After I read a biography of Charles Schulz, it became obvious to me that he suffered from depression, and the comic strip was an outlet for these feelings, a coping mechanism.
Seeing depressed children in fiction is rare. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder when I was only 10 years old and Charlie Brown helped me feel less alone. Heck, when I was diagnosed, I didn’t even know what depression was. My mom was the one who had to explain to me why I would spent hours lying on the floor not wanting to do anything and how taking pills every day would (supposedly) help me feel better.
I feel you. Charlie Brown became my "hero" in a way because of that. He was depressed like me, but he was also kind, gentle and friendly... helped me realized my depression didn't make me the bad person I convinced did.
Peanuts Wiki was very helpful in finding a lot of the specific dates and details as I was writing and editing. So thanks to everyone there for all your excellent work!
@@DavidJBradley It did rather sound like you had used Peanuts Wiki in your research, with your precise references to when characters and elements first appeared in the strip. Thanks for confirming that and I'm very pleased you found it useful.
@@spews1973 I don't know if either of you were aware of this Schulz anecdote: When the co-creator of Committed and Over The Hedge introduced himself as such to Sparky at the NCS get-together in San Antonio, his flustered response was "You know, I've done other things besides Peanuts, too..." Yes, CMS's immediate feelings were of inferiority because this stranger had done *two* comic strips compared to his *one!* It doesn't get much Charlie Brownier than that!
@@ToastedBacon.You can edit Peanuts Wiki (if you're over 13).I usually only make someone an admin after they've edited the wiki for at least 6 months, have proven that they know a lot about Peanuts and have proven that they have excellent English writing skills.
I do think it is important to remember that the Gospel was written by men, not God. It is a collection of books, which is not how a god would communicate with people. If the Gospels were real, you'd see angels coming down to everyone to teach it to them. But you don't, showing that it is another man-made creation. @@unastamus6122
The peanuts can't be childish like Catherine says there aren't any diffrent colored animals in it and they don't imagen things in there backyard and there aren't any yellow caricters with bouncey tails in it and there are no caricters named foofa and there aren't any guinea pigs ducks or turtles in it and they don't rescue baby animals I really love the peanuts there so much more
@@gameblor For me, the bullying stopped when I got my growth spurt and started with running and weight lifting. Some yahoo thought it would be a good idea to try and bully me after that. It took three of his friends to carry him home. Word got around real quick and that was the end of it. The real moral of the story is: stop worrying about what everyone else thinks and be the best you can be.
1:08:18 Marcie feeling pressured and anxious by people for being an overachiever while Charlie Brown is just stressed doing basic stuff makes the whole subtext of Marcie having that crush on him a little more interesting.
I was never under the impression that Marcie had a crush on Charlie Brown. Looking back as an adult, I thought that perhaps Marcie was in love with Peppermint Pattie.
I was badly bullied as a child by my peers. Sometimes reading a Charlie Brown compilation was soothing to me, because at least I wasn't alone- he was going through it too. Sometimes it cut to close to me and brought back bad memories. I do not believe they are in hell or Purgatory, lol. I do believe what I read a long time ago, that Lucy represented his first wife, which is why she was so mean to him.
@@davidlafleche1142 Me too hon, me too. Good thing I never tried certain ideas involving chocolate and poison back then...only ones who would have been hurt were those who took my candy from me of course. And we are talking 55 years since I was their punching bag...
Same! I honestly never considered other kids would read Charlie Brown and also identify with him. I honestly felt I was the only one. Whenever people brought up the Peanuts they were happy laughing and talking about Snoopy. I'd laugh also, not willing to share my feelings of deep sadness and depression that I felt when I'd read the dozens of Charlie Brown books I had collected over time. I've grown up since then but I'm sure I'm not over everything. :( "But just wait till next year! That's when I'll heal. Yeah, just wait till next year." :)
I wrote a whole song about it, called Isn't It Nice by Menage' A Tune on Bandcamp, I don't think I can link to it here though. One of my more popular songs :D
I was once reading a star trek, the next-generation novel and one part of it describes how Commander Riker's troops lose a minor battle, and Riker says, "Well, winning isn't everything. " One of his soldiers replied, "Yes sir, but losing isn't anything. " His soldier goes on to say that a 20th century philosopher named Charlie Brown came up with that. Riker says, "This Charlie Brown must have been a very wise person." 😊
@@YseaSumera I'm sure he knew that, but was having extra fun at Riker's expense. Besides the philosopher existed, just his last name was Schulz and not Brown.
I started watching this video ironically as another “let’s find some fake deep reason to twist beloved childhood characters into monstrous works of horror”, but then got to Peppermint Patty and Marcie. The way Marcie tries to make Patty conform to school is basically the story of ADHD. It touched a nerve. I hadn’t see Patty that way before somehow (I’m not super familiar with the comic strips, but I knew the character names). As a girl with ADHD, amazing how well Shultz nailed it. (Edit) I’m so pleasantly surprised you addressed the “make it darker” fad on childhood media! I’ve always found it stupid and shallow, and watched them ironically. So glad you’re taking a real look at the depth of Peanuts! 😊 Well done!
This comic strip is only mildly dark, and uses children to express the existential woes of individuals and society, I believe. Always went over my head as a kid..I just laughed at the slapstick humor of Lucy and Charlie with the football.
One thing Sparky Schulz mentioned about Peppermint Patty was he got a letter from a woman who IIRC worried he was using PP to make fun of narcolepsy which was pretty much the opposite of what he meant to do -- he said PP isn't narcoleptic, she just waits up late for her dad who often didn't get home from work until late. In his day no one knew ADHD was a thing, yet he nailed it. He also said PP was his only other character who could carry a strip.
My late maternal grandfather (z"l) adored Charlie Brown. I never met the man - none of his grandkids ever did - but I still seemed to inherit an affinity for the beleaguered youth for whom nothing seemed to go right. When I was 25, I learned the "real" reason that I seemed to connect with Charlie Brown the same way my grandfather did: I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder - the same disease that led to my grandfather's untimely death. According to my mother, the way I described my symptoms and the progression they were following was almost exactly the same as my grandfather's experience. All this to say, "The Peanuts" not only brought me joy in childhood and in a time during which I couldn't seem to feel anything but emotional numbness, it helped me connect to a grandfather I never got to meet and gave me a vehicle through which I could understand our shared experience.
God, I’m glad I’m not alone with my opinions on dark children’s show parodies. They’ve always made me groan, and you articulated why much better than I could ever
National Lampoon did a parody of Peanuts in which Lucy's bullying of Charlie Brown, starting right after he says "Wow, I almost feel good today" is ramped up to the sort of real physical brutality that bullying often is. It was truly dark humor. But sadly, it was kind of on point.
BS. God just make it into anything you want, tired of this kind of BS. You are full of it who want to try to turn a little kids show into something that isn't.
The expression "Good Grief" kind of sums up the Peanuts strip. It's about grief, but it's also ultimately about good. I grew up in the U.S. with Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, et al and the idea that it was dark or gloomy never occurred to me. It showed the problems of the adult world, to be sure. But the elegance with which it showed Charlie Brown going through his failures and enduring -- with the cleverness and eloquence of the characters always outweighing the meanness -- was the bright light that made Peanuts so wonderful. The comics, the TV specials and the movies contributed to my young life is so many great ways that I could not imagine having lived without them.
You mean as in his neighbors giving him a rock on Halloween? The author's childhood trauma is played out in Charlie Brown. This was his childhood encapsulated in a cartoon seen by millions. His issues were never dealt with. If they had been there would have been no cartoon. childhood trauma
I think that a lot of the reason the comics are so timeless is that they don't talk down to their child audience. Peanuts frequently tackled emotional and mature subjects. Theres a series of strips where Peppermint Patty is talking to Linus about having seen the Little Red-Haired Girl that Charlie Brown pines after and she becomes so self-conscious of her own plain looks that she breaks down crying, afraid nobody will ever love her due to her appearance. There arent any pulled punches, its just a little girl crying over her percieved ugliness as many little girls do. The strip was mostly funny, but there was that sprinkle of seriousness that kids (and adults) could easily relate to.
Haven't yet watched, but want to say I am so sorry for your loss. My father passed two months ago, and I extend all my support and sympathy to you. May their memories be a blessing 💜
You left out the delusional relationship dynamic between Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown. Patty believes that "Chuck" is deeply infatuated with her, despite the complete lack of evidence, and verbal denial by Charlie Brown. That does, however, make Peppermint Patty one of the few characters that does not actively hate Charlie Brown, but her kind of friendship is the kind of friendship that makes you miss your enemies.
I hate shallow shock factor being treated as the "more mature" version. It's problem I've had a while with a lot of adult animation because how often they need to prove they are "for adults". It's something I've been thinking about for a while since I watched the Netflix Bee and Puppycat, it's not meant for kids but it doesn't go out of it's way to be edgy and it didn't occur to me how rare that is until the person who suggested the show pointed it out to me.
I don't mind darker takes when they're done well/interestingly, but at the same time I hate feeling punched in the childhood. It's very hard to balance, tbh.
@@juliagoodwin9510 Yeah I think there are ways of doing darker takes for kids who grew with a franchise, but it's very, very hard to pull off well in my opinion
If it were shallow, kids could shrug it off. But YOU put kids in the position of Charlie Brown by coddling them WHILE calling them shallow for "needing" that imposition. South Park, while aimed at adults, was directed at frustration from this haughty behavior by shallow adults. Without being particularly DEEP, it was just handling adult topics in a wide range that included humor, no need to dive past one element to find the depth behnid it. Your craving for "depth" is always actually complaining about media that kinda offends you, but you don't have the depth personally to shrug it off, you have to have a little cry about it. Thin skin is so shallow. Even Angela Anaconda disturbs people despite just being feminine swap of South Park about twee girls' books and cable netwwork kids' dramas. But it's the SLIGHTEST amount of "edge" not being airbrushed off, that gives you this discomforting feeling of uncanny valley and even minimal artistic challenge. But that's normal, if you cry about things at the correct stage of your own maturation, that's the pain of growing up. And kids COULD shrug off South Park, that's abundantly clear. It wasn't THEM who needed the cartoonish depiction, it was the adults who needed those training wheels to understand the difference between fiction and reality. Which is why South Park slipped past the radar of any bigger controversies to take it down, while EVERYONE past the age 12 was watching it. It was one of the thin lines in social sphere kids were still able to grasp to use for their maturation instead of being coddled. That unpadded playing ground does have a little bit of a rough surface to it sorry for the sharp edges. Just don't fall off the monkey bars and you'll be wall-climbing for sport with the adults in no time. "Depth" is a non-factor.
I've always felt that the overall purpose of the peanuts comics and specials was to explain that the world is a big place filled with all sorts of experiences that can be amazingly joyful and unbelievably sad, sometimes at the same time.
I've never fit in; and loved Peanuts starting in 4th grade in 1992 or so. I found it funny, not dark, but relatable, and well spoken/written. As a 41yo I still treasure the characters. I never really understood why, but after 3 suicide attempts, a pysch visit, and being understood as OCD among other things, it makes more sense now.
The part about nobody helping Peppermint Patty with her problems really hit me, so much so that I started crying . I basically was Peppermint Patty, only I was also bad at sports. So, from my perspective... You have to realize that ADHD was basically never diagnosed in girls when Patty and I were kids. So the way that people treated her was very true to how girls with ADHD were treated back then. I was curious about how he got it so right and googled her and apparently she’s based on his favorite cousin. They must have been close, because he nailed exactly about how it felt to be a girl like Patty. It makes so much sense now how I would look for her every time I read the strips.
