insurance commercials.
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 11:00 PM on August 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by reprise the theme song and roll the credits at 11:00 PM on August 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
They better never remake Die Hard, the sequels are bad enough.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:00 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Drinky Die at 11:00 PM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have some of the really early Peanuts books, and many of them were not really funny or dark or insightful at all. It is easy to pick a few choice comics from that era and make generalizations. But Schultz's humor definitely became more consistent and refined with time.
And many of the Snoopy cartoons were quite poignant. I can't find it online at the moment, but my Dad always had a framed Snoopy comic in his bathroom. Snoopy is awakened by a siren, but can't get back to sleep, and becomes more and more anxious, afraid he's about to have a heart attack. Then he says something like "maybe it is just indigestion", and goes right back to sleep.
It is a thought that has helped me overcome more than one night of mid-night wakefulness and anxiety, even if I'm not always able to get right back to sleep.
posted by eye of newt at 12:39 AM on August 16, 2015 [6 favorites]
And many of the Snoopy cartoons were quite poignant. I can't find it online at the moment, but my Dad always had a framed Snoopy comic in his bathroom. Snoopy is awakened by a siren, but can't get back to sleep, and becomes more and more anxious, afraid he's about to have a heart attack. Then he says something like "maybe it is just indigestion", and goes right back to sleep.
It is a thought that has helped me overcome more than one night of mid-night wakefulness and anxiety, even if I'm not always able to get right back to sleep.
posted by eye of newt at 12:39 AM on August 16, 2015 [6 favorites]
"As often happens in entertainment, it exhausted its creative potential before it had exhausted its commercial potential."
That's the critic R. Fiore discussing The Simpsons. It's as neat a summing up as I've ever seen of what happens to many long-running TV series and comic strips - the financially successful ones, anyway. Musing on this fact makes me respect Bill Waterson even more.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:41 AM on August 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
That's the critic R. Fiore discussing The Simpsons. It's as neat a summing up as I've ever seen of what happens to many long-running TV series and comic strips - the financially successful ones, anyway. Musing on this fact makes me respect Bill Waterson even more.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:41 AM on August 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
I remember thinking in the 80s that Peanuts wasn't consistently great. But the holiday specials have for my entire life been something I cherish. And in part it's the bleakness. But Snoopy certainly is part of that, too.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:09 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by persona au gratin at 1:09 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
It felt like the author liked the "brutal" "cynical" "life sucks!" theme in early Peanuts strips,
Must be a Gen X writer. I hear they like to melt down chocolate bunnies as well.
posted by happyroach at 1:31 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Must be a Gen X writer. I hear they like to melt down chocolate bunnies as well.
posted by happyroach at 1:31 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Wait a second. "Marge Not Be Proud" is where the Simpsons declined? The episode that ended with the brilliant credits roll of "Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge". That's a pistols at dawn invitation right fucking there.
Blaming the natural decline of Peanuts on Snoopy is equally ludicrous. The height of Snoopy's fantasy runs were in the 60s and 70s, when the strip was in its prime. Not even Pogo was unhinged enough to put a beagle on top of his doghouse and turn it into a WWI fighter plane. Waterson is right, Schulz was well ahead of his time.
posted by Ber at 1:43 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
Blaming the natural decline of Peanuts on Snoopy is equally ludicrous. The height of Snoopy's fantasy runs were in the 60s and 70s, when the strip was in its prime. Not even Pogo was unhinged enough to put a beagle on top of his doghouse and turn it into a WWI fighter plane. Waterson is right, Schulz was well ahead of his time.
posted by Ber at 1:43 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
Snoopy should have suffered the same fate as the dog he was based on:
“We used to have a dog named Snoopy, you know, a real live dog. I suppose people who love Snoopy won't like it, but we gave him away. He fought with other dogs, so we traded him in for a load of gravel.”posted by painquale at 3:20 AM on August 16, 2015 [14 favorites]
― Charles Schulz
I've been into Peanuts* since I found copies of the old treasuries at my grandparents' cottage, and I've always been more into the '50s and (early) '60s strips, long before I understood the issues Schulz faced as his creation settled into the long haul. I just flat-out liked the art better, for one thing.
At that age the thing I liked about Peanuts, aside from the fact that it was often hilarious, was that it was the only bit of pop culture I knew of at the time was that didn't shy away from acknowledging that childhood was both the best and worst of times, that children can be cruel and greedy, that life is full of - along with joy and love - dashed dreams and disappointment. If that's not what you're looking for in a comic strip I fully understand, but I found that a lot more compelling than Snoopy pretending to be a surfer or a vulture or whatever. Snoopy didn't kill Peanuts, he just changed it, and I agree with what other people upthread have said about how it would have been impossible for Schulz to maintain the tone of the '50s and '60s strips for almost 50 years without it turning into self-parody.
* I have a tattoo of ('50s) Charlie Brown
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:36 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
At that age the thing I liked about Peanuts, aside from the fact that it was often hilarious, was that it was the only bit of pop culture I knew of at the time was that didn't shy away from acknowledging that childhood was both the best and worst of times, that children can be cruel and greedy, that life is full of - along with joy and love - dashed dreams and disappointment. If that's not what you're looking for in a comic strip I fully understand, but I found that a lot more compelling than Snoopy pretending to be a surfer or a vulture or whatever. Snoopy didn't kill Peanuts, he just changed it, and I agree with what other people upthread have said about how it would have been impossible for Schulz to maintain the tone of the '50s and '60s strips for almost 50 years without it turning into self-parody.
* I have a tattoo of ('50s) Charlie Brown
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:36 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
"Marge Not Be Proud" is where the Simpsons declined?
I'm sure there were signs of decay earlier, but the first time I recall that I said to myself, wow, that was truly awful, was probably the episode with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger where Homer becomes their personal assistant.
posted by thelonius at 3:39 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm sure there were signs of decay earlier, but the first time I recall that I said to myself, wow, that was truly awful, was probably the episode with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger where Homer becomes their personal assistant.
posted by thelonius at 3:39 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also, as I have explained before, I believe that Peanuts chronicles the descent into madness of the profoundly depressed and alienated child, Charles Brown., who increasingly comes to rely in an escape into a fantasy world concerning his dog's adventures, despite his ineffective efforts at obtaining psychiatric assistance.
posted by thelonius at 3:42 AM on August 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 3:42 AM on August 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
Schultz's humor definitely became more consistent and refined with time.
