VOYAGES OF IMAGINATION

In this volume there are occasional omissions of the strip's date from the strip. In those instances, the dates appear in brackets [ ].

p. 1 (January 1, 1965) 1st panel. Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745) tells the adventures of Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, as he journeys to many fantastic lands, most famously Lilliput, home of the Lilliputians, people only six inches high. The novel is largely a satire on customs and religious and political questions popular at the time. Matters such as the reference to Swift's political enemy the Duke of Marlborough and digs at Robert Walpole (the un-first Prime Minister of England) are largely lost on today's readers unless they have a volume with excellent footnotes.

p. 2 (January 3, 1965) 8th panel. Billiards is a game similar to pool involving hitting balls using cue sticks. "English" is the spin a player can give a ball by hitting it at a certain angle in order to alter the direction it will move. To "hold English" is to keep spinning. When a ball "banks" it bounces off the interior of the game table. The ensuing friction takes some the spin off the ball. After banking twice a ball is usually no longer spinning.

p. 4 (January 9, 1965) 4th panel. Annette Funicello (b. 1942) was one of the original stars of the television show The Mickey Mouse Club, which first aired from 1955 to 1959. Chosen by Walt Disney himself for her wholesome appearance and attitude (and specifically encouraged not to change her last name for the entertainment business -- as so many stars did well into the 1970s), by 1965 (when she was in her early twenties) she had developed a very curvy physique and starred in several movies with singer Frankie Avalon (b. 1939): Beach Party (1963), Muscle Beach Party (1964), and Bikini Beach (1964). Though not Disney films, she followed the film-maker's advice and her swimsuits never showed her navel. Nonetheless, there was no denying that she had grown up.

p. 6 (January 13, 1965) 3rd panel. Johann Strauss (1825 - 1899) was the Austrian classical composer nicknamed "the waltz king" because of the dozens he wrote, most notably "The Blue Danube (1867)."

p. 7 (January 14, 1965) 3rd panel. A correspondence class was the 20th century version of today's online classes. Books and assignments were mailed to the student, who would write papers and mail them back to an instructor for grading. If tests were taken, they would be proctored by some local authority. Obedience school trains pets to follow instructions. A real obedience school requires hands-on attention.

p. 7 (January 15, 1965) 2nd and 3rd panels. An ophthalmologist is an eye doctor, and an orthopedist specializes in feet.

p. 9 (January 19, 1965) 1st panel. Miss Othmar was named for a friend of Schulz's in Santa Rosa, Othmar Jarish.

p. 13 (January 30, 1965) 3rd panel. Snoopy is undoubted singing to the tune of "I Could Have Danced All Night" from the musical My Fair Lady. Written by Alan Jay Lerner (1918 - 1986) with music by Frederick Loewe (1901 - 1988), and based on Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Lady was originally produced on Broadway in 1956 to great acclaim, and the 1964 film version brought even more popularity.

p. 14 [January 31, 1965] 8th panel. Total recall is another name for eidetic (also called "photographic") memory, the ability to recall conversations, text, and other things long after the have happened with perfect precision.

p. 15 (February 3, 1965) 4th panel. Just as the stereotypical butler is English, the stereotypical maid is French. A French poodle is the small breed of that dog. As a dog, Snoopy's girlfriend would have a dog maid. This allows Schulz to combine the two phrases "French poodle" and "French maid."

p. 17 (February 7, 1965) 7th panel. Rabies is a deadly disease transmitted to people almost exclusively by animal bites. Most dogs get annual shots to prevent against it.

p. 23 (February 21, 1965) 6th panel. Iodine is traditionally used as a disinfectant on scratches or wounds. It will get Lucy's face clean, but isn't necessary if you've been kissed (or even licked) by a dog.

p. 25 (February 27, 1965) 4th panel. The star Sirius is called "The Dog Star" because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (the Big Dog). There are no corresponding "people" stars.

p. 26 (February 28, 1965) 8th panel. The expression "Birds of a feather flock together" means that people tend to spend time with those who are like themselves in some way, be it religion, ethnicity, race, or political bent.

p. 28 (March 4, 1965) 4th panel. A cinch notice is an official notice from a teacher that your grades are unsatisfactory. Its purpose is, indeed, to spur you to "get on the ball," and take corrective action by studying harder. The joke is that no one is graded on how they eat lunch. (NOTE: What is the etymology of the term?)

p. 29 (March 7, 1965) 5th panel. Pneumonia is disease of the lungs.

p. 30 (March 9, 1965) Lucy is applying the old expression "Snug as a bug in a rug," which means to be very comfortable.

p. 36 (March 24, 1965) 4th panel. The House of Dracula was a 1945 horror film featuring Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein's monster. Lucy is saying that the blanket scares her as much as all three combined.

p. 39 (March 29 - 31, 1965) The skateboard made its appearance in the early 1960s and rapidly became a favorite mode of transportation. Because of its similarity in shape (but not size -- it is much smaller) to the surf board, many surf terms were adopted by skateboarders. "Surf's up" means that the ocean waves are right for riding. Of course the cement is always right for riding. And when Linus crashes and is thrown from his board he "wipes out" just like a surfer. (For real surfing see p. 94, August 5, 1965 and following.)

p. 40 (April 1, 1965) 2nd panel. "Horsehide" is a nickname for a baseball, which was once covered in that material, but is now made with cow leather.

p. 45 (April 12, 1965) 4th panel. In his imaginary bowling game, Snoopy has knocked down all the pins but one: the ten pin. Positioned in the back and far right, it's hard to hit. Snoopy would have had a strike if he had knocked them all down, but now he's going to have to try to get just that one on his second attempt of the frame.

