Mind Blown Peanuts-Did you know Lucy Van Pelt began her newspaper comic appearances as a Toddler? And other amenities.

My oh my. Did Peanuts ever look so different back when it first premiered on newspapers back in the 1950. 

Only Charlie Brown became the original mainstay from 1950 to remain while others such as Shermy were left to rot in the discarded characters file folders.

Also, the signature crude outlines we came to know and love are nowhere to be found. Everything was all thick, lines were cleaner and simpler. 

On top of that, Charlie Brown's head was more or less shaped like a football. 

A good 46 years before Arnold Shortman made football heads popular.

 More like 49 years before Stewie Griffin made football heads popular by the dozen.

Pretty mind blowing to discover how different Peanuts used to be in it's earliest inception but on the other hand, it's not uncommon for characters to look dramatically different when their comics began in it's earliest form.

Take for example the MAD Magazine aesthetic of Lupin III circa August 1967.

Or the original angular art direction of Albert Uderzo in the first Asterix album ASTERIX THE GAUL circa October 29 1959.

Or Popeye's earliest appearances in Thimble Theatre circa January 17 1929 where he was drawn to be his most pissed off at best.

Lupin dropped the MAD Magazine look in the 70s in favor of a more conventional Japanese anime style, especially when Hayao Miyazaki was involved.

Asterix's art style became more Disney-like due to Albert Uderzo being such a Disney fan.

(The art certainly didn't look like Disney but rather drew inspiration to clean up the art.)

And Popeye was made less pissed-off and more rounder in his face due to Fleischer wanting him to appeal to people who grew tired and weary of Mickey Mouse during the 1930s.

Fleischer really knew Popeye appealed towards children so they rounded his appearance.

But wait, there's more. You know what The Simpsons looked like back in The Tracey Ullman Show?

Well around the late 80s, they ditched that LIFE IN HELL look as drawn by Matt Groening and by 1992, they dropped that KLASKY CSUPO influence when they switched to FILM ROMAN.

And during Season 27, they divorced from Film Roman and FOX handled the rest of the animation.

But wait, there's more. DOUG looked very different in both the Pilot Episode and when the title character starred in various commercials.

But then Nickelodeon demanded that Doug and friends be animated with cleaner outlines and they also demanded he have eyebrows so he actually emotes. 

Then when Disney took over, they simplified his sweater vest, wore long sleeves, and made his scalp slightly flatter just to show he's hit puberty.

With his voice unfortunately starting to crack and no facial hair).

But wait, there's more! South Park originally used Cutouts.... actually construction paper cutouts but only for the Christmas shorts and the pilot episode CARTMAN GETS AN ANAL PROBE.

SON OF A BITCH!!! WE WERE USING ACTUAL CUTOUTS?! NO WAY!

But.... well rats... I'm starting to sound like a broken record.

Anyway, back to Peanuts. I've read that a lot of characters who are modern mainstays in the Peanuts actually began their life as babies or toddlers but they were forced by Schulz or his editors to age up these characters just so they be appropriate foil to Charlie Brown.

I get that's how Linus and Sally began their lives in the newspapers but I was quite perplexed when I found out this was how Lucy Van Pelt began her life in the newspaper comics.

If you think Lucy treats Charlie Brown like a sorry sack of pig crap all the time, Good Grief, was Lucy treating Charlie Brown like a badly fermented bicentennial Bordeaux wine.

Only, instead of swiping a football from his underneath his foot or running an unreliable therapy service, Lucy was mishandling Charlie Brown's Vinyl records... by literally eating them.

Not even Sally, Linus, nor Snoopy would have the brass balls to do that because they all know it would piss off Charlie Brown... enough for him to shoot them up with machine guns as seen in Jim Reardon's BRING ME THE HEAD OF CHARLIE BROWN.

I thought I could only find the color version of the above comic but as it turns out, I found the Black and White inked original so it effectively replaced the colored version I had up on this blog post.

I'm actively on the hunt for more oddities based on what comic book or animated characters used to look like before they became what they are now. So stay tuned.