...and repetitive.
posted by fairmettle at 4:15 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
...and repetitive.
posted by fairmettle at 4:15 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Maybe not, but Opus certainly killed Bloom County.
posted by rikschell at 4:34 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 4:34 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's interesting that the author's choice of articles to show Snoopy killed the strip actually illustrate what was good about it from the beginning: the dark humour is still there, if somewhat more refined.
To complain that the lines grew less steady as Shulz grew old is simply to engage in ageism. Yes, I noticed it (although I'd long since stopped following the strip on a daily basis), but it didn't detract from my appreciation of Shulz's talent.
It might be more accurate to say that commercialism killed the dark humour of the strip, and that Snoopy was at the forefront of that commercialism. Because a lot of the commercialised aspects of Snoopy are not very different from the very saccharine Hello Kitty. But that's a comparison the author did not choose to pursue, and hence is a different topic entirely.
posted by oheso at 4:44 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
To complain that the lines grew less steady as Shulz grew old is simply to engage in ageism. Yes, I noticed it (although I'd long since stopped following the strip on a daily basis), but it didn't detract from my appreciation of Shulz's talent.
It might be more accurate to say that commercialism killed the dark humour of the strip, and that Snoopy was at the forefront of that commercialism. Because a lot of the commercialised aspects of Snoopy are not very different from the very saccharine Hello Kitty. But that's a comparison the author did not choose to pursue, and hence is a different topic entirely.
posted by oheso at 4:44 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
There are many, many strips from the "Golden Age" that I read as a child and absorbed as a part of the Peanuts ethos, but didn't entirely understand until I was an adult; e.g., "Burglars are very afraid of beagles. They're afraid they'll trip over them in the dark."
Total non-sequitur to everything I've just had to say, I hope.
posted by oheso at 4:47 AM on August 16, 2015
Total non-sequitur to everything I've just had to say, I hope.
posted by oheso at 4:47 AM on August 16, 2015
Hey, Kevin Wong, I'll write the strip, and you come running up and kick it!
posted by flabdablet at 5:04 AM on August 16, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 5:04 AM on August 16, 2015 [8 favorites]
Maybe not, but Opus certainly killed Bloom County.
He saved the strip. Made it more (not less) relatable to readers.
Bloom County was based on To Kill A Mockingbird. Binkley and Opus were clearly based on Scout, and throughout the run of the strip, that role fell more to Mr. Penguin Lust.
posted by zarq at 5:06 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
He saved the strip. Made it more (not less) relatable to readers.
Bloom County was based on To Kill A Mockingbird. Binkley and Opus were clearly based on Scout, and throughout the run of the strip, that role fell more to Mr. Penguin Lust.
posted by zarq at 5:06 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
the dark humour is still there, if somewhat more refined
Well, I think late-period Peanuts is absolutely as dark as the very early, but I'm not sure about the humour part. Look at those last two strips in the article - "we're all emotionally bankrupt" and Spike lamenting his lonely existence - it's just despair, and there's no punchline.
Part of it is that the gag in Schulz's work, even if you go back and look at his pre-Peanuts cartoons, is that it's small children expressing adult concerns, or more specifically Schulz's concerns and neuroses. So, in the earlier years it's all young adult angst - being rejected in love, not being sure you fit in, wondering what to do with your life - and in the last years it's all old man angst - musings on golf and infirmity and bible verses and death - and I think I know which of those is more easily transmutable into comedy.
posted by sobarel at 5:07 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
Well, I think late-period Peanuts is absolutely as dark as the very early, but I'm not sure about the humour part. Look at those last two strips in the article - "we're all emotionally bankrupt" and Spike lamenting his lonely existence - it's just despair, and there's no punchline.
Part of it is that the gag in Schulz's work, even if you go back and look at his pre-Peanuts cartoons, is that it's small children expressing adult concerns, or more specifically Schulz's concerns and neuroses. So, in the earlier years it's all young adult angst - being rejected in love, not being sure you fit in, wondering what to do with your life - and in the last years it's all old man angst - musings on golf and infirmity and bible verses and death - and I think I know which of those is more easily transmutable into comedy.
posted by sobarel at 5:07 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
This post inspired me to crack open some of the early years Fantagraphics collections for a bit this morning, and Snoopy was doing lots of Cute Dog Stuff right from the beginning...it was just a lot simpler (chasing leaves, slipping on ice, etc.) than the baroque fantasies that followed.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:19 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:19 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think the Christmas special remaining intact is more a result of Tradition having an unusual amount of weight where that holiday is concerned.
Has Why Charlie Brown, Why? ever been repeated on network or even non-network television?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:29 AM on August 16, 2015
Has Why Charlie Brown, Why? ever been repeated on network or even non-network television?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:29 AM on August 16, 2015
I always thought that Snoopy's doghouse came to a point on the roof, and that Snoopy relaxed by balancing on it.
posted by oceanjesse at 5:44 AM on August 16, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by oceanjesse at 5:44 AM on August 16, 2015 [13 favorites]
Maybe not, but Opus certainly killed Bloom County.
OK - I don't have strong personal feelings about "Peanuts", but those are fighting words.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:44 AM on August 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
OK - I don't have strong personal feelings about "Peanuts", but those are fighting words.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:44 AM on August 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
I mean, I hate to sound like the guy who liked stuff before it was popular, but I always liked Cutter John and Steve Dallas and Milo and the political commentary. Once it got to be all Opus all the time, all the fire drained out of the strip. I felt at the time that the strip had been Snoopied. From time to time Doonesbury almost got that way with Duke.
posted by rikschell at 5:59 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 5:59 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Opus is the main reason - only reason? - I read Bloom County. Political comics age so quickly; most of Doonesbury is unintelligible to anyone under 40. But Opus and his anxieties and joys are timeless.
Kind of like Snoopy, actually.
posted by jb at 6:03 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
Kind of like Snoopy, actually.
posted by jb at 6:03 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
Has Why Charlie Brown, Why? ever been repeated on network or even non-network television?
