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okkultmotionpictures · 4 months

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Excerpts: BEECH-NUT LIFESAVERS Commercial by Fred Mogubgub (1966)

'Beech-nut LIfesavers' is a commecial created by Fred Mogubgub (1928–1989), an influential figure in the world of animation and painting, particularly known for his contributions to the pop art movement during the 1960s in New York City. His career gained significant momentum when he co-founded Ferro, Mogubgub and Schwartz in 1961 alongside designer Pablo Ferro and Lew Schwartz. However, Mogubgub's creative ambitions led him to leave the company in 1964 to establish his own firm, Mogubgub, Ltd.

Mogubgub's artistic style is characterized by its rapid, staccato jump-cuts—an innovative blend of cartoons and photographs that flash across the screen, creating an effect that could be likened to subliminal advertising. His work, which often featured iconic American objects, was celebrated for its ability to capture the essence of American pop culture in a unique and engaging way. Among his notable commercial clients were Ford, Coca-Cola, and Life Savers, with his creations leaving a lasting impression on audiences due to their memorable and distinctive style.

His commercial work was groundbreaking, and several of Mogubgub's films have been recognized by the Museum of Modern Art for their innovative approach to animation and advertising. One of his most famous pop artworks was a large-scale sign erected in Manhattan in 1965, provocatively asking, "Why Doesn't Someone Give Mogubgub Ltd. Two Million Dollars to Make a Movie?" This piece reflected Mogubgub's bold and creative spirit, showcasing his ability to blend art with advertising in unprecedented ways.

Mogubgub's work extended beyond commercial advertisements to include underground short films that merged animation, illustration, and live action. One of his notable films, "The Pop Show" (1966), featured Gloria Steinem and demonstrated Mogubgub's adeptness at navigating the avant-garde film scene. Despite his significant contributions, Mogubgub's name is often omitted from discussions on avant-garde and experimental film from the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, his films were included in underground screenings, such as the 1970 New York Underground Film Festival, highlighting his role in the experimental film movement.

Fred Mogubgub passed away in 1989 at the age of 61 from bone cancer. Despite his death, his creative legacy continues to inspire animators and filmmakers, illustrating the enduring impact of his work on both the commercial and artistic realms of animation and pop art.

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‘The EXCERPTS series by OKKULT Motion Pictures transforms images from open source films of important historical and artistic merit into the internet drug we’ve come to love: GIFs!’ (Vice)

(Thanks to archive.org)

#gif #vintage #okkult motion pictures #excerpts #gif art #gifs #open knowledge #okkult #tv commercial #commercial #pop art #cartoon #animation #new york #1960s

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 day

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[Mike Luckovich]

* * * *

"An idea unlike any other."

May 28, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

On Memorial Day, President Biden hosted a breakfast for military leaders, veterans, and Gold Star family members. The event was closed to the press, so there are no photos or media reports of his remarks. Rather than turn a White House reception honoring fallen soldiers into a public event or campaign opportunity, the President met privately to express gratitude to soldiers and their families.

Later in the day, the President participated in the Wreath-Laying Ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and then delivered the Memorial Day Address the Memorial Amphitheater.

In his remarks, President Biden said,

America is the only country in the world founded on an idea — an idea that all people are created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout their lives. We’ve never fully lived up to that, but we’ve never, ever, ever walked away from it. Every generation, our fallen heroes have brought us closer.

President Biden also issued a statement commemorating Memorial Day, writing (in part):

Since America's founding, our service members have laid down their lives for an idea unlike any other: the idea of the United States. Today, as generations of heroes lie in eternal peace, we live by the light of liberty they kept burning. May God bless them, always.

Joe Biden’s presence in the Oval Office elevates us as a nation. We are fortunate to have him as our president during this challenging time in our nation’s history.

Defendant Donald Trump issued his own statement commemorating Memorial Day. Trump posted a statement that began as follows:

Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for “DEFAMATION” . . . .

What is notable about Trump's Memorial Day greeting is that it does not mention veterans—living or dead—but is instead devoted entirely to himself. In contrast, President Biden’s message mentions only those veterans who gave their lives for “the idea of America” and does not mention himself.

