Peanuts – The Peanuts – The Legacy of Charles Legacy of Charles

SchulzSchulz

Peanuts – The Peanuts – The Legacy of Charles Legacy of Charles

SchulzSchulz

Charlie Brown – Where Charlie Brown – Where are you?are you?

Charles Schulz – The Early Years

• Began drawing in kindergarten• Interested in drawings by Disney and Popeye• Formal training was from a correspondence art

school, Art Instruction Schools, Inc.– Emphasis on cartooning– Entire tuition was $170

• Instructor encouraged him to draw more of “those little kids”

• Sold Li’l Folks as a weekly feature to the St. Paul Pioneer Press (1947) He made $90/month.

• Sold panels to the Saturday Evening Post

The Beginnings• October 2, 1950

Peanuts debuted in 7 newspapers

• By 1952 in 40 papers• Late 1999 was the

50th anniversary of the Peanuts strip appearing in newspapers.

• It began (and continued) to be very reflective of Charles Schulz’s life

Characters• Snoopy was derived

from the family mixed breed Spike that Shulz got in 1934

• Charlie, Linus, Schroeder and Lucy were early favorites – Snoopy has almost taken over on a number of occasions

• Character development is crucial to the strip’s success

Peanuts• United Feature Syndicate

picked up the strip in 1949 and wanted to title it Peanuts– Schulz was at first very

unhappy with the name– Original name idea was

L’il Folks

• 1952 first Peanuts Book Collection published

• By 1984 seen in over 2000 newspapers daily

• By 2000 appeared in 2600 newspapers daily

Characters• Charlie Brown and

Linus were named for friends and colleagues

• When Snoopy began top walk on 2 feet he almost took over the cartoon! (1956)

• 1965 was the leap into animation and A Charlie Brown Christmas– Cover of Time

Magazine

Charlie Brown• Focus of each story• He is a caricature of the

average person– We all relate to losing

more than winning! Winning is great – but it isn’t funny

– Schulz knew there were a 100 funny stories about consoling the loser!

• Charlie Brown’s loneliness traces to Schulz time in WWII

Charlie Brown always explains his loses in terms of sports analogies

Charlie Brown Christmas

• Won a Peabody and an Emmy 1965

• Schulz always felt there were too many inconsistencies in the drawings– Christmas tree grows

branches!

• Aiming for a grownup and family audience

• Now over 47 titles on DVD

Marketing Successes• Over 20,000 products have been developed based on

Peanuts – Animated TV Specials – Ice Shows– Merchandising

• Toys, Games• Videos• Books• Paper products

• Kodak was first product sponsor and used characters in photo manual

• 1960 Hallmark debuts – Peanuts greeting cards

• 1983 Camp Snoopy at Knotts Berry Farm

Classic strip now available on GOCOMICS.com

Peanuts Movie

20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios producing a Peanuts Movie (animated) for release fall 2015.

• Early promotion included appearing at ComicCon summer 2014

Other Endorsements and Marketing Efforts

• Public Service – Pepper Mint Patty’s

Narcolepsy• Endorsements

– Metropolitan Life Insurance – the whole gang

– Regina Vacuums/Pig Pen– NASA Pins of Snoopy –

1969 go to space on Apollo X

– Schroeder becomes spokesperson for National Piano Month (1991)

Publicity• Use of the strip and the Bible • Narcolepsy – became a spokesperson• Segregation – use of an integrated strip

– Franklin, Linus, Schroeder

• Sadism? Lucy and Charlie Brown• Use of Sparky to Remember D-Day

– Chairman for the National D-Day Memorial

• Charlie Brown and the Gang tackle all current events with comment or offering a solution

Peanuts and Schulz’s Contributions

• The term “security blanket”• “Happiness is a warm puppy”• “Life is full of rude

awakenings”

Earnings• In 2013 Charles Schulz ranked 3rd on

Forbes earnings list of deceased celebrities with $37 million. Disney recently signed for a series of Peanuts animated films

• Compare this to Dr. Seuss tied with Steve McQueen for 10th with $10M

•Only Michael Jackson and Elvis earned more than Peanuts!

Current Ownership• Reached an agreement to sell United

Media Licensing business for $175M to Iconix Brand Group. 20% of the rights will be retained by the Schulz family.

• Licensed in more than 40 countries and generates $2B in sales– Scripps will continue to own comic

rights for syndication

Dr. Seuss -Theodor Geisel

• Born March 2, 1904• Grew up financially comfortable in a

family of brew masters.• Became the editor of the Dartmouth

humor magazine, Jack-O-Lantern• Began to sign columns as Seuss (a

combo of his middle name and mothers maiden name)

• Headed off to Oxford post-grad

Early Years• Fellow student Helen Palmer

suggested he become an artist instead of a professor (and he did and married her as well!)

• To enable his marriage, he started drawing cartoons and sold them to the Saturday Evening Post

Early Career• Spent 15 years in advertising but began

doing political cartoons during WWII• Began to work in animation for training the

army (Your Job in Germany, Your Job in Japan)

• Editor at Viking offered him a contract to do illustrate a set of children’s sayings called Boners

• Sent his first children’s effort to 27 publishers and got 27 rejections

• Old Dartmouth friend finally go it published for him through Houghton Mifflin

Writing Efforts• Approached by Random House and

Houghton Mifflin to write a children’s book using 220 primer words … this became The Cat in the Hat

• Wrote Green Eggs With Ham on a bet with his editor that he couldn’t write a book in less than 50 words

•Known for writing “Beginner” •books

Later Years• Animator Chuck Jones approached Seuss about doing

an animated piece of the Grinch that Stole Christmas and later Horton Hears a Who

• Theme song to the Grinch sung by Thurl Ravenscroft who was the original Tony the Tiger

• He continued to be an artist and was very color specific

• At the time of his death 200 million books had been sold in 15 different languages )total 222 million to date

• Passed away on September 24, 1991 at age 87•Original art accounted for 1/3 of Jean

Geisel’s gallery income of $580,000 in 2008

Dr. Seuss Enterprises

• Focuses on maintaining the quality of the brand• Focused on removing counterfeits after his

death• Main purpose to maintain the integrity and

demand for the books•Since his death 22 million books have been sold

•Merchandise includes music, books, toys & games, clothing

Tent Pole Film or TV

• A hit film or movie whose profits hold up everything else at the studio– Branding the characters and film as icons lends

easily to merchandising and promotional tie-ins

– Disney invested a billion dollars to create partnerships with luxury designers for Alice in Wonderland goods• Versace and shoes, Sue Wong and evening gowns,

Charms and Stella McCartney

Merchandising and Promos with Peanuts

and Seuss

• MetLife and Snoopy One and Two• Dolly Madison cakes, Macy’s

Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons, Camp Snoopy at Knotts Berry Farm

Seuss Merchandising and Branding

• 11 TV specials, three feature films and a Broadway show

• 16 of the Top 100 selling children’s books are written by Seuss– Green Eggs and Ham #4, The Cat and the Hat

#9, One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish #13

•Seuss Landing at Islands of Adventure (Universal)

Interesting Factoids• Does the Cat in the Cat in the Hat

represent a Jesus-like figure?• Did the Black Eyed Peas rip off Seuss?• “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” continues to be

a top seller because it has evolved into a graduation gift item.

• The Cat in the Hat Comes Back movie was shelved after Mrs. Seuss saw the Mike Myers adaptation of the Cat in the Hat.