Category: Charles M. Schulz

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.

A year ago in my first posting about Charles Schulz, I said the first animation of Charlie Brown and company was done in 1963. Incorrect! It was done in 1959, for car maker Ford.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/OCT07/PeanutsFord.flv 400 300]

This photo shows Charles Schulz and his daughter Amy in 1974, when Schulz was the Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, CA. That was a year after Schulz married his second wife, and five years after Amy began ice skating professionally.

I admire and respect Amy Schulz greatly for her vigorous and articulate rebuttal of what she calls completely inaccurate characterizations of her father and his family, made by David Michaelis in his new biography of Charles Schulz. I will, however, buy and read the book, just as I did Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s book about Schulz, over ten years ago (revised from a 1989 edition).