CULT HERO: Although his friends called him "blockhead" and "wishy-washy", Charlie Brown was concerned with what life really means. He was the butt of jokes and not slow to put himself down, writes Brian Maye
A thoughtful, polite boy, we loved him because we knew he would never fulfil his aspirations, never win the baseball game or the heart of the little red-haired girl; we also knew he would never manage to kick the football the malicious Lucy was holding or fly a kite successfully. But he never gave up and we admired his determination to triumph over adversity.
Charlie Brown walked with his head down, hands in pockets as he headed for the psychiatric booth of Lucy von Pelt, who was the bane of his life. She was the first to dub him "blockhead" and she did everything to undermine his confidence. He was a born loser who won your heart; it always rained on his parade. A chronic worrier, he met every setback in his life - and there were many - with a resigned "good grief!".
He could be easily identified by his trademark yellow jumper with the black zigzag band around the middle, which he wore for the first time about two months after the Peanuts comic strip began. In the very first Peanuts (October 2nd, 1950), he was called Good Ol' Charlie Brown, a tag that would become known around the world over the next half-century.
Charlie Brown was the "hero" of Peanuts, created by Charles Monroe Schultz (1922-2000) from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The United Features Syndicate bought Schultz's Li'l Folks cartoons and began distributing them under the title Peanuts in 1950. Schultz devoted the rest of his life to the comic strip. He is said to have based Charlie Brown's character on his own childhood. He had had trouble with his studies because he missed two years of schooling, did poorly in sports at high school and was too shy to ask a girl for a date. His school yearbook even rejected the cartoons he submitted.
C.M. Schultz died in February, 2000. There will be no more Peanuts cartoons because under the terms of his contract, no other artist could take on the strip after his death. It had lasted almost half a century and was one of the most successful comic strips in history.
The appeal of Peanuts is down to its characters, much like the appeal, later, of The Simpsons. Everyman, in all his foibles and stripped of adult pretensions, as seen through the eyes of children.