Good Grief! Charlie Brown is 60
One of the great things we get to do at "Overtime" is look back at all the stories "60 Minutes" has told over the past 40 years and show you a favorite now and then. In this episode, you'll go back to our 1999 report on the cartoonist known as "Sparky."
His characters need no introduction: we all know Snoopy, Linus, Lucy or the other kids in the Peanuts comic strip. But the one person you probably haven't met is the most important Peanuts personality of all: Charles Schulz, the creator of this pen and ink world.
Back in October of 1950, the comic strip Peanuts made its modest debut in all of seven newspapers. Today Peanuts lives on, re-run in more than 2,200 newspapers across 75 countries in 21 languages. 60 years have passed, and Charlie Brown is still trying to kick the football, thanks to the genius and total insecurity of Schulz. Peanuts' 60th is a milestone being celebrated from the Smithsonian Museum all the way to social media sites, where you can count down to the Great Pumpkin from now until Halloween.
In this story, you'll hear the touching real-life story behind the Little Red-Haired Girl. You'll see Schulz in action at his drawing board, and you'll hear why he never took suggestions or ideas from anyone.
Schulz passed away in February of 2000. Let us re-introduce you to the man behind Charlie Brown.