26 November: Charles Schultz

Charles Schulz, creator of Peanuts was born on this date in 1922. Here are some things you might not know about him:

A Beagle Puppy

1. The first cartoon he ever had published was a drawing of the family's dog, which used to eat pins, tacks and razor blades. At the age of 14, Schultz sent a drawing of the Dog to Ripley's Believe It Or Not! and they put it in their syndicated panel, captioned "A hunting dog that eats pins, tacks, and razor blades is owned by C. F. Schulz, St. Paul, Minn." and "Drawn by 'Sparky'".
2. Sparky was a nickname given to him by his uncle, after the horse Spark Plug in Billy DeBeck's comic strip, Barney Google.
3. Schultz served in the army during World War II. He served as a staff sergeant with the 20th Armored Division in Europe, as a squad leader on a .50 calibre machine gun team, although the unit didn't see much combat. There was only one occasion when he had the opportunity to fire his gun - only to find he'd forgotten to load it. Luckily for him, the German soldier he could have shot surrendered.
4. Before Peanuts, Schultz produced another cartoon series called Li'l Folks, published from June 1947 to January 1950 in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The series included a dog that looked somewhat like Snoopy and a character called Charlie Brown.
5. Peanuts first appeared in October 1950 in seven newspapers. At its height, Peanuts was published daily in 2,600 papers in 75 countries, in 21 languages. Schulz drew nearly 18,000 Peanuts strips.
6. Schultz's wife Jean was once almost the victim of a kidnapping. In 1988, two gunmen wearing ski masks entered the Schultz home through an unlocked door, planning to kidnap Jean Schulz, but Schulz's daughter Jill happened to drive up to the house, so the men ran away. Jill saw what was happening and called the police from a neighbour's house.
7. Charles Schultz hardly ever took holidays - in fact, he only ever had one, a five-week break in late 1997 to celebrate his 75th birthday.
8. Charlie Brown was named after a co-worker at the Art Instruction Inc, where Schultz worked for a time reviewing and grading student submissions for a correspondence course. Family photos show the Schultz family dog looked somewhat like Snoopy, and there was even a Little Red-Haired Girl in Schultz's life. Her name was was Donna Mae Johnson and she was an accountant at Art Instruction Inc. He asked her to marry him and she turned him down.
9. Schultz was a fan of ice hockey and Ice skating. He owned an ice arena in Santa Rosa, which had a snack bar called "The Warm Puppy". He was also a fan of the film Citizen Kane and is said to have seen it 40 times.
10. The Apollo 10 command module was named Charlie Brown, and lunar module Snoopy in honour of Charles Schultz.