p. 45 (April 14, 1965) 4th pin. In bowling if you knock down all of your pins in all 10 frames that you play, then you score a perfect game of 300 points.

p. 47 [April 18, 1965] Various moral issues. A bean ball is a pitch at a batter's head, his "bean," and it's prohibited. Early settlers of America invaded Native American lands, driving them from their lands and frequently killing them. The Children's Crusade was a (possibly fictional) event in the year 1212 where a large band of European children attempted to march to the Holy Land in order to convert Moslems. They never made it, and died from various causes before reaching Jerusalem. Movies in the mid 1960s (just like today) were filled with sex and violence, so the ads reflected that. Harper's Ferry, in West Virginia, was the site of abolitionist John Brown's (1800 - 1859) 1859 failed slave rebellion, for which he was hanged. What Frieda's complaint against the highway system I don't know unless she feels that they encourage driving in single cars rather than taking public transportation. The complaint about radio is the same one that exists today: the music is loud and trashy. Conservation: After years of essentially trashing the planet, people finally realized they needed to take care of it. What we now call the environmental movement (its goal is to conserve the environment) got its start in the 1960s.

p. 49 (April 24, 1965) 4th panel. Early 1965 saw the arrival of U.S. Marine troops in Vietnam, the assassination of Malcolm X (1925 - 1965), Civil Rights marches, and anti-Vietnam War protests. The world was in bad shape.

p. 52 (April 30, 1965) 2nd panel. Daniel 6 tells the familiar story of Daniel in the lion's den. As punishment for praying to God instead of King Darius of Babylon, Daniel is put overnight in a lion's den. He prays to God, who prevents the lions from harming him. This converts Darius who then decrees that all in his kingdom will worship the God of Daniel. Prayers led by school authorities in public schools used to be quite common until two U.S. Supreme Court cases outlawed the practice: Engel v. Vtale in 1962 and Abington School District v Schempp in 1963.

p. 53 (May 2, 1965) 3rd panel. The little red-haired girl is based on Donna Mae Johnson, Schulz's girlfriend in St. Paul during the late 1940s. She was an accountant at Art Instruction Schools, Inc. where Schulz worked as a cartoon letterer. She broke his heart when, in 1950, she married Al Wold, whom she had known since eighth grade.

p. 54 (May 3, 1965) 4th panel. To be mugged is to be robbed while outside. Usually someone comes up to you and threatens to hurt you unless you give them your wallet / watch / jewelry, etc.

p. 54 (May 5, 1965) 1st panel. A direct contradiction to vol. 5, p. 67, June 6, 1959, where Snoopy claims that he was an "only dog."

p. 55 (May 6, 1965) Dogs are almost always multiple births, and all of those puppies born at the same time are called a litter. When all of the members of family (the brothers and sisters and all of their children) gather together that is called a family reunion.

p. 57 (May 10, 1965) "Dear Sir" is the traditional greeting in a business letter if you do not know the name of the person to whom you are writing. It's odd that the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm used that since Charlie Brown clearly signed his letter in the May 6, 1965 strip. In any case, Snoopy has it all wrong as well since the letter to the Farm was written by Charlie Brown and their reply is also to him.

p. 58 (May 14, 1965) 4th panel. "You can't go home again" is the title of Thomas Wolfe's 1940 novel, but as a proverb it's older than that. Like "You never step in the same river twice," the phrase acknowledges that things and people change over time.

p. 60 (May 17, 1965) To do a "wheelie" is to ride on just the back wheels of any mode of transportation that has at least two wheels. You can't do wheelies on a unicycle, but popping up on just the back wheel of bicycle is a wheelie. Ditto the back wheels of a skateboard.

p. 60 (May 19, 1965) 4th panel. Sunflowers routinely grow to be six feet high, with some reaching as high as twelve.

p. 62 [May 23, 1965] 1st panel. Why is Snoopy living on Frieda's mailbox? Charlie Brown has a perfectly good one. And, we presume, it's closer to the house where his food comes from.

p. 64 (May 28, 1965) 2nd panel. "Hood" is short for hoodlum, which means a gangster, and, by implication, anyone who's rough and crude.

p. 67 (June 5, 1965) 4th panel. The Vietnam War had recently escalated, and men were drafted to fight there. Traditionally, after a draftee reports for service he is put on a bus and sent to army camp for basic training. Charlie Brown is comparing summer camp with this "boot camp."

p. 68 (June 6, 1965) 9th panel. It is a cliché that eating (particularly unusual foods) late at night will lead to strange dreams.

p. 72 (June 15, 1965) 4th panel. Something that "gets me right here" gets me in the heart -- that is, makes me very emotional. Schulz will make reference to many songs from World War I (1914 - 1918) in this volume. Be they about lost love or patriotism, they are, indeed, emotional. (See p. 180, February 23, 1966 and p. 237, July 6, 1966 below)

p. 73 (June 18, 1965) 4th panel. Your "hitch" is how long you are hitched (attached to) the army. When your tour of duty is complete, and you are discharged from the army, you’ve done your hitch.

p. 75 (June 22, 1965) Schroeder is referring (of course) to classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827). Beethoven began loosing his hearing in his early 30s and was deaf many years before he died. Nonetheless he continued to compose and conduct.

p. 75 (June 23, 1965) 4th panel. The phrase "a Go Go" or just "Go Go" is a variation on the French phrase à gogo,which means "plenty." In the 1960s there were Go Go bars (a form of early discotheque), go go boots (which went up to your knees) . . . if something was "go go" then it was the very latest and most modern.

