Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  out in 18,250 strips—day by day—for 50 years.

  LI’L FOLKS

  Creator Charles Schulz wrote Peanuts from 1950 until 2000, making it, as one scholar put it, the “longest story ever told by one human being.” Actually, the story began even earlier, in Schulz’s comic strip Li’l Folks, which ran in Minnesota’s St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1947. That strip included some of the same characters who later showed up in Peanuts: a dog that was a lot like Snoopy and a kid named Charlie Brown. Li’l Folks was retired in 1950, and Schulz moved on to the strip that made him famous.

  GOOD OL’ CHARLIE BROWN

  When United Features Syndicate picked up Peanuts in 1950, it ran in seven newspapers around the United States. (Eventually, more than 2,000 picked it up.) The strip got more elaborate over the years—Schulz added color and more detail—but it was always notable for its simple look and approach to life. The drawings are characterized by spare lines and little background, and the comic’s themes and dialogue match that simplicity. In the first Peanuts strip on October 2, 1950, two children sat on the sidewalk. One said, “‘Well, here comes ol’ Charlie Brown!’ . . . ‘Good ol’ Charlie Brown’ . . . ‘Yes, sir! Good ol’ Charlie Brown.’” And then, as Charlie Brown passed them, “How I hate him!”

  The characters were always honest, too, in the ways that most children are: they said what they thought and didn’t couch their opinions in euphemisms. And they were funny. As one critic said, the Peanuts gang “brought . . . humor to taboo themes such as faith, intolerance, depression, loneliness, cruelty and despair. [The] characters were contemplative. They spoke with simplicity and force. They made smart observations about literature, art, classical music, theology, medicine, psychiatry, sports and the law.”

  Peanuts had other unique and endearing aspects, too. In particular, the strip featured a whole cast of characters—rather than just one or two. And the group included types of people most readers could relate to: the nerd, the grouch, the philosopher, the slacker, the jock, the insecure thumbsucker, and the dreamer.

  THE PEANUTS GALLERY

  Unlike many comic strip artists who collaborated with a number of writers, storyboard artists, and colorists, Schulz produced all aspects of Peanuts himself. He worked on the strip everyday, and each of the characters was his own creation. Schulz once told an interviewer that the entire Peanuts gang was based on people he knew—his fussy daughter, Meredith, was the inspiration for Lucy, and Charlie Brown’s “little red-haired girl” mirrored an unrequited love named Donna Johnson who rejected Schulz’s marriage proposal in 1950. Some characters even portrayed aspects of Schulz’s personality—he said more than once that Linus represented his spiritual side.

  The core cast included the following:

  • Charlie Brown, the eternal outsider who never managed to kick a football

  • Snoopy, the beagle with the wild imagination and the sardonic wit

  • Linus Van Pelt, thumb sucking philosopher king and Charlie Brown’s best friend

  • Lucy Van Pelt, professional grouch and Linus’s older sister

  • Sally Brown, Charlie’s sunny-tempered little sister

  • Woodstock, Snoopy’s avian sidekick, prone to mishaps

  • Schroeder, the piano prodigy with a Beethoven fixation

  • Peppermint Patty, sandal-sporting tomboy

  • Marcie, archetypal best friend and confused sort

  • Pigpen, the outcast surrounded by a cloud of dust

  • Violet, the snob

  • Franklin, scrappy new kid introduced in 1968 and the strip’s first African American character

  • Rerun, Linus’s little brother

  Over the years, more kids came and went, but adults remained out of the picture, likely because the philosophical musings and often progressive ideas the characters had were less threatening coming from children. Plus the lack of adults gave the Peanuts kids a great deal of self-sufficiency: they had to rely on themselves and each to solve problems.

  THE DOCTOR IS IN

  Writing the strip also gave Charles Schulz a way to confront his own anxiety. When Lucy set up her counseling stand with a sign reading “The Doctor Is In—5 cents,” Schulz was consoling himself as much as Charlie Brown. Depression plagued the artist his entire life. “You can’t create humor out of happiness,” he wrote in Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me.

