Charles Schulz draws a picture of Charlie Brown in his Sebastopol, California, home in this 1966 file photo.
(The Associated Press file photo)
And responds...(page 5)...
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'PEANUTS' CREATOR 'HAD NO CHOICE' BUT TO RETIRE
Comic strip to end on Jan. 4 after 50-year run
December 15, 1999
By Siobhan Roberts
The National Post
Charles Schulz -- creator of Peanuts and the "Good
Grief, Charlie Brown!" mantra of frustration -- was surprised yesterday
to hear the news of his retirement.
"Somebody leaked it," Mr. Schulz told the National
Post from his home in Santa Rosa, Calif. "I think somebody from the L.A.
Times leaked it."
Mr. Schulz, 77, was diagnosed with colon cancer
last month and had planned to retire his much-loved comic strip on Jan.
4, ending a 50-year run.
"We weren't ready to make a special announcement on
it. Not today," Mr. Schulz explained. "On the last day that the strip
was ending I wanted
to have a nice little blurb to all the people, the readers. But, well,
it's gone now," he said.
Peanuts first appeared on Oct. 2, 1950, in seven
newspapers. Over the last half-century it has run in more than 2,600
newspapers, reaching an estimated 355 million readers in 75 countries
and 21 languages.
In a letter released yesterday by United Media, Mr.
Schulz addressed his readers, fellow cartoonists and friends:
"It is important for me to tell you personally that
I have decided to retire from drawing the Peanuts comic strip ... in
order to concentrate on my treatment and recuperation from colon cancer.
Although I feel better following my
recent surgery, I want to focus on my health and my family without the
worry of a daily deadline."
The letter, however, was also a surprise to Mr.
Schulz.
"No, I didn't write that," he said.
He has, in fact, already written his personal
letter. It will run with the final strip, which isn't any grand finale,
he said, but simply the last drawing he did before being hauled off in
an ambulance.
"I had no choice," Mr. Schulz said of his
retirement. "I feel lousy. I really had no choice with this and right
now all I'm trying to do is get through each day."
In addition to undergoing chemotherapy, Mr. Schulz
is recovering from a stroke, which physically prevents him from
continuing his drawing.
Mr. Schulz does plan to continue making Peanuts
animated cartoon specials such as the original TV special A Charlie
Brown Christmas. It first appeared in 1965, won an Emmy, and has rerun
every year since.
"We've already done 50-odd animated shows and four
movies," he says. "I can still do those. I think that will work fine."
Peanuts was an intensely personal experience for Mr.
Schulz, who had a clause in his contract dictating the strip end with
his death.
"It seems beyond the comprehension of people that
someone can be born to draw comic strips, but I think I was," Mr.
Schulz said. "My ambition from earliest memory was to produce a daily
comic strip."
Charlie Brown was named after a friend from art
school and was considered to some extent to be Mr. Schulz's alter ego.
Snoopy was inspired by a dog he had as a child and once described as,
"the smartest and most uncontrollable
dog that I have ever seen."
Asked if he will miss the Peanuts gang -- which he
drew 365 days a year -- Mr. Schulz said, "Oh, I'm sure," but added the
attachment doesn't run that deep. "I just draw them. That's all."
For the time being, he said, "all I want to do is
get better. I don't care anything about drawing. I just want to feel
better."
GOOD GRIEF! 'PEANUTS' ENDS
Cartoon's Ailing Creator to Devote Energies to Recovery
By Richard Leiby and Sharon Waxman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 15, 1999; Page A01
You've had a good run, Charles Schulz.
The intensely dedicated cartoonist--who has brought
the world the foibles of
Charlie Brown and the droll musings of his dog,
Snoopy, for almost 50
years--announced yesterday that he would stop drawing
the "Peanuts" comic
strip to focus on recovering from colon cancer.
Schulz, 77, is rare among cartoonists for his
insistence on drawing every
frame of his strip, seven days a week, since its
inception in October 1950.
But after undergoing a week of chemotherapy, he said
he began thinking
about giving himself a break.
"All of a sudden it occurred to me, if I survive all
this and I feel good--do I
want to start all over again? Why? I thought I should
maybe start to live,
enjoy life," he said from his home in Santa Rosa,
Calif. "You know, I can do
some things for television and all that. I can do the
stories and let the
animators do the drawings, but to start with the strip
again, to start all
over--that would be crazy. So that's what I decided."
He confessed that "of course" the decision saddened
him. "It occurred to
me, that's the end of Charlie Brown."
Well, not really. The last original daily "Peanuts"
will appear Jan. 3 and the
final Sunday strip will run Feb. 13. But in many
papers "Peanuts" will live on
in reruns. United Feature Syndicate will redistribute
strips from 1974 to fill
the void, and said it plans to recycle old strips
indefinitely. Editors at The
Washington Post, which has published "Peanuts" since
its debut, have not
decided whether to run the old strips.
