This is one of my favorite Peanuts strips of all. It's just really funny. I've related this one from memory to people on several occasions. Artistically it's pretty good too, the characters don't look like disassociated images that don't relate to each other except by proximity here, which I think is a problem sometimes with Peanuts. Look at Snoopy jumping up on Charlie Brown, and the two running around the tree. I think this is Peanut's first really great Sunday strip. It all works extremely well here. Schulz must have been pleased with it himself, I think, and yet in the cartooning biz there is no time to bask in the glow of a well-made strip; it's always, immediately, on to the next one.
Notice Snoopy gets a thought balloon here containing English words (his second ever), but it isn't the traditional style. It has a tail here. Snoopy's reaction is priceless. "Can this be true?"
And in terms of construction this is also an excellent strip. It's one of the first Sunday strips which tells a complete story instead of a collage of related jokes. Notice how Charlie Brown and Snoopy's positions have become Patty and Charlie Brown's, respectively, in the last panel.
One of my very favorites too. Interesting that Snoopy conveys his thoughts in a scalloped balloon but that his smack! smack! is in a regular speech balloon as is Charlie Brown's non-verbal expression of shock when Snoopy gulps the ice cream.
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