Peanuts/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Peanuts comic strip began in 1950 and ran until 2000. In the 50 years it was in papers, it saw many characters come and go.

Charles "Charlie" Brown

Charlie Brown: "I'd like to be President or a five-star general or a big-time operator..."
Patty and Violet: (simultaneously) "Hello, there, Charlie Brown!"
Patty: "That Charlie Brown's a good guy, isn't he?"
Violet: "He sure is! Good Ol' Charlie Brown."
Charlie Brown: "But that's all I'll ever be... Just Good Ol' Charlie Brown..."

Perhaps one of the most famous comic strip characters in history. "Good Ol'" Charlie Brown is the star of the strip. He's the kid who never has things go his way. Running Gags with him include trying to kick the football but having it pulled away, failing miserably on the baseball team he manages, and otherwise just being the outright Butt Monkey of the strip.

  • Anti-Hero: Type I
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Between him and the Little Red-Haired Girl.
  • Berserk Button: Do not say he looks "cute".
    • Also, before you complain about the price of haircuts, remember, this guy's dad is a barber. This is something Schroder has forgotten twice.
  • Boring Failure Hero/Butt Monkey/The Chew Toy: To a tee.
  • Catch Phrase: "Good grief!", "I can't stand it!", and "AAUUGH!"
  • Charlie Brown Baldness: Trope Namer.
  • Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: More like Cloudcuckoolander's owner. When Snoopy's bizarreness causes problems in the neighborhood, there's a tendency for everyone to blame him ("He's your dog, Charlie Brown!"), and he'll end up having to deliver a lecture, explain Snoopy's actions, or otherwise interfere.
  • Determinator: As often as he's beaten up by the world, he never gives up.
  • Epic Fail: At everything.
    • Actually, there are a few times during story arc when Charlie Brown succeeds at something, however (see below)...
  • The Everyman: One reason for his appeal. Schulz once related a letter he got from a fan that kind of explains it:

Letter: My son came home from school one day with a sad frown, slammed his bookbag to the floor, and said, 'Mom, I feel just like Charlie Brown.' He didn't have to say another word. I knew exactly how he felt.

Charlie Brown: I hit a home run in the ninth inning, and we won! I was the hero!
Sally: You?!

    • He once won a bowling trophy, but true to form it gave him no joy as his name was misspelled on it ("Braun").

Sally Brown

Charlie Brown's younger sister. She's not that bright, and sometimes prone to firing off sarcasm when Charlie helps her with her homework. She has an unrequited crush on Linus, whom she calls "sweet babboo".

  • Companion Cube: Many strips had her talking to the school building.
  • The Ditz/Dumb Blonde: She has shades of this, mostly in the school reports she writes (such as "Butterflies are free. What does this mean? This means you can have as many of them as you want.")
  • Hopeless Suitor: Quote Linus: "I'm not your 'sweet babboo!'"
    • Ironically, it was Linus who was first interested in her, albeit in a creepy Wife Husbandry way when she was still a baby.
  • Large Ham: Why doesn't she have an entry in this trope page yet? SHE'S BEEN ROBBED!! SHE'S BEEN CHEATED!! CALL HER LAWYER!! SHE DEMANDS THAT WE ACKNOWLEDGE HER HAMMINESS!!
  • Malaproper: Her school reports, to the point of being a Running Gag.
  • Shipper on Deck: She ships Charlie Brown/Marcie, and not subtly: "KISS HER, YOU BLOCKHEAD!"
  • Stalker with a Crush: On Linus, practically since the day she learned how to walk.
  • Took a Level In Dumbass: She was originally just sweet and naïve before she devolved into The Ditz.

Snoopy

Charlie Brown's pet beagle. Introduced two days into the strip, he initially acted much like a normal dog but came to be known as a playful, varied character. Running Gags include him pretending to be a "world-famous" something or other, fighting the Red Baron, teasing the cat next door or stealing Linus' blanket.

"I have the world's largest collection of anti-cat jokes!"

Woodstock

A yellow "hippie" bird that Snoopy met in the late 1960s. Unnamed at first, the bird became known as Woodstock after the music festival of the same name. Later on, other birds would appear; named ones would include Bill, Conrad, Olivier, Harriet, and Raymond.

