Part of the Peanuts gang. From left to right: Franklin, Lucy, Snoopy, Linus, Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Lucy.
The main cast of the Perishers. From left to right: Maisie, Wellington, Boot, Marlon, Baby Grumpling.
I thought it would be interesting to compare the cartoons strips ‘Peanuts’ and ‘The Perishers’. Both were highly popular strips and the the Perishers certainly owed a lot to it’s American cousins.
The Perishers appeared seven years after Peanuts and took a lot of inspiration from it, and here are quite a few connections between the two strips.
First of all a bit of background.
The Perishers
The first strip from 19 October 1959.
The Perishers first appeared in the British Daily Mirror newspaper in 1957. It was written by Maurice Dodd and drawn at first by Dennis Collins, and then later by Bill Melvin and even Dodd himself. The strip continued until the death of Dodd in 2006.
Maurice Dodd, with Boot on the drawing board.
Peanuts
The first strip from October 2, 1950. From left to right: Charlie Brown, Shermy, and Patty
The name Charlie Brown and a dog similar to Snoopy, first appeared in the Li’l Folks cartoon Strip that Charlie’s Schultz ran in a local newspapers from 1947 to 1950.
Due to a name dispute with another cartoon strip, the strip changed its name to Peanuts when it was picked up by the United Features Syndicate to be distributed around the US, and later the world. Schultz always hated the name Peanuts and regarded it as a source of humitlation.
Charles Schultz at the drawing board.
Schultz both wrote and drew the strip himself.
Peanuts is of course known and loved throughout the world, and continues to be popular. whereas The Perishers was largely restricted to the UK and hasn’t stayed in public consciousness much since it’s end in 2006.
Both strips featured a cast of kids with dogs featuring prominently. Adults rarely if ever intruded into the world.
Both strips could get quite philosophical at times, although with the Perishers it all seemed to be more tongue in cheek. They also occasionally veered into politics. The Perishers had the interesting dynamic of the characters seeming quite conservative, and yet the newspaper they appeared in, The Daily Mirror, was very left-leaning.
I thought it would be fun to compare and contrast some of the characters. Let’s look at some of the pairings from the respective casts.
Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Wellington and Boot
For Charlie Brown and Snoopy read Wellington and Boot.
Both boys have loyal, if somewhat independently-minded dogs - Snoopy the Beagle and Boot the Old English Sheepdog.
Snoopy has his on/off Pal Woodstock, whereas Boot frequently encounters a variety of other dogs and other creatures.
Snoopy fantasises himself as a World War I flying ace, whereas Boot regards himself as the reincarnation of an aristocrat.
Lucy and Maisie
Charlie Brown and Wellington both have to put up with bossy girls in the form of Lucy and Maisie.
These two could easily be twins with their shared bossiness, frequent bursts of anger, and violent thoughts.
I even think they look quite alike!
An ongoing storyline in The Perishers was Maisie’s pursuit of Marlon, who is featured below.
Peppermint Patty and Marlon
Both strips prominently feature two characters that always seem to be a beat or two behind the others: Peppermint Patty in Peanuts, and Marlon in The Perishers
Peppermint Patty is noted for her persistent habit of profoundly misunderstanding basic concepts and ideas that most people would consider obvious. She always seems to get a ‘D’ in class.
Marlon is definitely not the sharpest kid around. He enjoys inventing things, however, most of his inventions have already been done, such as the wheel, the horse and cart... Marlon‘ said most famous invention is the inch-thick ketchup sandwich
Supporting Characters
Both strips employed quite extensive supporting casts. Here are a few of the more regular ones for both strips.
Peanuts
Sally Brown
Younger sister of Charlie Brown.
Schroeder
Music lover and almost always featured playing on his toy piano.
Marcie is bookish, and a good student.[70] Schulz described her as relatively perceptive compared to other characters, stating that "she sees the truth in things".[71] The writer Laura Bradley identified her role as "the unassuming one with sage-like insights".[74]
Pig-Pen
A really City boy, usually surrounded by a cloud of dust.
Franklin
A character introduced to represent African American kids.
Marcie
Friends with Peppermint Paty and pretty much her opposite in approach to school.
The Perishers
Beryl Bogey
A ‘friend’ of Maisie’s. A big girl used as an enforcer.
Dirty McSquirty
The Perishers’s equivalent of Pig-Pen. He’s always accompanied by a cloud of flies.
Fiscal Yere
A millionaire’s son. He’s always complaining about being rich.
The writer Maurice Dodd once said that he introduced an Old English sheepdog character (Boot) and ended up getting one himself. He then had Wellington develop an income by making buggies (go-karts) and ended up getting one himself. He then introduced a rich kid. It didn’t work.
B.H. Calcutta (failed)
A bloodhound with no sense of smell. This is the closest Boot got to a regular sidekick.
The Crabs
Every year the kids go off to eye seaside on a camping holiday. Boot explores the rock pools and the crabs within it regard him as some sort of God, ‘The eyes in the sky’. Evidently some of these storylines would go on for quite a few strips, resulting in occasional complaints from the editor as to when it was going to feature the kids again.
Setting
The Perishers
The strip is set in a fairly drab rundown looking town supposedly in London. Some of the backgrounds resemble more of a northern industrial town though.
Peanuts
It is debatable where the strip is set, however, it has eluded to being set in Minnesota.
Backgrounds
Peanuts generally kept things fairly simple.
The Perishers on the other hand sometimes went for very elaborate and detailed backgrounds, often in the form of polyptichs, which are a single continuous background divided into two or more panels.