Snoopy!!!
Extras
Sparky's Revenge...
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on November 26th, 1922, Schulz was nicknamed 'Sparky' after Barney Google's horse 'Sparkplug.' His fascination with comic strips began early, reading the Sunday comics from four different newspapers with his father each week. With encouragement from his father, a barber, and his mother, Schulz enrolled in a correspondence course in cartooning at what is now the Art Instruction Schools, Inc., in Minneapolis.
His career in cartooning was interrupted in 1943 when he was drafted into the Army and he soon embarked for Europe in the fight against Germany. Upon his return, Schulz landed his first job in cartooning at Timeless Topix, a Catholic comic magazine. Soon after, he took on a second job as a teacher at Art Instruction, where he worked with Charlie Brown, Linus and Frieda, who later lent their names to the Peanuts comic strip.
Schulz' first break came in 1947 when he sold a cartoon feature called 'Li'l Folks' to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. 'Li'l Folks' ran as a weekly feature for two years. In 1948 he sold a cartoon panel to the Saturday Evening Post and would go on to sell 15 more panels between 1948-50.
In 1950, after many mailbox rejections, Schulz boarded a train from St. Paul to New York with a handful of drawings for a meeting with United Feature Syndicate. On October 2nd of that year, Peanuts, named by the syndicate, debuted in seven newspapers. When asked if he thought the strip would be a success, Schulz replied, 'Sure, I thought it would last, in fact, when I started out I thought, "I'll be drawing this for the rest of my life." '
More than 40 years later, Peanuts appears in 2,400 newspapers worldwide and Charles M. Schulz has become a household name. The strip has maintained its universal appeal throughout four distinctly different decades as it heads into its fifth. 'As a youngster, I didn't realise how many Charlie Browns there were in the world,' said Schulz. 'I thought I was the only one. Now I realise that Charlie Brown's goofs are familiar to everybody, adults and children alike.'
Unlike many cartoonists, Schulz draws every comic strip without the assistance of an art staff. More than 14,000 comic strips later, Schulz remains dedicated to Peanuts. 'Why do musicians compose symphonies and poets write poems?' asks Schulz. 'They do it because life wouldn't have any meaning for them if they didn't. That's why I draw cartoons. It's my life.' Among numerous honours, Schulz has received two Reuben Awards from the National Cartoonists Society (Outstanding Cartoonist and Best Humour Strip), and has been inducted into the Cartoonists Hall of Fame.
Working six weeks ahead on daily and Sunday strips, Schulz also writes the scripts and storyboards for the Peanuts television specials, earning five Emmy and two Peabody Awards, and is involved in all aspects of the Peanuts publishing and licensing programs through United Media in New York. His company, Creative Associates, was formed in 1970 to handle his business affairs and assist in maintaining the high quality standards associated with Peanuts.
Snoopy!!! The Musical is a collaborative product based on the comic strip Peanuts, indeed most of the dialogue is lifted directly from the Schultz strips.
The score itself is the combined work of composer Larry Grossman and lyricist Hal Hackaday. Many of the songs, including The Vigil, Poor Sweet Baby, and Anything Less are simply expansions of the original Schultz strips. Many of the pieces of underscoring are based on themes exposed in the musical numbers, though the ragtime Woodstock's Theme is used solely for this character. During Act I several Schultz strips are pinned together with 'orchestra punctuation' aptly named Sparky's Revenge in the Piano Conductor Score.
Grossman and Hackaday have also worked collaboratively on the musicals Minnie's Boys, and Goodtime Charley, a comedy based on Joan of Arc, including the typically 1970's songs Why can't we all be Nice and All she can do is say No. Originally an unwieldy three-and-a-half hours long, the show has recently be revived in a shorter, more compact version.
