71 Years Ago, Peanuts Shockingly Killed Off a Controversial Character
Vanessa Piña has been writing as a journalist for over two years. As a senior writer, she focuses on timely coverage of the latest anime releases and popular comic franchises.
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Peanuts has gone down in history as one of the world's most beloved comic strips, largely thanks to the wit and charm of its characters. Charles M. Schulz’s creations, such as Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, and Linus, delivered iconic quotes that Peanuts fans still remember with nostalgia decades later. However, not all of Schulz's characters were embraced with the same enthusiasm by fans, and one controversial figure was unceremoniously cast aside, or rather eliminated, from the comic strip.
It's natural for characters to fade into the background and simply stop appearing in a long-running comic series. Before the Peanuts gang became fully established, several minor characters interacted with Charlie Brown during the comic strip's early years. But while characters like Lucy gained prominence, other supporting figures failed to connect with readers and, conversely, seemed to detract from the strip's humor.
Peanuts did not hesitate to sideline secondary characters who were a nuisance to both the other characters and the audience. In fact, one little-known fact about the strip is that Schulz openly admitted to having killed off one of his most controversial characters.
Peanuts Actually Killed Off Charlie Brown’s Female Counterpart
Charlotte Brown was a character first introduced in Peanuts on November 30, 1954, who served as a female counterpart to Charlie Brown. Charlotte's own name was a play on Charlie Brown, and one of her defining traits was that she hated acknowledging the resemblance between the two. They also had opposing personalities, with Charlotte being loud and unyielding while Charlie Brown was more timid and wishy-washy. This contrast failed to connect with readers, so Charlotte appeared in only ten strips before being dropped from Peanuts in 1955.
October 2, 1950 – February 13, 2000 · 17,897 Strips How Well Do You Know Peanuts? “Good grief!”
⚾Charlie BrownGood Ol’ Chuck
🐕SnoopyThe Flying Ace
🧣LinusSecurity Blanket
🏈LucyPsychiatric Help
🐥WoodstockBest Friend
01
Before Peanuts launched in 1950, Charles M. Schulz drew a weekly cartoon panel for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. What was it called?
✓ Correct! Li’l Folks ran from 1947 to 1950. When the syndicate renamed the new strip “Peanuts,” Schulz hated the title for the rest of his life.
✗ Not quite! It was Li’l Folks — and Schulz never forgave United Feature for rechristening his strip “Peanuts.”
02
Which member of the gang is almost never seen without his security blanket — and waits every year in the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin?
✓ Correct! Linus — Lucy’s little brother, the strip’s resident theologian, and the reason “security blanket” entered the dictionary.
✗ Not quite! It’s Linus van Pelt, whose blanket gave the English language the term “security blanket.”
03
Schroeder hammers away at his toy piano in devotion to a single composer — whose bust sits on top of it. Who?
✓ Correct! Beethoven. Schroeder even observes Beethoven’s birthday every December 16 — while ignoring Lucy entirely.
✗ Not quite! It’s Beethoven — the one thing in the world Schroeder loves more than tuning out Lucy.
04
When Snoopy climbs onto his doghouse in goggles and a scarf, he becomes the World War I Flying Ace — forever hunting which nemesis?
✓ Correct! The Red Baron — and the Sopwith Camel doghouse always goes down in flames, sending the Ace off to curse him in a French café.
✗ Not quite! It’s the Red Baron. Snoopy’s doghouse is a Sopwith Camel, and it never once wins the dogfight.
05
Lucy runs a curbside psychiatric help booth out of a lemonade stand. What does she charge per session?
✓ Correct! Five cents, please. The nickel never went up in 50 years — and the advice was never once worth it.
✗ Not quite! It’s 5¢ — “The doctor is in.” Lucy held that price for half a century.
06
Snoopy’s tiny yellow best friend went unnamed for years before Schulz finally christened him. What was he named after?
✓ Correct! Woodstock got his name in 1970, borrowed straight from the music festival held the summer before.
✗ Not quite! He’s named for the 1969 Woodstock festival — Schulz gave the bird the name in 1970, years after he first appeared.
07
The jazz score for A Charlie Brown Christmas — including the immortal “Linus and Lucy” — was written by which musician?
