Category: Charles M. Schulz

The all-time greatest comic strip

It’s Sunday, Charlie Brown

On Facebook the Charles M. Schulz Museum is featuring the 9th Sunday installment of Peanuts, originally published just a month after Monte was born.

‘Peanuts’ March 2, 1952

In 1952 Schulz was still inking lines with a brush, before switching to a pen. The characters hadn’t yet developed their individual personalities, but Chip Kidd has commented on Patty’s fascination with mud. Note that Kidd gets the year wrong.

From ‘The Art of Charles M. Schulz’ by Chip Kidd, 2001

The third Peanuts collection, “Good grief, more PEANUTS!” was the first with Sunday strips. Published in 1956, it doesn’t include the 3/2/52 strip.

Digging the Groove

One of the most familiar pieces in the traditional Classical music repertoire is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the “Overplayed.” I’m up for listening to it again, thanks to this early stereo recording that should be heard with a decent pair of headphones to best appreciate its sonic splendor (with apologies to the hearing impaired).

And oh, by the way…

Another post that ticks three blog categories!

ABBA Above All

This past week on the DVR I watched the PBS documentary The Eugenics Crusade, showing how the American Eugenics movement contributed to Hitler’s nightmare of a Master Race. Then I watched a PBS fundraiser feature, ABBA Forever: A Celebration. The two programs have a connection in the person of Frida, whose mother bore her as a German soldier’s “Lebensborn” baby, during the Nazi occupation of Norway.

Anni-Frid Lyngstad

Speaking of PBS, that’s where A Charlie Brown Christmas can be watched tonight. Quite a switch from decades of airing on commercial TV. And with that comment, this posts ticks three of my blog categories.

Pumpkin Patch Putdown

In October 1966, [Ray] Bradbury and his daughters sat down together to watch [the first airing of] the Halloween special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and none of them liked it. They were all disappointed that The Great Pumpkin didn’t show up and felt it wasn’t a proper Halloween film at all. Bradbury complained about it over lunch to his friend, animator Chuck Jones, who agreed with him.

https://www.mouseplanet.com/12510/Three_Disney_Halloween_Treats

Ray Bradbury is one of my all-time favorite writers, but I disagree 100% with his reported opinion of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which was written by one of his cartoonist friends named Charles M. I’m not really surprised that the other Charles M. didn’t care for it but, in my opinion, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is the best of all animated TV specials.