  • Acrophobic Bird: A literal example. Going too high causes him a lot of trouble.
  • Art Evolution: Schulz started out drawing more realistic-looking birds and ended up drawing ones that look like Woodstock. This may be because Woodstock was originally supposed to be a chick that hadn't fully matured (see below).
  • Beleaguered Assistant: Sometimes.
  • Berserk Button: Being called "Feathers", something Snoopy did once to troll him; unfortunately for Snoopy, he knows what his berserk button is, as noted above.
  • Butt Monkey: Especially in Snoopy Come Home.
  • Character Exaggeration: Animated works tend to exaggerate his occasionally bizarre moments and misfortune. In particular, Snoopy Come Home turned him into a directionally-retarded moron who would get hurt in about any scene he was in.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: The most notable example is a story arc where he and Snoopy got in a fight, when he sent him a bill for breaking his heart.
  • Intellectual Animal: Not as much as Snoopy, but does have his own opinions on things.
  • Intelligible Unintelligible: His dialogue is rendered as scratch marks which Snoopy understands. Often overlaps with Repeating So the Audience Can Hear.
  • The Klutz: Woodstock is not the best flier in the world, when under his own power.
    • It's never outright stated, but Woodstock is implied to be one of two birds that hatched in a nest their parents made on Snoopy's stomach, and which Snoopy tipped out before they were ready to fly--they were later shown to be flying upside down, and one of them became a recurring character that was eventually named as Woodstock. This puts a rather darker turn on their friendship, perhaps even that Snoopy felt guilty over the incident.
  • Only Six Faces: All the birds looked alike, even unnamed generic ones (except Raymond, who got halftone dots).
  • Scout Out: The named birds often took part in Beagle Scout hikes and campouts with Snoopy as the leader.
  • Toothy Bird: Sometimes drawn this way; in one arc, he and Snoopy's other bird-friends got into a fight with some mean bluejays, and he lost a couple teeth. In another story, he got braces.

Linus van Pelt

A shy, smart, young boy. He started off as a hyper-intelligent toddler who could do almost anything (include build a huge paper boat, dribble a basketball like a pro, etc.) but evolved into… well, an Innocent Prodigy. He's not beyond childhood naïveté, such as his established belief in The Great Pumpkin every Halloween. There's also his trademark blue Security Blanket, which he's rarely seen without.

Lucille "Lucy" van Pelt

Linus's older sibling. She started off as a wide-eyed, childish little girl but gradually evolved into the bossy "fussbudget" we all know to this day. She antagonizes not only Linus, but Charlie Brown as well.

  • Anti-Hero: Type IV
  • Big Eater: "Being crabby all day makes you hungry!" she claims.
  • Big Sister Instinct: Not much towards Linus, but far more of one towards Rerun.
  • Character Development: Early on, she was nothing like her most famous personality: she was a wide-eyed toddler who acted, well, like a toddler.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: In her early years.
  • Consummate Liar: No matter how many times she played the trick with the football on Charlie Brown, he'd fall for it again and again and again.
  • Hopeless Suitor: Towards Schroeder, who only cares for Beethoven music.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite her bossiness and crabbiness, she actually has shown to have a nicer, caring side on a number of occasions. For example, when Charlie Brown has to go to the hospital, Lucy is distressed, and eventually promises that if he gets better, she won't pull the football away. She keeps her promise but Charlie Brown accidentally kicks her hand.
  • Louis Cypher: "Pelt" is another word for "Fur". "Lucy Fur". This very early joke goes over the head of most modern fans.
  • Manipulative Bitch: She will do anything to get what she wants and betray anyone if it serves her or if she can get some laughs out of it.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Schroeder's piano.
  • Never My Fault: Her constantly pulling the football game away when Charlie Brown's supposed to kick it, causing them to lose the game, and then blaming Charlie Brown for it in It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown are one of the reasons people hate that special. It even used to be the Trope Namer for that page.
  • One-Note Cook: "How did Beethoven feel about cold cereal?"
  • Pet the Dog:
    • She can be protective towards Linus when she wants to be.
    • Even moreso to Rerun. While she slugs, manipulates, and bosses around Linus all the time, she's very nurturing to Rerun.
    • Sometimes towards Snoopy; she was the first one to say, "Happiness is a warm puppy" while giving him a hug.
  • Running Gag: Pulling the football away after getting Charlie Brown to come kick it.
  • Screaming At Squick: Only happens in response to Snoopy pulling a "Take That!" Kiss. However, Happiness is a warm puppy after all.
  • The Shrink: Via her famous psychiatric booth. The advice she gives is usually worthless at best, but hey, where else can you find a shrink who charges only a nickel a session?
  • Small Name, Big Ego
  • Tsundere: Most clearly towards Snoopy. Yeah, don't think about that one too much...