✓ Correct! Pianist Vince Guaraldi scored the 1965 special, and network executives were sure the jazz soundtrack would sink it. It became a permanent holiday fixture.
✗ Not quite! It’s Vince Guaraldi, whose trio gave Peanuts its unmistakable sound.
08
Schulz drew every Peanuts strip himself for nearly 50 years. What made the final original Sunday strip — February 13, 2000 — so haunting?
✓ Correct! Schulz died the evening of February 12, 2000 — and his farewell strip, signed off with “Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy... how can I ever forget them,” appeared in papers the very next morning.
✗ Not quite! Schulz died on February 12, 2000 — hours before his own farewell strip ran in the Sunday papers.
The Doctor Is In · Five Cents, Please Your Peanuts Report Card
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Good grief — or good ol’ Charlie Brown? Either way, the football is still there. Wanna try again?
It wasn't until after Charles M. Schulz's death that it was revealed a letter from a fan had also influenced the author regarding Charlotte's future in the comic strip. Elizabeth Swaim sent a fan letter asking Schulz to remove the character Charlotte from the series. In his reply, which Swaim gifted to the United States Library of Congress, Schulz agreed to discard the character but also pointed out that she would be responsible for its death.
"You and your friends will have the death of an innocent girl on your conscience," - Charles M. Schulz in response to a fan letter.
Schulz's reply letter also included a small sketch of Charlotte with an axe embedded in her head. Thus, although her death wasn't directly depicted in the comic strip, it became the only confirmed, albeit implicit, death in the Peanuts series. The fact that Charlotte was given the "axe" directly is part of the Peanuts creator's signature, sharp humor. What makes it particularly striking is the fact that Schulz took the time to engage with Peanuts fans, showing that their suggestions were taken into account, with the response also coming with a playful joke.
Peanuts Was Better Without Charlie Brown’s Forgotten Counterpart
Peanuts made the right decision to drop Charlotte, as her dynamic with Charlie Brown seemed to serve as an alternative to characters like Lucy van Pelt, given that the two never actually shared a strip. Charlotte's jokes mostly revolved around her loudness, so it’s not surprising that she didn’t come across as very likable. As shared by ABC News, Harry L. Katz, a curator at the Library of Congress at the time, said that no one liked Charlotte, noting that she was a little too serious, which suggests that Shultz may have received other letters with complaints about the character.
Years later, other characters like Violet Gray also gradually faded from the strip. This helped elevate Lucy's role, leading to her being considered one of the best characters in Peanuts. Sally, Charlie Brown's sister, also arrived a little later in 1959. Likewise, Peppermint Patty was introduced in 1966 and became far more famous than the original Patty from the 1950s, demonstrating how Schulz was right to rotate characters until arriving at Peanuts' iconic lineup.
Nevertheless, although Peanuts did use dark humor to allude to the deaths of characters, such as the Beagle in the Field, Thompson (who disappeared and made a "deal" with ten thousand rabbits), or the First School Building that collapsed due to depression, Charlotte Braun is the only character actually shown in the strip whose demise was alluded directly to. Even so, the death of Charlie Brown's female counterpart is an interesting episode in Peanuts history that demonstrates that, sometimes, not all characters are meant to stay.
- TV Show(s)
- The Snoopy Show, Peanuts by Schulz
- First Film
- The Peanuts Movie
- Cast
- Christopher Shea, Kathy Steinberg, Bill Melendez, Sally Dryer, Peter Robbins, Noah Schnapp, Hadley Belle Miller, Mariel Sheets, Lisa DeFaria, Venus Omega Schultheis
- Created by
- Charles M. Schulz
- Movie(s)
- The Peanuts Movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown's All Stars!, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown
- Character(s)
- Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy van Pelt, Linus van Pelt, Sally Brown, Pig-Pen, Marcie (Peanuts), Peppermint Patty, Woodstock
Created by Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts is a multimedia franchise that began as a comic strip in the 1950s and eventually expanded to include films and a television series. Peanuts follows the daily adventures of the Peanuts gang, with Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy at the center of them. Aside from the film released in 2015, the franchise also has several Holiday specials that air regularly on U.S. Television during their appropriate seasons.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.