Schulz, a stubborn but warm-hearted artist given to
bouts of depression, is
the most successful cartoonist in the world. His
beloved characters appear in
2,600 newspapers, reaching an estimated 355 million
readers daily. Though
wealthy, he is legendary among fellow cartoonists for
his unflinching work
ethic, and has always said he would not allow anyone
to continue the cartoon
in his place.
Yesterday he hadn't changed his mind. "Some are gonna
say, 'Can't
somebody else do it?' " he noted. "But who in the
world's gonna do it?"
"He's not happy about it," his editor, Amy Lago, said
of Schulz's decision to
retire. "His daily deadlines are a point of honor with
him and he realizes this
is going to be an extended recuperation. He didn't
want to leave his fans
hanging indefinitely. He didn't know how long it would
take for him to
recover."
Doctors discovered the cancer when they operated on
Schulz last month to
clear a blocked artery. The cartoonist has been at
home resting and
exercising, and has made several visits to the public
ice rink he built in Santa
Rosa to see the annual ice show that he finances.
Among his peers, who know him by the nickname
"Sparky," Schulz is
considered a pioneer because of the abiding sense of
humanity with which
he infused his characters. And, like Charlie Brown, he
always refused to
give up, despite emotional ups and downs.
"It was always his effort to do the best he could
possibly do, no matter
what," said his friend Lynn Johnston, creator of "For
Better or for Worse."
"There are very few people who could sustain the work
that Sparky's done,
alone, for 50 years. I have to admit that I have help
on the strip, with the art
and coloring and lettering."
Other cartoonists routinely rely on hired hands and
pay for gags. But
Schulz--who has only taken one five-week hiatus in his
career, when he
turned 75--would be offended if anyone offered him a
joke, said Johnston.
"As far as humor is concerned, you can't find anyone
better than what he
does," said Jack Elrod, who has worked on the "Mark
Trail" strip since 1950.
"He is a master at characters; his characters carry
the strip."
Through the generations, Charlie Brown and the gang
have engendered
fierce loyalty. Schulz's first animated TV special, "A
Charlie Brown
Christmas," has run for 34 consecutive years--and
earlier this month won the
highest ratings for its time slot. It is a gloomy yet
inspiring work, with a direct
reading from the Book of Matthew--by the winsome,
insecure Linus--that
can move viewers to tears.
Not only cartoonists cite Schulz's influence on their
work. Young, hip
filmmaker Wes Anderson has said that characters in his
movie "Rushmore"
were based on Linus and the Little Red-Haired Girl,
the object of Charlie
Brown's unrequited affection. In "Rushmore," the
hero's father is a barber,
as was Schulz's father.
"It's a bittersweet time now," said David Mruz, an art
historian and
researcher in Minneapolis, where Schulz was born. "The
characters have
been there my entire life. They're like cousins and
relatives, and when you
open up the paper you assume they'll always be there."
Asked to characterize the essence of Schulz's comedic
touch, Mruz said:
"He didn't draw funny cartoons. . . . I call it
poetry--it was more the human
experience with all its joys and sorrows. Like losing
your blanket as a child."
Or when Snoopy visited the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm and
discovered it was a
parking lot. "You're parking on my memories," the dog
moaned. Mruz says
Schulz did this strip after learning in 1979 that the
brownstone where he was
born, behind his father's barbershop, had been torn
down.
Schulz's legacy includes countless books and more than
60 animated
specials. He recently completed a video, "It's the
Pied Piper, Charlie
Brown," which will go on sale next September.
Officials at his syndication
service said Schulz intends to continue working on
animated specials.
Schulz verbally stumbled a couple of times during
yesterday's interview,
lamenting, "I can't talk, this thing did this to
me"--but his morale seemed high.
"I've got a pretty good chance they're gonna cut this
thing down," he said of
the cancer. "I wouldn't doubt it."
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
Snoopy's big nose is everywhere.
He's not just your dog, Charlie Brown
December 16, 1999
By Marc Schogol
The Philadelphia Inquirer
We'll always have Snoopy.
Despite the imminent and much-mourned end of the Peanuts comic strip, local and national animal experts said yesterday that Charles Schulz has left a legacy:
A snoop doggy-dog named Snoopy.
"Snoopy is forever," said Julie Fulkerson of the National Beagle Club. "There was an old Peanuts strip in which Snoopy says something like, `No one should live without benefit of beagle.' Well, we will not have to go through life without benefit of beagles and Snoopy."
That's because in name and breed, Snoopy remains a household word. Buy a beagle, as many people continue to do, and you're almost obligated to name it Snoopy, said Polly Clement, president of the Bryn Mawr Kennel Club.
Certainly that was the case with the pup that Lindsey Waltman, then 8, found under the Christmas tree in her Rosemont home eight years ago.
"When we think back about it, it was almost a natural to name him Snoopy," said Joe Waltman, Lindsey's father.
"When she opened the box and he popped out, my mother said, `Oh, you should call it freckles' because of these brown-on-white spots on his legs. But as far as Lindsey was concerned, she had Snoopy set from the outset. There was no debate about it."
