50 Fun Facts About Peanuts

Which Moon mission named its command module Charlie Brown and its lunar module Snoopy?

Apollo 10 was the dress rehearsal for the first landing, and its lunar module Snoopy flew to within nine miles of the Moon's surface. Schulz approved the names, though he worried Charlie Brown always failed.

Which muted brass instrument supplies the 'wah-wah' voices of adults in the Peanuts TV specials?

A muted trombone stands in for every teacher and parent, an idea from the specials' jazz composer that the team kept because it made them laugh. The Peanuts Movie hired Trombone Shorty for the job.

What does Lucy hold for Charlie Brown to kick in a Peanuts running gag, only to yank it away?

A football is what Lucy whips away, a gag Schulz redrew nearly every year for decades. Violet, not Lucy, held the ball the first time it appeared.

Which breed of dog is Snoopy, the very word Charlie Brown misspells to lose a national spelling bee?

Beagle comes out as B-E-A-G-E-L when Charlie Brown reaches the national final in the 1969 film A Boy Named Charlie Brown. He had spelled several words correctly before it.

Which object, whose name Peanuts helped put in the dictionary, does Linus carry everywhere?

A security blanket never leaves Linus's side, an idea Schulz took from watching his own first three children drag theirs around. He was proud that the phrase caught on.

What does Lucy sell for five cents from a booth modelled on a child's lemonade stand in Peanuts?

Psychiatric help costs a nickel at Lucy's booth, where a sign says whether 'The Doctor is' in or out. Her advice, usually for an anxious Charlie Brown, is mostly worthless.

Which legendary figure does Linus await each Halloween in Peanuts instead of trick-or-treating?

The Great Pumpkin, Linus insists, rises from the most sincere patch on Halloween with a bag of toys for children who believe. In decades of lonely vigils it never once made its presence known.

What does Charlie Brown get instead of candy when trick-or-treating in a 1966 Peanuts special?

A rock is all Charlie Brown collects while his friends fill their bags with treats. Schulz proposed the joke, the producer called it too cruel, and Schulz and his animator answered by making it three.

Which music festival gave its name to the small yellow bird who is Snoopy's best friend in Peanuts?

Woodstock went without a name for years until Schulz finally gave him one in June 1970. The festival's logo shows a bird perched on a guitar.

Which composer's birthday does the toy-piano prodigy of the Peanuts gang celebrate every December?

Beethoven is the young pianist's hero: after Lucy smashed one bust of the composer, he calmly fetched another from a closet full of them.

Which Peanuts character plays a toy piano while Lucy leans on it, hoping in vain for a kiss?

Schroeder pounds out multi-octave pieces on an instrument whose black keys are merely painted on. He also crouches behind home plate as the catcher on Charlie Brown's baseball team.

Which nickname does the freckled, sandal-wearing Peppermint Patty always use for Charlie Brown?

Chuck is her name for him, and Lucy gets 'Lucille'. Her baseball team regularly trounces his.

Which bookish, bespectacled Peanuts character addresses her best friend Peppermint Patty as 'Sir'?

Marcie said 'Sir' in her very first line in 1971 and never stopped, however much it annoyed her friend. She wears round glasses with opaque lenses.

Which Peanuts character, introduced on a beach in 1968, was the first Black child in the strip?

Franklin arrived after Los Angeles schoolteacher Harriet Glickman wrote to Schulz, days after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, urging him to add a Black character. He and Charlie Brown met playing ball.

Which Peanuts character travels inside a permanent cloud he proudly calls 'the dust of countless ages'?

Pig-Pen stays filthy despite his best efforts and cannot keep clean for more than the briefest moment. When he takes a deep breath to sing, the dirt rises around him.

Which little brother of Linus and Lucy spent years of Peanuts riding on the back of his mother's bicycle?

Rerun got his nickname when Lucy, who had wanted a sister, called his birth a rerun of Linus's arrival. He grew from a bicycle passenger into a leading character by the 1990s.

Which thin, mustachioed brother of Snoopy lives alone among the cacti near Needles, California?

Spike wears a fedora and long droopy whiskers and keeps company mostly with saguaro cacti. Schulz knew the town well: his own family lived in Needles for a spell when he was a boy.

