There has never been another newspaper comic strip as influential as Charles M. Schulz‘s Peanuts. Charlie Brown and his friends and family became household names passed down through the generations, not just through popular TV specials but through a whopping 50 years’ worth of comics.
Peanuts began in October 1950 and lasted all the way until February 2000. The 1990s were pretty much the last decade for Peanuts, but despite thousands of strips already created and Schulz advancing in age, the most popular strip of them all was still better than ever.
7
“A Lonely Person Who Knows How To Dance”
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Image via Charles M. Schulz</figure>
Charlie Brown is always going to Lucy for advice, which is good for her, since she loves to give it to anyone who will take it. At five cents a pop, she’ll listen to Charlie’s incessant worrying. While her advice isn’t always so great, it’s at least better than all the times she held a football for her friend to kick, only to pull it away from him at the last moment.
In this strip, Lucy actually has some good advice for Charlie. Here, he’s worrying about how lonely he is. Lucy, her hands on her face, is genuinely taking in his words, telling him to take dance lessons. The negative Charlie, of course, has anxiety about that, too. What if no one will dance with him? Her reply isn’t meant to be mean — it’s actually pretty deep. Charlie shouldn’t be so focused on seeking out the attention of others. True happiness is found when you take a chance on yourself and let go.
6
“I Might As Well Go Back To Sleep”
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Image via Charles M. Schulz</figure>
Lucy really shouldn’t be a therapist for anyone, as she shows in this strip when she goes up to Snoopy’s doghouse with some rather bleak commentary. Telling a sleeping dog who’s minding his own business that he’s of no importance is harsh. Imagine if she said the same thing to Charlie Brown? He’d never go outside again!
Snoopy, however, isn’t his owner. He’s a dog, and he has no true worries. Snoopy takes life as it comes, playing it with cool confidence. He’s Joe Cool, after all, and he’s got a bit of a crush on Lucy when she’s not being such a pessimist. If he’s so insignificant, what good will worrying do? Might as well go back to sleeping his life away as dogs do.
5
“Dear Sweetheart, Merry Christmas”
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Image via Charles M. Schulz</figure>
Snoopy imagines himself as a great writer. If he’s not sleeping on his doghouse, he’s often tapping at his typewriter. Charlie Brown’s pup is also a born romantic, a Beagle infatuated with every girl he meets. Lucy is among them, but as this strip shows, she’s not the only one.
Snoopy has met someone important enough to him that he decides to send her a Christmas card. Although Lucy thinks it’s inappropriate to call a girl “sweetheart,” it might not be if Snoopy were writing to a girlfriend or someone who at least had an interest in him, too. This isn’t the case. Whoever this girl is, he can’t even remember her name.
Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely
different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you
would be having within a week.
You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts
works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war
so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting
you.
- You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within
about five minutes and has never stopped. - This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every
single person in your life would be. - The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you
do with things you love. - The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the
arguments are about to start all over again.
You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where
somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth
rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.
- You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something
enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it. - This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly
alarming, and it has good reasons for that. - Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all,
which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes. - Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make
that argument.
You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one
where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of
it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.
- You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a
grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that. - Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly
1980 with no sign of resolution. - The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score
and the look of a used and dented galaxy. - You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good
time.
You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the
argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in
space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.
- You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major
franchise still willing to say the future might be better. - The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that
makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else. - Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is
appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar. - You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you
will always find somebody willing to have it.
4
“Why Is Barney Purple?”
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Image via Charles M. Schulz</figure>
This Peanuts strip is pretty standard stuff in the first three panels. In it, Sally is parked in front of the television set when her brother walks in to ask her what she’s watching. For his sister to say that she doesn’t understand what she’s watching could be a commentary on how TV has rotted the minds of children and given them a short attention span. This sounds like something you’d find right out of Calvin and Hobbes, but that’s not where Schulz is going.
The last panel brings it home with the perfect joke. Sally is watching Barney, and she doesn’t get why the dinosaur is purple. Barney was huge in the early ’90s and no one above five years old understood what the heck was happening on that bizarre show. Peanuts lives in its own world, with little commentary about specific real-life pop culture, but even Schulz couldn’t escape the annoyance of the singing dino.
3
“How Do You Spell ‘Watching’?”
<<img src="https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/peanuts-linus-lucy-tv.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" />
Image via Charles M. Schulz</figure>
Linus and Sally have a complicated sibling relationship. The brother is often living in his own dream world of his making, while Sally is the know-it-all. Here, though, the two are having a healthy interaction. When she goes to Linus about everyone in the family having their own specific job they do to help out, she’s not telling him what to do. It’s up to him. And Linus has an answer ready.
Linus wants to watch TV and nothing more. Forget chores — he’d rather escape. It’s more social commentary from Schulz about the state of culture and children in the ’90s. There’s a little sadness wrapped in the humor as well. Linus has a vivid imagination as the boy who believes wholeheartedly in the Great Pumpkin and who often philosophizes about the wonders of life. Now he’d rather give his mind to the tube.
2
“Just Lie There and Worry”
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Image via Charles M. Schulz</figure>
Schulz’s real-life anxieties come to life through Peanuts, most notably with Charlie Brown. Just as young Calvin thinks like a grown-up in Calvin and Hobbes, Charlie worries about everything even though he’s too young to be focused on the negatives of life. Still, in this strip, that’s what he’s doing as we find him lying awake at night. And it looks like he’s passed on his woes to someone else.
When Sally comes to her brother about not being able to sleep, he doesn’t have any great advice about counting sheep or finding a similar way to relax. He tells her to worry about anything and everything, not as a way to mock her, but because it’s what he does. One step ahead, Sally has already tried this. How do you get to sleep when you’ve already done that?
1
“You Have a Dog… Be Happy”
<<img src="https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/peanuts-charlie-brown-snoopy-1.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" />
Image via Charles M. Schulz</figure>
Worrying Charlie Brown is back in this beautiful strip. More color brings the details to life, and the extra panels allow for more time to sit with the message of the story. As always, it’s the middle of the night, and Charlie is wide awake, thinking, wondering, and worrying about everything. We see that he’s really not alone as he might feel. Right there, sleeping on top of him, is Snoopy.
Every single time Charlie’s mind starts to wander, his anxious thoughts are interrupted by Snoopy simply scratching himself, walking around, or barking at nothing. As Snoopy crawls under the covers with him, Charlie is hit with the thought that happiness is Snoopy. If you have a dog who loves you, how bad can it be? But is this a happy strip or a sad one? The final line is a sweet realization any dog owner can relate to. Take a closer look at Charlie’s face in the final panel, though, and you see a little kid still wide awake and unconvinced.
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<
Ann Altieri
Violet (voice)
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<
Cathy Steinberg
Sally Brown (voice)
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<
Christopher DeFaria
Peppermint Patty (voice)
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<
Christopher Shea
Linus van Pelt (voice)
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