"Good Grief!" Two "Peanuts" specials on the same night!

[Markxxx]

Schulz said the reason he dropped Faron was twofold. He said, first he couldn't draw a cat very well, and more importantly, Faron was making Snoopy act like a real dog and that killed the humour

 

[firepoint525]

One positive thing about the show was its 'late '50s/ early 60s' vibe' I liked seeing the 'forgotten' characters-Shermy, Violet, 'Original Patty, 3, 4, 5, Frieda, and Faron-and didn't really mss the absent Rerun, Peppermint Patty and Marcie.

Wanted to revisit this for a moment. While I remember a character whose "name" was the number "5," I do not remember a "3" or a "4." Can someone shed any light on this?

Also, does anyone remember a girl named (I think) Peggy Jean? Seems like Charlie Brown met her at summer camp and she appeared in the daily strip for a few weeks around 1990 or so, and possibly later. She might have made the "little red-haired girl" Heather a bit jealous since she kissed Charlie Brown! (At least, I think she did.)

 

[Mario500]

While I remember a character whose "name" was the number "5," I do not remember a "3" or a "4."  Can someone shed any light on this?

3 and 4 are the twin sisters of 5.

 

[vchimpanzee]

As a lifetime fan of Peanuts, I thought the new special was excellent. They used stories from the strips that Schultz did years ago, and put them together well.

Most of the Peanuts specials recycled stories from the strips. In some cases it was taken right from the strips ("Great Pumpkin") and others the strips were worked into the special to support the plot (Thanksgiving, Christmas).

I recognized a Sunday strip from just weeks ago.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Also perhaps driving the retro feel of "Warm Blanket": Most of the newspapers still carrying Peanuts have been running strips from the 60's, so that era is what current readers are familiar with...and those recently acquainted with the comic would probably not be familiar with the later evolution of the strip (some papers are running much later work; our local Houston Chronicle currently has strips from 1998.)

The Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer are running the really old strips daily, while the Asheville Citizen-Times, Washington Post and Winston-Salem Journal run those newer strips. An explanation I've heard is that the old strips aren't the right size.

 

[onairb]

While I remember a character whose "name" was the number "5," I do not remember a "3" or a "4." Can someone shed any light on this?

3 and 4 are the twin sisters of 5.

Several of the book collections have 5's first appearence, in which his sisters are mentioned(his full first name is supposedly '555', though this isn't mentioned in his first strip, and the last name is '95472'...the real-life zip code of Sebastopol, CA, where Schulz lived at the time). However, the girls made even fewer appearences than their brother, and only the recent 'Complete Peanuts' book collection reprints all of those strips.
If you remember 'A Charlie Brown Christmas', during the dance scene, while 5 does that weird, trademark 'head bopping' move, the lookalike girls dancing on either side of him are 3 and 4. As far as I know, they never had any dialogue in any of the TV specials.

 

[onairb]

Also, does anyone remember a girl named (I think) Peggy Jean? Seems like Charlie Brown met her at summer camp and she appeared in the daily strip for a few weeks around 1990 or so, and possibly later. She might have made the "little red-haired girl" Heather a bit jealous since she kissed Charlie Brown! (At least, I think she did.)

"Brownie Charles."
Her first and last appearences are found through links on this page:
http://peanuts.wikia.com/wiki/Peggy_Jean
(She even appeared in a TV special..although they combined her with the Little Red-Haired Girl!)

 

[onairb]

One positive thing about the show was its 'late '50s/ early 60s' vibe' I liked seeing the 'forgotten' characters-Shermy, Violet, 'Original Patty, 3, 4, 5, Frieda, and Faron-and didn't really mss the absent Rerun, Peppermint Patty and Marcie.

That "late 50s/early 60s vibe" was very pronounced -- in fact, it looked like the special was intentionally set about fifty years ago, with the black & white console television in the middle of the living room, a rotary dial phone in the background in a couple of scenes, and Schroeder's music collection on vinyl instead of CD.

Adding even more to the retro feel was the hand-water colored look of the backgrounds, something that we haven't really seen much in television animation since the sixties.

Overall, I liked the effect. And I also thought it was appropriate -- can anyone really imagine the Peanuts characters in a world filled with MP3 players, cellphones, and flat screen TVs?

I actually loved the scene where Linus switched the TV on 'the old fashioned way'...without a remote! ;D

 

[firepoint525]

If you remember 'A Charlie Brown Christmas', during the dance scene, while 5 does that weird, trademark 'head bopping' move, the lookalike girls dancing on either side of him are 3 and 4. As far as I know, they never had any dialogue in any of the TV specials.

I remember those twin girls, but did not know their names. To quote Bob Seger, "I Feel Like A Number"!

"Brownie Charles."

I had actually forgotten about him not having the heart to correct her when she got his name wrong!

I actually loved the scene where Linus switched the TV on 'the old fashioned way'...without a remote! ;D

I still must turn on (and off) the TV this way, since my remote was damaged in the flood here last year. But since we are on digital TV, I can do everything else via the remote to the digital TV box, which wasn't damaged by the flood.

 

[azumanga]

Also perhaps driving the retro feel of "Warm Blanket": Most of the newspapers still carrying Peanuts have been running strips from the 60's, so that era is what current readers are familiar with...and those recently acquainted with the comic would probably not be familiar with the later evolution of the strip (some papers are running much later work; our local Houston Chronicle currently has strips from 1998.)

The Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer are running the really old strips daily, while the Asheville Citizen-Times, Washington Post and Winston-Salem Journal run those newer strips. An explanation I've heard is that the old strips aren't the right size.

The St. Pete Times initially started out with the mid-1970s and later, the 1960s strips, but changed to the 1990s strips a couple of years ago. Nothing was said about the change, though I figure size was also a factor.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I actually loved the scene where Linus switched the TV on 'the old fashioned way'...without a remote! ;D

I still must turn on (and off) the TV this way, since my remote was damaged in the flood here last year. But since we are on digital TV, I can do everything else via the remote to the digital TV box, which wasn't damaged by the flood.

On my TV that is hooked up to cable, I still do it this way. On my TV hooked up to TiVo, I don't even know how. But I only watch what I set it to tape. My TVs with converter boxes do have to be changed by remote and I rarely do it.