Get Yer Peanuts

Generation after generation has grown up with Charles M. Schulz’s iconic comic strip, Peanuts. We grew to love anxious Charlie Brown, security-blanket-grasping Linus, bossy Lucy, piano-playing Schroeder, little yellow Woodstock and, of course, Snoopy, the beagle with big dreams who usually acted more human than doglike.

While society was turned on its head in the 1960s, Snoopy began developing a rich imaginary life and alternate personas — and, perhaps not so coincidentally, Schulz, who had always wanted to create adventure strips, found an opportunity to expand the Peanuts scope and characters. Sometimes Snoopy was a suspense novelist, coming up with cliched first lines while pecking away at a typewriter. And sometimes he was the Flying Ace, his doghouse transformed into a Sopwith Camel airplane. On October 10, 1965, Snoopy battled the infamous Red Baron for the first time. He continued the fight for decades, sometimes bemusing the Peanuts kids and sometimes drawing them into his fantasy.

Is all of this bringing back memories? Then pack up the family and head for the Boulder History Museum, 1206 Euclid Avenue in Boulder, and check out the Snoopy as the World War I Flying Ace, which is on display through April 30. And if you go this afternoon at 6 p.m., you’ll get a chance to sit in on “Life in the Peanut Factory,” a demonstration and lecture by Emmy-winning animation director and Peanuts animated special veteran Evert Brown. Admission is $6, free for BHM members. The museum is open daily except Mondays; call 303-449-3464 or visit www.boulderhistorymuseum.org for information.
Tue., March 3, 6 p.m., 2009