Sunday, July 19, 1953: Snoopy's come to accept the sprinkler

This strip, if your only experience with Peanuts is the later era, is striking in how it treats Snoopy like just a dog. No abundant imagination, no literary pretensions, no "world famous" anything, no Woodstock, no "Happiness is" smarm, no walking on his back legs, and no thought bubbles.

This strip is, I think, padded out a bit. Particularly Schroeder's line "We can't.. we just can't" and Lucy's "You don't understand," both of which seem kind of hollow; the only reason they don't just say "We can't because he's sitting in the sprinkler" is because that would spoil the reveal. Probably panels seven and eight could be removed and the rest rearranged to make the point in fewer panels. Remove the top line of three panels and just four remain, exactly the length of a classic Peanuts daily strip.

Still not a bad strip though. It is a funny joke in the end. Snoopy's smiling expression sells it for me.

July 18, 1953: Picnic-school

This is the first time in my life I've ever heard of picnic-school.

July 16-17, 1953: Linus, the Baby Gravity Hates

Linus falls over a lot. Yet oddly for such a clumsy child, when he manages to stay upright he shows himself capable of great feats of dexterity. I think it's due to the relative size of his head....

July 15,1953: A trapeze?

Lucy's gym set sounds hardcore. Overlooking the parallel bars and trapeze, does it really need a siren?

Sunday, July 12, 1953: A page-turner

The various characters are picking up quirks that help to differentiate them. In the near future:

Lucy is a reader, but also gets facts wrong readily and laughs off suggestions that she might be wrong. Charlie Brown, on the other hand, when he gets something wrong he's very self-conscious about it, and Lucy's continued willful ignorance will give him ulcers. Linus, even when he starts really talking, is pretty quiet. Patty and Violet aren't that different, but Violet is more antagonistic, cold, sometimes even hostile to Charlie Brown. Schroeder, well, is obvious. Snoopy has problems with inanimate objects.

I think it's obvious that Shermy is in the pool in the first panel, but it's less evident that the kid he's with is Schroeder. It probably is, but that's mostly because I don't think Schulz would throw an extra in there just to have one.

July 9, 1953: An innocent question

This is another version of the "Can I put my hand in your glass of milk" strip from some time back. There are a number of jokes that are repeated enough to take on the status of running gags, but this one isn't repeated too often.

July 8, 1953: Stormclouds on the horizon

That loud noise you hear is not the shouting of a little girl. It's the rumble of destiny.

July 7, 1953: Charlie Brown gets it wrong

A scene from the midpoint of the arc of Charlie Brown's personality, on his way towards the lovable sad sack we all know. I'd say it's only partway there because there's actually a bit of egotism in this, that CB assumes the girls must be talking about him, that he lacks in later strips.

July 6, 1953: Whither the pigs?

Chagrimace!

Lucy has quickly become the most frequent female character, and second only to Charlie Brown in recent appearances. Patty and Violet are nearly interchangeable now. Although Violet joined the cast as a "young" kid character, she was never as naive as Lucy can be.

Lucy is especially unique because she can combine her naivety, somehow, with sarcasm. That combination sticks to the character for quite some time.

Sunday, July 5, 1953: First use of "real" extras

We've seen one-use animals other than Snoopy before (a dog and two birds), and we had one strip in which we saw other kids from a distance. But this here is the first time in Peanuts we've seen entirely non-regular character designs as throwaways. Also included: the first kid with glasses, and a kid with a "Jughead" hat.

Note: of all the extras in that sandbox, only two of them are girls, and both are cast members. Also, Violet wears her hair down this time; she's got it in a bob most appearances now.

The tiers of Peanuts characters:
"Cast" characters are the main guys. There are some characters who, once they arrive, are frequently seen for a while. Some of these are long-term characters (like Charlie Brown, who was in the first strip and the last).

We might call "understudy" characters those who join for a little while, like Frieda, but then digress into occasional appearances, usually disappearing completely some time later. Eudora is also one of these, I'd say.

Some never seem to progress beyond being bit characters. These guys are usually introduced as part of a story, and sometimes get used as extras in group scenes. Roy is a good example; he's not quite an extra, and in fact has an important place in Peanuts history for introducing Charlie Brown to "Peppermint" Patty, but he never really joins the main cast. I think "5" and his sisters, the twins "3" and "4," are also in this category. (The digit kids aren't much remembered now, but are notable for appearing in the dance scenes in A Charlie Brown Christmas.)