No, they just started showing "Coffee is for Closers ONLY, Charlie Brown" all the time
posted by thelonius at 6:13 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
No, they just started showing "Coffee is for Closers ONLY, Charlie Brown" all the time
posted by thelonius at 6:13 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
I guess all you "this guy is wrong, Snoopy is great!" folks started reading Peanuts in the years of decline and (understandably) love what you grew up with. I started reading Peanuts and Mad in the '50s, when they were both at their peak, and while both had moments of greatness in later years (fewer and fewer as the years went on), they never recaptured the purity of the original anarchic vision. But hey, enjoy what you enjoy; all I can say is that when I read the comics in the paper now (yes, I get a newspaper delivered every morning, I am an old fart) I groan when I see the later Peanuts they're currently running. Snoopy ruined the strip, no doubt about it.
> Which begs the question: can the arguable decline and zombification of Peanuts be pinpointed with such accuracy?
It PROMPTS the question.
If you are going for precision in your crit, BE PRECISE.
Oh, give me a break. I note you are not writing in Proto-World, or even Old English. I'll bet you don't even use "bead" to mean "prayer"; you're perfectly OK with this corrupt new meaning of "little round thing," aren't you? You've just lazily picked one dumb shibboleth that has never been common usage and take smug pleasure in using it to beat lesser mortals over the head with. If you are going for precision in your crit, LEARN HOW LANGUAGE WORKS.
posted by languagehat at 6:31 AM on August 16, 2015 [31 favorites]
> Which begs the question: can the arguable decline and zombification of Peanuts be pinpointed with such accuracy?
It PROMPTS the question.
If you are going for precision in your crit, BE PRECISE.
Oh, give me a break. I note you are not writing in Proto-World, or even Old English. I'll bet you don't even use "bead" to mean "prayer"; you're perfectly OK with this corrupt new meaning of "little round thing," aren't you? You've just lazily picked one dumb shibboleth that has never been common usage and take smug pleasure in using it to beat lesser mortals over the head with. If you are going for precision in your crit, LEARN HOW LANGUAGE WORKS.
posted by languagehat at 6:31 AM on August 16, 2015 [31 favorites]
was probably the episode with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger where Homer becomes their personal assistant.
What? That episode includes a brilliant characterization of Ron Howard!
posted by maxsparber at 6:33 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
What? That episode includes a brilliant characterization of Ron Howard!
posted by maxsparber at 6:33 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
they never recaptured the purity of the original anarchic vision
That was the point I was trying to make: when I first read them in the late 70s through the strip's end, it was no longer something with an arc - I read them all at once, the old alongside the new, and the world had a wholeness. As a kid and a teen, I didn't read them in order, and thus experience a fall from grace. Peanuts was a body of work, some elements better than others, that were all part of a consistent world. I read the collections of my cousins from the 50s and 60s, paperbacks we picked up at the book sale for .10, and the current (or rerun) daily and Sunday strip, watched the TV specials and movies, liked some better than others - but because there was so very much Peanuts, it wasn't something I could experience as having lost anything, because it was all there, new for me to discover. As a result I had no particular allegiance to the old more than the new and could not experience a decline narrative at a personal level.
posted by Miko at 6:49 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
That was the point I was trying to make: when I first read them in the late 70s through the strip's end, it was no longer something with an arc - I read them all at once, the old alongside the new, and the world had a wholeness. As a kid and a teen, I didn't read them in order, and thus experience a fall from grace. Peanuts was a body of work, some elements better than others, that were all part of a consistent world. I read the collections of my cousins from the 50s and 60s, paperbacks we picked up at the book sale for .10, and the current (or rerun) daily and Sunday strip, watched the TV specials and movies, liked some better than others - but because there was so very much Peanuts, it wasn't something I could experience as having lost anything, because it was all there, new for me to discover. As a result I had no particular allegiance to the old more than the new and could not experience a decline narrative at a personal level.
posted by Miko at 6:49 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
What? That episode includes a brilliant characterization of Ron Howard!
I submit that the very idea of building Simpsons episodes around celebrity cameos is rotten to the core.
posted by thelonius at 6:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
I submit that the very idea of building Simpsons episodes around celebrity cameos is rotten to the core.
posted by thelonius at 6:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
(additional thought) it was a lot like the way I experienced M*A*S*H*. I grew up with it - my parents were fans, and it was constantly referenced in our household banter - and watched it in reruns regularly. I was 13 when the last episode aired. All of M*A*S*H was kind of a big grab bag for me. Only much later did I (still watching reruns regularly through college - there was a twofer on the dorm lounge TV right before the dinner hour started) start to piece together the arc of the show, the order in which characters/actors changed, the shift in tone from absurdist comedy to increased drama and polemic. But that was part of a much later process, not my original experience. So when people say M*A*S*H jumped the shark when Trapper left (or whenever), I can only shrug. I liked the whole run of the show, I experienced it as a unity, some things were better before, and some after, but I'm just glad it exists. I see Peanuts in much the same way.
posted by Miko at 6:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Miko at 6:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [7 favorites]
This piece -- and the response to it -- reminds me of this awesomely offensive strip from Evan Dorkin.
posted by Enemy of Joy at 7:21 AM on August 16, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Enemy of Joy at 7:21 AM on August 16, 2015 [6 favorites]
I'll bet you don't even use "bead" to mean "prayer"; you're perfectly OK with this corrupt new meaning of "little round thing," aren't you?
I've created this little mental tableau of this being shouted at me in a pub car park by an inebriated Susie Dent, while Rachel Riley holds her back: "Leave it, Susie, e's not worth it!" Joyful thought-fodder for a dull Sunday afternoon.
posted by sobarel at 7:27 AM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
I've created this little mental tableau of this being shouted at me in a pub car park by an inebriated Susie Dent, while Rachel Riley holds her back: "Leave it, Susie, e's not worth it!" Joyful thought-fodder for a dull Sunday afternoon.
posted by sobarel at 7:27 AM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
I'll take Dorkin's potshot over Kotaku's longform freshman essay critique any day.
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:28 AM on August 16, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:28 AM on August 16, 2015 [7 favorites]
By the 80s, Shermy and Patty, who started the strip with Charlie Brown and Snoopy in 1952, were gone, or reduced to brief cameos.
Shermy was phased out pretty quickly, and Patty wasn't that far behind. It wasn't Snoopy's doing; it was because they weren't very well-developed characters and Schulz didn't have much use for them.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:55 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Shermy was phased out pretty quickly, and Patty wasn't that far behind. It wasn't Snoopy's doing; it was because they weren't very well-developed characters and Schulz didn't have much use for them.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:55 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
I liked the whole run of the show, I experienced it as a unity, some things were better before, and some after, but I'm just glad it exists.
