Looking at The Complete Peanuts 1969-1970, and Peppermint Patty’s neighborhood

In this, the latest volume of the series, things really start to shift, and we can see hints of the sad Peanuts of the 1980s and 1990s: Shermy, Patty and Violet barely appear, and Pig-Pen doesn’t appear at all; Woodstock gets his name; Peppermint Patty becomes a regular; and Snoopy really begins to dominate—becoming an ice skater, searching for his mother, staying with Lucy and Linus while the Browns are on vacation, beginning his novel, being summoned before the Head Beagle, becoming the Head Beagle, giving a speech at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, selling some land to the airport, wearing a copper bracelet to cure his arthritis, trying to help Woodstock go south for the winter, and escorting Peppermint Patty to a school dance. This is also when Peppermint Patty, who had always lived on the other side of town, appearing in the strip only occasionally, begins to just be there, without explanation.

In June of 1965, Charlie Brown went to summer camp and met a boy named Roy. Roy next appears a year later, when Linus goes to camp and also meets him. On August 22, 1966, Roy’s friend Peppermint Patty makes her first appearance, looking over Roy’s shoulder as he writes a letter to Linus. The next day, Roy mentions Charlie Brown and his horrible baseball team, and Peppermint Patty urges Roy to call him and tell him that she’ll be coming to help him out. Over the next two weeks, she heads “across town,” meets the team (establishing the recurring jokes of her calling Charlie Brown and Lucy “Chuck” and “Lucille” and thinking Snoopy is human), takes over as pitcher, gets discouraged with the ineptitude of the team (except Snoopy) and goes back home. In October Peppermint Patty receives a letter from Linus about the Great Pumpkin, reads it to Roy, then calls Linus, who sets off across town (with Snoopy) to enlighten her further. After Linus and Snoopy return home, she buys some pumpkins at a fruit stand to simulate a pumpkin patch, Roy accuses her of hypocrisy, she calls Linus for religious advice, then on Halloween sits in her “pumpkin patch” until after midnight without result. We next see her in a stand-alone strip in December where she is writing a letter to Santa that could just have easily been written by Charlie Brown, Linus or Sally—but apparently Schulz, who was obviously smitten with his new character, wanted to move her into a spot in the regular cast.

She next appears in March 1967, when she calls Charlie Brown to tell him she’s found him a great new player, secondbaseman Jose’ Peterson. They come over and join the team, but the next week they decide to go back home and form a team in their own neighborhood. On Sunday, April 23, Roy appears in line at a movie theater with Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Shermy and Pig-Pen—perhaps the theater was in the center of town. In June, Charlie Brown goes back to summer camp, this time with Snoopy, and runs into both Roy and Peppermint Patty. On Sunday, September 24, Peppermint Patty is one of a series of characters—the others are Snoopy, Violet, Linus, Schroeder and Charlie Brown—whom Lucy asks to sign a document absolving her of all blame. In November, Charlie Brown calls Peppermint Patty to ask if she’s interested in making a trade between their teams; she offers him five players for Snoopy and he agrees, but then he feels guilty and tears up the contract, as meanwhile the five players tell Peppermint Patty that “they ‘d give up baseball before they’d play on your team!”

In 1968, she makes a single-strip appearance in March, telling Charlie Brown that their teams are scheduled to meet twelve times in the coming season. On Sunday, June 16, she and Roy appear in a Father’s Day strip. Then, starting the next day, she begins her first extended sequence as the central character, as she says goodbye to Roy and heads off to summer camp. Other than a brief appearance by Snoopy at the end of the two-week story, the only other characters are new, the girls in Peppermint Patty’s tent—one of whom is a prototype for Marcie named Clara. In July, Charlie Brown goes to the beach and meets Franklin, who will later be part of Peppermint Patty’s “other side of town” group. In October Franklin comes to Charlie Brown’s neighborhood for a visit, but is scared off by the odd characters he encounters; then on Sunday, October 20, he appears in a movie line strip, along with Charlie Brown, 5’s sisters 3 and 4 (who have been immortalized in the Charlie Brown Christmas dance scene), Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Sally and Schroeder. Then, in December, there is a week of Peppermint Patty strips, during which she calls Charlie Brown for his address, walks to school with Roy, sits in class with Roy, and feeds a bird in the snow.

