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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

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Speaker 1: that flips through the pages of history to deliver old

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Speaker 1: news in a new way. I'm Gabe Bluesier, and today

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Speaker 1: we're taking a closer look at the history of everyone's

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Speaker 1: favorite gloomy grade schoolers, Charlie Brown and the rest of

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Speaker 1: the Peanuts Gang. The day was October two, nineteen fifty,

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Speaker 1: Charles Shuls's beloved Peanuts comic strip began its record setting

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Speaker 1: fifty year run. The debut strip consisted of four panels

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Speaker 1: and showed Charlie Brown silently walking past Shermie and Patty,

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Speaker 1: two other young children who rarely appeared in later strips.

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Speaker 1: In the first three panels, as Charlie Brown walks by them,

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Speaker 1: Shermy said, well, here comes old Charlie Brown. Good old

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Speaker 1: Charlie Brown. Yes, sir, good old Charlie Brown. But then

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Speaker 1: when Charlie Brown is out of sight, suremy adds, how

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Speaker 1: I hate him. That shockingly bitter punchline set the tone

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Speaker 1: for the entire series, which often contrasted melancholy humor with cute,

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Speaker 1: simplistic characters. Of course, the strip also had moments of

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Speaker 1: incredible warmth and humor, and that unique mix of light

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Speaker 1: and darkness is a big reason why Peanuts remained such

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Speaker 1: an enduring part of pop culture more than seventy years later.

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Speaker 1: Charles Monroe Shols was born on November twenty sixth, nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty two, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was the only child

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Speaker 1: of his dad, Karl, a German immigrant and barber, and

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Speaker 1: his mom, Dina, a waitress turned homemaker. He spent most

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Speaker 1: of his childhood in the Twin Cities, except for a

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Speaker 1: formative two years stint in Needles, California, during the Great Depression.

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Speaker 1: One long standing debate among Peanuts fans is where the

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Speaker 1: comic strip is meant to take place. Some fans think

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Speaker 1: it set near Santa Rosa, California, which is where Shoals

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Speaker 1: lived once Peanuts became a hit, but that doesn't make

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Speaker 1: much sense when you look at the strips set in winter.

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Speaker 1: A more plausible theory is that it takes place in

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Speaker 1: Shoals's own hometown. The Upper Midwest is one of the

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Speaker 1: few parts of the country that gets very hot in

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Speaker 1: the summer and freezing cold in the winter, and the

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Speaker 1: kids in Peanuts seem to experience the same seasonal fluctuations.

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Speaker 1: For instance, many of the comics center on summer activities

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Speaker 1: like playing baseball, flying kites, and selling lemonade on hot days.

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Speaker 1: But there was also a ton of strips that show

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Speaker 1: a blanket of snow on the ground and everyone's playing

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Speaker 1: ice hockey. There's not much solid evidence in the strips themselves,

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Speaker 1: but what little there is points to the story taking

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Speaker 1: place in either Minneapolis or Saint Paul, and that would

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Speaker 1: actually be pretty on theme for Sholes because many other

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Speaker 1: elements of the Peanuts strip are also autobiographical. For example,

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Speaker 1: many of the character's names were borrowed from people he

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Speaker 1: actually knew. Shumey was the name of a childhood friend,

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Speaker 1: Schroeder was a caddie at the golf course he worked

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Speaker 1: at as a teenager, and Linus and Lucy van Pelt

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Speaker 1: got their last name from a man Shull served with

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Speaker 1: in the army. Many of the character's personalities were also

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Speaker 1: drawn from real life. Lucy's domineering nature, for instance, was

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Speaker 1: inspired by Shuls's troubled marriage to his first wife, Joyce,

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Speaker 1: and even Linus's famous blue blanket came straight from Shules's life.

