October 4 – Snoopy's Debut

nPostednon October 4, 2015

nWow,nSnoopy’s been around for 65 years now!

nDoingnhis dance, flying his doghouse, giving Lucy sloppy cheek kisses,nstealing Linus’s blanket, and thinking complex thought-balloons.

nOnnthis date in 1950, Snoopy first appeared like this:

nLater,nSnoopy appeared in various and sundry forms (sometimes imaginingnhimself as a World War I flying ace, or Joe Cool, or _____ [fill innthe blank]).

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nThere were only two days of Peanut’s stripsnbefore Snoopy was introduced – because a boy’s dog comesnpretty near the top of the list in importance! Innreality, the lovable beagle is based on cartoonist Charles M. Shulz’snchildhood pet, Spike.

This Snoopy Astronaut statue made its
appearance at the Kennedy Space Center.

nInterestingly,nthe Apollo 10 lunar module was named Snoopy, and the command modulenCharlie Brown. The two characters were semi-official mascots for thenmission.

Actually, Snoopy became the official mascot ofnaerospace safety after the Apollo 1 fire tragically took threenastronauts’ lives. The Silver Snoopy award is a special NASA honorngiven by an astronaut to someone working in the space program thatnhas gone “above and beyond” duty to make sure space explorationnis as safe as possible.

nListenn to Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.

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nWatchn Snoopy vs. the Red Baronn from “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” (No singing, but an little bit of WWI music, and lots of pretend play.)

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