Yea, the Peppermint Patty part hit different. I did poorly in school to the point of being held back. I still didn't care and was rather uninterested until grade 8 or 9 where I wanted to do sports so I put in a minimal amount of effort. In my case it was autism that went undiagnosed well into adulthood.
Yeah, that part got to me as well. I never did poorly in school myself, but my twin was not so lucky. In fact, the main reason I utterly despise exams is because of the effect I noticed them having on my fellow students (both the strugglers and the academically ambitious).
No helped Peppermint Patty? Charlie Brown did what he could, he was always there for her a friend. These are KIDS, not adults, in an era when kids didn't tell their parents about issues with other kids.
Schultz seemed to possess wisdom from his own challenging experiences in life. Peanuts ministered or "spoke" to the hearts of young kids, letting them know they weren't alone, and life can be hard, while making folks laugh. That's a gift of using one's own hardships to encourage and make others laugh. Peanuts always reminded a younger me that what I needed was to understand the true meaning of Christmas, too ("Would someone please tell me what Christmasis all about!?" "I'll tell you...lights, please...For unto you a Savior is born..."). The meaning of the little Christmas tree: the weak are loved; the little and unimportant in the eyes of the world have dignity and beauty, or "just need a little love". And that was the first I can recall in feeling true love from the incomprehensible God who became flesh to die for me out of love. While others cry "Blockhead!", I now hear: "You are my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased!"Thanks, Charlie Brown!! Thank you for this excellent video. - Charlie
Re: the Christian themes in peanuts, as a Jewish person I’ve always felt positively about this aspect of the series, or at least not bothered by it. I think it comes down to everything you mentioned about how these themes are handled. It never feels like I’m being preached at or proselytized to, and it’s presented with such sincerity that I take it on it’s own terms. What you said about the text of the Bible being engaged with on more of an analytical level in peanuts was also an interesting point, because in my experience this more closely mirrors how Jews approach talking about Torah than how I typically see Christians approaching the Bible. Maybe that makes it sit better with me too
I always thought the Peanuts was more ‘culturally Jewish’ than it was Christian. Charlie Brown being the most famous example of a nebbish probably has something to do with that.
“Re: the Christian themes in peanuts, as a Jewish person I’ve always felt positively about this aspect of the series, or at least not bothered by it.” Watching _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ as a little kid in a Jewish household, I never knew what to make of Linus’s speech on the meaning of Christmas, except that it seemed to change what was a form of “holiday” (read: secular) entertainment into a religious one, one that I couldn’t make sense of because I had no idea of the reference. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that-in fact, I think, even at a young age, I might have appreciated the honesty of it. (For all its secular trappings, we didn’t celebrate Christmas in our family.) As for the Bible verses, to the extent I even remember them in the strip, I just took them as a sign of Charles Schulz viewing that sort of thing as being part of the “default normative culture”-kind of “If you’re reading this strip, you _obviously_ know about these verses (or at least their context)”-which _wasn’t_ a plus but just the way things were, at least at that time.
@@jeff__wI think people who aren’t Christian, even though it may be hard as a kid, can appreciate Linus’s speech as being anti-consumerism and remembering that holidays are meant to be about the human experience and endless buying.
@@misterknightowlandco in America it was literally originally a day where workers would mess with their bosses by having fun and leaving a mess in rich people’s neighborhoods. Then those rich people had enough and pumped out propaganda to make it all about gifts and those dear little kids. Bastards used the youth as propaganda props. Not saying you should stop giving gifts and forget your child’s happiness, but just have that context in mind and note all that packaging and wasted resources that go into a gift that the receiver didn’t like.
The one character I find most troublesome is Peppermint Patty. She is obviously neglected by her father who is almost never home. He works late, he leaves her home alone when he goes out of town, he doesn't bother to make sure she's eating well (she frequently shows up at school with a bag of fries or candy bars as her "lunch"), unless she invites herself over on occasion for dinner at Charlie Brown's house she wouldn't have anything to eat. She constantly falls asleep in class, she's a poor student, she doesn't have her own school supplies (she always borrows paper, pencils, erasers, rulers ect from Marcie), she doesn't dress appropriately for the weather (shorts and sandals in WINTER?). Good Grief, the list goes on and on. And poor Peppermint Patty adores her absentee neglectful father who throws her crumbs of affection, "My father says I'm a rare gem". 😢
A massive amount of projection going on in these comment sections and in the video itself . It was a cartoon trying to convey childhood whimsy , written by an older man so of course it has its idiosyncrasies . People are reading far too much into this and making much ado about nothing -- as if the Peanuts is on par with the Bible or something . Good grief , hehe
@@SabbaticusRex No, these interpretations are accurate. Schultz talked about the fact that he was very deliberate with the traits and personalities of most of the characters and why he made the choices he did. I didn't even put together Peppermint Patty's scenario until I saw him talk about it one time.
Honestly, ive always felt that the author/narrator of Charlie Brown was Snoopy. He is telling the story of the boy he loves and showing us he is the only one who actually cares in his world. Its why even though Snoopy is aways present the title is Charlie Brown. It's also why the kids dont age in a normal fashion because as a dog age matters less than experience.
@@bethstaley467 I think it's important to realize neurotypical does not mean rational. Neurotypicals constantly do irrational things. So equating neurotypical to sane is a mistake.
I have dyslexia and ADD, while I did do ok in school, every teacher seemed to tell my parents that I was smart but didn't "apply myself" and never lived up to my potential. Basically telling me and them that I was lazy. My mother bought me a poster that was up in my bedroom that had a picture of Charlie Brown on the pitcher's mound saying "There's no heavier burden than a great potential".
The bit at Flanders Field choked me up. The joy of _Peanuts_ in every incarnation, and what keeps me remembering it fondly, was that thought it could be cynical it's also incredibly hopeful. The world didn't and doesn't end; you just gotta get up and keep going.
I just won a literary award for my first graphic novel, and I can honestly say that anyone working in comics is indebted to Charles Schulz for what he did for the medium. He didn't break the mold, he created the groundwork for so many to follow. It's a debt we can never repay. His contribution can never be overstated.
@@rubyy.7374 Humblebrag? Maybe. Or maybe I wanted to give context as to who I was, was proud of what I'd done, and wanted to acknowledge the debt anyone working in the industry owes to Schulz.
@@emmagrove6491 And yet Sparky himself would probably half-deny his contributions since he was always quick to praise the cartoonists he admired growing up. But of course he never felt he measured up since, due to papers (and comics) being physically bigger when he was young, comic strips could and did have lush art and his art style had always been minimalist even before Peanuts. Regardless, Sparky was and still is an inspiration.
When you tell a story for your entire life and are expected to produce the same product every week, it’s natural that things evolve but stay the same. Changes in age, the gradual transformation of the kite-eating tree, all of it happened organically over decades of time. It’s like a jazz musician, playing the same song over and over for their entire life. They will create new interesting and amusing moments. So, judging the strip as a whole, in the past, is really not seeing the strip for what it is. Because what it is, is a long journey through a single moment in time, the moment in time Schultz lived in, and the moment you’re living in. Beautiful.
A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Snoopy Come Home were staples of my early childhood and had a big influence on my tiny brain. Peppermint Patty is one of my favorite characters of all time: as a young kid labeled a tomboy, and with untreated ADHD, her comic strips resonated with me very much. I definitely felt like "the girl who will never sparkle and went into the backyard to eat worms" at times. My mom even compared me to her because I wore sandles constantly hahahha. I'm 30 now, and I still keep a keychain of her on my cork board. 💜
Me, at the beginning: hehe, funny "Peanuts is DARK" parody. Me, 1 hour later: *booking a tattoo appointment to have Peppermint Patty tattooed on the spot on my hand where I bite myself when my ADHD failures give me overwhelming anxiety*
My brother, now 76, had Snoopy cursing the Red Baron tattooed on his right shoulder while he was in the navy in 1968. He says it's the only tat he never regretted getting. Good luck with yours!
I remember that not long after his death almost all of the comic strip writers included Peanuts related content. It was meant to be a surprise for Charles Scholtz but he passed away before the tribute was due to be printed, so it became a Memorial tribute instead. It was really quite touching.
As a man with the last name of Schroeder, and subsequently having a tattoo of him on my arm, as well as a daughter named Lucy, I fully endorse this video. Well done! Yes, my daughter's name is Lucy Schroeder.
I'm glad I trusted that this video to not keep up the "edgy child's media theory" cuz it rlly delivered in calling out that concept in the latter portion
Never did I ever have a friend say this to me, "You're lucky that Charlie Brown didn't have to become a vocabulary bee. If he were put up to become a vocabulary bee, he would have to study harder. Everything is predictable in this line of progress." 🐝
I only just pushed play and I'm already in a deep funk. I lost my mom this year too. She was only 4 years older than yours, and she LOVED Peanuts. I'm so sorry for your loss.
you had me in the first half. i kept waiting for the rug pull and then you started talking about charlie brown being in purgatory and i started questioning if i was gonna let myself be a victim of the sunk cost fallacy, but i'm really glad i watched to the end. i was particularly intrigued by the section on dog sees god, and i was surprised i hadn't heard about it before now. on paper it seems like something made for me, being a queer csa survivor myself. but in execution, it's clear the author wasn't equipped to discuss the topics he chose to write about, which is a shame and happens all too often in stories featuring csa as a topic.
First of all: I'm so sorry for the loss of your mother. I hope she is resting peacefully wherever she is. Second, wow, what a roller coaster of an essay! Brilliant! It really is hard to encapsulate a several decades-long series, but I think you did quite well. And though I know it was half-done in jest, I did really enjoy your "dark Theory" as well. I started thinking to myself some of the other ways their universe could be Purgatory as well. I was fully committed to listening to that the entire two hours, but holy cow! You pulled the rug out from under me with the transition. It's so interesting how adults we want to make things we like this children darker with fan theories. Perhaps people are embarrassed to still enjoy things they feel they're too old for without macabre undertones as you said. I actually stopped mid video to read the bad play online, and Jesus!! It felt like everything that was horrible about the early 2000s put into a single fanfiction 🫠 I totally agree with why we love Snoopy and Charlie Brown. At its core it instills hope to be optimistic & keep pushing through tough times despite failures, and I think that is something we all can relate to. I was so moved by your video I feel I could make a whole response essay myself. You should be so proud of your work. P.s. I love you Charlie Brown nail polish.
Yeah, Peanuts is incredibly deep and powerful. I got the 'Peanuts 60s Years' compilation for Christmas when I was 12 and have read it cover to cover many a time. What always fascinated me was how real the characters become, particularly from the 60s onward. Even their flaws are complicated For instance, sure Linus can be harsh to Charlie Brown sometimes, but in an accidental way that's so natural to his character. Like many a brilliant person, he often struggles to relate to others, and so his earnest attempts at encouragement often have the exact opposite result. Marcie isn't far off from this either. Lucy likewise thinks she's helping people when she's outright cruel to them. Peppermint Patty talks without thinking. Schroeder just wants to be left alone. Snoopy, the most childlike of them all, is too swept away in his own fantasies to remember to think about other's emotions This is where Schultz's compassion really shines through. While seemingly venting his own struggles being put down and mistreated over the years, he moves away from the one-dimensional antagonists like Patty and Violet fairly early on, and causes readers to empathize with even Charlie Brown's harshest critics or most clueless friends.
