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No. 994: Show-Accurate Snoopy

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Show-Accurate Snoopy

First | Previous | 2025-08-05 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/itoons/?comic=994

Strip by: MichaelSar

{A very angry Peppermint Patty is on the phone. The previous night, she had asked Snoopy to act as her watchdog, but Snoopy couldn't actually do any watchdog-ing because he wound up on a waterbed that was completely out of control. And as luck would have it, a bunch of burglars chose that very night to break into her house and steal the TV and furniture. Thus...}
Peppermint Patty: Hello, Chuck? Let me speak to my ex-watchdog, will you?
{Charlie Brown holds the phone up to Snoopy's ear}
Peppermint Patty: Hello, ex-watchdog? THANKS FOR NOTHING!
{Charlie Brown looks flabbergasted. Peppermint Patty apparently hangs up}
{Snoopy just stands there}
{Then Snoopy walks outside and lies down on his doghouse}
{That's it. That's the punchline}
{...}
{Ha ha?}

The author writes:

I remember watching episodes of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show years ago, around the same time I was collecting the Complete Peanuts books. And, honestly, I think it was the episode that adapted this 1975 "Peppermint Patty's house is robbed because of a waterbed" storyline that demonstrated how a lot of the strips the animated Peanuts stuff adapted don't work if we can't hear Snoopy's thoughts a la Garfield. Because we can't hear what Snoopy is thinking, the punchlines of this and the previous strip have been removed. There is no joke. To demonstrate, I took the original strip and removed Snoopy's dialogue to match it up with the show's adaptation.

Here's another example: remember that 1981 storyline where Snoopy, in his flying ace persona, steals and eats Sally's homework because he thinks she's the Red Baron's secretary and that she's carrying "secret papers"? Another episode of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show adapted THAT storyline, and since we couldn't hear what Snoopy was thinking, it made Snoopy's stealing and eating the homework seem nonsensical and ruined the joke.

Am I the only one who's bothered by these things?

Original Peanuts strip: 1975-01-30 (colored version on Peanuts Wiki).