Nuview Bridge putting on a production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” had me think more about peanuts, and I realised I knew next to nothing about it or its history, so I decided to look into it as I was curious. The history of peanuts starts in 1947 with Charles M. Schulz creating a comic strip called “Li’l Folk” about a group of school children who spoke like adults. This was the basis of peanuts. After a little while of publishing his comic in his hometown’s newspaper, he finally released Peanuts on October 2nd, 1950. Throughout the many comics, you can eventually see its artstyle evolving and coming into its own with the iconic style we now know and love around the mid 50’s. Peanuts was notable for being one of the most progressive comics of its time. Franklin was a character introduced on July 31st, 1968. What was notable about Franklin was that he was the first black Peanuts character and the second ever Person of color in a comic strip. Schulz struggled with pushback from the president of the company that distributed his comics. Franklin was only allowed to be in, as Schulz threatened to quit if his character never made it to print. As time went on, the format of the comic eventually changed to free form format. Around this time, the art-style developed shakier line art as Schulz now had a tremor in his hand. After years of working on the comic in December of 1999, he retired, and only 2 months later, on February 12th, 2000, the day before his final comic aired he passed away. The comics became popular enough to be turned into other forms of media. Books were made of the characters, and eventually, the first ever tv special “A Charlie Brown Christmas” aired on December 9th, 1965. This special eventually evolved into a series of specials, including the iconic “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. Peanuts even gained its own play called “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” that got its start off broadway March 7, 1967, and eventually got a Broadway revival on February 4th 1999. This loops back around to why I even began to wonder about this, as our school is doing a production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” I went to see it and loved it.