The same contrast is seen in President Biden’s private meeting with Gold Star families. Trump took a group photo with Gold Star family members at the Coca-Cola 600 while wearing a “MAGA” hat and giving a “thumbs up.” Photo Trump at NASCAR Event.

Trump also used Memorial Day Weekend to announce the creation of “Veterans and Military Families for Trump,” an announcement that included the following statement:

Unlike the weak Joe Biden, President Trump has consistently proven he cares deeply about the unbelievable sacrifices made by our nation’s Veterans and their wonderful families.

In short, Trump's relationship with veterans and Gold Star families is transactional, like everything else in his life: Fallen soldiers and veterans are props for his campaign. They matter only because they are part of a campaign organization supporting Trump.

The saddest part of that transaction is that the veterans’ sacrifices and their families’ grief are being exploited by a man who has called fallen veterans “suckers and losers.”

Rarely has our nation faced such a stark choice. On this Memorial Day, that choice is viewed through the lens of the sacrifice of more than a million Americans who died defending the “idea of America.” As President Biden said in his remarks today, we have “never fully lived up to the promise” of that idea. We cannot allow our past failures and present challenges to discourage us.

The question of whether a million Americans died in vain is for us to answer. They kept their oath; we must finish the story of their sacrifice. In 2024, we must honor America’s fallen veterans by ensuring that their sacrifice was not in vain by defending the democracy for which they gave their lives.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #veterans #Memorial Day #compare and contrast #democracy #the Idea of America

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shippingfangirl013 · 1 year

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Stranger Things S5 Conglomerate Twelvegate Theory (Part 1):

Because I have no clue what to call this and it’s basically a massive convergence of all the gates/theories into one?

@chirpsythismorning and I had to solve Twelvegate to figure out the rest and… I think we stumbled across the answer just off of rambling… and playing ping-pong with ideas…

This also heavily pulls from Stranger Things parallels to Back to The Future Parts I & II (because re-watching my favorite trilogy helped me to figure out the timeline for Stranger Things).

If you do NOT want spoilers for S5, I suggest you do not read any further.

Because… this is… a doozy. And likely has some MAJOR spoilers, we’re just good at playing detective and dedicating a little too much time to this show.

———————————————————

First, we have to go back to season 1. . .

So, when we first meet the original four kids in the Party, they’re playing D&D. Will knows that he has to roll a 13 or higher here. Will is under the steps, crawling to find the d20.

This is the ORIGINAL timeline. We don’t know much more about the timeline other than seeing 2 minutes into the show. Will is still 12 years old and has a watch on, but we never get a close-up of the watch.

We’ve got a pizza one box, and two regular Coca-Cola cans… okay? Keep that in mind, it’s important later on.

When the Tv flickers, that’s Vecna using his power, likely to alter memories or the timeline/reality itself.

Right after this instance?

We get this scene:

Now, why would Will go from knowing that a 13 counts and is high enough to take out the Demogorgon, to asking if a 7 is high enough? If a 7 counts, right after the TV flickers?

Also, notice that Will is standing framed with the two coke cans and pizza one box behind him. That yellow and blue pen is important too.

(I play D&D, most times, anything below a 13 or 14 is a bad roll and you take a lot of damage. It all depends on if your Dungeon Master wants to be forgiving or not. )

So, the first 3 minutes of season 1, is the original timeline (Timeline A) differentiating/being altered; I say this because, we don’t know anything about that point in time aside from our main Party playing D&D in Mike’s basement.

A key factor here that Jo mentioned while we were talking, is that we don’t see Hopper, Joyce, Lonnie, or Jonathan during the scene in Mike’s basement. We only see Will, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and briefly, Karen.

Timeline A is altered at 8:15 pm on November 6, 1983.

Each point after the TV flickers is a part of Timeline B. But I think Will actually cast protection on the extended party; El, Max, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, Jonathan, Joyce, Hopper, possibly Murray, and maybe on the others’ families.

But Timeline B was Henry altering the timeline, creating a new reality for our cast of characters. (Putting them in a silly little play, perhaps?) Henry stole Will's powers when Will was kidnapped; but what powers could Will have that Henry needs to re-shape the world?

Time-altering powers and creation powers.

