December 18-19, 1952: Now that's a sad kid

Schroeder in the third panel is rather sadder than the average. His expression is maybe a little overdone? Anyway the kid is probably four or five right now, that's rather young to be obsessed with playing the big room.



He's not sad at all here.

Sunday, May 11, 1952: Schroeder in concert (with backup)

The entire joke here rests in Violet saying "let him play by himself" instead of "let Schroeder."

There are some nice touches in this one. In addition to the musical staffs that Schulz spent so much effort on, and he put a G-clef instead of an S in his name in the first panel. But best of all we have Snoopy in this strip for no story-related reason other than just being cute and funny there on his end of the couch. His reaction in panel 6 is best here, he's just rendered so winningly in that pose, exactly halfway between a dog-like and a human reaction. It's great.

November 20, 1951: And They Disapprove of Baby Bottles In The Orchestra Pit

Speaking of Schroeder....

Many strips these days aspire to just the crazy stuff from Peanuts, without copying the normal strips in-between. Those strips reset the norm, regrounding the strip's world in reality, which makes it more effective when the strip takes another flight of fancy a few weeks later.