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:''Alternate meaning: See [[peanut]]''
<div style="float:right;margin-left:0.5em;">[[Image:peanuts_book_cover.JPG]]</div>▼
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▲'''''Peanuts''''' is the name of a syndicated [[comic strip]] written and drawn by [[United States of America|American]] cartoonist [[Charles Schulz]] from [[1950]] to [[2000]].
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[[Image:peanuts_book_cover.JPG]]<br>Peanuts book cover</div>
Schulz originally called the strip ''Good Ol' Charlie Brown'', after the strip's feature character. The syndicate insisted on the name ''Peanuts'', a name Schulz disliked.
The title panel for the Sunday strips usually read ''Peanuts, featuring Good Ol' Charlie Brown'', as a result. ''Peanuts'' features a group of [[child]]ren, ranging from [[infant]]s to eight-years olds, whose perspectives on the world around them are at once childlike and [[adult]]. Initially, the strip revolved around '''Charlie Brown''', a boy who generally fails at anything he attempts but nevertheless continues trying.
He can never win a ballgame, but continues playing [[baseball]]. He can never fly a [[kite flying|kite]] successfully, but continues trying to fly his kite. Charlie Brown's playmates in the early years included Lucy Van Pelt and her little brother Linus, Charlie Brown's [[dog]] '''Snoopy''', and [[piano]]-playing Schroeder. The ''Peanuts'' characters generally do not age, except in the case of infant characters who catch up to the rest of the cast, then stop. Linus, for example, is born in the first couple of years of the strip's run.
He ages from infancy to Charlie Brown's age over the course of the first fifteen years of the strip's run, during which we see him learn to [[walk]] and [[talk]] with the help of Lucy and Charlie Brown. Linus then stops aging, and becomes Charlie Brown's classmate in third grade. In the [[1960s]], the strip shifts in two ways. For one, Snoopy becomes a more prominent character. Many of the strips revolve around Snoopy's active fantasy life, in which he might be a [[World War I]] fighter pilot or an [[ice hockey]] star, to the amusement and consternation of the children who wonder what he is doing.
<br> Also, Schulz introduced greater diversity in his cast of characters by replacing some of the largely anonymous neighborhood children (Shermy, Violet) with a character named Patricia Reichardt — known universally as '''Peppermint Patty'''. Patty is an assertive, athletic, but rather obtuse girl who shakes up Charlie Brown's world by calling him "Chuck", flirting with him, and giving him compliments he's not so sure he deserves. Peppermint Patty (not to be confused with an earlier character named Patty) also brought a new group of friends, including the strip's first black character, Franklin, and Peppermint Patty's bookish sidekick Marcie Johnson, who calls Patty "Sir" and Charlie Brown "Charles" (all other characters call him "Charlie Brown" at all times). ''Peanuts'' is remarkable for its deft social commentary, especially compared with other strips appearing in the [[1950s]] and early 1960s.
Schulz did not explicitly address [[racial equality|racial]] and [[gender equality]] issues so much as he assumed them to be self-evident in the first place. Peppermint Patty's athletic skill and self-confidence is simply taken for granted, for example. However, Schulz could throw some barbs when he chose. One memorable sequence featured a little boy named "5", whose sisters were named "3" and "4", whose father had changed the family surname to their zip code number as a protest. Another sequence lampooned [[Little League]]s and "organized" play, when all the neighborhood kids join "[[snowman]]-building" leagues and criticize Charlie Brown when he insists on building his own snowmen without leagues or coaches. The final original ''Peanuts'' comic strip was finished on [[January 3]], [[2000]] and published in newspapers a day after Schulz died on [[February 13]]. ==Television and films==
Aside from numerous books of or about the comic strips, the first excursion into other media for the strip was ''[[A Charlie Brown Christmas]]'', a classic 30-minute [[television]] special, first broadcast in [[1965]] on [[CBS]], that featured the music of [[Vince Guaraldi]].
(It is worth noting that the show is not titled ''A Peanuts Christmas''.) The success of ''A Charlie Brown Christmas'' was the impetus for CBS to air a long-running, celebrated series of prime-time ''Peanuts'' [[TV special]]s over the years, including ''It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'', ''It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown'', and many others. During the early [[1990s]], ''Peanuts'' was adapted to a weekly [[Saturday]] morning [[animated series]], entitled ''The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show''. This series failed to gain the acclaim and the audiences of the prime-time specials, and it was cancelled after two seasons.
Schulz and team later collaborated on other television specials and full-length feature films, the first of which was ''A Boy Named Charlie Brown'' ([[1968]]). (Again, note the absence of the word "Peanuts" in the title.)
Most of these made use of material from Schulz's strips, which were then adapted. ''You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'' was originally an extremely successful off-Broadway musical that ran for four years (1967-1971) in New York City and on tour, with [[Gary Burghoff]] as the original Charlie Brown. An updated revival opened in [[New York City]] in 1999. ===Feature Films===
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