The Holiday Seasonings

[Darth Fluffy 302]

My favorite oldies station is playing Christmas music constantly this month. On the plus side, there are so many songs, they don't often repeat.

Kid, I hope you get your damn hippopotamus; they are nasty beasts and it will probably kill you.

Other kid, you missed out. Santa and mommy got busy in the bedroom later. That would have been quite the premature education.

If Santa is 'coming down the chimney, down', does that mean head first?

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Traffic was horrible today. 'Tis the season.

[mlooney 3,417]

I've already made my Christmas plans.  Gonna have pork chops with mushroom gravy over rice and veg out with out feeling guilty about vegging out,

[Darth Fluffy 302]

I have a Christmas party to attend tomorrow, no family plans yet.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

For your enemies list, remember, drums are always an appropriate gift for their kids. (A harmonica would be a good stocking stuffer.)

GoComics has two Peanuts comics; Peanuts, and Peanuts-Begins. Peanuts has the original strips, and Peanuts-Begins is adding color to them. I have barely scratched the surface, but I believe Peanuts has all of the strips; Peanuts-Begins appears to be a work in progress, which is appropriate, there are fifty years worth of comics.

In the very first strips, 1950, Shermy and Patty are the two main characters, Charlie Brown is a third, younger child (stated to be four years old), and Snoopy appears to be a puppy. Charlie Brown is not yet the grief magnet his is in later comics. Other random children are used, rarely, as when Patty socks one, but so far (November 1950), no other characters have appeared.

Schultz's prior comic was a local, Li'l Folks, Peanuts was the name used when his comic was syndicated. I've never seen Li'l Folks until just now, but through the magic of the InterTubes, you can find them. Or don't bother. The best gags are reused in Peanuts, the kids are all random, it seems, and he's still working out the kinks.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Also noted in early Peanuts strips:

Ownership of Snoopy appears to swap around per convenience of the day's gag.

Charlie Brown does not wear his distinctive shirt with the wavy stripe.

Snoopy does not speak in his thoughts yet. I think that gradually evolved. In these early strips, you have to infer his doggy intent, and it is not yet unrealistic.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

December 21, 1950, he has the shirt. So, his folks shop at the 'yellow shirts with wavy lines' store? He's drawn (not much) larger and older as time progresses, so I assume he has multiple shirts. Is this like Beethoven's bust, where Schroeder has a closet fill of replacements?

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

The thing I always looked forward to as a child was the "new" LP that would be released in the grocery store containing about twenty tracks roughly split between;

Studio orchestras playing traditional carols

20+ year old recordings of old singers performing Christmas songs everybody already knew

Recent recordings of "celebrities" performing Christmas songs nobody cared about

 . . . . 

Not being sarcastic here.

I enjoyed stacking up about twenty of these records on my parent's credenza style record player and listening to this rehashed Christmas audio wallpaper for hours at a time.

 

 

I was an odd kid

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Channelling W.C. Fields

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Calvin's dad, excited for Christmas

[Darth Fluffy 302]

23 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

In the very first strips, 1950, Shermy and Patty are the two main characters, Charlie Brown is a third, younger child (stated to be four years old), and Snoopy appears to be a puppy. Charlie Brown is not yet the grief magnet his is in later comics. Other random children are used, rarely, as when Patty socks one, but so far (November 1950), no other characters have appeared.

Approximately one year in, Violet is introduced as a fifth character.

 

23 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Ownership of Snoopy appears to swap around per convenience of the day's gag.

Per this early 1951 comic, Snoopy appears at the time to be owned by none of the kids (if it was Shermy, Charlie Brown would have known where he lives) but also is not a stray. But I think it still boils down to Charles Schultz not being particularly concerned about consistency about who owns Snoopy at this point in the comic. It does not seem to become important until there are jokes about feeding him.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Interesting chronological artifact, this early 1951 comic refers to 'radio programs', as TVs were not yet ubiquitous.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Snoopy begins behaving in a surreal pseudo-human fashion. Barely noteworthy, but in light of what's coming ...

These early comics are fairly lame.

Violet's shtick is mud pies. Lovely.

There are pre-Woodstock birds, but they actually are supposed to be birds. They are mostly chased by Snoopy.

The ownership mystery continues ...

Charlie Brown made some faltering steps toward Calvinism. I wonder why he was chosen to develop a personality? Author avatar?

Schroeder is introduced in May 1951. He is an infant.

Charlie Brown's baseball obsession starts.

The first "You Blockhead!"

 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

The piano introduced, Sept 1951.

This one was directly lifted from Li'l Folks. He did a better job in Peanuts, but that's not saying much. The comic still hasn't hit its stride.

Interesting, Charlie Brown couldn't read, and a short while later, he's reading to Schroeder. It feels like Charles Schultz was phoning it in in the early strips.

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Darth Fluffy
fixed error

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

Be careful what you play for Schroeder...

[ChronosCat 155]

On 12/11/2022 at 1:23 PM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The thing I always looked forward to as a child was the "new" LP that would be released in the grocery store containing about twenty tracks roughly split between;

Studio orchestras playing traditional carols

20+ year old recordings of old singers performing Christmas songs everybody already knew

Recent recordings of "celebrities" performing Christmas songs nobody cared about

For me it was audio cassettes, and I believe the mix was a bit more heavily towards 20-40 year old songs. Also, I believe that for some reason they were through the hardware store (at any rate, they have the "TrueValue" logo on them).

I think those tapes are a big part of the reason why to this day I have a fondness for mid-20th century Christmas music.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

38 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

For me it was audio cassettes, and I believe the mix was a bit more heavily towards 20-40 year old songs. Also, I believe that for some reason they were through the hardware store (at any rate, they have the "TrueValue" logo on them).

I think those tapes are a big part of the reason why to this day I have a fondness for mid-20th century Christmas music.

I don't think I own a cassette nor a player any more.

My first tape recorder was reel to reel. It was close to useless.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Do you think he's right? I cannot concur. ... Although, basically, almost every Christmas song is either novelty or religious. Hmm. ...

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

basically, almost every Christmas song is either novelty or religious. Hmm. ...

Does Batman really smell?

Whatever happened to the Reindeer that hit Grandma?

Why did that kid ever think he deserved more than nuttin' for Christmas?

 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

26 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Why did that kid ever think he deserved more than nuttin' for Christmas?

Calvin has an answer for that. It's a bit like Dunning-Kreuger, I suspect.

[ChronosCat 155]

5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Do you think he's right? I cannot concur. ... Although, basically, almost every Christmas song is either novelty or religious. Hmm. ...

I can't recall ever finding a joke less funny because of repetition (though the rare joke to actually make me laugh generally only can manage it a few times). On the other hand, plenty of songs get old if you listen to them too often.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

I can't recall ever finding a joke less funny because of repetition (though the rare joke to actually make me laugh generally only can manage it a few times). On the other hand, plenty of songs get old if you listen to them too often.

Calvin does not seem like he would have a good singing voice, either, so even if the song was acceptable, his rendition of it, not so much.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Holiday stress.

This seems like it would be real for many kids, if they were that self-aware.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Cat in Christmas tree.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

Many humans (and most Florida residents) refuse to put even that much planning into their actions