Here's the thing, Henry can manipulate what others see, he can manipulate and alter memories, and it is very likely he was able to take Will's time-altering powers while Will was trapped in the Upside Down. Henry is easily able to use time travel powers to his advantage.

But. . . Henry CAN'T create something out of nothing; as evidenced by his using others' memories to make them see what they fear. He can re-shape the particles that made up the Mind Flayer, however, Henry cannot create to the extent that Will (an artist!) is able to. This is how Will is able to do things like cast Fog Cloud in S2. In S1, Will's True Sight is used.

(I'll come back to this later, because this is literally going to be like a 10-part theory, which may literally just be 100% spoilers)

Timeline B is an altered reality; Henry gave our cast of characters new roles to play. Not just anyone though, primarily: Joyce, Jonathan, Will, El, Hopper, Terry, Sarah, and Diane.

(You may be wondering why I mentioned Sarah, Diane, and Terry; I'll get to that in a bit, if not in this one, then in part 2.)

Joyce is the ex-wife of Lonnie Byers and she is Will and Jonathan's mom. Hopper is the small-town police chief who moved back to Hawkins after his divorce from Diane, and the loss of his daughter Sarah. Terry Ives is El's mama, and Eleven is the girl with powers that escaped from Hawkins Lab. Basically, the events of S1 equate to an altered timeline, or therefore, are the repercussions of an altered timeline.

Timeline A still exists after the original event that alters Timeline A to create the altered reality in Timeline B.

The event that alters Timeline A is an occurrence on the day of Will and El's birth. Henry swaps the families of Joyce and Hopper's twins.

Henry went back in time after taking Will's powers in S1, to alter the timeline, by swapping El and Will at birth in the hospital, so that Will and El (011 & 012) grew up together in the lab, never knowing that they are twins. Will grows up with Lonnie Byers as his father, El grows up in the lab, and Hopper lives in New York for seven years and has a family with Diane. Henry alters Terry Ives' memories and scrambles the signals in her brain via Brenner.

In this altered timeline that is Timeline B, El was taken by the lab at birth, and El's Mama is Terry Ives. Will's mom stays the same, but his father (and Jonathan's father) is changed to Lonnie Byers.

In Timeline A, El was kidnapped first in 1976, and Will was taken second in 1978.

In 1976, there was a drowning at Sattler's Quarry. Seven years prior to 1983; now, for a while, I thought that might be Will, but that didn't add up.

El was taken first at five years old, by the lab. . . on her first day of kindergarten. . . which is why Mike found Will alone and scared on the swing set. El's disappearance was covered up as a drowning in the quarry in 1976. This is why El is paralleled with Maria from Frankenstein (1931) in season 1, with Nancy's pink dress, because Maria drowns in a lake after trying to play a game with Frankenstein's monster.

Now, Will was also kidnapped and taken to the lab in Timeline A, but this gets a little harder to figure out how Will got there in the first place. I think Lonnie has something to do with it, because there are one too many instances of Will being paired with trunks, and we see Jonathan check for Will in Lonnie's Oldsmobile in season 1. However, I'm not 100% certain about that and I will update this if I find anything that changes my thoughts on that.

I know that Will had to have been taken to the lab around 1978, at the age of 7, if he and El were not taken at the same time in 1976. This means, that Will's kidnapping was covered up as a death, (maybe a death from a fatal illness?) that was then altered by a character with the ability to fabricate fake memories. . . shifting the death of a son, to that of a daughter. Sarah's death is the cover-up for Will being taken.

Jonathan doesn't remember much of this either, he would have been 8 years old when El was kidnapped, and 10 years old when Will was kidnapped; if we go off of El being taken at the age of 5 and Will being taken at the age of 7.

1978 is an important year in Timeline A. This is because in Timeline B, it is the year that:

Lonnie took Jonathan hunting at 10 years old

Terry was electrocuted/had her signals scrambled

Sarah dies

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- -

Another thing that I need to address, is Hopper's role in Timeline B.

In 1983, when Hopper calls Diane, he’s wearing his blue flannel… just like how Max’s mom wore a blue flannel in S4…

(I have seen almost every character in the Byers-Hopper family in a BLUE FLANNEL, the only one I haven’t found in a blue flannel (without a jacket over it) is Jonathan.)