p. 76 (June 26, 1965) 4th panel. Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890) was an impressionist painter. Practically ignored during his lifetime (he sold only two paintings while alive), he is now recognized as genius, and his paintings sell for millions of dollars at auction. Even in 1964, a Van Gogh was an expensive rarity that few places outside of museums (let alone dog houses) would possess. (See also vol. 7, p. 182, February 29, 1964)

p. 77 (June 27, 1965) 9th panel. Transistor radios were the first truly portable radios. Prior to the invention of the tiny transistor (which replaced the much larger vacuum tubes), radios were large and bulky. (See also vol. 7, p. 312 December 27, 1964)

p. 82 (July 8, 1965) 1st panel. A playing manager is a team manager who also plays on the team. A bench manager doesn't play, but (theoretically) stays on or near the bench. That is, he manages from the bench, not manages the bench.

p. 82 (July 10, 1965) 4th panel. Transistor circuits also made small televisions (which had previously taken up many square feet) possible for the first time in the mid 1960s. Some people even called the "belly tellies" because you could do exactly what Snoopy is doing -- and you would have to in order to get your eyes close enough to the tiny screen to see what was being broadcast.

p. 83 (July 11, 1965) Psychic phenomena are instances of mind reading or seeing into the future. Interest in this was heavy during the 1960s and 70s. Many people were convinced that all people had such powers, but we simply had not learned how to tap into them. The U.S. and Soviet Armies even attempted to recruit so-called psychics in the hope of using them as spies. "Jelly bread" is simply a piece of bread with jelly or jam spread on it.

p. 84 (July 12, 1965) And so it begins . . . one of the longest-running bits in all of Peanuts: Snoopy the writer and "It was a dark and stormy night." Snoopy is using a portable typewriter. Before there were computers and word processors, there were typewriters. You put a piece of paper into the machine and you pressed the keys on the built-in keyboard. These keystrokes triggered little levers with metal letters attached to them. The letters pressed an inked ribbon to the paper, leaving an impression of each letter on the paper.

"It was a dark and stormy night" is the opening to Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton's (1803 - 1873) 1830 novel Paul Clifford, the overly-romanticized tale of a dashing highwayman :

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents -- except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

Although quite popular in his day (he wrote the 1834 best-seller The Last Days of Pompeii), Bulwer-Lytton's name has come to stand for the tortuously over-written prose so common in the Victorian era. So much so that there is an annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest where the goal is to write the worst possible opening to a novel.

p. 84 (July 13, 1965) The joke over the next few days' strips is that Snoopy has found a formula that works and so he's writing the same thing (judging from the repeated opening, not just the same sort of story, but literally the same story) over and over. And it sells.

p. 84 (July 16, 1965) The same story sells over and over until, for some reason, it doesn't. Endeth is the archaic form of "ends" frequently heard in church at the end of readings from the Bible: "Here endeth the lesson.”

p. 85 (July 17, 1965) 2nd panel. Heart of Darkness (1902), a novella by Joseph Conrad (1957 - 1924), tells of a journey up the Congo river into a place where savagery rules. Full of symbolism, it is studied frequently in English classes. Daisy Miller (1878) is a novella by Henry James (1843 - 1916) depicting the clash of class and social manners.

p. 88 (July 23, 1965) 4th panel. The term "general" following a noun means that that person is the one in charge of the others like him / her. A postmaster runs a post office and the postmaster general runs the entire postal service. Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790) was the first postmaster general. At the time of this strip the post was held by John A. Gronouski (1919 - 1996).

p. 91 (July 30, 1965) 4th panel. A simile is a comparison using the words "like" or "as." Not to be confused with a metaphor, where you say something is something else: "Getting a security blanket is a drop of water to man lost in the desert."

p. 93 (August 4, 1965) 4th panel. The 1950s - 70s were greatly concerned with what they called "juvenal delinquency": young people hanging around together and getting into trouble. Authorities felt that children needed constructive activities to keep them "off the street," where they presumably met their friends and caused problems.

p. 94 (August 5, 1965) 4th panel. "Surf's up" means that the ocean waves are right for riding.

p. 94 (August 7, 1965) 4th panel. A "____bunny" is a girl who isn't really there to participate in a sport; she's just there to look good in the outfit and meet boys. There are snow bunnies who hang around the lodge in their snow suits, and there are beach bunnies who lay around in bikinis working on their tans. (See p. 246, July 27, 1966 for Snoopy's correct use of the term)

p. 96 (August 9, 1965) A "hodad" is the male equivalent of a beach bunny: a guy who wears the clothes and hangs around the beach, but doesn't actually ride the waves. "Hotdogging" is showing off by performing tricks while riding. "Cowabunga" is a surfer's expression of pleasure.

p. 97 (August 14, 1965) 2nd panel. Lucy is talking about AstroTurf, made from a synthetic polymer and soon to be installed in the world's first domed stadium, the Houston Astrodome, which had recently opened. Originally the plan had been for the stadium to use natural grass lit by clear panels in dome, but the glare from them interfered with play. The panels were darkened and the grass died, necessitating artificial turf. Interestingly, the artificial turf wasn't installed until 1966. So either Lucy has read an article about the plan to install it in Houston, or she is referring to Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island, which is where it was used for the very first time in 1964 under the name ChemGrass. The change of the name to AstroTurf was a nod to the Houston Astros baseball team.

p. 98 (August 15, 1965) 12th panel. The phone number is that of Lee Mendelson (b. 1933) the television producer who had done a documentary about Schulz, Charlie Brown & Charles Schulz, and was then in the middle of making A Charlie Brown Christmas, which would air in December of that year. Mendelson later recounted that all morning long he received calls from children asking for Charlie Brown.

p. 99 (August 18, 1965) Breed standard is the formal definition by a kennel club of what makes, say, a beagle. How close an animal matches the breed standard is one of the points used by judges in dog shows.