That was interesting. Listening to it, I came away thinking that Mr. Schulz was a good example of how I as a Christian should live in the world. He is never unchristian, but he is also not combative about our faith. He sounds like other heroes of the faith that I have known. I find myself trying to be that way. I love the Linus' recitation of the Christmas story. It gives me goosebumps.
ALSO! i wanna say that the voice actors did an incredible job here! i almost didn't recognize the VAs. it took me a couple of times to hear Caelan's voice, while Lola and Jessie completely disappeared into the role that I was shocked to see them on the cast! everyone had great comedic timing, and got the character's voices down perfectly
I want to second this - exactly what I came down to the comments to write! Stellar voice cast all around. Perfect intonation of lines I have read a thousand times and usually only "heard" in my head.
So nice to find a fellow Peanuts lover! I adored Peanuts as a little girl. I saved my allowance every week to buy the Peanuts books during the 70’s. The two books you showed that your mom owned are in my collection. ❤ really enjoying the video!
1:42:25 - I see what you did there! Thank you for making this. I learned so much about Peanuts in this video! I don't have much personal connection to it besides having watched the Christmas and Halloween species every year as a kid. But the larger themes and the history of Schulz and his creation are fascinating.
David, As a former director of LIVE, Network Television, please allow me to compliment you on this HEAVILY post-produced documentary. When I Directed a one-hour show, it took one hour. THIS show, on the other hand, is something entirely different. I have no idea how long it took you to make this show, but it obviously took some time. I’ve been reading Peanuts since 1958 (when I had reached the tender age of three), when most of your rather deep analysis would have largely gone right over my head. But that was then. I think of it as a shame that Charles M. Schulz wasn’t on this Earth long enough to have seen this pretty amazing piece of television. Schulz thought he was turning out a comic strip. Little did he know back when he started, that he was creating a multibillion-dollar industry, or creating something that someone like you could easily kill two hours with, in a scholarly analysis. Okay… “easily” is a relative term here, but the way it plays, it’s appears as though slapping this program together was as easy to DO as it is to WATCH and enjoy. You and I both know better. Having made my living in the television industry, I KNOW the preceding “easy” statement is completely false, but most consumers of the often slimy product of that industry have NO CLUE how any of it gets to their TV screen in the first place. But again, congratulations on a fine piece of work. I hope you enter it in as many Television Awards competitions (and I don’t mean any that are only just for You Tube videos). I believe this show could easily be an award winner. Feel free to contact me if indeed your hard work gets the recognition it deserves. I’d like to know. Sincerely, Ed
sorry for your loss, david. and thank you for crafting this absolute sensitive, informative piece. im new to the peanuts franchise as im younger than the last strip published and born in a different hemisphere from where snoopy came, but im more than endeared by the care people still have when talking about charlie brown and his friends and by the decades of work schulz put together. it was a really interesting watch! [:
You actually helped me realize (or remember and realize again) what I hate so much about these deep takes. It is really a conspiracy theory to aggrandize something that is grand and wonderful already. It is the same thing that makes me hate conspiracy theories as a whole. Well done! Also, I'm one of those people who really isn't that much into Peanuts (when I was young they were not printed in my country), but I enjoyed watching you video. You have a very good timing and subtle irony going on. Love it. Why I was watching? I guess I was just Holding my Brow High. Thanks, Kyle, for tipping me off on this video
Everybody tries to copy Matpat and it gets boring. I think it's also just an attitude of "Let's take something innocent and make it freaky!!" for shock value
and the fact that it's just the overly repeated cliché that people come up with when they can't come up with anything actually interesting "iT's PurGaToRy GuyS WoAh!!!"
I remember reading the storyline about the school building collapsing. Charlie Brown and the gang had to attend the school Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Franklin attended until their school was being rebuilt .
Congratulations on this amazing essay, I think one part was missing: the way Charlie Brown stands for and defends the right of his female companions and Snoopy to be in the baseball team, when trying to get the uniforms.
You have made a magnificent literary contribution and two of the most fascinating hours I've spent in months! I have already shared your delightfully executed insights with two different friends, one who has spent his life studying Schultz for a one-man show, and he not only couldn't stop watching your work (watched it entirely yesterday after me sending the link) but agreed with so many of your perspectives and praised your work mightily! This work shows the potential of You Tube as the very best in grass-roots journalism, criticism, and research of the best sort. Congratulations on this achievement! I join your subscriber fan club and look forward to exploring your other works and eagerly await your next foray. Just fantastic!
I loved Peanuts, not because it was cheery, but because it was a little more real. Sibling fighting, Tom boys, school problems, failing baseball teams, etc. Things we all deal with as children. Sometimes I felt like Charlie Brown.
This feels like an April Fool's video. I don't know how sincere you're being and it's making my brain feel so odd! Fantastic video all the way through, either way! Edit: Thank goodness for that interlude! Side note: I just despise the idea of "just kid stuff." All too often I see way more depth in media meant for kids or than what's made for adults. Just weird that (in countries like the US, UK, and Canada, at least) animation and children's media is still so underrated. 😥
I really related a lot to him as a kid, it helped me feel validated that I wasn't the only one who had a very depressive outlook on things as a kid. I am better now. The juxtoposition of the perception vs. a lot of the reality of Peanuts has always puzzled me too.
My brother is a big fan of newspaper comics so we used to talk about Peanuts a bit. While I'm not the most read on them I did always appreciate the way they represented religion. I grew up Christian and I think people often fail to engage with the way the representation of Christiainity in media is often quite narrow. While it forms the hegemonic norm for how people define things like moral standards or monster lore, it's never really engaged with in a significant way. Outside of explicitly Christian media (which thankfully I didn't have to watch growing up, I have friends who's parents were more limiting on that and it's cringeworthy) while you'll see characters go to church there's very little focus on the actual experience. There's rarely a divide between church friends and school friends, no position of the Church as a community, heck it's rare to even get Christianity mentioned outside of a Sunday. This isn't to advocate for more Christian hegemony of course (heaven forbid) but more to highlight how it felt to come across a writer who did engage with the weirdness of Church administration and communities, who did throw Biblical references around for humour, who did seem like he'd get 'What am I my brother's keeper?' or the frustration of arguing with your pastor over whether Jesus had three brothers or four during a quiz (the pastor had forgotten Simon and my brother was furious that it cost us a quiz point). I think it's strange, Christianity is omnipresent in American media but it's that weird barely considered, barely present version that's assumed but never engaged with and I think that becomes more obvious when I come across a writer who does get it. Brilliant video, my gosh.
A book I think you'll appreciate is "The Gospel According to Charlie Brown". It is mostly the writer looking at certain Peanuts comics and applying to different Bible verses and stuff.
This sounds quite similar to what the philosopher Slavoj Sizek thinks on British culture and it’s post-imperial decay! The main point is basically that imperial overstretch created a sort of void within British identity, where, because of how ubiquitous and omnipresent Britain has become in global politics and pop culture, British things no longer seem so British. The example that comes to mind right now is the fact that English is our Lingua Franca!
You really brought this together, David! I am floored by your over-an-hour commitment to the bit. And the casting really couldn't have turned out better! A wonderful tribute and a takedown of grimdark culture all in one. Bravo!
I had a childhood very similar to Charlie Brown.If it wasn't for that comic strip I don't know if I would have made it through my childhood. Charlie Brown's existence helped me feel less alone.
Peanuts is probably to blame for my taste in dark humor (which has earned me some concern from peers over the years), but it taught me that it’s okay to not feel okay. Not everything goes the way you want, and not everything is all happy and positive, but that’s part of life, and all you can do is live with it and continue on. I also like it because it appeals to all ages; I loved it when I was a kid even though I didn’t understand a lot of the jokes, and I love it even more as an adult because I now understand the full context of the jokes (the line “my anxieties have anxieties” is very relatable to me). Even though I recognize that now is a different time with a different audience, I feel like jokes like that are timeless and universal because we all know what it’s like to feel sad or frustrated. Taking them away gives the impression that you’re not allowed to feel negative ever, which in my opinion is not a healthy mindset because you can only bottle up your feelings for so long before they inevitably burst and hurt others (and yourself). Plus, you won’t know what it’s like to be happy unless you know what it’s like to be unhappy. One more thing: sometimes I see people post the Peanuts comics on social media, and one comment that stuck out to me (not in a good way) was “pretty dark for a Peanuts comic”. I don’t think I need to say anything else.
Peanuts was a part of my life since I was a kid. I was an extremely pessimistic kid so Charlie Brown was relatable to me and to this day Snoopy is one of my favorite animal characters. Also, I went to Japan recently and something I saw was that Peanuts, and especially Snoopy, were very popular. The characters were used in advertisements and there were even stores devoted to Peanuts.
I didn’t know Peanuts was that popular in Japan but it makes sense given the game Mother is largely inspired by it too, to the point that not only does Ninten look a little like Charlie Brown with hair except he’s nowhere near as cursed with misfortune and also loves baseball, but 2 generic NPCs in the original game are blatantly Marcie & Pig Pen, the latter representing bums. One Pig Pen clone in Reindeer town even gives you a flea bomb weapon that’s handy against wolf enemies in Snowman if you give him something when he begs (preferably food). I guess if he wanted to go further, Shigasato Itoi would have called the final area “Good Grief” Mountain (Grief being the operative word as in some versions you find your great grandpa’s grave near the peak, his wife dies soon after and then you fight their now very pissed off alien adopted son as the final boss) but decided that was too on the nose so he called it Holy Loly Mountain. In the sequel, there’s not as many Peanuts references in characters though one shifty looking guy kind of looks like Linus or some other character whose name I forget. One such instance of him is in Fourside when you find an injured Mr Tonchiki outside the bar: he forces you to give him something so he’ll budge and let you talk to Tonchiki. I usually give him a pack of salt.
@@lionocyborg6030 Yes, Peanuts -- specifically Snoopy -- is VERY popular in Japan, to the point that it was the only other country for which Schulz himself authorized creation of local Peanuts animations, which were handled by Studio Madhouse… The Japanese title of the 2015 film is, kid you not, "We ❤ Snoopy"
the part about What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown is something that really sticks out for me, cause I've been trying to get all my thoughts together on all the reasons why I truly hate Netflix's adaptation of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, and I think it is in part the difference between those edgy "adult" reinterpretations that try to add some DARK elements and make it nihilistic and depressing.... whereas the original manages to be ADULT and confront serious topics, but doesn't fall to the cheap shock of dark insincere edgyness. And the same with ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, a book that is on the surface very dark, but comparing Netflix's and the original book, the original book is a lot more hopeful and sees the good in humanity even in the face of the horrors of WW1, and no other place is it more obvious than how the book has a mature depiction of suicidality caused by disability and how society views disabled people, however the book puts that character on the road to recovery and he's one of the only characters who presumably survives. Whereas the Netflix version just has him edgyly unalive himself for shock value.... which feels counterintuitively childish.
@pinkdostoyevsky the short of it is youtube has a tendency to auto-delete comments with certain words at random, so sometimes using the word "suicide" and "queer" tend to just get instantly deleted by an algorithm.
