Sidekicks and Second Bananas Episode 3 - Roy: A Good Temporary Friend

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VO: Welcome to Unpacking Peanuts.
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VO: The podcast where three cartoonists take an in-depth look at the greatest comic strip of all time, Peanuts by Charles M.
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VO: Schulz.
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Jimmy: Hey, everybody.
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Jimmy: Welcome back to the show.
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Jimmy: It's Unpacking Peanuts.
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Jimmy: Today, we're continuing our look at sidekicks and second bananas with our focus on Roy.
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Jimmy: We're all the way down to focusing on Roy.
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Jimmy: That's what happens after four years.
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Jimmy: I'll be your host for the proceeding.
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Jimmy: My name is Jimmy Gownley.
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Jimmy: I'm also a cartoonist.
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Jimmy: You can find all my new work over on Givo Comics on Substack and you can order the Amelia Roles 25th anniversary editions that are out right now.
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Jimmy: Joining me as always are my pals, co-hosts, and fellow cartoonists.
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Jimmy: He's a playwright and a composer, both for the band Complicated People as well as for this very podcast.
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Jimmy: He's the co-creator of the original comic book price guide, the original editor for Amelia Roles, and the creator of such great strips as Strange Attractors, A Gathering of Spells and Tangled River.
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Jimmy: It's Michael Cohen.
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Michael: Say hey.
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Jimmy: He's the executive producer and writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, a former vice president of Archie Comics, and the creator of the Instagram sensation, Sweetest Beasts, it's Harold Buchholz.
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Harold: Hello.
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Jimmy: Well, I am keeping.
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Liz: Almost.
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Harold: Almost.
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Jimmy: Keeping us out of trouble, making sure everything runs nice and smooth, it's our producer and editor, Liz Sumner.
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Liz: Howdy.
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Jimmy: Well, guys, we're talking about Roy.
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Harold: Roy.
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Jimmy: I mean, we've always built towards it.
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Jimmy: We knew that one day, we would focus on Roy.
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Michael: Where can one buy the Roy merch?
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Jimmy: I bet there is Roy merch.
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Michael: There is.
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Jimmy: I mean, if they have Olaf merch, they've got to have a Roy shirt out there somewhere.
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Liz: If they have a Mr.
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Liz: T.
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Liz: Snoopy, then they've got to have Roy.
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Jimmy: Now, Michael, do you relate to Roy's look?
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Jimmy: I can see that being your look as a kid, not the sailor hat, of course, but I think he has like a Michael look.
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Jimmy: He's got the curly hair.
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Liz: Did you ever wear a sailor hat?
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Michael: God, no.
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Liz: But your dad had an Army Navy store.
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Michael: No, I didn't have any of that, but I did have Army jackets.
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Michael: All my clothes were supplied by Value Center, so I had lots of Army gear, but no, it never went for the hats.
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Michael: So I had my Giants cap.
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Jimmy: I have to admit, I did when I was very little, wear a sailor's hat around like an idiot.
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Harold: It looks like an upside down dog dish.
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Harold: I was thinking Snoopy would like this.
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Jimmy: Is it even a thing at camp that people wear sailor hats?
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Jimmy: I don't know that there's an official camp hat.
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Harold: That's a good point.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Harold: Why are they wearing these?
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Harold: I guess it's a thing.
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Harold: Will he make that up?
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Liz: I think he made it up to make it look like they were some place away from home.
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Harold: Somewhere else.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
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Liz: As the camp expert on this podcast, Noah never wore hats.
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Michael: Well, I think looking over this sequence, this might be the first time they went out of the neighborhood.
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Harold: Really?
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Harold: In 15 years, that's something.
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Michael: I mean, the Marcy and Peppermint Patty stuff is much later than this.
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Jimmy: It's next year, I guess, yeah.
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Michael: Oh, it's much later.
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Harold: Wow.
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Jimmy: Yeah, that actually, and that is the important really of Roy, is he's the bridge between the Charlie Brown universe and the Peppermint Patty universe.
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Jimmy: Obviously, I don't think Schulz had any inkling that he was going to expand the Roy verse.
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Harold: Right.
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Michael: Earth are, we call it.
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Jimmy: Yeah, Earth are.
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Liz: For any of our listeners who haven't done the entire reread, please explain who Roy is.
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Jimmy: Every summer, well, not every summer, but many summers, Charlie Brown has to go to camp and he often does not have a good time there.
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Jimmy: But in good old 1965, the sequence we're going to be looking at today, he meets a friend, a kid named Roy, who is one of the straightest straight men who ever straighted.
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Jimmy: His basic function is to be someone that Charlie Brown can be a good friend to, which is an interesting way to create a character.
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Harold: So he's the Shermie of the Peppermint Patty verse?
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Harold: Sort of, yeah.
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Harold: Wow.
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Jimmy: Unless we could come up with some sort of unified Roy theory that makes it so that everything revolves around Roy.
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Harold: Well, I do like the Roy-mometer, the idea of the Roy-mometer.
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Harold: Roy-mometer.
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Harold: If we did the Sher-mometer, why can't we do the Roy-mometer?
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Harold: Okay.
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Jimmy: So before we get into these strips, I want to just have a general discussion.
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Jimmy: What makes a good straight man?
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Michael: Well, Carl Reiner, who's critical in the history of comedy on TV, realized that he had a place to just pitch to Mel Brooks, pitch softballs to Mel Brooks.
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Michael: He never tried to get out of it because he was so good at it.
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Michael: I mean, it was like a real talent.
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Jimmy: If you guys aren't familiar with what Michael's talking about, there's comedy recordings of it called Two Thousand Year Old Man.
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Jimmy: Basically, that's exactly what it was.
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Jimmy: Carl Reiner would just lob these softball questions to Mel Brooks about anything in the last 2,000 years, and Brooks would just improv and riff on it.
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Jimmy: It was brilliantly funny.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Harold: They become the best of friends all through the rest of Reiner's life.
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Harold: They'd hang out and watch Wheel of Fortune together.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Harold: They were just buddies.
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Harold: Carl Reiner also, he started on your show of shows with Sid Caesar in the 50s and created the Dick Van Dyke show and was on it.
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Harold: So yeah, quite a long, long run.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Jimmy: And then directed movies like The Jerk with Steve Martin.
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Harold: And he could be quite funny in his own right.
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Harold: We've certainly seen him play characters, but he's usually like an anchor, and everyone else goes crazy around him.
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Harold: But I think that is what makes a good straight man, right?
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Harold: Is that it gives him gravity to what's happening and reality to it, so that the zany person just doesn't seem annoying.
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Jimmy: Right.
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Liz: Sincerity and not tongue-in-cheek, not anticipating the joke, just allowing the other person to really take off.
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Michael: Yeah.
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Michael: Right.
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Michael: Yeah.
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Jimmy: And it's such an important aspect of these comedies, I mean, if you're doing comedy this way.
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Jimmy: And I think of Seinfeld where Seinfeld was clearly the least talented and experienced actor on the show, right?
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Jimmy: But that his presence is what makes the rest of the stuff palpable.
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Harold: It all revolves around him.
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Jimmy: When they would do things like give Michael Richards a TV show, where he's the star, but he's really playing the Kramer character again.
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Jimmy: Well, that's like, oh, you like salt on French fries?
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Jimmy: Well, how about a plate of salt?
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Harold: Yeah.
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Harold: Or Jerry Lewis without Dean Martin.
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Harold: Some people can't take it and some people just love it, because it's just so non-stop insane.
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Harold: But yeah, it's hard to maintain that without some anchor to keep you focused and like, okay, I can see myself in this sane person in this insane world.
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Jimmy: Now, the other weird thing or interesting thing I should say, I guess, about what Schulz does here with this first sequence with Roy, is he basically gives a straight man a straight man.
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Jimmy: It's not that Charlie Brown is 100 percent straight man, but he is certainly the sane hub around which everything else wobbles.
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Harold: He has to leave his own neighborhood in order to find that person.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Jimmy: Charlie Brown is not without honor saving his own land or whatever.
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Harold: Right.
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Harold: Well, all right.
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Jimmy: With that out of the way, how about we decide to look at this first 1965 sequence featuring good old Roy and Charlie Brown.
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Jimmy: If you characters want to follow along with us, there's a couple of things you should do.
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Jimmy: First, go over to unpackingpeanuts.com, sign up for the great Peanuts reread.
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Jimmy: That'll get you one email a month, which is our newsletter letting you know what shenanigans will be up to, and what strips we're going to be covering so you can follow along with us.
