Saturday, November 26 marks 100 years since Charles M. Schulz was born.
Schulz, the cartoonist who founded Peanuts, was born in Minneapolis and raised in St. Paul. As part of honoring Schulz, the Charles M. Schulz museum in Santa Rosa, California is holding a daylong event featuring a free commemorative sticker giveaway and The Spark of Schulz: A Centennial Celebration which opened in September.
Earlier this week on WCCO Radio, Nat Gertler spoke to John Hines on the WCCO Radio Morning News about his book, Charles M. Schulz: 100 Objects.
"Charles Schulz passed away in 2000 and a lot of people, including people in the Schulz group, thought things were going to fade away pretty quickly," Gertler told Hines. "It's still big not just nationwide, but internationally. You can go to Peanut-themed amusement parks in Asia, you can go to museums in Japan, it's just still all over the place."
The Charles M. Schulz museum is home to over 7,000 original Peanuts comic strips and exhibits for generations to enjoy. Gertler said there's a clear reason Peanuts resonates with people to this very day.
"Peanuts speaks to us. We recognize ourselves a lot in Peanuts. We recognize our joys and we really recognize our frustrations. Just about any character can be defined by what they want and do not get. Charlie Brown wants to win a baseball game and doesn't get it. He wants to kick that football and doesn't get it. Lucy wants Schroeder and Schroeder wants to be left alone. Obviously they're not going to get it. We all have our frustrations in our lives we can match with that."
Schultz died in February 12, 2000 at the age of 77
Syndicated cartoonists across the country paid tribute to Schulz on Saturday in their own respective comic strips.
The tribute can be seen here.