Charles Schulz's Peanuts is famous for a lot of reasons but beyond its longevity and influence, it's also one of the funniest comics to ever grace newspapers. Without its proof of concept, the four-panel comic strip may never have caught on.
The 1960s is thought of as a Golden Age for Peanuts. By this point, Schulz had had 10 years to hit his stride and his expressive characters and perfect comic timing were unmatched. While these strips are sure to spark nostalgia in some readers, they're also incredibly funny.
Updated on 11/11/2022 by Matthew Z. Wood: CBR is constantly updating its articles, both to meet new formatting standards and to improve its articles. While Peanuts stopped running after Charles Schulz's death in 2000, highlighting and exploring a diverse array of strips from the 1960s is our goal, as well as pointing to early iterations of some of Schulz's finest running gags.
13 Small Kids, Big Words
March 30, 1960
A big source of Peanuts' humor is the way its little kids act like adults, constantly dumping social commentary on top of their games and conflicts. However, in spite of their intelligence, the strip's characters never stop acting like kids.
The strip's headliner, Charlie Brown, often wrote letters to everyone from fading sports stars to pen pals. In this case, when he wrote his favorite breakfast cereal a fan letter, he just had to drop some big adult words into the mix, then immediately admit he had no idea what they meant.
12 Peanut Butter And Unrequited Love
December 15, 1964
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Charlie Brown's affection for the eternally out-of-frame Little Red-Haired Girl premiered during the 1960s. It grew out of Chuck's lonely habit of eating his lunch by himself, mooning over his lack of friends.
Again, this strip introduces an adult perspective on loneliness, then brings it back down to earth with Charlie Brown's sudden disgust at his lunch. Charlie Brown's as preoccupied with his peanut butter sandwich as he is with his deep feelings, the mundane instantly knocking his philosophical musings aside.
9 Enter: Peppermint Patty
August 22, 1966
Peanuts spent decades expanding its cast, sometimes with mixed results. However, the tomboyish Peppermint Patty is a longtime fan favorite, and Schulz nailed her character in her very first appearance.
Tough but always looking for romance, Patty was interested in the idea of Charlie Brown long before she met the actual kid. She managed to shoehorn in both a daydream about Roy's friend and a threat to Roy's person in four panels. This is Patty in a nutshell, always the toughest kid in the room with her sweet side carefully submerged.
8 Snoopy's Rabies Shots
April 22, 1960
The Peanuts comics always showcased Charles Schulz's skills in comedic buildup and timing. He was a master of the four-panel format, consistently paying off seemingly random setups.
While this comic starts with Linus chilling on his own, he's suddenly surprised by Charlie Brown's entrance, dragging Snoopy behind him. However, it's Charles' deadpan delivery of "rabies shot," followed by Linus's thoughtful expression as the beagle is dramatically dragged off-stage that really sells this joke.
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6 That Good Ole Charlie Brown Sadness
April 11, 1960
What some Peanuts fans call the library saga, Linus takes a journey, first fearing and then loving the library. This leads to one of the young intellectual's famously deep conversations with Charlie Brown.
The punchline's as poignant as it is funny. With most of his peers making him feel unwelcome, Charlie Brown feels like an outcast everywhere he goes. This makes him sympathetic to Linus's phobias but it also blends sorrow and humor, that patented formula that makes Peanuts sincere and special.
5 Anywhere But Here
May 23, 1964
Rounding out one of Charlie Brown's classic baseball storylines, this strip loops back to the round-headed kid's letter-writing trope. Here, he not only tells his distant friend about his humiliation in unusually raw terms but ends it by literally trying to leave the country.
Of course, this is funny because it's overblown, a childhood crisis experienced as the end of the world. However, this is also why Charlie Brown's a relatable everyman. He isn't afraid to be sincere, to tell everyone how it really feels. It's one lost baseball game but it's also everything to one little boy.
4 Snoopy Faces The Red Baron
October 10, 1965
Snoopy's anachronistic World War I cosplay and daydreams comprised one of Peanuts' most beloved gags. It appeared not just in It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown but in a couple of novelty songs. This strip shows why it was so popular.
Snoopy always imagines himself as the hero of a complicated flying ace story, and the whimsical sight of the helmeted beagle is always worthwhile. However, here Linus stumbles into Snoopy's fantasy and can't help himself. He shoots Snoopy down with imaginary machine gun fire, pulling the little dog back down to Earth with the rest of the gang.
3 Christmas Is For Existential Crises
December 27, 1964
Linus Van Pelt is one of comics' deepest thinkers and most self-aware characters. Sadly, it doesn't bring him much in the way of happiness. As a result, Linus is somewhere between upset and furious about his enormous haul on Christmas morning.
Most kids have a wish list and are disappointed if anything's missing from it on Christmas morning. Linus immediately creates a new problem for himself when he gets his way, though, and worries that he'll grow up spoiled and self-absorbed. Unfortunately, it's the people who worry about these things who are in the least danger of trapping themselves in privilege and discontent.
2 Another Rained Out Baseball Game
April 3, 1960
Charlie Brown's long-standing fixation on his neighborhood baseball team is one of his defining traits. He takes it more seriously than anyone else, works harder than his peers, and of course, fails every time it counts. However, this time he's not the butt of the joke.
Here it's Linus who starts things off somewhat uncharacteristically, telling Charlie Brown to give up on the rained-out game. However, while he's ranting at his friend, the rain obscures his vision and he loses track of Charlie Brown. After Chuck's left the game, Linus somehow inherits Charlie Brown's fatalistic optimism, and stands in the rain, insisting that the storm's about to end.
1 Scary Movies Scare Everyone
May 17, 1964
Just as the kids are surprisingly adult in Peanuts, Charlie Brown's beagle, Snoopy, is also curiously human. This strip features the familiar childhood ritual of sneaking a scary movie together, then going to bed with the lights on.
The Peanuts' kids' convincing horror in the movie's aftermath set the stage for this story, and their overreactions are amusing enough on their own. However, Snoopy seems unaffected by the movie and plays the role of the family dog until the final frame, where even outside he's somehow sleeping with his own lights on.