This was my experience of M*A*S*H, too. It never occurred to me to compare the different phases of the show. It was just, here's one with B.J., here's one with Trapper. Although I did especially like the ones with B.J. and Winchester. I think their comparatively low-key personalities made the show less of a raucous satire and more like the kind of "family" sitcoms that would become the norm in the 80s.
One thing that never changed, though -- casting egregiously non-Korean actors as Koreans! (Which wouldn't be so cringe-inducing if they didn't also have them speak Korean dialogue in painfully un-Korean fashion.)
posted by Enemy of Joy at 7:58 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
This was my experience of M*A*S*H, too. It never occurred to me to compare the different phases of the show. It was just, here's one with B.J., here's one with Trapper. Although I did especially like the ones with B.J. and Winchester. I think their comparatively low-key personalities made the show less of a raucous satire and more like the kind of "family" sitcoms that would become the norm in the 80s.
One thing that never changed, though -- casting egregiously non-Korean actors as Koreans! (Which wouldn't be so cringe-inducing if they didn't also have them speak Korean dialogue in painfully un-Korean fashion.)
posted by Enemy of Joy at 7:58 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
As an adult, I can see the appeal of the earlier ones, but I was not big on existential despair as a child. I liked Snoopy and Woodstock. I rather liked Lucy's give-zero-fucks attitude, although she was also a complete asshole (which most of the kids were besides Charlie Brown). Snoopy, on the other hand, also gave zero fucks but also seemed to take pure joy in things.
The 70s commercialized the hell out of Snoopy, everyone I knew had some kind of Snoopy thing; poster, doll, pencils, folders, sheets, what have you. It was something adults enjoyed buying you, and he was cute, so it was acceptable to have his stuff. I like to think Schulz enjoyed spending that money.
I don't read the reruns, because it makes me sad that they won't let the strip die with its creator.
posted by emjaybee at 8:07 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
The 70s commercialized the hell out of Snoopy, everyone I knew had some kind of Snoopy thing; poster, doll, pencils, folders, sheets, what have you. It was something adults enjoyed buying you, and he was cute, so it was acceptable to have his stuff. I like to think Schulz enjoyed spending that money.
I don't read the reruns, because it makes me sad that they won't let the strip die with its creator.
posted by emjaybee at 8:07 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I like to think Schulz enjoyed spending that money.
He bought an ice rink!
posted by sobarel at 8:20 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
He bought an ice rink!
posted by sobarel at 8:20 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
Violet also disappeared at some point, right? She was a mega-bitch anyway.
posted by thelonius at 8:22 AM on August 16, 2015
posted by thelonius at 8:22 AM on August 16, 2015
I could have sworn the "Snoopy ruined Peanuts" thesis was one that I'd encountered before, and sure enough, I was right.
I do have to agree that, even as a kid in the late '70s and early '80s, I much preferred the earlier strips I encountered in the old Fawcett Crest paperback collections (I'd wheedle Mom into getting me a new one every time we went to the supermarket) than the then-current ones in the newspaper.
posted by non canadian guy at 8:49 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
I do have to agree that, even as a kid in the late '70s and early '80s, I much preferred the earlier strips I encountered in the old Fawcett Crest paperback collections (I'd wheedle Mom into getting me a new one every time we went to the supermarket) than the then-current ones in the newspaper.
posted by non canadian guy at 8:49 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Good grief!
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:08 AM on August 16, 2015
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:08 AM on August 16, 2015
I submit that the very idea of building Simpsons episodes around celebrity cameos is rotten to the core.
Michael Jackson was aight.
posted by box at 10:08 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Michael Jackson was aight.
posted by box at 10:08 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Shermy disappeared. Patty disappeared. And so did Violet. The other kids stay unchanged for decades in a place with jou visible adults. And the dog got bigger and smarter and more human. Good ol' Snoopy. The Steven King story almost writes itself.
posted by happyroach at 10:23 AM on August 16, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by happyroach at 10:23 AM on August 16, 2015 [14 favorites]
I remember growing up, stealing the Sunday comics from my parents and immediately going to the Calvin and Hobbes, which was under Peanuts. Then I went inside and read the others, Non Sequitor, Hagar, etc. Then, wanting more comics, I would find myself with the choice: do I read Cathy or Peanuts? I'm not going to enjoy either, but I want more comics. I was reading Garfield before Peanuts.
In other words, in the 80s and early 90s, I never found Peanuts funny and could not understand why it was this giant cultural phenomenon. The characters were flat, the jokes were barely jokes at all and even then were not funny. I chalked it up to old people wanting their comics to stay the same (I'm thinking of the Bloom County strip where either Opus or Milo is on the complaints desk at the newspaper and an old person calls in because one of their comics was canceled). I figured that back when Peanuts had started it had been lousy too, but that there just hadn't been that many great comics writers back then. These days I know how wrong I was, but that was when I was 11 or 12.
Then I got to read some of the older Peanuts comics. They were amazing. Satire, darkness, taking a bite out of childhood, they just blew me away. I don't know when the changeover happened, but as someone who grew up in the late 80s, early 90s, I thought Peanuts was a crap leftover from a bygone age of crap comics when I first encountered it. So yes, I agree with the article that it did go downhill. Snoopy's transition was part of that, but it was not the entire thing. I would put the year of transition some time before 1973, as the Peanuts Thanksgiving Cartoon is (and here I blacken my good metafilter name forever) shit. The only thing I can see it being good for is entertaining very small children while the adults drink. And it's too short to get more than one or two drinks in.
To those who love Snoopy and his later incarnation, please, please, link to what you think is a great comic staring him. Something that will make me laugh aloud. Because right now, I don't think it exists.
posted by Hactar at 10:25 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
In other words, in the 80s and early 90s, I never found Peanuts funny and could not understand why it was this giant cultural phenomenon. The characters were flat, the jokes were barely jokes at all and even then were not funny. I chalked it up to old people wanting their comics to stay the same (I'm thinking of the Bloom County strip where either Opus or Milo is on the complaints desk at the newspaper and an old person calls in because one of their comics was canceled). I figured that back when Peanuts had started it had been lousy too, but that there just hadn't been that many great comics writers back then. These days I know how wrong I was, but that was when I was 11 or 12.
