Rubin: Cartoonist Charles Schulz is gone, but 'Peanuts' is coming to a local hospital
Children's Hospital of Michigan is getting a new mural this week, courtesy of "Peanuts." There's already one at a clinic in Antarctica, because a generation after Charles Schulz's passing, his comic strip remains universal.
His characters do, anyway. Schulz was adamant that after he died in 2000, no one could jump in where he'd left off with the actual strip, so anything you might see in a newspaper is a reprint.
As for Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and the rest, it's a few millennia too early to say they're immortal. But according to Schulz's widow, Jeannie, they're thriving, in ways and places that didn't exist when he was turning simple drawings and gentle philosophy into a phenomenon.
We connected by video call a few days ago so that I could have the sheer fun of talking to her, and so that she could explain Take Care with Peanuts , the project that's putting paintbrushes in the hands of young patients in Detroit and mounting murals on all seven continents.
The goal is to remind children and perhaps larger people to take care of themselves, one another and the Earth. The delivery system is largely online, with a series of short, sweet videos on YouTube and all the standard social media outlets.
Her husband would have approved, said Jeannie Schulz, 85, because he was good-hearted by nature and because the message and the delivery 'is in the characters' character."
Likewise, the murals, which have been rolling out since 2020 in a program that was cooked up before the pandemic, even if it looks like a laudable response to it.
Creativity crossing borders
The painting at Children's Hospital was begun last week by a young man whose medical issues keep him out of large groups, and is scheduled to be finished by a swarm of kids on Tuesday. It shows Snoopy and the little yellow birds in his troop of Beagle Scouts.
The scene is essentially paint-by-number and assemble-by-panel, designed by a campaign partner in Georgia called the Foundation for Hospital Art to maximize fun and minimize chaos.
"They know how to lay it out, clean it up, and make sure it's not a total mess and disaster," Schulz said.
The last thing you want, after all, is a cluster of slump-shouldered hospital administrators muttering, "Good grief!"
The object is to do worthy things, and smile while you're doing them.
Charles Schulz made multiple references in his strip to Arbor Day, so scads of trees have been planted in Peanuts' name — which, for the record, he never liked. An editor at the syndicate that distributed the strip came up with it, and if someone at a party asked Schulz which comic he drew, he'd describe it rather than utter its title.
There are free coloring sheets and lesson plans at Peanuts.com , and a voter registration project there with Rock the Vote lets fans opt for the character they'd most prefer for president.
Melissa Menta of Peanuts Worldwide, the company that oversees the brand, says it still has 96% awareness in the United States. Elsewhere, it has enough to make an impact.
"Here, we remember 'A Charlie Brown Christmas,'" she said. "It's destination viewing."
Not so in Italy, but there, "it's a cool fashion brand" — which is pretty impressive, considering Charlie Brown never changed his shirt.
On ice, and on exhibit
"Peanuts" launched on Oct. 2, 1950, in a trifling seven newspapers. By the time Schulz died in his sleep, at 77, of a heart attack while fighting colorectal cancer, it ran in more than 2,600 papers and was read by 355 million people in more than 70 countries.
If the strip didn't invent merchandising, it perfected the practice: TV specials, books, coffee mugs, stuffed Snoopys. It remains an empire, with 20% of Peanuts Worldwide owned by Jeannie and Charles' children from his first marriage, 39% by Sony Music and 41% by a Canadian company called WildBrain that also controls the Teletubbies and Strawberry Shortcake.
Schulz would sometimes work out of the Redwood Empire Ice Arena he built in Santa Rosa, California. That's where he met Jeannie, whose daughter was there for figure skating lessons. It's across the street from the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center , where the former skate mom will sometimes lead a tour.
When she does, she refers to him as Sparky, his nickname since childhood.
They married in 1973, and it didn't seem odd to call him that, she said, because everyone else did. Around Santa Rosa, he was a benefactor, but he was also just a guy who played senior hockey with his pals.
"Sparky was very kind," she said, if only human. Everyone knew he liked to spend mornings at a corner table in the arena cafe, and when he was interrupted for an autograph on the wrong day, he might grumble, "Can't you see I'm eating my breakfast?"
Kids drew a free pass, however, and now some of them are commemorating Snoopy and his friends for a Children's Hospital wall.
As Schulz never quite wrote, happiness is a warm paintbrush .
Neal Rubin wrote the syndicated comic strip "Gil Thorp" from 2004-2022, and was rarely asked for his signature. Reach him at