It's not just beagles that have been so named. At the Animal Hospital of Somerdale in South Jersey, manager Renee Stinson said: "I've been here 16 years, and we've had some big dogs named Snoopy that were mixed breeds."
Said Clement: "I had a whippet named Snoopy that I handled for somebody else."
Snoopy, it seems, is all-dog -- and all dogs.
But first and foremost, Snoopy is the beagle eagle.
Though beagles always have been popular, the Snoopy phenomenon "definitely had an impact on the population of beagles," said Robert Slike, editor of the Bradford, Pennsylvania-based Hounds and Hunting magazine.
In the most recent American Kennel Club figures, the beagle is No. 6 on the list of most-popular breeds. "But registered figures are not a true figure," Slike said. "Many, many people buy a beagle and don't register it. Many hunters -- beagles are a popular hunting dog -- don't bother registering them, either. If you could get the true figures on them, beagles are probably the No. 1 pet."
Though Schulz began drawing Peanuts in 1950, it was after the first televised Peanuts specials that Snoopy, a.k.a. the World War I Flying Ace, really took off.
"Every child who saw Snoopy ... wanted a real one -- their very own Snoopy," said Susan Mills, also of the National Beagle Club.
"In this area," said Carmen Ronio, director of the Montgomery County SPCA, "I heard of a lot of people naming their dogs Snoopy."
Now, Snoopy competes with Shiloh, the dog in a series of popular children's books that were made into a movie. But, by all accounts, Snoopy is more than holding his own.
Though beagles are, by consensus, good with children, difficulty in housebreaking and training can make adults exclaim: "Good grief!"
Joe Waltman said the first two years were so bad that his wife was close to packing Snoopy off to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm -- permanently.
"But here he is eight years later, and he's a great dog. We wouldn't trade him for anything," he said.
Schulz will stop drawing Peanuts next month. Yesterday, the reaction was sadness and regret.
Dog people in particular mourned that they wouldn't be able to visit Snoopy daily anymore.
But the end of Snoopy: "No, no, no!" Fulkerson said. "A friend called me in tears." Fulkerson reassured her, saying, "I can't imagine he'll ever go away."
"Peanuts" end triggers sudden regret
December 16, 1999
By Roberta de Boer
The Toledo Blade
Who knew?
For years now, I assumed I didn't really like "Peanuts" all that much.
"Peanuts"? The comic strip about the little kids that has been in the paper every day, without fail, practically since time began? (Well, for the duration of my lifetime, anyway.)
Cute stuff, "Peanuts" -- but it's not exactly Tom Tomorrow or Zippy the Pinhead, now is it?
No, not since childhood can I remember spreading open the comics pages and seeking out this strip, instead of stumbling over it during the usual reading of the funnies.
(And yes, I'm one of those people who really does read the funnies every single day.)
But then, yesterday, came the news came that the ailing, 77-year-old creator of this much-distributed comic strip was putting aside the round-headed kid in favor of a battle to regain his health.
I thought my 10-year-old's reaction -- "Oh NO!" she shouted after she'd scanned the morning paper's front page en route to, natch, the funnies -- was just about right.
A kid should rue the passing of Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy and all the rest.
But me?
I didn't even really like "Peanuts" all that much -- and yet, such an odd and unexpected pang struck...
Now, why was that?
I thought back to a long essay I read recently on an online 'zine that nudged me to rethink the perhaps under-appreciated value of Charlie Brown et al.
"Umberto Eco once wrote an essay blaming society for Charlie Brown's failed quest for fulfillment. Where do consumers find the courage to persist in a world of kite-eating trees, blanket-hating grandmothers, and jerked-away footballs? Is Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin or Godot?
"In a manic-depressive way, Schulz provided audiences the reassuring message that things could always be worse. Years ago, one Cold War-era panel ended with Linus relieved to hear that it was only snowing. `I thought it was fallout !' "
Charles Schulz makes his points -- day after day, week after week, decade after decade -- with just that sort of sideways subtlety.
He is not a cartoonist who clubbed anyone over the head. But then again, back when he started out, the world didn't need cartoonists armed with clubs.
The 1950s, so full of victoriously sunny optimism (despite the schizophrenically coincident shadow of nuclear angst) was a fine time to introduce backhandedly wise children. If there is one emotion that "Peanuts" has consistently evoked through all these years, I'd have to say it's melancholy.
But the strip ends now, in a time when there is little to no appreciation for any emotion as restrained as melancholy. No, ours is an age of sharp irony -- and "Peanuts" is neither sharp nor ironic.
But that darned Christmas special -- doesn't it just get better and better? Aired this month for the 34th time, it snared the highest rating of anything else on TV at the same time.
Apparently, ours isn't the only family to make a point of watching Charlie Brown try to make something out of that nothing tree. And where else on TV during the Christmas season can you listen to a reading from the Book of Matthew?
For me, anyway, the retirement of Charles Schulz has been a swift and sudden lesson in appreciating things you didn't even know you valued, things you didn't even know you liked.