p. 101 [August 22, 1965] 7th panel. Snoopy is wearing the traditional hat of the French Foreign Legion, which is associated with the very hot Sahara desert. (For the full French Foreign Legion entry see p. 192, March 21, 1966 below)

p. 102 (August 24, 1965) 3rd panel. "Sydney or the bush" is an Australian expression that means "all or nothing." It means that either you are making it to Sydney (the largest city in Australia), or you’re going to the bush, the empty part of Australia.

p. 105 (August 31, 1965) 3rd panel. To be "husky" is to be large with muscle not fat.

p. 105 (September 1, 1965) 3rd panel (See p. 102, August 24, 1965, above)

p. 106 (September 3, 1965) 2nd panel. Judo is one of the Japanese martial arts.

p. 109 (September 9, 1965) 2nd panel. (Note: Does anyone know the exact source of this quote? It is usually attributed to "ancient Chinese proverb.")

p. 113 (September 19, 1965) 4th panel. Depending on whether your ancestors were Italian or Norwegian, either Christopher Columbus (1451 - 1506) discovered America in 1492 or Leif Erikson did 500 years earlier. Lord Jim (1900) was a novel by Joseph Conrad (1857 - 1924). It tells the tale of young man, who, after falling into disgrace in Britain, rises to a high position in Malaysia. There was a film version that year starring Peter O'Toole (b. 1932). The "1812 Overture" was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893) and is famous for including cannon fire. (For National Dog Week see also vol. 6, p. 116, September 25, 1961)

p.115 (September 24, 1965) 4th panel. (See p. 106, September 3, 1965 above)

p. 116 (September 26, 1965) 6th panel. The joke is that all of these are very long works. Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville (1819 - 1891) is the epic tale of Captain Ahab's obsessive hunt for the white whale who took his leg. The Interpreter's Bible is 12 volumes and contains both the complete text of the Bible and various commentaries. Bleak House (1853) by Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) is a novel that delves into the complexities and problems plaguing British law. Joseph Andrews (1742) by Henry Fielding (1707 - 1754) tells the picaresque adventures of young man through Georgian England.

p.118 (October 1, 1965) 4th panel. A martyr is someone who suffers for a (usually religious) cause. Snoopy is being overly dramatic.

p. 120 (October 4, 1965) 4th panel. Charlie Brown's father is experiencing a "mid-life crisis," a time when people realize that their lives are half over and they haven't really accomplished much of anything, they long for the simpler days of their youth, and perhaps regret missed opportunities over the years.

p. 120 (October 5, 1965) Sally is studying "New Math," an educational experiment of the 1960s and 70s. It concentrated on more abstract notions as opposed to the practical elements like times tables. (See also vol. 7, p. 205, April 22, 1964)

p. 121 (October 9, 1965) 4th panel. "Old math" was never a formal term. It just refers to the way math had been traditionally taught before the "New Math" experiment (and how it is now taught again).

p. 122 (October 10, 1965) Arguably the iconic Peanuts motif: Snoopy as a World War I flying ace and his dog house as a Sopwith Camel. World War I (1914 - 1918) was a conflict largely between Eastern Europe (Germany, Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire) and the West (Russia, France, Italy, Britain, and the U.S.). Most of Snoopy's adventures take place over and in parts of France that have been occupied by German forces (see p. 180, February 22, 1966), though he is sometimes based in England and has to fly across the English Channel to get there. (See p. 173, February 6, 1966 and p. 176, February 13, 1966)

World War I was the first war where airplanes engaged in battle. The Sopwith Camel was a British biplane (having two sets of wings) manufactured by the Sopwith Aviation Company. The plane's machine gun housing had a sort of hump, hence the nickname.

Snoopy is wearing the soft helmet and goggles of pilot at the time, necessary because the planes lacked roofs and windshields. He is carrying a swagger stick, which officers as far back as ancient Rome employed as a symbol of rank.

Because pilots changed flight angles quickly in battle, and the cockpit was not entirely enclosed, anything in your pockets could fly out. Not only would it be lost, but it might hit you or damage your machine, so you flew with empty pockets. An "ace" was someone who had downed five or more German aircraft.

Starting a plane's engine was two-person task. A member of the flight crew would manually start the plane's propeller spinning, yelling "contact" (to indicate that his hands were in physical contact with the blades), and the pilot would switch on the engine, yelling "Switch On." If the engine failed to catch, the pilot would yell "Switch Off," and they would try again.

The Dawn Patrol was when planes would leave for early morning scouting missions. The 1930 film of that name starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (1909 - 2000) popularized and romanticized the pilots, who can be seen wearing the same helmet and goggles as Snoopy.

The Red Baron was the nickname of Baron Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (1892 - 1918), Germany's most decorated fighter pilot during World War I. With at least 73 planes shot down (he claimed 80, and may have had even more) he was indeed "bloody" (as noted in the 1966 song by The Royal Guardsmen "Snoopy vs The Red Baron"). Also the German-made Fokker triplane (which used three parallel sets of wings) that he flew was painted bright red. Fokker planes were the first to be able to fire machine gun bullets between the blades of their propellers.

