The Gospel According to Peanuts

Hello, those of us who draw cartoons have dreams and ambitions, much like those of other creative people. And I recall one of the things that I used to dream about years ago when I first began to draw the comic strip peanuts was having these cartoons reproduced in a book collection. Now something else has come along which I think has been an even more exciting project and this has been to have someone write a book about the comic strip itself and to emphasize the theological implications which now and then I do place in the strip. And this man has written this book called The Gospel According to Peanuts, it has sold a half a million copies, his name is Robert L. Short and strangely enough he and I have

never met. It was only this very day that we arranged to get together here and this has been an exciting thing for me to look forward to and so I would like to say hello along with you to Bob Short. Hello Mr. Schultz. I must say I feel a little bit like I remember Linus talking to Charlie Brown and one strip. He says I was down the street and I met this little girl and she was talking to me and I was so embarrassed and I didn't know what to say and so I just hit her. And I must say this is really an occasion in my life, finally they have the opportunity to meet you. Which was the first cartoon that started you and all of this, can you remember? I'm not sure the way it started as a matter of fact my interest at least a theological interest in Peanuts because I was reading it before that is occasionally I'd have a couple of seminary professors to bring Peanuts to class and they would say now this is an example of something we've been trying to get you guys to understand and immediately everyone

would seem to understand. And so there were a whole group of us who began reading Peanuts religiously at this point if you'll pardon the very bad pun. And there were a lot of us who switched from Pogo to Peanuts at this point. And this is how my interest started, it must have been over 10 years ago in seminary at SMU. Are you a minister then? Yes, I'm a deacon in the Methodist Church, I'm not very far up the lighter, I intend to teach but I am technically a minister. I notice you have some other degrees here which are listed in the forward. What are they? Well those are all very stuffy and I have the BD from SMU and I'm in English from North Texas and I'm working now on my doctorate at the University of Chicago in theology and literature. Many people as a matter of fact have asked me if this is my doctoral dissertation and I wish it could be and perhaps there may even have been a chance for that if I thought of it before the book were published but now that it's already published I'm afraid that opportunity is passed. Don't you go out and give lectures on the material which is in the book?

Do I ever, at the rate of six a week now since the book has come out, yes I was doing this lecture mostly in the Chicago area previous to that time but now since the book has been published and circulated all over the country I've been moving all over the country doing this lecture and I must say I hope that you can see it soon because I think you'll be amazed at the response the quite audible response of a large audience to I think that usually when people read a cartoon strip perhaps they might chuckle to themselves but to see a gigantic audience with a great burst of laughter is really something that does your heart good. I never get to hear that I just sit in that room all by myself and draw the things and I wrap them up and mail them to the post office and that's it. Maybe you could tell us something about how peanuts got started with you, how the original inspiration came about. I think the very first strip which I ever drew showed this little boy walking along in

the rain. He had an umbrella but the girl that was now named Patty was walking along to the left and the pouring rain was drawn there and she was saying rain rain rain rain rain rain and he came along with the umbrella and next thing you knew she had the umbrella and in the last panel he was going along and he was saying rain rain rain rain rain rain and it was just one of these little fast things something which I don't think had ever been really done before in the comic strip business just trying to comment on a real brief situation and I was fiddling around with this and I really didn't think it was ever going to go. In fact I was just doing it for the fun of it and I would show these things to my friends and told them that this was my latest project and I sent it in one day to New York City and I thought it had become lost in the mail and strange enough when they said no command in New York talk about it and that's how it all started. This was United Pictures Center for many features and what did you call the strip when

it was originally? Well I call it little folks and then we found out that there was another strip already called little folks and they said let's call it peanuts which I think is just about the worst name you can possibly call a comic strip. It's insignificant and degrading and I wanted something you know kind of culture sounding but like good old Charlie Brown or something like that. But peanuts I'm stuck with and I keep ribbing this syndicate all of the time about it. People wonder which character is called peanuts. Yes I find that to be confusing with people also they think Charlie Brown for instance is peanuts. Which one do you start off the lectures with when you begin? Well the first chapter deals with the church and the arts and attempts to say how using peanuts again as illustrations how the church should be interested in becoming all things to all people. I think the church has a difficult time in talking to people unless it uses the idiom that they're interested in or can understand and in keeping with for instance St. Paul's

idea that we should become all things to all people then in a sense I'm attempting to become a lover of peanuts along with all the other people in this country who love the strip very much. Are you trying to do another oh I see they have the first let me give you an example of some of the ways in which the strip is used in the book. This first strip it was Linus Bill in the sand castle and I want to couple this with an excerpt from St. Matthew for instance when Matthew says everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house but it did not fall for it been founded upon the rock and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it. There's a lesson to be learned here somewhere but I don't know what it is.

