List of Peanuts characters
This is a list of characters from the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. This list contains limited information on the characters; for more, visit their respective articles.
Main characters
| Character | Date Introduced | Last appearance | Character traits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charlie Brown | October 2, 1950 | February 13, 2000 | The main character, a typical boy who has an ever-changing mood and grace; Strangely, he is regarded as both a loser and leader by the other children and is both beloved and reviled by most of them as well; he takes his frequent failures extremely hard, yet rises out of nearly every downfall with renewed optimism and determination. |
| Patty | October 2, 1950 | November 27, 1997 | An early character who never really developed a distinct personality of her own. By the mid-1960s she was seen only occasionally, making widely spaced background or minor appearances. She was merged with Violet and Frieda as a composite character in the 1967 off-Broadway musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. |
| Shermy | October 2, 1950 | June 15, 1969 (Possibly November 9, 1975) | Another early character who was Charlie Brown's best friend and straight man before Linus, Schroeder and Franklin came into the picture. Began fading into obscurity in mid-1954 and by the late 1960s, was seen only in widely spaced cameos. |
| Snoopy | October 4, 1950 | February 13, 2000 | Charlie Brown's pet dog, a beagle. Intelligent beyond his species, he is independent-minded and prone to daydreaming and fantasies. |
| Violet Gray | February 7, 1951 | November 27, 1997 | Patty and Lucy's best friend; a vain and snobby girl; served as an early love interest of Charlie Brown. She was usually seen with Patty, and like that character, Violet was slowly phased out of the strip throughout the 1960s, thereafter making only infrequent background or cameo appearances. |
| Schroeder | May 30, 1951 | September 12, 1999 | Piano-playing prodigy and catcher on Charlie Brown's baseball team; Lucy's unrequited love interest; ardent admirer of Beethoven; Charlie Brown's closest friend besides Linus. |
| Lucy Van Pelt | March 3, 1952 | February 13, 2000 | Linus' older sister; a bossy, fussy, crabby girl who sometimes torments Charlie Brown, frequently bullies Linus, battles with Snoopy, and who has a crush on Schroeder. |
| Linus | September 19, 1952 | February 13, 2000 | Lucy's younger brother; Charlie Brown's blanket-toting best friend; Sally's unrequited love interest; the most insecure but the smartest and most intellectual out of all the characters; a frequent philosopher and theologian. |
| Pig-Pen | July 13, 1954 | September 8, 1999 | The character who attracts dust, making him extremely filthy. In one strip, Pig-Pen is perfectly clean, until he steps outside and instantly becomes dirty. "I'm a dust magnet! ", he tells an incredulous Charlie Brown. |
| Charlotte Braun | November 30, 1954 | February 1, 1955 | A character experimented with by Schulz in early comics. She talks very loud and fast, but was dropped after a complaint letter from a Peanuts fan. |
| Sally | August 23, 1959 | February 13, 2000 | Charlie Brown's younger sister who has a crush on Linus; often complains, overreacts or overanalyzes situations; she often shows little respect for her older brother. |
| Frieda | March 6, 1961 | November 22, 1985 | The girl who brags about her "naturally curly hair" and is quite obsessed about her beauty. Introduced in 1961, Frieda was already being phased out by the late 1960s, and after 1975, made only background appearances. In a running gag, Frieda tries to force Snoopy to chase rabbits against his will. |
| 5 (555 "5" 95472) | September 30, 1963 | May 22, 1983 | 555 95472, or 5 for short, was boy close in age to Charlie Brown. 5 had brown spiky hair, and he wore an orange shirt with the number 5 on it. 5 also played for Charlie Brown's baseball team. 5 was given a numerical name by his father, who was upset over the preponderance of numbers in people's lives; when questioned, 5 clarified that this was not his father's way of protesting, it was his way of "giving in." 5's family are named 1 (father), 2 (mother), 3 & 4 (twin sisters). and 6 (sister). His last name, 95472 (the accent is on the 4), was taken from the family's ZIP code; it is also the zip code for Sebastopol, California, where Schulz lived at the time. |
| 3 and 4 (333 95472 and 444 95472) | October 17, 1963 | July 28, 1978 | 333 and 444 (3 and 4 for short) were the dark-haired, twin sisters of 5. ("Those are nice feminine names," Charlie Brown dryly commented.) |
| Woodstock | March 4, 1966 | February 13, 2000 | Snoopy's best friend; a tiny yellow bird. First seen in 1966, Schulz did not give him a name until June 22, 1970.[1] |