Both sides fought from trenches, which were long lines literally dug into the ground, about six feet deep, a few feet wide, and as long as possible. They were fortified and difficult for the enemy to attack. Frequently the space between enemy trenches facing each other was a barren area unoccupied expect for barbed wire and land mines known as "No Man's Land" because no man went there. (For images see p. 176, February 13, 1966, 4th panel and p. 239, July 10, 1966, 6th panel)

"Rat A Tat" is the sound a machine gun makes.

p. 123 (October 12, 1965) 3rd panel. Leaves and trash were routinely burned before people realized how damaging that was to the air quality.

p. 124 (October 16, 1965) 4th panel. Two teams of 11 players each are required to play a regulation game of football.

p. 127 (October 23, 1965) 4th panel. The Book of the Month Club sends readers their pick of recently published books each month. The club began in 1923, and since then has inspired any number of ___ of the Month Clubs.

p. 129 (October 25, 1965) 4th panel. NBC (National Broadcasting Company) and CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) are television networks. The American and National Leagues the two baseball leagues.

p. 129 (October 26, 1965) 4th panel. In the 1960s the Avis car rental company was second in popularity to Hertz. They adopted the advertising slogan "We’re Number Two, We Try Harder" to much success.

p. 129 (October 27, 1965) 3rd panel. To "have a chip on your shoulder" is to be looking for a fight. Charlie Brown has literally put one there and dared Linus to knock it off.

p. 133 (November 5, 1965) 3rd panel. Most cues have a simple cow leather tip. As with any sport, the extreme levels of detail and connoisseurship with which players obsess is always good for a laugh.

p.134 (November 7, 1965) Snoopy addresses the ground crew as "chaps" and says "good show. " Both are British expressions, the former meaning "men" and the latter "all is well." Is part of Snoopy's fantasy that he's a British pilot? In a later strip (February 6, 1966), he talks about writing a letter to Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924), the American president at the time of World War I. If Snoopy were British he would write to Prime Minister Herbert Asquith (1852 - 1928). American troops did fight with the French and British during the war, so Snoopy is an American who is using some British slang.

p. 135 (November 8, 1965) 4th panel. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" is the beginning of Mark Anthony's oration from Act 2, Scene 2 of William Shakespeare's (1564 - 1616) play Julius Caesar (1599), a drama about the death of the ancient Roman dictator.

p. 135 (November 10, 1965) 4th panel. "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking. . . " is the clichéd way to open a speech. It tells the audience that you are only an amateur and they should not to expect too much from you. Sometimes a very famous speaker (someone who is accustomed to public speaking) will open with that line in an attempt at irony.

p. 138 (November 15, 1965) 4th panel. To have "cold feet" is to be nervous about an upcoming event, usually a wedding.

p. 139 (November 20, 1965) 3rd panel. "Heel" is an obedience school command given to dogs. Linus is doing it correctly: he is at his Lucy's left, walking parallel with her.

p. 142 (November 25, 1965) This strip appeared on Thanksgiving.

p. 144 (November 29, 1965) 4th panel. One element of the classical pirate is the eye patch. "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" is a pirate sea chanty. Sally feels that the eye patch makes her look like a pirate.

p. 144 (December 1, 1965) To be illiterate is to be unable to read. The standard eye chart features letters of various sizes. But, if you are not a speaker of English (or if you are a young child who not yet know the names of letters), you can show your ophthalmologist what symbol is what by holding three fingers either up, down, left, or right. Sally confuses the word illiterate with "immigrant," meaning someone who has come from another country.

p. 145 (December 4, 1965) 4th panel. Bifocals are a single pair of glasses that correct for both farsightedness and nearsightedness. They are generally worn by older people.

p. 147 (December 6, 1965) 4th panel. Ads for Hathaway brand men's shirts in the 1960s and 70s featured contemporary men in eye patches wearing the shirts. The idea was to project a manly, confident product.

p. 147 (December 8, 1965) 2nd panel. Long John Silver is the chief pirate in Robert Louis Stevenson's (1850 - 1894) 1883 novel Treasure Island.

p. 148 (December 10, 1965) 4th panel. Charlie Brown means advertising agency. Actually this panel doesn't make sense. Schroeder carrying signs isn't him being an agency. He's being an advertising medium, like a magazine. Magazines carry ads for a variety of products from a variety of ad agencies.

p. 148 (December 11, 1965) 4th panel. Not really. Royalties are money paid for the use of your intellectual property: for example to a writer for a book or to singer for a recording of a song.

p. 158 [January 2, 1966] 6th panel. The Rock of Gibraltar is a huge limestone formation on the tip of Gibraltar rising almost 1,400 feet from the ground. For hundreds of years it has been a symbol of solidity and strength.

p. 165 (January 18, 1966) 2nd panel. It is a cliché that explorers take with them strings of beads in order to have something to trade with any natives they might meet.

p. 166 (January 20, 1966) 2nd and 3rd panels. A rough dollar value conversion: $85 today would be about $500, 50 cents would be about $6.

p. 168 (January 24, 1966) 4th panel. Human ice skaters who wear ice skates have their blades sharpened regularly. This same joke appears on p. 309, December 20, 1966.

p. 168 (January 25, 1966) 4th panel. A cat burglar is one who is particularly stealthy and can get in and out of a house undetected, like a cat. They usually operate at night.

p. 172 (February 3, 1966) 4th panel. Acetylcholinesterase is an enzyme necessary for the creation of acetic acid and choline, both of which are necessary for life.

p. 172 (February 5, 1966) 3rd panel. It's "I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A as in Neighbor or Weigh." So, notice the E comes before the I in Receive because they are after C, but the I comes before the E in Retrieve.

p. 173 (February 6, 1966) See p.134, November 7, 1965 and p. 122, October 10, 1965 above.

p. 174 (February 9, 1966) 4th panel. Charlie Brown has spelled the last name of Willie Mays (b. 1931), famed New York / San Francisco Giants baseball player.

p. 175 (February 12, 1966) 3rd panel. These are verses from Psalm 35.

p. 176 (February 13, 1966) Pont à Mousson is a small town in northeastern France that bordered Germany during World War I, making it a convenient staging area for planes. It is indeed on the Moselle River, which travels from Germany to France. A mademoiselle is a French unmarried girl. Au Revoir means goodbye in the sense that it is only "until we meet again." (See also p. 180, February 21, 1966)

p. 178 (February 17, 1966) 3rd panel. Like Charlie Brown, Schulz's father was a barber.