Well this it seemed to me to be true about peanuts that there were a great many lessons that you were putting into the strip but just as Linus there he wasn't always quite sure what the lesson was in that situation and I think a lot of people were reading peanuts and perhaps weren't fully appreciating some of the lessons that you'd given for us. I think that was one of the very first strips also where I had tried to put in something of this sort. Just the mere fact of quoting from the Bible of course for a long while was forbidden in comic strips because somehow they just didn't want you to go near these areas but I think over a long period of time I established a climate where I built up a good audience among various members of all the clergy and then they knew when I did mention these things that I was on their side and I think I was ready to go into this sort of thing and even in some of the Christmas Sunday pages where Jeremiah is quoted, incidentally I want to ask you, you remember when Jeremiah himself put the yoke around his neck this was

a form of cartoonying and didn't I say a carry some boards with some writing on it about his son or something like that didn't he do, but you're the Old Testament man I have to know and I'm afraid my knowledge of the Old Testament is probably not even up to years at this point but yes as far. Well you know this was a form of political cartoony in its day they might not have had publications to distribute these things but I say in Jeremiah were actually walking political cartoons. I didn't realize that, no you know that's a very interesting way of putting in data. Was this the inspiration as a matter of fact behind the cartoon you did and which line us had the yoke before that's right that was an amazing cartoon how does it go I can't remember exactly he quotes all of these places in Scripture about how the yoke is used and Charlie Brown doesn't know one from the other and walks off and many I think Charlie Brown says well how about the the yoke of discouragement or helplessness you've given me I

don't know and for your priorities. But I was asking a few seconds ago did you not attempt to do a second strip in addition to peanuts somewhere along the line were you thinking about another strip to run simultaneously with it. We did a sports strip for a while which ran in about 30 some papers but it's just too difficult to do two strips at once. I've been trying to concentrate on books and this sort of thing and television shows of course which I find very exciting because I have good men to work with but actually just drawing a comic strip day in and day out is plenty. How many papers in this country does peanuts appear at? Alright now I guess there's about 700 papers who subscribe to it. We started out in 1950 with nine papers the first month and we're up around 700. And how many foreign countries I've seen the figures on this someplace but I can't remember

what I think they're between 40 and 50 different foreign countries. So that magazine Linus that is published in Italy is a good example of this the Italians have become just raving comic strip fans and they send me this magazine called Linus and it has these marvelous articles at least they look marvelous to me and intriguing but I can't read them and I'm looking for somebody who can translate them. Do you speak Italian? I'm afraid not. I wish I could help you. I'm sure it's by that. As a matter of fact a friend of mine was telling me he was recently in Italy and he saw a little cartoon or in one of the shops of Linus and he happened to mention to the shopkeeper that this is Linus isn't it not? And the shopkeeper says no this is Linus because it comes from a Latin word. They feel very close to this strip evidently. What do you do with the blanket on Linus? Do you? Well I say about the blanket that it seems to me at least it is oftentimes used in the strip to sort of assemble for things that we hope are going to make us happy and really aren't capable of giving us perhaps the happiness we desire from sort of assemble for an idolatry in other

words. There are many wonderful strips in which Linus goes through all kinds of difficulty and harrowing experiences in order to hang on to this Linus and this blanket and of course this is this one for instance he says oh how I hate Mondays relax how can I relax with my blanket in the wash why does she have to wash it anyway it wasn't very dirty I got out of that blanket I can't breathe the walls are closing in on me I'm getting weak help me somebody help me hold on here it comes from the washer to the buyer to you I guess he'll be all right now in medical circles that is known as the application of a spiritual tourniquet well I attempted to use that cartoon in this book as an illustration of how

Linus does indeed go through these harrowing experiences because of worshipping something that really isn't perhaps capable of giving them the happiness he desires from what did you have in mind when you did the strip or did you think about it in this very well thought out or rational or way I like the way you did that ah business it sounds like the MGM line right now I I was thinking of of people who try to give up habits who won't go into what the habits are but almost like withdrawal when they've tried to give up things which dominate them and of course Linus's biggest problem is that he is involved with a grandmother who constantly picks on him and tries to get him to get rid of this blanket because she says that young people should be able to stand on their own two feet and they shouldn't have to lean on a blanket in this sort of thing and yet Linus recognizes that this grandmother has weaknesses

