Charlie Brown taught me you don't have to be popular or successful to be a good person who cares about others. Thank you, Charles.
...Has anyone read that book collecting the PEANUTS original comic-book material done for Dell Comics in the Fifties (generally - but not absolutely - without Schulz's participation. though approved by him)? " non-canon " Peanuts, I guess!!
If Lee Mendelson had not heard "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" on a taxicab radio, few would have ever heard the music of Vince Guaraldi. Rest easy, Mr. Mendelson.
Mendelson helped generate billions in royalties for Guaraldi's estate because of radio play every December. Probably the greatest unintentional benefactor to the art of bossa nova in history, in some respects. Not to mention the shot in the arm his little cartoon special, brought the field of television animation. I'm surprised I don't know much about his career beyond this. But in my passion for animation and music, these two would be enough. I hope he had a rich and satisfying life.
I thought about the cannibalism thing the very first time I saw it! The 'Charlie Brown' thing reminded me that there are a couple of strips within the same storyline were Peppermint Patty calls him "Charlie Brown" instead of "Chuck". I always wondered why that was. Did Schulz just slip up or did he do it intentionally for whatever reason? I don't know of any other instance where PP calls him "Charlie Brown", though there very well might be. I stopped reading the strip regularly after about 1980 and could easily have missed it. Speaking of cannibalism, there is the WB cartoon where Daffy is drooling with hunger when Pilgrim Porky recites the menu for his Thanksgiving turkey dinner, as Daffy hides the fugitive turkey in a snowman. Daffy loses his willpower, literally turns into a "stool pigeon" and reveals the location of the turkey ("Quisling!") To Porky. Another cartoon has Daffy as an annoying door to door salesman giving away a free complete turkey dinner to two starving snowbound "Yosemite Sam" brothers(?) whom, until this point, were attempting to cook and eat Daffy. There are also a few other Daffy cartoons where he is seen munching on a turkey (or chicken) leg! Nothing to do with Peanuts I know!
Started rereading Lee Mendelssohn’s book on the Making of CB Christmas. Great stuff. (Although it has some hyperbole in my opinion)
I had Peanuts sheets and pillow cases on my bed when I was a kid. I also had a Hallmark stand-up cutout roughly 3' of Snoopy dancing hanging on my wall. I wonder whatever happened to that. Come to think of it, what happened to all of the dozens of Peanuts paperbacks as well as games and other stuff I had way back then. It's weird how things just seem to vanish over the years. They have to go somewhere!
I watched a short doc on the making of the Thanksgiving special (called something like, "Buttered Toast, Popcorn and Jelly Beans") where they talk about Woodstock eating turkey caused heated discussions during production.
WOW. It’s been THAT long? Our library has the cartoons collected by decade on DVD and it was fun to realize several of The ‘60s cartoons that have rarely aired since then. I remember seeing “Charlie Brown’s All Stars” and wondered when that last aired. You’d THINK it would play around the annual start of MLB, nope. Some of us remember it was the second cartoon aired, NOT “The Great Pumpkin”. I’ve watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” for over 50 years and I didn’t know that! There’s a coupla others I didn’t remember at all. “… Blanket” is a nice and worthy return to form and it helps that some old characters return after being retired for decades. I miss Charles Schultz and his wonderful take on childhood.
My first child was born 1972. Sunday newspaper meant comic reading to the kid,probably before he could walk. This was a ritual with my Pop,sitting in his lap reading Dick Tracy,Dondi & L'il Iodine. While if one lived in Philadelphia,nearly everybody read the Bulletin(and we did Mon.-Sat. For some reason Sunday was the Inquirer,then a musty read helmed by Walter Annenberg who made sure news of an enemy was never dealt with "just the facts" and sometimes omitted from the paper. The funny papers were an important part of sales. The Bulletin had Peanuts. Since my Pop sold newspapers in his store,if working I could read any paper on the rack. When I came to the Lehigh Valley,a smaller version of the newspaper rivalry had The Morning Call publishing Peanuts. So the kid got a dose of Peanuts,especially the color Sunday strips. With Snoopy taking up so much space in the Sundays,I sensed that my kid paid much more attention when Snoopy either voiced an occasion bark or showed thoughts in a silent balloon. In a short time, it was Snoopy that taught my kid to read as much as any other stimulus,which included books,signs and anything that was a word. He was reading some stuff on his own before his second birthday and when he entered kindergarten his reading level was years beyond his age. Today,he surpasses whatever I can read,with an interest in Tolstoy and Proust,while spend too much time with online newspapers(and that includes the funny papers). But it was definitely Snoopy that planted the seed of the written word in my first born.