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Harold: I want to do that.
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Jimmy: Come on back here, and we could just start right now with June 10th, 1965.
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Jimmy: Charlie Brown is already off at camp, and this is just a setup to explain where he is.
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Jimmy: He gets a letter from Linus that says, a letter from Linus will all be.
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Jimmy: Dear Charlie Brown, this is the letter.
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Jimmy: How are you enjoying camp?
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Jimmy: I suppose you are worried about your baseball team.
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Jimmy: The letter continues, well, don't worry, we're doing fine.
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Jimmy: In fact, yesterday, we won the first game we've won all season.
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Jimmy: Which leaves Charlie Brown on the edge of the dock, and he just sighs to himself.
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Jimmy: So this is baseline Charlie Brown at camp.
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Harold: Right.
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Jimmy: You know, and I think it's so funny because you can imagine Linus being a good friend and going, I'm going to write to my pal Charlie Brown and tell him the good news that we won our baseball game.
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Liz: Yeah.
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Jimmy: And of course, it has the exact opposite effect on Charlie Brown.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Jimmy: June 11th, 1965, here's where things heat up, people.
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Jimmy: The first appearance of Roy.
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Jimmy: Roy is sitting there on a stump and he's sniffing.
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Jimmy: He seems to have just finished crying a little bit.
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Jimmy: Charlie Brown comes up behind him and kind of has a question mark, going, Oh, what's going on with this poor sad kid?
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Jimmy: And then he says to Roy, Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing you crying.
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Jimmy: What's the matter?
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Jimmy: And Roy stands up and says, I don't know.
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Jimmy: I guess I'm just lonesome.
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Jimmy: Which Charlie Brown juts out his hand for a handshake and yells, Friend!
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Harold: Sending Roy's hat into the air.
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Harold: I love this.
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Jimmy: I do too.
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Harold: What a breakthrough, 15 years into this trip.
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Harold: Charlie Brown has found somebody who maybe needs him.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Harold: And he can't wait to take on that role.
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Harold: It's just really, really cool given what we've been through with him up until now.
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Jimmy: Because Charlie Brown seems to want to be some sort of caretaker or leader.
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Harold: Or hero.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
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Jimmy: And he never has that opportunity.
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Jimmy: Well, he has millions of opportunities, but they all fall flat.
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Jimmy: So it's very nice to just see this moment.
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Liz: I just keep thinking, is it Son of Frankenstein?
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Liz: Where he goes, friend.
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Jimmy: Friend.
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Jimmy: That is some big lettering in that lack panel, and I love it.
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Jimmy: It looks really good.
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Jimmy: He's obviously got the old, whatever it is, C5 lettering pen that he uses, the big thick one, and he's doubling it up.
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Harold: The C1.
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Jimmy: C1, there you go.
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Harold: Massive.
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Harold: He's probably doubling up, though, right?
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Jimmy: Yeah, he's definitely doubling up.
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Jimmy: You can see that on the F, right?
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Jimmy: Definitely.
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Harold: Yeah, he does an outline, fills in the blacks.
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Harold: He wants to get it right.
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Jimmy: Now, what do we think about the way he's done the very light pen work for the background of trees?
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Harold: Beautiful.
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Harold: It is beautiful.
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Jimmy: Michael, you know what that inking reminds me of?
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Jimmy: This is like outside the box.
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Michael: Yeah.
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Harold: Reminds me of Chick Stone.
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Michael: You think it's Chick Stone inking?
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Jimmy: It has a Chick Stone vibe.
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Jimmy: He had an almost clear line style in some background.
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Michael: Yeah, thick outlines was his trademark.
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Jimmy: But more in the front, in the foreground figures, it seems like.
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Michael: Yeah.
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Jimmy: It seemed like he would be able to do.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
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Michael: Well, that was kind of a rule is, yeah, the foreground figure should be thicker, which I don't think too many people actually follow up on.
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Michael: But.
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Jimmy: Yeah, I don't think so.
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Jimmy: But I do think it gives depth to the page.
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Michael: Yeah, it certainly does.
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Jimmy: That's something I struggle with, is drawing deep into a page.
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Jimmy: You know what I mean?
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Jimmy: Well, I struggle with perspective.
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Jimmy: But even just getting things in the distance versus things that are very close.
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Michael: Yeah.
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Jimmy: I think that's hard to do.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Harold: Yeah, I was thinking Vince Coletta.
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Harold: No, I'm just kidding.
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Jimmy: He was just raising trees entirely.
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Michael: Yeah, six dollars and the anti-Corona.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
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Liz: A nice aloha shirt.
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Harold: Right.
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Harold: Yeah, we got a nice Hawaiian shirt there on Roy.
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Harold: It certainly draws you to him with his dark jet black hair and busy shirt.
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Harold: I like Roy's design a lot.
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Harold: Yeah, I think it's just really cool.
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Harold: This to me predates that meeting with Franklin about six years later, where you got, because it's interesting.
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Harold: Yeah, it's like two straight men hanging out with each other.
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Harold: Yes.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Harold: I like that vibe given what peanuts usually is.
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Harold: I think it was all the time, but it's a nice seasoning, strangely to be bland.
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Harold: Yes.
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Jimmy: Yes.
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Harold: To have the characters who are normal, more or less for peanuts normal or being normal with one another.
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Harold: They're not making each other crazy or whatever.
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Harold: They are just figuring out how to be friends together, and to see Schulz navigating that in his strip is refreshing.
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Jimmy: So Michael found an old ad, and we talked about this on one of our new shorts.
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Jimmy: So if you're on any of those evil apps like TikTok or YouTube shorts or whatever, you're going to be able to see us do, see us live in video talking about these things.
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Jimmy: But in one of those, we were talking about an ad Michael found where, what did they compare peanuts to, a tranquilizer?
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Liz: Better than a tranquilizer, The Peanuts Books by Charles M.
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Liz: Schulz.
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Jimmy: Which really implies that these are sedate, calm strips, which a lot of them are.
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Jimmy: Maybe it was more calm-seeming in context with all the crazy stuff around.
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Michael: But saying, this book is going to put you to sleep is not a good ad for it.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
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Jimmy: Really weird ad.
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Harold: So a tranquilizer, I'm assuming people would have thought in 1953, today, makes you tranquil, right?
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Michael: Mother's little comfort.
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Harold: That's the idea.
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Harold: But through artifice, through something that's artificial.
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Michael: Right.
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Michael: You know what drug was popular in the 20s, to keep your little baby quiet and sleeping through the night?
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Harold: What?
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Michael: Heroin.
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Harold: Uh-oh.
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Michael: It was the brand name of a tranquilizer for babies.
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Harold: Well, Michael, are you saying that heroin was made with heroin?
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Liz: Yes.
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Michael: And he created it.
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Michael: Oh my God.
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Michael: Wow.
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Harold: That's so awful.
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Jimmy: All right.
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Jimmy: So then this continues the next day.
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Jimmy: And Charlie Brown and Roy are still out in the woods.
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Jimmy: And Charlie Brown says to Roy, because Charlie Brown is now in just, you know, life coach mode, Roy, you've got to snap out of it.
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Jimmy: A camp like this is the best place for someone like you.
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Jimmy: It helps you to break those old apron strings.
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Jimmy: Roy has just taken this in and Charlie Brown says, life is full of experiences that have to be faced alone.
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Jimmy: And Roy says, but you said you were lonesome too.
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Jimmy: To which Charlie Brown responds, I talk a good camp.
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Michael: Roy is clearly depressed.
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Harold: Rolling his eyes a little like, oh, I've been found out.
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Michael: Schulz was suffering through this greatly.
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Michael: And you'd say Charlie Brown was too.
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Michael: But him meeting another depressed person was kind of a revelation, I think.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
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Jimmy: And again, not something you're going to be seeing in any other strips of 1965, I can't imagine, you know?
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Jimmy: And I also think this is real.
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Jimmy: I mean, if you take the time to really think about this particular strip, right?
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Jimmy: I mean, it's very human.
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Jimmy: And it's such an insight.
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Jimmy: It's like, yeah, Charlie Brown knows what has to be done.
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Jimmy: He can articulate it perfectly.
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Jimmy: But he can't really do it himself, which I relate to 100 percent.
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Jimmy: Like sometimes you'll find some pattern in your life or some behavior that you want to change.
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Jimmy: Like, I know what I want to do.
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Jimmy: I know what I need to do.