Which Peanuts girl boasts constantly about her naturally curly hair and carries a limp cat called Faron?

Frieda arrived in 1961 and kept trying to make Snoopy chase rabbits. By 1970 Schulz was using her only occasionally.

What colour is the hair of the never-seen girl whom Charlie Brown adores from afar in Peanuts?

Red is the hair colour of the Little Red-Haired Girl, modelled on Donna Johnson, a co-worker who turned down Schulz's marriage proposal in 1950. Readers saw her only once, in silhouette.

Which surname do Lucy and Linus share in Peanuts, borrowed from a Colorado neighbour of Charles Schulz?

Van Pelt came from Louanne Van Pelt, a neighbour during the Schulz family's brief stay in Colorado Springs. Linus owes his first name to another of the cartoonist's friends, Linus Maurer.

Which British fighter plane does Snoopy imagine his doghouse to be when he duels the Red Baron?

Sopwith Camel is the biplane the World War I Flying Ace pilots in his imagination, and his unseen German rival keeps shooting it down. Snoopy first took on the persona in October 1965.

Which name does Snoopy use for his sunglasses-wearing college student persona in Peanuts?

Joe Cool was one of the few fantasy lives Snoopy returned to for years. Most of his alter egos, such as the surgeon or the secret agent, were seen only once or twice.

Which word ends the clichéd line Snoopy types to open his novels in Peanuts: 'It was a dark and stormy…'?

Night completes a sentence borrowed from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford. Schulz gave it to Snoopy precisely because it had been a cliché for a very long time.

Which Dutch painter's work hangs inside Snoopy's doghouse, which the strip says also holds a pool table?

Van Gogh and Andrew Wyeth, Schulz's favourite artist in later life, are both named as hanging in the doghouse. The kennel is drawn tiny but described as holding a library and a recreation room.

Which flower is in the name of the Hill Puppy Farm where Charlie Brown's parents bought Snoopy?

Daisy Hill Puppy Farm is where Charlie Brown's parents took their son to cheer him up, and where he met Snoopy. The dog had been returned there by an earlier owner, a girl named Lila.

Which toy of Charlie Brown's keeps getting devoured by a hungry tree in the Peanuts comic strip?

A kite of Charlie Brown's always ends up tangled in the Kite-Eating Tree. Schulz invented it after losing kites to branches himself, both as a boy and later with his own children.

Which two-word catchphrase of Charlie Brown's also became the title of a Charles Schulz biography?

Good grief became so tied to the strip that a 1956 collection was called Good Grief, More Peanuts. Rheta Grimsley Johnson later borrowed it for her life of the cartoonist.

Which position does Charlie Brown play, as well as managing, on his hapless baseball team?

Pitcher and manager are both Charlie Brown's jobs, though in his first baseball strip in 1951 he was behind the plate instead. He regularly orders Lucy back to right field.

Which pattern, first added in December 1950, runs across Charlie Brown's shirt in Peanuts?

A zigzag first crossed his plain T-shirt on December 21, 1950, weeks after the strip began. By 1952 the T-shirt had become a collared polo.

Which insult, first thrown by Violet in 1951, do Lucy and friends regularly hurl at Charlie Brown?

Blockhead was first aimed at Charlie Brown by Violet in a strip of August 1951. A later stage play alluding to the characters took the title Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead.

Which US network aired A Charlie Brown Christmas in December 1965 while expecting the special to flop?

CBS and the producers alike predicted a disaster: the special had no laugh track, and they doubted its tone, pacing and music. It drew high ratings, an Emmy and a Peabody.

Which soft drink company commissioned and sponsored A Charlie Brown Christmas, giving its makers only six months?

Coca-Cola wanted a holiday special to sponsor, and Schulz and producer Lee Mendelson sketched the outline for its executives in less than a day.

Which jazz pianist, a Grammy winner for 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind', scored the early Peanuts TV specials?

Vince Guaraldi got the job after producer Lee Mendelson heard that hit on the radio. His 'Linus and Lucy' became the signature melody of the whole franchise.

Which Gospel does Linus recite from on stage to explain the holiday's meaning in A Charlie Brown Christmas?