  Schulz’s friend Lynn Johnston, creator of the comic strip For Better or Worse, said that Schulz told her in the last year of his life, “You control all these characters and the lives they live. You decide when they get up in the morning, when they’re going to fight with their friends, when they’re going to lose the game. Isn’t it amazing how you have no control over your real life?” Johnston reflected, “[But] I think, in a way, he did.” In fact, Schulz spent every day doing what he loved best: drawing.

  THE RED BARON

  Charlie Brown was the longest-running Peanuts character, but the most beloved had to be Snoopy. The beagle was based on Schulz’s own childhood pet—a black-and-white-headed hunting dog named Spike. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! published one of Schultz’s illustrations of Spike when Schulz was just 15. Spike also appeared from time to time as Snoopy’s brother.

  If any character in the Peanuts universe was a revolutionary who did his own thing, it was Snoopy. He was a writer, a thinker, and even a fighter pilot called the World War I Flying Ace who flew his plane . . . ahem, his doghouse . . . in some serious battles trying to shoot down the Red Baron. The dog spent his first two years in the strip quietly going about his canine business, but in 1952, Schulz gave Snoopy a voice via thought balloons. Suddenly, the reader was privy to what the rebellious dog was thinking—and he had a lot of “wise” things to say:

  • “Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There’s so little hope for advancement.”

  • “Sometimes when I get up in the morning, I feel very peculiar. I feel like I’ve just got to bite a cat! I feel like if I don’t bite a cat before sundown, I’ll go crazy! But then I just take a deep breath and forget about it. That’s what is known as real maturity.”

  • “My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?”

  • “Dear IRS, Please remove me from your mailing list.”

  • “My life is full of unsuffered consequences . . .”

  GOOD GRIEF

  “Good grief!” wrote Sally Brown in a school report on night and day: “Daytime is so you can see where you’re going. Nighttime is so you can lie in bed worrying.” Schulz’s obituary mentions that Schulz woke up one night and thought, “Good grief, who are all these little people? Must I live with them for the rest of my life?”

  Thankfully for us, he did. The last Peanuts daily strip appeared on January 3, 2000. Schulz died at home of colon cancer on February 12, and his last Sunday panel appeared the next day. It included a farewell that read “Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy . . . how can I ever forget them.”

  “In the book of life, the answers aren’t in the back.”

  —Charlie Brown

  THE TROJAN HORSE AWARD

  Songs That Don’t Say What They Mean

  Musicians usually write songs to communicate, but sometimes

  what they’re trying to say gets completely confused.

  BABA O’RILEY” BY THE WHO

  You think it’s about . . . kids getting drunk.

  It’s really about . . . a futuristic England where the landscape is a wasteland. In 1971, as a follow-up to their rock opera Tommy, the Who (well . . . mostly Pete Townshend) penned another play—Lifehouse—about a futuristic, severely polluted English society that the government keeps under control with “the Grid,” an Internet-like means of surveillance. The term “teenage wasteland” refers to the scrappy kids crossing the polluted countryside, heading for a huge music festival where the story’s climax takes place. And the song’s name?
It has nothing to do with the lyrics. “Baba” comes from Townshend’s spiritual guru, Meher Baba, and “O’Riley” from minimalist composer Terry Riley, whom Townshend counted as one of the inspirations for the song’s instrumentals.

  “SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE” BY R.E.M.

  You think it’s about . . . shiny, happy people.

  It’s really about . . . oppression. The song was based on a propaganda poster from Communist China that proclaimed the country full of “shiny, happy people holding hands.” Then, in 1989, Stipe was horrified by the Tiananmen Square uprising, when the Chinese government killed hundreds of student protesters. The song was the band’s response to both events, but people in the United States took it as a fun, upbeat tune. The song even appeared on a 1999 episode of Sesame Street, in which the “shiny happy people” line was changed to “furry happy monsters” and the band performed with the Muppets.

