Charles Schulz, Creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown

Charles Schulz photo from Alamy.com

Cartoonist Charles Schulz created Peanuts, one of the all-time great and most popular comic strips in American history.  Born in 1922 in Minneapolis, Schulz introduced Peanuts in 1950 as a newspaper comic strip and it grew into a television sensation, Broadway hit, books, and countless licensed products.

The hero character of Peanuts was Charlie Brown and over the years the strip would run in more than 2,000 newspapers and in many languages. It also expanded into a stage play, TV specials like the Emmy-winning A Charlie Brown Christmas, as well as publications and a huge merchandise collection. Schulz died on February 12, 2000.

Charles Monroe Schulz was the son of a German immigrant and barber, and a waitress. The desire to become a cartoonist emerged when he was a child and would devour the Sunday funny papers. When he was just 15, his drawing of the family dog, Spike, was published in the then popular Believe It or Not! newspaper feature.

As a high school student he signed up for a course at the Federal School of Applied Cartooning in Minneapolis. He also began submitting his cartoons to various publications.  His career was interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in the fall of 1942.

Schulz trained as a machine gunner and rose to the rank of staff sergeant. His unit was shipped to Europe in February 1945, where it helped lead the charge on Munich and liberate the Dachau concentration camp. Schulz received the Combat Infantryman Badge for fighting in active ground combat under hostile fire. He was discharged from the Army on January 6, 1946.

Maintaining his interest in cartooning, after the war ended he began working as an instructor at his old art school. His first cartoon was published in early 1947, the same year he began a weekly panel cartoon in the St. Paul Pioneer Press called Li'l Folks, which featured early glimpses of what would soon become the iconic characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy. In 1948 the first of 17 of his cartoons was published in The Saturday Evening Post. United Feature Syndicate began distributing his strip in 1950 and it was called Peanuts.

Peanuts first appeared in seven newspapers on October 2,1950. Soon fans grew attached to the quirky, philosophical cast of characters; Charlie Brown, who always strikes out or gets his kite stuck in a tree; Lucy, and her little brother, Linus; classical music lover Schroeder; and Snoopy, the pet based on his own family dog, Spike.

Peanuts won the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year in 1955 (and again in 1964), Exhibits of Peanuts originals were displayed at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Minnesota. Schulz was named Humorist of the Year in 1956 by Yale University. Soon the Peanuts crew was featured in Hallmark greeting cards and even an ad for Ford cars.

In the early 1960s, Schulz teamed up with writer/producer Lee Mendelson to film a documentary about the strip.  Little did they know it was the start of a lifelong collaboration. Their first work together was followed by the television special A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) and by more TV hits such as Charlie Brown's All-Stars and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown debuted as a stage musical in 1967 and was an animated TV special in 1985.

Schulz added more characters, such as Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Franklin. There were more TV specials and feature-length movies such as Snoopy Come Home (1972) and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!) (1980). The Peanuts comic strip grew to have millions of readers in 21 languages across some 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries.

Schulz underwent quadruple-bypass surgery in 1981, but continued to create his strip, even after developing a hand tremor in later years. Finally, when abdominal surgery brought a diagnosis of colon cancer in late 1999, the cartoonist announced he was retiring.

Schulz produced more than 18,000 strips over nearly 50 years of work.  He was inducted into the California Hall of Fame in late September 2015. The honor came on the eve of a brand-new Peanuts 3D movie in November 2015.  He received numerous posthumous honors, including the Congressional Gold Medal iIn 2002.  With its characters continuing to appear in daily newspapers, anniversary books, TV specials and commercials, the Peanuts empire continues to flourish.

The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center was opened in Santa Rosa, California in 2002.  It displays original artwork, letters, photographs and other memorabilia.