Charlie Brown

This article is about the character from Peanuts. For other uses, see Charlie Brown (disambiguation).

Template:Peanuts character Charles "Charlie" Brown is the main character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.

Character

Charlie Brown is a loveable loser, a child possessed of endless determination and hope, but who is ultimately dominated by his insecurities and a "permanent case of bad luck", and often taken advantage of by his peers. He is sometimes a scapegoat for bad situations he is only tangentially involved in. These traits are best seen in the history of his baseball team, where Charlie Brown is the manager of the team and its pitcher. Charlie Brown is constantly cursed as a pitcher, often giving up tremendous hits which blast him off the mound. Charlie Brown's dog Snoopy is one of the few particularly competent players; the team itself is poor and tends to win only by small but important technicalities, often because of Charlie's non-involvement. Circumstances invariably arise to lessen his rare victories (a misspelled bowling trophy, a prize credit for free haircuts despite his father being a barber), though he is usually optimistic due to their sheer rarity. In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown a running gag is Charlie putting too many holes in his ghost sheet and only getting rocks-although in a early newspaper comic version its Linus who has too many holes in his Halloween costume!

Charlie Brown is also an enthusiastic kite-flyer, but a running joke is that his kites keep landing in a "Kite-Eating Tree" or suffering even worse fates. Once in 1958, he finally got the kite to fly before it spontaneously combusted in the air. However in the July 13, 1961 strip Charlie Brown not only gets his kite to fly, but to fly so high that he has to ask Lucy to tie on some extra string. The punch line is that Lucy does this in a huge bow-followed by various odds and ends-including a heavy chain which brings the kite down. The kite is airborne through the four panels of the strip. A Sunday episode showed that once Charlie Brown tried to fly his kite in winter - and it froze solid in the air.

Lucy tends to outright belittle Charlie Brown, often calling him and Linus "blockheads", best by the 'football gag'; every autumn Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick, and every year she pulls it away as he follows through, causing him to fly in the air and land painfully on his back. He was never shown as succeeding in kicking the football in the comic strip, although animated features have played with the concept.

Charlie Brown is drawn with only a small curl of hair at the front of his head, and a little in the back. Though this is often interpreted as him being bald, Charles Schulz explained that he saw Charlie Brown as having hair that was so light, and cut so short, that it was not seen very well. Charlie Brown has often mentioned getting a haircut, or his hair in general, throughout the strip's run. Snoopy thinks of his owner as "that round-headed kid". He almost always wears black shorts and his trademark short-sleeved shirt, usually yellow, with a black zig-zag stripe around the middle.

Charlie Brown often utters the catch phrase "Good grief!" when astonished or dismayed. In moments of extreme disappointment or despair he sometimes simply cries out, "I can't stand it!" Other times, he will exclaim 'Augh!' when particularly frustrated or surprised.

From 1966 to 1987, Peanuts Sunday strips were often (unofficially) titled Peanuts featuring Good Ol' Charlie Brown. Schulz later stated that he had wanted to name the strip Good Ol' Charlie Brown but that the name Peanuts was chosen by the cartoon syndicate instead; as a result, some people inferred that Charlie Brown's name was "Peanuts". Schulz suggested the Sunday title as a clarification device.

Names and nicknames

Since the early strips, where Shermy mentions him and Patty refers to him directly, Charlie Brown is nearly always referred to or addressed by his full name by everyone whenever possible. Umberto Eco has pointed out that the fact that Charlie Brown is invariably referred to by his full name follows a convention found in epic poetry giving Charlie Brown a sense of universal identification. It was eventually revealed that the first person to have called him "Charlie Brown" was Poochie, a blonde little girl who played with Snoopy as a pup. Peppermint Patty, calls him "Chuck" most of the time, while her friend Marcie usually uses "Charles"; in 1979 they admitted to each other that each probably has a crush on him. Snoopy usually only obliquely refers to Charlie as "the round-headed kid", while Eudora also calls him "Charles". A minor character named Peggy Jean in the early 1990s who called him "Brownie Charles", because Charlie Brown, in his typical nervous and awkward fashion, messed up his own name when he introduced himself and couldn't bring himself to correct the mistake when it turned out he liked when she called him that. Also, Lucy called him "Charlie" at one point in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Sally, for obvious reasons to avoid awkward-sounding dialogue, simply calls him 'big brother', though she has used his full name when discussing him with others.

