November 22-27, 1954: Phooey to you, Charlie Brown!

November 22, 1954

People haven't really given apples to teachers, that I'm aware of, in the years since 1954, where as Charlie Brown remarks was already an outdated notion. And yet, we get this joke, the lore of teacher-apple-giving still lives. (My guess, which could easily be wrong, is that the custom arose as a way of helping to support teachers, who were traditionally spinsters.)

November 23, 1954

Oh, how I love this strip. It's awesome. I love it so much that, over on Metafilter, I've started using "phooey" as a general term of disdain, usually against people who are trolling or spouting incredibly stupid opinions. (Them: "I don't vote, and I don't see why anyone should!" Me: "Phooey to you. Phooey all over you.")

I think why I love this, more than how funny and yet satisfying it is to read "Phooey to you Charlie Brown," is that Schroeder says it twice. The first time we don't know why he's angry; the second time reminds us of his anger. It is perfectly constructed, it reads great, the sentence has a great rhythm, just, wow. This is one of my favorite strips to date.

November 24, 1954

This is either the beginning, or close to the beginning, of Lucy's obsession with bugs, which drives a good number of strips to come.

November 25, 1954

In case you hadn't noticed, Charlie Brown embarrasses easily.

November 26, 1954

A strip like this reminds us of how relatively recent casual sexism was. I'm not sure many comic characters could get away with Charlie Brown's rude summation, although to Schulz's credit it is rare that a male character gets away with declaring superiority to females without some form of rejection, refutation or comeuppance. Calvin might declare how much better boys are than girls, but he certainly wouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

November 27, 1954

The animated adaptions of Peanuts, in addition to not showing adults, also replaced speech with muted trumpet noises. I think the later days of the comic tried to get away with not printing adult words, but in the early days at least Schulz was not above the occasional adult speech balloon.

Sunday, July 11, 1954: Cheese it, it's the fuzz

Read this strip at gocomics.com.

Good grief! Is this the first time this trademark phrase has been used by a Peanuts cast member? I don't see it in my previous tags.

Lucy's personality isn't just a festering ball of evil, she has some rather weird quirks. (Fuzz? Really?) This strip helps to solidify Charlie Brown's developing role as long-suffering straight man. Schulz doesn't let him off the hook completely though; his fear of bugs at the end serves to unify his and Lucy's perspectives, showing they really aren't different.

Oh, one more thing...

WHY NOT WALK AROUND THE FUZZ?

June 22, 1953: Lucy and the bugs

When I read this strip, I have a strong sense that we are now firmly in the era of classic Peanuts. The characters are solidly of that style, as opposed to the early or modern styles. There's still some evolution left to occur within the style, everything becomes just a little simpler over time and the characters get slightly more realistically proportioned, but we're mostly there now I think.

Two things that really drive this sense home for me. First, the theme and writing of the strip are solidly of the classic versions of the characters. We haven't really seen a crabby Lucy yet, but Lucy was never an entirely angry little girl, she has good days even in her tyrant years. And second, Charlie Brown's eyes when facing the reader, here, seem to be closer together than we've seen recently, which was the major thing about him that still harkened back to the old style.