p. 180 (February 21, 1966)2nd panel. (See p. 176, February 13, 1966, above.)

p. 180 (February 22, 1966) 2nd panel. Metz is a city in northeastern France. It had been French, but in 1871 was made German, which it remained during World War I. At the end of WWI it was ceded back to France. A battery is a group of weapons.

p. 180 (February 23, 1966) 4th panel. "Give My Regards to Broadway" is a song by George M. Cohan (1878 - 1942) from his 1904 musical Little Johnny Jones. In it, an American in Europe tells his friend who is going home to New York to "tell all the gang" that he misses the town and its people and will "be there ere long." That sentiment, felt by American soldiers abroad during World War I (and II), made it a popular tune among them. In this instance, Snoopy thinks he's going to die because the Red Baron has him in his machine gun sites, and his last thought is of home.

p. 183 (February 28, 1966) 4th panel. In this case, Linus means attacked, beaten up. (See also p. 54, May 3, 1965)

p. 184 (March 5, 1966) 2nd panel. "Brahms’ lullaby" is the common name for the tune by German composer Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) "Guten Abend, gute Nacht." The English translation begins "Lullaby and good night . . . "

p. 187 (March 10, 1966) 1st panel. Lucy is pronouncing the abbreviations for ounces (oz) and pounds (lb).

p. 189 (March 14, 1966) 4th panel. Snoopy is playing at being a pirate. Queen Anne's Revenge was the ship captained by the famous pirate Blackbeard. Queen Anne (1665 - 1714 ) ruled England from 1702 to 1714. The ship was originally British, but had been captured by the French during her reign. It was then recaptured by the British many years later, giving the now-dead queen a form of "revenge."

p. 189 (March 15, 1966) The skull and crossbones, also called the "Jolly Roger," is the traditional flag of pirates. A ship is scuttled when it sinks because it has a hole in it.

p. 190 (March 17, 1966) 4th panel. The Return of the Native is the 1878 novel by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) which chronicles the social constraints of day. Here Snoopy simply means that the bird has returned.

p. 192 (March 21, 1966) 4th panel. Snoopy is wearing the hat of the French Foreign Legion. He has made it by taking a kepi and stealing one of Charlie Brown's handkerchiefs to add the extra cloth in the back which protects the wearer's neck from the hot African sun.

The French Foreign Legion (sometimes referred to as simply "the Foreign Legion") is a part of the French Army comprised of non-French men. During its first hundred years it was used by France largely to protect its foreign colonies. Because it allows almost any man to join and doesn't even insist on knowing your real name, it became known as the place where criminals and those who had failed (disappointed in love, ruined in business) would go to get a fresh start (hence its nickname "The Legion of Lost Souls"). The Foreign Legion gained popularity through the 1924 novel Beau Geste by Percival Christopher Wren (1875 - 1941) and its many subsequent film versions. The book tells the story of British man, Beau Geste, who, when wrongly accused of crime joins the FFL in order to start a new life. He is stationed at Fort Zinderneuf, out in the Sahara desert "far, far north of Zinder," a city in Nigeria. In later strips Snoopy would pretend that he too was stationed at Zinderneuf (See also p. 201, April 12, 1966, and p. 202, April 14, 1966).

p. 195 (March 29, 1966) 4th panel. Your batting average is calculated by dividing your number of hits by the number of times you’ve gone up to bat. Ty Cobb (1886 - 1961) holds the record with .366 meaning that he hit the ball approximately one-third of the time. A .001 means that Lucy hit the ball one time in 1,000 (or twice in 2,000 at bats, etc).

p. 201 (April 12, 1966) (See p. 192, March 21, 1966 above)

p. 202 (April 14, 1966) (See p. 192, March 21, 1966 above)

p. 203 (April 17, 1966) A sortie is a combat or bombing mission by a plane. Verdun is a city in northeastern France. In 1916 it was site of Battle of Verdun in which for ten months the French held out against German forces. Nearby Fort Douaumont, one of the largest and strongest forts in Europe, was captured by the Germans during the offensive. Etain is another small town situated nearby. The Red Baron's Jagdgeschwader (flight group) came to be known as the "Flying Circus" because not only were all the planes brightly colored, but the people and planes moved around from place to place by train, just like a circus.

p. 205 (April 23, 1966) 4th panel. An "ace in the hole" is something secret that can be relied on in the event of trouble. It comes from the game of poker, where a "hole card" is face down. If you know it's an ace, it will be a valuable asset.

p. 207 (April 26, 1966) 2nd panel. Rotary engines are those where the cylinder block rotates around the crankshaft. On Sopwith Camels they rotated clockwise, generating their torque (the force of the twist) to the right. Consequently, the planes could veer to the right quite easily, but were much more difficult to turn left. (Schulz really did his homework.)

p. 208 (April 29, 1966) 3rd panel. 15,000 feet is quite high, but it's not so high that you can't breathe. It's about half as high as Mt. Everest.

p. 210 (May 3, 1966) 2nd panel. William Eckert (1909 - 1971) was baseball commissioner at the time.

p. 216 (May 18, 1966) 4th panel. "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" is another song from the musical My Fair Lady. (See p. 13, January 30, 1965 above)

p. 223 (June 2, 1966) 4th panel. Snoopy is paraphrasing the opening of the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Act 3, Scene 1 of Hamlet (1602) by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616). In it, prince Hamlet ponders whether people are better off living or dead considering all the bad things that happen to us during our lives ("the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune").

