Most people might not associate the ’90s with Peanuts, with the decade being more associated with grunge, Friends, and the other notable events and fads that were at the height of the zeitgeist. Despite not being synonymous with the 1990s, the Peanuts comic strip and characters were still wildly successful throughout the decade. Peanuts had been going strong for 40 years at this point and was still among the most popular comic strips, a huge testament to the quality and timelessness of the work.
For as many years as the strip had been going on by the 1990s, there was still growth and interesting changes. New characters were introduced like one of Snoopy’s siblings, adding some new storylines to the varied strip. Consequently, Peanuts retained its trademark sense of humor and continued to stay true to characters old and new, resulting in a plethora of funny strips that were made well into the comic’s lifetime.
10 Snoopy’s Clients are Depressed
January 1991
Snoopy has a plethora of alter egos. There’s the hip Joe Cool and the heroic Flying Ace, but Snoopy’s attorney alter ego is one of his funniest. One of the most comical parts of the persona is the fact that he is not a great lawyer, always losing his cases.
Given his lack of legal expertise and his inability to win a single case, it makes sense that his clients would be disappointed at least and depressed at most. In this strip, Snoopy is asked if it is true that lawyers are more frequently depressed compared to those in other jobs. He responds that he doubts that is true because his clients are always the depressed ones, never him. Maybe if Snoopy managed to win a case for once, his clients would be more upbeat for a change.
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10 Funniest Peanuts Comics Starring Snoopy
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9 Lucy Suggests That Dancing Helps Loneliness
February 1995
Lucy’s psychiatric help booth has been a mainstay of Peanuts for years and years. Given Charlie Brown’s overall bad luck and his morose attitude, it should come as no surprise that he is Lucy’s biggest client. In this strip, Lucy’s solution to Charlie Brown’s loneliness is for him to learn how to dance.
Charlie Brown, logically, asks how this will solve his loneliness if no one will dance with him, to which Lucy lets him know that he’ll at least be a good dancer. While Lucy does offer the good lesson that Charlie Brown will know a skill that will come in handy in social situations, she definitely could’ve dug a little deeper for a better solution to Charlie Brown’s feelings of isolation. It’s not fair to judge Lucy’s psychiatric skills too hard though, since she is only a little kid.
8 Why Is Barney Purple?
May 1993
Barney the purple dinosaur was hugely popular for children in the ’90s. The educational component of the kids’ show was pleasing to parents and the songs and characters of Barney & Friends were immensely popular with young viewers.
Peanuts was not always the most topical comic strip, which has helped the strip be so timeless. However, this strip is a deviation, with Sally seen watching the famous ’90s show. Funnily enough, her only question about the show is why Barney is purple. Why Sally is more perplexed about why a talking dinosaur is purple rather than why a dinosaur is talking in the first place is anyone’s guess.
7 Charlie Brown Needs a Good Dog and Some Friends
January 1994
Lucy and Snoopy have a love-hate relationship. Lucy is frequently annoyed by the imaginative beagle but loves to get hugs from him at the same time, even if she would never admit that to him. Their fickle relationship is not helped by Lucy constantly saying that he is not a good dog to Charlie Brown and calling him a stupid beagle.
As shown in this strip, Lucy tells Charlie Brown that he should get a good dog to fix his loneliness. Charlie Brown reminds Lucy that he already has a dog, to which a snarky Lucy emphasizes he needs a good dog. Snoopy’s reaction to that is to try to nip her legs. That’s a rough insult she lobbies at him, making it hard to judge Snoopy for his hilarious reaction.
6 Lucy Ruins Charlie Brown’s New Positive Attitude
November 1998
Published near the end of the 1990s, the strip shows Lucy still up to her football tricks. She can never just let poor Charlie Brown kick the ball. It looks, at first, that this strip may be the exception thanks to Charlie’s new positive attitude.
Charlie Brown gets himself pumped and excited, putting into his mind that he will kick the ball this time. Lucy puts on the facade that she is really pulling for him, having faith that he will be successful. Lucy being Lucy, however, rains on Charlie Brown’s parade and undoubtedly puts the kibosh on his days of a positive attitude.
