Political footballs

I have long wanted to do a nice long write-up on how well the Lucy-pulls-the-football-away gag has integrated itself into the political discourse; how it is used by legislators and commenters alike. I think there’s a great piece to be done on that, as it is one way that Peanuts has filled a cultural hole that we didn’t know we had. But… well, that sounds like a lot of research.

But there is one way that I can demonstrate just how big a presence it has. Here are five recent political cartoons, all on the exact same topic… and I’m willing to bet that none of these cartoonists saw the others’ cartoons before drawing their own. It’s just that this is so much a standard political cartoon trope, a part of the language. (MadĀ editor Bill Morrison, who wrote one of these, tells of having purposely tried to get the cartoon out quickly, before anyone else did the exact same gag.)

Thanks to Bill and several other Facebook folks for pointing me to most of these.

General

  As these two ads, from 1954 and 1961 respectively, show, Patty and Violet had a rather consistent relationship… living on slightly different planes, and not introducing themselves, but giving a name to each other. 40 SHARES Share Tweet this thing Follow the AAUGH Blog

General
The Untouchable Charlie Brown

If you look at this ad, you may be wondering (as I did when I stumbled across it) why Charlie Brown is advertising a television show in 1963… and why, of all shows, he’s advertisingĀ The Untouchables. (Or you may be one of the many people now populating the earth too …

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Peanuts First Edition guide

As proud as I am of my Peanuts Book Collectors Guide, it is not the be-all and end-all guide…. and as much as I have visions of making it so, the real life of being a father of two, the runner of a business, a make of dinners, and a …