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ACHIEVEMENT: WALK OF FAME HONOR: SNOOPY
Pup in the Air Charlie Brown’s
beloved beagle has proven timeless
pal for young and old By Seth Kelley
PF1 WENN PHOTOS/NEWSCOM
HIS LIFE HE TRIED to be
a good person,” begins the
famous quote by Charles M.
“ALL
Schulz. “Many times, however,
he failed. For after all, he
was only human. He wasn’t a dog.”
Snoopy, the beloved cartoon beagle
based on Schulz’s own family dog Spike,
first appeared in the Peanuts comic strip
on Oct. 4, 1950. And now, 65 years later,
the dog’s legacy will be cemented, alongside
Schulz’s, when he receives a star on
the Walk of Fame on Nov. 2.
Snoopy’s range of characters over the
years — World War I flying ace, famous
writer, lawyer, astronaut, hockey player
among them — rivals many Hollywood
legends. And with a career spanning nearly
five decades in the strip and more in
TV and film, Snoopy’s career is a model
for longevity. He even coined a signature
move — the “happy dance” — in which
he points his nose to the sky, curves his
mouth into a “U” shape and scampers
about, feet radiating with energy.
But Snoopy wasn’t always the adventurous,
character actor that we know
him as today. In the beginning, Snoopy’s
anthropomorphic tendencies were more
subtle than in later years, says Jean
Schulz, Charles’ widow, who now sits as
board president at the Charles Schulz
Museum and Research Center in Santa
Rosa, Calif. In fact, Snoopy did not speak
until 1952. But even in those first years,
Charles Schulz found creative ways for
A BOY AND HIS
DOG Over the
years, Snoopy
would play
a variety of
characters,
including a WWI
Flying Ace.
Snoopy to communicate.
“Snoopy was doing some very clever
things and Sparky was using him for visual
humor,” Jean Schulz says, referring to
her late husband by his nickname. For
example, in one strip that depicts a baseball
game, Snoopy puts his ears out to
call safe. In another, the kids play hideand-seek.
“Someone runs past him and
he points that ear out,” she laughs. But
Snoopy’s humor is no mystery, considering
his inspiration, Spike, was apparently
a pretty intelligent model. Jean Schulz
says her husband used to say Spike understood
50 words. “He would say ‘Spike, go
down to the cellar and get a potato,’ and
he’d come back with a potato,” she says.
But despite Snoopy’s immediate ten-
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