Good Grief!

I cannot tell you how excited I am to see a documentary on Charles Schultz, the man who gave us Charlie Brown and the gang. This film, called "Good 'Ol Charles Schulz," will be shown Saturday night at the Woodstock Commmunity Center.

My affection for Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Schulz lies in that nutty Christmas diddy that Schroeder bangs out in the gang's Christmas special. You know the one. Doo-do-do-doo-doo-do-dooo-dooooo.

Anyway, I spoke to the filmmaker, David Van Taylor, a while back and he told me some pretty interesting stuff.....

On the creator...
"He could be as insecure as Linus. He certainly was
Schroeder. In many respects, the image of Schroeder bending over the piano is Schulz, bending over the picture."

On Charlie Brown - "Charlie Brown is the underside, in a way, of America's eternal optimism."

Snoopy, Van Taylor said, is who Schulz "wanted to be." Charlie Brown, Van Taylor said, "is who he was."

"We're all at some point going to feel left out...and that's what Charlie Brown is about and that's what Schulz did, was to allow us to express our own feelings of vulnerability."
Everyone pretty much knows that Schultz learned how to draw through a correspondence course. But he went on to teach at the school that offered the course and the Peanuts characters were developed around instructors - Linus and Charlie Brown.