History

off their stand at a newsstand, for instance), though he was from the start not especially competent at any skill.

Charlie Brown soon evolved into the Sad Sack character he's best known as: feeling enslaved to the care of Snoopy, beset by comments from everyone around him. Common approaches to the strip's storylines included Charlie Brown stubbornly refusing to give in even when all is lost from the outset (e.g., standing on the pitcher's mound alone on the baseball field, refusing to let a torrential downpour interrupt his beloved game), or suddenly displaying a skill and rising within a field, only to suffer a humiliating loss just when he's about to win it all (most famously, Charlie Brown's efforts to win the statewide spelling bee in the feature-length film A Boy Named Charlie Brown). Charlie Brown never receives Valentines or Christmas cards and only gets rocks when he goes trick or treating on Halloween but never loses hope that he will. His misfortunes garnered so much sympathy from the audience that many young viewers in North America of the Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown TV specials have sent Valentine cards and Halloween candy respectively to the broadcasting television network in an effort to show Charlie Brown they cared for him. This also extended to protest letters when viewers felt the victimization of Charlie Brown went too far such as in It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown where Charlie Brown is publicly derided for making his football team lose when it is obvious that he is not at fault.

Charlie Brown maintained this demeanor until the strip ended its run in 2000, and classic strips run in many newspapers today. He did have occasional victories, though, such as hitting a game-winning home run off a pitch by Roy Hobbs' great-granddaughter on March 30, 1993 (though she later admitted she let him hit the home runs) and soundly defeating "Joe Agate" in a game of marbles on April 11, 1995. Usually, Charlie Brown was a representative for everyone going through a time when they feel like nothing ever goes right for them; however, Charlie Brown refuses to give up. In the final weeks of his strip, determined to finally have a winning baseball season at last, Charlie Brown tried to channel Joe Torre, which made his sister think he was cracking up.

He is also known as Good Ol' Charlie Brown.

Relationships

Despite all this, and despite the abuse he has often received, Charlie Brown has many friends, the best being Lucy's brother Linus, who may occasionally admonish Charlie Brown, but stands by him. Linus's brother, Rerun van Pelt, also seems young enough to look up to and admire Charlie Brown; in one comic strip, he wanted to watch him pitch in a baseball game, thinking that he was a master at it. Charlie Brown has no real enemies aside from intangible unluckiness, though practically all his friends are blithely critical of him at some point. His dog Snoopy seldom treats him with respect except when "That Round-Headed Kid" pleases him. Nonetheless though they are often shown hugging, particularly after they have been reunited after a separation, and Charlie Brown has implied he enjoys the fact he is depended on by someone.

Linus initially appeared as an infant, but as he aged (and grew to a year or two younger than Charlie Brown) he became a profound philosopher and Charlie Brown's best friend, often supporting each other in small ways when the other's foibles had been painfully exposed (Schroeder and Lucy van Pelt were also significantly younger than Charlie Brown when they first appeared, but aged to the point where they became his peers). Linus very often serves as a way for Charlie Brown to express his thoughts and woes without judgment or condemnation; he almost never attempts to convince or directly advise Charlie Brown of anything, and tends to only be critical in an intellectual or philosophical way. Partially because of this quality, he is the only person to ever have any direct impact on Charlie Brown's actions. This is most clearly seen in "A Charlie Brown Christmas"; after Charlie Brown wonders aloud whether anyone can tell him what Christmas is all about, Linus simply recites the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke, leaving Charlie Brown to successfully draw his own conclusions. The two of them are shown sitting and talking behind the often-used brick wall more than any characters.

Lucy, along with early characters Violet, Patty, and sometimes Shermy, often attacked Charlie Brown physically or verbally. On one occasion when Lucy was little, she falsely claimed that Charlie Brown was about to hit her, and grinned in the background when Patty came to retaliate. Violet once hit Charlie Brown with her doll after he accidentally hit it with his tricycle. Shermy once sent Charlie Brown home because he allowed a goal during a hockey game. Although Charlie Brown had romantic occasions with Violet and Patty, the two clearly favored Shermy. Yet when Charlie Brown asked Lucy during their psychiatrist booth sessions why no one liked him, Lucy always laid the blame on Charlie Brown himself. Lucy often thinks ridiculous facts are true (i.e: there's a different sun every day, snow comes up out of the ground, birds can fly to the moon and back)and regards them as "little known facts", and thinks that true facts are silly, and laughs at Charlie's attempts to prove her wrong. Lucy is openly contemptuous of Charlie Brown, having no qualms whatsoever about crushing his hopes and telling him that he is worthless, friendless, and destined to be a failure.

