My all-time favorite "Peanuts" storyline...

just read that article, and i am basically in agreement as well. actually, in my mind, i also associate the introduction of Peppermint Patty as a major character with the strip's decline in quality. i just never liked her (and most of the strips from the '70s and beyond) all that much.

it's too bad, really... over the years i've encountered a lot of people who think Peanuts is garbage, and their knowledge of the strip is clearly based on whatever strips they saw in the paper throughout the '80s and '90s.

 

Very interesting interpretation. I felt that before Woodstock, there was some spooky weirdness to Snoopy. He lived in dreams, his only interest in others was the possibility of food. I guess all kids can be self-centered, as were most of the other characters, but since they talked to each other, there could be some connection, even if it was sort of sadistic, as w/ Lucy. Being connected to the imagination, Snoopy was almost like the stereotype of the egomaniac artist, or the cruel clown. Then Woodstock brought peace and love.

Yeah, I'm slowly picking up the collected volumes too.

 

I'd even shave a few years off that: 1955-69.

 

I once read a piece where some critic opined that Snoopy was every bit as miserable and neurotic as the strip's human characters, but unlike them he dealt with it by denying/running away from reality altogether. This lends a certain sad poignance to the character that you don't get from greeting cards!

Charlie Brown as "Mr. Sack" is another brilliant extended sequence from later in the strip's run, as is the one where Linus gets stuck on the roof of a barn. I'd put the strip's peak years as around 1958-64, though. That was when Peanuts was at its most cerebral and philosophical.

billdcat, I remember the solar-eclipse story well. However, I'm pretty sure it was Linus, not Charlie Brown, anticipating the event.

 

Linus and his blanket rumble.

 

billdcat, I remember the solar-eclipse story well. However, I'm pretty sure it was Linus, not Charlie Brown, anticipating the event.[/QUOTE]

You are most-likely right, my friend.
It has been a great number of years since I read the strip.

And this middle-age memory can sometimes
blur characters in recalled events.

In any case, its a great gag.

 

I'd be interested to know how it is that Snoopy is "neurotic". Perhaps in his earlier years. I don't have my plot lines in sequence, but I think an argument can be made that his writer's block ("It was a dark and stormy night"), fear of the cat next door (although that cat did once take away a huge chunk of his house), his occasional references to his mother (usually with the implication that he was orphaned), and his immersion in characters such as Joe Cool and The Red Baron might indicate some psychological trouble. However, by the 70s, he was positively self-actualized. Sure, he'd struggle with that book every so often, but he was nearly buddha other than that.

OMG, I totally forgot about "Mr. Sack" and the barn. Brilliant.