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The football gag is one of the most recognizable jokes in Peanuts. Here are the 10 best times Lucy tricked Charlie Brown into falling on his back.
5 Snoopy’s Brothers Get Lost Again
September 1997
Snoopy’s family life before he became Charlie Brown’s dog was not initially known in the comic strip. However, in the ’60s, Snoopy mentions having siblings and starting in the ’70s, each sibling started to appear one by one in the comics. The last of Snoopy’s kin was Andy, who was introduced in 1994.
Since his introduction in the ’90s, Andy has become associated with his brother Olaf and their running gag of always getting lost. In this strip, which was published three years after Andy’s debut, the brothers are noted to be lost yet again. In the last panel, the reader sees just what they have been up to: waiting for the walk sign at a crosswalk. Unless they or someone else pushes that crosswalk button, they’re going to be standing there a lot longer.
4 Peppermint Patty’s Christmas Break Reading
January 1999
Franklin has always been the voice of reason for the Peanuts gang. He balances out all the neuroses of Charlie Brown and the flights of fantasy of Linus with his level-headedness. A classmate of Peppermint Patty and Marcie, Franklin is a good student who gets good grades.
As a result, he is much more similar to Marcie than Patty. An example is this strip from the last year of the 1990s. In the strip, Franklin asks his peers if they did their Christmas break assigned reading. Marcie admits that she tried but couldn’t finish. Patty’s answer, on the other hand, is a bit more worrying because she replies that she was completely unaware of the reading and doesn’t even know what book was assigned. Fans of Peppermint Patty will not be surprised at her lack of reading, but she can count on another bad grade to add to the list.
3 Peppermint Patty Makes a Great Try
February 1992
Peppermint Patty has a lot of awesome qualities, like her athletic prowess and her devoted loyalty to her friends. However, like anyone, she has her weak points, one of her biggest being her lack of enthusiasm for learning. Her dislike of school has resulted in many bad grades and crummy assignments.
While Marcie is the compete opposite of Peppermint Patty academically, she always provides support and encouragement. An excellent example is when Patty reads her report on Charles Dickens’ classic, A Tale of Two Cities. She reveals she never actually read the book the minute she mentions the Twin Cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis, both found in Minnesota. Marcie commends her friend’s valiant attempt and ultimate failure.
2 Snoopy Makes Linus a Poor Offer
June 1990
Linus has some less than stellar habits, such as sucking his thumb and carrying around his security blanket everywhere. He even sucks one thumb more than the other because he thinks it tastes sweeter. Likewise, he gets made fun of for still toting a blankie around.
Lucy has tried to wean her brother off his blanket. Additionally, even Snoopy has attempted to take Linus’s blanket for himself. Seen in this strip, Snoopy is doing his best Linus impression with his thumb in his mouth, complete with Linus’s own blanket. Reliably, Linus is upset that Snoopy has his blanket, demanding that he get it back. Snoopy instead offers his thumb, which is not what Linus had in mind.
1 Charlie Brown Hears a Voice In the Night
March 1996
Most have experienced thoughts at night that have kept them awake. Charlie Brown, being the little ball of neuroses that he is, admits to being prone to these thought-filled nights in this strip. However, he cannot finish a thought because Snoopy keeps distracting him and getting his attention.
Charlie then realizes that he should be happy and grateful that he has a dog to distract him from these late night thoughts. Snoopy’s restless tossing and turning (and barking) has its upsides, which Charlie Brown recognizes, drawing Charlie Brown’s attention away from his wondering and the neuroses that plague him throughout the entirety of Peanuts.
Peanuts
- Created by:
- Charles M. Schulz
- First Film:
- The Peanuts Movie
- Cast:
- Christopher Shea, Kathy Steinberg, Bill Melendez, Sally Dryer, Peter Robbins, Noah Schnapp, Hadley Belle Miller, Mariel Sheets, Lisa DeFaria, Venus Omega Schultheis
- TV Show(s):
- The Snoopy Show, Peanuts by Schulz
- Movie(s):
- The Peanuts Movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown’s All Stars!, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown
- Character(s):
- Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy van Pelt, Linus van Pelt, Sally Brown, Pig-Pen, Marcie (Peanuts), Peppermint Patty, Woodstock