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Speaker 1: His young daughter had her own security blanket that she

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Speaker 1: dragged along everywhere she went. As for the unnamed little

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Speaker 1: red haired girl that Charlie Brown had a crush on,

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Speaker 1: she was based on Shuls's girlfriend in the late nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: a redhead named Donna May Johnson. The two of them

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Speaker 1: worked together at a correspondence school in Minneapolis, and after

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Speaker 1: a few years of dating, Shulls worked up the nerve

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Speaker 1: to propose to her, only for Donna May to turn

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Speaker 1: him down and marry some one else a few months later.

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Speaker 1: And if you're getting some strong Charlie Brown vibes from

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Speaker 1: that story, there's a good reason why, as both Charlie

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Speaker 1: Brown and Snoopy are often considered stand ins for Shulls himself.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the artist's son, Craig Shules once said quote,

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Speaker 1: each of the characters represents a piece of our dad.

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Speaker 1: Charlie Brown was his real self, while Snoopy was what

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Speaker 1: he wanted to be. That said, both of those characters

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Speaker 1: also had real world counterparts apart from Sholes. Charlie Brown

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Speaker 1: was the name of a friend he worked with prior

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Speaker 1: to creating Peanuts, and Snoopy was based on his own

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Speaker 1: childhood dog, an English pointer not a beagle named Spike,

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Speaker 1: a name that Sholes later used for one of Snoopy's brothers. Still,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't take much effort to see the parallels between

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Speaker 1: Shules's childhood and that of his chronically unlucky lead character.

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Speaker 1: Like the time his local movie theater handed out candy

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Speaker 1: bars to the first one hundred kids to buy tickets,

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Speaker 1: and in true Charlie Brown fashion, he turned out to

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Speaker 1: be the one hundred and first kid in line. Or

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Speaker 1: when Shules was in high school and his teacher convinced

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Speaker 1: him to draw some comics for the senior yearbook. Much

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Speaker 1: like Charlie Brown, the young artist was insecure and a

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Speaker 1: bit socially awkward, but because he wanted to be a

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Speaker 1: cartoonist so badly, he overcame his shyness and agreed to

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Speaker 1: put himself out there. However, when the yearbook finally came out,

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Speaker 1: his artwork had been left out by mistake, and not

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Speaker 1: a single one of his cartoons was used. Despite that

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Speaker 1: soul crushing setback, Charles Shules kept drawing and never gave

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Speaker 1: up on his dream of becoming a cartoonist. After serving

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Speaker 1: in the army in World War Two, he returned to

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Speaker 1: Minnesota and found a job as an art instructor at

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Speaker 1: a local institute. Around the same time, he began working

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Speaker 1: on his own cartoon series called Lil Folks. It ran

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Speaker 1: intermittently in his hometown newspaper, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press

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Speaker 1: from nineteen forty seven to nineteen fifty. The strip was

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Speaker 1: basically an early take on the Peanuts concept, focusing on

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood exploits of a group of young, precocious children.

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Speaker 1: It even had four different characters who were referred to

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Speaker 1: as Charlie Brown at different points, though none of them

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Speaker 1: bore much resemblance to the one we know today. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty, Shoals pitched his Little Folk strip to the

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Speaker 1: United Features Syndicate in hopes of reaching a wider audience.

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Speaker 1: He insisted the title should stay the same, and to

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Speaker 1: be fair, it does seem like a fitting one when

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Speaker 1: you consider just how many of his Little Kid characters

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Speaker 1: seem to be plagued by grown up anxieties and neuroses.

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Speaker 1: But fitting or not, the syndicate refused to run the

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Speaker 1: strip under its original title. It turned doubt there was

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Speaker 1: already a comic strip called Little Folks, except the little

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Speaker 1: in that title was spelled out instead of contracted. There

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Speaker 1: was also the Lil Abner comic strip, and executives worried

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Speaker 1: that readers might confuse the titles, or even worse, that

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Speaker 1: the creators of the rival strips might sue them for

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Speaker 1: copyright infringement. With that in mind, the production manager at

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Speaker 1: the syndicate suggested they call the strip Peanuts, a common

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Speaker 1: nickname for small children. Shules ultimately agreed to the change,

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Speaker 1: but he wasn't happy about it. In a nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: seven interview, he tore the title to Shreds, saying, quote,

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Speaker 1: it's totally ridiculous, has no meaning, is simply confusing, and

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Speaker 1: has no dignity. And I think my humor has dignity.

