The Class of 1950

There was something in the water during the 1950-1951 school year. Peanuts started in October, of course, and is still running strong in reruns after an almost 50 year run. Dennis the Menace started in March of 1951. Not as long-running but strong on the quality scale, King Aroo started in … October or November, I’m forgetting at the moment. But starting this run was the September 4, 1950 launch of Beetle Bailey, another strip still holding itw space in many papers. And now they’re giving that the Complete treatment, with volume 1 covering from the beginning into 1952. I haven’t grabbed up my copy of this yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing it; I’ve not seen more than one or two examples of the strip from before Beetle joined the military, and I’ve always been rather curious about those.

(And if you’re looking for a good gift bargain – today only, the complete Buffy The Vampire Slayer Boxed Set, all seven seasons of the TV show, $69.99 today only. Free shipping even. If I didn’t already own all the seasons separately, I’d be glomming this up. Yes, my tastes do not begin and end at Peanuts.)

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Charlie Brown, (at) All American?

There’s been a little editing back-and-forth over at Wikipedia about what is put in the “nationality” field for the various Peanuts kids. Thing is, in what is considered absolute canon — the strip itself — this question is never actually answered. Most of the time that you see the word …

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Something hatted, something hated

I’d been wondering about this for a while, so I decided to finally check the dates to see which was the inspiration and which the copy. Meanwhile, to bring us into the present moment…. artificial “intelligence”, how I hate you. Share the news!

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On the four panel status

For more than the first three decades of Peanuts, the daily strip was always four panels… well, no, that’s not quite 100% true, as I think of the August 31, 1954 daily strip of Patty jumping rope, but even that had panel breaks at the quarter, half, and three-quarter marks …