Hola, Sneakers! It’s Episode 618 of the podcast with mother issues!
This week Ian and David talk: inoffensive accent; chocolate god; blossom time; soured on it; the mayo of Simpleton; Short take; everyone’s mom; the long, long trailer; forgettable sins; playing with Dahl’s; cool for kids; life in a northern town; strip tense; anti-fun leagues; burlesque goofs; Peanuts gallery; their names are numbered; sports rash; Snoopy’s family; too cool; shocking admission; special ignorance; quality streak; unarmed man; cartoonists resemble their characters; costumes for an imaginary movie; Dave’s mom update; abuse isn’t just a river in Egypt; but should love hurt; grouch reciprocity; too bloody far; Questions of the Week – Sneakers respond; master of puppets; and, finally, scared quitless.
Question of the Week: Which Peanuts character are you?
Sub-question of the Week: What’s a skill you learned later in life?
Thanks for listening.
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I received Henry Sugar (awkwardly acronymed TWSoHSaSM) in hardcover as a Christmas or birthday gift in 1979, I think. The title story was the standout, of course, but equally vivid were “The Swan” and “The Hitch-Hiker,” one of my favorite short stories of all time. It was adapted into an episode of Tales of the Unexpected, but that was disappointingly altered. In addition to ginning up the antagonism between the driver and hitcher, the latter steals the former’s car in a grating case of putting a hat on a hat. The original twist is plenty satisfying, IMO.
And I hesitate to try and be Joe Cool, but Snoopy is probably me as a Peanuts character. Not really a loner, but fine being alone, creative but not particularly accomplished, perpetually curious and distracted by fantasies and interests. (Side note: Vince Guaraldi himself wrote and sang the lyrics for “Joe Cool” and “Little Birdie.”)
I guess I’m a mix of Linus and Lucy: equal parts security blanket-needing intellectual and crabby fussbudget. Later in life, I learned how to decorate cookies using the “flooding” method and how to sculpt figurines for cakes out of fondant. That has really levelled-up my baking game.
I have no idea how to play the piano but I think I’d have to be somewhere near Schroder since he’s artistically inclined. Were any of the Peanuts visual artists? The way this last month has gone, you’d think I was Charlie Brown…
Hello dear fellows!
Good to be making a long overdue return to the pale green pages of Sneaky Dragon with a bunch of waffle and an overlong word or two for Ian to wrap his tongue around. Really enjoyed this week’s discussion on obscure Peanuts characters, which took me back to a dusty book lined corridor at my Great Aunt’s house, where I slowly worked through their Peanuts paperbacks – the ones where the strip had to be chopped up to read in portrait format. I wonder – which other strips work as well in collection as in strip form? The cumulative effect of reading a bunch of Peanuts in one sitting is a deep and melancholy pleasure. Of course I’m Charlie Brown – aren’t we all?
Obviously I failed to get that one in under the wire, but to continue that thought anyway and answer the question you didn’t ask: If you had asked which Muppet I was I would previously have said Scooter for his combination of wide eyed enthusiasm and glasses. Then last year my 3-year old (who is yet to be indoctrinated into the world of the Muppets) picked up a muppet lego piece and says ‘Looks like Daddy, Daddy!’. Reader – I have reached the age where I am Professor Bunsen Honeydew. There comes a time in every young man’s life when he realises he’s more Doc Brown than Marty. This was my time.