Unpacking Peanuts

Mean Girls 3 - Now 33% Meaner

The gang expands their scope, and looks at mean girls throughout the Peanuts run, including Lucy, Frieda, and Good ol’ Molly Volley. Aaron Forringer's story: https://sho

Mean Girls 2 - How Much is Mean and How Much is Just Life?

Our exploration into the sassiest, snarkiest, twosome in all of Peanuts: Patty (original recipe) and Violet continues. These two may be mean, but they are also hilarious.

Mean Girls 1 - Patty and Violet: Conformity Police

Michael curates a delightfully mean collection of some early Peanuts strips featuring two of Peanuts strongest (and meanest) personalities: the original Patty, and good o

Cartoonists’ Salute to Schulz!

Just five short months after Charles Schulz’s passing, the top cartoonists in the field dedicated a day of their own strips to remembering Sparky. The gang looks at Peanu

With Neil Cohn - Author of Speaking In Pictures

We talk with Neil Cohn, an Eisner-nominated cognitive scientist who looks at how our brains perceive comics. His latest book, Speaking in Pictures, challenges the convent

Charles M. Schulz and the Seven Deadly Sins of Cartooning

In 1980 Legendary Captain Marvel artist C.C. Beck created his personal list of “The Seven Deadly Sins of Comics Creators.” In this episode the gang discuss Beck’s manifes

You Don’t Look 250, Snoopy

The gang celebrates the USA’s birthday by looking at one of the latest iterations of Snoopy’s alter egos…The Revolutionary War patriot. UP Recommends: The American Revo

Sidekicks and Second Bananas Episode 4 - Shermy: Just A Guy Standing There

The straight man of all straight men gets an episode all to himself. Will the gang finally crack the code on this beloved figure of Peanuts past? Transcript available at

Sidekicks and Second Bananas Episode 3 - Roy: A Good Temporary Friend

Finally, it’s come to this: The Roy episode. Roy befriends both Charlie Brown and Linus at camp. And if that’s not exciting enough, old people talk about how neat telepho

Sidekicks and Second Bananas Episode 2: She's Eudorable!

Sally’s pal Eudora finally gets a turn in the spotlight, as the gang revisits her debut sequence from 1978 and finds a fun and unique character who still feels modern.  

Feel a Little Freedom: Snoopy and the Beagle Scouts

We start our look at the bit players in Peanuts in this new season of “Sidekicks and Second Bananas.” In this episode Bill, Olivier, Harriet, Conrad, and Woodstock get to

I’m Just Pretending It Never Happened! The Weirdest Peanuts Strips Ever

The gang takes a cockeyed look at the Peanuts strips that make you go “hmmm.” From Charlie Brown sharpening himself to the beauty of a girl named Truffles, it doesn’t get

The Family Van Pelt Episode 6 - All in the Valley of Death Rode Rerun Van Pelt

Re-Run arrives and struggles to assimilate into the family for the next twenty years. Lucy is still a grouch. Sally still loves Linus. And speaking of consistency, which

Sittin' In the Mailbox #2

It’s a fun-sized mailbag bonus episode! Listeners ask us probing questions like whose is the adorable voice behind our introduction, and tell us stuff we never knew like

The Family Van Pelt Episode 5 - A Really Squiggly Line Around the Word Sigh

Linus is doing the St. Francis shtick, but that doesn’t stop him from playing a mean shortstop. The gang discusses Schulz’s ability to layer contradictory elements to cre

It’s An Anniversary Show, Charlie Brown!

The gang celebrates four years of podcasting about Beagles and Blockheads by looking at a totally random group of Peanuts strips, and even a few non-Peanuts strips too! H

The Family Van Pelt Episode 4 - Old People Who Happen To Like You

Lucy torments Linus with a call to their blanket-hating grandma. She explains that to be a good brother he has to work at it, and he succeeds with a bowl of ice cream. A

The Family Van Pelt Episode 3 - The Goofy Dynamics Between Siblings or Why Linus’s Head is Dented

Linus’s original struggle for security is with Lucy… and was it her blanket originally?! Plus Linus learns the difference between tv and reality in language he can unders

The Family Van Pelt Episode 2 - Big Kids Drive Me Crazy

Linus is bringing out Lucy’s inner Lucy, yet somehow his head remains undented. In this episode, the Van Pelt kids’ personalities are slowly coming into focus… No wonder

The Family Van Pelt Episode 1 - Schulz Tackles a Baby!

It’s a new season on Unpacking Peanuts, as the gang begins a long look at everyone’s favorite venerable grade schoolers: Linus, Lucy, and Rerun Van Pelt. In this first ep