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Speaker 1: Once the strip took off, though, Shulls was more or

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Speaker 1: less stuck with the title, though he always avoided using

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Speaker 1: it himself. In fact, whenever someone asked him what he

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Speaker 1: did for a living, he would avoid using the P

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Speaker 1: word by telling them quote, I draw that comic strip

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Speaker 1: with Snoopy in it, Charlie Brown and his dog. Of course,

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Speaker 1: whatever you call it, there's no question that Shuls's comic

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Speaker 1: became a runaway hit once the strip gained a little steam.

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Speaker 1: It was published in just seven American newspapers when it

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Speaker 1: debuted on October second, nineteen fifty, but by the time

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Speaker 1: of Shull's retirement fifty years later, the strip was carried

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Speaker 1: by more than twenty six hundred papers in seventy five

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Speaker 1: different countries. It had also been translated into more than

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Speaker 1: twenty languages and boasted a global readership of three hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty five million people. In total, seventeen thousand, eight

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Speaker 1: hundred and ninety seven Peanut strips were produced, and every

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Speaker 1: one of them was written, inked, and lettered by Charles

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Speaker 1: Shuls himself. It was such an unprecedented run for a

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Speaker 1: newspaper comic strip that media scholar Robert Thompson once called

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Speaker 1: it the longest story told by a single artist in

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Speaker 1: hue human history. As I mentioned at the top of

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Speaker 1: the show, one reason the strip clicked with people for

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Speaker 1: as long as it did was the tricky balancing act

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Speaker 1: it managed to pull off. In terms of tone, Peanuts

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Speaker 1: is funny and sometimes sweet, but there's always a kind

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Speaker 1: of prickly world weariness underlying the humor, and that constant

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Speaker 1: push and pull was entirely by design. Shules believe that

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Speaker 1: happiness and humor don't always mix, which of course is

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Speaker 1: why Charlie Brown never did get to kick that football.

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Speaker 1: The artist also dealt with bouts of depression in his

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Speaker 1: own life, and one way he found relief was by

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Speaker 1: channeling his anxieties directly into his art. The result is

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Speaker 1: a strip with a somewhat morose worldview, one whereas Shulls

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Speaker 1: once explained, all the loves are unrequited, all the baseball

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Speaker 1: games are lost, all the test scores are d minuses,

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Speaker 1: the great Pumpkin never comes, and the football is always

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Speaker 1: pulled away. Charles Shulls stuck to that formula for the

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Speaker 1: strip's entire run, though things definitely got a bit cheerier

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Speaker 1: in the mid to late nineteen sixties once the TV

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Speaker 1: specials started and the merchandising kicked into high gear. But

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Speaker 1: for all the fanciful touches in those later stories such

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Speaker 1: as kite eating trees and canine fighter pilots, Peanuts remained

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Speaker 1: at its core a strip about simple truths and vulnerable people.

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Speaker 1: It shows us that life is made up of both small,

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Speaker 1: hard won triumphs and bitterly felt disappointments, and not always

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Speaker 1: in equal measure either. But at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: the important thing isn't whether you kick the football or not,

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Speaker 1: it's that you never stop trying to kick it. Charles

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Speaker 1: Shuls understood that, and thanks to his work, the other

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Speaker 1: Charlie Brown's of the World myself included do too. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gabe Loseray and hopefully you now know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you enjoyed

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Speaker 1: today's episode, consider keeping up with us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at TDI HC Show. You can also rate

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Speaker 1: and review the show on Apple Podcast, or you can

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Speaker 1: get in touch directly by writing to This Day at

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks as always to Chandler Mays for

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Speaker 1: producing the show, and thanks to you for listening. I'll

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Speaker 1: see you back here again tomorrow for another day in

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Speaker 1: History Class