Playing with Peanuts

Roger Basick and Gillian Woodward talk about the creator of one of the most successful characters in newspaper history.

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Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Roger Basick.

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And I’m Gillian Woodward. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Click here to follow along with this program on YouTube.

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Charlie Brown and Lucy stand on an empty field. Autumn leaves are scattered on the ground. Lucy holds an American football. Charlie Brown wants to kick it. But every time Lucy holds it on the ground for him to kick, she pulls it away at the last second. Charlie Brown shakes his head.

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“No. Absolutely not! You must think I am crazy! You say you will hold the ball, but you will not. You will pull it away and I will break my neck!”

“Why, Charlie Brown…how you talk. I would not think of such a thing! I am a changed person! Look…is this not a face you can trust?”

“All right…you hold the ball, and I will come running up and kick it…”

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Charlie Brown races as fast as he can toward the ball. He pulls his leg back. He tries to kick the ball. Lucy pulls it away. Charlie flies into the air and screams.

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“She did it again!”

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He crashes to the ground. Lucy looks down on Charlie.

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“I admire you, Charlie Brown. You have such faith in human nature.”

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This is a scene from the comic strip Peanuts. Today’s Spotlight is about Charles Schulz, creator and author of Peanuts. We talk about the history of comic strips. We examine how Schulz started writing. We discuss the impact Peanuts had on other comic strips and on society. We look at why Peanuts is the most popular comic strip of all time.

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A comic strip is a row of little boxes on a piece of paper. The boxes have drawings and words that tell a story. They are usually in newspapers, comic books, or on the Internet. The first comic strips appeared in the late 1800s. Two of the first strips were called The Yellow Kid and The Katzenjammer Kids. These became popular. Soon, newspapers started publishing daily and weekly comic strips to attract readers.

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Over the next thirty years, comic strips became a regular part of American newspapers. Comic strips such as Popeye and Flash Gordon were beloved. In Britain, the comic strip Pop was popular. Andy Capp also became a favorite in Britain and later America. Tintin was famous in France. Valentina was popular in Italy.

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Some of the most famous comic strips were created in the 1950s and 1960s . These included Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, and Dick Tracy. They all became popular. But Peanuts was the most famous.

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Peanuts was written by Charles Schulz. It is the story of several children living in the same neighborhood. The main character is Charlie Brown. He always wears black shorts and a yellow shirt with a big black pattern across it. He has a dog named Snoopy that is very smart. Linus is Charlie’s best friend. He carries his special blanket with him everywhere. Lucy is Linus’s sister. She likes to tease Charlie as much as possible. There are many other characters with fun personalities in the comic strip.

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When it was first released, Peanuts was different from other comic strips. It dealt with emotions that were not usually expressed in cartoons. Writer Matt Blitz said:

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“At a time when comic strips were ruled by stories involving action-adventure and marriage humor, Peanuts was different. The comic expressed sadness, anger, depression, loneliness, and other complex emotions.”

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For example, in one Peanuts strip Lucy sets up a small building where she offers advice in exchange for money. Charlie Brown tells her he has feelings of depression. He asks, “What can I do about this?”

Lucy says, “Stop feeling that way. Five cents, please.”

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At the time, most people thought that if someone felt depressed, he just needed to stop feeling that way. They thought that being depressed was a choice. But Schulz understood the truth. Depression is a mood disorder that causes someone to feel sad most of the time. Treatment often requires special drugs. Schulz was the first comic strip writer to address this type of topic.

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Schulz was also a strong follower of Jesus. His faith is evident in a television film that he wrote called A Charlie Brown Christmas. The film first showed in 1965. It was the first time a television network aired a program based on a comic strip. In the program, Charlie Brown and his friends must put on a Christmas show. They get distracted with decorations and music. Finally, Linus quotes a passage from the Christian Bible about the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas marks this event for followers of Jesus. Linus reminds them of the real reason for their show.

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Some of the television executives did not want to include this scene. They were afraid it would offend some people. But Schulz insisted they include it. He would not let them air the show if the executives did not include this scene. These people finally agreed with Schulz.

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The network that aired the show was not sure the program would be successful. No one had ever tried anything like it before. But they were wrong. Nearly half of all American television sets played A Charlie Brown Christmas that year. The program later won several awards. In the coming years, more networks showed animated holiday specials each Christmas. A Charlie Brown Christmas still plays each year on television to this day, more than half a century after it first aired. Many families include watching A Charlie Brown Christmas as one of their annual holiday traditions.

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Schulz also turned Peanuts into films and books. He made more television programs such as A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Schulz became one of the highest-paid entertainers in America, making 30,000,000 to $40,000,000 a year. Peanuts was translated into over twenty languages in seventy-five countries. It appeared in over 2,600 newspapers.

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Schulz was able to address the complicated nature of human relationships through the eyes of the children in Peanuts. The comic made complex issues much easier for a mass audience to understand. According to the writers at Africa Nova:

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“It redefined the comic strip. It introduced a level of depth previously unseen. Schulz’s ability to mix humor with life’s darker issues connected deeply with readers. It entertained people. It reflected on human experience.”

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Schulz died at the age of seventy-seven. But Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and Snoopy live on. Schulz wrote and drew nearly 18,000 Peanuts strips. Future generations can learn important life lessons from his comic strips. Bill Watterson, famous writer of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, said:

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“Things that we now take for granted – reading the thoughts of an animal, for example. There is not a comic strip writer who has done anything since 1960 that does not owe Schulz a great debt.”

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Have you ever read Peanuts? Do you have a favorite character? Have you ever seen A Charlie Brown Christmas? You can leave a comment on our website at www.spotlightenlighs.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and X. You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.

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The writer of this program was Peter Anderson. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The producer was Dan Christmann. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called “Playing with Peanuts.”