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Jimmy: Doing it is an entirely different thing.
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Liz: Or when you see it in somebody else, you know exactly what advice to give them.
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Liz: You can't do it for yourself.
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Harold: Right.
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Harold: Yes.
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Harold: Oh, just get it together.
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Jimmy: Come on, snap out of it.
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Harold: All right.
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Harold: There's another thing that hasn't aged terribly well, the term of breaking apron strings.
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Harold: Because you just don't hear anybody saying it anymore.
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Jimmy: Yeah, well, that seems like it would have been an old saying in 1965.
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Harold: Right.
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Harold: Well, I guess aprons were still happening.
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Harold: It's on the tail end of aprons.
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Harold: As in the pop culture, the happy wife in the kitchen.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
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Jimmy: I guess this is something that does need to be explained.
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Jimmy: That would just be a relatively common saying for a little kid that's too attached to his mother, basically, a mama's boy or something like that.
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Jimmy: Now, this is what I chose from Roy's first appearance.
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Jimmy: What I find interesting also about this is that Schulz sets up this world with Roy and Charlie Brown at the camp.
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Jimmy: They're having a nice time.
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Jimmy: Charlie Brown meets his friend, and then Roy goes away for a year.
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Jimmy: He really is a camp friend that we don't see in the strip outside of it, at least originally.
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Jimmy: Can you think of anything like that, that someone would do basically a seasonal character in a comic strip, someone that you know is only going to show up in the summer or whatever?
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Harold: Like an annual character?
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Jimmy: It's like the old Justice League, Justice Society team-ups.
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Jimmy: You always knew that July would come around and you'd get one of those.
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Michael: Well, there is Santa Claus.
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Michael: He seems to be seasonal.
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Harold: That's true.
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Harold: He'll show up now and again.
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Liz: Well, as a person who went to camp, there were people, I mean camp seemed really, really far away.
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Liz: It was actually like in the same telephone exchange.
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Liz: It was like 20, 25 minutes away from my home.
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Jimmy: Yeah, but it felt like the other side of the world, right?
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Liz: There were other campers that I was friends with at camp, and maybe visited once, but they lived on the other side of town, another 20 minutes away, and I never saw them except at camp.
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Harold: Right.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Harold: I mean, even sometimes school, you'd have your school friends, but for some reason, there were certain school friends that you would even dream, even though you liked hanging out with them, but they were not the outside of school friends.
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Harold: You would just see them in school, and that seemed right.
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Jimmy: Yeah, and even that continues even in adult life, if you're unfortunate enough to have to work in an office, you'll have work friends that are directly over your house for Thanksgiving dinner or anything.
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Harold: Right.
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Harold: Yeah.
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Jimmy: Some of them are, in case any of my old work friends happen to be listening, I wasn't talking about you.
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Harold: Yeah, these separations in our lives, and we're here, Roy is gone, like you said, for a year.
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Harold: Nice character.
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Harold: How did it end in 65?
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Harold: Did it end successfully?
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Harold: I remember Charlie Brown and Roy, they had a good time, they say their goodbyes, and Charlie Brown is satisfied with that.
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Harold: How it ended in 65?
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Jimmy: Then Roy says, he's the kind of person that makes a good temporary friend.
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Jimmy: Oh.
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Harold: Well, it's a small victory.
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Harold: It's a small victory.
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Jimmy: All right.
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Jimmy: So that's the first sequence of Roy's strips from 1965.
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Jimmy: We're going to come back and see his next appearance, which takes another little twist after this break, and we'll come back to the mail and talk about more Roy.
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Jimmy: See you after this.
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Liz: Okay.
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Liz: Hi, everyone.
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Liz: I just want to take a moment to remind you that all three hosts are cartoonists themselves and their work is available for sale.
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Liz: You can find links to purchase books by Jimmy, Harold, and Michael on our website.
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Liz: You can also support the show on Patreon or buy us a mud pie.
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Liz: Check out the store link on unpackingpeanuts.com.
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Jimmy: All right.
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Jimmy: I'm hanging out in the mailbox, Liz.
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Jimmy: Do we got anything?
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Liz: No.
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Liz: It's empty.
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Jimmy: Oh, no.
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Jimmy: Well, let's go see if we got anything on the hotline.
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Jimmy: You know what we did?
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Jimmy: We heard from good old Captain Billy.
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Jimmy: You could always count on Captain Billy.
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Jimmy: He says, hi, super fan Captain Billy here.
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Jimmy: Jimmy, you will be happy to know that in the latest Apple TV special, Snoopy presents a summer musical.
365
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Jimmy: The original design of the characters appear in a flashback.
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Jimmy: You're right, they are adorable.
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Jimmy: Keep up the good work, guys, and Liz.
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Jimmy: That's good.
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Jimmy: This is referring to episode a few weeks back where I said, they should do something with those very, very early Peanuts character designs and animation, because they're adorable, and apparently they have.
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Jimmy: Yay.
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Harold: That's great.
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Harold: I'm glad they found a way to do that.
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Harold: I'd love to see that animated, not to go into Apple.
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Jimmy: Yes.
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Harold: You're going to get that Apple subscription.
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Jimmy: A summer musical, I'm not sure.
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Jimmy: It's the latest Apple TV special, so there you go.
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Jimmy: And that's it.
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Jimmy: That's all we got.
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Jimmy: We got one thing on the hotline.
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Jimmy: So now, I'll only be semi-worried, because when I don't get from you guys, I do worry.
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Jimmy: But if you want to make for a more robust mailbag section next time, you can write to us.
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Jimmy: We're unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com, and you can call or leave a message on the hotline.
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Jimmy: We are 717-219-4162.
385
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Jimmy: So yeah, give us a call or send us an email.
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Jimmy: We would love to hear from you.
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Harold: Let us know what you want us to cover next.
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Jimmy: We're doing all sorts of interesting things here in the post-re-read era.
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Jimmy: I have an idea, because how about we do the reread again?
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Harold: Backwards.
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Harold: Backwards.
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Jimmy: That's exactly what I was going to say.
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Jimmy: All right.
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Jimmy: Well, with the mail out of the way, let's go back to these strips.
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Jimmy: Now, we're going to skip ahead an entire year to June 20th, 1966.
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Jimmy: Now, instead of Charlie Brown at camp, Roy has met a new friend.
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Jimmy: What we have here is Linus sitting on the edge of a dock, and Roy comes up behind him and says, Hi, my name is Roy.
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Jimmy: How are you doing?
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Jimmy: Linus, without turning around, says, Oh, I'm doing all right, I guess.
400
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Jimmy: Roy sits down next to him and says, You'll get to like this camp after a few days.
401
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Jimmy: I was here last year and I thought I'd never make it, but I did.
402
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Jimmy: Linus says, Oh, and Linus is looking a little forlorn at that point and then Roy says, You know what happened?
403
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Jimmy: I met this funny roundheaded kid.
404
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Jimmy: I can't remember his name.
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Jimmy: He sure was a funny kid.
406
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Jimmy: Linus is taking this in and then Roy continues with, He was always talking about this peculiar dog he had back home and some nutty friend of his who dragged a blanket around.
407
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Jimmy: Linus' reaction indicates that he has figured out exactly who he's talking about.
408
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Jimmy: What do you think of this?
409
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Jimmy: I think it's amazing.
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Jimmy: You see panel two with Linus and then panel four with Linus.
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Jimmy: In the last panel, panel four, you can see that he has a reaction to what Roy is saying.
412
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Jimmy: But the reaction is so unbelievably minimal.
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Jimmy: The only change is a little bit that the line for the mouth is slightly smaller, and the parentheses that he draws around Linus' eyes are slightly larger.
414
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Jimmy: That's it, and it reads a totally different emotion.
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Harold: And the eyes.
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Michael: He's also looking at the audience.
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Liz: Yeah.
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Jimmy: Yes, he is looking out at the audience too, right.
419
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Jimmy: Reacting to, I can't believe what this guy is saying.
420
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Harold: This is my pal Charlie Brown.
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Liz: And because his face is slightly bigger, it sort of pops.
422
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Liz: It's like he's reacting after he hears the words.
423
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Jimmy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
425
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Jimmy: Almost like it's a minor zoom in on just how it happened.
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Jimmy: Yeah.
427
00:25:18,060 --> 00:25:18,760
Liz: Exactly.
428
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Harold: This whole strip feels like you've got a drone that starts on one side of the dock, and it's just following around the front and over to the side.
