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A week later, in the pivotal comic quoted above, Charlie Brown transfers his feelings of im-punt-ence by lashing out at poor little Lucy. First, he simply misses the ball, and a few days later, in a darkly existential moment, we see a forlorn Charlie Brown dwarfed by the gigantic goal posts under which his kick has fallen pathetically short.
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Twice in the week before this early football-themed comic appeared, Schulz ran strips that featured Charlie Brown failing to kick the football all on his own. Is there any wonder why Lucy would choose to embarrass Charlie Brown with a football year after year? Her humiliation at the hands of Chuck was a formative experience in the young girl’s life. Lucy: I don’t understand … I was the star fullback in nursery school …Ĭharlie Brown: Well, don’t stand around here! GO ON HOME!! Get out of here! Lucy: Well after all … I’m just a little girl, you know …Ĭharlie Brown: Little girls don’t belong on football fields! Go home!
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This echoes a dialogue they had 10 years earlier (Charlie Brown: “Somehow, I’ve missed the symbolism.” Lucy: “You also missed the ball, Charlie Brown”).Ĭharlie Brown: You’re hopeless! That was the worst kick I’ve ever seen! In a meta-moment, Lucy even points to the larger meaning of this annual act: “Symbolism, Charlie Brown! The ball! The desire! The triumph! It’s all there!” ( 1996). Lucy herself has offered a myriad of justifications over the years for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: physiological ( 1966: a “ten-billion-to-one” muscle spasm), Ecclesiastical ( 1980: “To everything there is a season … and a time to pull away the football”), psychological ( 1975: “I’m not your mother, Charlie Brown”), sociological ( 1971: “This year’s football was pulled away from you through the courtesy of women’s lib”), and philosophical ( 1974: “In every program, Charlie Brown, there are always a few last-minute changes”). What I discovered was a surprisingly complex story told over decades, with twists, turns, and evolving character motivations that are far richer than might appear from a yearly glance at the funny pages. Fortunately, every strip Schulz ever drew is compiled in a multivolume Peanuts collection, and there’s even a Peanuts wiki, so I began at the beginning, hunting for and examining each football comic in seriatim, from the 1950s onward, to see if a larger pattern might emerge from Schulz’s kick chronicles.