6 thoughts on “Charlie Brown In The Age of Camelot”

  2. Before the 1960 election, it’s probably a good guess that most of the population outside of New England had never heard of Hyannis Port. As Chris says, it soon became a nationally known location once JFK was elected. Like “Sopwith Camel”, “Beethoven” and “Ophthalmologist”, Charles Schulz probably also just enjoyed the sound of the word “Hyannis Port” and found a way to fit it into the strip. What is the origin of the name “Hyannis”? It seems it is a corruption of the name of a Cape Cod Wampanoag Sachem, Iyanough. Here is one man’s opinion:

    http://www.barnstablepatriot.com/01-11-02-news/cataldo.html

    I wonder what became of the original strip? Was it sent to the President? Does it hang in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Massachusetts? Hmmm, something by Charles Schulz is on display there, but not this strip, as far as I can tell.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21938059/

    Hey, I’ve never heard of the book they mention (“Snoopy’s Daily Dozen”), but after checking, it looks like a fun book put out by Hallmark! Of course, as the strip developed, Snoopy seems to have interpreted this as a daily dozen donuts, judging by his less than svelte figure.

  3. Chris,

    You have a point about the topical references that Schulz made. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I enjoy reading “The Complete Peanuts.” They pop up every now and then and are good reference points to the period. Disney’s Davy Crockett fad from the mid-50’s is an early example.

  4. Yes, of course! I’d totally forgotten. Thanks for the reminder that “The First Family” album was a huge hit. That really helps put things into perspective. One of the things that makes your comments such a huge kick for me, Monte, is that you were actually there, as it happened. Sounds obvious, perhaps, but it carries a lot of weight. Not only that, you have an excellent feeling for everything that was going on in the world during those times, outside of Coffee Lane. You weren’t just into riding dirt bikes, or taking one of the horses out, to have fun and seeing what you could get away with.

  5. Plus, don’t forget Vaughn Meader’s “The First Family,” a record I remember hearing with my parents in our living room. A few years ago, I found a copy and thought it was just as great as when I first heard it. Also, although David Michaelis has nothing to say about my dad’s politics (why, I have no idea except that he’s an idiot), Dad did tell me that one thing he always regretted was not voting for Kennedy. He was a big fan of Eisenhower, so I suppose it was natural to vote to Nixon in 1960, but years later, once he really saw what Nixon was like, and got a sense of what sort of president Kennedy made, I guess he wished he could have a do-over. Listening to the White House tapes during Watergate, he commented on how vulgar Nixon truly was.

  6. I think it’s just a comment on how much of the news coverage of JFK focused on the family’s lifestyle. I bet in the weeks after the election you couldn’t read a newspaper or watch TV without hearing the words “Hyannis Port” several times a day. Schulz loved throwing in totally random pop-culture-of-the-moment references like that once in a while (Tiny Tim, Rodney Allen Rippy, etc.)

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