  “THE ONE I LOVE” BY R.E.M.

  You think it’s . . . a love song.

  It’s really about . . . using people. This song’s meaning has been misinterpreted so many times that lyricist and singer Michael Stipe finally said, “It’s probably better that they just think it’s a love song at this point.” But the line “A simple prop to occupy my time” makes it clear that the song is really about using people and not appreciating a significant other.

  “EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE” BY THE POLICE

  You think it’s . . . a love song.

  It’s really about . . . obsession and control. Sting wrote the song just after his first marriage fell apart and says, “It sounds like a comforting love song. I didn’t realize at the time how sinister it is. I think I was thinking of Big Brother, surveillance, and control.”

  “WHAT’S THE FREQUENCY, KENNETH?” BY R.E.M.

  You think it’s about . . . who knows!

  It’s really about . . . the 1986 attack on CBS news anchor Dan Rather, who was mugged on a New York City sidewalk by a man who shouted, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?” The man, William Tager, thought the media was beaming radio signals into his brain to test their frequencies. He also thought that by attacking Rather (or at least asking the question) he could figure out the frequencies and block the signals from his brain. (Tager proved even crazier nine years later when he shot a stagehand outside the Today Show’s studios. He’s still in jail for that crime.)

  “IN THE AIR TONIGHT” BY PHIL COLLINS

  You think it’s about . . . the time Phil Collins’s friend (or father or someone else) drowned and a bystander did nothing about it.

  It’s really about . . . how angry Collins was after his 1979 divorce. The urban legends surrounding this song’s meaning sprung up in the 1980s, and no one knows for sure how they got started. But there were several variations—in some stories, “In the Air Tonight” was about the time Collins’s father drowned; in others, it was about his wife being raped and the attacker drowning; still others said it was about a young Collins and a bystander witnessing a drowning but doing nothing to help. All of the stories ended with the bystander being sent a free, front-row ticket to one of Collins’s concerts and being serenaded with the dark song. None of it was true. Collins said, “When I was writing this I was going through a divorce. And the only thing I can say about it is that it’s obviously [written] in anger. It’s the angry side, or the bitter side of a separation.”

  “WONDERFUL TONIGHT” BY ERIC CLAPTON

  You think it’s about . . . how beautiful his girlfriend looks.

  It’s really about . . . waiting impatiently for a girlfriend to get ready so he can leave the house—Eric Clapton was waiting for his girlfriend Pattie Boyd (who later became his wife). The year was 1976, and they were heading for a party thrown by Paul McCartney as a tribute to Buddy Holly. While Boyd kept trying on different outfits, Clapton waited—and came up with the idea for the song. (This was not the only song Boyd inspired. She was also behind Clapton’s hit “Layla” and George Harrison’s “Something.”)

  “MARTHA MY DEAR” BY THE BEATLES

  You think it’s about . . . convincing a lover to stick around.

  It’s really about . . . well, there are three theories. Paul McCartney wrote the song in 1968 and said that it was about his muse, whom he nicknamed Martha (“Martha my dear, you have always been my inspiration”). But it turns out McCartney had a dog named Martha, so it could be about her. (McCartney has also said he named his dog after his muse.) Finally, McCartney’s longtime girlfriend at the time, Jane Asher, could have been the inspiration. She allegedly walked in on him in bed with another woman and broke off their relationship. (Apparently, she wasn’t won back by the lyric “Help yourself to a bit of what is all around you.”)

  THE “IT TAKES TWO” AWARD

  The Tango

  In its heyday, the tango was considered more

  subversive than rock ‘n’ roll. Saucy!