@@Pazliacci Plus you have problems publishing videos with words like "mur--r" and "suo--de" in the title, as YT algorithm will basically shadowban those videos to appease the advertisers as "family friendly" (example: Zero Punctuation "The UA-cam of Sonic the Hedgehog" reviewing the game "The Mur--r of Sonic the Hedgehog")
Radical Wicked Witch = Wonderfully Wise Witch! Brilliant analysis. I now understand why the Netflix version of All Quiet On The Western Front left me unmoved. Your explanation of how the artifice of edginess warps meaning is insightful. It's a loathsome trend in opera productions, shifts context and characterisation aside. The gloomy explication in this video was too disconcerting for me and necessitated much fast forwarding but it ended on a lovely note. Charlie Brown's integrity and sweetness is monumental. There's a lot of strength in that little guy. Debonair Snoopy (no doubt a component of his self-identification) is my favourite.
This is all great and needed to be done, but the voice cast is especially fantastic. I don’t know who Snipe is (yet), but they had me actually crying at 1:10:03. Thank you
all we ever really needed was a Watterson/Schulz crossover where Peppermint Patty dumps Marcy for Susie Derkins and then Hobbes & Linus's blanket have an epic fight
I haven't even finished this video yet and I'm already impressed and enamored by this. The calling out of dark adult themes people try to put into Peanuts and other children's media is so gratifying. I still laugh at stuff like that because of my love for Dark Humor, but you raise so many great points with this entire video. As an amateur, young writer who is still trying to catch his bearings and is writing a fanfic about Marcie comforting an overtly depressed Charlie Brown, this video honestly opened my eyes to how good the comic strip's writing is. It's hard to get these characters down to a tee and you just nailed Lucy in the Interlude as if it was nothing! The writing, the editing, the immense amount of research astonishes me. This whole entire video was a masterpiece and ride all the way through. Keep up the good work, David.
A Boy Named Charlie Brown legit gave me an existential crisis as a kid. Depressed the hell out of me. I hadn't felt that way since I read an account of the murder of Junko Tsuruta....
Can i just say that I love the VA that did Patty. And Marcie too. You can just hear their dynamic in every word. 10/10 And you're right. It might have had some novelty at the beginning to have random childhood media be suddenly given the 'dark' treatment but now it's mostly just tiresome. The only one that for me gets a pass is Alice in Wonderland and that's because the source material really is that messed up.
Well, I wasn't expecting to cry into my morning shift making donuts to a Peanuts video, but here we are 😂❤ Charlie Brown is so special. When I was a kid, I felt such a connection to that world, because it put the melancholy of children on full display. Growing up, being scared, learning new things, feeling sad. I remember loving Peanuts so much because I felt it respected me as a child, it understood me. It let me know others understood that we weren't just stupid kids with unimportant worries as it was often portrayed by the adults in our lives and other media. This was a treat. Thank you 🥲
At Halloween, they aren't giving him rocks. They are giving him ammunition. You give a child rocks instead of candy, you need to expect a few broken windows.
Amazing work. Peanuts has been part of my life what feels like forever, and my appreciation for it only grows as time goes on. It deftly expounds upon the real anxieties people have through the mouths of children with adult-sized vocabularies. Regardless of what form the property takes, I've never felt like it's talking down to me the reader, regardless of what the characters themselves are doing to each other. And your takeaway message highlights why that final scene from "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" is one of my favorite moments in cinema. "Did you notice something?...The world didn't come to an end." The lesson here is sometimes there is no upside to a bad situation; no "brightside" to look upon. Sometimes the silver lining to a dark cloud is just that the dark cloud will eventually pass, and you will have a new day where you'll have a chance to try again. That's the lesson I take from Charlie Brown. Sometimes things just suck, but the world will always continue to roll on and you can stand up and roll on with it.
The editing on this video, along with the commentary was wonderful. I love long videos, and this one was thoroughly engaging. Especially as a millennial Peanuts fan, I grew up watching the specials & reading the strips in the newspaper with my grandma 💜
@@DavidJBradley okay I am now through this masterpiece, and if a long wait is what makes great works like these then the wait is worth it, truly a grand video!
The amount of work that went into this! Delightful & thoughtful commentary with a meta-twist. Also, Jessie Gender as Marcie was the casting I didn't know we needed.
You know? I unironically think there'd be decent money in that. The voice acting could be pretty fun and it would make getting through something as unwieldy as Peanuts MUCH easier.
Wow. I have to thank you for this video. I listened to it not really knowing what to expect, at a point where I was feeling down, but the end of the video, has me feeling better.
I've been really down lately and this was just what I needed, but never would have imagined I needed. Thank you, David. (And I laughed out loud at the poor school's fate. Delightfully delivered, friend.)
This might be one of the best video essays relating to peanuts I’ve ever seen. From the part about Charlie Brown being bullied by Lucy, patty, and violet to peppermint patty and Marcie’s supposedly queer identities to having a realization that not everything has a darker meaning it sure is nice seeing someone actually being passionate about the legit GOAT of comic strips that is peanuts like myself.
So, I’m only 37:04 into the video, but… When you mentioned “The happiest day of his life and he can’t even remember how it went” made me think… This sounds a lot like how a depressed person sees their life. Things are almost comically negative, and any wins are either nonexistent, unremembered, or blamed on something he can’t control.
Excellent work on this video! I could write a paragraph but I think you know how hard it can be for people to see messages right in front of them…especially “simple” ones that are too childish to take up their time….and keep on being stuck in the same place forever…but we still love them like Charlie Brown!
I was going to watch this on the tv in my living room as I wrote my history essay, then i saw the content warning and remembered what a DJB video was sp I was like "yeah this is something i should watch on my phone with headphones"
its scary to realize i relate to peppermint patty so much: i struggled to pay attention to school and do my work, but when i try i can't focus or understand the material. if it wasn't something related to art or history i just didn't pay attention. i also kept sleeping in class in turn for staying up so late. only recently i've suspected being neurodivergent, so the universe must like giving me the most obvious hints ever
First time I've stumbled on to your channel, courtesy of Snipe and Wib. I'm so glad they sent me your way, because this was fantastic. Excited to have a backlog of videos to watch, and looking forward to more!
Just wanted to say this is an excellent narrative through The Peanuts world. Loved you adding a bit of meta about your self in there too. Great work 👏👏👏
This is a truly wonderful video! I’ve always had a special connection with the character of Charlie Brown, as playing him in the musical when I was I was in grade six was when my egg first started to crack, though it would take many years and more (thankfully male) theatre roles until I realized that I’m a trans guy. Charlie Brown’s had a special place in my heart ever since, and I loved your nuanced and positive take on the comic he originated from. It makes me really happy to see people talk openly about the lovely children’s media that has affected them in sometimes unexpected ways.
This was honestly one long reminder of how good Peanuts is. None of this really felt like a surprise, just a clear pointing out of how everything was that I had not had words for when I actually read it.
It should be said that despite everything, Lucy cares deeply about Charlie Brown (and vice versa). There was a moment when the Van Pelt family was about to move away and everyone was deeply upset by the fact that they couldn't see each other anymore.
This is deeply wonderful. You actually had me following you into your 'Purgatory thesis. I was right there with you, listening to your argument and preparing myself to accept it as a legitimate reading of the strip, if not the definitive one. But then you went into your real message. I actually teared up. I'm creating a mental list of the people I want to whom I want to send this, and of the people who are no longer with us to which I wish I could send it.
Thanks so much for such a wonderful video! The voices for the characters, your analysis of the comics, all just fantastic! I grew up watching the movies and reading the comics at my grandma's house and love how much I still care for and enjoy watching through them when I get the chance. I also really appreciate you touching on the creations of darker views of media like this. The play you mentioned skeeved me out as well, just so dark and gross. These darker, cynical takes on media have really just not sat right with me the older I've gotten; I remember liking the edgy humor of shows like robot chicken and family guy as a teen, but they just felt so needlessly cruel after a while.
Good Grief
Ol' Charlie Brown
Yare yare daze
Good Grief
Good Grief
that's sums it up .
After I read a biography of Charles Schulz, it became obvious to me that he suffered from depression, and the comic strip was an outlet for these feelings, a coping mechanism.
Well, Sparky didn't exactly try to discourage this theory, in fact he all but confirmed it while he was still alive.
I'd chosen to 'suspend disbelief ' around all of this. I'd never thought about Charlie Brown as actually being depressed.
Respek for him.
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right? ~Charles M. Schulz
He really said that?@@cdorman11
Seeing depressed children in fiction is rare. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder when I was only 10 years old and Charlie Brown helped me feel less alone. Heck, when I was diagnosed, I didn’t even know what depression was. My mom was the one who had to explain to me why I would spent hours lying on the floor not wanting to do anything and how taking pills every day would (supposedly) help me feel better.
I feel you. Charlie Brown became my "hero" in a way because of that. He was depressed like me, but he was also kind, gentle and friendly... helped me realized my depression didn't make me the bad person I convinced did.
Did you ever work out an effect means to manage the disorder.
@@willkoestner4159 Yes, but unfortunately, it’s far from a universal solution. I processed my underlying childhood trauma by writing a novel.
10 in the 1980s when we were kids that just something we watched for😂 just a😂 cartoon
@@BonnieBurton-gf3gn Wow! My parents were teenagers back then! It’s amazing how Peanuts has been around for over half a century!
As one of the admins on Peanuts Wiki, I congratulate you and sincerely thank you for making this excellent video essay
Peanuts Wiki was very helpful in finding a lot of the specific dates and details as I was writing and editing. So thanks to everyone there for all your excellent work!
@@DavidJBradley It did rather sound like you had used Peanuts Wiki in your research, with your precise references to when characters and elements first appeared in the strip. Thanks for confirming that and I'm very pleased you found it useful.
@@spews1973 I don't know if either of you were aware of this Schulz anecdote: When the co-creator of Committed and Over The Hedge introduced himself as such to Sparky at the NCS get-together in San Antonio, his flustered response was "You know, I've done other things besides Peanuts, too..."
Yes, CMS's immediate feelings were of inferiority because this stranger had done *two* comic strips compared to his *one!* It doesn't get much Charlie Brownier than that!
Can I join as one of the admins I have like 58 snoopy plushies and I know a lot but I am young
@@ToastedBacon.You can edit Peanuts Wiki (if you're over 13).I usually only make someone an admin after they've edited the wiki for at least 6 months, have proven that they know a lot about Peanuts and have proven that they have excellent English writing skills.
When Linus starts to quote the gospel of Luke, he drops his blanket. He no longer needs his security blanket as he has the gospel.
The Gospel (I Corinthians 15:1-4) is all any of us needs.
@@unastamus6122 true
I do think it is important to remember that the Gospel was written by men, not God. It is a collection of books, which is not how a god would communicate with people. If the Gospels were real, you'd see angels coming down to everyone to teach it to them. But you don't, showing that it is another man-made creation. @@unastamus6122
@@unastamus6122 true. i wish more people nowadays would have been taught Christianity
Based Linus Van Pelt
For all of us who were bullied and depressed in our childhood, we thank you.
The peanuts can't be childish like Catherine says there aren't any diffrent colored animals in it and they don't imagen things in there backyard and there aren't any yellow caricters with bouncey tails in it and there are no caricters named foofa and there aren't any guinea pigs ducks or turtles in it and they don't rescue baby animals I really love the peanuts there so much more
Except most of us don't overcome it and become successful, which is a TV and movie trope.
