Here's my review of the 1970's reruns that appeared in 2000. I don't know if I'll do a review of the 1988 reruns; perhaps if there is enough demand for it. As usual I'll start with some statistics. The year 2000 had 366 days; original strips appeared on 9 of these days and will not be discussed further. The 1/5/74 strip reran on both 1/10/00 and 12/29/00, so altogether 356 distinct strips were rerun. Of these, 349 were from 1974 and 7 were from 1975. Therefore, there were 16 strips from 1974 that were *not* rerun. Of these, 9 were from the beginning of 1974 (Jan 1, 2, 3, 6, 13, 20, 27; Feb 3, 20), so their omission is understandable. The 7 other omissions, however, are more mysterious, and we've discussed most of them during the year in this newsgroup. May 06 Snoopy streaks. May 10 Peppermint Patty thinks she got an "N." Jul 23 Charlie Brown feels like a dented fender. Nov 06 Blacks in the NHL. Nov 16 Snoopy's not much for sugarcoating. Dec 15 Lobkowitz stopped his annuity. Dec 31 Snoopy and Woodstock celebrate the new year. May 6 and Nov 6 were potentially controversial, but the rest seem to be random. The good news is that the omitted strips were reprinted in books (specifically, in _Speak_Softly_and_Carry_a_Beagle_), and conversely, the fourteen 1974 strips that were not reprinted in either _Win_a_Few,_Lose_a_ _Few,_Charlie_Brown_ or _Speak_Softly_ *did* rerun. Specifically, these 14 strips were Mar 4-9; Apr 20; May 11; Jul 12, 20; Aug 20, 26, 29; and Sep 28 (1974). They reran on Mar 2-4, 6-8; Apr 19; Jul 22, 7, 15; Aug 18, 21, 24; and Sep 2 (2000) respectively. How often did each Peanuts character appear in these 356 strips? The answer: Snoopy 169 Charlie Brown 104 Peppermint Patty 84 Lucy 78 Sally 61 Marcie 44 Linus 39 Woodstock 37 Schroeder 24 The school building 23 Rerun 11 Franklin 7 Patty 3 [4/27/00(?); 8/21/00; 8/31/00] Loretta 2 [5/17/00; 7/21/00] Violet 2 [4/9/00; 4/30/00] Roy 1 [10/13/00] 5 1 [10/13/00(?)] I found it quite interesting to compare this list with the late 1990's. The first notable thing is that there is less difference than one might have guessed, given that there were 25 intervening years. It's true that Rerun emerged as a major character only in the late 1990's, but those who thought he was a new character may be surprised to see 11 showings here. On the flip side, Shermy, Patty, Violet, 5, and Frieda were already more or less gone by this time. Patty and Violet were not named when they appeared but I don't think there is any doubt that it was them (except for 4/27/00 when we only saw the back of Patty's head!). Whether it was really 5 in the 10/13/00 strip I don't know; any opinions? Snoopy topped the list, as he often does. This can partly be attributed to a sizable number of tennis strips (which gradually morphed into golf strips as Schulz got older) and Snoopy-as-world-famous-writer strips. The big debut this year was the school building. Twenty-three strips is a pretty strong showing for an inanimate object! Loretta also debuted this year, appearing twice. Did she ever show up again? I don't know. It might seem that these were the only debuts, but if we take "debut" in a broader sense, 1974 was notable for the debut of Snoopy's alter ego as a Beagle Scout. At first he was scouting solo, believing (for the first time) that the moon is always over Hollywood, but it didn't take long for him to gather a following of a half dozen birds (6/11/00), who, however, were anonymous at this time. Who foresaw back then how fruitful this concept would prove to be? 1974 also saw the first appearance of the Pawpet Theater, one of my favorite devices. Multiple-day stories are what give Peanuts much of its depth. Several classic stories appeared this year, perhaps the most famous being Peppermint Patty's skating fiasco (November), which was later made into a TV show. Usually we think of Charlie Brown as being the big loser in Peanuts, and of course he is, but Peppermint Patty's struggles with her looks in this story were as true-to-life as any of Charlie Brown's miseries. Moreover, this was a story that Charlie Brown could not have starred in, since he doesn't excel at any sport and since I can't imagine him being overly preoccupied with his looks. I think Peppermint Patty's contribution to the texture of Peanuts is often underestimated, lost in the midst of silly arguments about whether she's gay. Another excellent creative achievement was the ear-piercing story (5/25/00 - 6/3/00). This was fascinating because it gave us a rare look at Lucy's vulnerable side, as well as some insight into Marcie's personality. I think my favorite story, though, was that of everyone getting excused from summer camp except poor ol' Charlie Brown (6/19/00 - 7/5/00). It was nice to see that Sally did secretly care about her big brother. The panel in which Linus and Charlie Brown sat on the pitcher's mound talking about Job was to me the epitome of Peanuts. I can't think of any other cartoonist that could have drawn such a strip. Lest anyone think that Peanuts is not capable of "action" humor, let us not forget the uproarious series of strips in which Marcie destroyed Snoopy's doghouse and Peppermint Patty finally learned that Snoopy was a beagle (3/9/00 - 3/22/00; 4/3/00), as well as Lucy's futile attempt to conquer Schroeder's piano by throwing it down the sewer (9/25/00 - 10/7/00; 10/16/00 - 10/18/00). The visual humor in these strips was as good as anything any other strip has to offer. Finally, here are a few random additional notes. 1. Very few of the strips were outdated. True, there was the reference to Rodney Allen Rippy (6/28/00), as well as the mentions of "Think Metric" (10/11/00 - 10/13/00; 11/19/00) and school prayer (4/28/00), which, though not completely dead issues, are not as big now as they were then. But otherwise, the strip showed few signs of age. 2. About a dozen times, Schulz drew one of the panels in silhouette. This is a technique that he later seems to have abandoned, but I thought it produced a nice effect when used sparingly. 3. I was quite surprised to learn that the Veterans Day strip did not originally run on Veterans Day but on 10/28/74. I wonder how this happened. Did the syndicate make a mistake? (Note added March 2021: Thanks to Joseph Nebus for explaining to me that Veterans Day was actually celebrated on 10/28 in 1974 because of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act.) 4. This was the year that the famous saying, "Once you're over the hill, you begin to pick up speed!" originated (5/2/00 = 5/3/74). We also saw the pun, "You can't have your cake and Edith, too" (7/12/00 = 7/17/74), which I sometimes see on birthday cards nowadays. I wonder if Schulz was the first to publish this. 5. Did anyone notice if the 3/13/00 strip said "Thrillsville '74" or if the "74" was omitted or updated? I neglected to check at the time and I also neglected to save that strip, as I figured I already had a copy in my books. [Note added 2/25/01: Marcie Lee informs me that "'74" was omitted.] In summary, I think that 1974 was an excellent year. Perhaps a word is in order about the oft-heard remark that Peanuts was funnier in 1974 than in 1999. After looking carefully at both years, I don't think that this is true. However, I do think that the characters' personalities were more vibrant and textured in 1974 than in 1999, with the exception of Rerun. This naturally gave rise to stories which in my opinion were deeper and more memorable than the stories in recent years. On a pure laugh-o-meter scale, though, I didn't detect much of a difference.