Like Whatever

Good Grief We Are The Trombones Now

• Heather Jolley and Nicole Barr

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A pop lyric can flip your mood, a true-crime twist can spark outrage, and a simple comic strip can outlive its creator by generations. We dive headfirst into that messy middle where culture meets memory: one of us swooning over Taylor’s newest hooks and audacious lines, the other craving the ache of her sadder eras; both of us stuck on the question that won’t let go—what happens when a show like Monster: Ed Gein chooses drama over documented fact? The debate gets spirited as we weigh accuracy against entertainment, why victims’ stories deserve care, and how we reset our brains with a comfort watch when the gore lingers.

From there, we time-travel to Peanuts at 75 and unpack how Charles Schulz built a universe from tiny moments: a kite-eating tree, a baseball loss, a dog with delusions of grandeur. We talk Snoopy’s polarizing charm, Woodstock’s mysterious species, Franklin’s quiet milestone for representation, and why Schulz ended the strip on his own terms. Along the way we wander through parades and Mummers lore, the strange warmth of holiday specials, and the way certain characters become family even when we swear we don’t like them.

It’s personal, nerdy, and very Gen X: a love letter to pop, a side-eye at lazy storytelling, and a salute to the minimal comic that somehow said everything. If you’ve got thoughts on Taylor’s best mode, whether Monster went too far, or if Snoopy is iconic or insufferable, we want to hear them. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review so more curious people can find us. And tell us in the comments: which classic actually aged well—and which one should’ve stayed in the attic?

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SPEAKER_00:

Two best friends talking fast. We're missing to our case, we're having a blast. Seeing these dreams, clicking on screens, it was all bad, or like you know, like whatever, gather, forever, ever, never, never. Lapping, cherry, our scoring forever. We'll say you bad, like whatever.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Like Whatever, a podcast for, by, and about Gen X. I'm Nicole, and this is my BFFF, Heather. Hello. Alright, so first order of business, because I'm obsessed, is um Taylor's new album. I love it. Taylor released a new album in case anybody didn't know. If you've been living under a rock, um she would have to be. Uh I love it. I love everything about it. It's the album is too short, is the only issue.

SPEAKER_03:

Like I did listen to it. Not a fan. It's not my cup of tea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. But it's fine. I have to say, my favorite not my it's not my favorite song, but she wrote a song about Travis's dick. And I did. I just can't. I just I love it. It makes me giggle. It's so funny. And it's I woke up Friday morning. It dropped midnight Friday morning, I guess you would say. Anyway, um, so I was getting up getting ready for work. I turned on Spotify on the TV and had it blurring while I was getting ready. So I was listening but not paying attention. Then on the way to work, I'm like driving and wood came on and I was like listening, da da da da da da da.

SPEAKER_03:

And I'm like, wait, what'd she just say? Is this all about Travis's dick? I know. She texted me and I was like, what? And then I went and Googled the and I was like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

I did the same thing as soon as I got to my office. I just opened social media and that's all anyone was talking about. And I was like, okay. That's right, girl. I love it. And then I also didn't know that she and Charlie XTX have beef. Beef? I didn't know that either. But um, yeah, but I was listening to um Actually Romantic, which I think is a funny song, and it's about Charlie XTX. Um and not just not being young anymore and putting the pieces together. Charlie XEX is married to one of the 1985s. And Matt Healy, Maddie Healy is the lead singer of the 1985s. I didn't know that was a thing. 1985. I didn't know that was I think that's the name of the band. I have no idea. Okay. Anyway, Maddie Healy is the one that she wrote all the sad songs on Torture Poets Department about. And I didn't know that. So Charlie is married to the bandmate. But the fucked up thing is that Charlie XCX opened for Taylor in 2015. So guess what probably launched you into stardom? Right. But she wrote some shade song about Taylor, and so Taylor wrote the shade song back, and it's funny and cute, and I love it. And I love the video to Fate of Ophelia, and I just love her, and I'll shut up now because I could go on the whole episode about it.

SPEAKER_03:

He only went on for three minutes.

SPEAKER_02:

All right. And I know, well, and I'm saving it too for my my uh therapist because she is off to also Swifty. And she was so mad because we meet on Thursdays and the album dropped Friday. She was like, I so wish the album would have dropped before this. I was like, Well, now we'll have a whole week to listen to it and really take it in and then we can talk about it.

SPEAKER_03:

So I'd listen to it and it's fine. I mean, I'm sure it's fine. It's just it's not it's too poppy. I I like her like a sad stuff, so yeah. I mean, I'm I do like her as a person. It's just not your kind of music. I I enjoy like the storytelling of it and all that, but um, it's not my cup of tea. Plus, I don't really ever listen to music anymore. Really. It's all dateline. It's all murder.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm usually just uh NPR in the car, but lately, obviously.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I'll tailor all the time. 24-7. I've been watching the the new monster, the Ed Gean on Netflix. I am watching that as well. I'm so disappointed, so sad. I was really looking forward to it, really excited about it, and it's just it's it's it's fine, it's entertaining. It is entertaining, it's a great story. Unfortunately, most of it is not true.

SPEAKER_02:

So and obviously, I know who Edgeen is. I love serial killers. He's not necessarily one that I ever paid a whole lot of attention to because until the past few years, I've never really been into horror movies and such. So I wouldn't have made those connections like back then, I don't think. Um I'm sure at some point in my life I knew it that he was Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho and all that. Yeah. But um it it it still just didn't a lot of the pieces didn't fit together for me. So I'm gonna watch I I have like an episode and a half left. So I'm gonna finish that and then I'm gonna find a real life documentary on him and watch it and see.

SPEAKER_03:

I've only gotten through two episodes of it and I already hate it.

SPEAKER_02:

I was excited to come talk to you about it too. I'm sorry that you hate it.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm gonna have to force myself into the rest of it. I'm just the story is already so fucked up. Like, why are we just telling lies? Like, why are we just making shit up? The story of it is so incredibly out there, and like I know people say, Oh, it's my favorite, you know, he's technically not a serial killer because he only killed two, but my favorite, I'll say nut job.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, he's already killed more than two in the show, exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

And he only killed two people. Um so he is from a um psychological standpoint. That's why I like him so much. A, because he he he didn't realize what he was doing was wrong, really. That I mean that he's criminally insane, so yeah, he definitely he did get convicted. Spoiler alert, um, he did get convicted of one murder, but he spent his whole life in a minute the whole rest of his life in him and he died in 1984, by the way. Damn. Um he was born in 1904. Yeah. Um Wow. Well, he probably did really well in the really is true, only the good. I mean, he probably did really well in a mental institution because he needed the structure. And that most of them do just do much better in jail than they did out on their own because they need the structure. Um at first I was, you know, when they announced who was playing him, I was a little unsure of that because Charlie's just entirely too handsome. I do like what they've done that they did ugly him up a little bit, and he does have the correct body for it, and you do see all of his body. Uh yeah. And some people have said they're sad that Charlie looks better in lingerie than they do.

SPEAKER_02:

I have to say he does look spectacular in all the lingerie.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, he does. He's in, yeah. It's just I'm I'm just disappointed. I I just you didn't need to make it up. It's already an insane, fucked up, crazy story that you didn't need to add.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm excited to watch the real documentary on it. But it's funny you mentioned the psychological part because that's my obsession with serial colors anyway. Like the um even the the prettier ones, like the Ted Bundies, um, there's still something so missing.

SPEAKER_03:

To me, the craziest part is is how do you do that and then go to the grocery store without like or home to your wife and kids. Yeah. It's just crawling to bed, nothing happens.