429
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Jimmy: Yeah, it is like a tracking shot.
430
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Jimmy: Yeah.
431
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Jimmy: If he had included the background in the second and fourth panel, you would really have that feel.
432
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Jimmy: And Cerebus, they would do that a lot because Cerebus was created by one guy who wrote and drew the characters, and the other guy drew the backgrounds.
433
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Jimmy: And when I say drew the backgrounds, like the level of craft that he put into these backgrounds was insane.
434
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Jimmy: And they did one whole issue that was just a tracking shot like this, except for the fact that Gerhard put the backgrounds in photorealistically in every panel.
435
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Jimmy: So it really does feel like you're going around like a drone, like you say.
436
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Harold: Wow.
437
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Jimmy: Nothing I would have drawn.
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Harold: I mean, that's setting yourself up for some hard work.
439
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:09,440
Harold: Beautiful backgrounds.
440
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:11,620
Michael: As long as somebody else is doing the hard work.
441
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:13,140
Jimmy: Yeah, right.
442
00:26:13,140 --> 00:26:14,740
Jimmy: That's why you got to get one of those assistants.
443
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:16,020
Jimmy: Yeah, I like the background here.
444
00:26:16,860 --> 00:26:20,180
Jimmy: Grassy kind of area that goes into the lake.
445
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:24,460
Jimmy: That's very kind of unshultsy grass, more textured.
446
00:26:25,220 --> 00:26:25,720
Harold: Looks great.
447
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:35,720
Harold: I like how it has a white outline around their faces so they really pop in front of that, in front of the pylons, I guess, in the dock or whatever they are.
448
00:26:36,220 --> 00:26:36,920
Harold: It's nice.
449
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:39,620
Jimmy: Roy sticking with the Hawaiian shirt.
450
00:26:40,580 --> 00:26:41,040
Harold: Yeah.
451
00:26:41,660 --> 00:26:44,580
Jimmy: You only get one shirt in the Peanuts universe.
452
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:48,580
Harold: He has a dog, a banjo, and a shirt.
453
00:26:48,700 --> 00:26:49,160
Harold: Yeah.
454
00:26:50,020 --> 00:26:51,400
Jimmy: You're the striped kid shirt.
455
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:52,780
Harold: You're the Hawaiian kid shirt.
456
00:26:54,540 --> 00:26:58,160
Jimmy: June 21st, 1966, Roy figures out what's going on.
457
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:02,860
Jimmy: He says, that blanket, because Linus is standing there in classic thumb and blanket position.
458
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:07,020
Jimmy: Roy continues, you're the one that round-headed kid was telling me about.
459
00:27:07,700 --> 00:27:09,580
Jimmy: Boy, you'd better put that blanket away.
460
00:27:09,620 --> 00:27:13,280
Jimmy: If the other kids see it, they'll tease you right out of camp.
461
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:22,680
Jimmy: Then Linus does his classic maneuver, eating the blanket like a whip, a rack, and he actually breaks a branch off a living tree.
462
00:27:22,820 --> 00:27:24,240
Michael: That is so classic.
463
00:27:24,420 --> 00:27:28,900
Jimmy: Then Linus says, they won't tease me more than once.
464
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:35,140
Jimmy: Roy is holding the severed branch, which is like smoking, actually.
465
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:42,700
Harold: I love how, again, he draws for effects.
466
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:51,140
Harold: The smoke is floating not above where the branch was cut off, but to the right of where we see Roy.
467
00:27:51,540 --> 00:27:55,620
Harold: And then the place where it was cut, Roy is examining very closely.
468
00:27:55,620 --> 00:27:56,960
Harold: It's in front of his face.
469
00:27:57,500 --> 00:28:01,460
Harold: And Schulz is absolutely fine with, you know, there's a smoke.
470
00:28:01,460 --> 00:28:05,440
Harold: You have to almost think that it was in the space to his right.
471
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,020
Harold: And then he moved it closer to examine it, but the smoke remains.
472
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:11,060
Liz: Or it continues.
473
00:28:11,120 --> 00:28:12,000
Harold: That's right.
474
00:28:13,100 --> 00:28:18,620
Jimmy: Or it's like an abstract representation of the branch's last breath.
475
00:28:19,220 --> 00:28:19,860
Jimmy: Do you know what I mean?
476
00:28:19,860 --> 00:28:20,680
Jimmy: Like it's like, ugh.
477
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:21,120
Harold: Yeah.
478
00:28:24,540 --> 00:28:25,640
Harold: It just works.
479
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:31,940
Harold: I'm just fascinated looking at these choices Schulz makes that I don't think other artists would make and they're better choices.
480
00:28:33,380 --> 00:28:34,140
Jimmy: It's funny.
481
00:28:34,140 --> 00:28:37,080
Jimmy: I decided, so we were talking weeks ago.
482
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:44,060
Jimmy: I'm like, oh boy, if I did, the character is walking down the street and they're not actually on the street.
483
00:28:44,060 --> 00:28:47,340
Jimmy: They're hovering above the street, which is how Schulz draws it when the character is walking.
484
00:28:47,340 --> 00:28:48,760
Jimmy: I'm like, that wouldn't work at all.
485
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:50,480
Harold: And Harold said, well, maybe it would.
486
00:28:50,580 --> 00:28:55,160
Jimmy: So I tried it because I'm doing this new Amelia Ruehl story for the 25th anniversary.
487
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:56,280
Jimmy: I tried it.
488
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,160
Jimmy: I had a bunch of the characters walking out of school and down the steps.
489
00:29:00,220 --> 00:29:04,380
Jimmy: I don't know if I could do it all the time, but in that one instance, it's like, oh, it's magic.
490
00:29:04,380 --> 00:29:06,320
Jimmy: It's like they're bouncing down the steps.
491
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:11,780
Jimmy: It's not that they're leaving school, it's that they're joyfully bouncing down the steps.
492
00:29:12,220 --> 00:29:12,880
Harold: That's cool.
493
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:13,280
Harold: Yeah.
494
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:18,040
Jimmy: Really, it might be the only time, one of those things that you do it and try it again, it will never work.
495
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:25,740
Harold: I think one of the secrets of it is you're looking head-on, eye-level with them.
496
00:29:25,740 --> 00:29:29,840
Harold: For some reason, that's what you got to do to get away with it.
497
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:31,700
Jimmy: Yeah.
498
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:38,800
Jimmy: So now, Roy has arrived back home and it's now August.
499
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,460
Jimmy: We're looking August 22nd in 1966.
500
00:29:42,300 --> 00:29:53,200
Jimmy: This is where Roy really makes his big impact because we meet his new friend or not his new friend, his old friend, our new friend, Peppermint Patty.
501
00:29:53,540 --> 00:29:54,120
Jimmy: That's what we see.
502
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:58,720
Jimmy: We see Roy sitting there writing a letter at a table probably in his house and Peppermint Patty comes up to him.
503
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,200
Jimmy: First time we've ever seen her and says, Hi, Roy.
504
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:02,380
Jimmy: Who are you writing to?
505
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:07,440
Jimmy: Roy says, I'm writing to a little kid named Linus that I met at camp several weeks ago.
506
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,520
Jimmy: Then Peppermint Patty leans in and says, Is he cute?
507
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:13,820
Jimmy: If he is, tell him you're very good friend.
508
00:30:13,820 --> 00:30:15,600
Jimmy: Peppermint Patty says, Hello.
509
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:23,000
Jimmy: Then she leans on her forearms, holds her head in her hands and says, Tell him what a real swinger I am.
510
00:30:24,220 --> 00:30:30,440
Jimmy: Then she walks away saying, Put in a good word for me, Roy, and the next time we Indian wrestle, I'll try not to clobber you.
511
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:35,520
Jimmy: This is amazing because it's like, here's her personality.
512
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:36,620
Harold: Yeah.
513
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:39,720
Harold: We learned so much in Four Panels.
514
00:30:39,740 --> 00:30:45,100
Jimmy: Yes, and use of unnecessary quotation marks, which is always funny.
515
00:30:47,540 --> 00:30:53,720
Harold: It's only the peppermint of Peppermint Patty that she is finding quotes here.
516
00:30:54,180 --> 00:30:58,240
Harold: Another Patty, why does he do another Patty just because he likes Peppermint Patty?
517
00:30:58,460 --> 00:31:02,300
Michael: Yeah, that breaks out all the rules of chemistry.
518
00:31:02,300 --> 00:31:02,720
Jimmy: Yeah, it does.