But, we see Hopper calling Diane, and then we hear a baby crying in the background. We assume that after 7 years she has moved on… but what if this woman was never Hopper’s “Diane” anyways?

We KNOW that the phones are important. We also know that the lab/Russian government are always listening in on phone calls- since season 1! So, this “Diane” woman that Hopper called was someone from the lab or someone trying to keep the truth from spreading.

Because, I went back to S3, and found this:

This is the only line that says [Diane] in the closed captions. I’ve looked through a few other shots, and the only other shot similar to this is when Hopper is watching Magnum P.I. and a little text comes up saying that the show is playing. They usually do not specify which character is talking in the tv shows with brackets - it just shows the dialogue on screen.

Hopper got incredibly drunk that evening, but the point I’m making here, is that Joyce is Diane.

Hopper’s wife, Diane.

(He never says ex-wife in season 4. He says: “My wife Diane, she wanted a baby,” )

So. . . This means that Henry has had a hand in every little kettle he could get his hands on after he nabbed Will’s time powers.

I doubt that Hopper going to Vietnam was influenced by Henry in any way, but I know that everything else we are shown is influenced by him.

I was trying to piece this all together, and after going through and making a timeline, I think I’ve got how it all lays out - at the very least, I know where the timeline that was altered. At most, I think I have a large surprise that will come up in S5 pinned down.

My focus when pinning the timeline down, was actually on Hopper and Jonathan.

In S1, Joyce tells Lonnie that Jonathan has wanted to go to NYU since he was 6 years old. Now, Jonathan would have been 6 years old in 1974, because he was born in 1968.

I couldn’t figure out why Jonathan would want to go to NYU unless:

- his parent(s) went there / one of his parents went there / something happened to make him want to go to NYU.

NYU is such a specific school, and it is mentioned once in S1, then rarely brought up again. Even in S4, Jonathan was just planning to go to the same college as Nancy, if he was accepted.

It made me think about how Hopper was in NY for seven years. . . And it took me a while to figure this out.

So, Hopper goes off to fight in the Vietnam War when he is 18. The Vietnam War goes on from 1955-1975. This means that Hopper was in Vietnam possibly from 1960 to 1970 at the latest. However, according to the ST Wiki, Hopper met Diane in 1965. . . (I am taking this with a grain of salt), because if this is the case, then Hopper could have been in Vietnam at any point in time between 1960 (when he was 18) to 1970.

But if you do the math from when Sarah was born, if Hopper met Diane in 1965 (and they began dating that year), and Sarah was born in 1971, then Hopper only knew Diane for five years before Sarah was born. Now, we know that Sarah dies in 1978, from cancer. . . and from that 1983 phone call to Diane (counting backward 7 years), Hopper would have been in NY from 1976 to 1983. . .

Another thing is, in Season 1, Hopper says that he has been in Hawkins for 4 years from the point that we meet him in 1983.

1983 - 4 is 1979 -> the year of the Hawkins Lab Massacre. . . so, why would Hopper (as a police officer) not know about that? I know, the lab is secretive and whatnot, but you would assume in an emergency situation, they might call in backup.

1979 is also the year that Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin had their Elder Tree campaign. . . (and I'm not quite sure if Will was there depending on the timeline and how things may have worked out).

And then I started to question just how much inspiration could have been taken from Back To The Future?

The Answer? Quite a bit of inspiration was taken from Back to The Future.

Marty's family is made up of his parents (George & Lorraine), his older brother (Dave), his older sister (Linda), and himself (Marty).

This is apparently an important enough movie for the Stranger Things plot that it is heavily referenced with wardrobes and it is even shown on the big screen in S3. (There is more significance here, but I'll explore that in a later part).

At the beginning of the scripting process for Back to The Future Part II, the creators were thinking of having the roles of Marty McFly Jr. and Marlene McFly set as Twins.

And in S4 of ST, we can see quite a bit of twin imagery throughout the season, in reference to Will and El. (again, I will post more in a later analysis, I don't want this to get too long).

