Linus van Pelt
Encyclopedia
Linus van Pelt is a character in Charles M. Schulz
's comic strip
Peanuts. The best friend of Charlie Brown
, Linus is also the younger brother of Lucy van Pelt
and older brother of Rerun van Pelt
. He first appeared on September 19, 1952; however, he was not mentioned by name until three days later. He was first referenced two months earlier, on July 14. Linus spoke his first words in 1954, the same year he was shown with his security blanket. On the various specials, Christopher Shea first voiced Linus van Pelt in 1965. His younger brother, Stephen, voiced Linus from 1971 until 1975. Various actors (among them Jeremy Miller
of Growing Pains
fame) have played Linus since then. Also, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
star B.D. Wong
portrayed Linus in the Broadway revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
.
, often quoting the Gospels. He invented his own legendary being, the Great Pumpkin
, who, Linus claims, appears every Halloween
at the most "sincere" pumpkin patch, bearing gifts. Linus is the only one who believes in the Great Pumpkin, although he occasionally temporarily convinces other characters the Great Pumpkin is real, only to stubbornly maintain his faith when they lose theirs. On one occasion, Linus had a commanding lead in the polls for school president—until he brought out his favorite subject of the "Great Pumpkin," at which point he was nearly laughed out of the election. (He ended up winning anyway by one vote, cast by his opponent, who decided that Linus would make a better school president.) A similar occurrence was featured in a strip with the same storyline, except Charlie Brown asks him why he had to bring up the Great Pumpkin and Linus gave his reasons. After saying that Charlie Brown was looking at him as if he was crazy, Charlie Brown responded, "I'm looking at you like I could've been vice president!"
. However, after September 9, 1962, his glasses inexplicably disappeared from the strip.
In the cartoon specials, Linus is usually portrayed as having a slight lisp
.
. It was in fact he who coined the term "security blanket." Ridicule of the habit is not a major concern for him as shown when one friend, Roy, warned him at summer camp that he would be viciously teased for it. In response, Linus uses his blanket like a whip
and shears off a tree branch with intimidating power and notes: "They never tease me more than once." The blanket, it turns out, is an autonomous (although non-verbal) entity. In a 1965 strip, it engaged in a campaign of clandestine attacks on Lucy, even routing her from the house, due to her constant, albeit failed, attempts to get rid of it by throwing it in the trash burner. In the special A Boy Named Charlie Brown, it also performed a complex dance routine with Linus upon being reunited with its owner.
In the earlier strips, Linus's relationship to his blanket was one of intense emotional attachment to the point of manifesting physical symptoms if deprived of it even for a short while. He suffered weakness and dizziness, for example, when Lucy took it from him only long enough to have it laundered, spontaneously recovering when it was restored to him. On another occasion, Lucy snatched his blanket away and buried it in an effort to break Linus of his habit. Linus literally dug up the neighborhood for days trying to find it-until Snoopy dug it up. Lucy won a first prize in a school science contest when she took Linus' blanket away and recorded his "withdrawal symptoms"-and as proof entered Linus and his blanket as an exhibit!
Possession of the blanket is often sought by Snoopy
, who has used many tricks and subterfuges to relieve Linus of it, even at one point having the blanket delivered to his doghouse. A common thing for Snoopy is to run up and quickly grab the blanket in his mouth and drag Linus along with it, then swing him and the blanket around many times before letting go and sending them both soaring off to who-knows-where. In another instance, Linus was so angry at Snoopy for snatching his blanket again and again that he retaliated by threatening Snoopy's supper dish. Upon hearing that Linus had possession of his most prized possession, Snoopy gave Linus back the blanket fairly quickly, thinking, "I never dreamed he would fight so dirty!". When Lucy buried the blanket, Snoopy took the time to dig for it himself; and when he found it, Linus thanked him, upon which Snoopy thought "Every now and then I feel that my existence is justified!"
Furthermore, there are many stories where Lucy and Linus's grandmother attempts to force him to give up the blanket, only to eventually concede in the face of his steadfast resistance. Two attempts were when the grandmother in question gave up smoking, and when she offered that if he gave up the blanket she would donate ten dollars to his favorite charity. The deal wasn't made because it wasn't a fair proposition.
The April 11, 1983, strip shows Linus saying that he had given up his blanket, and later going from door to door, telling people how he gave up his blanket. Once, this resulted in the girl at the door lashing him with her blanket, in her anger. Twice before Linus actually vows to give up his blanket-once he threw it away but grabbed it back; another time he was about to tell Charlie Brown about his new resolution when Charlie Brown ruined everything by tossing a blanket onto Linus.