519
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:03,160
Harold: Right?
520
00:31:04,700 --> 00:31:11,960
Jimmy: Yeah, and it's because he saw the candy bowl, saw Peppermint Patty and it clicked that that's the name for a character.
521
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,940
Jimmy: He famously said, I knew if I didn't use it, Mort Walker would.
522
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:18,920
Harold: He couldn't have that.
523
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:20,360
Jimmy: Yeah.
524
00:31:22,140 --> 00:31:23,860
Harold: I love Roy without the hat.
525
00:31:24,460 --> 00:31:24,740
Jimmy: Yeah.
526
00:31:24,740 --> 00:31:34,620
Harold: He's got the really curly, chunky hair with the sheen of light on top of it, kind of like what you see in Lucy's hair.
527
00:31:35,900 --> 00:31:48,300
Harold: But in that second panel where Peppermint Patty's just leaning slightly in on him and he's leaning slightly back, like he's intimidated by her strong personality.
528
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:48,720
Jimmy: Yeah.
529
00:31:48,860 --> 00:31:52,680
Jimmy: I mean, it's just by her strong personality because she's smiling.
530
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:57,540
Jimmy: She's leaning and invading his personal space, but she is definitely not threatening to him.
531
00:31:57,540 --> 00:31:58,500
Jimmy: She's just a lot.
532
00:31:58,500 --> 00:31:58,900
Liz: Yes.
533
00:31:59,160 --> 00:31:59,620
Liz: Yes.
534
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:10,180
Harold: Then swinger, that's such an odd term for Schulz to give Peppermint Patty in that first panel, because that's got a lot of connotations, right?
535
00:32:10,180 --> 00:32:10,680
Harold: Even in 66.
536
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:12,640
Michael: No, there's Frank Sinatra in 1966.
537
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:14,680
Michael: Well, yeah, it's a little.
538
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:19,560
Liz: But also the Polaroid Swinger probably came out at about that time.
539
00:32:20,580 --> 00:32:30,560
Harold: Yeah, I think there was an Anne Margaret movie that was called The Swinger came out around that time and it would have suggested, yeah, pretty lively stuff.
540
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:38,520
Jimmy: Yeah, there's no way where any version of swinger is like a stay-at-home buddy-duddy.
541
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:40,440
Harold: And certainly not a child.
542
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,480
Harold: A child would not usually call themselves a swinger.
543
00:32:48,060 --> 00:32:50,120
Jimmy: I love that drawing of Peppermint Patty.
544
00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,180
Jimmy: I love all these drawings of Peppermint Patty, but I love the third one.
545
00:32:54,700 --> 00:32:57,140
Jimmy: I don't know, it just feels really real to me.
546
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,000
Jimmy: She feels like a fully fleshed out character immediately.
547
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:08,800
Harold: Yeah, and you just get the idea that she's imagining herself as she's holding her head in her hands.
548
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:16,160
Harold: What version of her she is that she's going to sell to the roundheaded kid.
549
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:17,660
Harold: This is Linus, sorry, she's writing to Linus.
550
00:33:17,660 --> 00:33:18,180
Harold: Yeah, yeah.
551
00:33:18,940 --> 00:33:24,740
Harold: I love that Roy is holding up his paper like, can I fit this in?
552
00:33:24,860 --> 00:33:25,540
Harold: Yeah.
553
00:33:27,220 --> 00:33:30,480
Harold: He's contemplating whether this is a possibility.
554
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,580
Harold: Yeah, am I going to do this or is this a lot to write Peppermint Patty?
555
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,620
Jimmy: Let's try to just speculate wildly based on nothing.
556
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:42,840
Jimmy: Do you think, what's the process?
557
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:48,660
Jimmy: He has Roy, he obviously likes Roy enough to bring him back.
558
00:33:49,300 --> 00:33:53,000
Jimmy: Is the process, this is just a guess, I'm guessing.
559
00:33:53,060 --> 00:33:59,220
Jimmy: We don't have any info, but is the process, I have this character Peppermint Patty, how could I introduce her?
560
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:05,460
Jimmy: Oh, I know, she'll be Roy's friend and that'll explain why she's not in the strip before this.
561
00:34:06,140 --> 00:34:11,520
Jimmy: Or is he like, let's bring Roy back, and then this just happens.
562
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:15,260
Michael: I would guess because she does seem pretty developed.
563
00:34:16,260 --> 00:34:23,520
Michael: Dad, he just started playing around in the sketchbooks, and he went like, yeah, I like this girl character a lot.
564
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:28,560
Michael: Maybe because all the other girls, maybe not Sally, but are basically are evil.
565
00:34:29,700 --> 00:34:30,400
Harold: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
566
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:33,060
Harold: Well, I like the idea.
567
00:34:33,060 --> 00:34:41,260
Harold: Now, of course, Schulz probably didn't have any idea whatsoever that Peppermint Patty would become such a major part of the strip.
568
00:34:41,260 --> 00:34:47,960
Harold: I mean, the fact that it is another Patty almost suggests that that dilemma isn't even a thing.
569
00:34:48,220 --> 00:34:52,780
Harold: She lives in another neighborhood, and she's just a fun character that he thought up.
570
00:34:52,780 --> 00:35:03,420
Harold: It seems like maybe jumped out whole cloth to him, and he's like, wow, what a fun character, but maybe a little too overpowering or a little different than what Peanuts has been up till now.
571
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:17,200
Harold: So what safer way to do it than, well, he's setting up the idea that she's an outsider, and then that remains the rest of the strip.
572
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,460
Harold: She's popping in and out of the neighborhood.
573
00:35:21,500 --> 00:35:25,740
Harold: I guess, how do you guys feel about Peppermint Patty toward the end?
574
00:35:25,740 --> 00:35:36,800
Harold: Does she seem like she's another neighborhood, or does she seem to be really just part of their world, even if she's walking a couple streets over to say hi?
575
00:35:37,700 --> 00:35:43,340
Jimmy: I don't think the general readership thinks about her as living in a different neighborhood.
576
00:35:43,420 --> 00:35:52,320
Jimmy: But I think, for me personally, because I'm so familiar with the strip at this point, she has to be in another neighborhood.
577
00:35:52,440 --> 00:36:02,120
Jimmy: Because for me, it keeps, even if it's not acknowledged in later years or whatever, it keeps the integrity of the original neighborhood completely intact.
578
00:36:03,020 --> 00:36:07,640
Jimmy: Because the Peppermint Patty, like I said this before, it's like it's happening in another strip sometimes.
579
00:36:09,340 --> 00:36:21,940
Jimmy: I think it would, whether you wanted it or not, if she moved into Charlie Brown's neighborhood, if just by her force of personality becomes the Peppermint Patty strip and that would be bad.
580
00:36:21,940 --> 00:36:27,940
Harold: Going back to Roy, he design-wise is a really interesting character.
581
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:30,740
Harold: He just looks really good in the strip.
582
00:36:32,020 --> 00:36:35,960
Harold: I do get the feeling, I don't know when Roy comes and goes.
583
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:36,520
Harold: I don't know.
584
00:36:36,860 --> 00:36:37,980
Harold: There was not a whole lot of them.
585
00:36:37,980 --> 00:36:49,940
Harold: The fact that he's attached to Peppermint Patty, who becomes a huge character in the strip, gives me the thought that he very well could have been an ongoing character.
586
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:56,660
Harold: Just like Marcy comes into that world, he's not as far away as anyone else.
587
00:36:56,660 --> 00:36:57,880
Harold: He could have been there.
588
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:15,900
Harold: I do get that vibe though that by five years later anyway, Franklin takes on that role of the level-headed friend who if they want to go to the thinking wall and talk about granddads or whatever.
589
00:37:16,540 --> 00:37:17,840
Harold: Franklin's close enough.
590
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:32,660
Harold: He's certainly unique, but it seems like he fits that key on the keyboard for Schulz to the point where unless he had played with Roy and given him some quirks and traits that we never really get to see.
591
00:37:32,720 --> 00:37:35,540
Harold: What's the quirkiest thing we ever learn about Roy?
592
00:37:35,540 --> 00:37:39,360
Harold: Is it just that he happened to be sad about going to camp?
593
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:45,360
Jimmy: I think the quirkiest thing is that tomorrow, he will still be wearing his camp sailor hat at home.
594
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:48,980
Harold: That's really interesting.
595
00:37:48,980 --> 00:37:49,400
Harold: Yeah.
596
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:50,580
Harold: He likes the look there.