| Peppermint Patty | August 22, 1966 | February 13, 2000 | A freckle-faced tomboy who has a crush on Charlie Brown, whom she calls "Chuck"; leader of a baseball team and one of Charlie Brown's rival managers; she has difficulties with school, where she often falls asleep at her desk; for several years she did not realize Snoopy was a dog. |
| Franklin | July 31, 1968 | November 5, 1999 | An African-American child; was initially bemused by the strange kids (and Snoopy) in Charlie Brown's neighborhood; has intelligence and rationality comparable to Linus; plays on Peppermint Patty's baseball team. |
| Marcie | July 20, 1971 | February 13, 2000 | A mild-mannered, plain and bookish girl; Peppermint Patty's best friend despite their different personalities; calls Peppermint Patty "Sir"; secretly likes Charlie Brown. |
| Rerun Van Pelt | March 26, 1973 | February 13, 2000 | Younger brother of Linus and Lucy; frequently rides on the back of his mother's bicycle; often takes his siblings' places and roles. |
| Eudora | June 13, 1978 | June 13, 1987 | Sally's best friend; a girl she met at a camp who then moved down the street. |
| Peggy Jean | July 23, 1990 | July 11, 1999 | Charlie Brown's girlfriend in later years. |
| Character | Date Introduced | Last appearance | Character traits |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Kite-Eating Tree | April 12, 1956 | February 26, 1995 | The Kite-Eating tree is an anthropomorphic tree and a frequent enemy of Charlie Brown. It is often shown with a giant, pointed smile in its leaves when Charlie Brown approaches with a kite, and is occasionally given thought bubbles. Although appearing from 1956, it is not identified as the "Kite-Eating Tree" until the March 14, 1965 strip.
Despite frequently losing his kites to the tree, Charlie Brown continues to fly his kite near it, endlessly determined not to lose his kite to it. However, Charlie Brown has occasionally lashed out at the tree. In 1977, he is so angered by the tree's repeated antagonism that he bites it. This attack subsequently leads to an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency, causing Charlie Brown to flee the area; later on, when he encounters his baseball team while on the run, he learns that the Kite-Eating Tree fell down during a storm, causing the EPA to close their investigation. Safe from investigation, Charlie Brown returns home. The Kite-Eating Tree continues to appear until February 1995, from whereon it does not appear. In its resulting absence, Charlie Brown continued to get his kites stuck in other trees. In one notable strip from January 1969, Lucy van Pelt throws Schroeder's piano into the tree, frustrated by Schroeder giving the piano more attention than her. |
| The School building | July 8, 1971 | January 9, 1976 | The school building is a building within the Peanuts comic strip, where Sally Brown attends school. It is the only building to regularly feature within the strip, and is perhaps the strip's most unusual character, as the building's "thoughts" are often displayed in thought bubbles.
In July 1971, angry at having to return from summer vacation, Sally shouts at the school in anger, eventually running up and kicking it. However, she feels remorse almost instantly, and hugs the school building afterwards. On this occasion, the school does not react to Sally's actions. In August 1974, Sally begins talking to the school building on a regular basis. Although she initially despised the building, she came to reason that the building itself, unlike its staff, its PTA Association or the Board of Education (all of whom Sally had consulted), would listen to her frequent grievances. In the following month, Sally "compliments" the school on its bricks, to which it responds with a heart symbol in a thought bubble. In the following week, Sally is to ill to attend school, and sends Charlie Brown to speak with the building instead, which he does so with great embarrassment. Upon her return to school, Sally tells the building that she now enjoys going to school because of their relationship, to which the school "thinks" about how someone finally "loves" him. Subsequently, Sally and the school building often had one-sided conversations, wherein Sally shares her feelings to the building. The building occasionally finds ways to respond, most notably by dropping bricks on those that have wronged Sally. He also drops a brick on Linus van Pelt, after Sally tells the building that Linus is her boyfriend. In January 1976, the school commits "suicide" by collapsing in on itself, after a short spell of existential depression (which makes it the only Peanuts character to die in any way). Sally is greatly upset by its "death", and remembers the building to Peppermint Patty, with whom she shared a desk after being temporarily transferred to her school, and to the school building erected in the former's place. However, the new school building did not share a close relationship with Sally, who it branded a "weirdo". |
Snoopy's siblings
- Spike. Snoopy's thin, desert-dwelling brother.