  DANCE SOLO

  There are many theories about how the tango got started in Argentina: Some say it came over with African slaves. Others claim it evolved from a flamenco-like dance women performed alone. Both of these probably did influence the early tango, but the dance as we know it today was born in the mid- to late 1800s in the tenement blocks of Buenos Aires, where residents gathered in the evenings to play music. The communities were melting pots of people—from Africa, Europe, and so on—who blended styles to form a new kind of “street” dance.”

  The tango got a reputation for being a favorite in the city’s brothels likely because the madams hired tango musicians to entertain clients while they waited for their dates. Argentina, in the 1850s, had many more men than women, the result of an influx of European immigrants who arrived to build the country’s railroad. When the men arrived at the city’s brothels, they usually had to wait their turn. So they listened to music and they danced, often alone or with other men for partners.

  And what of the name—“tango”? There are many theories about its origin as well, but most likely, the word came from Spanish . . . tango was a type of Spanish music, even though the music we now consider “tango” is different from the original.

  PARIS IS BURNING

  In the early 20th century, the tango traveled to Europe, reaching France via the port town of Marseille courtesy of visiting Argentinean sailors. By 1909, a couple had performed the tango on a stage in Montmartre, and by 1912, the dance was embraced by all classes of Parisians. Fashions began to change as a result, as Parisian women stopped wearing constraining corsets so they could dance more easily. Shops sold new styles of skirts (with openings in the front), new hats (with a feather pointing up instead of across a woman’s face, so it wouldn’t get in her tango partner’s way) stockings, and shoes. And orange became the most popular color in dancehalls all over the city. Of course, Parisians’ tastes soon set the standard for the rest of the world.

  Just a year later, people were dancing the tango all over the Western world. In 1913, the Waldorf Hotel in London began holding Tango Teas to cater to the people who were enjoying this new dance. Professional dance couples demonstrated the dance in fashionable restaurants. Tango was equally popular in New York City and was embraced famously by Hollywood actor Rudolf Valentino, who danced it in 1921’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  With all this international success, the tango returned to Argentina a new dance: no longer hidden away in the tenements and brothels of Buenos Aires, it was suddenly popular with the upper classes in its hometown. In the 1930s, Argentina’s status in the world grew—it became one of the richest nations. And the tango was seen internationally as a fun and exciting expression of Argentinean culture.

  THE GOLDEN AGE

  It was the rise to power of one of the country’s most infamous couples, though, that really brought the tango into its own. Socialists Juan and Eva Peron became the president and first lady of Argentina in 1946, and they ushered in the tango’s Golden Age. The tango has always been a dance of the people, and the Perons (who billed themselves as the rulers of the peop
le) promoted it in order to appeal to the middle and lower classes who’d elected them. The couple also supported tango artists and even hired them to work in Peron’s administration.

  But when Peron was overthrown by a military coup (supported by the upper classes) in 1955, the tango went underground. The upper class of Argentina was now in charge, and they frowned on the dance. They also didn’t want to support anything Peron had supported. Although not forbidden by law, the suppression of certain songs and the enforcement of curfews made it difficult for clubs to attract customers who’d previously gone out on the town to dance the tango. Also, the new military government imprisoned many of the tango artists Peron had hired.

  Argentina’s ruling class even began to enforce laws that kept minors out of dance clubs . . . but only clubs where the tango was danced. Minors in Argentina were free to frequent rock ‘n’ roll clubs, which were considered less dangerous and less likely to promote unrest. It wasn’t until 1983, when the military government was overthrown in Argentina, that the tango regained its proper place in the country’s culture. Free to learn and practice the dance, Argentineans once again took to the dance floor. As for the rest of the world, they’d continued dancing the tango all along.

  THE BASIC STEPS

  Many variations of the tango exist around the world, and the American tango is different from the Argentinean tango. But if you want to do a basic tango, here are the steps you need to know:

  • The tango has five steps performed over eight counts. Basically, it’s a slow walk followed by a quick one. The five steps are counted out: “Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick, Slow.” Some people like to spell out the dance: “T-A-N-G-O.” (Whatever helps.)