In one particularly angry confrontation over the issue (the aforementioned blanket for smoking episode) Linus admitted that if his mother ordered him to stop, he would comply; but no one else, especially Lucy or the "blanket-hating" grandmother, would have that authority. In fact, in that confrontation, when Lucy decided that he'd gone without the blanket for two weeks and that he no longer needed it, she decided to throw it into the trash burner; Linus, however, was able to intervene at the last second and retrieve his blanket. Never objecting, the mother was evidently content to let her unusually intelligent son grow out of the habit on his own. In later strips, Linus is shown with it less and less, and Charles Schulz admitted in 1989 that Linus had finally outgrown the blanket, and it was only in the strip when required for the humor. In one comic, Linus suddenly stops sucking his thumb and says "It's a good thumb, but not a great thumb."
, into the strip in 1959, Linus had the desire to marry her. However, as the strip progressed, he outgrew this idea, while Sally on the other hand fell in love with Linus, calling him her "Sweet Babboo", much to his displeasure. Linus in turn has an innocent crush
on his school teacher, Miss Othmar (later Mrs. Hagemeyer). In some of the later '90s strips he developed an interest in Lydia, the girl who sits behind him, who keeps changing her name and, as Linus is two months older than she, asks him, "Aren't you kind of old for me?" (This is a subtle reference to cartoonist Schulz and his own second wife, who was some twenty years younger than he.) It was also Linus who first introduced Frieda, as "...a sort of a friend of mine" who sat behind him in school. He also fell for several different girls in various animated television special
s, as well as a girl called Truffles, whom he and Snoopy met while looking for the fungi bearing her name.
Linus meekly submits to domination by his older sister Lucy, who has been known to attack him at the drop of a hat. Linus did finally challenge her to a fight when he thought he could beat her in a boxing match, only to get knocked out.
However, Linus often defuses Lucy's temper through passive resistance
and clever use of his intellect, either logically talking Lucy out of hitting him or confusing her into submission. Later in the strip, the pair got a younger brother, Rerun, who looks nearly identical to Linus, though smaller. Coincidentally, this occurred at the same time Lucy kicked Linus out of the house, leading her to cry "A new baby brother? But I just got rid of the old one!"
Linus generally plays second base on Charlie Brown's Little League
team. Sometimes, when for some reason Charlie Brown can't pitch, Linus takes the mound and is unhittable. Charlie Brown's team always wins games when Linus pitches.
episode "Vegetable Funfest" voiced by Rory Thost
. In the skit he appeared in, he invokes the Great Pumpkin
with a black magic ritual since the great pumpkin never appeared to him on Halloween
. He was killed shortly after the Great Pumpkin appeared and was the first victim of the Great pumpkin. A funeral was held for him and Sally Brown
who was in love with him jumped in to his grave and was buried alive.
Charles M. Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.-Early life and education:Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Schulz grew up in Saint Paul...
's comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
Peanuts. The best friend of Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown
Charles "Charlie" Brown is the protagonist in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.Charlie Brown and his creator have a common connection in that they are both the sons of barbers, but whereas Schulz's work is described as the "most shining example of the American success story", Charlie...
, Linus is also the younger brother of Lucy van Pelt
Lucy van Pelt
Lucille "Lucy" van Pelt is a fictional character in the syndicated comic strip :Peanuts, written and drawn by Charles Schulz. She is the main bully and the older sister of Linus and Rerun. Lucy is a crabby and cynical eight-year old girl, and often bullies the other characters in the strip,...
and older brother of Rerun van Pelt
Rerun van Pelt
Rerun van Pelt is Linus and Lucy's younger brother in Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts.-Introduction:Rerun started as a minor character in the Peanuts universe, only becoming a main character in the last decade of the comic strip...
. He first appeared on September 19, 1952; however, he was not mentioned by name until three days later. He was first referenced two months earlier, on July 14. Linus spoke his first words in 1954, the same year he was shown with his security blanket. On the various specials, Christopher Shea first voiced Linus van Pelt in 1965. His younger brother, Stephen, voiced Linus from 1971 until 1975. Various actors (among them Jeremy Miller
Jeremy Miller
Jeremy James Miller is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Ben Seaver on Growing Pains and its two reunion movies...
of Growing Pains
Growing Pains
Growing Pains is an American television sitcom about an affluent family, residing in Huntington, New York, with a working mother and a stay-at-home psychiatrist father raising three children together, which aired on ABC from September 24, 1985 to April 25, 1992.-Synopsis:The show's premise is based...
fame) have played Linus since then. Also, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...
star B.D. Wong
B.D. Wong
Bradley Darryl "BD" Wong is an American actor, best-known for his roles as Dr. George Huang on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as Father Ray Mukada on HBO's Oz, Henry Wu in the movie Jurassic Park, and for his starring role as Song Liling in the Broadway production of M...
portrayed Linus in the Broadway revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a 1967 musical comedy with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner, based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts...
.
