No more banner ad at the top of the page. The election is over. Things don’t look good for Tom Ammiano. I’m not surprised. Money talks, here and elsewhere, and that’s what this election was really about anyway. Kudos to San Francisco for refusing, however, to paint it in terms of race or sexuality.
Enough said about the election. I’d rather talk about the demise of “Peanuts”. It’s almost a cliche to suggest that Charlie Brown, Snoopy, et. al. were among the greatest pop culture icons of the 20th century.
I was lucky enough to be a kid when Peanuts was at the peak of its popularity and impact, in the early 1970s. My life revolved around the whole scene during elementary school. I had the lunchbox and all the books. I had the pennants hanging in my room and the pajamas and the sheets. I ate cookies made using Charlie Brown cookie cutters and cereal served in a Snoopy bowl. I still have “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” all but memorized.
Best of all, when I was 6 years old, my parents gave me a stuffed Snoopy, which was my closest friend for several years. I slept with it every night until significantly past the onset of puberty. I was an insecure kid.
I know. It all sounds like marketing, and is vaguely reminiscent of Pokemon or the Smurfs. But “Peanuts”, especially in earlier years, was a little more intelligent and uplifting than the standard kids’ crapola of the past two decades (“Animaniacs” and Elmo excepted).
It wasn’t my favorite comic strip of all time. That honor goes without hesitation to the still-brilliant “Bloom County”. To be honest, I rarely even pay attention to “Peanuts” anymore. But I’ll sort of miss having it around all the same.