SPEAKER_02:

Like nothing happened. That's what I mean. Like having absolutely no feeling about that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Like just not do you just shut your brain up? I mean, I that's the fact that I'm not sure. No, they don't have that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. They don't have that. That's crazy. I know. I can't fathom it. No.

SPEAKER_03:

I just can't I mean I can't fathom like so here's my other thing about edgeing. I mean healed two people, yes. But most of the shit he did, he dug dug up graves, and then he soaked You might want to skip ahead of He soaked all their skin and well, he took their skin, and then he soaked all the flesh off of them, and then he put the bones back.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, so really I mean Exact the skin was gonna dissolve anyway.

unknown:

Well, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Who was he really hurting?

unknown:

Come on, right.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you care if somebody wears your face around after you're dead? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

No, definitely not.

SPEAKER_03:

No. If you want uh donate me to serial killers who like to wear put me on the dark web when you're done with it. I don't care. Look at all these tattoos. I would make great furniture. Ooh.

SPEAKER_02:

I know, that's so pretty.

SPEAKER_03:

Can you imagine a lamp? I know.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, that'd be beautiful. You would be a beautiful lamp. Gorgeous lamp. The the nipple seat did kind of freak me out a little bit.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, he had a nipple belt too.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh well, they show other nipple things, but at one point they just have a box of vulvas.

SPEAKER_03:

That was actually.

SPEAKER_02:

I was gonna ask you if the leathered vulvas were a real thing.

SPEAKER_03:

That was a real thing. Yep. So watch it at your own risk. It's not, it's not, and most of it is it's not.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm kind of glad I don't really know his real his whole story watching this, because I can just enjoy it and be creeped out.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's exactly what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02:

And then I'll educate myself afterward.

SPEAKER_03:

All the ratings are, you can tell if it's like somebody who is deeply I don't know what the word interested for people like me. Um fascinated. Yeah. That know the story and who are like, ugh, I didn't like it. You know, and the acting and like when they pick it apart, their main problem with it is the story isn't accurate. Um, you know, acting is great, everything else is it and it makes a great movie if it were based on if they didn't if I don't know. If it wasn't supposed to be like a more accurate because the Dahmer one was pretty accurate.

SPEAKER_02:

I was gonna say, they've done other monsters. Even I'm I'm not a big fan of the Menendez Brothers. I ended up watching that one because it was just all over the news. Yeah. But it was pretty accurate to, you know. I mean, I I lived through it, I remember it. And I felt like it was pretty true. Dahmer seemed pretty true.

SPEAKER_03:

That's it. You know, I mean they're not and they're not saying they're a documentary, so they have liberty, but I know they take liberties, but I think they just went they went way out the box when they it was unnecessary to do that. Gotcha. So if you haven't watched it and you're into that kind of thing, and you know the story inside and out like some of us do, you're not gonna like it. If you don't know the story inside and out and you like just the gory, creepy, then it is certainly yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

The end of episode three. Whew, got me. I had to shut it off for a little bit. I turned on Shrek instead and watch that.

SPEAKER_03:

Get a little donkey in my lips. Pretty funny because um my work bestie, he um his daughter calls him Shrek or the Grinch instead of Daddy. And I he told me that the other day, and I just could not stop laughing. That was the greatest thing I've ever heard in my life. Poor guy. Yeah. Shrek. Her mother probably told her to call it. No, she just likes Shrek. She wants to go with Fiona for Halloween. Oh they're having trouble finding a Fiona costume her size because she's three. Yeah, they probably don't really make Fiona costumes. They do her, they're looking for online, I think.

SPEAKER_02:

And they need a velvet green dress and a red wig. Yeah. Painter up green. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's all we had for this week. I don't think there's anything going on. Um I was gonna talk about the Mark Sanchez thing, but I I'm not a fan of Mark Sanchez, and I just went on a rant about CTE last week, so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. Although everyone is saying he was highly intoxicated, which does not mean he doesn't also have CTE. Sure, it's CTE related. It's got to be. I mean, he's he's he's big news. It's not like he was just Mark Sanchez some years ago. He's a commentator on Fox Board, so yikes. Yeah. Now he's got a felony charge. They had only given him uh misdemeanor, three misdemeanors at first, but then there were eyewitnesses and they interviewed all them and upped it to uh felony charges.

SPEAKER_03:

So see, I just I just I saw it and I didn't read any more into it, so I didn't I don't know. I I don't know what I I have car issues, so I'm wrapped up in car drama. I just have issues. I swear to god, like I cannot have a car without an issue. I could buy you could walk me on to a car dealership and give me a car with zero miles on it, brand spanking new. And by the time I get it home, something will be wrong with it. I will hit a nail, some some I I have no luck with cars.

SPEAKER_02:

Rock will hit your windows.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I it has happened before. Yeah. I've gotten a flat like within a week of having it. I I just yeah, because when did we go get that car? December.

SPEAKER_02:

It was only December.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh Lord. Yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. I haven't even had it a year. Yep. And instead of because I had I put I put a lot of money down on it, which I could have just gone and bought a used car and not had a car payment and had the same fucking issue. Yeah, and not and just not have to make a car payment on top of it. Yep, yep. But no, I was like, I'm gonna buy, and it is it was used, but it's only four years old. I was like, I'm just gonna buy a newer car, and then I won't have to worry about fixing it. And ha ha ha. Joke's on you. It hasn't had air conditioning all summer.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Love it. Love it. Just a quick shout out to one of our favorite sponsors, Old Glory. If your wardrobe is 40% pop culture references and 60% emotional baggage, they've got you covered.

SPEAKER_02:

They've got Banties, horror merch, feminist icons, retro cartoons, basically everything you wish you still had from your high school closet, but now in adult sizes and emotional stability.

SPEAKER_03:

Use code like whatever for 15% off at oldglory.com because nostalgia should be wearable and slightly ironic. All right.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, before we get started, please like, share, rate review. Please find us where you listen to podcasts. Please follow us on all the socials at like whatever pod. Please.

SPEAKER_03:

We are on YouTube. There's a video up. There's one video. We're not doing it today because we're in a different space and I'm not trying. Yeah. And the sound is awful.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I gotta get that figured out. But it was an attempt. We attempted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So if you want to see us attempting to do a podcast unedited.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't edit it. I just dumped it right out.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh Lord. Yep. And you can send us an email at like whatever pod at gmail.com. Uh and real quick before we get started, I want to give a shout out to our friend Pat. Get well soon, buddy.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes. Did you see the um he's got a big announcement this weekend?

SPEAKER_02:

He does. I can't wait. Me neither.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm excited.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. Um, all right. So now on to fucking around and finding out about the peanuts. Heather hates the peanuts. I hate the peanuts. Don't come at me. The peanuts are 75 years old now. And I love the peanuts. And it's something I've been wanting to do. So I went ahead and did it.

SPEAKER_03:

Most people do. I am in the in the minority that is really.

SPEAKER_02:

I still don't get it either because you would think you would love Charlie Brown. Like you would really relate to Charlie Brown.

SPEAKER_03:

I have no idea why I hate Charlie Brown so much. I just do. I don't know. I think it's Snoopy. Honestly. I mean a b a black cloud follows him around. I think it's Snoopy. It's Snoopy and Peppermint Patty. What's wrong with Snoopy? I hate him. He's such an arrogant little fucking dog. Peppermint Patty's obnoxious, I guess. Yeah. She's the one that takes the football away, right? Mm-mm. Oh. Which one's the one that takes the Lucy. Oh, Lucy. Okay. Well then Lucy's the ass. I think Peppermint Patty was the lesbian. Yes. I thought they were the same. So Lucy wears the blue dress, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and has black hair. Yeah. Peppermint Patty. I was red hair. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

I was wrong. It's Lucy, I don't like. I do like um Linus is the stinky one, right?