- Belle. Snoopy's sister.
- Andy. Snoopy's shaggy brother.
- Olaf. Snoopy's fat brother.
- Marbles. Snoopy's smart brother.
- Rover and Molly. Two other siblings mentioned in Snoopy's Reunion TV special.
Unseen characters
There have been several characters which have not been shown in the comic strip, such as The Little Red-Haired Girl and The Great Pumpkin.
- The Little Red-Haired Girl
| Little Red-Haired Girl | |
|---|---|
| Peanuts character | |
| First appearance | November 19, 1961 |
| Last appearance | November 29, 1999 |
| Voiced by | Francesca Angelucci Capaldi (2015, in The Peanuts Movie) |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Female |
The Little Red-Haired Girl is a female character who has red hair and is Charlie Brown's unrequited love interest through most of the strip, first mentioned by him on November 19, 1961. She is not shown for most of the strips and is known simply as "the little red-haired girl". She appears in the animated television specials It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown (1977) and Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! (1986), and her name is given as Heather. Schulz first publicly suggested that name for her in an article in the February 1968 issue of Woman's Day magazine, but did not utilize it in the strip. She also makes a brief appearance in the 1988 TV special Snoopy!!! The Musical. She is a main character in The Peanuts Movie (she moves in and Charlie Brown becomes infatuated with her, and over the course of the film she gains a liking to him, and becomes his pen-pal).
- Morag (the "Pencil-Pal")
| Morag | |
|---|---|
| Peanuts character | |
| First appearance | August 25, 1958 |
| Last appearance | October 7, 1994 |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Female |
In 1958 Charlie Brown had a pen pal, but after several frustrating attempts at writing with a fountain pen results in only messy smudges, Charlie instead addresses and writes to her as a "pencil-pal". When asked by Lucy about what they write about, he says, "She tells me about her country, and I tell her about ours...", so it is presumed she does not live in the U.S. In one strip, Charlie Brown writes to her, telling her that she is his only friend, with the postscript "Everyone hates me". She has been known to write back to Charlie Brown at least once, when Charlie Brown reads his letter to Lucy, reading that she and her class at school all agree that Charlie Brown must be a very pleasant person. In a strip series in 1994, the Pen Pal was revealed to be a girl in Glasgow, Scotland named Morag.
- World War II ("The Cat Next Door")
| World War II | |
|---|---|
| Peanuts character | |
| First appearance | November 23, 1958 |
| Last appearance | Unknown |
A never-seen cat lives next door to Charlie Brown and Snoopy. The main focus on this cat occurred during the 1970s, although Charlie Brown referred to "the cat next door" as early as November 23, 1958. Snoopy often taunts this cat (usually starting with, "Hey, stupid cat!"), who generally responds by violently carving up his doghouse in a single swipe. They often have fights, with Snoopy generally coming worse off. The neighbors who own the cat have complained to Charlie Brown about Snoopy harassing their "kitten". The cat's name was revealed to be "World War II" in the October 20, 1976 strip.
- The Great Pumpkin
| The Great Pumpkin | |
|---|---|
| Peanuts character | |
| First appearance | October 26, 1959 |
| Last appearance | October 31, 1999 |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
The Great Pumpkin is a fictional entity that Linus van Pelt believes in wholeheartedly, despite the widespread disbelief and mockery of his friends.
According to Linus, the Great Pumpkin rises every Hallowe'en night and distributes gifts to those who believe in his existence. Linus' belief in the Great Pumpkin is rarely deterred, despite never having seen it, although he and Sally Brown (who often accompanies Linus to the pumpkin fields out of loyalty) often mistake other things to be the Great Pumpkin, although these sightings are often the result of Snoopy playing a prank on them.
Although the Great Pumpkin is often believed to be a fictional character, a series of strips running in October and November 1961 have radio reports of the Great Pumpkin being sighted; however, this is disregarded in future years.
