Charles Schulz Has Earned More Than Peanuts
According to Forbes magazine’s list of highest-paid entertainers, Charles Schulz’s gross income for 1994-1995 was $36 million. That puts him behind Steven Spielberg but ahead of Elton John. Schulz laughs at that figure. A million a month is more likely, though he’s not verifying that either.
Another oft-quoted figure he might laugh at: Licensing and sale of Peanuts merchandise is worth $1 billion a year. (Eighty percent of Schulz’s income reportedly comes from merchandising.)
The Peanuts gang has appeared in 40 animated television specials; in more than 1,400 books selling 300 million copies, four feature films, a Broadway play and on thousands of products.
The TV specials have been watched by 4.4 billion viewers.
Schulz has five Emmy awards, two Peabody awards and two Reubens (presented by the National Cartoonists Society).
SCHULZ FACTS
Shortly after Charles Schulz was born, his uncle began calling him Sparky, after the horse Sparkplug in the comic strip “Barney Google.”
Schulz doesn’t care for the name of his strip. He would have preferred to call it “Charlie Brown,” “Snoopy” or “some other thing.”
The first strip, run in the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1947, was called “Li’l Folks.”
His first published work - he was 14 - was a primitive drawing of his dog, Spike, for a 1937 edition of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” The believe-it-or-not part: “A hunting dog that eats pins, tacks and razor blades.”
Schulz spent a year of his childhood in Needles, Calif. That, of course, is where Snoopy’s brother, Spike, lives.
Schulz is in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and the Cartoonists Hall of Fame.
Schulz owns four pairs of Rollerblades and two Zambonis.
He plays hockey every Tuesday night.
He has five children and 14 grandchildren.
These days Schulz drives a red Mercedes, license plate WDSTK-1.
The Radio 914 pen point he uses to ink his strip is now out of production. He has bought up all available points to assure himself a lifetime supply.
His three heroes: President Dwight D. Eisenhower, golf player Sam Snead and tennis player Billie Jean King.
Schulz’s original artwork has never been sold. In fact, he doesn’t even send originals to his syndicate anymore. He keeps them.
Charlie Brown died a miserable death, of cancer, at 57. He had been a very close friend in Schulz’s early adulthood. Linus Maurer and Frieda Rich also were early pals. Schroeder was a guy who caddied with Schulz before the war. Snoopy, Sally and Lucy were names he made up.
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