CHARLIE BROWN
Charles "Charlie" Brown is the main character in the comic strip Peanuts by
Charles M. Schulz.
Charlie Brown is a lovable loser, a child possessed of endless determination
and hope, but who is ultimately dominated by a "permanent case of bad luck", and
is often dominated and taken advantage of by his peers. These traits are best-shown
from his baseball team: Charlie Brown is the manager of the team and its pitcher,
but the team consistently loses (their all-time record is said to be 2 930, and
the two wins were only by forfeit when the opposing team's players were ill.
However, it should be noted that the team is said to have won when Linus was
pitching in Charlie Brown's absence.) Charlie Brown is constantly cursed as a
pitcher, often giving up tremendous hits which either knock him off the mound or
leave him with only his shorts on. The team itself is poor, with only Charlie
Brown's dog Snoopy being particularly competent; however, most of the occasions
when his team has won games have been when Charlie Brown is not playing,
although Charlie Brown did help the team win with a home run on two occasions (the
pitcher of the other team later admitted that she let him hit the home runs
because she thought he looked cute standing at the plate). On the rare occasion
that he does succeed at something, circumstances invariably arise to lessen his
victory, such as when he wins a bowling trophy on which his surname is
misspelled. Charlie Brown is also an avid kite-flyer, but a running joke is that
his kites keep landing in a "Kite-Eating Tree" or suffering even worse fates.
Once in 1958, he finally got the kite to fly before it spontaneously combusted
in the air. However in the 13 July 1961 strip Charlie Brown not only gets his
kite to fly, but to fly so high that he has to ask Lucy to tie on some extra
string. The punch line is that Lucy does this in a huge bow. The kite is
airborne through the four panels of the strip. A Sunday episode showed that
once Charlie Brown tried to fly his kite in winter - and it froze solid in the
air.
He is often called "blockhead" by Lucy van Pelt, despite his rather round head.
Every autumn Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick, and
every year she pulls it away as he follows through, causing him to fly in the
air and land painfully on his back. He was never shown as succeeding in kicking
the football in the comic strip.
When Charlie Brown was ill in the hospital in a 1979 sequence, Lucy promised she
would never pull the football away again. She did not pull the football away
when Charlie Brown tried to kick it after he got well, but he missed the
football and kicked her hand. He was depicted as kicking it in a 1981 TV special,
It's Magic, Charlie Brown, in which he was invisible, but this is not considered
canon. In 1999, Lucy delegated the task of holding the ball to her brother Rerun,
but he did not reveal whether he pulled the ball away or not.
Charlie Brown is drawn with only a small curl of hair at the front of his head,
and a little in the back. Though this is often interpreted as him being bald,
Charles Schulz has explained that he saw Charlie Brown as having hair that was
so light, and cut so short, that it was not seen very well. Charlie Brown has
often mentioned getting a haircut, or his hair in general, throughout the strip's
run. Snoopy thinks of his owner as "that round-headed kid". He almost always
wears black shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, usually yellow, with a black zig-zag
stripe around the middle.
Charlie Brown often utters the catch phrase "Good grief!" when astonished or
dismayed. In moments of extreme disappointment or despair he sometimes simply
cries out, "I can't stand it!" Other times, he will exclaim 'Augh!' when
particularly frustrated or surprised.
Peanuts Sunday strips were often (unofficially) titled Peanuts featuring Good Ol'
Charlie Brown. Schulz later stated that he had wanted to name the strip Good Ol'
Charlie Brown but that the name Peanuts was chosen by the cartoon syndicate
instead; as a result, some people inferred that Charlie Brown's name was "Peanuts".
Schulz suggested the Sunday title as a clarification device.
Charles "Charlie" Brown is the main character in the comic strip Peanuts by
Charles M. Schulz.
Charlie Brown is a lovable loser, a child possessed of endless determination
and hope, but who is ultimately dominated by a "permanent case of bad luck", and
is often dominated and taken advantage of by his peers. These traits are best-shown
from his baseball team: Charlie Brown is the manager of the team and its pitcher,
but the team consistently loses (their all-time record is said to be 2 930, and
the two wins were only by forfeit when the opposing team's players were ill.
However, it should be noted that the team is said to have won when Linus was
pitching in Charlie Brown's absence.) Charlie Brown is constantly cursed as a
pitcher, often giving up tremendous hits which either knock him off the mound or
leave him with only his shorts on. The team itself is poor, with only Charlie
Brown's dog Snoopy being particularly competent; however, most of the occasions
when his team has won games have been when Charlie Brown is not playing,
although Charlie Brown did help the team win with a home run on two occasions (the
pitcher of the other team later admitted that she let him hit the home runs
because she thought he looked cute standing at the plate). On the rare occasion
that he does succeed at something, circumstances invariably arise to lessen his
victory, such as when he wins a bowling trophy on which his surname is
misspelled. Charlie Brown is also an avid kite-flyer, but a running joke is that
his kites keep landing in a "Kite-Eating Tree" or suffering even worse fates.
Once in 1958, he finally got the kite to fly before it spontaneously combusted
in the air. However in the 13 July 1961 strip Charlie Brown not only gets his
kite to fly, but to fly so high that he has to ask Lucy to tie on some extra
string. The punch line is that Lucy does this in a huge bow. The kite is
airborne through the four panels of the strip. A Sunday episode showed that
once Charlie Brown tried to fly his kite in winter - and it froze solid in the
air.
He is often called "blockhead" by Lucy van Pelt, despite his rather round head.
Every autumn Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick, and
every year she pulls it away as he follows through, causing him to fly in the
air and land painfully on his back. He was never shown as succeeding in kicking
the football in the comic strip.
When Charlie Brown was ill in the hospital in a 1979 sequence, Lucy promised she
would never pull the football away again. She did not pull the football away
when Charlie Brown tried to kick it after he got well, but he missed the
football and kicked her hand. He was depicted as kicking it in a 1981 TV special,
It's Magic, Charlie Brown, in which he was invisible, but this is not considered
canon. In 1999, Lucy delegated the task of holding the ball to her brother Rerun,
but he did not reveal whether he pulled the ball away or not.
Charlie Brown is drawn with only a small curl of hair at the front of his head,
and a little in the back. Though this is often interpreted as him being bald,
Charles Schulz has explained that he saw Charlie Brown as having hair that was
so light, and cut so short, that it was not seen very well. Charlie Brown has
often mentioned getting a haircut, or his hair in general, throughout the strip's
run. Snoopy thinks of his owner as "that round-headed kid". He almost always
wears black shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, usually yellow, with a black zig-zag
stripe around the middle.
Charlie Brown often utters the catch phrase "Good grief!" when astonished or
dismayed. In moments of extreme disappointment or despair he sometimes simply
cries out, "I can't stand it!" Other times, he will exclaim 'Augh!' when
particularly frustrated or surprised.
Peanuts Sunday strips were often (unofficially) titled Peanuts featuring Good Ol'
Charlie Brown. Schulz later stated that he had wanted to name the strip Good Ol'
Charlie Brown but that the name Peanuts was chosen by the cartoon syndicate
instead; as a result, some people inferred that Charlie Brown's name was "Peanuts".
Schulz suggested the Sunday title as a clarification device.