"Rerun" van Pelt

Linus and Lucy's younger brother. He was never given a true name, and was always referred to as "Rerun" after a comment that Lucy made about a younger brother being akin to a TV rerun.

Marcie

A nerdy female character introduced in 1971. She acts as a foil to Peppermint Patty, whom she calls "sir".

  • Beware the Nice Ones: When set off, Marcie can prove to be tougher than Peppermint Patty, going so far as to demolish Snoopy's dog house with one punch.
  • Blind Without'Em: In one strip, Patty convinces her she'd look "sophisticated" if she wore her glasses on her forehead, but trying it caused her to walk into a lamppost.
  • Catch Phrase: "You're weird, sir."
  • Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To Peppermint Patty.
  • Cunning Linguist: When the kids go to France in Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back), Marcie's shown to be the most fluent in French out of the entire group.
  • Ditzy Genius
  • Malaproper: Quite often. Among other things, she says "Zucchini" for "Zamboni" and "Splendid Bowl" for "Super Bowl".
  • Meganekko: She also wears Nerd Glasses with Opaque Lenses.
  • Precocious Crush: Has often expressed one towards Charlie Brown, and in some cases, sees Patty as a rival for his affection.
  • Sempai-Kohai: Only in the Japanese-dubbed version, she address Patty as such as part of the adaptation in that language.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly Girl to Peppermint Patty's Tomboy.

Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt

A not too bright tomboy character who's good friends with Charlie Brown. She first appeared in the strip in 1966.

  • Book Dumb: Grade point average of around 1.0, but easily the most athletic of the kids.
  • Cloudcuckoolander
  • Daddy's Girl: Her father calls her a "rare gem" and gave her the sandals she always wears.
  • Don't Call Me "Sir"!/My Name Is Not Durwood: On the giving as well as the receiving end, calling Charlie Brown "Chuck" and Lucy "Lucille".
  • F Minus Minus: She often gets D-minuses or even Z-minuses on her tests.
  • Informed Flaw: She apparently has a big nose, even though to the readers it doesn't look much different from anyone else's.
  • Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Sort of. She often gets an idea in her head, and doesn't seem to hear people correcting her until she's already humiliated herself.
  • Missing Mom: She lives with her father; it's hinted that her mother may have died, which at least partly accounts for her tomboy nature. In the series of strips where she commissions Marcie to make her a new skating dress, Marcie's mother does it, and Marcie notes that her mother feels sorry for Patty because she doesn't have a mother of her own.
  • One of the Boys: Almost, for all intents and purposes.
  • Playing a Tree: A variant - in It's Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown, she gets stuck with playing a sheep. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Sleepyhead: She falls asleep in class so often that she once got tested for narcolepsy. One strip explains that her father works nights, and Patty stays up late waiting for him to come home because she's afraid to sleep in the empty house.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomboy to Marcie's Girly Girl.
  • Too Dumb to Live: It never put her in physical jeopardy, but her stupidity is breath taking at times. How else do you describe someone who confuses a dog obedience school with a human one so completely that she doesn't understand why she is the only human doing the obedience training with dogs, "graduates," and seriously thinks she doesn't have to go to regular school until the principal specifically spells it out to her.
  • Youthful Freckles

Schroeder

A musical talent whose main focus is playing Beethoven on his toy piano. Lucy often tries to hit on him, to little success.