SPEAKER_02:

No.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh. That's Pig Pen. Yes. I know stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

See? You said you weren't gonna know anything. Really? Don't be. All right, well, you're about to get learnt. So I'm ready to look. I'm ready to get on. All right, my sources this week came from Britannica.com and interestingfacts.com. Um, so the peanuts turned 75. Um, it was this week sometime. I meant to look up the date. It's probably in this script that I wrote, but it's been a long day. Anyway, um so it was written by Charles Schultz. He was born in uh November 26, 1922, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And he died February 12th, 2000, uh in Santa Rosa, California. Uh he was an American cartoonist who created The Peanuts, one of the most successful American comic strips of the mid-20th century. Schultz was the son of a barber. He studied cartooning in an art correspondence school after graduating in 1940 from high school. He served in the Army from 1943 to 1945 and returned first as an instructor with the art school and then a freelance cartoonist with the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Saturday Evening Post. He created the peanut strip originally entitled Little Folks, with a little apostrophe in the little. Yeah, that's terrible. Yeah. Uh, in the 1950s, introducing a group of three, four, and five-year-old characters based upon semi-autobiographical experiences. The main character is Charlie Brown, who represents a sort of everyman, uh, a sensitive but bland and unremarkable child. Schultz channeled the loneliness that he had experienced in his army days and the frustrations of everyday life into Charlie Brown, who is often made the butt of jokes. One of Schultz's initial themes arose from the cruelty that exists among children. The character of Snoopy, Heather's favorite, arrogant, a beagle hound with frustrated dreams of glory, is often portrayed as being wiser than the children. Other characters, including Sally, Charlie Brown's little sister, the tyrannical and contrary fuss budget Lucy. That's the one I don't like. Her younger brother Linus, who is not Pig Pen, not Pigpen, who dragged his security blanket wherever he goes.

SPEAKER_03:

The security blanket.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Like much like your Winnie the Pooh.

SPEAKER_03:

So you and Linus had a lot in common. I think that's probably the only reason I uh identified with.

SPEAKER_02:

And Schroeder, who's obsessed with playing Beethoven on his toy piano. The Peanuts comic strip was adapted to television and to stage, and Schultz wrote the screenplays for two feature-length animated films. He was co-author of Charlie Brown's Snoopy and Me in 1980 and the 3D communer computer animated The Peanuts movie based on his comic strips uh that was released in 2015. I did not ever watch that. It looked too I don't like that realistic looking cartoon stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

There's a name for that. It's uh Uncanny and Uncanny Valley. I think we've talked about this before. Oh yeah, where your brain can't process it. It can't. Well, because our lizard brain is supposed to fear things that look like us, just not quite like us. Yeah, so like if Neanderthal came up behind us, they kind of look like us, but not. So our little brains are.

SPEAKER_02:

I would definitely be scared if the Neanderthal came up behind me. I mean, yeah. Especially if he had his dinosaur with him. Fuck you. Anyway, in 1999, Schultz was diagnosed with colon cancer, and he announced his intention to retire in order to conserve his energies for his treatment program. Ironically, he died in his sleep the night before his final comic strip was published. I did know that. I did know that. That's crazy. Uh he died February 12th, 2000. Um he let's see. First published in 1947 under the name Lil Folks, the strip renamed Peanuts in 1950 featured a cast of children led by Charlie Brown. Schultz is a little bit. On the surface, Peanuts did not differ radically from other newspaper comics of its era. The four-panel daily strips featured a simple, almost spare artistic style and routinely concluded with a joke of some kind, often at Charlie Brown's expense. The strength of the Peanuts lay in the depth of its characters and in Schultz's ability to connect with his readers through them. The introspective everyman Charlie Brown stoically dealt with life's misfortunes from a kite-eating tree to a football that oh is always pulled away a moment before he attempted to kick it with a sigh, a good grief, or most emphatically withdreat. Lucy Van Pelt, his frequent his frequent tormentor, and the big sister to his blanket toting friend Linus, offered psychiatric advice and presented a steely exterior, but she could not resist observing that happiness is a warm puppy. Snoopy, Charlie Brown's beagle, arrogant and pithy observations, and spent his time engaging in imagined aerial battles with a German World War I flying ace.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly, my issue. Dogs don't think about that.

SPEAKER_02:

It was crazy though that back then we were watching cartoons with the red baron flying around in war. Yeah. And he fantasized himself as a jazz saxophonist named Joe Cool.

SPEAKER_03:

That's it. That's where it might be. That one's annoying. That's where my issue comes in.

SPEAKER_02:

That's people's pro that's the people's fault, though. Stickers and shirts.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't care whose fault anyway. I don't like it.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. The strip's other characters included Schroeder, the Beethoven-obsessed object of Lucy's desire, Peppermint Patty, a freckled and frequently bewildered tomboy who referred to Charlie Brown as Chuck, Marcy, Peppermint Patty's wisecracking sidekick, and Woodstock, a yellow bird who, in spite of his inexpert flying skills, accompanied Snoopy on his many adventures.

SPEAKER_03:

Can't stand Woodstock either.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Again, like there was a time, what was it the 90s? Yes. Where it was everywhere. Everything was at the Tasmanian devil. Everybody was getting tattoos. Yeah. Yeah. And Tweety Bird. Oh, yeah, that too. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh at the time of Schultz's death in 2000, mere hours before his final Sunday strip was published, Peanuts was running in more than 2,500 magazines in art newspapers in 75 countries, with a readership that topped 350 million. In the early 21st century, sales of peanuts merchandise amounted to a billion dollar a year empire with products ranging from stuffed animals to clothing to a popular line of greeting cards. So yeah, right there. 90s.

SPEAKER_03:

Fucking everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere.

SPEAKER_02:

Snoopy was perhaps the most visible peanuts character appearing as the corporate mascot for American insurance company MetLife and making uh appearances as a massive balloon in New York City's annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Him and Woodstock, right? Yeah. It's so funny. Every year I'm like, I wake up on Thanksgiving and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna watch the Macy's Day Parade. And I turn it on. I literally watch for like five minutes. I'm like, I can't take this anymore.

SPEAKER_03:

Look, I don't even like watching parades in person. I'm certainly not gonna watch one on TV.

SPEAKER_02:

I have a nostalgia for parades because I was in marching band from fifth grade through senior year. I enjoyed being in parades. I enjoyed taking my kids to parades when they were little homecoming parades, things like that. But no, I'm not really into I usually just really try to catch the rockets on the Macy's Day Parade.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I guess I get that because I have uh an affinity for the Mommer's Parade. Yes, because your dad was a mummer. Yeah, and I will watch the Mummer's Parade, but that's also a different kind of thing because at the end there they do like a whole thing. So yeah. I mean I guess they do at the Thanksgiving Day parade too.

SPEAKER_02:

So and they're all drunk as a skunk, which makes it way more entertaining.

unknown:

Yes, they are.

SPEAKER_03:

And we used to go when I was a kid, like little, little before my sister.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. She ruined everything. Everything. Literally everything.

SPEAKER_02:

I've never seen the mummers in person.

unknown:

I have.

SPEAKER_02:

It probably would have been fun back then. I can imagine it's not the same.