Then I got to read some of the older Peanuts comics. They were amazing. Satire, darkness, taking a bite out of childhood, they just blew me away. I don't know when the changeover happened, but as someone who grew up in the late 80s, early 90s, I thought Peanuts was a crap leftover from a bygone age of crap comics when I first encountered it. So yes, I agree with the article that it did go downhill. Snoopy's transition was part of that, but it was not the entire thing. I would put the year of transition some time before 1973, as the Peanuts Thanksgiving Cartoon is (and here I blacken my good metafilter name forever) shit. The only thing I can see it being good for is entertaining very small children while the adults drink. And it's too short to get more than one or two drinks in.
To those who love Snoopy and his later incarnation, please, please, link to what you think is a great comic staring him. Something that will make me laugh aloud. Because right now, I don't think it exists.
posted by Hactar at 10:25 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
The other kids stay unchanged for decades
I'll have you know Lucy started wearing trousers in the 1980s.
posted by sobarel at 10:29 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'll have you know Lucy started wearing trousers in the 1980s.
posted by sobarel at 10:29 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
oceanjesse: "I always thought that Snoopy's doghouse came to a point on the roof, and that Snoopy relaxed by balancing on it."
It doesn't come to a point? (well edge)
posted by Mitheral at 11:05 AM on August 16, 2015
It doesn't come to a point? (well edge)
posted by Mitheral at 11:05 AM on August 16, 2015
Violet was the first to pull away the football.
posted by brujita at 11:07 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by brujita at 11:07 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
The arc where Snoopy lost his doghouse (and his Van Gogh, was it?) to a fire always stuck with me. I always related to his not-very-successful attempts at becoming a novelist, too. And I loved the fighter ace stuff. If I try to visualize scenes from WW1 in my head most of what I'm coming up with was formed by early childhood readings of Peanuts.
Laugh-out-loud funny? I dunno. I don't recall laughing out loud much at Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, or Bloom County, but I certainly found them funny and engaging as well.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:08 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Laugh-out-loud funny? I dunno. I don't recall laughing out loud much at Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, or Bloom County, but I certainly found them funny and engaging as well.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:08 AM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Suddenly, a shot rang out!
posted by sonascope at 11:25 AM on August 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by sonascope at 11:25 AM on August 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
Maybe somebody has already made this point, but to me, Snoopy always represented one of the darkest things about Peanuts, all throughout his run. This was an alleged "man's best friend" who laughed when his boy fell on his ass or got humiliated in front of his friends. The message I always took from that was, "Here's a boy that NOBODY will ever be faithful to, not even the most faithful creature on the planet."
posted by jbickers at 11:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by jbickers at 11:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
I was, oh maybe eight, and one of the nicer memories of what turned out to be a rather horrible father was that most summer evenings we took a walk of about a mile to a local drugstore where I was allowed to browse around the paperback section.
I wasn't allowed to read comics because they would "rot my mind" (jokes on you parents - mind rotted anyway - Hah!) but for some reason I was allowed to read the Sunday comic pages. So I was thrilled to find a book of Peanuts comics, one of my favorite comics from those pages. I bought the paperback up to the counter and somehow my Dad never noticed that it was a book of comics so one of my few good family memories was that for many months we would take that walk and I would buy another Peanuts book and read it in my room while the air conditioner ran on a hot Summer night.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 11:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
I wasn't allowed to read comics because they would "rot my mind" (jokes on you parents - mind rotted anyway - Hah!) but for some reason I was allowed to read the Sunday comic pages. So I was thrilled to find a book of Peanuts comics, one of my favorite comics from those pages. I bought the paperback up to the counter and somehow my Dad never noticed that it was a book of comics so one of my few good family memories was that for many months we would take that walk and I would buy another Peanuts book and read it in my room while the air conditioner ran on a hot Summer night.
posted by AGameOfMoans at 11:54 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
I always thought that Snoopy's doghouse came to a point on the roof, and that Snoopy relaxed by balancing on it.
I like Schulz's own reasoning for why Snoopy doesn't fall off of his doghouse.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:00 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
I like Schulz's own reasoning for why Snoopy doesn't fall off of his doghouse.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:00 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
This was an alleged "man's best friend" who laughed when his boy fell on his ass or got humiliated in front of his friends.
There's a long story where Charlie Brown gets really sick and is in hospital. He finally recovers and comes home and runs to Snoopy's doghouse to tell him how much he missed him and how he would like awake in his hospital bed each night worrying about him. Snoopy just looks at him blankly, and then last panel: "Now I remember! He's that round-headed kid who always feeds me."
Harsh.
posted by sobarel at 12:06 PM on August 16, 2015 [11 favorites]
There's a long story where Charlie Brown gets really sick and is in hospital. He finally recovers and comes home and runs to Snoopy's doghouse to tell him how much he missed him and how he would like awake in his hospital bed each night worrying about him. Snoopy just looks at him blankly, and then last panel: "Now I remember! He's that round-headed kid who always feeds me."
Harsh.
posted by sobarel at 12:06 PM on August 16, 2015 [11 favorites]
And totally unlike any dog I've ever interacted with.
posted by Mitheral at 12:42 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by Mitheral at 12:42 PM on August 16, 2015
I feel like "Snoopy Killed Peanuts" is one of those dead-end detours people take on their way to intellectual maturity, kind of like people who read Ayn Rand in college becomes an Objectivist for a hot minute before they realize how it doesn't hold up in the real world.
posted by KingEdRa at 1:58 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by KingEdRa at 1:58 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
> I feel like "Snoopy Killed Peanuts" is one of those dead-end detours people take on their way to intellectual maturity, kind of like people who read Ayn Rand in college becomes an Objectivist for a hot minute before they realize how it doesn't hold up in the real world.
Oh, you feel like that, do you?
*takes out notebook*
Tell me more.
posted by languagehat at 2:15 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh, you feel like that, do you?
*takes out notebook*
Tell me more.
posted by languagehat at 2:15 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Now I remember! He's that round-headed kid who always feeds me."
Snoopy is a cat.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:34 PM on August 16, 2015 [6 favorites]
Snoopy is a cat.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:34 PM on August 16, 2015 [6 favorites]
I submit that the very idea of building Simpsons episodes around celebrity cameos is rotten to the core.
The idea wasn't bad. It's when they stopped being a sarcastic thing that usually included kinda ribbing/dumping on the celebrity in a serious(like, almost Eric Andre) way and turned in to "lol hey look it's this celebrity in earnest!" that it became crappy.