If we go off of the basis that Henry/Vecna/001 stole Will's time powers, then we can assume that the second timeline that was generated from the changing of a fixed point in time (an origin event - in this case), changed other things throughout the seasons in Stranger Things.

Think about it, Henry could have easily gone back in time and replaced Hopper (being Jonathan, Will, and El's father) with Lonnie.

He could have manipulated Joyce, Hopper, and Jonathan's memories if the memories were STILL left AFTER the timeline was altered, making them forget that their family of 5 had ever existed in the first place. Swapped Will and El at birth, putting them in the lab or arranging for them to be taken by Brenner, and then, he could have later helped Will escape the lab massacre. . .

One last thing to address;

The Mind Flayer and why Will was possessed in the first place. . .

If Henry cannot create, then he needs Will alive to utilize that power. Henry may not have been strong enough on his own to manipulate Will into doing his bidding, but working with the Mind Flayer to get what he wants?

Therefore activating Will as the spy, taking El out of the way by using a distraction (making her focus on Max? Knowing that her weakness is the people she cares about - because he's already done this once before with the Lab Massacre by killing the other lab kids?), and getting what he wants?

The Mind Flayer literally looks like the strings attached to a hand for a wooden string puppet. . . (think Pinocchio if you need a visual)

The Mind Flayer possessed Will so that Henry/Vecna/001 could manipulate and bend the final puzzle piece to his will.

(and that's why, I think in S5, we're going in with a bang... because I think that El and Will have been Vecna'd in S4; they have been falling into Henry's traps since S1.) (I'll explain more of this in Part 2 or 3 because again, this is super complex and took me about a month or longer to compile all of the evidence)

So, in short, Henry/Vecna/001 truly has been moving our characters on the board like chess pieces. . .

(this is going to have like 3 parts explaining the theory itself and then like 20 posts of evidence all linked under a masterlist once I have the time to set that up.)

#stranger things 4 #stranger things 5 #stranger things theories #willel #wonder twins #twelvegate #stranger things #will byers #will byers has powers #eleven hopper #el jane hopper

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fatalroadie00 · 1 year

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Roadie Snacks: Coca-Cola Creations Move Limited Edition

#youtube #coke #coca-cola #coca-cola move #coke creations #coke move #roadie snacks #fatalroadie

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foodandfolklore · 6 months

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Santa Claus: Paganism or Commercialism

Probably one of the most recognizable icons of Western Winter holidays is Santa Claus. A plump man in a red coat with long white beard who gives presents to well behaved children on Christmas. But where did this character come from? I'm sure many reading will point out old Saint Nick as the origin. Others will draw comparisons to the Holly King and Green man. And there's at lest a few people convinced the whole thing is just a way to get us to buy more during the holidays.

Creation of Santa Claus is largely credited to Clement Clarke Moore, the Author of The Night Before Christmas. He says he combined traits of Saint Nicholas and his Dutch Handyman for descriptors. He's also the one who gave Santa his flying sleigh and reindeer. But he still called the character Saint Nicholas. The Name Santa Claus is thanks to Dutch immigrants who came to America. They called Saint Nicholas 'Sinterklass' which caught on as Santa Claus.

So who is Saint Nicholas that this Santa Claus is apparently based on? Well according to the stories, during the early Christianization of Rome, there was a man was extreme wealth and generosity named Nicholas. He would see people in need and not hesitate to help, expecting nothing in return. He also had a power to know who was guilty and who was innocent. Nicholas became a Bishop and after death, ascended to be a Saint. He is the patron Saint of Charity and Children.

So now he's got some kick ass Saint powers, and can keep on doing cool stuff. And the stories say he did. He would make more food to have enough to go around. Keep people safe. Heal children who died too soon. People loved this guy! They would celebrate him on December 6th; the day of his supposed passing. Children would leave their shoes outside hoping for a treat from the passing Saint.

Okay so, clearly Santa Claus has Christian Roots. Why do people think he's pagan. Well, for a few centuries, things start to get a little muddled. See, the Romans were like a cultural and religious melting pot. So over the thousand years of Saint Nick doing his thing, Christmas started absorbing aspects of other holidays like Saturnalia and Winter Solstice; even changing the date to better line up with these other events. And if you look at some depictions of art from before the Red suit was standard, Santa can sometimes be seen in greens with holly and mistletoe. So If the only information you have is 'Christmas Celebrations are based on Pagan Traditions' it's not a big mental leap to assume Santa is one of those Pagan Traditions.