SPEAKER_03:

My um, just as an aside, my dad's BFF is here, and I bet when you go to leave, if you ask my dad to do the mummers dance, he will, because I'm pretty sure they're fucking high as kites.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, when I came up, one of the garage doors was open. I was like, I bet I know what they're doing now.

SPEAKER_03:

They've been out in the shed. The shed. When I got here, they've been in the side. They've been in the shed for like I I've been here for like three hours. But he he he will do the mummers dance for you. You hand him an umbrella. Well, I don't know if I want to see that. If anybody obviously you guys might not even know what a mummer's parade is unless you're in the Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe you should explain that a little bit.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, so the mummers are I'm not really, I don't know. They just always have existed. They're like um kind of like union. But let's it's kind of like uh union crossed with like secret club crossed with like there's probably some masons in there. Yeah, like a like a and it's in Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know if we mentioned that yet.

SPEAKER_03:

It's strictly a Philadelphia thing. And January 1st is the Mummers Day Parade, and they spend the entire year decorating these crazy ass floats and their costumes and they're just crazy costumes, and they have different categories. There's the fancy category, and then there's some other. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_02:

I think there's a comical one, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And they they march down Broad Street um every year on January 1st, and they start partying the night before, they stay up all night.

SPEAKER_03:

All night. There's a there's a mummers staging area where down by the Mummers Museum, and then they just roam down, and back in the day, you can't probably can't do it now because it's different, but back in the day, they would walk down Broad Street and everybody would have because it was New Year's Day, so the whole strip of Broad Street, people would have their doors open and everybody had food, and you could just walk in and out of people's houses. That sounds amazing, and it was just like a ginormous block party because Broad Street is really big. So it was like you could just and the mummers would like be walking down and they would just stop, and then people would give them alcohol because it was so cold, and and then so then they they do a mummer strut and they have an umbrella and they do this dance with the umbrella anyhow.

SPEAKER_02:

And back in the day it was only men, right? Yes. Even though the outfits are very flamboyant.

SPEAKER_03:

Very, yes, but it was only men. And my dad, because he belonged to one of the local high school, he played in the local high school band, um, he would get recruited every year to do it. And I'm gonna put this in air quotes because I think it's full of shit. But he said that he had to put they would have to dump the alcohol in the saxophone for the read because it would freeze up. And I was like, I don't believe you, even for a millisecond.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. I played the saxophone and I marched in many uh cold weather um parades, yes, that is not true. I didn't think so.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, they would they would just um anyway, yeah. They're very if if you ever get if you're curious, I'm sure you can find it on YouTube. You can watch Mummer's Parades and they have a there's a whole uh I forget what the there's a certain song they play, Something Slipper. Um I can't remember anyway. It's a it's a Philadelphia thing.

SPEAKER_02:

It is, and it's very cool. And I grew up in Delaware, but I still of course need a mummer's tickets.

SPEAKER_03:

It's on the TV over here, all around here, yeah. And then also a couple of times when we had season tickets to the Eagles, there would be an Eagles game, and most of these guys are have season tickets to the Eagles. And they would let them in with their umbrellas, and I was like, why? Why are you letting them in with their little umbrellas? That's hilarious because you are not allowed to take an umbrella in a stadium. But they would let them in with their little umbrellas and you would see them pop them. I would have to stop them.

unknown:

That's true.

SPEAKER_03:

And this the security were probably all mummers anyway. Uh-huh. And then you'd see them, they would pop their little, they would, because they would be like, Oh, welcome, whatever mummers, and then they would pop their little umbrellas open. And then everybody behind them couldn't see anything. It's really annoying. Anyway, that check it out sometime. You might want to, if you're if you're interested in seeing what mummers are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, all right, so the Peanx characters uh appeared in numerous television specials, including A Charlie Brown Christmas, one of my favorites. That one star from 1965. Uh It's a great pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Boom. Came out in 1966. Um, as well as a short-lived television series, The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, in 1983 to 1985, which I do not remember. Um they were the subject of the stage musical You're a Good Man Charlie Brown in 1967, and there was a television adaptation in 1973 and 1985. Um over the comic strips 50-year run, Schultz refused to allow anyone else to draw or write peanuts, and the collected body of work amounting to more than 18,000 strips was thought to be the longest story ever told by a single person.

SPEAKER_03:

That is interesting.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Uh Snoopy is an asshole. The white-spotted beagle, no, spotted white beagle. Let me get that right. He had black spots, uh, with a rich fantasy life, the pet dog of the hapless character uh Charlie Brown, Snoopy became one of the most iconic and beloved characters in the history of comics. Although Charlie Brown was obstinately the main character on uh Charles Schultz's long-running strip, more often than not, his dog stole the show. The strip began in 1950, and before that decade was over, Snoopy had begun walking on two feet and communicating with readers through cartoons, which were thought bubbles. Uh although the other characters in the strip were not privy to Snoopy's thoughts, they often spoke to him as if he were human and even made him a star player on their baseball team.

SPEAKER_03:

That's what I'm trying to say. I mean, we all talk to our pets like they're humans. Right. I get that. You know what it is? I'm gonna tell you what it is. Because this is this is a this is how I know I probably have some autism hiding in there somewhere. Okay. Undiagnosed. Although, I mean, let's let's be honest. I'm way on the spectrum. I'm not just a little bit, I don't even have just a touch of the tism. I'm like fully on there. Um I think it's because I cannot stand things out of the realm of reality.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Except what but here's what's weird science fiction. I don't have a problem with science fiction like Star Trek. Um that's clearly not real, but I guess it could be. But the fact that Snoopy is gonna walk on two feet and fly planes, yeah, and have thought bubbles and fly planes is just used to drive me insane when my sister would color and she would like, she did it on fucking purpose. She would like color an elephant like green. No, you can't. Elephants are gray.

SPEAKER_02:

I was always pretty anal retentive about keeping my coloring realistic. Realistic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You can't color a purple. No. No. They are grey. I mean, I'll give you pink. Yeah, because there's the pink elephant. Yeah. But that's another thing. Like, I like Winnie the Pooh. Who knows what the hell's wrong with that?

SPEAKER_02:

We'll just like this one day.

SPEAKER_03:

We're gonna need more than an hour.

SPEAKER_02:

We'll do a whole month on it. We might have to. Okay. Lying on the roof of his doghouse, Snoopy spent much of his time daydreaming. In one of his recurring flights of fancy, he was a World War I flying ace, who, sporting pilot's goggles, and a flowing red scarf with his doghouse transformed into a fighter plane, waged fierce aerial battles against his nemesis, the Red Baron. This rivalry was the subject of a pair of popular novelty songs by the American rock group The Royal Guardsmen in the mid-1960s. I remember that song. I do not. You'd know it if you heard it. Maybe. Snoopy's other alter egos included the jazz saxophonist Joe Cole and a soldier in the French Foreign Legion. Uh Woodstock, a small yellow bird whose exact species was never identified by Schultz, was introduced in the late 1960s and soon became a sidekick for Snoopy, accompanying him on his many adventures.

SPEAKER_03:

I would think it's the same kind of bird as Tweety Bird, right? They look similar, right? Don't they?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um I can't remember quite what I can't do, but I don't. I mean, they're both yellow. Um I guess I never really even thought. I mean, Tweety Bird's really weird because his head's bigger than his body. Right. And that's just not a bird thing. I'm gonna look up woods. They would just fall over. They would dive bomb to the ground when they were trying to fly. But Tweety, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

Let me I'm looking.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, while you look, I'm gonna talk about Space Beagle. You go ahead. Uh Space Beagle was an astronaut Snoopy, a balloon flying or floating down Sixth Avenue in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, New York City, November 25th, 2021. Since 1968, Snoopy in various guises, including an astronaut, has been a regularly featured balloon character at the annual Macy's Day Thanksgiving Parade, and he has appeared in more Macy's Thanksgiving Day parades than any other character.