They started actively courting celebrities for the fuck of it who they were afraid to or otherwise agreed not to dump on, and that was basically textbook selling out in the classic punk rock sense.
Also, in the earlier seasons it didn't happen very often. At the beginning of the crappy ones, they were just doing it rapid fire non stop. It was ok as an occasional and snarky thing, but when both of those reversed... ugh.
posted by emptythought at 2:45 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
The idea wasn't bad. It's when they stopped being a sarcastic thing that usually included kinda ribbing/dumping on the celebrity in a serious(like, almost Eric Andre) way and turned in to "lol hey look it's this celebrity in earnest!" that it became crappy.
They started actively courting celebrities for the fuck of it who they were afraid to or otherwise agreed not to dump on, and that was basically textbook selling out in the classic punk rock sense.
Also, in the earlier seasons it didn't happen very often. At the beginning of the crappy ones, they were just doing it rapid fire non stop. It was ok as an occasional and snarky thing, but when both of those reversed... ugh.
posted by emptythought at 2:45 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't want to blame Snoopy for the decline of Peanuts- it's exhausting to write decades worth of cartoons 7 days a week. But you can't help but notice what people like more and like less and adjust accordingly. People liked Woodstock and Snoopy. It's like my Facebook feed: the more sentimental and cat-filled I get, the greater the "likes".
posted by acrasis at 2:51 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by acrasis at 2:51 PM on August 16, 2015
well, i quite liked the article.
it helped me understand why the few peanuts cartoons i've seen seem to vary so much. it also seemed like a fairly coherent argument.
/shrugs
posted by andrewcooke at 3:10 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
it helped me understand why the few peanuts cartoons i've seen seem to vary so much. it also seemed like a fairly coherent argument.
/shrugs
posted by andrewcooke at 3:10 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't agree at all that it's a case of inevitable decline. Anything that survives that long has to change if it's going to stay alive. When people see something change from a thing they like to a thing they don't like as much, they call it decline. By the time I became aware of Peanuts in the mid to late 60s, it had already changed a lot from they way it started out, and no doubt there were a lot of people who liked its initial incarnation and thought it was ruined by 1970. At which point it still had decades to go.
posted by Flexagon at 3:21 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Flexagon at 3:21 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
And they were all run over by a truck. The End.
posted by tommyD at 4:12 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by tommyD at 4:12 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nihilistic Psychological Ennui will be my Metafilter name in my next life.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:12 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by I-Write-Essays at 4:12 PM on August 16, 2015
I think people are missing an obvious thing here. What killed Peanuts was its longevity. One of the best things Bill Watterson ever did was quit, same goes for Gary Larson.
Any series that goes on as long as Peanuts did will, inevitably, start sucking. There's only so many gags a person can come up with for any given situation, and even (as Garfield demonstrates) a team of writers and artists can't keep strip going forever.
What killed Peanuts was its success, and the long life that success gave it. Same for the Simpsons. Sooner or later, we've got to let the things we love go.
And while I wail and gnash my teeth over not having Firefly Season 2, I am glad that it didn't get driven into the ground like Buffy did.
As a culture we have a difficult time letting stuff go before it falls into decline and starts sucking, and then we still keep popular but sucking things alive until they become abominations of awful. We need to learn to let go.
posted by sotonohito at 5:02 PM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Any series that goes on as long as Peanuts did will, inevitably, start sucking. There's only so many gags a person can come up with for any given situation, and even (as Garfield demonstrates) a team of writers and artists can't keep strip going forever.
What killed Peanuts was its success, and the long life that success gave it. Same for the Simpsons. Sooner or later, we've got to let the things we love go.
And while I wail and gnash my teeth over not having Firefly Season 2, I am glad that it didn't get driven into the ground like Buffy did.
As a culture we have a difficult time letting stuff go before it falls into decline and starts sucking, and then we still keep popular but sucking things alive until they become abominations of awful. We need to learn to let go.
posted by sotonohito at 5:02 PM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think people are missing an obvious thing here. What killed Peanuts was its longevity.
No, I think this is subtly wrong. Most things would be lucky to "live long enough to die," so to speak. Peanuts is so visible only because it lasted so long, and really, however lame it got later on (and it was still miles better than things like Snuffy Smith and Beetle Bailey), its not like those obliterate decades of terrific strips.
Maybe Schulz should have retired earlier? I can't say for sure; his childhood dream was to be a cartoonist, and he kept with it for so long probably because he genuinely liked doing it. But if he should have retired, he didn't because our culture has trouble letting go of things, or maybe not directly so, but because who in our world passes up billions of dollars when it's handed to him?
posted by JHarris at 6:56 PM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
No, I think this is subtly wrong. Most things would be lucky to "live long enough to die," so to speak. Peanuts is so visible only because it lasted so long, and really, however lame it got later on (and it was still miles better than things like Snuffy Smith and Beetle Bailey), its not like those obliterate decades of terrific strips.
Maybe Schulz should have retired earlier? I can't say for sure; his childhood dream was to be a cartoonist, and he kept with it for so long probably because he genuinely liked doing it. But if he should have retired, he didn't because our culture has trouble letting go of things, or maybe not directly so, but because who in our world passes up billions of dollars when it's handed to him?
posted by JHarris at 6:56 PM on August 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
First off, Peanuts has been a beloved strip, but I don't think its quality was ever so high that the Snoopy strips that the article cites are a huge drop-off. Second, as far as media institutions go, I'd say that Peanuts is remarkably restrained compared to so many other comics and cartoons with huge marketing empires. The fact that it took until this year to make a CGI movie speaks volumes in the face of other properties' excesses. Not all comics have the luxury of simply ending, like Calvin and Hobbes did, in a creator's act of Randian defiance. Peanuts is hardly comparable to the Simpsons- it's aged at least as well as the Muppets has.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:13 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by Apocryphon at 9:13 PM on August 16, 2015
One of the best things Bill Watterson ever did was quit [...]
And while I wail and gnash my teeth over not having Firefly Season 2, I am glad that it didn't get driven into the ground [...]
Pardon the aggressive editing there, but yeah, I somebody -- might have been Whedon -- said that Firefly feels like it's still going on out there somewhere, we just lost our window to it, and the reason it seems that way is that it didn't end; it just cut off with no explanation.