Like all adults in the strip, Charlie Brown's parents are never seen (nor "heard" in speech balloons, except in a few very early comics), but occasionally referenced. His father is a barber (as was Schulz's). His mother is a housewife.

In 1959, Charlie Brown's sister Sally was born. She resembled Charlie Brown in some ways, but with a shock of blonde hair. Like Linus, Lucy, and Schroeder, Sally began as an infant but soon became "mature" enough to interact with the other characters on a more-or-less equal basis. Initially Charlie Brown doted on her, though she too became a thorn in his side as she would pester him for help with her homework, and berate him for misunderstanding concepts (despite herself being the one in the wrong). Charlie Brown would stoically and guiltily bear this, although sometimes he was able to let Sally dig her own holes without pulling him in with her while very occasionally firmly putting his foot down on truly unacceptable behavior.

Charlie Brown has a pen pal, but because he uses a fountain pen (rather than ballpoint) and because he has less skill than others at keeping the ink flow under control, he resorts to graphite and starts off the letters, "Dear Pencil Pal". These correspondences, which began in the August 25, 1958 strip, are usually one-way; but on April 14, 1960, Charlie Brown read Lucy a letter he'd received from his Pen Pal. In the letter, the Pen Pal revealed that he or she had read Charlie Brown's latest letter to his/her class, and that they all agreed he must be a nice person and someone who is pleasant to know. In response to which, Charlie Brown uttered a vigorous "Ha!" to Lucy. In a strip series in 1994, the Pen Pal was revealed to be a girl in Scotland named Morag. Charlie Brown also fantasized about a future romance with Morag, but his plans were crushed when he learned Morag had 30 other Pen Pals.

Charlie Brown is infatuated with an often unseen character known simply as "the Little Red-Haired Girl", though he rarely has the courage to talk to her, and when he does (in encounters which always occur off-panel) it always goes badly. He frequently says that the reason he cannot talk to her is that "She's something and I'm nothing. When she looks over at me, there's nothing to see. How can she talk to someone who's nothing?" Even when she temporarily moves away, Charlie Brown still fails to work up the courage to talk to her, despite Linus's frantic urging. Because of his preoccupation with the Little Red-Haired Girl, he remains oblivious to the occasional attentions of Peppermint Patty and Marcie. In particular, he has a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, to both of them; Peppermint Patty when she seeks reassurance over her "big nose" and her lack of femininity, and Marcie when she tries to show that she cares about him (once, when asking if Charlie Brown missed her while she was away, got the reply "my cereal's getting soggy"). Charlie Brown once had a brief, yet surprisingly successful flirtation with a minor character called Peggy Jean whom he met at summer camp.

Catch phrases

Charlie Brown has accumulated many memorable catch phrases and utterances:

• "Good Grief!"
• "I (just) can't stand it."
• "Why can't I have a normal [or an ordinary] dog like everyone else?"
• "AAAAARRRRRRGH!(or AAAAAUUUUGGGHHH!)"
• "Rats!"
• "Somehow, I never (quite) know what's going on..."
• "Man's best friend. Ha!"
• "I got a rock!"

Charlie Brown's most famous expression, "Good grief!" was ranked at #18 on the TV Land program The 100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catchphrases.

Portrayals

• 1960's child actor Peter Robbins first played Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965. His last performance as Charlie Brown was in 1969. Since then various actors including Chad Allen played Charlie Brown. Erin Chase was the first girl to play Charlie Brown. She played him for the "This Is America, Charlie Brown" series. 1980's child actor Brad Kesten voiced the Saturday Morning series "The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show" as well as "What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?", "Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown?", "and It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown".
• In the off-Broadway musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1967), Charlie Brown was played by Gary Burghoff. In the 1999 Broadway revival, he was portrayed by Anthony Rapp.
• Michael Mandy provided the voice of Charlie Brown for Life Is A Circus, Charlie Brown, It's Magic, Charlie Brown, and A Charlie Brown Celebration. He also voiced the character in three commercials for Dolly Madison Cakes & Pies, and many Buena Vista 45rpm Read-Along-Books.

• Samuel Dunford portrayed Charlie Brown in the 2006 Namco game "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron".

External links

• Charlie Brown at Snoopy.com