SPEAKER_01:

Not more than Santa Claus. I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_03:

I guess not. Alright, did you find out what kind of bird it was? Tweety bird is a canary. But I guess what he's asked is no.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh Tweety's a canary. Tweety is a canary. Well it says Schultz never it's a oh no. I guess if Schultz didn't say then he's he's what's the word? A bird. A bird.

SPEAKER_03:

Anonymous word.

SPEAKER_02:

A bird. Oh, like all one word though. A bird. A bird. Um Snoopy was prominently featured in numerous Peanuts animated television specials and movies, including Snoopy Come Home in 1972, uh Broadway musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, as I mentioned before, in 1967, and the Peanuts movie 2015, which I never watched. Um in the 1960s, the Snoopy character became a mascot for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, aka NASA. See? Another reason you should like him.

SPEAKER_03:

I must have blocked that part out because I don't recall that.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't remember that either. You probably did block it out. I'm sure. The hapless Charlie Brown, who was usually called by both names, though Peppermint Patty invariably called him Chuck, and the bespeckled Marcy called him Charles, was an indecisive, likable, easily embarrassed elementary schoolboy. Uh Schultz considered him to be his alter ego. He represented a youthful everyman. He was often tormented by Lucy, always dusted himself off, and tried again after repeated failures. That's why you don't relate to him. Fuck that, dusting yourself off. Just go home and sit on the couch. I'm just not good at dusting myself off. And he never worked up the courage to speak to the little red-haired girl for whom he pined. While expecting the worst, he hoped for the best. There it is.

SPEAKER_03:

I just expect the worst.

SPEAKER_02:

And hope for the worst. And it always happens, so uh as evidenced by his role as the manager of a perennially underperforming baseball team. Other running gags, including Charlie Brown's attempts to fly a kite, which were often frustrated by a kite-eating tree, which is his own fault.

SPEAKER_03:

You don't fly a kite that close to the tree. Well, I don't like kites to begin with. I'm not a fan. I hate them. They stress me out. Really? Yes. Oh my god, I love flying kites. I can't I can't stand them. It's my dad's fault 100%. Oh yeah. He would like make them go up really, really high and then hand them to me. And that's too much pressure for a little kid. That is a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like the upper atmosphere.

SPEAKER_02:

So I don't think it's a good one.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I don't. I don't I don't do kites.

SPEAKER_02:

That's another thing I miss doing with my kids. We used to go to the park and go kite flying.

SPEAKER_03:

I think I went with you one time and it stressed me out. The ones they have up on the boardwalk, those big ones that like dive and cut. I hate that shit. I hate it.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't need all that fancy stuff. Just give me the cheap dollar store plastic and the two plastic things and send it up. Um let's see. In spite of these setbacks, he boasted occasional victories, such as when he triumphed over a neighborhood bully in a game of marbles. Ooh, look at you, Charlie Brown.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm trying to triumph too by making this damn podcast. You people will not cooperate.

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe you need to go play some marbles in the street with somebody.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know how to play marbles. My mom tried to teach me, but I don't I don't know marbles.

SPEAKER_02:

I know Jack's. I know Jack's.

SPEAKER_03:

Did you see my they've got um backgamment over here? I fucking love back gamment. There's two separate boards here.

SPEAKER_01:

I also like what's the other one that kind of looks like it. Um starts with a C. Oh.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I was gonna say baccarat, but that's not that's a gambling game. You're thinking of casinos.

SPEAKER_02:

Shoot. What is it? Oh well. Um when Schultz first came up with the idea for a comic strip that revolved around a group of young neighborhood kids in 1947, he called the weekly panel cartoon Little Folks, which we mentioned before. Uh at the time he was illustrating the comic strip for his hometown newspaper. Uh, but when he brought the idea to the United States Syndicate in 1950, he was asked to change the name, given possible copyright issues with a different strip called Little Folks. Ooh, scandal. Copyright. Schultz suggested Charlie Brown or good old Charlie Brown, but the syndicate decided on a different name entirely, peanuts. After the children-only audience section of the Howdy Duty show, which was referred to as the Peanut Gallery. I did know that. While Schultz may not have been aware, the phrase had racist origins in the 19th century. Get out. I think we talked about that, didn't we? I think so. Uh in the Jimmy Carter episode.

SPEAKER_03:

It feels familiar. You should listen to the Jimmy Carter episode.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and see if we talked about it.

SPEAKER_03:

What would Jimmy do?

SPEAKER_02:

It's a good one. It is a good one. Uh Schultz wasn't exactly a fan of the new name. He thought it made the strip sound insignificant. He once said in an interview that he had sometimes rebelled and submitted the comic without a title. Ultimately, though, Schultz and the Syndicate reached a compromise. They would use the name Peanuts and run the subtitle Charlie Brown and His Gang on Sundays. That sounds like way too much work. Have that be the outcome. Yep. So I don't know if you had this but knew this, but Snoopy came from a litter and he had five siblings. Were they all arrogant? Let's find out. Okay. Uh so Charlie Brown's beloved Beagle, modeled after Schultz's own pup Spike, is one of kind. Over the years, he proved to be Charlie Brown's best friend and confidant, an active dreamer, and an art aficionado whose doghouse is supposedly adorned with works by Vincent Van Gogh and Andrew Weith. But Snoopy didn't start out as an only puppy. Before Charlie Brown bought him from the Daisy Hill puppy farm, Snoopy had five siblings who Well, that's his problem right there.

SPEAKER_03:

It's from a puppy farm. Yeah. A puppy mill. A puppy mill baby.

SPEAKER_02:

Um all five siblings had made appearances throughout the years. Spike, who wears a hat, has a mustache, and lives in the desert. He was funny. I like Spike. Uh outside of Needles, California. I do not recall any of them. You don't remember Spike? Nope. He was cute. Um Belle, who is Snoopy's only sister, had an unnamed teenage son. Scandalous. Was it a bastard puppy? Uh Marbles, who is often referred to as the smart one in the family. With the name like Marbles?

SPEAKER_03:

I would think not. Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

And then Olaf, the misfit of the family. Hold on.

SPEAKER_03:

He's a snowman. Can't fool me.

SPEAKER_02:

And Andy, who is always drawn with fuzzy fur and only appears in strips alongside Olaf.

SPEAKER_03:

Andy?

SPEAKER_02:

Andy.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Marbles, Olaf. Andy. Andy. Spike. Spike. That one.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't know about that. Then the little floozy, whatever her name was. Remember when your biggest decision was which Lisa Frank folder to bring to Home Room? Well, now it's which handcrafted spirit to sip while Doom Scrolling your ex is LinkedIn. Introducing Garden State Distillery, where every bottle is grown here, made here, and tastes like New Jersey finally got its act together.

SPEAKER_03:

Whether you're reliving your maul goth phase or just trying to survive another PTA meeting, Garden State small batch spirits are your new emotional support beverage. Try the bottled cocktails because mixing drinks is for people who still believe in multitasking. Grab some merch so your hoodie can smell like rebellion and rosemary gin.

