By total coincidence I was reading about the history of Peanuts the other day as I was trying to find out how old the kids were and found out where the name came from.
Seems an executive named it. They couldn’t keep using Lil’ Folks, due to another comic named Little Folks, and had to change the name. Howdy Doody was a smash hit and the kids in the audience were referred to as the “peanut gallery”.
So the strip about a group of kids became “Peanuts”. And Schulz HATED it. But he had no power at first, and was worried about the effect of a name change on licensees once the strip got really popular. Seems people had to talk him out of it a number of times.
The age? Charlie Brown is officially 9.5 years old. When the strip started they were all supposed to be 4, but it was adjusted up a few times in the early years until they reached their final ages.
One thing that surprised me when visiting Japan was that there are a chain of stores dedicated to Peanuts, often focusing on a single character. e.g. "Snoopy" stores.
Turns out, the same company that owns Hello Kitty bought the Japanese rights to Peanuts, and they seem to have been quite successful with it. If you want Peanuts merchandise, visit Japan!
She didn't even know that any other characters existed, that there were TV specials, etc. She just knew it as a generic character like Hello Kitty or whatever.
I was born and raised in St. Paul and have fond memories of searching for the many Peanuts statues that were made after Mr. Schulz passed away. The vast majority are still on display today: https://localwiki.org/twincities/Peanuts_Characters
Agreed! Visitors should plan on visiting the nearby Snoopy's Home Ice ice skating rink as well. They have a table reserved for Mr. Schulz and the gift shop is a little museum in its' own right.
And if you should ever fly in/out of the airport there - it's loaded with Peanuts themed artwork including trees with kits and mosaic murals of the characters throughout.
IMHO they kept Schulz doing Peanuts long after he should have retired. I remember in the 90's looking at the current comic strips and thinking, "Why is this so popular? It's not really that funny." But then I found some books of Peanuts cartoons my Mom had from the 70's (or maybe 60's), and they were positively hilarious.
Bill Watterson made the right decision by retiring from Calvin and Hobbes at the peak of his game.
It could be a generational thing as well. I never really "got" Peanuts either, even when reading the older material. Some strips would elicit a mild chuckle, but rarely more than that.
The Far Side on the other hand was always something I loved. I read it in reprints religiously as a kid and collected a number of the books.
it sort of depends on the types of comic you're interested in, but a lot of 'paper comics' have a goal sort of similar to SNL; touch upon the topic du jour in pithy ways to keep your core readership and publisher happy, and lightly enough so as to avoid scaring away potential new readers.
but for a real hurried and simplified explanation : a lot of them exist to parrot a talking point that has been pre-approved by their publisher and coincides with the group think surrounding the publisher and their affiliates.
For me, the appeal of Peanuts was never about amusement; it was about the (simplified for kids) philosophies of life. Even as a kid I could appreciate that Peanuts was a very insightful comic strip, and I'm glad I came across it when I did.
Seems an executive named it. They couldn’t keep using Lil’ Folks, due to another comic named Little Folks, and had to change the name. Howdy Doody was a smash hit and the kids in the audience were referred to as the “peanut gallery”.
So the strip about a group of kids became “Peanuts”. And Schulz HATED it. But he had no power at first, and was worried about the effect of a name change on licensees once the strip got really popular. Seems people had to talk him out of it a number of times.
The age? Charlie Brown is officially 9.5 years old. When the strip started they were all supposed to be 4, but it was adjusted up a few times in the early years until they reached their final ages.