by Moe Zilla

Created on: January 30, 2009

For 50 years, Charles M. Schulz drew the Peanuts comic strip. But it was his characters that people loved - Charlie Brown and his beagle Snoopy, and their neighborhood friends Peppermint Patty and Linus. Linus's sister Lucy is only interested in Schroeder - a young piano prodigy (who's only interested in Beethoven). All the kids confront the bewildering world - but they do it with personality and style!

Snoopy became the star of the strip, lying happily on top of his doghouse. He'd ponder philosophical questions - like when Charlie Brown will bring his supper - but his inner monologues became more sophisticated over the years. The playful beagle imagined he's a pilot chasing the Red Baron. He'd dictate letters to his secretary (a tiny yellow bird named Woodstock). And soon Snoopy was writing novels on a typewriter, popularizing the famous opening line "It was a dark and stormy night."

Snoopy is the opposite of the boy who owns him, Charlie Brown - who wants successes of his own, but earns nothing but discouraging defeats. When Charlie Brown manages the other kids in a baseball team - they never win a game. His baseball hero is Joe Shlabotnik - who gets sent down to the minor leagues. Charlie Brown tries to fly a kite, only to discover that his neighborhood has a kite-eating tree. And Charlie Brown secretly likes a little red-haired girl - even though he's too nervous to talk to her.

But there's more to the story. In real life, Charles M. Schulz had loved a red-headed woman who worked as the accountant at his art school. Years later, she was surprised to find herself appearing in his comic strip. In a 1995 biography, Rheta Grimsley Johnson discovered that many of the strip's running jokes came from Schulz's own life. Schulz had struggled with depression in real life - and the result was Charlie Brown's discouraging losing streak. In one strip, Charlie Brown asks what's replaced the lemonade stands that children used to build?

And then he spots a new booth set up by Lucy that says "Psychiatric help: five cents."

Ironically, the happiest character was probably Lucy's brother, Linus. While his crabby sister would lecture and yell, Linus found security in his blanket (and in sucking his thumb). He could quote the bible or discuss philosophy - and even wield the blanket like a whip. And on Halloween night, he'd skip trick-or-treating altogether to wait in a pumpkin patch for the appearance of "The Great Pumpkin." Charlie Brown's sister Sally waits with him in the pumpkin patch - but only because she thinks Linus is cute.

The comic strips were later adapted into animated TV specials. (When Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating, instead of candy people give him rocks.) Every Christmas and Thanksgiving the kids still appear on our TVs. But it was in the wonderful comic strip where the fun first began.

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