SPEAKER_02:

And because you're one of us, use code Like WhateverPod for 15% off. Although adults barely feature in the peanuts world that Schultz created, Charlie Brown's parents are two who are given the tiniest semblance of personalities in the comic strip. And by personalities we mean descriptions. Charlie Brown's mother is a housewife and is one of the only characters that calls him Charlie. And his dad is a barber, uh, just like Schultz's real life dad. Charlie Brown's dad doesn't actually appear in the strip, but he's referenced often. Oh, I think we're in my fun facts. I'm excited. I didn't even realize that. I love fun facts. I think we've been in them for a while now. I'm just so tired. I don't even know. She's very tired. I am. I literally was like getting on meetings on my work phone while I was stationary because I knew I had to leave before the end of the meeting, and then I would listen to the meeting in the car or driving to another meeting. Like that was my day today. That sounds awful.

SPEAKER_03:

That is way too much for me. That's the best part of my job is I spend the whole day by myself in a little car. I have two people all day. I mean, I do because they come up to me, but for the most part, the best part about being especially a full-time what they call regular is you're basically your own boss. Like you just have to go and come back.

SPEAKER_02:

I went to a breakfast that one of the local colleges puts on every year for um collaborators, um colleagues, things like that. I went and found a nice table by myself in the corner, went and got my coffee and my orange juice and my breakfast. And then two deans come up, deans of the school, and sit with me and make me talk. I know. I hate that. I hate it too.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't mind I what I don't mind people in sometimes, but when it's forced like that. Yeah. But clearly I'm away from everybody for reason.

SPEAKER_02:

And I was kind of like in the corner hidden because I had to leave that early to get to a meeting. Right. And I just kind of wanted to slip out, and now I have two really important people from the school sitting with me, and now I look like an asshole ducking out, but gotta go, kids.

unknown:

Thanks.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey, teeth and run. Cool story, bro. All right, so the little red-haired girl who was on Charlie Brown and the one Charlie Brown had a um is it Ariel? No, she didn't have a name. So you can name her Ariel if you'd like.

SPEAKER_03:

She's a little mermaid.

SPEAKER_02:

And she was never seen in the comic. Speaking of characters who never show their faces, Charlie Brown's eternal crush, the little red-haired girl, is mentioned frequently, but never actually appears in any of Schultz's original comic strips, though she did make an appearance in some later TV specials. I remember on the TV specials. I wonder if she was a secret crush of Schultz's.

SPEAKER_03:

Are we sure he wasn't schizophrenic?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh Charlie Brown? Maybe none of this is real. I thought you meant Schultz. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe Schultz. Yeah. Maybe this was the same. How come dogs talk to you?

SPEAKER_02:

Just saying. Uh, the closest readers have ever come to seeing Little Red-haired girl in print was in silhouette in one of Schultz's daily strips in 1998. And she was never given a name. According to a 2015 feature in the week, there was a good reason for that. She was based on a real woman. Oh, duh. There we go. Schultz stated the red-headed Donna Mae Johnson prior to Peanut success. He even proposed, but she turned him down and married someone else shortly after, because he was obsessed about writing about three and four-year-olds. Again, also creepy. Schultz admittedly pined for her for years after, and in 1961, he created the mysterious little red-haired girl for Charlie Brown, possibly as a symbol of young, unrequivited love. This was something I never realized because Linus talks a lot in the cartoons. Um, but he didn't speak for the first two years of the comic strip.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't think he did. I thought he was the one he never talked. I of I feel like that's was the thing. Pig pen doesn't talk. God damn it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Linus is the one in the Christmas one that the spotlight comes down on him in the stage and he recites the church thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Stupid speech.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it is a really beautiful moment, even though it's stupid.

SPEAKER_01:

Not my thing.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm getting the exact reaction out of you I expected from this script. It's awesome. Uh many of Schultz's characters represent a part of his personality, and Linus is no different. The off-nervous younger brother of Bossy Lucy. Linus actually didn't say his first word until 1954, two years after he was introduced into the comic strip. Schultz was has referred to Linus as a manifestation of his serious side, the house intellectual, bright, well-informed. Excuse me. That's a lot to say. Which may be why he said Linus has such feelings of insecurity. And while Linus's trademark blue blanket didn't exactly spark the term security blanket, it's hard not to link the two in our cultural understanding of what a security blanket is these days. Why wouldn't it come from that? I don't know. Like where else would it come from? I mean, I mean, I guess maybe a war or something somewhere.

SPEAKER_03:

Or I don't know. I don't know. Jessica had a blanket. Oh, my sister had a blanket. A blanket. I had a kitty. I had a poo. Got wound up. Pooh. If she had a blanket, it was silky, and she would run her fingers through uh run it through her fingers until it was a teeny tiny little square.

SPEAKER_02:

That doesn't sound like anxiety at all. That's the only way she could go to sleep. This was something that I didn't know, and now that I know it, I can unhear it. But they used a trombone for Charlie Brown's teacher's voice. I always just assumed it was somebody saying wah wah wah wah. Um in the original comic strip, Charlie Brown and his friends are the focal point, while teachers and other adults are relegated to the backdrop. But when the popular comic strip was made into an animated series, producers knew they'd need to find some way to create a voice for adults in a way that still paid homage to Schultz's wishes to leave adults out of the main picture. Composer Vince Giraldi, who scored all of the early classics, including a Charlie Brown Christmas and it's a great pumpkin Charlie Brown, came up with the solution. Use a trombone with a mute in the bell to stand in for any adult dialogue. The result was what's now widely referred to as the walt won't voice. Um Peanuts was the first major comic strip to feature a minority character. Yay for that. Schultz was intentional about a lot of things when it came to how he framed his famous comic strip, but most especially when it came to race. The majority of the Peanuts gang had always been white, mostly because the cartoonists felt unsure as to whether it was his place to include minority minority minority characters in his storyline. And that's fair.

SPEAKER_03:

I I Yes, because you don't want to offend. You don't want to go the wrong way on that one.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, but things changed in 1968 following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Schultz received a letter from a woman asking him to add an African-American character to the comic. And three months later, in July 1968, Franklin made his comic strip debut picking up and returning a beach ball that Charlie Brown had lost.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, and maybe he learned something from Dr. Seuss too. Wish you can hear more about that. And how Dr. Seuss is problematic. And I think the episode is I do not like this. I do not like this growing up scam.

SPEAKER_02:

I do not like it.

SPEAKER_03:

So check that out if you want to hear. But maybe he did, maybe he learned a lesson. That that might have been why, because Dr. Seuss kind of went a little bit off on me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I get that. Yeah. Um, especially back then. Yeah. Um, critics have noted that Franklin is more nondescript than his white counterparts. But Schultz's longtime friend and fellow cartoonist Rob Armstrong once said that he thought Schultz played it smartly with Franklin. He was always very thoughtful in how he treated his characters. Uh Armstrong told NPR in 2018. And in fact, Schultz actually dedicated Franklin's last name to Armstrong after a pair developed after the pair developed a friendship that lasted until Schultz's death in 2000. Armstrong is the creator of Jumpstart, one of the most widely syndicated black comic strips ever. Yeah. Uh Charles Schultz once killed off a character because she was so unpopular with the readers.

SPEAKER_03:

He should have killed off Snoopy.

SPEAKER_01:

And Lucy.

SPEAKER_02:

And Lucy.

SPEAKER_03:

Taking line of the stuff. And the whole rest of them just blow the town up. Stinky pig pen.