@@gameblor For me, the bullying stopped when I got my growth spurt and started with running and weight lifting. Some yahoo thought it would be a good idea to try and bully me after that. It took three of his friends to carry him home. Word got around real quick and that was the end of it.
The real moral of the story is: stop worrying about what everyone else thinks and be the best you can be.
1:08:18 Marcie feeling pressured and anxious by people for being an overachiever while Charlie Brown is just stressed doing basic stuff makes the whole subtext of Marcie having that crush on him a little more interesting.
I was never under the impression that Marcie had a crush on Charlie Brown. Looking back as an adult, I thought that perhaps Marcie was in love with Peppermint Pattie.
@@surferdude4487Why did Marcie always call Peppermint Pattie " sir" ?
@juiliereminiec6332 because of how manly Patty came off.
@@TabithaReminiec3399 a nickname given out of respect and admiration?
@@surferdude4487There’s a comic with her having a huge crush on him.
I was badly bullied as a child by my peers. Sometimes reading a Charlie Brown compilation was soothing to me, because at least I wasn't alone- he was going through it too. Sometimes it cut to close to me and brought back bad memories. I do not believe they are in hell or Purgatory, lol. I do believe what I read a long time ago, that Lucy represented his first wife, which is why she was so mean to him.
Me, too. But I don't want to remember my school years.
@@davidlafleche1142 Me too hon, me too. Good thing I never tried certain ideas involving chocolate and poison back then...only ones who would have been hurt were those who took my candy from me of course. And we are talking 55 years since I was their punching bag...
Same! I honestly never considered other kids would read Charlie Brown and also identify with him. I honestly felt I was the only one. Whenever people brought up the Peanuts they were happy laughing and talking about Snoopy. I'd laugh also, not willing to share my feelings of deep sadness and depression that I felt when I'd read the dozens of Charlie Brown books I had collected over time. I've grown up since then but I'm sure I'm not over everything. :(
"But just wait till next year! That's when I'll heal. Yeah, just wait till next year." :)
@@bubblemum Now that is a revenge slash self defense strategy I had never considered.
I wrote a whole song about it, called Isn't It Nice by Menage' A Tune on Bandcamp, I don't think I can link to it here though. One of my more popular songs :D
I was once reading a star trek, the next-generation novel and one part of it describes how Commander Riker's troops lose a minor battle, and Riker says, "Well, winning isn't everything. " One of his soldiers replied, "Yes sir, but losing isn't anything. " His soldier goes on to say that a 20th century philosopher named Charlie Brown came up with that. Riker says, "This Charlie Brown must have been a very wise person." 😊
Bless the person who wrote that. He or she is a writer after my own heart...
Should someone tell that soldier that Charlie Brown is a child and a fictional one at that?
@@YseaSumera Jesus is fictional. People still quote Him today! Good grief!!!
@@YseaSumera I'm sure he knew that, but was having extra fun at Riker's expense. Besides the philosopher existed, just his last name was Schulz and not Brown.
I started watching this video ironically as another “let’s find some fake deep reason to twist beloved childhood characters into monstrous works of horror”, but then got to Peppermint Patty and Marcie. The way Marcie tries to make Patty conform to school is basically the story of ADHD. It touched a nerve. I hadn’t see Patty that way before somehow (I’m not super familiar with the comic strips, but I knew the character names). As a girl with ADHD, amazing how well Shultz nailed it.
(Edit) I’m so pleasantly surprised you addressed the “make it darker” fad on childhood media! I’ve always found it stupid and shallow, and watched them ironically. So glad you’re taking a real look at the depth of Peanuts! 😊 Well done!
This comic strip is only mildly dark, and uses children to express the existential woes of individuals and society, I believe. Always went over my head as a kid..I just laughed at the slapstick humor of Lucy and Charlie with the football.
One thing Sparky Schulz mentioned about Peppermint Patty was he got a letter from a woman who IIRC worried he was using PP to make fun of narcolepsy which was pretty much the opposite of what he meant to do -- he said PP isn't narcoleptic, she just waits up late for her dad who often didn't get home from work until late. In his day no one knew ADHD was a thing, yet he nailed it. He also said PP was his only other character who could carry a strip.
Schultz loved his 1984 jokes
Classic lol
YO!
Hey, It´s Cody :D
For sure
Tf is this goofy mf doing here🤨
My late maternal grandfather (z"l) adored Charlie Brown. I never met the man - none of his grandkids ever did - but I still seemed to inherit an affinity for the beleaguered youth for whom nothing seemed to go right.
When I was 25, I learned the "real" reason that I seemed to connect with Charlie Brown the same way my grandfather did: I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder - the same disease that led to my grandfather's untimely death. According to my mother, the way I described my symptoms and the progression they were following was almost exactly the same as my grandfather's experience.
All this to say, "The Peanuts" not only brought me joy in childhood and in a time during which I couldn't seem to feel anything but emotional numbness, it helped me connect to a grandfather I never got to meet and gave me a vehicle through which I could understand our shared experience.
That's really beautiful, thank you
thank you for sharing. agreed on all points. great cartoon.
sorry for your loss!
That is lovely! Thank you for sharing that.
thank you for sharing. I hope you're doing okay
God, I’m glad I’m not alone with my opinions on dark children’s show parodies. They’ve always made me groan, and you articulated why much better than I could ever
I didn't know Peanuts was a children's show parody.
@@jesseroggio7260 they didn't mean Peanuts, they meant the parodies of Peanuts and others.
National Lampoon did a parody of Peanuts in which Lucy's bullying of Charlie Brown, starting right after he says "Wow, I almost feel good today" is ramped up to the sort of real physical brutality that bullying often is. It was truly dark humor. But sadly, it was kind of on point.
Charlie Brown brings alot of people joy lol
BS. God just make it into anything you want, tired of this kind of BS. You are full of it who want to try to turn a little kids show into something that isn't.
The expression "Good Grief" kind of sums up the Peanuts strip. It's about grief, but it's also ultimately about good. I grew up in the U.S. with Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, et al and the idea that it was dark or gloomy never occurred to me. It showed the problems of the adult world, to be sure. But the elegance with which it showed Charlie Brown going through his failures and enduring -- with the cleverness and eloquence of the characters always outweighing the meanness -- was the bright light that made Peanuts so wonderful.
The comics, the TV specials and the movies contributed to my young life is so many great ways that I could not imagine having lived without them.
You mean as in his neighbors giving him a rock on Halloween? The author's childhood trauma is played out in Charlie Brown. This was his childhood encapsulated in a cartoon seen by millions. His issues were never dealt with. If they had been there would have been no cartoon. childhood trauma
@@lynnfisher3037and in spite of it all, the man was able to survive and thrive. Don't wallow, it's unseemly.
I think that a lot of the reason the comics are so timeless is that they don't talk down to their child audience. Peanuts frequently tackled emotional and mature subjects. Theres a series of strips where Peppermint Patty is talking to Linus about having seen the Little Red-Haired Girl that Charlie Brown pines after and she becomes so self-conscious of her own plain looks that she breaks down crying, afraid nobody will ever love her due to her appearance. There arent any pulled punches, its just a little girl crying over her percieved ugliness as many little girls do. The strip was mostly funny, but there was that sprinkle of seriousness that kids (and adults) could easily relate to.
Haven't yet watched, but want to say I am so sorry for your loss. My father passed two months ago, and I extend all my support and sympathy to you. May their memories be a blessing 💜
so sorry for your loss! :(
You left out the delusional relationship dynamic between Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown. Patty believes that "Chuck" is deeply infatuated with her, despite the complete lack of evidence, and verbal denial by Charlie Brown. That does, however, make Peppermint Patty one of the few characters that does not actively hate Charlie Brown, but her kind of friendship is the kind of friendship that makes you miss your enemies.
I hate those "unrequited crush" stories. When I write a story, the guy and the girl like each other.
@@davidlafleche1142 "Unrequited crush" stories are 90% of real life high school relationships though.
@@misterwhipple2870lmao what
@@SergeantExtremedoesn’t make it right.
@@misterwhipple2870someone watched too much Family Guy.
I hate shallow shock factor being treated as the "more mature" version. It's problem I've had a while with a lot of adult animation because how often they need to prove they are "for adults". It's something I've been thinking about for a while since I watched the Netflix Bee and Puppycat, it's not meant for kids but it doesn't go out of it's way to be edgy and it didn't occur to me how rare that is until the person who suggested the show pointed it out to me.
I don't mind darker takes when they're done well/interestingly, but at the same time I hate feeling punched in the childhood.
It's very hard to balance, tbh.
@@juliagoodwin9510 Yeah I think there are ways of doing darker takes for kids who grew with a franchise, but it's very, very hard to pull off well in my opinion
If it were shallow, kids could shrug it off. But YOU put kids in the position of Charlie Brown by coddling them WHILE calling them shallow for "needing" that imposition.
South Park, while aimed at adults, was directed at frustration from this haughty behavior by shallow adults. Without being particularly DEEP, it was just handling adult topics in a wide range that included humor, no need to dive past one element to find the depth behnid it. Your craving for "depth" is always actually complaining about media that kinda offends you, but you don't have the depth personally to shrug it off, you have to have a little cry about it. Thin skin is so shallow. Even Angela Anaconda disturbs people despite just being feminine swap of South Park about twee girls' books and cable netwwork kids' dramas. But it's the SLIGHTEST amount of "edge" not being airbrushed off, that gives you this discomforting feeling of uncanny valley and even minimal artistic challenge.
But that's normal, if you cry about things at the correct stage of your own maturation, that's the pain of growing up. And kids COULD shrug off South Park, that's abundantly clear. It wasn't THEM who needed the cartoonish depiction, it was the adults who needed those training wheels to understand the difference between fiction and reality. Which is why South Park slipped past the radar of any bigger controversies to take it down, while EVERYONE past the age 12 was watching it. It was one of the thin lines in social sphere kids were still able to grasp to use for their maturation instead of being coddled. That unpadded playing ground does have a little bit of a rough surface to it sorry for the sharp edges. Just don't fall off the monkey bars and you'll be wall-climbing for sport with the adults in no time. "Depth" is a non-factor.
It's ment for adults? It's so tame lol
@@sboinkthelegday3892sometimes we just want adult shows that don't act immature just because they can.
I've always felt that the overall purpose of the peanuts comics and specials was to explain that the world is a big place filled with all sorts of experiences that can be amazingly joyful and unbelievably sad, sometimes at the same time.
I've never fit in; and loved Peanuts starting in 4th grade in 1992 or so. I found it funny, not dark, but relatable, and well spoken/written. As a 41yo I still treasure the characters. I never really understood why, but after 3 suicide attempts, a pysch visit, and being understood as OCD among other things, it makes more sense now.
The part about nobody helping Peppermint Patty with her problems really hit me, so much so that I started crying . I basically was Peppermint Patty, only I was also bad at sports. So, from my perspective...
You have to realize that ADHD was basically never diagnosed in girls when Patty and I were kids. So the way that people treated her was very true to how girls with ADHD were treated back then. I was curious about how he got it so right and googled her and apparently she’s based on his favorite cousin.
They must have been close, because he nailed exactly about how it felt to be a girl like Patty. It makes so much sense now how I would look for her every time I read the strips.
