Good Grief!

The name was forced upon him by the syndicate, and he always hated it. Its funny shape was due to the syndicate's desire to sell it as a "space saver," so editors could cram three strips into the space of two. They gave the strip little care or thought, but what they got was the most successful and beloved strip IN THE WORLD! And Charles Schulz carried these insults with him all his life, as he did every indignity that added to his insecurity, and wove them into the first pop-psychology, -theology, -philosophy comic strip. It's no wonder that the catch phrase of the hero (or anti-hero) was "good grief," a contradiction in itself, mankind's habit of reacting to constant disappointment with illogical hope. Schulz may have actually invented the phrase, along with the security blanket, the Great Pumpkin, and Snoopy.

Schulz drew from the sorrows of his life to reflect on the futility of it all. The little red-haired girl was real, his first love, who in turn spurned him. As Randall Goodgame has pointed out, "Peanuts" is ripe with unrequited love, only the best example of the failures we all endure. Schroeder is a prodigy who can't get rid of Lucy. Lucy takes her frustration out on Linus, a genius who depends on a blanket to quiet his fears. Charlie Brown fails at everything. And through it all dances Snoopy. And along with Schulz' introspective meditation, as the panel above testifies, he could draw a funny picture.