But the truth of the matter is we didn't have a visual standard until the past 100 years or so. Saint Nick and Winter gift giving exploded in popularity all over Europe, but after a thousand years, baby Jesus took over. Maybe to put the focus back on him? But that didn't seem to remain popular, so a new, meaner version of Nicholas appeared. And I'm not talking about Krampus. His appearance and mannerisms varied from region to region. He would flog or kidnap disruptive children. It was basically all punishment, no reward. Not very magical.

Then people come to the new World of America. A new life, a new outlook, a new way to raise children. They brought with them their story of Saint Nick, now called Santa Claus, and Started telling stories about how he was sequestered away. Far north in the north pole, a place uninhabitable by normal people. He lives there, making toys with his elves, and flies around the world in a single night delivering toys to all the nice children. I never really thought about it much, but the story of Santa Claus really is a Uniquely American Folk Tale.

One last thing; how did Santa Claus Get his signature look? As I mentioned, the story the Night Before Christmas is What cements Santa as Fat, Jolly, and with a full white beard. But he mentions nothing of the colour of his clothes. Many people think that the red suit is from Coca-Cola ads, as before that he was always dressed in green. While I think it's true the Coca-Cola ads help popularize red as Santa's Color, they were far from the first to choose red. Add to that, if red was not selected, there's no guarantee he would be green. When people started illustrating the story The Night Before Christmas, lots of versions of Santa were made. One where he was in all yellow. Another where he was of short stature and brown. Icey blues. All kinds of ideas. Doing research, it seems Thomas Nast was the one who established the look of Santa. He dressed him in red to complement is rosy red nose, gave his coat white trim, a black belt, and topped it off with the signature Santa Hat.

Now that Santa had a Standard uniform, kids could recognize him instantly. Malls started to set up areas where you could take your kids to see Santa, encouraging you to go to shopping. Products need only draw a Santa on their package and boom, limited seasonal item. Sometimes it feel like Santa Claus was Created just to sell us stuff. But he wasn't. He wasn't even created to guilt us into a faith. He was created to bring a little magic a wonder into the holiday season. Regardless of what holiday you may be celebrating. Santa doesn't care. Santa only cares that if you are kind, that kindness should be rewarded.

#Santa #Santa Claus #saint nicholas #Saint Nick #American Folklore #Christmas #saturnalia #winter solstice #charity #children #holiday #december #folktale #fairytale #folklore #klickwitch #food and folklore

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thepastisalreadywritten · 2 years

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You can’t keep a good dog down, Charlie Brown.

When NASA launched a mission to the moon last week, the unmanned cabin included a stuffed Snoopy in an orange flight suit.

The space beagle was among the small items that serve as “zero gravity indicators,” which visually signal that the capsule has reached “the weightlessness of microgravity.”

Turns out, the agency couldn’t have picked a better pop culture symbol:

For seven decades, Snoopy and the rest of the “Peanuts” gang have defied the forces of time, freed from the gravitational pull of trends.

The globally beloved cartoon characters still pop up daily in comic strips, books and gift shops, as well as in animated specials, both new ones and the classic holiday programs such as “A Charlie Brown Christmas” that now stream on Apple TV Plus.

“Peanuts” is in the ether as surely as the jazzy Vince Guaraldi Trio riffs that bounce along the airwaves once Christmastime is here.

This year, the headquarters of Team Peanuts in Santa Rosa, California, has another reason to hold gatherings at its museum and library and ceremonies at its ice rink:

It’s the centennial of the birth of “Peanuts” creator Charles M. “Sparky” Schulz, who was born 26 November 1922 and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Schulz died in February 2000, the same weekend that his final original strip was published.

Yet what he launched into the zeitgeist in 1950 remains a cultural touchstone. On Saturday, many syndicated cartoonists will mark the centennial in their strips.

So why does “Peanuts” endure so strongly — remaining so firmly woven into the fabric of popular culture — when so many aspects of mass entertainment all but disappear?