Yea, the Peppermint Patty part hit different.
I did poorly in school to the point of being held back. I still didn't care and was rather uninterested until grade 8 or 9 where I wanted to do sports so I put in a minimal amount of effort.
In my case it was autism that went undiagnosed well into adulthood.
Yeah, that part got to me as well.
I never did poorly in school myself, but my twin was not so lucky. In fact, the main reason I utterly despise exams is because of the effect I noticed them having on my fellow students (both the strugglers and the academically ambitious).
No helped Peppermint Patty? Charlie Brown did what he could, he was always there for her a friend. These are KIDS, not adults, in an era when kids didn't tell their parents about issues with other kids.
😊😊😊😢😢😢
I love learning, I just hated school.
Schultz seemed to possess wisdom from his own challenging experiences in life. Peanuts ministered or "spoke" to the hearts of young kids, letting them know they weren't alone, and life can be hard, while making folks laugh. That's a gift of using one's own hardships to encourage and make others laugh. Peanuts always reminded a younger me that what I needed was to understand the true meaning of Christmas, too ("Would someone please tell me what Christmasis all about!?" "I'll tell you...lights, please...For unto you a Savior is born..."). The meaning of the little Christmas tree: the weak are loved; the little and unimportant in the eyes of the world have dignity and beauty, or "just need a little love". And that was the first I can recall in feeling true love from the incomprehensible God who became flesh to die for me out of love. While others cry "Blockhead!", I now hear: "You are my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased!"Thanks, Charlie Brown!! Thank you for this excellent video. - Charlie
I wonder if his family noticed “THEIR “T” IS MISSING NOW FROM SCHULTZ!!!!!! GOOD GRIEF!!!!”
Well written, thank you for this
Re: the Christian themes in peanuts, as a Jewish person I’ve always felt positively about this aspect of the series, or at least not bothered by it. I think it comes down to everything you mentioned about how these themes are handled. It never feels like I’m being preached at or proselytized to, and it’s presented with such sincerity that I take it on it’s own terms. What you said about the text of the Bible being engaged with on more of an analytical level in peanuts was also an interesting point, because in my experience this more closely mirrors how Jews approach talking about Torah than how I typically see Christians approaching the Bible. Maybe that makes it sit better with me too
I always thought the Peanuts was more ‘culturally Jewish’ than it was Christian. Charlie Brown being the most famous example of a nebbish probably has something to do with that.
“Re: the Christian themes in peanuts, as a Jewish person I’ve always felt positively about this aspect of the series, or at least not bothered by it.”
Watching _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ as a little kid in a Jewish household, I never knew what to make of Linus’s speech on the meaning of Christmas, except that it seemed to change what was a form of “holiday” (read: secular) entertainment into a religious one, one that I couldn’t make sense of because I had no idea of the reference. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that-in fact, I think, even at a young age, I might have appreciated the honesty of it. (For all its secular trappings, we didn’t celebrate Christmas in our family.) As for the Bible verses, to the extent I even remember them in the strip, I just took them as a sign of Charles Schulz viewing that sort of thing as being part of the “default normative culture”-kind of “If you’re reading this strip, you _obviously_ know about these verses (or at least their context)”-which _wasn’t_ a plus but just the way things were, at least at that time.
@@jeff__wI think people who aren’t Christian, even though it may be hard as a kid, can appreciate Linus’s speech as being anti-consumerism and remembering that holidays are meant to be about the human experience and endless buying.
@@misterknightowlandco in America it was literally originally a day where workers would mess with their bosses by having fun and leaving a mess in rich people’s neighborhoods.
Then those rich people had enough and pumped out propaganda to make it all about gifts and those dear little kids. Bastards used the youth as propaganda props. Not saying you should stop giving gifts and forget your child’s happiness, but just have that context in mind and note all that packaging and wasted resources that go into a gift that the receiver didn’t like.
Maybe American Jews are overwhelmingly secular?
The one character I find most troublesome is Peppermint Patty.
She is obviously neglected by her father who is almost never home. He works late, he leaves her home alone when he goes out of town,
he doesn't bother to make sure she's eating well (she frequently shows up at school with a bag of fries or candy bars as her "lunch"), unless she invites herself over on occasion for dinner at Charlie Brown's house she wouldn't have anything to eat. She constantly falls asleep in class, she's a poor student, she doesn't have her own school supplies (she always borrows paper, pencils, erasers, rulers ect from Marcie), she doesn't dress appropriately for the weather (shorts and sandals in WINTER?).
Good Grief, the list goes on and on.
And poor Peppermint Patty adores
her absentee neglectful father who throws her crumbs of affection,
"My father says I'm a rare gem". 😢
A massive amount of projection going on in these comment sections and in the video itself . It was a cartoon trying to convey childhood whimsy , written by an older man so of course it has its idiosyncrasies . People are reading far too much into this and making much ado about nothing -- as if the Peanuts is on par with the Bible or something . Good grief , hehe
@@SabbaticusRex 🙄
@@SabbaticusRex No, these interpretations are accurate. Schultz talked about the fact that he was very deliberate with the traits and personalities of most of the characters and why he made the choices he did. I didn't even put together Peppermint Patty's scenario until I saw him talk about it one time.
@@SabbaticusRexwe’re all very aware of that, it’s still fun to theorize
@@SabbaticusRexwhy do you care lmao
Honestly, ive always felt that the author/narrator of Charlie Brown was Snoopy. He is telling the story of the boy he loves and showing us he is the only one who actually cares in his world. Its why even though Snoopy is aways present the title is Charlie Brown. It's also why the kids dont age in a normal fashion because as a dog age matters less than experience.
I'm autistic and Charlie Brown describes my childhood exactly. I must be the living embodiment of Charlie, I have many of his qualities.
@@bethstaley467 The majority of neurotypicals are nasty people, just my own personal opinion.
@@bethstaley467 I think it's important to realize neurotypical does not mean rational. Neurotypicals constantly do irrational things. So equating neurotypical to sane is a mistake.
@maverickhistorian6488 I don't agree but I don't trust the world or society
I'm an autistic adult and I still relate to Charlie Brown on a personal level lol
Not autistic but same here. So does Calvin.
I have dyslexia and ADD, while I did do ok in school, every teacher seemed to tell my parents that I was smart but didn't "apply myself" and never lived up to my potential. Basically telling me and them that I was lazy. My mother bought me a poster that was up in my bedroom that had a picture of Charlie Brown on the pitcher's mound saying "There's no heavier burden than a great potential".
The bit at Flanders Field choked me up. The joy of _Peanuts_ in every incarnation, and what keeps me remembering it fondly, was that thought it could be cynical it's also incredibly hopeful. The world didn't and doesn't end; you just gotta get up and keep going.
I just won a literary award for my first graphic novel, and I can honestly say that anyone working in comics is indebted to Charles Schulz for what he did for the medium. He didn't break the mold, he created the groundwork for so many to follow. It's a debt we can never repay. His contribution can never be overstated.
Sparky is A Legend. One of the Greatest Comic Strip Cartoonists of all time.
Weirdly placed humblebrag, but that aside, hard agree.
@@rubyy.7374 Humblebrag? Maybe. Or maybe I wanted to give context as to who I was, was proud of what I'd done, and wanted to acknowledge the debt anyone working in the industry owes to Schulz.
@@emmagrove6491 And yet Sparky himself would probably half-deny his contributions since he was always quick to praise the cartoonists he admired growing up. But of course he never felt he measured up since, due to papers (and comics) being physically bigger when he was young, comic strips could and did have lush art and his art style had always been minimalist even before Peanuts. Regardless, Sparky was and still is an inspiration.
Nah, it’s ok to brag.
When you tell a story for your entire life and are expected to produce the same product every week, it’s natural that things evolve but stay the same. Changes in age, the gradual transformation of the kite-eating tree, all of it happened organically over decades of time. It’s like a jazz musician, playing the same song over and over for their entire life. They will create new interesting and amusing moments. So, judging the strip as a whole, in the past, is really not seeing the strip for what it is. Because what it is, is a long journey through a single moment in time, the moment in time Schultz lived in, and the moment you’re living in. Beautiful.
A Boy Named Charlie Brown and Snoopy Come Home were staples of my early childhood and had a big influence on my tiny brain. Peppermint Patty is one of my favorite characters of all time: as a young kid labeled a tomboy, and with untreated ADHD, her comic strips resonated with me very much. I definitely felt like "the girl who will never sparkle and went into the backyard to eat worms" at times. My mom even compared me to her because I wore sandles constantly hahahha.
I'm 30 now, and I still keep a keychain of her on my cork board. 💜
This was totally worth the wait. Congratulations to you and all the voice actors.
Me, at the beginning: hehe, funny "Peanuts is DARK" parody.
Me, 1 hour later: *booking a tattoo appointment to have Peppermint Patty tattooed on the spot on my hand where I bite myself when my ADHD failures give me overwhelming anxiety*
If ever there was an endorsement
Omg I’m sitting here thinking I need a Peppermint Patty tattoo because of this video too!
My brother, now 76, had Snoopy cursing the Red Baron tattooed on his right shoulder while he was in the navy in 1968. He says it's the only tat he never regretted getting. Good luck with yours!
I remember that not long after his death almost all of the comic strip writers included Peanuts related content.
It was meant to be a surprise for Charles Scholtz but he passed away before the tribute was due to be printed, so it became a Memorial tribute instead. It was really quite touching.
I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sure she is very proud of you, and I appreciate your hard work during such a rough year.
You've got this in the bag
As a man with the last name of Schroeder, and subsequently having a tattoo of him on my arm, as well as a daughter named Lucy, I fully endorse this video. Well done! Yes, my daughter's name is Lucy Schroeder.
So glad to be a part of your magnum opus David, and so proud of you for finally finishing it, it's amazing!
No-one else could have delivered that "How I hate him." with such relish
I'm glad I trusted that this video to not keep up the "edgy child's media theory" cuz it rlly delivered in calling out that concept in the latter portion
Never did I ever have a friend say this to me, "You're lucky that Charlie Brown didn't have to become a vocabulary bee. If he were put up to become a vocabulary bee, he would have to study harder. Everything is predictable in this line of progress." 🐝
I only just pushed play and I'm already in a deep funk. I lost my mom this year too. She was only 4 years older than yours, and she LOVED Peanuts. I'm so sorry for your loss.
As a depressed kid I really felt seen in Charlie Brown, I remember relating to him a lot.
you had me in the first half. i kept waiting for the rug pull and then you started talking about charlie brown being in purgatory and i started questioning if i was gonna let myself be a victim of the sunk cost fallacy, but i'm really glad i watched to the end.
i was particularly intrigued by the section on dog sees god, and i was surprised i hadn't heard about it before now. on paper it seems like something made for me, being a queer csa survivor myself. but in execution, it's clear the author wasn't equipped to discuss the topics he chose to write about, which is a shame and happens all too often in stories featuring csa as a topic.
Agreed, the media material that truly is respectful to victims is few and far between it seems like
its me boy, the piano, speaking to you inside your brain, stick with me boy, leave the girl, we don't need her.