597
00:37:50,580 --> 00:37:55,120
Harold: I do like the look of the curls popping out from under the white hat.
598
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:56,420
Harold: I love the curls.
599
00:37:58,580 --> 00:38:06,780
Jimmy: I drew a character in Seven Good Reasons Not to Grow Up that has black curly hair, and I can't get that with the white highlight.
600
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:11,740
Jimmy: Mine just looks unfinished and sloppy, but I saw I didn't do it.
601
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:14,780
Jimmy: But I wish I could have because I think that looks really good.
602
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:24,120
Harold: Well, it's interesting to look at the black outlines when there's so much white around it that they make sense on their own.
603
00:38:24,140 --> 00:38:29,940
Harold: If you take away the white outline, his hair would look pretty fine, right?
604
00:38:29,940 --> 00:38:30,300
Jimmy: Yeah.
605
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:43,020
Harold: And then he goes crazy on the outside with this extra loopy outline of white, which if you took away the black, also would work.
606
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:50,840
Harold: I think that's maybe the secret to it, is that they work individually as well as a unit.
607
00:38:50,900 --> 00:38:51,580
Jimmy: I think you're right.
608
00:38:51,580 --> 00:38:52,380
Jimmy: That's interesting.
609
00:38:52,420 --> 00:38:55,160
Jimmy: And it gives it that backlit effect, you know?
610
00:38:55,240 --> 00:38:56,380
Harold: Very much so, yeah.
611
00:38:57,120 --> 00:38:57,840
Harold: Real nice.
612
00:38:59,820 --> 00:39:01,180
Jimmy: August 23rd.
613
00:39:01,220 --> 00:39:03,120
Jimmy: So Peppermint Patty is just hanging out with Roy.
614
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:09,200
Jimmy: Now they're sitting in the chair talking and Patty says, You say you met this Linus kid at camp?
615
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:10,620
Jimmy: And Roy says, Yes.
616
00:39:10,620 --> 00:39:13,260
Jimmy: And the year before, I met a friend of his named Charlie Brown.
617
00:39:13,820 --> 00:39:21,240
Jimmy: Roy continues, He was a strange roundheaded kid who never talked about anything except baseball and this awful team of his that always loses.
618
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:27,780
Jimmy: Now they're up and Peppermint Patty is pushing Roy towards the phone and she says, I love baseball.
619
00:39:27,860 --> 00:39:29,160
Jimmy: Get on the phone quick.
620
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,200
Jimmy: Tell them your friend Peppermint Patty has volunteered to help.
621
00:39:32,780 --> 00:39:34,740
Jimmy: She's already into it, taking over the strip.
622
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,680
Jimmy: In the last panel, she says, I really love baseball.
623
00:39:37,700 --> 00:39:40,700
Jimmy: I'll take over this kid's team and show them how to win.
624
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,800
Michael: Well, that's like a cliffhanger there.
625
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:48,960
Michael: First of all, why would Roy have Charlie Brown's phone number?
626
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:53,320
Jimmy: Maybe put it on the letter to make Charlie Brown send them a letter.
627
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:54,700
Harold: Yeah.
628
00:39:55,420 --> 00:39:57,400
Harold: If you think about it, it's sweet.
629
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:59,380
Harold: Charlie Brown wants to continue the relationship.
630
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:02,820
Harold: He's writing with Linus, interestingly.
631
00:40:02,820 --> 00:40:09,980
Harold: Of course, he was the most recent one he met, but we don't know that Charlie Brown and Roy ever met because he couldn't remember his name.
632
00:40:12,140 --> 00:40:13,800
Harold: Now, he remembers his name.
633
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:14,720
Harold: That's interesting.
634
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:16,860
Harold: I guess Linus is drawing it into him.
635
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:18,140
Michael: He's not looking at it up.
636
00:40:18,140 --> 00:40:19,420
Michael: He just goes right and dials.
637
00:40:19,420 --> 00:40:19,800
Harold: Yeah.
638
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:21,640
Harold: Maybe he's got one of those really memorable.
639
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:22,660
Michael: That's the first trait.
640
00:40:22,660 --> 00:40:26,160
Michael: That's the first Roy-mometer.
641
00:40:26,180 --> 00:40:28,740
Michael: He's got an amazing memory for phone numbers.
642
00:40:28,740 --> 00:40:34,200
Harold: They're in the same area code, so maybe Charlie Brown's phone number spells welcome.
643
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:48,340
Jimmy: Well, look, at the risk of talking about one of the things we talk about too much, there's a great moment in the Dick Van Dyke show where he hears a song that he wrote in the Army on the radio, and he's outreached, so he goes over to call the radio station.
644
00:40:48,340 --> 00:40:52,420
Jimmy: But the actor, Dick Van Dyke, forgets that he's supposed to look it up in the phone book.
645
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:56,020
Jimmy: So he just goes over, picks up the phone, and dials a bunch of numbers.
646
00:40:56,020 --> 00:41:01,420
Jimmy: Then as he's standing there, he opens up the phone book to a random page and looks at it and goes, right.
647
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:06,340
Harold: Oh, that's great.
648
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:13,140
Jimmy: The look on his face, he just barely stays in character because the audience goes nuts because they know what's happening.
649
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:13,860
Harold: Really fun.
650
00:41:13,860 --> 00:41:15,600
Jimmy: I have to find it for it's so good.
651
00:41:18,540 --> 00:41:20,320
Harold: They'd seen a couple takes already, I guess.
652
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:21,600
Jimmy: Yeah, exactly.
653
00:41:22,720 --> 00:41:23,360
Harold: That's great.
654
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:24,240
Harold: It's so fun to go to.
655
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,920
Harold: Have you guys ever been to a live taping of a comedy show or anything?
656
00:41:28,140 --> 00:41:36,120
Jimmy: Not a sitcom, but the three of us went, along with Karen Gownley, went to Colbert years ago, but that was the one we went to Colbert before.
657
00:41:36,980 --> 00:41:37,960
Harold: Yeah, that's fun.
658
00:41:39,820 --> 00:41:42,620
Jimmy: August 24th, 1966.
659
00:41:42,780 --> 00:41:44,460
Jimmy: Charlie Brown receives a call from Roy.
660
00:41:44,460 --> 00:41:45,980
Jimmy: He says, Hello, Roy.
661
00:41:46,220 --> 00:41:47,480
Jimmy: Well, what a surprise.
662
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:48,360
Jimmy: How have you been?
663
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:50,000
Jimmy: Roy just goes right to it.
664
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:54,860
Jimmy: Charlie Brown, he's given Peppermint Patty the side-eye, by the way, while he's saying this to Charlie Brown.
665
00:41:54,860 --> 00:41:58,340
Jimmy: It's almost like he's a hostage and is doing this again to Roy.
666
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:02,560
Jimmy: Roy goes, Charlie Brown, I have a friend here who wants to meet you.
667
00:42:02,620 --> 00:42:04,960
Jimmy: She loves baseball and wants to play on your team.
668
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:06,540
Jimmy: Her name is Peppermint Patty.
669
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:09,860
Jimmy: Patty grabs the phone and just goes, Hi, Chuck.
670
00:42:10,220 --> 00:42:13,500
Jimmy: To which Charlie Brown responds, Chuck.
671
00:42:13,580 --> 00:42:16,640
Jimmy: He has his tongue out like it's literally disgusted him.
672
00:42:20,380 --> 00:42:21,500
Harold: Oh, man.
673
00:42:21,740 --> 00:42:29,380
Harold: Look at that little smile on Peppermint Patty in the second panel and then that gigantic, gigantic grin in the third panel.
674
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:31,040
Jimmy: He's a master of expression.
675
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:32,280
Harold: She's just full blown.
676
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:33,100
Harold: Yeah.
677
00:42:33,620 --> 00:42:35,100
Harold: This is a great looking strip.
678
00:42:35,100 --> 00:42:35,480
Harold: Yeah.
679
00:42:36,240 --> 00:42:40,980
Harold: All the characters really look good and the expressions are great.
680
00:42:43,140 --> 00:43:05,000
Harold: Even from 65 to 66 when we jumped from the camp scenes with Charlie Brown to the camp scenes with Linus in here, now at the end of the summer in 66, it just seems like his art style is loosening as quickly and Peppermint Patty is the perfect match for a loose art style.
681
00:43:05,500 --> 00:43:06,600
Michael: Oh, absolutely.