Calvin and Hobbes did end consciously, but Watterson aimed for the same effect: somewhere there's adventure happening, let's go find it. I'm not sure that quite worked. C&H feels like there are lots of stories we didn't see but not necessarily like it's still going on. So it isn't just a matter of not wearing out its welcome, though clearly that's essential. It's the unexplained cutting off between one episode and the next.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:57 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
And while I wail and gnash my teeth over not having Firefly Season 2, I am glad that it didn't get driven into the ground [...]
Pardon the aggressive editing there, but yeah, I somebody -- might have been Whedon -- said that Firefly feels like it's still going on out there somewhere, we just lost our window to it, and the reason it seems that way is that it didn't end; it just cut off with no explanation.
Calvin and Hobbes did end consciously, but Watterson aimed for the same effect: somewhere there's adventure happening, let's go find it. I'm not sure that quite worked. C&H feels like there are lots of stories we didn't see but not necessarily like it's still going on. So it isn't just a matter of not wearing out its welcome, though clearly that's essential. It's the unexplained cutting off between one episode and the next.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:57 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Watterson shrugged.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:17 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Apocryphon at 12:17 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
In characterizing Snoopy's development he misses the fact that his anthropomorphized flights of fancy were going on in the early to mid 1960's with Snoopy being, in his own mind, a World War I flying ace and going up against the Red Baron. He definitely walked upright by then, at least in his own mind. The Snoopy And The Red Baron strips were immensely popular and inspired a top 10 novelty song.
Leaving this unmentioned in Snoopy's development is a major omission.
posted by lordrunningclam at 5:46 AM on August 17, 2015 [5 favorites]
Leaving this unmentioned in Snoopy's development is a major omission.
posted by lordrunningclam at 5:46 AM on August 17, 2015 [5 favorites]
While it's true that the strip changed over its long run, and arguable that the change was for the worse, this kind of analysis overstates the difference between eras as a sharp contrast (as noted by a number of folks above) and also overlooks what was IMO a bit of renewed life in the late 1990s. While Schulz's line certainly (and understandably given his age and physical problems) deteriorated, I think he was still doing some new things in the late years of the strip, particularly with the (ironically named in this context, I guess) character of Rerun.
And whatever you think about the merchandising and commercialization of the characters outside the strip, I think it's remarkable and admirable that the strip itself was entirely written and drawn by Schulz for its full run.
posted by oakroom at 6:05 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
And whatever you think about the merchandising and commercialization of the characters outside the strip, I think it's remarkable and admirable that the strip itself was entirely written and drawn by Schulz for its full run.
posted by oakroom at 6:05 AM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
To complain that the lines grew less steady as Shulz grew old is simply to engage in ageism. Yes, I noticed it (although I'd long since stopped following the strip on a daily basis), but it didn't detract from my appreciation of Shulz's talent.
It seems to me ageism would be a better description of the claim that you couldn't mention, in a review that attempts to describe the decline of a series of art works over time, a failure by the creator to execute his craft as successfully in later years.
posted by layceepee at 9:09 AM on August 17, 2015
It seems to me ageism would be a better description of the claim that you couldn't mention, in a review that attempts to describe the decline of a series of art works over time, a failure by the creator to execute his craft as successfully in later years.
posted by layceepee at 9:09 AM on August 17, 2015
The Snoopy And The Red Baron strips were immensely popular and inspired a top 10 novelty song.
Well, I'm earwormed for the day. If this is my last comment, avenge my death: I probably smothered myself with a pillow.
posted by thelonius at 9:28 AM on August 17, 2015
Well, I'm earwormed for the day. If this is my last comment, avenge my death: I probably smothered myself with a pillow.
posted by thelonius at 9:28 AM on August 17, 2015
I will say one thing Schultz did really well is to have a variety of female characters.
And let us not fail to give him the credit not just for doing the right thing on race when it wasn't popular but for being racially sensitive about coopting voices. Your comic wasn't my thing, CS, but you were a fucking badass.
posted by phearlez at 11:37 AM on August 17, 2015 [8 favorites]
And let us not fail to give him the credit not just for doing the right thing on race when it wasn't popular but for being racially sensitive about coopting voices. Your comic wasn't my thing, CS, but you were a fucking badass.
posted by phearlez at 11:37 AM on August 17, 2015 [8 favorites]
YouTube:
"Snoopy vs. The Red Baron"
"The Return of the Red Baron"
"Snoopy's Christmas"
"Snoopy for President"
posted by zarq at 11:43 AM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
"Snoopy vs. The Red Baron"
"The Return of the Red Baron"
"Snoopy's Christmas"
"Snoopy for President"
posted by zarq at 11:43 AM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, at least Bloom County is back. A fresh cartoon every day on my Facebook feed. It's one of the only reasons I scan my feed daily.
posted by dejah420 at 4:52 PM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by dejah420 at 4:52 PM on August 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think this is broadly right about the trajectory of the comic though some of the examples used here to show its decline are still funny. But I think people who grew up with late 80s-90s Peanuts, as I did, already know that it was by the end a tepid nostalgia strip, and I think most people who grew up with the 50s/60s version (or younger comic enthusiasts) already know that it used to be sharper and darker. There's nothing surprising about the end if you know the beginning . Yes, Snoopy as a breakout character happened - and merchandising happened, and the animated specials cast their shadow, and fifty years elapsed. If you only know the end, though, you might not expect how good it was at the beginning. So instead of "What [very very slowly] Killed Peanuts" maybe someone should do "100 Old Strips to Show You, Young Person, Why Peanuts Is so Highly Regarded."
posted by atoxyl at 6:16 PM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 6:16 PM on August 17, 2015 [3 favorites]
I wish I had the time right now to do that because I certainly could.
posted by JHarris at 6:33 PM on August 17, 2015
posted by JHarris at 6:33 PM on August 17, 2015
I bet you can probably guess, to a fair degree of accuracy, whether someone will prefer "old Peanuts" or "new Peanuts" based on when they encountered the strip for the first time, or which ones they encountered first.
Basically: the strip, being a creative product of a human with an actual life of his own, changed over time, but in a way that many people's tastes didn't. Therefore, it declined in apparent quality if your platonic ideal Peanuts strip was one of the early ones. (Conversely, if you encountered and became a fan of it later on, when it was less dark, the older stuff might seem like the product of someone who you're glad to see got therapy.)