Jeannie Schulz, widow of the cartoonist and president of the Charles M. Schulz Museum’s board of directors, puts it concisely:

“Sparky tapped into a universal humanity and translated it into simple lines with a subtle humor.”

Those elegant, poignant, slyly simple lines curled and curved their way into religion and sports and war and mental health and love unrequited.

To mark the centennial, The Washington Post asked celebrities from various areas of achievement what Schulz’s creation has meant to them.

‘As good as anything ever’

Producer Lee Mendelson approached Schulz in the mid-’60s with an idea: Coca-Cola was interested in a TV project.

Out of that seed grew one of the two greatest animated Christmas shows to emerge from that decade: a classic that, like “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” melded the genius of artistic minds.

Schulz teamed with animator Bill Melendez and, working under a deadline of mere months, the three men created “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” a masterpiece that daringly led with its heart.

Charlie Brown battled seasonal depression, Snoopy engaged in flights of fancy and Linus Van Pelt delivered the biblical monologue that, out of the mouths of a babe, still moves viewers regardless of age or faith.

“Over the course of my life, I’ve probably watched ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ more times than any single episode of television,” late-night host Jimmy Kimmel says. “It’s one of the main reasons I decided to have more kids.”

Kimmel thinks that special reflects the larger excellence of what a boy from Minnesota ultimately gave to the world.

“As soon as our daughter Jane learned to read, I bought her all the ‘Peanuts’ anthologies,” the comedian says. “I bought an original drawing of Snoopy by Charles Schulz that may very well be a forgery. I cherish it even if it is.

“The best of Peanuts is as good as anything ever. For me, it’s one of the greatest achievements in American art and literature.”

Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter, director of such films as “Inside Out” and “Up,” says that brilliance was firmly rooted in the comic strip, which launched in fewer than a dozen newspapers before eventually being syndicated to thousands, becoming one of the most widely read strips in the world.

“Schulz was brave enough to talk about human, adult, often non-funny things in his strip,” Docter says. “He featured kids dealing with anxiety, insecurity, jealousy, unrequited love, which gave ‘Peanuts’ a real weight and importance.”

Growing up in Minnesota himself, Docter was drawn into a world that stays with him today.

“As a kid, I was totally hooked by Snoopy and the escapist fun and humor of that character,” he says.

“But whether Schulz was conscious of it or not, it was those deeper emotional things that made me continue to read into adulthood. Those deceptively simply drawn characters have real complexity and depth."

“And besides, they’re still funny 70 years later. How many comic strips can claim that?”

Bay Area author Gene Luen Yang considers how Schulz’s comic evolved from revelation to quiet revolution.

Says Yang, author of such graphic novels as “American Born Chinese”:

“He is so influential that pretty much every strip-format comic today, whether in the newspaper or on the web, has borrowed a bit of that innovation.”

‘We stayed close’

Ever the athlete, Schulz embraced baseball, golf and hockey from a young age. He grew to love sports like tennis and these passions regularly found their way into his strip.

Before he befriended some professional athletes well into his career, though, Schulz could not have known how much he buoyed them.

“As a young skater growing up, it was always fun to see the comic strip and celebrate everything we experienced at the rink,” says figure skater Scott Hamilton, who won Olympic gold in 1984.

“To see the ‘Peanuts’ [characters] come alive on the ice made it seem like what we were doing was more than just skating. We had a place in popular culture.”

Schulz relocated to Northern California in the late ’50s, but you couldn’t take the Minnesota boyhood out of the man.

In Santa Rosa, he built the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, also known as Snoopy’s Home Ice, in 1969. And there, in the early ’80s, Hamilton began working with Schulz on ice shows.

(The skater will host “Sparky’s Ice Spectacular” at the venue on Saturday to mark the centennial.)

“Sparky was very hands-on in everything he did,” Hamilton says.

“In one of the productions I did for him, he had this dream of doing a cocktail party where I got to play the host of the party.

That character was interested in a girl at the party, but she gets swept off her feet by another guest, kind of like his stories of the Little Red-Haired Girl in the comic strip. Just when it seems he lost the girl, she comes back after all the other guests had left.”

Adds Hamilton, “To see how much Sparky loved that production made it one of my all-time favorite skating memories.”