682
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:14,440
Jimmy: Now, this little black blobby thing that Charlie Brown has on a pedestal up to his ear, that is what the telephone used to be.
683
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:15,960
Harold: What do you know about that?
684
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:19,820
Jimmy: You couldn't even take video on it or be outraged at the government.
685
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:23,680
Liz: But you could slam it pretty well.
686
00:43:24,860 --> 00:43:26,660
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, I guess that.
687
00:43:27,460 --> 00:43:28,020
Harold: Yes.
688
00:43:28,140 --> 00:43:32,200
Harold: You could also double it as like a fidget spinner because it was a rotary dial.
689
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:45,440
Harold: I don't know if some of our younger listeners have ever had the joy of sticking your finger into this disk and turning it to the end where it had a little finger sized stop and then letting it go and hearing going.
690
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:48,440
Harold: So nice.
691
00:43:48,620 --> 00:43:54,520
Jimmy: So I grew up in a very, very small company, like a coal mining house in Pennsylvania.
692
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:55,920
Jimmy: So there was not a lot of room.
693
00:43:55,920 --> 00:44:03,920
Jimmy: So my idea of having privacy on the phone was, I would take the phone off the wall and then go into the laundry.
694
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:13,220
Jimmy: It's basically a closet where we had our laundry in and I would sit on top of the laundry and the washer and close the door as if this was privacy.
695
00:44:13,820 --> 00:44:18,320
Jimmy: But I also would leave the door open a little bit so I could spin the cord.
696
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:19,700
Jimmy: Now if you get one of those coiled cords.
697
00:44:19,700 --> 00:44:20,660
Jimmy: Like a jump rope.
698
00:44:20,660 --> 00:44:21,980
Harold: Oh yeah, those things.
699
00:44:22,020 --> 00:44:22,440
Jimmy: Yeah.
700
00:44:23,380 --> 00:44:24,140
Jimmy: I remember one.
701
00:44:24,140 --> 00:44:25,860
Harold: Another joy of having a phone.
702
00:44:25,860 --> 00:44:26,200
Harold: Yeah.
703
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:27,860
Harold: I think of all these things we've lost.
704
00:44:27,860 --> 00:44:28,360
Jimmy: Oh, totally.
705
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:35,320
Jimmy: I was talking to a lovely young lady in high school on the phone, and I hear this knock on the door and I open it up.
706
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:39,920
Jimmy: I'm spinning the crap out of this cord and my dad just goes, Hi, Jimmy.
707
00:44:40,020 --> 00:44:40,640
Harold: Hi, Dad.
708
00:44:41,100 --> 00:44:42,120
Jimmy: I'm going to murder you.
709
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:43,360
Jimmy: They're like, oh.
710
00:44:49,860 --> 00:44:55,760
Liz: They also didn't make any noise when you press the, I mean, because you're not pressing buttons.
711
00:44:55,760 --> 00:45:00,720
Liz: All you get is that, you don't hear that beep, beep, beep.
712
00:45:00,720 --> 00:45:01,140
Jimmy: Yeah.
713
00:45:02,020 --> 00:45:02,700
Harold: Right.
714
00:45:02,740 --> 00:45:08,980
Harold: Because the phone line, the system was listening to how many clicks there were to know what number you dialed.
715
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:19,320
Harold: Has anybody thought of creating a device for your cell phone to plug in with this twisty cord that would go into some physical thing?
716
00:45:20,860 --> 00:45:21,340
Harold: Yeah.
717
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:23,480
Jimmy: Why not?
718
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:24,480
Jimmy: The twisty cord.
719
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:25,040
Harold: Bluetooth.
720
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:26,260
Jimmy: Is very satisfying.
721
00:45:28,300 --> 00:45:30,100
Harold: Well, so Roy, back to Roy.
722
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:39,120
Harold: This poor guy is about to be muscled out of the strip after just barely getting to get a little finger hold.
723
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,100
Harold: Peppermint Patty is not going to be denied here.
724
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:44,100
Harold: He served his purpose, it looks like.
725
00:45:44,100 --> 00:45:48,000
Liz: Maybe he's happy to pass her off to somebody else.
726
00:45:48,060 --> 00:45:49,580
Liz: Maybe she's a little too much.
727
00:45:49,580 --> 00:45:50,580
Harold: Oh, that's true.
728
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:53,640
Harold: Yeah, Roy might have had a full life.
729
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:58,100
Harold: He's probably hanging out with Marcy on the off days.
730
00:45:58,100 --> 00:45:58,520
Jimmy: Yeah.
731
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,080
Jimmy: She makes everyone call her Peppermint.
732
00:46:04,300 --> 00:46:04,580
Jimmy: Hi.
733
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:08,300
Jimmy: August 25th, 1966.
734
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:09,800
Jimmy: This continues.
735
00:46:10,380 --> 00:46:16,400
Jimmy: Roy, his entire job in this panel, it's just to give Peppermint Patty the side eye.
736
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:21,440
Jimmy: As Peppermint Patty continues, now listen Chuck, I'm going to solve your baseball problems.
737
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,980
Jimmy: You need a take charge guy, don't you Chuck?
738
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:29,040
Jimmy: Coach Charlie Brown says, Chuck, I'm heading across town right now, so you get your team together.
739
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:31,180
Jimmy: Tell them Peppermint Patty is on her way.
740
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:32,500
Jimmy: So long, Chuck.
741
00:46:32,900 --> 00:46:35,740
Jimmy: Coach Charlie Brown responds, hanging up the phone, Chuck.
742
00:46:36,860 --> 00:46:38,600
Jimmy: Yeah, he got muscled out.
743
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:39,980
Jimmy: That was amazing.
744
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:44,860
Harold: So how much more Roy do we get to see after this?
745
00:46:45,700 --> 00:46:47,000
Jimmy: Fourteen more strips.
746
00:46:47,700 --> 00:46:48,120
Harold: Wow.
747
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:49,800
Harold: That's not a big rhyme.
748
00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:51,140
Harold: Well, it's not a lot, right?
749
00:46:51,140 --> 00:46:52,060
Harold: We know that.
750
00:46:53,420 --> 00:46:53,760
Jimmy: Wow.
751
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:57,420
Jimmy: But how many times do you think Roy has been animated?
752
00:47:00,140 --> 00:47:01,420
Liz: We have listeners who would know.
753
00:47:01,420 --> 00:47:04,180
Jimmy: This goes all the way up to Summer Musical.
754
00:47:05,620 --> 00:47:06,980
Harold: So you're in love, Charlie Brown.
755
00:47:06,980 --> 00:47:07,520
Harold: He's in that.
756
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:08,640
Harold: We know that.
757
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:13,360
Harold: My listeners will know how many times Roy gets to be in the world.
758
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,320
Jimmy: According to this, you're in love, Charlie Brown is not listed.
759
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:21,760
Harold: Oh, I'm literally looking on the wiki and it says this strip in the.
760
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:23,460
Harold: What?
761
00:47:23,460 --> 00:47:24,920
Harold: Here's what I see on the wiki.
762
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:25,460
Harold: Okay.
763
00:47:25,460 --> 00:47:27,120
Jimmy: He's your dog, Charlie Brown.
764
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:30,360
Jimmy: It was a short summer, Charlie Brown.
765
00:47:30,500 --> 00:47:32,140
Jimmy: I don't remember seeing either of those.
766
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:33,520
Jimmy: Snoopy come home.
767
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:35,340
Jimmy: He's silent in most of these.
768
00:47:35,580 --> 00:47:37,340
Jimmy: You're a good sport, Charlie Brown.
769
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:39,040
Jimmy: Race for your life, Charlie Brown.
770
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:40,840
Jimmy: Is this goodbye, Charlie Brown?
771
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:43,720
Jimmy: Now, he has been silent in all of these except one.
772
00:47:44,720 --> 00:47:47,880
Jimmy: Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show Season 2, also silent.
773
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:50,480
Jimmy: He's a bully, Charlie Brown, 2006.
774
00:47:51,180 --> 00:47:57,100
Jimmy: Snoopy presents It's the Small Things, Charlie Brown, Lucy's School, and Snoopy presents A Summer Musical.
775
00:47:57,180 --> 00:47:59,280
Jimmy: Yeah, so according to that, it's 11.
776
00:47:59,280 --> 00:47:59,760
Harold: Okay.
777
00:48:00,020 --> 00:48:12,460
Harold: Well, maybe this is even more sad because it does say in the Wiki that the last two strips you just read are adapted in You're in Love, Charlie Brown, and he was written out of his own strips.
