Then Schulz gradually began to deepen his characters, giving them distinctively adult traits: depression, insecurity, crabbiness, fear, etc. He allowed Peanuts to get weirder as well, following Charlie Brown’s arrogant dog Snoopy into wild fantasies. Schulz made jokes about the fads of the day, and like Bushmiller, he developed a style that was deceptively simple. But what’s made Peanuts resonate with so many people over the years is how astutely—and unflinchingly—Schulz described feeling unlovable. In the strip’s ’60s and ’70s heyday, life was always like eating a peanut-butter sandwich alone on an uncomfortable school playground park bench.
— Noel Murray, The Onion, 2011.09.01