Adults
Adults in the strip are typically unseen. Some examples are the characters' parents and family members (like Linus' blanket-hating grandmother), the characters' school teachers, Charlie Brown's baseball hero Joe Shlabotnik, and Helen Sweetstory, author of the Bunny Wunny books.
Adults in most of the Peanuts animated cartoons are only heard by the unintelligible sounds of a muted trombone ("wah-wah-wah").
In the 1966 animated TV special Charlie Brown's All-Stars and its accompanying book, Mr. Hennessy, proprietor of Hennessy's Hardware store, talks to Charlie Brown on the phone unseen to confirm his sponsorship of Charlie Brown's baseball team in a real league with real baseball uniforms, but changes his mind when Charlie Brown tells him that girls and a dog are on his team.[2]
- The Red Baron
| Red Baron | |
|---|---|
| Peanuts character | |
| First appearance | October 10, 1965 |
| Last appearance | 1988 |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
The Red Baron is an adversary of Snoopy, under the guise of his "World War I Flying Ace" persona.
Although never seen in the strips, Snoopy and the Red Baron often battle against each other; despite Snoopy's best attempts, the Red Baron often wins their dogfights, causing Snoopy to fall from the roof of his kennel (which doubled as the Flying Ace's "Sopwith Camel") and curse his opponent. Snoopy's battles with the Red Baron were a popular feature of the comic strip, and featured frequently.
Schulz took the Red Baron directly from history, based on the real-life wartime career of Manfred von Richthofen.
- Joe Shlabotnik
| Joe Shlabotnik | |
|---|---|
| Peanuts character | |
| First appearance | August 18, 1963 |
| Last appearance | January 3, 1997 |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Baseball player |
Joe Shlabotnik is a minor-league baseball player who, inexplicably, is greatly admired by Charlie Brown. He never appears in the strip, but is occasionally mentioned by Charlie Brown as his hero and is part of several plots involving Charlie Brown:
- Even before the minor character was introduced, Schroeder made up the name (albeit as composer "Joseph Shlabotnik") to impress Charlie Brown with his "knowledge".
- Joe is introduced (with no name yet) when Charlie Brown reads in the paper that his "baseball hero" is sent down to the minor leagues for a low batting average.[3]
- In 1963, Charlie Brown spends $5.00 (a huge sum of money for a child back then; equal to $37 adjusted for inflation) on 500 penny packs of bubble-gum cards (incidentally, the last year Topps offers penny packs) to get a Joe Shlabotnik card, but none of the 500 cards he buys has Joe's picture. Lucy then buys one penny pack, and it turns out to be a Joe card.[3] Charlie Brown offers Lucy his entire baseball card collection in trade for Lucy's Joe Shlabotnik card, which he has been trying to get for five years. Lucy declines, then (after Charlie Brown walks away, dejected) throws the card into a trash can, deciding Joe is "not as cute as I thought he was."[4]
- In his Joe Shlabotnik Fan Club News, Charlie Brown writes that Joe, now playing in the Green Grass League, batted .143, made some "spectacular catches of routine fly balls" and "threw out a runner who had fallen down between first and second." The newsletter lasts only one issue, owing to Lucy's comment on it: "Who needs it?"[5]
- Charlie Brown and Linus attend a sports banquet so that Charlie Brown can sit next to planned attendee Joe Shlabotnik, who does not show up because he had "marked the wrong date on his calendar, the wrong city, and the wrong event."[5]
- Charlie Brown's baseball teammates invite Joe to be guest speaker at a testimonial dinner honoring Charlie Brown's dedication as their manager. Joe accepts the invitation for a reduced speaking fee (down from his usual $100 fee), because all they can offer is 50 cents. However, they cancel the dinner at the last minute when they decide it would be hypocritical because they would be giving Charlie Brown untruthful praise. Joe gets lost along the way and does not show up for the dinner.[6]
- Charlie Brown discovers that Joe is managing the Waffletown Syrups in a location near his summer camp, so Charlie Brown attends the game and cheers Joe on as he manages. Somehow catching a foul ball, Charlie Brown waits after the game for Joe to sign it, only to find out that he has been fired for "signaling for a squeeze play with nobody on base." Charlie Brown finally meets Joe in person when he catches up with Joe as his bus is about to leave. Joe autographs the baseball, but hits Charlie Brown on the head with it (demonstrating his incompetence in baseball) when he throws it to him as the bus departs.[7]
- In a series of strips in 1996–97, Charlie Brown purchases a baseball signed by Joe Shlabotnik, but it turns out to be a forgery.
