Category: Charles M. Schulz

As many fans of the Peanuts comic strip know, fifty years ago Charlie Brown and company first appeared in ads and commercials for Ford cars. Courtesy of Denro, here is a brochure for the 1961 Ford Falcon.

The affordable Falcon was very popular, but the name conjures an image of a powerful bird of prey, while the Falcon was actually a rather underpowered, compact economy car. Our family owned a 1965 base model 2-door Falcon that I remember fondly, mostly because it was the first car I drove when I got my driver’s license.

Cartoon Brew has an animated Peanuts TV commercial for the ’61 Falcon. Somebody put it on YouTube, but the shape of the image is wrong, so I fixed it here. The narrator’s voice should be familiar if you’re over 40.

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And here’s another gem. Color videotape from 1961, with Lucy introducing Tennessee Ernie Ford, sponsored by Ford.

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Happy birthday to (paraphrase Stephen Colbert) friend of the blog, Monte Schulz. Has it been a year already? Aaugh!

On July 7, 2001, Monte accepted, on behalf of his late father, the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress. This picture shows Monte at the ceremony, with J. Dennis Hastert, then the Speaker of the House. Monte’s stepmother, Jean, is holding the medal.

This, of course, is Monte’s father, Charles M. Schulz…

… and this is the Peanuts comic strip that was published the day Monte turned twelve. The inscription seems to read, “For the Coroles.”

Today, Charles M. Schulz would have been — yikes! — 86. Twenty years ago, there was a series of Peanuts animated cartoons called This is America, Charlie Brown. I’ve seen most of them and they’re a very good introduction to American history. Unfortunately, the videos are out of print, but they’re available on Netflix. I have some of them on good, ol’ LaserDisc, including “The Mayflower Voyagers”, five minutes of which you’ll find on the embedded video player. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
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