  • Better the Devil You Know: He much prefers Lucy hanging around his piano than Frieda; the first time she did, she thought Beethoven was a drink.
  • Berserk Button: Do not mess with his piano. And especially under any circumstances do not ever say anything insulting and disrespectful about Beethoven in front of him. EVER. And never suggest that a pianist should be Only in It for the Money, because a true musician knows it's ART.
  • Deadpan Snarker: In reaction to Lucy.
  • Heroic BSOD: Happens to him during an arc where he forgets Beethoven's birthday. He actually walks up to a large statue of the composer and hangs his head in shame, saying, "I hate myself!"
  • Last-Name Basis: Always known simply as "Schroeder", even before he could talk and play the piano.
  • Loony Fan: His main character trait is being a fanboy of Ludwig Van Beethoven.
  • Manly Tears: Shed some in a strip where he, Lucy and Linus were reading a Beethoven biography, and it explained how the deaf composer had his back to the thunderously applauding audience and had no idea how much they loved his music.
  • Out of Focus: Occurred in the 1980s.
  • The Piano Player
  • Shallow Love Interest: Inverted; most of his personality is based on his sarcastic replies to Lucy's advances.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Much like his idol, macaroni and cheese. He tells Lucy in one strip he'd never marry someone who couldn't make it well.
  • Visual Gag: A lot of strips involving him with Snoopy or Woodstock had them. Like Snoopy reclining on the musical scale or getting his foot caught in it, the notes falling off the scale and onto an umbrella-holding Snoopy, Woodstock sliding down notes, or running from a treble clef, or Schroeder quieting him with a pound sign on his beak. He once even got Lucy to clam up with a music scale over her mouth! The stuff you can only pull off in comic strips.

Franklin

The strip's first black character and Only Sane Man. He never developed much of a personality beyond that, although he's apparently unnaturally good at break-dancing.

"Pig-Pen"

Another mostly-undeveloped character. He existed mainly to be, well, a dirty character. Schulz phased Pig-Pen out gradually because he thought he was a one-joke character.

Frieda

An early female character whose main concern was her "naturally curly hair." Early on, she was a schoolmate of Linus'. She also carried a cat called Faron, whom Schulz eliminated out of fear of making it a cat-and-dog strip. Only in the strip from 1961 to 1975.

Patty

An early character in the strip, she and Shermy were both portrayed as older than Charlie Brown. Patty existed mainly to antagonize Charlie Brown before even Lucy did so. She got Demoted to Extra early on but disappeared entirely as Lucy upstaged her and Violet.

Violet Gray

In the strip from 1951 to 1984. She never developed all that much in her run, and existed mainly as a young Suzy Homemaker-type and tormentor of Charlie Brown (moreso than Lucy). She also held her dad in high esteem.

  • Alpha Bitch: She once got inexplicably angry at Charlie Brown, threw his coat and hat at him, and shoved him out of the house. They were in his house at the time.
  • Daddy's Girl: Clearly holds her father in high regard.
  • Demoted to Extra: At some point in the 1970s.
  • Informed Attractiveness: According to Word of God, she was introduced to be "the pretty girl" of the gang, which explains the reactions she got from every single one of the male characters in early '50s strips.
  • Jerkass
  • My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad:
    • A running theme with Violet involved her telling Charlie Brown how and why her dad was superior to his in every way. Ultimately has this turned around on her (on Father's Day), as Charlie Brown explains that no matter how busy his father is at the barber shop, he will always stop to acknowledge his son, something Violet has no response to, other than to wish him a happy Father's Day.
    • In one strip she tries this on 5, but he seems to trump her by saying, "My dad goes to PTA meetings!"
  • Parasol of Prettiness: In one strip. The parasol in question was stated to be "hi-fi."
  • Those Two Guys: Along with Patty, above.

Shermy

A male character introduced early on in the strip. His intent was to serve as a Straight Man to Charlie Brown, but he gradually got fewer and fewer roles as Schulz said that he saved him for instances when he "needed a character with very little personality".

  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: One of the first characters to suffer this.
  • Generic Guy
  • Put on a Bus: Shermy's last appearance in the strip was in 1969. The last time his name got mentioned was during a strip in 1977 when Charlie Brown mentioned he was the baseball team's Designated Hitter.

Eudora

Sally's classmate and summer campmate, who makes even her look smart by comparison.

The Little Red-Haired Girl

Charlie Brown's one true love, though he's too spineless to come out and admit it to anyone but Linus.

Spike

One of Snoopy's three brothers. Spike lives in the desert outside Needles, California, and hangs out with his only friend, an inanimate saguaro cactus. He works as a den-cleaner for coyotes. His shoes were a gift from Mickey Mouse. Snoopy often sends him mail to keep in touch.

  • A Day in the Limelight: Surprisingly for such a minor character, Spike got his own Spin-Off live-action movie, It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown.
  • Honest John's Dealership: At one point he had a real estate office.
  • Perma-Stubble
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: At one point he had a real estate office. His clients? A pack of coyotes. One of his most visible deals? Selling them the ballpark. The ramifications? Celebration that some strict league rules would not be as heavily enforced.
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