of her own and here I'm trying to point up the truth well one of the truths which is in the church which is that very frequently the week have to tolerate the strong and this is what Linus is doing Linus would represent the well he would represent that group of Christians who were in the church at Corinth who were weak the weak ones and the grandmother is the strong ones who were trying to get these weak ones to hold fast to the old laws and no she would be the ones who represented the liberal ones who had had broken away from the old laws when she would represent this group and yet all too often it turns out that the weak ones have to bolster up and tolerate this persecution of the strong ones in the church and this is what happens to our young people they come into the church and they are immediately beaten down by the older element who want them

immediately to shape up and to be what they think they should be and instead of the young people just fleeing the church fortunately they are strong enough so that they tolerate this misbehavior on the part of the older ones this is the way you see it I hadn't thought of it in just those terms but I think that's wonderful yes don't you teach a Bible class in this impossible well I guide it I'm not much of a teacher really I have an old testament class right now we're in the new testament but we went through the entire Old Testament last year verse by verse and it was an exciting experience with people who had never really done this sort of thing before and of course I really enjoy sitting up late at night going through these scriptures and trying to find out new truths just the other night going through some books I discovered this little bit about the third letter that Paul had written to the Corinthians the letter that the scholars call the stern letter isn't this what they call it yes and that well not having the educational background for this sort of thing

it's always exciting for me when I really do come across something like this I envy you with your your background here and the things you've had a chance to learn well thanks very much how about the cartoons that you've been doing for the Warner Press the teenager is not a disease and what was bugging old Pharaoh and young pillars I find those delightful and you find them in all sorts of religious periodicals everyone thinks that you're a member of their church because these appear in so many periodicals across the country it's gratifying that so many of them have picked up these cartoons we sort of cut across all of the denominational lines and they've been picked up from you know groups from both ends of the rainbow from the very conservative to the liberal elements and this is good I haven't drawn any for quite a while because I just ran out of ideas I couldn't think of any more teenager ideas I have enough problems with Charlie Brown and spelling bees and Snoopy in the red baron yes people invariably asked me about these cartoons and they asked me so seriously what mr. Short does this red baron represent and what's

going on here and I always have to tell you can correct me if I'm wrong but I usually say something like well I don't think that everything that mr. Short does has some kind of profound theological implications perhaps in many cases in which I haven't seen something being said there theologically there has been because this has been the case in many of times when I've read peanuts I thought that there wasn't anything of very profound theological significance here this was for entertainment value and maybe years later I keep a complete file of your cartoons of course perhaps years later I'll be reading the Bible the New Testament and find something there that I saw back here and a few nuts for them so I have to go dig it out but I usually tell most of these kids who are very serious about all of these things that happen in peanuts that I'm not sure that every one of them has this kind of significance to it that sometimes I think you're attempting to amuse us which I guess is you have to since you're a cartoonist sometimes the only

significance is that you know the post office closes at five o'clock and it's ten o'clock in the morning and you have to get something done and haven't wrapped up into the post office within the next few hours so the only significance is that you draw something that is as simple as possible because you just have to get it in there drawing a comic strip is like running up a glass hill you do real well you go running up and you almost reach the top which to me is getting a three or four week lead on your schedule and then you go sliding back down and suddenly you're right on top of it again have you found any method of work whereby you get most of your best inspiration is there something you can do like mow the lawn or take a walk or something along those lines that helps out in order to prime the inspirational pump but this may stun you but do this something I've never told anybody but this whole series of um we're Charlie Brown sits on the little bench and eats his

lunch and stares across the play ground at this little red haired girl which he just loved to meet this is something I think that has happened to all of us at one time or another we've all admired someone and yet we know that they're completely out of our class and we'll never get up to this person you know and this is the way Charlie Brown feels he knows that he's not good enough ever to meet this girl so he just sits there and eats his simple peanut butter sandwich and if you're going to admire someone from a distance the best thing to be doing while you're doing it is to be eating a peanut butter sandwich this is a symbolic in itself you see but the whole inspiration the whole inspiration from this thing came from sitting listening to Joni James sing a Hank Williams song you're cheating heart or or something like that you know and these songs are so depressing all of these Hank Williams songs they're all songs of of a lost love or someone who has

gone off to someone else and the more you listen to them the more depressed you get when I get real depressed then suddenly the whole thing seemed riotously funny and I can think of these things I hope that doesn't disillusionment not at all not at all and as a matter of fact many people have told me much the same thing in reading peanuts that they can really be down at the mouth and this kind of thing and they'll pick up that strip and somehow they're no longer quite as depressed as they were what are you going to do are you going to keep on with this sort of thing are you going you plan to go into the ministries well I plan to teach if I ever get out of school but lately I've been so busy traveling about the country on shelling peanuts for people who are interested in that I haven't had much time to do much work in that regard I think there's another cartoon that they have that they want to show us at this time I believe it concerns the the series you've done where Lucy says why don't you let me hold the ball for you Charlie Brown you think

