Category: Charles M. Schulz

You watched American Masters: Good Ol’ Charles Schulz, didn’t you? Good! I think it strikes an excellent balance, portraying the artistic man, the family man, and the inner man in equal portions. I don’t completely buy into Citizen Kane being a significant theme, let alone an obsession, for Schulz — I love the movie myself — but overall I found the documentary to be positive, informative, and poignant. I was particularly taken with Donna Wold’s description of a conversation she had with Sparky when he called her in 1970.

I was pleased to see how throughout the program there was always a return to an emphasis on Schulz at his drawing board. The simple act of putting pencil and ink to paper was, after all, what the man loved to do, and it’s the reason he’s worth the attention he is receiving. Congratulations to writer-director David Van Taylor for his excellent production.

Two of the Schulz offspring, Monte and Amy, have had very little good to say about the David Michaelis biography of their father, and Jill has gone on record as agreeing with them. Michaelis appears in Good Ol’ Charles Schulz, and reading his book I can see that he does tend to fancy himself a psychoanalyst, and he’s consistently negative where he could have been more balanced. I feel that David Van Taylor found that balance in Good Ol’ Charles Schulz, so I’m a bit surprised that Monte and Amy aren’t mostly positive about the program.

Over at the Cartoon Brew blog you can read Amy and Monte’s comments about the book. My buddy Dennis has pulled their entries out of the comment thread. If you see a “more” link, click it to read them, otherwise keep scrolling.
Continue reading Charles M. Schulz, An American Master

The photo I posted at this link, of Charles Schulz and Donna Johnson, was taken in April, 1950, before he met his wife Joyce. Yet in the video at this link, Schulz’s daughter Meredith is said to be 14.

The numbers don’t add up. The reason is that Joyce already had Meredith when she met Sparky. They married on April 18, 1951, a year after the picture with Donna was taken.

In David Michaelis’ controversial new biography, Schulz and Peanuts, he states on page 235…

Sparky now stepped forward and legally adopted Meredith, and from then on, an he was called upon to tell the story of his life to an eager public, he and Joyce lied about the year of their wedding in order to assimilate and protect Meredith’s place in their marriage. Even in official notarized documents, they ever after gave April 18, 1949, as their nuptial day, placing Meredith’s birth (on February 5, 1950) just within the bounds of propriety as Sparky’s daughter.

My friend, the diligent researcher Mr. D.F. Rogers, has uncovered proof of the document backdating, in the form of a California court listing of divorce filings. Click the picture to enlarge, and look for the yellow highlight.

If your browser reduces the image, click to see it full size. The stated year of marriage was 1949. By the time of the divorce, Meredith was an adult and knew the truth, yet the deception continued.

Well, the book is out, and I didn’t wait till Christmas. Don’t know when I’ll have a chance to read it from start to finish, but I have it.

Again I express my respect for the family of Charles Schulz, and their honest and understandable objections, complaints and concerns about this book; but having said that, it’s obvious from even a quick glance that it contains much more basic information than I have ever read before. For example …

Charles and Joyce

(p. 223) In 1948, the nineteen-year-old Joyce had run off to New Mexico, fallen in love with a cowboy, married, gotten pregnant, been abandoned by her husband, and come home to Minneapolis to have the child — all within 20 months. When Sparky met her at a party, Joyce was twenty-two years old, divorced, with a baby and a curfew. Pulled away from a pretty face was her strawberry-blond hair.

He found her doing the dishes at her sister’s kitchen sink, and came over to help.

I strongly encourage you to read Nat Gertler’s commentary at The AAUGH! Blog. A couple more items about the book worth reading are a review in The New Yorker by author John Updike, and Newsweek’s take on the thing.

AMERICAN MASTERS “Good Ol’ Charles Schulz”
Monday, October 29, 2007
9:00-10:30 p.m. ET

David Van Taylor, the director of the upcoming, highly-anticipated American Masters documentary Good Ol’ Charles Schulz has written with a couple of corrections for an earlier post.

I’m the director of the documentary. Just wanted to say that “Johnson” is Donna’s maiden name; “Wold” is her married name. Al Wold is alive and well. Our interview with her is a critical part of the film. Hope you all can watch.

Saying that “Johnson” is Donna Wold’s “married” name instead of “maiden” was a typo. My bad. But I had read some time back that her husband, Al, had passed away. Bad information, obviously. I should have double-checked that before repeating the erroneous information, especially if I couldn’t find confirmation. My apologies.

I may be just a guy who blogs, but a long time ago I was a news reporter, so I know better. My thanks to Mr. Van Taylor for the corrections, and thank you for the tip-off about the interview with Donna. I’m glad that Al is so understanding about her critical role in the genesis of Peanuts.

Click here to see the Web site of Charles Schulz’s adoptive daughter Meredith.

This picture of Charles Schulz was taken on April 27, 1958, as he was preparing to move to California from Minnesota. Peanuts comic book artist Jim Sasseville and his wife Helga followed Schulz west, somewhat to Sasseville’s later regret. Note I said comic book artist. Schulz was the only one who ever drew the strip.

Monte Schulz made this comment on the Web site Cartoon Brew a couple of days ago, regarding the new biography of his father by David Michaelis.

The point of objection to this biography of my father is how much is simply untruthful, and deliberately so. There are many factual errors throughout the book; there are people who are give authority to speak about our family who have no insight to do so; and there are so many elements of my father’s life that David deliberately left out of the book, that it really is impossible for anyone outside of our family, or Dad’s circle of friends, to come to any genuine conclusions. I can tell you absolutely that he was not a depressed, melancholy person, nor was he unaffectionate and absent as a parent. Honestly, the quote I’ve really wanted to give the press, after reading both the early of the manuscript and the final book, is this: “The book is stupid, and David Michaelis is an idiot.” That said, I had a six year on-going conversation with him about this book, and like David quite a lot. But I was shocked to see the book that emerged, because it veered so drastically away from what he told us he intended to write. Which is why we’ve been so militant in our response. Incidentally, the material David edited out of the book is even more outrageous. The fact is, after reading the book, I decided I’d learned more about David Michaelis than I did about my dad. I found that interesting.