778
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:15,160
Harold: If that's true.
779
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:18,040
Jimmy: It's unbelievable.
780
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:21,140
Harold: If that's true, our listeners will know.
781
00:48:21,140 --> 00:48:30,080
Harold: I know we've got some real peanut special experts, so they can let us know the extent of Roy's voice acting anyway.
782
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,200
Harold: Boy, that's interesting.
783
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:35,160
Harold: Poor Roy.
784
00:48:36,540 --> 00:48:37,760
Harold: But I do like Roy.
785
00:48:37,860 --> 00:48:38,700
Michael: Poor Roy.
786
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:40,340
Harold: Poor Roy.
787
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:47,940
Jimmy: Well, it goes to show you though, that anytime you're working on something, you have no idea really where it's going to take you.
788
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:56,120
Jimmy: I do not think he ever meant for Roy to be the bridge to an entire another aspect of the strip, but it's very, very cool.
789
00:48:57,580 --> 00:48:59,320
Jimmy: This is completely unrelated.
790
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:01,240
Jimmy: But I want to wrap.
791
00:49:01,240 --> 00:49:03,840
Jimmy: So I was looking up Roy Things Online for this.
792
00:49:04,340 --> 00:49:11,540
Jimmy: One of the things I came across was actually a model sheet for the Bill Melendez production studios.
793
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:17,060
Jimmy: What it is, is it shows the relative heights of all the characters and animation.
794
00:49:17,240 --> 00:49:26,400
Jimmy: Now, each of you give a guess who, I'll tell you right now, Roy is closer to the short end, is slightly above five and pig pen.
795
00:49:26,940 --> 00:49:31,340
Jimmy: Who, though, is the tallest character in Peanuts?
796
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:33,060
Harold: I would guess Shermie.
797
00:49:34,020 --> 00:49:35,380
Jimmy: Michael, you have a guess?
798
00:49:36,260 --> 00:49:41,520
Michael: Snoopy, when he's dancing with his head up.
799
00:49:43,620 --> 00:49:45,880
Jimmy: Shermie, two Shermies and a Snoopy.
800
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:48,340
Jimmy: No, Shermie is the third tallest.
801
00:49:49,300 --> 00:49:54,900
Jimmy: The tallest, according to the Bill Melendez character sheet, is Patty.
802
00:49:55,100 --> 00:49:56,740
Michael: With the ponytail count.
803
00:49:56,820 --> 00:49:57,360
Harold: Wow.
804
00:49:58,500 --> 00:49:59,800
Michael: Oh, Patty.
805
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,940
Jimmy: Ponytail violet is almost as tall as Patty, yes.
806
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:04,960
Harold: Is she second?
807
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:05,780
Jimmy: She is.
808
00:50:05,780 --> 00:50:07,200
Jimmy: Then Shermie and Charlie Brown.
809
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,860
Michael: Girls are taller than boys at that age, generally.
810
00:50:10,860 --> 00:50:12,520
Liz: At that age, yeah, definitely.
811
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:13,600
Jimmy: Yeah.
812
00:50:14,500 --> 00:50:19,520
Harold: They are the older kid bully characters, as far as Melendez is concerned.
813
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:21,580
Harold: When would this have existed, do you think?
814
00:50:21,580 --> 00:50:24,260
Harold: When would this model sheet have been made?
815
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:25,320
Harold: This was written.
816
00:50:25,720 --> 00:50:26,280
Harold: Okay.
817
00:50:26,620 --> 00:50:28,100
Harold: That's really interesting.
818
00:50:28,380 --> 00:50:34,980
Harold: They are considered older kids by the end of their major run in this strip.
819
00:50:34,980 --> 00:50:43,880
Jimmy: Then there are actual little, it's actually very interesting because there's little notes that says when Lucy is with Charlie Brown, she can be more noticeably smaller.
820
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:48,640
Jimmy: When Linus is with Lucy, he can be more noticeably shorter.
821
00:50:49,580 --> 00:50:52,560
Jimmy: They'll actually adjust it depending on who they're in frame with.
822
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,560
Liz: But that's only true in the animation or is it also-
823
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:58,720
Jimmy: Yeah, this is for the, I mean, as far as I know.
824
00:50:58,860 --> 00:51:00,220
Jimmy: I don't know if it's Schulz.
825
00:51:00,220 --> 00:51:05,000
Harold: But I think it, Liz, is because that is what Schulz did.
826
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:19,820
Harold: I love that Melendez was the kind of animator who would be willing to throw out a rule that some animators would not allow themselves to do because those model sheets are the consistency.
827
00:51:19,900 --> 00:51:39,620
Harold: Since Schulz broke the consistency in so many different ways of how he drew these characters, creating all sorts of insane problems for Melendez, he does do an amazing job of just keeping the strip, the flat strip that it was and whatever those ineffable things are.
828
00:51:40,140 --> 00:51:43,200
Harold: If you change it, you don't know what you're losing.
829
00:51:43,780 --> 00:51:50,100
Harold: He just leans into Schulz's eccentricities and just tries to teach them to his animators and say, yeah, I know.
830
00:51:50,500 --> 00:51:50,960
Jimmy: Right.
831
00:51:51,420 --> 00:51:52,040
Harold: I'm sure.
832
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:56,880
Jimmy: I love that they included Roy in the lineup of characters.
833
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,780
Jimmy: They thought, he's 68, Roy could be making a comeback anytime here.
834
00:52:02,240 --> 00:52:03,700
Jimmy: We could be making a comeback too.
835
00:52:03,700 --> 00:52:05,420
Jimmy: As a matter of fact, we will in two weeks.
836
00:52:05,420 --> 00:52:18,560
Jimmy: We will be back where we're going to wrap it up actually on the sidekicks and second bananas season with possibly the quintessential, the goat of sidekicks and second bananas.
837
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:19,500
Jimmy: That's right.
838
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,140
Jimmy: We've heard your cries.
839
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:25,740
Jimmy: You wanted a Shermie episode, you're getting an all Shermie episode.
840
00:52:27,300 --> 00:52:28,320
Jimmy: Come back for that.
841
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:32,680
Jimmy: In the meantime, if you want to keep this conversation going, there's a couple of different ways you can do it.
842
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:39,420
Jimmy: First thing you got to do is you got to go over to unpackingpeanuts.com and sign up for the old great peanuts reread.
843
00:52:39,620 --> 00:52:46,180
Jimmy: That'll give you one email a month that will let you know what shenanigans we're up to on the podcast, what strips we're going to be covering.
844
00:52:46,720 --> 00:52:58,880
Jimmy: You can also email us at unpackingpeanuts at gmail.com, or you can call our hotline, which is 717-219-4162, leave a message or a voicemail.
845
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,720
Jimmy: If you do leave a voicemail, make sure you identify yourself.
846
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:14,140
Jimmy: Of course, as always, on good old social media, we are at Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and Threads, and at Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
847
00:53:15,020 --> 00:53:16,200
Jimmy: That's it for this week.
848
00:53:16,660 --> 00:53:18,220
Jimmy: It's always fun hanging out with you guys.
849
00:53:18,220 --> 00:53:22,440
Jimmy: Come back soon and we'll talk more about this great comic strip from Michael, Harold, and Liz.
850
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:24,720
Jimmy: This is Jimmy saying, be of good cheer.
851
00:53:25,300 --> 00:53:25,840
Michael: Yes.
852
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:26,760
Liz: Yes.
853
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:28,140
Liz: Be of good cheer.
854
00:53:28,380 --> 00:53:34,580
Liz: Unpacking Peanuts is copyrighted by Jimmy Gownley, Michael Cohen, Harold Buchholz, and Liz Sumner.
855
00:53:34,960 --> 00:53:37,040
Liz: Produced and edited by Liz Sumner.
856
00:53:37,500 --> 00:53:38,980
Liz: Music by Michael Cohen.
857
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:42,360
Liz: Additional voiceover by Aziza Shukralla Clark.
858
00:53:42,620 --> 00:53:46,860
Liz: For more from the show, follow Unpack Peanuts on Instagram and threads.
859
00:53:47,140 --> 00:53:50,700
Liz: Unpacking Peanuts on Facebook, Blue Sky, and YouTube.
860
00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:55,480
Liz: For more about Jimmy, Michael, and Harold, visit unpackingpeanuts.com.
861
00:53:55,660 --> 00:53:58,300
Liz: Have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.
862
00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:00,640
Jimmy: They won't tease me more than once.