I'm crazy do you think you can fool me with the same trick every year oh I will pull the ball away Charlie Brown I promise you I give you my fondant word all right I'll trust you I have an undying faith in human nature I believe that people who want to change can do so and I believe they should be given a chance to prove themselves Charlie Brown you're faith in human nature is an inspiration to all young people let me tell you what that cartoon means to me and then you can correct me on it it seems to me that one of the things that's constantly being said in your strip is that it's very difficult for people to change deep down inside and this is because perhaps there is some sense in which we're born on the wrong foot that is to say that we don't really worship God at first but we sort of worship the world or nature or something like that and so there's got to be some kind of radical change but because of the depth of this idolatry this

previous this God that we cling to originally that's very difficult for us to change in this way this is how at least this is pointing to the way in which I use the strip in the book is this anything close to what you may have in that strip which happens every year of course Lucy promising the whole of football for Charlie Brown and it never quite happens I agree you know completely with I think I'm glad that you finally used one like this because this would be a perfect example of one where I didn't intend this message now we've had examples of one where I did intend exactly your interpretation but this football thing was never intended from my point of view to point up at least the beginning ones weren't to point up anything like this not that I don't disagree with your interpretation and I even agree with your right to be able to read this into it because this is what makes me so happy that you are able to use the strip in this way

this delights me no end but I think the whole football thing just began from memories of the great temptation we used to have as kids to pull this thing away when the kickoff came you know we'd all been lined up the game is ready to start and some wise guy always had to do it and then everybody would say oh come on now you know like when we ever going to start before a kid be lying there but each year I had to struggle to come up with a different one and gradually I have tried to put in some kind of a message to it I don't know what it was this year but the one I enjoyed the most I think was where she said I have this paper you can sign and this will prove that I will not this will guarantee that I will not pull away the ball and she did it anyway and she said that it wasn't notoriety I remember that one one question the people are always asking me about the strip is that do you intend to let these little people grow up

will they ever become what is the word that I heard teenage peanuts or something like this well first place the strip is only this big and I don't think there's room to grow up they bump their heads on the top and so I think it really would be best to keep them just as they are what what growing up process processes have taken place have only occurred so that some of the characters could get out of the house and get around on their feet and do some of these things and I almost I'd say four out of the last five characters were babies at one time or another but I had to have them grow up so they could communicate yes Sally is the most recent one and she's the one that's been having me amblyopia trouble recently with the eye patch and she goes around looking like long john silver yes I'm those what's the relationship of your own children the peanuts do you get very much of your inspiration from them and do they read peanuts and help you with it and give you suggestions this kind of thing next to you doing this I think one of

the most gratifying things to me is to peek in on a little Amy who is nine and she's gone to bed at night and I peek in to see if she's asleep and no she's not sleeping she's lying there reading peanuts because she says I just have to read a few of these before I go to bed at night and also then I walked down the hall to our 14 year old boys roomed and right on the outside of the hall is a red baron strip he's got a nail right on the outside of the door and then I walked down the check craze room and he's got one of the surfer strips nailed to his door now what that's wonderful more could a father want yes I understand that you from the very earliest you had always wanted to be a cartoonist is this okay ever since I was about six or seven and this has been my it was kind of a feeble ambition I suppose to a lot of people but this is what I wanted to do is to draw a comic strip and I got it but it didn't happen immediately I took some struggling I take it I started out selling gag cartoons to a few of the magazines

and to our local newspaper in Saint Paul Minnesota and then in 1950 the peanuts strip began and it was certainly was not an overnight success we're doing all right now and it still I can say it's still as much fun for for me now as it ever was I I still think that for me the most enjoyable thing in the world is to be sitting all alone in this little room unstover the drawing board with an idea that I really feel is good and I'll sit there and laugh up gloriously to myself and have a good time having this is a good idea I can't tell you Mr. Schultz how you've changed the face of this country with this little strip because everywhere I go all over the country and changed my life as a matter of fact as a result of this book but people literally love this strip everywhere I go and all sorts of people from the youngest to the oldest and all walks of life they there's something universal about us appeal certainly because it appeals to everybody well it's been a real treat for me finally to get to meet to meet you Bob and I think

the next time you go out speaking I'm going to be hiding in the audience just to see what the reaction is good fine real pleasure you