SPEAKER_02:

In November 1954, Schultz introduced a new female character to the peanut strip, Charlotte Braun, a loud. A loud brash character who was meant to be the counterpart to bubbly, soft spoken Charlie Brown. Uh, it turned out, though, that readers weren't ready for an opinionated female character. No, I'd readers still aren't ready for that shit. No. And largely disliked Charlotte's presence on the page. Damn her for being a strong female. She made a total of 10 appearances in subsequent comic strips and then quietly disappeared without an explanation. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

It's a little Ava Braunish.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I didn't feel real good about that. No. Because, you know, Lucy, she was she spoke out, but she was a bitch, so you could just relate her to your bitchy wife and your bitchy mom. And just a sassy strong woman who needs it.

unknown:

God.

SPEAKER_03:

Ruining everything.

SPEAKER_02:

Some 45 years later, however.

SPEAKER_03:

Wanting the rights and all that. Want a boat.

SPEAKER_02:

Control of your body. Come on. Crazy. Don't be ridiculous. Um, some 45 years later, however, following Schultz's death, a letter he had written to a disgruntled fan about Charlotte Braun was unearthed. In it he wrote, perhaps jokingly, possibly not, that the reader and her friends will have the death of an innocent child on your conscience. Are you prepared to accept such responsibility? Oh my god, there is so much scandal in the peanuts. Uh, he ended the letter with a drawing of Charlotte with an axe in her head. You like him a little better now? Yeah. Where's that?

SPEAKER_03:

I want to see that one.

SPEAKER_02:

The well, it's in the Library of Congress. I won't I will go there. Yep, the original letter is there now. Right now. Don't go there right now. We gotta finish. I don't want to go over that bridge. In your car. And you want to have a car, it's a whole thing. Uh as I mentioned before, um, the final strip ran the day after Schultz's death. Uh, he was a notoriously hard worker and was rumored to have taken only one real vacation in his career. Uh, reportedly, the only time peanut strips were ever republished during his lifetime were when United Features ordered him to take five weeks off around his 75th birthday. Uh, it was perhaps fitting then that when he died of colon cancer two years later, it was just one day before his last original strip ran. So he never missed a deadline. Well, that's nice. It is a very romantic um way to die.

unknown:

Okay. I think I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll let you know when I'm gonna do it. Probably just thinking of Taylor Swift's song actually romantic, but you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, did you get the thing I sent you about I don't know if I did send you, about how you have to have a word so that when one of us dies and we come back, we know this does or we talk to a psychic. We have a secret word. Mm-hmm. So that when they're like, Oh, I'm talking to you, and then you can be like, What's the word? Mm-hmm. We can't tell you people now, but we'll make it up.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And we'll never tell you, but because then you might be a psychic listener. But we're definitely not telling you now because we don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_02:

We don't know what it is. Peanuts comic strips are no longer drawn. Unlike many other comic strips, such as Gasoline Alley, Blondie, and Beetle Bailey. I always like Beetle Bailey. Um, which have brought on new artists to write or draw the cartoons after the original creator's death or retirement. Peanuts ended with Schultz's death in 2000. In December of the previous year, Schultz had announced that he would be ending Peanuts' nearly 50-year run. His final daily strip ran in January 2000, and the final Sunday comic ran on February 13th, 2000. Schultz used that strip as a farewell letter. Unfortunately, I am no longer able to maintain the schedule demanded by a daily comic strip. My family does not wish peanuts to be continued by anyone else. Therefore, I am announcing my retirement. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, how can I ever forget them? To this day, uh there have been no new strips released, and new animated specials must be based on storylines, themes, and dialogue that already exist within the strip's 50-year history. And lastly, there's a peanuts documentary that never aired. I wonder why. A variety show sponsored by Ford Motors. Melendez would later form his own company, Bill Melendez Per Productions, and he was her name. Yeah, man. Thinking out of the box there. And he was largely responsible for animating and directing all subsequent peanuts television specials and movies, with one exception. In 1963, Lee Mendelson, who later produced nearly all of Melendez's work, produced a documentary about the popular comic strip in collaboration with Schultz himself. The finished product, a boy named Charlie Brown, not to be confused with the above-mentioned Oscar nominee of the same name, never aired on TV. It is, however, available on DVD exclusively in the Schultz Museum store. Merch. So if you are dying for more information, I'm not on the peanuts, you need to head your happy ass over to the Schultz Museum store.

unknown:

Wherever that is.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know why. I was never into like newspaper comics anyway. Like the far side, okay, because that's weird, but I always loved comics. Never ended up. But I was I never liked everything.

SPEAKER_02:

But you probably didn't have I didn't have fun. You probably didn't have newspapers around you much as a small child.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh my grandfather and I used to do the um the word search every Sunday. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like the crossword puzzle. I like the crossword puzzle. But yeah, as a tiny kid, we would do the word search in the um Philadelphia Inquirer.

SPEAKER_02:

So you never read Garfield or Um Marmaduke or Beatles?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I've I've I've seen them. You know them all. I know them. Right. And I've read, you know, here and there, but I no.

SPEAKER_02:

I had ones I liked and ones I didn't like. I mean, and I read them for a while. I remember one called For Better or Worse came out. Um maybe when I was a teen. I never cared much about it.

SPEAKER_03:

What was the one with the Viking? Oh. I want to say Horton here's a hu who, but that's Dr. Speaker. Something the terrible. I I yeah. Not Ivan the Terrible. That's something different.

SPEAKER_05:

Um tired.

SPEAKER_02:

I know. Oh well. Yeah. But do us a favor and go look it up and send us an email and let us know what it is. Because I don't feel like googling it right now. Our thumbs are tired. I don't feel like googling.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I don't I just I I don't know. I I I was a weird kid. I know. Shocker.

SPEAKER_02:

But kid?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I don't think I ever was actually a child, so no. Um because I didn't really. I mean, I guess I I did like cartoons. I don't know. I don't know. It's weird. Just never was into the comic book. Never did comic book.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean you're into a lot of things, and you're into a lot of things. I know, and you're into a lot of eclectic things. You've just you've never been really mainstream, I guess. You didn't like the boring stuff everybody else liked.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess. You've always been cooler than me. No.

SPEAKER_02:

Even before we knew each other.

SPEAKER_01:

No.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you were definitely cooler than I've been.

SPEAKER_03:

Always just been a little weirdo. Um I know, because I wanna when I was watching, what was that? My one of my favorite podcasts is my favorite murder, and they always say, like, what was your first introduction into true crime? And so they have announced that the new episode of Monster is on Lizzie Borden. Oh I'm worried.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, yeah, now.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I was always obsessed with Lizzie Borden.

SPEAKER_03:

You know you can stay in her house, right?

SPEAKER_02:

I think I knew that, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, they turned it into a BNB.

SPEAKER_02:

I remember the funny thing, I I remember being obsessed with Lizzie Borden at a very young age, and the the fact that her mom made her eat food with uh maggots in it. Yeah, like that always freaked me out. Of course, I always knew the rhyme. Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her father 40 wax. And the job was nicely done, she gave her mother 40 win. Um, and then I remember when I was 18, I went to New Orleans with my mom and a few of my friends, and one night we were back in the hotel after a long day and we watched the Lizzie Borden movie, and this was in 1991, so it was not a very good one. Uh-huh. But yeah, she was probably my first obsession with crime too.

SPEAKER_03:

I was thinking about it and I was like, I can't. I it has to be Lizzie Borden. Yeah, I'm trying to think. Yeah, I mean, I imagine because of the rhyme.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and the 70s were a hot time for serial killers. Lots of young girls hitchhiking. I mean, they it was like killing fish in a barrel. It really was. It was the it was the uh the golden age. There were no camera, there was no internet, there was no, it was just, hey, you need a ride? Yeah, yeah. And that was that. What a time to be on the half the time they were runaways, so nobody knew where they were where they were.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I bet serial killers these days are like, man, they had a good man, they had a good run when they were now. People lock their house.