Which brings us to the 1969-70 volume. In January 1969 Peppermint Patty runs into Snoopy at a frozen pond and becomes his ice-skating partner, as he plans their entry in the North American Championships. In February, Charlie Brown and Linus are seen as members of the same class at school, contradicting the previously-established fact that Linus was younger than his sister Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the others (does this mean Lucy is now older than the rest of the kids?). On April 22, Peppermint Patty arrives at the baseball field and tells Charlie Brown that her team is going to have to forfeit the game to his team because too many of her players are sick. The next day, Franklin calls Charlie Brown and tells him that his team has to forfeit too. The day after that, Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown are talking at the field and she tells him that she could have beat his team all by herself but she “didn’t want to make a fool of you.” We next see her in September, when she’s sitting on the curb with Charlie Brown and suggests that he get a football team together to play her team. Charlie Brown has some trouble getting a team together, but Snoopy and some birds show up to play Peppermint Patty’s team (which includes Roy, Franklin, and Jose’ Peterson) and beat them, with Peppermint Patty not only thinking Snoopy is human but the birds as well. Over the weekend of November 1-2, she wonders what to do with her pumpkin after Halloween, and tries to give it to Franklin and Roy before calling Charlie Brown on the phone. A week later she appears in three unrelated strips: On Monday, she and Roy are walking home from school; on Wednesday, she and Franklin are sitting in class; and on Friday she and Charlie Brown are walking and talking. Still in November, there’s one strip with Franklin and Roy talking as they walk to the movies; and in December, Peppermint Patty appears solo in one strip, set in class.

In January 1970, Snoopy is sent for by the head beagle, and on his way he passes Peppermint Patty on the street but walks right past because he has “no time for girls.” A few weeks later there are eight straight days of Peppermint Patty strips—she sits with Franklin in class, is sent for by the principal, comes back to class, from home calls Charlie Brown to ask for advice (she’s been told she can’t wear sandals to school anymore), and talks about it (in person) to Snoopy and Linus; then, after a Sunday bird-feeding interlude, comes to class on Monday in shoes and talks to Franklin. Starting in mid-February there is an extended sequence where Snoopy is named head beagle, then comes to regret taking the job; on March 6 he disappears, and when Linus and Lucy wonder where he could have gone, Charlie Brown calls Peppermint Patty and we see that Snoopy is with her. Charlie Brown takes a letter for Snoopy to her house, where Snoopy reads it and finds that he has been replaced as head beagle, after which he goes back home. We next see Peppermint Patty on Sunday, April 26, when she, Snoopy and Woodstock (about two months before he receives his name) are walking in the rain with umbrellas. She appears just once in May, when Charlie Brown catches her telling Snoopy and Woodstock scary vampire stories. On June 1, she calls Charlie Brown to ask if one of her players can borrow his glove; he agrees, and Sally asks him, “You’re going to walk clear across town to lend someone your baseball glove?” When he gets there, Peppermint Patty gives the glove to Thibault, a short, sullen, sideburned kid, and after winning the game Thibault refuses to return it, saying, “I know your kind! You come around here thinking you’re better than us!”—this makes Charlie Brown feel so good that he lets him keep the glove. After a June Sunday movie theater strip where Franklin is in line with Patty (original Patty, not Peppermint), Violet, Linus, Sally and Snoopy, we don’t see anyone from that side of town until a late-September Sunday strip with Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown talking. The following Sunday, Peppermint Patty calls Charlie Brown to come over and see her birthday present from her dad, and the day after that Snoopy comes upon her sitting on the ground, looking sad, and he kisses her. Then, in late October, there are two days of Peppermint Patty in school, one of them with Franklin. Two weeks later, a sequence begins with Snoopy where Woodstock is having trouble flying south for the winter, so Snoopy decides to walk south with him. Peppermint Patty sees them walking past her house and calls Charlie Brown—now she recognizes that Woodstock is a bird but still thinks Snoopy is a person. They get lost and a strange girl finds Snoopy and ties him up; he starts howling and Charlie Brown and Linus hear him—it seems he had only gotten two blocks from home, which suggests that Peppermint Patty no longer lives “clear across town.” Next comes a Sunday strip on November 22, where Peppermint Patty is watching TV and first Charlie Brown and then Snoopy walk into the room (there was a long history in Peanuts of the kids seemingly making themselves at home in each other’s houses, and frequently it was unclear whose house they were in). The next day Peppermint Patty and Franklin are in school, and the following Monday a week-long sequence begins with Peppermint Patty inviting Snoopy to a school dance; there is no indication whether it is the same school that Charlie Brown and the others go to, but no other familiar characters appear in these strips. Sunday, December 6, is another Peppermint Patty and Franklin in school strip, which is the last appearance of the year for them.

At this point Schulz was still keeping Peppermint Patty and her friends separate from the other characters when at school, but otherwise he used her however he saw fit; eventually she and Charlie Brown would start being seen in the same classroom and her move across town would be complete.