Schulz also became a strong supporter of equality in sports, which included joining the board of trustees of the Women’s Sports Foundation, founded in 1974 by tennis icon and civil rights activist Billie Jean King, to “advance the lives of women and girls through sports and physical activity.”

Schulz would not only draw Snoopy serving aces. He would also reference his friend King.

“Sparky was actually very shy, and his comic strips were a great source of inspiration and comfort for me, especially as I traveled the world during my tennis career,” King says.

“I knew if he added my name to a ‘Peanuts’ strip, he was checking in on me and wanted to have a chat.

“We stayed close until he passed, and I will always cherish that.”

’A perfect pairing’

Mendelson, who died in 2019, believed in creative serendipity. He once told The Post that the first time he heard the music of Vince Guaraldi — while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge — he thought he might use it someday.

Singer-songwriter Ben Folds views Guaraldi’s music as inseparable from the classic “Peanuts” animation it accompanied.

“When you match the music with ‘Peanuts’ and the era and what it was doing and saying, then it starts to hit like Beethoven Piano Sonata time,” Folds says of Guaraldi’s sunny West Coast sound that “distilled jazz into something popular.”

Guaraldi’s “Peanuts” songs and the animated specials were “a perfect pairing,” he says, adding that the music “just gets the vibe.”

That “loomed large” when Folds was asked to write theme music for the recent streaming Peanuts special, “It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown.”

He meditated on Guaraldi’s music rather than trying to imitate it: “I didn’t try to drop riffs. I just went with the color.”

‘Pursue their dream’

This month, “Jump Start” creator Robb Armstrong appeared on a Schulz Museum panel with other celebrated cartoonists to share personal stories about the Sparky they knew.

As he sat onstage, Armstrong appreciated that Schulz “made other budding artists either realize their dream, pursue their dream or smooth the road on their journey.”

“He was one of the most grand-hearted human beings I’ve ever encountered,” Armstrong says.

A 6-year-old Armstrong was inspired by “Peanuts” in the summer of 1968, when Schulz integrated the strip by introducing a Black character: Franklin.

Armstrong’s reaction: “I’m in this strip.”

(About a quarter-century later, Schulz gave Franklin the last name of “Armstrong” in a salute to his friend and syndicated colleague, an honor the “Jump Start” creator calls “otherworldly.”)

Barbara Brandon-Croft, the trailblazing creator of the comic “Where I’m Coming From,” also responded strongly in 1968.

“I was excited to see a Black character in ‘Peanuts.’ Even if Franklin’s presence was only that — a Black kid amongst the group — it absolutely made a difference,” she says."

“When you grow up as an ‘other,’ which is what this country laid out for us, when you see yourself represented, it gives you a sense of belonging.”

‘The cool astronaut’

Schulz, a World War II Army veteran, was long fascinated with aviation.

NASA and “Peanuts” have a long relationship that includes the Silver Snoopy Award, which is bestowed upon outstanding NASA contractors and employees.

In 1969, Schulz appeared in public alongside the Apollo 10 astronauts who rode in the module called “Charlie Brown.”

That was also the year that a future astronaut was inspired by Snoopy and space.

“In 1969, the Mets won the World Series, [astronauts] landed on the moon and I went to see ‘A Boy Named Charlie Brown,’ the new animated feature, at Radio City Music Hall, says Mike Massimino, an engineering professor and space adviser.

“It all happened within a few months of each other, and it kind of set up the passions for the rest of my life.”

That year, Massimino received a stuffed Snoopy astronaut toy as a gift.

In 2009, on his second NASA space mission, Massimino took that same Snoopy toy into space, a symbol of his lasting attachment to “Peanuts.”

Noting that his attempts to become an astronaut failed three times before he was accepted, Massimino says he admires Charlie Brown’s spirit of optimistic resilience.

“Charlie Brown is the friend and person I wanted to be, and Snoopy is the cool astronaut I wanted to be,” Massimino says.

Adds the astronaut, “I think it’s the greatest comic strip and characters ever created.”

#Snoopy #Peanuts #Charlie Brown #Charles Schulz #Charles M. Schulz Museum #Snoopy’s Home Ice

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