Thursday, May 28, 2009

April 11, 1951: "This is an exclusive number!"

Peanuts
Charles Schulz must have come up with Charlie Brown's "Crayola shirt," as I call it, as a way to make the character visually distinct from the others.  It would not be overstating things to say that it is known the world over.
Snoopy edges still closer to humanity here.  Notice that he has no thought balloons in these early strips.  I might be wrong here, but I seem to remember that Peanuts was the first strip that used them to present a way for unspeaking animals to kinda-sorta talk.

3 comments:

  1. Regarding Snoopy's thought balloons- when they started making animated specials, they had to return to the earlier non-verbal Snoopy, because you can't hear thoughts.

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  2. This is true, although I remember there was at least one animated special that did present Snoopy's thoughts. I think it was an animated version of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.

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  3. Snoopy! The Musical also had him voiced, because otherwise there wouldn't have been much to it.

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