- Schroeder points out that the reason Joe Shlabotnik is sent back down to the minors is because he has a .004 batting average.
- Teachers
Aside from Linus van Pelt's teacher Miss Othmar and her replacement, Miss Halverson, few other teachers were mentioned by name in Peanuts (and none were ever drawn), with the children most often addressing their teacher as "Ma'am" (only once was a male teacher mentioned, in the "GEORGE WASHINGTON!!!" storyline from 1967 featuring Sally and Charlie Brown).
In the 1966 strip storyline about Charlie Brown's competing in the class spelling bee (later adapted into the movie A Boy Named Charlie Brown), Charlie Brown mentions that his teacher's name is Mrs. Donovan, but he was later shown in Miss Othmar's class with Linus. Peppermint Patty and Marcie's teacher was named Miss Swanson in the early 1970s, but had changed to Miss Tenure by 1978, in a storyline in which Patty disguised herself as a janitor to investigate the theft of Miss Tenure's box of gold star stickers and to clear her name of said theft. On August 24, 1993, in conversation with Marcie, Peppermint Patty refers to her book report as being written for Miss Davis. Marcie reveals to her that Miss Davis quit two years previous to have a baby.
- Miss Othmar
| Miss Othmar | |
|---|---|
| Peanuts character | |
| First appearance | October 5, 1959 |
| Last appearance | August 24, 1993 (comic strip) The Peanuts Movie (film) Peanuts (2016 TV Series) |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Family | Mr. Hagemeyer (husband) |
Miss Othmar served as Linus' teacher starting in 1959. There was a series of comics where Linus had to bring egg shells to class so she could teach the class about igloos but Linus kept forgetting to bring the shells. Typically, neither the comic strip nor the cartoons depict adults. In the strip, we only see the children's side of the conversations with Miss Othmar. In the cartoons, a muffled horn was used for her voice. This became her—and all other voices of adult characters—trademark in the cartoons and is sometimes parodied in other programs.
Linus developed a long-lasting crush on her. As a result, Linus held her in unreasonable esteem, which made his discovery that she earned a salary for her profession a crushing disillusionment that he tried to rationalize away. When Lucy tells Linus that it is wrong to worship a teacher, Linus denies worshipping Miss Othmar, but he does admit to being "very fond of the ground on which she walks."
Eventually, Miss Othmar married, assuming her married name of Mrs. Hagemeyer; Linus, however, continued to call her Miss Othmar, and other characters in the strip began referring to her as Miss Othmar again as well. (As Linus said, "In real life she's Miss Othmar!")
Although Miss Othmar quit teaching after she got engaged, she returned to teaching a few years later, much to Linus' delight. However, in 1969, Miss Othmar was fired following a teacher's strike, and Linus was devastated. Miss Othmar's replacement was Miss Halverson ("Halverson" being the maiden name of Charles M. Schulz's first wife, Joyce), whom Linus initially refused to accept as his new teacher, although he eventually seemed to learn to live with it.
Miss Othmar talks briefly to Sally in the TV special You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown.
Marcie mentions that she is taking organ lessons from a "Mrs. Hagemeyer" in a 1979 strip, but it is unclear whether this Mrs. Hagemeyer and Miss Othmar are one and the same.
In The Peanuts Movie, her "talking" is provided by New Orleans trombonist Trombone Shorty.
References
- Derrick Bang with Victor Lee; Fifty Years of Happiness, 1999, ISBN 978-0-9685574-0-2
- Charles M. Schulz, The Complete Peanuts, 1967–1968, New York, Fantagraphic Books, pp. 41–42, 83, 207, 227–228.
- "Charlie Brown All Stars Baseball," YouTube, posted December 14, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_WXQLW-9hA
- Schulz, Charles M. You Can Do It, Charlie Brown. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1963.
- Schulz, Charles M. Sunday's Fun Day, Charlie Brown. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1965.
- Schulz, Charles M. You're Out of Sight, Charlie Brown. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970.
- Schulz, Charles M. You're the Guest of Honor, Charlie Brown. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973.
- Schulz, Charles M. Don't Hassle Me with Your Sighs, Chuck. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976.
