Good grief, Charlie Brown!
No one could have anticipated that the first Peanuts strip, published in 1950, would go on to make history.
Created by a man named Charles Schulz, the popular comic has spawned movies, Christmas specials, and so much more.
With a special part of history around this long, there is bound to be some things you didn’t know.
1. It was created by a man named Charles Schulz.
The man behind the Charlie Brown universe wanted to be a cartoonist from a very young age.
He was always reading newspaper comics with his dad and drawing his own ones.
When he was 15, he was published for the first time. Talk about making it when you’re young!
This was a cartoon picture of his dog, which later served as the inspiration for Snoopy.
By Schulz’s retirement, he had created 17,897 Peanuts strips.
2. Schulz actually did not like the name *Peanuts*.
The name got changed when he sold the comic to the United Feature Syndicate.
“It’s totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing,” Schulz said in a 1987 interview .
“And has no dignity. I think my humor has dignity.”
It was an editor who changed the comics title to Peanuts .
Charles would have preferred to call the strip, “Good Old Charlie Brown.” Personally, I prefer the latter.
3. A lot of the characters were inspired by real-life people and events.
Charlie Brown, for instance, was the name of a man that Charles met in art class.
Then, the Little Red-Haired Girl character was born out of the artist getting rejected by a woman he was involved with.
4. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. even inspired the comics.
After his assassination, Schulz introduced his first black character, Franklin, whose father was a soldier in the Vietnam War.
You can probably guess what the famous yellow bird named Woodstock was named after.
5. The Little Red-Haired Girl is never fully seen in the comics.
You only saw her in silhouette in the strip in 1998.
Fans finally got to meet her in the television special It’s Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown , which aired in 1977.
6. TV execs feared that *A Charlie Brown Christmas* would fail.
When the Christmas special aired, the network executives were certain that they would only show it once on TV.
But to their surprise, the special was a smash hit and still is!
7. When the program premiered on December 9, 1965, it attracted a huge audience.
In addition to being one of the longest-running Christmas specials, the show even went on to Emmy Award and a Peabody Award.
8. *The Peanuts Movie* was created by Charles’s son and grandson.
After Charles passed away in 2000, his final wishes stipulated that no one take over his comics.
It didn’t, however, say that his family couldn’t create a 3D movie.
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Charles’ son, Craig, even wrote a book about the process: *The Art and Making of the Peanuts Movie*.
“We always say that each of the characters represents a piece of our dad,” Craig wrote .
“Charlie Brown was his real self, while Snoopy was what he wanted to be.”
9. Charlie Brown never kicked the football.
Before his death, Schulz revealed in a 1999 interview that he forgot about the football when he finished his final Peanuts strip.
“All of a sudden I thought, ‘You know, that poor, poor kid, he never even got to kick the football. What a dirty trick — he never had a chance to kick the football!’”
10. Snoopy almost had a different name.
While Charles originally called him “Sniffy,” he had to change it since another comic strip already had the name.
In the end, Schultz got the inspiration for Snoopy from his mother.
Dena Schulz had always said that if the family had ever gotten another dog, it would be named Snoopy.
Thus, Snoopy was born.
The character even had siblings: Spike, Marbles, Olaf, Andy, and his only sister, Belle.
11. Lucy was originally a lot younger than Charlie Brown.
When Lucy first appeared in the comic in March 1952, she was just a toddler.
But after Schulz realized her potential, he decided to make her the same age as Charlie Brown.
12. Former President, Ronald Regan, was actually a huge fan of Peanuts.
It was reported that he once wrote a fan letter to Schultz.
In his letter, he wrote that he identified with Charlie Brown as a character.
He even created declared May 24 Charles Schulz Day in California, back when he was Governor.
Then, when Schulz was in the hospital recovering from heart bypass surgery, Reagan personally called him to wish him well.
13. Charles died one day before his final Peanuts strip came out in the paper.
Tragically, the cartoonist was diagnosed with colon cancer in December 1999.
The 77-year-old died on February 12, 2000, at his home in Santa Rosa, California.
14. Charlie Brown is not bald.
We saved the best for last.
That small curl of hair on the front and back of his head isn’t the only hair Charlie has.
Schultz once explained that Charlie’s hair was so light and short that you couldn’t see it.