Luke supplies the passage: the angels' annunciation to the shepherds, in the King James wording. One newspaper critic called his reading 'the dramatic highlight of the season'.

In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Lucy asks for a big, pink artificial tree made of which metal?

Aluminum trees were a fad in 1965, and Charlie Brown's insistence on a real one instead is credited with virtually wiping out demand for them.

Which job does Lucy suggest Charlie Brown take in the neighbourhood play in A Charlie Brown Christmas?

Director is the job she proposes to get him involved, but the cast ignore him and mock the puny tree he chooses. Lucy keeps the part of 'Christmas Queen' for herself.

Which breakfast staple joins popcorn, pretzel sticks and jelly beans at the feast in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving?

Toast is about the only thing Charlie Brown says he can cook, so that is what his self-invited guests are served, with sundaes to follow. The 1973 special won an Emmy.

Which animator of the Peanuts specials voiced Snoopy by speeding up his own gibberish?

Bill Melendez recorded Snoopy's sounds himself for every production, uttering nonsense that was then mechanically sped up. He had animated for Disney and Warner Bros. before Peanuts.

Which actress won a Tony Award as Sally in the 1999 Broadway revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown?

Kristin Chenoweth won for a part the original 1967 show never had: the revival swapped the character Patty for Charlie Brown's sister. Roger Bart also took a Tony, as Snoopy.

Which animation studio, the maker of Ice Age, produced The Peanuts Movie in 2015?

Blue Sky Studios earned its first Golden Globe nomination for animated feature with the film. Schulz's son Craig chose director Steve Martino for his faithful adaptation of Horton Hears a Who!

Which nickname did an uncle give Charles Schulz after a horse in the comic strip Barney Google?

Sparky came from Spark Plug, the horse in Billy DeBeck's strip, which the young Schulz enjoyed reading. A San Francisco comics museum presents a Sparky Award in his honour.

Which weekly panel cartoon did Charles Schulz draw for his hometown newspaper before it was reworked into Peanuts?

Li'l Folks ran from 1947 to 1950 and already used the name Charlie Brown and a dog much like Snoopy. The creator of an old strip called Little Folks objected, forcing a new title.

Which children's TV show, with its 'Peanut Gallery' of young viewers, inspired the title of Peanuts?

Howdy Doody seated its studio audience of children in the 'Peanut Gallery'. Schulz complained that the syndicate's production manager had picked the title without even seeing the strip.

Which US state was Charles Schulz born and raised in, long before he moved to California?

Minnesota is where Schulz was born, in Minneapolis, and where he grew up, in neighbouring Saint Paul. He did not leave the state for good until 1958.

Which California city, where Charles Schulz lived and worked from 1969, is home to the museum of his work?

Santa Rosa has the Schulz Museum, opened in 2002, and a bronze Charlie Brown and Snoopy in Depot Park. The nearby county airport is named after the cartoonist too.

Which trade did Charlie Brown's father share with Carl Schulz, the real-life father of the Peanuts creator?

Barber was the job of both fathers, and Schulz was living in an apartment above his own father's shop when he began drawing cartoons for a newspaper.

Which sport did Charles Schulz love so much that he built his own arena and founded a seniors' tournament?

Ice hockey put Schulz in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. He launched Snoopy's Senior World Hockey Tournament in 1975 at his own rink, where the snack bar was called the Warm Puppy Café.

Which insurance company used Snoopy as its corporate mascot from 1985 until a rebranding in 2016?

MetLife adopted the Peanuts gang to seem 'more friendly and approachable', and flew airships named Snoopy One and Snoopy Two over sporting events.

Which Southern California theme park was the first to license Peanuts, opening Camp Snoopy in 1983?

Knott's Berry Farm made Snoopy its mascot and later took the idea indoors, building a Camp Snoopy amusement park inside the Mall of America in 1992.

Which Florida pop group took 'Snoopy vs. the Red Baron' to number two on the Billboard Hot 100?

The Royal Guardsmen had not asked permission, so Schulz and his syndicate sued and won the song's publishing revenue. The band went on to record 'Snoopy's Christmas' anyway.