Snoopy and Woodstock in 'The Snoopy Show' in 2021.Credit :
Apple TV+/Everett
- Charles M. Schulz introduced Snoopy in the Peanuts comics in 1950, and he soon became a breakout star
- Snoopy is seemingly more popular than ever, with Gen Z fans flocking to shares memes and buy merch featuring the iconic dog
- Experts talk to PEOPLE about why Snoopy has found his way into the hearts of generations of people, particularly around the holidays
He’s white with black ears, he can’t talk and he’s one of the most beloved cartoons in the whole world. He’s Snoopy.
Charles M. Schulz (who widely used the nickname “Sparky”) began writing and drawing Peanuts as a daily cartoon strip in 1950, starring a boy named Charlie Brown. In the third-ever strip, readers were introduced to Charlie’s dog, Snoopy, a Beagle who could be fun-loving, cunning, sharp, comforting, self-obsessed, considerate and everything else in between.
Schulz would add an array of characters to the Peanuts gang, but all these decades later, it’s Snoopy who has the loudest, proudest fan base. And while some parts of the past have struggled to adapt to the Internet age, Snoopy is more popular than ever.
In the winter of 2023, Snoopy went viral thanks to a plush sold at CVS of the pup in a puffer jacket and hat. Soon, puffer jacket Snoopy was everywhere — on socks, sweaters, backpacks and more. The character is generally a major hit online, with dedicated meme pages and 2 million followers on his own TikTok account. In 2023, he even brought some levity to Bradley Cooper’s movie Maestro.
And though Snoopy is popular year-round, Melissa Menta, senior vice president of marketing and communications for Peanuts Worldwide, tells PEOPLE that if you most associate the Peanuts gang with the end of the year, that’s not surprising. The company calls the time from Halloween — and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown — through Christmas the “Super Bowl of Peanuts.”
Menta says that 1965’s A Charlie Brown Christmas marked the beginning of fans associating Peanuts with the fall. “It's a testament to Charles Schulz, Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, the three creators of a Charlie Brown Christmas,” she explains. “It truly was destination viewing for the entire U.S. when it debuted.” The special’s jazz soundtrack, created by Vince Guaraldi, also became an indelible part of the holiday season for many Americans. Great Pumpkin followed the next year, and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving came in 1973.
But why Snoopy, and why is he so big now? Roy Schwartz, a pop culture historian and journalist, tells PEOPLE in an email, “Snoopy never really went anywhere. He’s still a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, still found in every toy store, still (after a break) a mascot for MetLife.” But as for his newly charged popularity, he credits social media and its ability to spread something far and wide: “And Snoopy has always been versatile, with a variety of moods, expressions, outfits and scenarios over the decades, which makes him perfect for memes and GIFs.”
“I also think that, as a cute but irreverent dog, he fits the Kawaii culture that’s mainstreamed among Gen Zers,” he explains. “And if you want to dig deeper, I’d also say that he’s an icon of nostalgia, of a comforting yesteryear, which is a big part of current Gen Z and millennial culture.”
Harold Buchholz, a cartoonist and the co-host of the Un-Packing Peanuts podcast, explains that Snoopy’s meme-ability is in part because of how Schulz would draw the canine hero. He and the other Peanuts characters are drawn in really simple shapes that help make them “iconic.” But he points out that if you look closely at Snoopy, Schulz would draw him differently in different situations. “When he’s lying on the dog house, lying on his back, he’s massive, and then if he’s sitting down, he’s tiny ... What Schulz seemed to instinctively know is that we know it’s Snoopy no matter how he’s drawn. He chooses the most appealing, iconic drawing he can. He breaks all the rules of Snoopy’s physics. I’m sure he drove all the animators crazy.”
Buchholz says some of Snoopy’s appeal boils down to the way Schulz drew him. “It’s a lot easier for us, strangely, to identify with something that is so simply boiled down to the little nose and eyes and ears. Snoopy is potentially open to anybody to experience instantly and relate to.”
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