Peanuts: Oct. 2nd, 1955 (partially lost newspaper comic strip; 1955)
The version of the strip widely available today.
Status: Partially Lost
Peanuts was an American comic strip series created by Charles M. Schulz that lasted from October 2nd, 1950 to February 13th, 2000, the day after Schulz's death. The series is one of the longest-running and arguably the greatest comic strip series of all time, creating numerous popular characters such as Charlie Brown and Snoopy, as well as inspiring numerous future cartoon and comic creators such as Matt Groening and Bill Watterson. Due to this iconography, all of the original Peanuts strips are held in high regard and are generally all well preserved, with one exception.
The strip dated October 2nd, 1955 sees Linus, another major character in the strips, attempting to kick an American football numerous times without success. His numerous failures end up infuriating him so much that when he finally throws the football, he causes it to deflate in one of the other players' hands. This strip, along with all of Schulz's other larger strips from that era, had the top group of panels removed when it was published in various newspapers at the time. All of these strips eventually ended up eventually being published in their entirety through the various The Complete Peanuts books released between May 2004 and November 2016. What made this strip different from the rest, however, was how, although the unpublished panels for it could be retrieved, the title panel for it could not, and so it was replaced with Archival Grass, a generic piece of art used when nothing else is available. Due to it never being published, as well as the fact that it is over 60 years old, the original title panel seems unlikely to resurface, though due to Peanuts widespread popularity, there is still a chance.
See Also
TV
- Peanuts (partially found sponsorship ads of animated specials based on comic strip; 1965-1970s)
- It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (found original music recordings of animated Halloween TV special; 1966)
- A Charlie Brown Christmas (non-existent "laugh track cut" of Christmas special; 1965)
Video Games
- Snoopy Flying Ace (found Xbox 360 dogfight game based on "Peanuts"; 2010)
- Charlie Brown's All-Stars (lost build of cancelled Peanuts PlayStation 2/PlayStation Portable baseball game; 2007)