The "Easter Beagle"?

 However you celebrate I hope you're having a Happy Easter! My highlight will be watching my first Cubs game of the season (working during the first two).

Here's the first appearance of Snoopy as The Easter Beagle.

Some of my Peanuts Easter items:

These are vinyl magnets.

A card from a 33 card preview set.  Seems a full set got stuck in a tree or something.

What's So Funny?

All the winters' snow we had melted. Then it snowed today. Not like in Colorado and Wyoming but enough. So winter came back for a day.

These two books are a couple of the earliest items I have from when I was a kid.   They date from 1966 and 1967.  They may actually be the very ones that introduced me to Peanuts.  They're also from the time I first started collecting trading cards.  The books came from Roband's Drugs on California and Pratt in Chicago.  It's no longer there.  That store also supplied most if not all of the thousands of cards I still have, many of which you've seen here.  

I still love Charlie Brown and the gang but the strip that followed as a favorite was Gary Larson's The Far Side.   I bought this behemoth of a set for my wife when we were dating.  It weighs about 20 pounds and the books are over 14 inches tall.

My current favorite strip is a worthy successor to the the previous two.  While it seems that everyone knows Peanuts and The Far Side I get the impression that Stephan Pastis's Pearls Before Swine is under appreciated.  The author would probably agree.  This is his latest treasury.  

Here's a small taste.  Rat is one of the main characters (he'd say star).  The guy on the right in the last box is Stephan.  He drives the characters crazy with elaborate puns and they often threaten him both verbally and physically.

What's the first comic strip you recall liking?  How about now?

Happy Valentines Day?

My wife and I don't actually celebrate Valentine's Day.  The cynic in me sees it as an over-commercialized  excuse for companies to guilt us into buying cards, flowers, chocolates etc. at marked up prices.  It's not that I don't love my wife or enjoy giving her gifts. (Truth be told I did buy her a couple of bags of Ghirardelli  heart chocolates yesterday.  The dark chocolate sea salt hearts are her current favorite.)  I just don't like feeling that it's an obligation.  I'm probably in the minority.  Is there a Cranky Old Men Anonymous? 

On a more positive note here are some Valentine related cards. 

I like to play up my crankyness but I really am just a sentimental old fool.  My postcard collection includes about a hundred early 20th century romantic images.  I saw this one and loved illustration.  It dates from around 1906.

This card actually deserves it's own post.  You may see it again.

Bob Love's #10 jersey was the second in Bull's history to be retired (Jerry Sloan's #4 was first).  He was a key member of the first Bulls teams I remember watching as a kid.  These days he's the Director of Community Affairs and Goodwill Ambassador for the Bulls.

There have certainly been times in my life when Valentine's Day was sad and lonely.

Mr. Valentinetti turned 92 last September.  As you can see Vito is in the "played on both Chicago teams" club.  I think this photograph is from his time with the Cubs.  He wore #57 on the North Side.

If you're alone today, have some chocolate.  If you're in love, have some chocolate.  Chocolate's always good.  (Unless you can't eat it for medical reasons).  What's your favorite chocolate?

Peanuts And More in 1954

Baseball is an ongoing theme in Peanuts.   This strip is the first that references particular players, in this case Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Roy Campanella.  Bach, Beethoven and Brahms all appear earlier in one manner or another.  In case you're wondering, Joe Shlabotnik does not appear until 1963.

June 24, 1954

Strip from The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954

These are the results and standings for June 24, 1954

From Baseball-Reference.com

This was the Billboard #1 song on June 24, 1954.  It also topped the charts for the year.

Honestly I've never been a fan of this style of music that was characteristic of the 1940's and 1950's.   Rock and Roll was beginning though, by 1954, and  these two songs made the top 30 for the year:

#4

#30

Elvis recorded "That's All Right on July 7, 1954 at Sun Studio

Easter Beagle?

Happy Easter. 

(I'll take all of your leftover candy.)

Here's the first appearance of Snoopy as The Easter Beagle.

Some of my Peanuts Easter items:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN BOYS AND GHOULS!

Hope your pumpkin patch was the most sincere.  I'm currently off of candy so someone has my permission to double their share.

Happy Halloween Boys and Ghouls!

Hope your pumpkin patch was the most sincere.  I'm currently off of candy so someone has my permission to double their share.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Collector Collects -- Peanuts Christmas Stuff -- Special Items

Last year I posted a bunch of our Peanuts Christmas ornaments.  Here are a bunch more Christmas related Peanuts items.

Here are four special items, three of them given to us by my wife's parents.  They mean even more since my Mother-in-Law is no longer here to celebrate with us.  She really loved Christmas and loved finding you just the right thing.

This moves and plays three songs, "Linus and Lucy", "DecK the Halls" and "O' Christmas Tree".

 This has a place for a votive candle in back that shines through the background.

I bought this one.  It plays "Linus and Lucy".

This is like a whole years worth and more of Hallmark Peanuts ornaments in one.  It lights up and the train runs around the track.  We have it set up next to the tree.