You Know It for the Name He Didn’t Want
On October 2, 1950, a four-panel comic strip appeared in seven newspapers. It featured kids whose names most Americans immediately recognize - Charlie Brown, Patty, and Shermy. There wasn’t a beagle named Snoopy, yet. Across the top of the panel was a name that the cartoon’s creator would spend nearly 50 years making famous, while wishing it had been called almost anything else. Yes, Peanuts.
Today’s Trivia Question
Charles Schulz had named his cartoon “Li’l Folks,” but it couldn’t keep the title. Why not?
(pick one to reveal the answer)
Bonus if you know what Schulz would have preferred instead of Peanuts.
| A Few More for Fun… |
Schulz never really warmed to the name of his world-famous comic strip. Even as the comic became home to beloved characters, he insisted for decades that it should have a different title.
What was Schulz’s biggest objection to the title?
(pick one to reveal the answer)
| A Few More Trivia Questions Before You Go… |
Once Peanuts had a name, it did not remain confined to just a few comic pages for long. Eventually, Snoopy and the gang made their way into space and even everyday language.
History
The Apollo 10 mission in 1969 featured a spacecraft with a call sign of “Snoopy.” What was the craft?
(pick one to reveal the answer)
Language
A few choice words are common in the daily vocabulary of the kids that make up the Peanuts cast. Lucy is particularly well-known for her use of the term blockhead to describe good old Charlie Brown. What era does the term come from?
(pick one to reveal the answer)
Answers
| TODAY’S QUESTIONAnswer: A. Another comic had a similar title. Schulz had already been publishing Li’l Folks locally, but United Feature Syndicate worried that the title was a bit too close for comfort to another comic called Little Folks by Tack Knight. So, they gave it a new name, but Schulz didn’t get to make the choice. It was the syndicate that chose Peanuts after picking it from a list of possible renames. Schulz would later claim that the person who chose it had not even looked at the comics first. Bonus points if you knew Schulz had argued in favor of Good Ol’ Charlie Brown. He had also said Charlie Brown would work, but instead he got Peanuts. | |
| 01 | Answer: A. He felt it made the strip sound insignificant. The term “peanuts” was used as slang for a very small amount. Schulz worried that the name didn’t have the dignity his work deserved, and it didn’t really describe the characters or strip very well. Years after it had become a household name, he still complained about it. The title may have been very small, but its origins were even smaller. |
| 02 | Answer: C. $90. Appearing Monday through Saturday in seven newspapers, it eventually grew, just a bit. By the time of his retirement, Schulz would see his cartoon strip appear in roughly 2,600 newspapers around the globe. That $90 had a decent ROI after five decades, even if the cast didn’t appear all at once. |
| 03 | Answer: C. Snoopy. On October 4, 1950, Snoopy first stepped onto the funny pages. Looking more like an ordinary dog walking on all four legs (and without any flying ace fantasies just yet), he would eventually become the bipedal walker we know and love today. |
| 04 | Answer: B. The lunar module. Snoopy was already associated with NASA’s flight-safety program when the agency named its lunar module Snoopy, and its command module Charlie Brown. Less than 20 years after first appearing, Snoopy and Charlie Brown were already circling the moon! |
| 05 | Answer: A. 1500s. Lucy’s insult might be said to allude to the wooden form used by hat-makers of the 1500s. The word blockhead was used in the 1540s to describe a foolish person. So, Lucy’s favorite insult predates Peanuts by centuries. Given Charlie Brown’s famously bald head, though, blockhead may be an insult he was born to wear! |
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How did you do?
Score 1 point for each correct answer and 1 point for the bonus if you knew it. Perfect score: 7.
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