Peanuts Began With a Surprisingly Cruel Joke

Peanuts began with a surprisingly cruel joke

Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts debuted on 2 October 1950 with Charlie Brown, Shermy and Patty at its centre. The opening strip established a sharper tone than the gentle family entertainment many audiences would later associate with the franchise.

As Charlie Brown walks past, Shermy says: “Here comes ol’ Charlie Brown. Good ol’ Charlie Brown… How I hate him!” It is an unusually blunt introduction to a comic strip that would eventually become known for warmth, music, melancholy and moral reflection.

Shermy and Patty were not named immediately, but they functioned as the strip’s early co-stars. Over time, Schulz developed more distinctive characters, including Lucy and Linus Van Pelt, and the original pair gradually lost their place in the regular cast.

Both characters eventually disappeared from the strip altogether during the 1970s. Their brief prominence nevertheless gives them an important place in comic-strip history: they were present from the very first published instalment.

The unruly first years

Schulz soon softened the opening strip’s hostility, but the first two years remained notably strange and mischievous. The second strip, published on 3 October 1950, has Patty hitting an unfamiliar child without an obvious reason.

Charlie Brown, Shermy and Patty steal from one another, manipulate each other and occasionally throw punches. The conflict rarely lasts, however. By the next strip, the children can behave as though nothing happened and resume playing together.

That early unpredictability is easy to miss when viewed through the later television specials. For many viewers, Peanuts became familiar through recurring broadcasts, memorable music and stories that mixed all-ages comedy with philosophical or Biblical themes. The original newspaper strips were often less polished and considerably more abrasive.

Snoopy was still just a dog

Snoopy appeared in the third strip, but he was far removed from the character recognised today. During the opening years, he had no elaborate imaginary identities, human-style behaviour or thought balloons.

His home life was also unclear. Rather than being firmly established as Charlie Brown’s pet, Snoopy seemed to belong to the neighbourhood. He appeared alongside Shermy or Patty at different times, and sometimes simply occupied the scene without explanation.

That gradual development is part of what makes early Peanuts useful to revisit. Like an evolving arcade history story, it shows recognisable ideas before the characters and conventions were fully formed.

The short road to character limbo

Schulz later described Shermy as a dull character in written accounts. Shermy and Patty also appear to be older than Charlie Brown in the earliest strips, partly because they are taller, but neither arrives with a strong defining trait.

Later additions had clear comic engines: Linus was precocious, while Lucy was self-important. Shermy and Patty lacked similarly reliable characteristics, leaving Schulz fewer obvious ways to build recurring jokes around them.

Charlie Brown was not fully formed either. His famous bad luck and philosophical self-doubt developed over several years. Early on, he was often the target of a joke without taking the humiliation particularly personally. Once the larger cast emerged, he increasingly became the straight man of the strip.

Charlie Brown remained central because Schulz based him on himself. Shermy and Patty had no equivalent foundation, and their roles became less necessary as the ensemble expanded.

Why Shermy and Patty still matter

In 2026, Peanuts is primarily a television franchise, with new specials appearing roughly annually on Apple TV. Viewers who watch closely may still spot Patty, Shermy and Violet Gray, another largely forgotten first-year character, making occasional cameos.

They are no longer major figures, but they were essential to the strip’s beginning. Their disappearance also illustrates how creative properties evolve: early supporting characters can fade as stronger personalities take over.

For Australian collectors interested in the history of games, comics and screen culture, that kind of evolution is familiar. A collection of arcade videos can reveal the same process in interactive entertainment, while an arcade machine buying guide helps explain how changing formats shape the way audiences experience classic characters and games.