USA: AFTER FIVE DECADES CHARLIE BROWN AND HIS DOG SNOOPY BID FAREWELL AS SCHULZ RETIRES

Record ID: 674820

  • Title: USA: AFTER FIVE DECADES CHARLIE BROWN AND HIS DOG SNOOPY BID FAREWELL AS SCHULZ RETIRES
  • Date: 3rd January 2000
  • Summary: ZOOM: NEW YORK DAILY NEWS HEADLINE SAYING GOOD-BYE CHARLIE BROWN 10 SV/CU: MAN READING FAREWELL STORY IN NEWSPAPER (2 SHOTS) 21 SLV/CU: WOMAN PURCHASING A PAPER THEN HOLDING UP HEADLINE (2 SHOTS) 26 SV: (SOUNDBITE) (English) WOMAN SAYING: "Mr. Schulz did this for a very long time which is really very admirable to do something for a half of a century like that, it's rea
  • Embargoed: 18th January 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Entertainment,General
  • Reuters ID: LVA882YY865DPYB23T6DJYP2OTFV
  • Story Text: After five decades of watching his kite eaten by trees and his dog Snoopy walk away with the best lines, Charlie Brown and his gang are set to bid farewell in the final new "Peanuts" comic strip in daily newspapers.
    Cartoonist Charles Schulz, the mastermind behind the "Peanuts" gang, is stepping down for health reasons.
    Schulz, 77, last month announced plans to retire from drawing the world's most widely syndicated comic strip to fight his battle against colon cancer.
    The final "Peanuts" strip started it's run in newspapers on Monday (January 3).
    In his final strip, depicting Snoopy atop his doghouse writing a letter, Schulz bids friends, colleagues and readers adieu, thanking them for allowing him to "fulfill his childhood ambition" for almost 50 years.
    Schulz's quiet farewell was typically elegant.But his departure has sent shock waves reverberating far beyond the black-and-white world of comic strip devotees.
    A gentle man with an easy touch, Schulz always has had one point upon which he would not budge: only he would draw Peanuts.That means that Monday's strip and a final Sunday comic planned for February 6 will mark the last new "Peanuts"
    perhaps ever.
    But the cartoon's distributors, United Media Syndicate, have said many newspapers don't want to lose the "Peanuts" strip.
    For those newspapers that want it, United Media will offer reruns of strips starting with those that first appeared in 1974.
    "Peanuts," a sly, simple series of stories about a group of childhood friends and rivals, had become a handbook for Americans facing the tiny triumphs and plentiful pitfalls of modern life.
    Unpredictable, hopeful, neurotic and nervous, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy and the "Peanuts" gang took their behavioural cues from Charlie Brown, whose brave, squiggle smile always was just a shade short of confident.
    Charlie Brown's saga as a great American loser has become, perhaps fittingly, a great American success.Peanuts runs daily in more than 2,600 newspapers around the world, reaching 355 million readers in 75 countries and 21 languages.There have been more than 50 animated Peanuts specials, and fans have snapped up more than 300 million copies of some 1,400 Peanuts books.
    It's an empire that generates more than one billion United States dollars (USD) per year in global retail sales.In Japan alone, Peanuts sales totalled USD 550 million in 1997, while greeting card publisher Hallmark has sold more than 1.5 billion Peanuts cards since 1960.
    Unlike some recent merchandising phenomena, Peanuts never got lost under the mountain of money that it made.Instead, Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder and Pig Pen all have struggled on with their lives, stumped by problems, stunned by betrayals or by the ordeal of slogging through another school day.
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