Personality
Though young, Linus is unusually smart, and he acts as the strip's philosopher and theologianTheology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, often quoting the Gospels. He invented his own legendary being, the Great Pumpkin
The Great Pumpkin
The Great Pumpkin is an imaginary character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.The Great Pumpkin is a holiday figure that seems to exist only in the imagination of Linus van Pelt. Every year, Linus sits in a pumpkin patch on Halloween night waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear...
, who, Linus claims, appears every Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
at the most "sincere" pumpkin patch, bearing gifts. Linus is the only one who believes in the Great Pumpkin, although he occasionally temporarily convinces other characters the Great Pumpkin is real, only to stubbornly maintain his faith when they lose theirs. On one occasion, Linus had a commanding lead in the polls for school president—until he brought out his favorite subject of the "Great Pumpkin," at which point he was nearly laughed out of the election. (He ended up winning anyway by one vote, cast by his opponent, who decided that Linus would make a better school president.) A similar occurrence was featured in a strip with the same storyline, except Charlie Brown asks him why he had to bring up the Great Pumpkin and Linus gave his reasons. After saying that Charlie Brown was looking at him as if he was crazy, Charlie Brown responded, "I'm looking at you like I could've been vice president!"
Appearance
Linus has brown hair and he normally wears a red shirt with stripes on it, black shorts, and tennis shoes. On February 5, 1962, Linus began wearing eyeglasses after being diagnosed with myopiaMyopia
Myopia , "shortsightedness" ) is a refractive defect of the eye in which collimated light produces image focus in front of the retina under conditions of accommodation. In simpler terms, myopia is a condition of the eye where the light that comes in does not directly focus on the retina but in...
. However, after September 9, 1962, his glasses inexplicably disappeared from the strip.
In the cartoon specials, Linus is usually portrayed as having a slight lisp
Lisp
A lisp is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants , and replace them with interdentals , though there are actually several kinds of lisp...
.
Security blanket
Linus is almost never without his blue blanket, which debuted in the June 1, 1954, strip. He holds the blanket over his shoulder while sucking his thumbThumb sucking
Thumb sucking is a behavior found in humans, chimpanzees, captive Ring-tailed Lemurs, and other primates. It usually involves placing the thumb into the mouth and rhythmically repeating sucking contact for a prolonged duration...
. It was in fact he who coined the term "security blanket." Ridicule of the habit is not a major concern for him as shown when one friend, Roy, warned him at summer camp that he would be viciously teased for it. In response, Linus uses his blanket like a whip
Whip
A whip is a tool traditionally used by humans to exert control over animals or other people, through pain compliance or fear of pain, although in some activities whips can be used without use of pain, such as an additional pressure aid in dressage...
and shears off a tree branch with intimidating power and notes: "They never tease me more than once." The blanket, it turns out, is an autonomous (although non-verbal) entity. In a 1965 strip, it engaged in a campaign of clandestine attacks on Lucy, even routing her from the house, due to her constant, albeit failed, attempts to get rid of it by throwing it in the trash burner. In the special A Boy Named Charlie Brown, it also performed a complex dance routine with Linus upon being reunited with its owner.
In the earlier strips, Linus's relationship to his blanket was one of intense emotional attachment to the point of manifesting physical symptoms if deprived of it even for a short while. He suffered weakness and dizziness, for example, when Lucy took it from him only long enough to have it laundered, spontaneously recovering when it was restored to him. On another occasion, Lucy snatched his blanket away and buried it in an effort to break Linus of his habit. Linus literally dug up the neighborhood for days trying to find it-until Snoopy dug it up. Lucy won a first prize in a school science contest when she took Linus' blanket away and recorded his "withdrawal symptoms"-and as proof entered Linus and his blanket as an exhibit!
Possession of the blanket is often sought by Snoopy
Snoopy
Snoopy is an fictional character in the long-running comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. He is Charlie Brown's pet beagle. Snoopy began his life in the strip as a fairly conventional dog, but eventually evolved into perhaps the strip's most dynamic character—and among the most recognizable...
, who has used many tricks and subterfuges to relieve Linus of it, even at one point having the blanket delivered to his doghouse. A common thing for Snoopy is to run up and quickly grab the blanket in his mouth and drag Linus along with it, then swing him and the blanket around many times before letting go and sending them both soaring off to who-knows-where. In another instance, Linus was so angry at Snoopy for snatching his blanket again and again that he retaliated by threatening Snoopy's supper dish. Upon hearing that Linus had possession of his most prized possession, Snoopy gave Linus back the blanket fairly quickly, thinking, "I never dreamed he would fight so dirty!". When Lucy buried the blanket, Snoopy took the time to dig for it himself; and when he found it, Linus thanked him, upon which Snoopy thought "Every now and then I feel that my existence is justified!"
