I'm on board with this, one hundred percent. Not only do I have the complete 26-volume set of all the Peanuts strips on my bookshelf, but over the years I've worn a few Snoopy shirts myself.
I decided a long time ago that if a T-shirt is worth buying, it should have the Peanuts on it. It probably has something to do with a story I've shared before about my freaky relationship with all things Peanuts.
10 comments:
KitKat
said...
Thanks for posting again your personal Peanuts story, Wanders. I remember reading it (that many years ago?!) and appreciating it, and it’s well worth (no pun intended) a Rerun (Peanuts allusion intended!)
A salute to Charles M. Schulz, who revolutionized comic strips and introduced us to his unforgettable characters. Sparky, we can’t thank you enough.
And, thanks to Karen Moy for participating in this special day.
My favorite Peanuts merch was a drawing of Snoopy in sunglasses leaning up against a set of goalposts with the caption, "JOE CLEVELAND." (I'm sure they did this for other cities as well.)
But I'm not buying for a second that Mary would wear a bright-red anything.
Great Peanuts story. It reminds me of W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe. A character thinks that J.D. Salinger wrote him into A Catcher in the Rye so he wants to take him to a baseball game and unlock some mystery about his past. (Yeah, Field of Dreams was adapted from that but they replaced the whole Salinger part.) I don’t know if this lines up with the timeline of Schulz’s life, but I was imagining Wanders heading out to San Francisco to nab Sparky and take him to a Giants game because they obviously have a karmic connection that Wanders is obsessed about but which is baffling and scary to Schulz. We could update this story and have Wanders take Mary to a muffin baking competition.
I had a Peanuts lunch box and a Peanuts snow cone maker. I had a Snoopy flying dog house that you put on a wire so if good “fly” across your room. My most treasured Peanuts item is an old Dixie cup with a strip printed on it that came from a dispenser my grandmother had put on the wall in her bathroom. It was Joe Cool sailing his frisbee saying “Joe Cool always spends the first two weeks of college sailing his frisbee”. I hung onto that cup and thought I should maybe apply that to my life because I still aspired to be Joe Cool. It took me a while to get through college, but I don’t think it really made me cool. I’ve reflected on that strip a lot because it really makes something out of just the simplest thought.
Next to the frisbee strip, the other strip that won’t ever leave my brain was actually a series of two or three strips where Charlie Brown is just yelling to the universe “Why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball just two feet higher!” I remember reading that in one of my uncle’s old Peanuts paperbacks and having absolutely no context of what that was all about and not have any ready resource to figure it out. It all became clear years later when I was reading a Roger Angel anthology and got to his account of a 60s World Series between the Yankees and the Giants. I finally understood what that strip was all about and how Schulz was basically just editorializing and venting his frustration that his beloved baseball team came within a hair of a World Championship.
Not sure how I would post a pic but I, to this day, have a McDonald's Camp Snoopy Collection glass that the colors of which are somewhat faded after hundreds of washings and must be around forty years old that we still use (not sure how many I started out with when my parents passed down to me all of their odds and ends of glassware and plates decades ago).
From left to right against a nicely detailed autumn forest background, a surprised Woodstock and Snoopy are depicted with their hats flying off their heads in surprised while Linus whips his security blanket from underneath a picnic setting sending Charlie Brown and Lucy head over heels while their picnic basket and a slice of watermelon are lofted. Having dealt this blow, Linus avers, "The struggle for security is no picnic!"
10 comments:
Thanks for posting again your personal Peanuts story, Wanders. I remember reading it (that many years ago?!) and appreciating it, and it’s well worth (no pun intended) a Rerun (Peanuts allusion intended!)
A salute to Charles M. Schulz, who revolutionized comic strips and introduced us to his unforgettable characters. Sparky, we can’t thank you enough.
And, thanks to Karen Moy for participating in this special day.
My favorite Peanuts merch was a drawing of Snoopy in sunglasses leaning up against a set of goalposts with the caption, "JOE CLEVELAND." (I'm sure they did this for other cities as well.)
But I'm not buying for a second that Mary would wear a bright-red anything.
-- Scottie McW.
Let’s not tell Mary the shirts look better on Wanders, okay?
The paperback collections of “Peanuts” were the foundation of my otherwise-untoward youth. Happy Birthday to Snoopy’s dad.
Thank you for sharing your story, Wanders. As a kid I read Peanuts every day and remember relating to Charlie Brown a lot.
Great Peanuts story. It reminds me of W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe. A character thinks that J.D. Salinger wrote him into A Catcher in the Rye so he wants to take him to a baseball game and unlock some mystery about his past. (Yeah, Field of Dreams was adapted from that but they replaced the whole Salinger part.) I don’t know if this lines up with the timeline of Schulz’s life, but I was imagining Wanders heading out to San Francisco to nab Sparky and take him to a Giants game because they obviously have a karmic connection that Wanders is obsessed about but which is baffling and scary to Schulz. We could update this story and have Wanders take Mary to a muffin baking competition.
I had a Peanuts lunch box and a Peanuts snow cone maker. I had a Snoopy flying dog house that you put on a wire so if good “fly” across your room. My most treasured Peanuts item is an old Dixie cup with a strip printed on it that came from a dispenser my grandmother had put on the wall in her bathroom. It was Joe Cool sailing his frisbee saying “Joe Cool always spends the first two weeks of college sailing his frisbee”. I hung onto that cup and thought I should maybe apply that to my life because I still aspired to be Joe Cool. It took me a while to get through college, but I don’t think it really made me cool. I’ve reflected on that strip a lot because it really makes something out of just the simplest thought.
Next to the frisbee strip, the other strip that won’t ever leave my brain was actually a series of two or three strips where Charlie Brown is just yelling to the universe “Why couldn’t McCovey have hit the ball just two feet higher!” I remember reading that in one of my uncle’s old Peanuts paperbacks and having absolutely no context of what that was all about and not have any ready resource to figure it out. It all became clear years later when I was reading a Roger Angel anthology and got to his account of a 60s World Series between the Yankees and the Giants. I finally understood what that strip was all about and how Schulz was basically just editorializing and venting his frustration that his beloved baseball team came within a hair of a World Championship.
Wow Wanders! Just Wow! That was a terrific personal tribute to Sparky. Thank you.
Not sure how I would post a pic but I, to this day, have a McDonald's Camp Snoopy Collection glass that the colors of which are somewhat faded after hundreds of washings and must be around forty years old that we still use (not sure how many I started out with when my parents passed down to me all of their odds and ends of glassware and plates decades ago).
From left to right against a nicely detailed autumn forest background, a surprised Woodstock and Snoopy are depicted with their hats flying off their heads in surprised while Linus whips his security blanket from underneath a picnic setting sending Charlie Brown and Lucy head over heels while their picnic basket and a slice of watermelon are lofted. Having dealt this blow, Linus avers, "The struggle for security is no picnic!"
Don't listen to anyone else, Wanders. I think Woodstock is a very nice name for your lovely new granddaughter.
HelenClark.
Shocker! Mary Worth’s favorite comic strip character is SNOOPY.
When my daughter was at Sonoma State we visited the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. I'll bet Mary has been there, too!
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