Nothing screams Thanksgiving quite like Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts. The beloved Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special is a favorite tradition among many families for putting everyone in the spirit of giving and being thankful. This year, the Thanksgiving special airs on November 27, a day after what would have been Schulz’s 97th birthday. As such, celebrating one of the most influential cartoonists of all time seems the only appropriate choice for this week.
Charles Monroe “Sparky” Schulz was born on November 26, 1922, in Minnesota. At an early age, Schulz knew that all he wanted to do was be a cartoonist and draw funny pictures. In 1937, seeing his drawing of the family dog Spike published in the nationally syndicated Ripley’s Believe it or Not newspaper further cemented this dream. After completing a cartoon course with the Federal School of Applied Cartooning, Schulz was drafted into the United States Army where he served until the fall of 1945. Back home, Schulz did lettering for Timeless Topix and took a job at Art Instruction, before selling one-panel cartoons to The Saturday Evening Post. He later enjoyed a three-year run of his weekly panel comic, Li’l Folks, in the local St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Then, at 27 years old, Schulz introduced the world to the Peanuts gang in seven nationwide newspapers on October 2, 1950. This seemingly-simple four-panel creation would go on to become a cultural phenomenon and is among the most popular and influential in the history of comic strips. The strip centers primarily around Charlie Brown, his sister Sally, best friend Linus, frenemy Lucy, pets Snoopy and Woodstock, and additional friends Schroeder, Pigpen, Franklin, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie. At its height, Peanuts was published daily in 2,600 papers in 75 countries, translated in 21 languages, with a readership of around 355 million. Across five decades, Schulz drew 17,897 Peanuts strips.
Outside of print, the Peanuts were also adapted into several animated series including The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, This is America, Charlie Brown and Peanuts Motion Comics. Central to elevating the cultural impact of Peanuts were the animated holiday specials A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. These specials remain “among the most consistently popular television specials,” with both A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving winning an Emmy Award. The Peanuts gang have also starred in several feature-length films, stage productions and have long been featured on a number of different licensed items and are a staple in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Throughout his career, Schulz has garnered the National Cartoonists Society’s Humor Comic Strip Award, two Reuben Awards, the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award, the inaugural Harvey Kurtzman Hall of Fame Award and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, adjacent to Walt Disney’s. He also had a NASA spacecraft named after his characters, inspired a concert performance at Carnegie Hall, and has a museum dedicated entirely to his work in California.
Although Schulz sadly passed away nearly 20 years ago, his impact on the modern comic strip and the world of pop culture cannot be overstated. The minimalist drawings and sarcastic humor of Peanuts blazed a trail that many cartoonists have since tried to follow, while the Peanuts gang themselves continue to entertain the young and the young at heart.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will air on Wednesday, November 27, 2019, at 8 PM ET on ABC. Fans of the world’s most beloved beagle Snoopy can also catch the pup flying high during the 93rd annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, November 28, from 9 AM to 12 PM.