SPEAKER_03:

Ring doorbells everywhere.

SPEAKER_02:

So rude. So much harder now.

SPEAKER_03:

They just have made it so difficult for serial killers to do it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we really have. I mean it's not like they've gone away.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, now they have to be spree killers. Yeah. They have to do it all in once, and they don't care for that.

SPEAKER_02:

I still think if I were to do it even these days, I think catching the train cross-country. Um and I'm talking like the boxcar trains that are transporting like a hobo. Yeah. You do it all hobo-y. Yeah. Because that's the key. You stop somewhere where nobody knows you, you kill somebody you don't know, yeah, and you get the fuck out of town.

SPEAKER_03:

You definitely have to do it anonymous. You can't. Everybody you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I don't think my DNA is in the database. So my fingerprints are. My fingerprints definitely are.

SPEAKER_03:

My DNA is in the in the system. Why? For the postdoc? I didn't know. I did a um uh 23andme, not 23andme, ancestry. So I'm in the Mormons. That's why I never have my DNA.

SPEAKER_02:

That's why I never did that shit.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know what my I did it because I wanted to know if my parents were my real parents. Turns out they are. Damn it. I know. I am not supposed to be a princess somewhere. I know. It's a very disappointing. I mean, I know I am the spitting image of my mother, but you know, yeah. There's still a chance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I mean, that whole ancestry thing, like my family, the history of my family is fucking crazy enough. Like, I blew my polar daughter's mind because she's now an adult. So there's like things. I mean, this is talk about a month's worth of podcasts to talk about it. But there were things that I just didn't tell her as a kid that were part of my history, and it kind of came up recently, and she was like, wait, what? It's yeah, it's crazy. If you live in Delaware, it's a Delaware thing for sure. Yeah. But I mean, I'm not in for it or anything. Please, if anyone's thinking it's nothing, it it it teeters on it, then it's not not a hundred percent. But um yeah, I mean my life is like crazy enough.

SPEAKER_03:

It's yeah, you know, you uh of course, I guess any of us can look back and be like, wow, that was especially people of our generation because that whole Glatchke thing was just inside. But not all of us.

SPEAKER_02:

Like there are people that had very normal childhoods, and I used to envy them. I don't envy them now because I feel like that's a um I don't want to be jealous of people because they had good parents.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. But my mom always used to say Well, you had great parents. You could some people are gonna have oh uh always some people are always gonna have more than you, and some people are always gonna have less than you. Yes. Forever. Yes, no matter where you are in life. Yes, unless you're Elon Musk.

SPEAKER_01:

Your mom said that? Yeah, that's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_03:

Pre-brain injury.

SPEAKER_01:

Pretty wild.

SPEAKER_03:

That's she used to go hard on that one when you would complain about stuff. There are people who have more than you, and there are people who have less than you. Yeah. Always. Unless you're Elon Musk. She didn't put that part in, but I did.

SPEAKER_02:

She probably made that up after your little princess sister was born and was having a temper tantrum right now because she was something she wanted.

SPEAKER_03:

She was such a brat. Can't even go into her.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but she grew up to be a pretty awesome so I guess.

SPEAKER_03:

This episode drops on my cousin's birthday.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh. Happy birthday.

SPEAKER_03:

Happy birthday.

SPEAKER_02:

Does he listen? I don't know. I don't think he does. I don't think he does either. We don't have any listens in that area. No. But he might not be a podcast listener. Or he might not want to listen to us right now. He might just hate us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

He's probably. If you're listening right now, you know who you are. But happy birthday anyway. Yeah. Oh yeah. Um that's funny.

SPEAKER_02:

His birthday is so close to your mom's, and your birthday was on your uncle, on his dad's birthday.

SPEAKER_03:

So him, my uncle and mine have the the birth have our birthday. And then my mom's birthday is five days later. And then my cousin's birthday is exactly seven days after her birthday, and then my sister's birthday is seven days after that. Wow. So my sister's birthday is the seventeenth. Crazy.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so my birthday's the day before my mom's. And then my sister is twelve days after my mom. But then my kids one's born August 2nd, one's the 10th, and one's the 4 13th, and then their dad is the 14th. So Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Pretty crazy. And it is. They come in groups, I guess.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

Although my dad well, no, because my dad is in April, and then um my mom's besties two kids. The oldest is two days before my dad's birthday, and then the other one's a month later.

SPEAKER_02:

I miss those kids.

SPEAKER_03:

They're not kids anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

I probably wouldn't even recognize them anymore.

SPEAKER_03:

No, my godson has two kids of his own, and then the other one has one.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh. I didn't know that one, and I didn't know about the second one.

SPEAKER_03:

Boy, he has a boy and a girl. And then the older one has a girl. Oh. Very Italian names for all of them. No doubt. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. All right. Well, that was my episode on the peanuts. Happy 75th to the peanuts. Yeah, that's nice.

SPEAKER_03:

That's lovely.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. You're lying, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm not. It was good, good stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's a little it it yeah, it's funny how much it's just funny to go back on these things and look listen to the adult things that were happening while we were just kids reading the comic strip.

SPEAKER_03:

That's one of the things that you go back on and you're like, huh. What about that? Yep. That was uh an interesting. That was an interesting uh thing they yeah. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

But you know, I know Disney did it on purpose so that the adults when they took the kids had something to laugh at. Yeah, laugh at. And it's I assume you know almost all the comics did too.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't think there's anything like that in the peanuts, though. I don't remember any adult humor at all.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

I think it was very childlike. I bet he did have a mental illness. I don't know what it is, but I don't know. Something where he was trapped in that time.

SPEAKER_03:

I know. So they say that the Winnie the Pooh are all mental illnesses.

SPEAKER_02:

I have heard that theory.

SPEAKER_03:

Obviously, Eeyore's depression. Obviously, Tigger is ADHD. Piglet is anxiety. Piglet is anxiety. Um Tigger ADHD. Oh, wait. Rabbit. Rabbit. I don't remember what rabbit was. I don't remember what Pooh was either. No, that was the owl. Oh. I don't know. I don't know. There's a thing that you can look up and and somebody has broken them all down. But I definitely identify with spectrum.

SPEAKER_02:

Or just glutton.

SPEAKER_03:

Nudist. Maybe, maybe Pooh was the uh and and oh, and Christopher Robin is schizophrenic. Oh I love that. I don't, I just can't remember what rabbit and Kanga and Roo and Pooh were. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, Kanga was the mom, right? Kanga was the mom, really. She was just stressed the fuck out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You'd be too if you had to carry a baby around like that. And you't tum.

SPEAKER_02:

Although my youngest, until she was 11, would wrap her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck and just cling to me while I walked around. She's a little thing, so she's tiny. I would clean house, wash dishes, do all kinds of stuff with her just wrapped around me. So that's probably like being a kangaroo mom.

SPEAKER_03:

We went off the rails again.

SPEAKER_02:

We really did.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, we're we're both delirious.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we are. Thank you for bearing with us through that.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you for listening. Thanks. You can find us on all the socials. Yeah. At Like Whatever Pod. Um we are on YouTube. What else am I supposed to say? Like, share, rate, review. Like, share, rate, review. Please find us where you find podcasts, the socials at like whatever pod. And you can send us an email about what mental illness your favorite cartoon character is. Like whatever pod at gmail.com or don't like whatever. Bye.

SPEAKER_00:

You got like whatever.

People on this episode

Contributor

Heather Jolley

Host
Contributor

Nicole Barr

Host