This February marks the twenty fifth anniversary of the final authentic Peanuts cartoon and the demise of the legendary strip’s creator Charles M. Schulz. Smithsonian Journal did a very good factual write-up of the strip’s historical past and the significance of the Peanuts gang, so I assumed I’d go a special route and focus on how they’ve impacted me personally.
I grew up amongst a continuing, benign background radiation of Snoopy, who was, and nonetheless is my mom’s favourite character. We had countless cartoon reprint collections. Drawers of VHS tapes with the assorted specials and films (Flashbeagle, anybody?). Sufficient Peanuts-themed Christmas ornaments to embellish a whole tree (okay, a little bit Charlie Brown-sized one, however nonetheless).
In these days, if my mother favored one thing, I robotically favored that one thing too, so Snoopy turned the primary comedian character I ever liked. I don’t imply to suggest that Peanuts will not be a wonderful strip that will deserve my affection regardless, solely that there was by no means any query of my figuring out about and embracing these characters.
Regardless that I knew Snoopy and the Peanuts gang originated in comedian strips, I’ve by no means considered them particularly in these phrases. They’d damaged freed from their black and white, two-dimensional origins to affix a really restricted pantheon of characters who’ve develop into their very own self-sufficient entities. My childhood expertise with them was this phenomenon in miniature. Snoopy wasn’t something specifically. Snoopy simply was.
Lately, my pursuits lie elsewhere. The one Peanuts strips I learn are people who occur to flash throughout my display screen once I’m scrolling social media. I don’t actively search them out. However Snoopy and firm have left a everlasting imprint (pawprint?) on my dog-loving psyche.
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I nonetheless smile and go, “Hey look, Snoopy!” at any time when I see him on merchandise on the retailer or on a TV business. I empathize with Snoopy’s failed makes an attempt to develop into the following nice American novelist. And I really feel a sliver of satisfaction at any time when I watch the TV specials—the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas ones are required viewing yearly—and see Invoice Melendez’s title within the credit. Melendez, who produced and directed numerous Peanuts cartoons and supplied the voice for Snoopy and Woodstock, was a Mexican-born animator with out whom our favourite Peanuts reveals couldn’t exist. As a Mexican American animation fan, that’s all the time good to see.
There’s a scene within the movie Snoopy Come Residence, probably derived from a strip however I don’t keep in mind, the place Charlie Brown remarks that Snoopy by no means appeared like a canine to him. He’s “more like a friend.” That’s true for all Snoopy followers, I feel. Together with me. Perhaps he and I aren’t as shut as we as soon as have been, however he’s all the time behind my thoughts and coronary heart.
I nonetheless dwell within the light radiation forged by the Peanuts gang. It’s a little bit extra pale than earlier than, a little bit dissipated, however it’ll by no means solely go away, nor would I would like it to.