First of all: I'm so sorry for the loss of your mother. I hope she is resting peacefully wherever she is. Second, wow, what a roller coaster of an essay! Brilliant! It really is hard to encapsulate a several decades-long series, but I think you did quite well. And though I know it was half-done in jest, I did really enjoy your "dark Theory" as well. I started thinking to myself some of the other ways their universe could be Purgatory as well. I was fully committed to listening to that the entire two hours, but holy cow! You pulled the rug out from under me with the transition. It's so interesting how adults we want to make things we like this children darker with fan theories. Perhaps people are embarrassed to still enjoy things they feel they're too old for without macabre undertones as you said. I actually stopped mid video to read the bad play online, and Jesus!! It felt like everything that was horrible about the early 2000s put into a single fanfiction 🫠 I totally agree with why we love Snoopy and Charlie Brown. At its core it instills hope to be optimistic & keep pushing through tough times despite failures, and I think that is something we all can relate to. I was so moved by your video I feel I could make a whole response essay myself. You should be so proud of your work. P.s. I love you Charlie Brown nail polish.
Sparky was close to his Mother too. Her Death from Cancer in 1943 weighed on him for the Rest of his life.
Yeah, Peanuts is incredibly deep and powerful. I got the 'Peanuts 60s Years' compilation for Christmas when I was 12 and have read it cover to cover many a time. What always fascinated me was how real the characters become, particularly from the 60s onward. Even their flaws are complicated
For instance, sure Linus can be harsh to Charlie Brown sometimes, but in an accidental way that's so natural to his character. Like many a brilliant person, he often struggles to relate to others, and so his earnest attempts at encouragement often have the exact opposite result. Marcie isn't far off from this either. Lucy likewise thinks she's helping people when she's outright cruel to them. Peppermint Patty talks without thinking. Schroeder just wants to be left alone. Snoopy, the most childlike of them all, is too swept away in his own fantasies to remember to think about other's emotions
This is where Schultz's compassion really shines through. While seemingly venting his own struggles being put down and mistreated over the years, he moves away from the one-dimensional antagonists like Patty and Violet fairly early on, and causes readers to empathize with even Charlie Brown's harshest critics or most clueless friends.
That was interesting. Listening to it, I came away thinking that Mr. Schulz was a good example of how I as a Christian should live in the world. He is never unchristian, but he is also not combative about our faith. He sounds like other heroes of the faith that I have known. I find myself trying to be that way. I love the Linus' recitation of the Christmas story. It gives me goosebumps.
ALSO! i wanna say that the voice actors did an incredible job here! i almost didn't recognize the VAs. it took me a couple of times to hear Caelan's voice, while Lola and Jessie completely disappeared into the role that I was shocked to see them on the cast! everyone had great comedic timing, and got the character's voices down perfectly
I want to second this - exactly what I came down to the comments to write! Stellar voice cast all around. Perfect intonation of lines I have read a thousand times and usually only "heard" in my head.
I recognized Kyle right away lol
They all did absolutely Phenomenal
There was serious emotion behind some of the VO's.
Exceptionally well done.
So nice to find a fellow Peanuts lover! I adored Peanuts as a little girl. I saved my allowance every week to buy the Peanuts books during the 70’s. The two books you showed that your mom owned are in my collection. ❤ really enjoying the video!
1:42:25 - I see what you did there!
Thank you for making this. I learned so much about Peanuts in this video! I don't have much personal connection to it besides having watched the Christmas and Halloween species every year as a kid. But the larger themes and the history of Schulz and his creation are fascinating.
David,
As a former director of LIVE, Network Television, please allow me to compliment you on this HEAVILY post-produced documentary. When I Directed a one-hour show, it took one hour. THIS show, on the other hand, is something entirely different. I have no idea how long it took you to make this show, but it obviously took some time.
I’ve been reading Peanuts since 1958 (when I had reached the tender age of three), when most of your rather deep analysis would have largely gone right over my head. But that was then. I think of it as a shame that Charles M. Schulz wasn’t on this Earth long enough to have seen this pretty amazing piece of television. Schulz thought he was turning out a comic strip. Little did he know back when he started, that he was creating a multibillion-dollar industry, or creating something that someone like you could easily kill two hours with, in a scholarly analysis. Okay… “easily” is a relative term here, but the way it plays, it’s appears as though slapping this program together was as easy to DO as it is to WATCH and enjoy. You and I both know better. Having made my living in the television industry, I KNOW the preceding “easy” statement is completely false, but most consumers of the often slimy product of that industry have NO CLUE how any of it gets to their TV screen in the first place.
But again, congratulations on a fine piece of work. I hope you enter it in as many Television Awards competitions (and I don’t mean any that are only just for You Tube videos). I believe this show could easily be an award winner. Feel free to contact me if indeed your hard work gets the recognition it deserves. I’d like to know.
Sincerely,
Ed
sorry for your loss, david. and thank you for crafting this absolute sensitive, informative piece. im new to the peanuts franchise as im younger than the last strip published and born in a different hemisphere from where snoopy came, but im more than endeared by the care people still have when talking about charlie brown and his friends and by the decades of work schulz put together. it was a really interesting watch! [:
You actually helped me realize (or remember and realize again) what I hate so much about these deep takes. It is really a conspiracy theory to aggrandize something that is grand and wonderful already.
It is the same thing that makes me hate conspiracy theories as a whole.
Well done!
Also, I'm one of those people who really isn't that much into Peanuts (when I was young they were not printed in my country), but I enjoyed watching you video. You have a very good timing and subtle irony going on. Love it.
Why I was watching? I guess I was just Holding my Brow High.
Thanks, Kyle, for tipping me off on this video
Everybody tries to copy Matpat and it gets boring. I think it's also just an attitude of "Let's take something innocent and make it freaky!!" for shock value
and the fact that it's just the overly repeated cliché that people come up with when they can't come up with anything actually interesting "iT's PurGaToRy GuyS WoAh!!!"
I didn't have school buildings committing suicide on my Peanuts bingo card, but wow. That may be the most amazing thing I've discovered in months.
They can't because they're not a person. They are a building. I think you worded it kinda weird.
I remember reading the storyline about the school building collapsing. Charlie Brown and the gang had to attend the school Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Franklin attended until their school was being rebuilt .
@@rommix0 A building that is both sentient and sapient.
Amazing video! As someone who struggled with depression and anxiety a lot as a kid, I related a lot to Charlie Brown
Congratulations on this amazing essay, I think one part was missing: the way Charlie Brown stands for and defends the right of his female companions and Snoopy to be in the baseball team, when trying to get the uniforms.
You have made a magnificent literary contribution and two of the most fascinating hours I've spent in months! I have already shared your delightfully executed insights with two different friends, one who has spent his life studying Schultz for a one-man show, and he not only couldn't stop watching your work (watched it entirely yesterday after me sending the link) but agreed with so many of your perspectives and praised your work mightily! This work shows the potential of You Tube as the very best in grass-roots journalism, criticism, and research of the best sort. Congratulations on this achievement! I join your subscriber fan club and look forward to exploring your other works and eagerly await your next foray. Just fantastic!
I loved Peanuts, not because it was cheery, but because it was a little more real. Sibling fighting, Tom boys, school problems, failing baseball teams, etc. Things we all deal with as children. Sometimes I felt like Charlie Brown.
This feels like an April Fool's video. I don't know how sincere you're being and it's making my brain feel so odd!
Fantastic video all the way through, either way!
Edit: Thank goodness for that interlude!
Side note: I just despise the idea of "just kid stuff." All too often I see way more depth in media meant for kids or than what's made for adults. Just weird that (in countries like the US, UK, and Canada, at least) animation and children's media is still so underrated. 😥
I really related a lot to him as a kid, it helped me feel validated that I wasn't the only one who had a very depressive outlook on things as a kid. I am better now. The juxtoposition of the perception vs. a lot of the reality of Peanuts has always puzzled me too.
The sheer quality of this video Is awesome. This is simply wonderful
My brother is a big fan of newspaper comics so we used to talk about Peanuts a bit. While I'm not the most read on them I did always appreciate the way they represented religion.
I grew up Christian and I think people often fail to engage with the way the representation of Christiainity in media is often quite narrow. While it forms the hegemonic norm for how people define things like moral standards or monster lore, it's never really engaged with in a significant way. Outside of explicitly Christian media (which thankfully I didn't have to watch growing up, I have friends who's parents were more limiting on that and it's cringeworthy) while you'll see characters go to church there's very little focus on the actual experience. There's rarely a divide between church friends and school friends, no position of the Church as a community, heck it's rare to even get Christianity mentioned outside of a Sunday.
This isn't to advocate for more Christian hegemony of course (heaven forbid) but more to highlight how it felt to come across a writer who did engage with the weirdness of Church administration and communities, who did throw Biblical references around for humour, who did seem like he'd get 'What am I my brother's keeper?' or the frustration of arguing with your pastor over whether Jesus had three brothers or four during a quiz (the pastor had forgotten Simon and my brother was furious that it cost us a quiz point).
I think it's strange, Christianity is omnipresent in American media but it's that weird barely considered, barely present version that's assumed but never engaged with and I think that becomes more obvious when I come across a writer who does get it.
Brilliant video, my gosh.
A book I think you'll appreciate is "The Gospel According to Charlie Brown". It is mostly the writer looking at certain Peanuts comics and applying to different Bible verses and stuff.
Jesus had no siblings
This sounds quite similar to what the philosopher Slavoj Sizek thinks on British culture and it’s post-imperial decay! The main point is basically that imperial overstretch created a sort of void within British identity, where, because of how ubiquitous and omnipresent Britain has become in global politics and pop culture, British things no longer seem so British. The example that comes to mind right now is the fact that English is our Lingua Franca!
You really brought this together, David! I am floored by your over-an-hour commitment to the bit. And the casting really couldn't have turned out better! A wonderful tribute and a takedown of grimdark culture all in one. Bravo!
I had a childhood very similar to Charlie Brown.If it wasn't for that comic strip I don't know if I would have made it through my childhood. Charlie Brown's existence helped me feel less alone.
Peanuts is probably to blame for my taste in dark humor (which has earned me some concern from peers over the years), but it taught me that it’s okay to not feel okay. Not everything goes the way you want, and not everything is all happy and positive, but that’s part of life, and all you can do is live with it and continue on. I also like it because it appeals to all ages; I loved it when I was a kid even though I didn’t understand a lot of the jokes, and I love it even more as an adult because I now understand the full context of the jokes (the line “my anxieties have anxieties” is very relatable to me). Even though I recognize that now is a different time with a different audience, I feel like jokes like that are timeless and universal because we all know what it’s like to feel sad or frustrated. Taking them away gives the impression that you’re not allowed to feel negative ever, which in my opinion is not a healthy mindset because you can only bottle up your feelings for so long before they inevitably burst and hurt others (and yourself). Plus, you won’t know what it’s like to be happy unless you know what it’s like to be unhappy.
One more thing: sometimes I see people post the Peanuts comics on social media, and one comment that stuck out to me (not in a good way) was “pretty dark for a Peanuts comic”. I don’t think I need to say anything else.
Peanuts was a part of my life since I was a kid. I was an extremely pessimistic kid so Charlie Brown was relatable to me and to this day Snoopy is one of my favorite animal characters.
Also, I went to Japan recently and something I saw was that Peanuts, and especially Snoopy, were very popular. The characters were used in advertisements and there were even stores devoted to Peanuts.
