Among tender and cute comic strips and cartoons there is one that has been loved by people all over the world and by different generations of children: Peanuts. Even though it might not be extremely popular for its name, this cartoon was definitely recognized by one of its characters, a silent but truly adorable and reflective beagle dog named Snoopy that spends most of his day lying down on the rooftop of his dog house thinking, accompanied by his little fellow canary named Woodstock. Snoopy has become by himself one of the most popular fictional dogs of all time.
Created by artist Charles M. Schulz, it was first published in October, 1950 in black and white colors, and has recently seen its last episode in February of 2000, a day after the death of its creator. Even though with time the story lost the place it had in the starting years, it has permanently maintained a respectable importance among comic strips and has been overrun for several years with good success. Peanuts is the story of a group of young friends that, as usual, do not get old with time and that enjoy daily adventures and fun in their neighborhood. It has been positively acclaimed by critics due to its simplicity yet intelligence and lovable characters.
While the story began with a few characters, as time went by more characters were added and helped to create a truly interesting and tender comic strip. It is said that Peanuts has been one of the first comic strips to have more than two or three characters and this feature gave the story a complexity other comic strips lacked of but without making it inaccessible to young kids and children. The story has also mentioned characters that never graphically appeared and Schulz even made unanimated objects act or take part in the story like the school building, Linus’s security blanket and the Kite Eating Tree.
With an esthetic that reminisces quite clearly of the time in which the story was created, the characters find themselves thinking about baseball most of the time, as Charlie Brown, Snoopy’s owner, takes the leading in organizing the game but perhaps prefer to fly his kite, although he can never successfully do it. Many subjects that have been always related to childhood have been portrayed in the story, and perhaps the clearest one is the relationship of one of the characters, Linus, with his security blanket, situation that is quite common among children.
This naïf yet intelligent and well developed comic strip has undoubtedly gained its place among comic stories and has been taken to animated TV shows and even movies, while merchandising has made all of us have one Snoopy souvenir at one moment of our lives. Children from different ages and times enjoyed the adventures that Snoopy, Charlie Brown and friends have gone trough and will surely continue to enjoy them for ages.