p. 226 June 9, 1966 (See p. 122, October 10, 1965 and p.134, November 7, 1965 above)

p. 228 (June 14, 1966) 4th panel. A traitor is someone who betrays his country (or in this case Snoopy has betrayed his friend, Linus). Quisling is another word for traitor, derived from Vidkun Quisling (1887 - 1945) the Norwegian politician who collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation of his country during World War II. A squealer is one who gives away secret information: one who "squeals."

p. 230 (June 19, 1966) 6th panel. Tendons connect muscles to bones. Tendinitis is an inflammation of one. Repetitive motion like dog head skritching can do that.

p. 232 (June 23, 1966) 2nd panel. Linus quotes from Jeremiah 31:16-17.

p. 236 (July 3, 1966) 12th panel. A pillbox is a small fortified bunker made of concrete holding only a couple of men and their machine guns.

p. 237 (July 5, 1966) 4th panel. To "loose your cool" is to get angry. In this case angry at the suggestion that Snoopy would do anything as demeaning as chase a stick.

p. 237 (July 6, 1966) Songs popular during World War I. "Over There" (1917) was written by George M. Cohan (1878 - 1942) and tells of American pride at going "over there" (to Europe) to fight for liberty in World War I. "Pack Up Your Troubles in an Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile" (1915) was by English brothers George and Felix Powell (1880s - 1950s). A kit bag is your army backpack. The song encourages soldiers to keep on marching because "What's the use of worrying?" "It's A Long Way to Tipperary" (1912) was written by English / American writing team of Jack Judge (1878-1938) and Harry Hiram Williams (1879 - 1922). Tipperary is a town in Ireland, and in the song a young man in London misses his sweetheart back there.

p. 239 (July 10, 1966) 4th panel. Boulogne is a city in northern France.

p. 242 (July 17, 1966) 4th panel. During the American Revolution (1775 - 1783) then-general George Washington (1732 - 1799) and his army spent the winter of 1777 - 1778 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. It was particularly cold and supplies were low, but Washington kept his army together. Their survival has become a symbol of American resolve and determination. To be "mule-headed" is to be stubborn. It is hard to make a mule go where it doesn't want to.

p. 243 (July 19, 1966) 3rd panel. Ice prevents and/or brings down swelling associated with hard pitching.

p. 245 (July 24, 1966) Paris is the capital of France and remain unoccupied during World War I (a fate it not share during World War II). Behind Snoopy is the Eiffel Tower, erected in 1889. Garçon is French for "waiter." A tunic is a uniform's jacket -- one of which Snoopy is not wearing.

p. 246 (July 26, 1966) 3rd panel. Jams are a type of baggie surf shorts that go down to the knees. The pants version of the aloha shirt, they usually feature tropical colors and designs. The word is short for pajama.

p. 246 (July 27, 1966) (See p. 94, August 7, 1965 above)

p. 248 (July 31, 1966) Snoopy is speaking his own lines and confirming what his French ground crew is saying. This is one of the times when he is taking off on a sortie from France. For a clearer example of this see p. 253, August 12, 1966. Coupez is French for cut or chop. Snoopy has cut power to the engine. (See also p. 122, October 10, 1965 above)

Touquin is a French village in the northern part of France, but further south than Pont à Mousson. The Marne river flows through it. K.P. is the abbreviation for "kitchen patrol." There is no actual patrolling. Instead a soldier assigned to K.P. (almost always as a form of punishment) cleans dishes, peels potatoes, and does all the "dirty work."

p. 249 (August 1, 1966) 4th panel. To be "off the hook" means no longer in trouble. A fish that is off the hook has escaped being caught.

p. 252 (August 10, 1966) 2nd panel. Enlisted men are the lower-ranking, non-officers in the armed services.

p. 253 (August 11, 1966) 2nd panel. St. Mihiel is a city in northeastern France near Metz. Longuyon is another small town on the Moselle River.

p. 255 (August 15, 1966) 4th panel. Essentially the same joke as p. 180, February 23, 1966. (See also p. 237, July 6, 1966 above)

p. 256 (August 19, 1966) 4th panel. Traditionally a captured serviceman was not to give any information to the enemy except his name, rank (captured officers were generally better-treated than enlisted men), and serial number (most modern armies use an I.D. number).

p. 258 (August 22, 1966) The first appearance of Peppermint Patty. A "swinger" is someone is who is always looking for fun and excitement.

p. 262 (September 1, 1966) 2nd and 4th panels. To "fog" a ball is to throw it so fast that it's just a blur. Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990) was the multi award- winning conductor and composer of scores to such shows as On The Town (1944), Candide (1956), and West Side Story (1957).

p. 265 (September 10, 1966) It's Fall and the weather has turned cool enough for the girls to get their warm clothes of out of storage for the summer. A cedar-lined closet will keep your clothes safe from moths because the insects hate cedar oil.

p. 267 (September 14, 1966) 4th panel. In 1966 the idea that missing one day of grammar school might keep you out of your first-choice college was laughable. In the 21st century many parents believe what happens in pre-school can affect your future alma mater.

p. 268 (September 15, 1966) 4th panel. Oliver Twist is the hero of the 1838 novel of the same name by Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870). Oliver is an orphan who barely survives the workhouse and life as a child pickpocket. Early in the book, starving, he asks for more gruel: "Please, sir, I want some more," only to be rejected and sold to a chimney sweep. This scene in the novel was made even more famous by Lionel Bart's (1930 - 1999) 1960 musical Oliver! where it's the basis of the rousing, show-stopping song "Oliver."

p. 270 (September 21, 1966) 4th panel. Cigarette smoking was much more common and accepted in the 1950s - 70s. The U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, which first warned of tobacco's dangers, came out in 1964. Smoking in bed was never a good idea because you were surrounded by flammable material: pajamas, sheets, etc.