I didn’t know Peanuts was that popular in Japan but it makes sense given the game Mother is largely inspired by it too, to the point that not only does Ninten look a little like Charlie Brown with hair except he’s nowhere near as cursed with misfortune and also loves baseball, but 2 generic NPCs in the original game are blatantly Marcie & Pig Pen, the latter representing bums. One Pig Pen clone in Reindeer town even gives you a flea bomb weapon that’s handy against wolf enemies in Snowman if you give him something when he begs (preferably food).
I guess if he wanted to go further, Shigasato Itoi would have called the final area “Good Grief” Mountain (Grief being the operative word as in some versions you find your great grandpa’s grave near the peak, his wife dies soon after and then you fight their now very pissed off alien adopted son as the final boss) but decided that was too on the nose so he called it Holy Loly Mountain.
In the sequel, there’s not as many Peanuts references in characters though one shifty looking guy kind of looks like Linus or some other character whose name I forget. One such instance of him is in Fourside when you find an injured Mr Tonchiki outside the bar: he forces you to give him something so he’ll budge and let you talk to Tonchiki. I usually give him a pack of salt.
@@lionocyborg6030 Yes, Peanuts -- specifically Snoopy -- is VERY popular in Japan, to the point that it was the only other country for which Schulz himself authorized creation of local Peanuts animations, which were handled by Studio Madhouse… The Japanese title of the 2015 film is, kid you not, "We ❤ Snoopy"
the part about What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown is something that really sticks out for me, cause I've been trying to get all my thoughts together on all the reasons why I truly hate Netflix's adaptation of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, and I think it is in part the difference between those edgy "adult" reinterpretations that try to add some DARK elements and make it nihilistic and depressing.... whereas the original manages to be ADULT and confront serious topics, but doesn't fall to the cheap shock of dark insincere edgyness.
And the same with ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, a book that is on the surface very dark, but comparing Netflix's and the original book, the original book is a lot more hopeful and sees the good in humanity even in the face of the horrors of WW1, and no other place is it more obvious than how the book has a mature depiction of suicidality caused by disability and how society views disabled people, however the book puts that character on the road to recovery and he's one of the only characters who presumably survives. Whereas the Netflix version just has him edgyly unalive himself for shock value.... which feels counterintuitively childish.
@pinkdostoyevsky the short of it is youtube has a tendency to auto-delete comments with certain words at random, so sometimes using the word "suicide" and "queer" tend to just get instantly deleted by an algorithm.
@@Pazliacci Plus you have problems publishing videos with words like "mur--r" and "suo--de" in the title, as YT algorithm will basically shadowban those videos to appease the advertisers as "family friendly" (example: Zero Punctuation "The UA-cam of Sonic the Hedgehog" reviewing the game "The Mur--r of Sonic the Hedgehog")
Radical Wicked Witch = Wonderfully Wise Witch! Brilliant analysis. I now understand why the Netflix version of All Quiet On The Western Front left me unmoved. Your explanation of how the artifice of edginess warps meaning is insightful. It's a loathsome trend in opera productions, shifts context and characterisation aside. The gloomy explication in this video was too disconcerting for me and necessitated much fast forwarding but it ended on a lovely note. Charlie Brown's integrity and sweetness is monumental. There's a lot of strength in that little guy. Debonair Snoopy (no doubt a component of his self-identification) is my favourite.
Holy crap was this worth the wait. This video was a journey, and it ended up being a damn hopeful one! Fantastic work, David.
There's nothing I love more than making my videos ~an experience~
This is all great and needed to be done, but the voice cast is especially fantastic. I don’t know who Snipe is (yet), but they had me actually crying at 1:10:03. Thank you
all we ever really needed was a Watterson/Schulz crossover where Peppermint Patty dumps Marcy for Susie Derkins and then Hobbes & Linus's blanket have an epic fight
I haven't even finished this video yet and I'm already impressed and enamored by this. The calling out of dark adult themes people try to put into Peanuts and other children's media is so gratifying. I still laugh at stuff like that because of my love for Dark Humor, but you raise so many great points with this entire video. As an amateur, young writer who is still trying to catch his bearings and is writing a fanfic about Marcie comforting an overtly depressed Charlie Brown, this video honestly opened my eyes to how good the comic strip's writing is. It's hard to get these characters down to a tee and you just nailed Lucy in the Interlude as if it was nothing! The writing, the editing, the immense amount of research astonishes me. This whole entire video was a masterpiece and ride all the way through.
Keep up the good work, David.
A Boy Named Charlie Brown legit gave me an existential crisis as a kid. Depressed the hell out of me. I hadn't felt that way since I read an account of the murder of Junko Tsuruta....
Can i just say that I love the VA that did Patty. And Marcie too. You can just hear their dynamic in every word. 10/10
And you're right. It might have had some novelty at the beginning to have random childhood media be suddenly given the 'dark' treatment but now it's mostly just tiresome. The only one that for me gets a pass is Alice in Wonderland and that's because the source material really is that messed up.
Well, I wasn't expecting to cry into my morning shift making donuts to a Peanuts video, but here we are 😂❤
Charlie Brown is so special. When I was a kid, I felt such a connection to that world, because it put the melancholy of children on full display. Growing up, being scared, learning new things, feeling sad. I remember loving Peanuts so much because I felt it respected me as a child, it understood me. It let me know others understood that we weren't just stupid kids with unimportant worries as it was often portrayed by the adults in our lives and other media.
This was a treat. Thank you 🥲
At Halloween, they aren't giving him rocks. They are giving him ammunition. You give a child rocks instead of candy, you need to expect a few broken windows.
i swear to god, just because there are quite a few continuity issues, doesn't mean there is a deep disturbing lore in a damn comic strip
well worth the wait
I honestly think it might be
@@DavidJBradley 😁
Caelan as Snoppy - inspired casting! Love it 💜
Amazing work. Peanuts has been part of my life what feels like forever, and my appreciation for it only grows as time goes on. It deftly expounds upon the real anxieties people have through the mouths of children with adult-sized vocabularies. Regardless of what form the property takes, I've never felt like it's talking down to me the reader, regardless of what the characters themselves are doing to each other. And your takeaway message highlights why that final scene from "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" is one of my favorite moments in cinema.
"Did you notice something?...The world didn't come to an end." The lesson here is sometimes there is no upside to a bad situation; no "brightside" to look upon. Sometimes the silver lining to a dark cloud is just that the dark cloud will eventually pass, and you will have a new day where you'll have a chance to try again. That's the lesson I take from Charlie Brown. Sometimes things just suck, but the world will always continue to roll on and you can stand up and roll on with it.
The editing on this video, along with the commentary was wonderful. I love long videos, and this one was thoroughly engaging. Especially as a millennial Peanuts fan, I grew up watching the specials & reading the strips in the newspaper with my grandma 💜
I loved when Peppermint said "IT'S GUESSING TIME!" and guessed all over the test.
Please let this meme die
@@user-vi4xy1jw7e yes please
YES THE RETURN WE HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!
I promise I won't take so long next time!
@@DavidJBradley okay I am now through this masterpiece, and if a long wait is what makes great works like these then the wait is worth it, truly a grand video!
The amount of work that went into this! Delightful & thoughtful commentary with a meta-twist. Also, Jessie Gender as Marcie was the casting I didn't know we needed.
I would love a full audio book of all your guest voices just reading peanuts!
Caelan, as Snoopy, is amazing!
Same. Laura Crone as Lucy is also brilliant and it's always great to hear Jessie Gender in more stuff.
You know? I unironically think there'd be decent money in that. The voice acting could be pretty fun and it would make getting through something as unwieldy as Peanuts MUCH easier.
really?
I once thought that imagining Charlie Brown as an adult would be horrifying. Then I grew up and I don't have to imagine it.
Wow. I have to thank you for this video. I listened to it not really knowing what to expect, at a point where I was feeling down, but the end of the video, has me feeling better.
I've been really down lately and this was just what I needed, but never would have imagined I needed. Thank you, David. (And I laughed out loud at the poor school's fate. Delightfully delivered, friend.)
This might be one of the best video essays relating to peanuts I’ve ever seen. From the part about Charlie Brown being bullied by Lucy, patty, and violet to peppermint patty and Marcie’s supposedly queer identities to having a realization that not everything has a darker meaning it sure is nice seeing someone actually being passionate about the legit GOAT of comic strips that is peanuts like myself.
So, I’m only 37:04 into the video, but… When you mentioned “The happiest day of his life and he can’t even remember how it went” made me think… This sounds a lot like how a depressed person sees their life. Things are almost comically negative, and any wins are either nonexistent, unremembered, or blamed on something he can’t control.
This was so good!!!!! Very very very enjoyable watch. I especially enjoyed the voice acting by everyone. Great job!
Excellent work on this video! I could write a paragraph but I think you know how hard it can be for people to see messages right in front of them…especially “simple” ones that are too childish to take up their time….and keep on being stuck in the same place forever…but we still love them like Charlie Brown!
I was going to watch this on the tv in my living room as I wrote my history essay, then i saw the content warning and remembered what a DJB video was sp I was like "yeah this is something i should watch on my phone with headphones"
The David J Bradley sad times guarantee
its scary to realize i relate to peppermint patty so much: i struggled to pay attention to school and do my work, but when i try i can't focus or understand the material. if it wasn't something related to art or history i just didn't pay attention. i also kept sleeping in class in turn for staying up so late. only recently i've suspected being neurodivergent, so the universe must like giving me the most obvious hints ever
First time I've stumbled on to your channel, courtesy of Snipe and Wib. I'm so glad they sent me your way, because this was fantastic. Excited to have a backlog of videos to watch, and looking forward to more!
Just wanted to say this is an excellent narrative through The Peanuts world. Loved you adding a bit of meta about your self in there too. Great work 👏👏👏
One must imagine Charlie Brown happy
This is a truly wonderful video! I’ve always had a special connection with the character of Charlie Brown, as playing him in the musical when I was I was in grade six was when my egg first started to crack, though it would take many years and more (thankfully male) theatre roles until I realized that I’m a trans guy. Charlie Brown’s had a special place in my heart ever since, and I loved your nuanced and positive take on the comic he originated from. It makes me really happy to see people talk openly about the lovely children’s media that has affected them in sometimes unexpected ways.
This was honestly one long reminder of how good Peanuts is.
None of this really felt like a surprise, just a clear pointing out of how everything was that I had not had words for when I actually read it.
Ah yes, I love that famous main character of Peanuts: Shinji Ikari. Best damn character in all over the comic strip.
It should be said that despite everything, Lucy cares deeply about Charlie Brown (and vice versa). There was a moment when the Van Pelt family was about to move away and everyone was deeply upset by the fact that they couldn't see each other anymore.
This is deeply wonderful. You actually had me following you into your 'Purgatory thesis. I was right there with you, listening to your argument and preparing myself to accept it as a legitimate reading of the strip, if not the definitive one. But then you went into your real message. I actually teared up. I'm creating a mental list of the people I want to whom I want to send this, and of the people who are no longer with us to which I wish I could send it.
Thanks so much for such a wonderful video! The voices for the characters, your analysis of the comics, all just fantastic! I grew up watching the movies and reading the comics at my grandma's house and love how much I still care for and enjoy watching through them when I get the chance.
I also really appreciate you touching on the creations of darker views of media like this. The play you mentioned skeeved me out as well, just so dark and gross. These darker, cynical takes on media have really just not sat right with me the older I've gotten; I remember liking the edgy humor of shows like robot chicken and family guy as a teen, but they just felt so needlessly cruel after a while.