This is really just a variant of the 'Indie Band Problem', wherein your favorite band always sucks and was better before you started listening to them, at least according to some guy who started listening to them way before you did. This is a claim that tells you almost nothing about the underlying quality of the product, except that it changed over time.
It's a rare artist who can come up with a successful formula and then just keep turning it out, year after year, without becoming boring and/or driving themselves crazy. Bill Watterson is the only one who comes to mind in terms of comics that maintain their tone with pitch-perfect consistency and no opportunities for claims of shark-jumping. But even he only produced C&H for 10 years, which is a lot less years than there are of Peanuts. That's the tradeoff: you can have consistency, or you can have longevity, but you can't really have both, or what you'll get is pretty lifeless.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:20 AM on August 18, 2015 [4 favorites]
Basically: the strip, being a creative product of a human with an actual life of his own, changed over time, but in a way that many people's tastes didn't. Therefore, it declined in apparent quality if your platonic ideal Peanuts strip was one of the early ones. (Conversely, if you encountered and became a fan of it later on, when it was less dark, the older stuff might seem like the product of someone who you're glad to see got therapy.)
This is really just a variant of the 'Indie Band Problem', wherein your favorite band always sucks and was better before you started listening to them, at least according to some guy who started listening to them way before you did. This is a claim that tells you almost nothing about the underlying quality of the product, except that it changed over time.
It's a rare artist who can come up with a successful formula and then just keep turning it out, year after year, without becoming boring and/or driving themselves crazy. Bill Watterson is the only one who comes to mind in terms of comics that maintain their tone with pitch-perfect consistency and no opportunities for claims of shark-jumping. But even he only produced C&H for 10 years, which is a lot less years than there are of Peanuts. That's the tradeoff: you can have consistency, or you can have longevity, but you can't really have both, or what you'll get is pretty lifeless.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:20 AM on August 18, 2015 [4 favorites]
> It's a rare artist who can come up with a successful formula and then just keep turning it out, year after year, without becoming boring and/or driving themselves crazy. Bill Watterson is the only one who comes to mind in terms of comics that maintain their tone with pitch-perfect consistency and no opportunities for claims of shark-jumping.
And who is this mysterious, beautiful gal? Namely: Mr. Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. of the soft brown eyes!
Huzzah! Huzzah!
posted by languagehat at 8:33 AM on August 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
And who is this mysterious, beautiful gal? Namely: Mr. Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. of the soft brown eyes!
Huzzah! Huzzah!
posted by languagehat at 8:33 AM on August 18, 2015 [2 favorites]
Although I love Pogo even more than Peanuts, it didn't come close to Schulz's timespan— it lasted 24 years. I'd say it fell off in quality in the last few years, due to Kelly's failing health.
Let's see... Krazy Kat had a pretty respectable run of 31 years. Frank King worked on Gasoline Alley for 41 years; same figure for Geo. McManus's Bringing Up Father. Harold Gray racked up 44 years on Little Orphan Annie, Mort Gould 46 years on Dick Tracy. Johnny Hart drew BC for 49 years. The interval between the first and last appearances of Tintin was 57 years. Beetle Bailey is still apparently drawn by Mort Walker after 65 years.
(Not a complete list, but I'm curious how many other cartoonists outlasted Schulz's 50 years. None of these figures include continuations by other artists/writers.)
posted by zompist at 4:25 PM on August 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
Let's see... Krazy Kat had a pretty respectable run of 31 years. Frank King worked on Gasoline Alley for 41 years; same figure for Geo. McManus's Bringing Up Father. Harold Gray racked up 44 years on Little Orphan Annie, Mort Gould 46 years on Dick Tracy. Johnny Hart drew BC for 49 years. The interval between the first and last appearances of Tintin was 57 years. Beetle Bailey is still apparently drawn by Mort Walker after 65 years.
(Not a complete list, but I'm curious how many other cartoonists outlasted Schulz's 50 years. None of these figures include continuations by other artists/writers.)
posted by zompist at 4:25 PM on August 18, 2015 [1 favorite]
Gen-Xer here, who grew up reading all the old Fawcett paperbacks, in random order (so I very much relate to Miko's comments). As a kid I found the earliest strips less interesting; it took off for me when Snoopy started playing vultures and piranhas and so on, and peaked, absolutely peaked with the early 1970s strips. So I don't buy the "Snoopy killed it by not being a real dog any more" idea; that 15 year run from the late '50s to early '70s was peak fantasy-Snoopy, and peak-Peanuts. This is not to discount all the other characters, and especially good ol' Charlie Brown; the overall balance was much better in this period. It was just as much about Linus and Lucy and Schroeder and Sally and Peppermint Patty and Marcie.
The explanation for its decline seems to me much more straightforward: Schulz's divorce and remarriage changed him. Something eating away inside of him eased, the contentment of his new relationship doused some of his fire, plus he now had the money to indulge himself (the ice rink and so on). He changed, and the strip necessarily followed. I stopped reading it in the early 1980s when the books became less ubiquitous (they were everywhere in the 1970s, harder to find in the 1980s), because none of the papers I read carried the daily strip, but even from the late 1970s strips it was clear that something had changed. It's interesting to hear that the strips near the end regained some spark (-y); maybe I'll check them out one day.
But none of that changes what a towering achievement those peak years represent. When Calvin and Hobbes came along, I loved it precisely because it was so clearly influenced by Peanuts and Pogo, which were my two favourite strips before it as well.
posted by rory at 7:09 PM on August 18, 2015 [6 favorites]
The explanation for its decline seems to me much more straightforward: Schulz's divorce and remarriage changed him. Something eating away inside of him eased, the contentment of his new relationship doused some of his fire, plus he now had the money to indulge himself (the ice rink and so on). He changed, and the strip necessarily followed. I stopped reading it in the early 1980s when the books became less ubiquitous (they were everywhere in the 1970s, harder to find in the 1980s), because none of the papers I read carried the daily strip, but even from the late 1970s strips it was clear that something had changed. It's interesting to hear that the strips near the end regained some spark (-y); maybe I'll check them out one day.
But none of that changes what a towering achievement those peak years represent. When Calvin and Hobbes came along, I loved it precisely because it was so clearly influenced by Peanuts and Pogo, which were my two favourite strips before it as well.
posted by rory at 7:09 PM on August 18, 2015 [6 favorites]
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