p. 273 (September 28, 1966) 4th panel. Pinking shears are scissors with notched blades. When they cut they leave a decorative, scalloped edge.

p. 275 (October 2, 1966) 15th panel. (See p. 237, July 6, 1966 above)

p. 277 (October 6, 1966) 1st panel. A mini-bike is what we now call a dirt bike or motocross bike: a bicycle powered by a small motor.

p. 279 (October 10, 1966) Linus is paraphrasing from "The Charge of the Light Brigade," the 1854 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892). The poem tells a true story from the British-Russian Crimean War of the 1850s; the Battle of Balaclava where, owing to a misinterpretation of orders, a British cavalry brigade of over 600 men rode into a crushing defeat. The poem contains the lines:

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.

p. 279 (October 11, 1966) All famous baseball players. Babe Ruth (1895 - 1948) was #3 when he was an outfielder with the New York Yankees. Willie Mays (b. 1931) was #24 as a centerfielder for the San Francisco Giants. Mickey Mantle (1931 - 1995) was #7 as a centerfielder for the New York Yankees.

p. 279 (October 12, 1966) 2nd and 3rd panels. "Blighter" is British slang for someone who is in a bad situation. To be an infantryman (basic soldier) in World War I was to be in a very bad situation. Along with bullets, there were land mines, you could be gutted by bayonets, or poisoned by mustard gas.

p. 280 (October 13, 1966) 4th panel. A document is notarized when it bears the seal of a notary public. The duty of a notary public is to ensure that the person signing a document has proved who they say they are. They don't do leafs, but, if they did, Lucy would have had to go to a notary public and somehow prove that this was the first leaf of autumn. (See also vol. 7 p. 276, October 4, 1964)

p. 282 (October 17, 1966) 4th panel. Patty is speaking of "possession" -- the idea that someone can be taken over by a demon. Communing with such pagan spirits as The Great Pumpkin is a sort of thing that can lead to that.

p. 283 (October 20, 1966) 1st and 2nd panels. Wardwick is a reference to Dr. Ward Wick, a golfing companion of Schulz in Santa Rosa. Bill Melendez (b. 1916) is the producer of all the animated Charlie Brown television shows and movies. Bartley is likely a reference to Chuck Bartley, a long-time friend of Schulz in Santa Rosa and currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Charles M. Schulz Museum there.

p. 285 (October 26. 1966) 2nd and 4th panels. Cambrai is yet another northern French town. The Battle of Cambrai in 1917 proved that tanks could be useful weapons against trench warfare. St Bernard dogs are known for their ability to find and save people lost in the snows of Switzerland.

p. 289 (November 4, 1966) 4th panel. Andrew Wyeth (b. 1917) is the American painter best known for his 1948 painting Christina's World.

p. 289 (November 5, 1966) A "fair weather friend" is one who is only your friend when things are going well for you (you have "fair weather").

p. 294 (November 14, 1966) 4th panel. A badge is a symbol of authority. Police officers and sheriffs have badges.

p. 294 (November 15, 1966) 3rd panel. "Fuzz" is a 1960s - 70s slang term for a police officer. Specifically it criticizes an officer as being part of The Establishment. Charlie Brown starts out proud of his authority, but Lucy puts him in his place. Using "fuzz" tells him he's part of the problems that were being protested against by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and others. Even investigators at The Straight Dope were unable to find a satisfactory origin for the term, suggesting variously that it's from the beards worn by police officers or a mispronunciation of Feds (federal agents) or fuss (because the police are fussy over minor crimes).

p. 298 (November 24, 1966) Snoopy is taking Charlie Brown's pulse by feeling his right wrist. While doing so, he hums to himself "It's A Long Way to Tipperary" (see p. 237, July 6, 1966 above). Charlie Brown must be all right because Snoopy kissed him. Residencies are the hospitals where doctors work after receiving their M.D. degrees. It is the hands on training that is their practical education.

p. 303 (December 7, 1966) 2nd panel. Your peers are people your own age and in similar circumstances as you. In this case it's other students. Your peer group rating is how well you are liked by your fellow students. Mrs. Van Pelt is telling Linus to study hard but also have fun with his friends (or at least do things to make them like him -- even if he's not having fun).

p. 305 (December 11, 1966) 6th and 8th panels. "Chocks away" is the order to remove the little wedges (chocks) that are bracing a plane's wheels to keep it from moving. Actually Snoopy's Vickers machine guns that can fire between the blades of the propeller as it spins (the "airscrew arc") are not superior to the German Fokker machine guns which work on the same principle. They are nearly identical. In fact the Germans had them first.

p. 307 (December 16, 1966) 4th panel. (See p. 184, March 5, 1966 above)

p. 309 A repeat of the same joke from p. 168, January 24, 1966.

p. 309 (December 21, 1966) 4th panel. The use of seatbelts had only recently gained popularity. Most American cars were not even manufactured with them until 1964.

p. 310 (December 22, 1966) 2nd panel. The delivery of fresh fruit to Minnesota in the dead of winter would have been very difficult a couple of generations ago. It was probably expensive and therefore a rare treat.

p. 312 (December 28, 1966) 4th panel. When Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945) came to power in Germany, he declared "Heute Deutschland, Morgen Die Welt" ("Today Germany, tomorrow the world."), meaning that first he and the Nazis had take control of Germany, and next they would move on to the rest of the world. His bid failed when the Allied powers of France, England, the United States, and the Soviet Union defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan in World War II. It's highly unusual for Linus to be paraphrasing Hitler, but in this series of strips he's taking on a military manner.

p. 313 (Dec 19 1966) Linus is reviewing the troops -- inspecting them.

-17 September, 2007