I'd like to share some thoughts about this past year's Peanuts strips. The big news of 1997, of course, was Charles Schulz's (well-deserved!) five-week vacation, during which we saw reruns of some strips from 5-10 years ago. We were treated to a glimpse of Patty and Violet on Thanksgiving Day, and also to Charlie Brown's tragic purchase of gloves for Peggy Jean. But since these 35 strips are not new, the rest of my comments will concern the remaining 330 strips. First, let me list all the named characters that appeared this year, together with the number of strips in which they appeared. Exact dates are given for the last four. 148 Snoopy 134 Charlie Brown 72 Lucy 59 Peppermint Patty 58 Rerun 55 Marcie 42 Sally 39 Linus 31 Woodstock 26 Olaf 24 Andy 10 Schroeder 10 Spike 7 Crybaby Boobie 4 Pigpen 2 Conrad (7/31, 8/1) 1 Bill (4/17) 1 Lydia (2/13) 1 Raymond (7/21) [Remark: the Beagle Scouts pose a special problem here, because there's no way to tell them apart except in certain special cases. So every time a Woodstock-like bird appears, I've counted it as an appearance of Woodstock (unless the context proves that it can't be Woodstock), but I only count the other Beagle Scouts when there is specific evidence. Also, I would like to give "honorable mention" to the little girl with braids in Rerun's class. She appeared twelve times. Will she get a name someday?] That Snoopy and Charlie Brown top this list is no surprise, of course, but I was surprised at how high Lucy ranked and how low Linus ranked. I also expected, before actually counting, that Spike would score more than ten. Note also the cameo appearances of Crybaby Boobie and Pigpen (both in March), which I greatly enjoyed. Stories that span several days or even weeks are what I like best about Peanuts. The top five stories of the year, in my opinion, were: 1. Rerun getting suspended from school, first for harassment (1/13 - 1/20), and then for resisting a bully (10/27 - 10/31). No wonder Rerun doesn't like school! 2. Charlie Brown discards Peppermint Patty's love letter, thinking that it's junk mail! (6/23 - 7/3) 3. Charlie Brown and the fake celebrity autographs (12/30/96 - 1/7/97). 4. Andy and Olaf's wanderings (off and on from 6/11 to 11/15). 5. Marcie wins "Outstanding Student of the Year," much to Peppermint Patty's chagrin (5/21 - 5/30) Also funny were Snoopy's wearing out of his supper dishes (9/23 - 9/26) and Marcie's interrogation of Charlie Brown's feelings for her (2/24 - 2/28). 1997 was a year of great variety. Many old standbys made their appearance: Charlie Brown's hopeless baseball team, Peppermint Patty's woes at school, Snoopy as a writer, attorney, and flying ace, Lucy in her psychiatric booth (4/5, 6/15), Schroeder playing his piano (and Snoopy having fun with the musical notes he produces---1/22, 7/11, 11/20), Charlie Brown flying his kite (3/9, 4/13), and the little red-haired girl (who didn't actually appear, of course, but was mentioned on 4/1 and 11/5). We also saw the annual D-Day and Veterans Day strips, as well as Lucy's annual pulling away of the football (9/21). Curiously, though, the Great Pumpkin was not mentioned. Diehard fans will have noticed distinct echoes of strips from previous years. On 8/28, a little girl seizes Andy; she looks just like the girl who once seized Snoopy and tied him up. On 1/29, Charlie Brown suggests that newborns should be issued a dog and a banjo; the same suggestion (sans dog) was made by Linus many years ago. On 4/23, Snoopy deposits his manuscript into a mailbox, only to have it immediately ejected; this has happened to him before, when he remarked, "I have a hard time believing that they read it very carefully." On 4/21, Lucy's advice to Rerun on how to draw a landscape is very similar to her lecture to Linus years ago on what constitutes art ("Sometimes it takes a layman to set these things straight!"). Weaker echoes occurred in Peppermint Patty and the leaking roof (4/4, 4/7 - 4/11), Snoopy's conversations with fallen leaves (10/24 - 10/25), and flying beagles (5/25, 11/1). Finally, was Rerun's attempt to play baseball on 7/27 an echo of the famous episode when he helped win a baseball game for Charlie Brown's team? Schulz maintains his fondness for allusions to the Bible (3/2, 6/20, 10/6, 11/17) and famous writers: George Eliot (7/17-7/18), Leo Tolstoy (4/14, 8/5), Lewis Carroll (4/28, 9/17), Shakespeare (4/9, 10/12), and Laura Schlessinger (11/3). He even alluded to Peanuts itself (3/16)! Schulz is never one to rest on his laurels; the variety of 1997 comes as much from new ideas as from old favorites. He continues to develop Sally's life philosophy and Charlie Brown's insomniac musings (2/15, 5/10, 10/4). Rerun has finished kindergarten and started a new year of school, and in the meantime has finally coaxed Snoopy to start playing with him, even if they don't have the faintest idea what they're playing. Snoopy continues to develop new alter egos: a patriotic soldier of George Washington in Valley Forge (1/5, 1/12, 2/16, late May, 11/23), and Blackbeagle the pirate (7/31 - 8/1). Woodstock and his friends seem to have developed a new passion for bridge (5/6 - 5/9, 7/21, 11/19). And it seems that we haven't seen the end of Andy and Olaf's wanderings yet. We'll just have to wait and see how all this continues to unfold in 1998! Finally, here is a question. Have there ever been indications in previous years that Charlie Brown's pen pal is a girl (7/25, 8/6)? This is a suggestive new development, if it is indeed new! [Note added later: this is not a new development; it had been mentioned before that he had a pen-pal named Morag in Scotland.]