Furthermore, there are many stories where Lucy and Linus's grandmother attempts to force him to give up the blanket, only to eventually concede in the face of his steadfast resistance. Two attempts were when the grandmother in question gave up smoking, and when she offered that if he gave up the blanket she would donate ten dollars to his favorite charity. The deal wasn't made because it wasn't a fair proposition.
The April 11, 1983, strip shows Linus saying that he had given up his blanket, and later going from door to door, telling people how he gave up his blanket. Once, this resulted in the girl at the door lashing him with her blanket, in her anger. Twice before Linus actually vows to give up his blanket-once he threw it away but grabbed it back; another time he was about to tell Charlie Brown about his new resolution when Charlie Brown ruined everything by tossing a blanket onto Linus.
In one particularly angry confrontation over the issue (the aforementioned blanket for smoking episode) Linus admitted that if his mother ordered him to stop, he would comply; but no one else, especially Lucy or the "blanket-hating" grandmother, would have that authority. In fact, in that confrontation, when Lucy decided that he'd gone without the blanket for two weeks and that he no longer needed it, she decided to throw it into the trash burner; Linus, however, was able to intervene at the last second and retrieve his blanket. Never objecting, the mother was evidently content to let her unusually intelligent son grow out of the habit on his own. In later strips, Linus is shown with it less and less, and Charles Schulz admitted in 1989 that Linus had finally outgrown the blanket, and it was only in the strip when required for the humor. In one comic, Linus suddenly stops sucking his thumb and says "It's a good thumb, but not a great thumb."
Relationships
Upon the introduction of Charlie Brown's little sister, Sally BrownSally Brown
Sally Brown is the younger sister of Charlie Brown in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles Schulz. She was first mentioned in early 1959 and throughout a long series of strips before her first appearance in August 1959.-Appearance:...
, into the strip in 1959, Linus had the desire to marry her. However, as the strip progressed, he outgrew this idea, while Sally on the other hand fell in love with Linus, calling him her "Sweet Babboo", much to his displeasure. Linus in turn has an innocent crush
Unrequited love
Unrequited love is love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired. The beloved may or may not be aware of the admirer's deep affections...
on his school teacher, Miss Othmar (later Mrs. Hagemeyer). In some of the later '90s strips he developed an interest in Lydia, the girl who sits behind him, who keeps changing her name and, as Linus is two months older than she, asks him, "Aren't you kind of old for me?" (This is a subtle reference to cartoonist Schulz and his own second wife, who was some twenty years younger than he.) It was also Linus who first introduced Frieda, as "...a sort of a friend of mine" who sat behind him in school. He also fell for several different girls in various animated television special
Television special
A television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, which is not part of a regular...
s, as well as a girl called Truffles, whom he and Snoopy met while looking for the fungi bearing her name.
However, Linus often defuses Lucy's temper through passive resistance
Nonviolent resistance
Nonviolent resistance is the practice of achieving goals through symbolic protests, civil disobedience, economic or political noncooperation, and other methods, without using violence. It is largely synonymous with civil resistance...
and clever use of his intellect, either logically talking Lucy out of hitting him or confusing her into submission. Later in the strip, the pair got a younger brother, Rerun, who looks nearly identical to Linus, though smaller. Coincidentally, this occurred at the same time Lucy kicked Linus out of the house, leading her to cry "A new baby brother? But I just got rid of the old one!"
Linus generally plays second base on Charlie Brown's Little League
Little League
Little League Baseball and Softball is a non-profit organization in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, United States which organizes local youth baseball and softball leagues throughout the U.S...
team. Sometimes, when for some reason Charlie Brown can't pitch, Linus takes the mound and is unhittable. Charlie Brown's team always wins games when Linus pitches.
In popular culture
Linus appeared in the Robot ChickenRobot Chicken
Robot Chicken is an American stop motion animated television series created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. Green provides many voices for the show...
episode "Vegetable Funfest" voiced by Rory Thost
Rory Thost
Rory Thost is an American actor who played the recurring role of Bradley Benjamin Farmer in The Disney Channel's television series Phil of the Future....
. In the skit he appeared in, he invokes the Great Pumpkin
The Great Pumpkin
The Great Pumpkin is an imaginary character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.The Great Pumpkin is a holiday figure that seems to exist only in the imagination of Linus van Pelt. Every year, Linus sits in a pumpkin patch on Halloween night waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear...
with a black magic ritual since the great pumpkin never appeared to him on Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
. He was killed shortly after the Great Pumpkin appeared and was the first victim of the Great pumpkin. A funeral was held for him and Sally Brown
Sally Brown
Sally Brown is the younger sister of Charlie Brown in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles Schulz. She was first mentioned in early 1959 and throughout a long series of strips before her first appearance in August 1959.-Appearance:...
who was in love with him jumped in to his grave and was buried alive.