Peanuts (1997 adult TV series)

Peanuts is an American adult animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, loosely based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip of the same name, and developed by Brian Graden for the two television networks, FOX and Comedy Central. The show revolves around the five main characters Snoopy, Charlie, Sally, Linus and Lucy and their bizarre adventures in and around their hometown, South Park.

Parker and Stone loosely developed the show from The Spirit of Christmas, two consecutive animated shorts created in 1992 and 1995. The latter became one of the first Internet viral videos, ultimately leading to Peanuts' production, boughting the rights to the strip from Schulz. It debuted in August 1997 with great success, consistently earning the highest ratings of any basic cable program. Subsequent ratings have varied but it remains one of Comedy Central's highest rated shows, and is slated to air through at least 2019.

In one of his last interviews, Schulz said he always disliked the series because of its mature humor and strong language (two things that he never used in his strips). But then again, he decided not to say another word during its success.

Premise
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Setting and characters
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Main

 * Snoopy (John Kricfalusi) - A beagle and the main protagonist. Unlike other dogs, he's able to speak with humans and do things that humans would do, like cooking, building, raping women, killing some bully's parents and making him eating in hot sauce, driving wildy and having trouble with the police.
 * Charlie Brown (Matt Stone) - A bald boy and one of Snoopy's owners, he is is a third- then fourth-grade student who commonly has extraordinary experiences not typical of conventional small-town life in his hometown of South Park. In many episodes, Charlie contemplates ethics in beliefs, moral dilemmas, and contentious issues, and will often reflect on the lessons he has attained with a speech that often begins with "You know, I learned something today...".
 * Sally Brown (Mary Kay Bergman in 1997-1999, Eliza Schneider in 1999-2003, and April Stewart in 2004–present) - Charlie's sister and one of Snoopy's owners. In some instances, Sally is the only child in her class to not initially indulge in a fad or fall victim to a ploy. This has resulted in both her eagerness to fit in, and her resentment and frustration. She has an obsessive crush over Linus, even though he doesn't feel the same way.
 * Linus van Pelt (Trey Parker) - a immature boy. He carries around a light blue blanket which is his most valued possession. He runs a lemonade stand.
 * Lucy van Pelt (Mary Kay Bergman in 1997-1999, Eliza Schneider in 1999-2003, and April Stewart in 2004–present) - Linus' older sister. She is a tough girl not to be messed with. Other children and classmates are alienated by Lucy's insensitive, racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, misogynistic, self-righteous, and wildly insecure behavior. Lucy often makes anti-semitic insults towards Sally, particularly manipulates and mistreats Butters Stotch and Kenny McCormick and displays an extreme disdain for hippies, but she always recives consecuences for that. As a recurring gag, she is usually arrested for crimes she commits.
 * Leopold "Butters" Stotch (Matt Stone) - A cheerful, naive, optimistic, sweet-natured, gullible and more passive relative to the show's other child characters, and can become increasingly anxious, especially when faced with the likelihood of his father's punishments, which is usually being grounded, usually for no good reason, such as when Butters threatened to "kill" himself as part of a scheme by Snoopy, Charlie, Sally, Linus and Lucy, and his father said he would ground him for two weeks if he came down. He once becomed a part of the group when Snoopy resquested a sixth member for the group, but eventually gets ousted and vengefully adopts his super-villain alter ego of Professor Chaos, whom, in spite of his name, only seems to be able to screw things up that either nobody takes notice of, or can be easily resolved. Despite this, Butters continues to be a major character in recent seasons.
 * Spike (Trey Parker) - Snoopy's brother. He is a drug adict and a idiot. He speaks like a beatnik, and is usually seen either annonying to humans or, more often, getting high on cannabis and voicing his permanent confusion. He usually stars in episodes where the other six main characters make a minor role or not appear.

Secondary

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Episodes
Peanuts (1997-present adult TV show)/Episodes

Beginnings: 1989-1992
An idea for a new Peanuts animated sitcom was envisioned as early as 1984. And in March 1989, production began on a new short about Native American History, featuring the prototype characters. The animation was done with cutout construction paper and the audio was recorded on audio tape, thus mixing the tracks onto 8mm film. The short was successful in-between mixed reviews and it did not really establish the Peanuts characters yet. At this point, Lucy and Linus were originally portrayed here as unnamed original characters. The brother had childlike innocence as Linus in the latter show, while the sister had no trace of crabbiness or being madly obsessed with Schroeder at all. This short cast the two as a polite Native American sister and brother trying to make friends with the Puritans.

In late 1990, Parker and Stone began work on another short film. This time they bought the rights to Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip and wrote down the storyline for a short entitled "The Spirit of Christmas". They animated the film using only construction paper, glue and a very old 8 mm film camera, and premiered it at the December 1992 student film screening. The film features four children very similar in appearance to three of the four main characters of Peanuts, including a character resembling Lucy but called "Penny", a kid resembling Linus and two others similar in appearance and voice to Charlie and Sally Brown.

Development of the show: 1995-1997
In 1995, after seeing the The Spirit of Christmas film, FOX executive Brian Graden paid Stone and Parker $1,000 to make another animated short as a video Christmas card that he could send to friends. In turn, the duo created Jesus vs. Santa.

Graden initially distributed the video to eighty friends in December 1995. After months' being passed around on bootleg video and the Internet, the film caught the attention of cable network Comedy Central, which hired the pair to develop the series, which premiered in the United States with the episodes "Snoopy go to Mars" and "Lucy Gets an Anal Probe" on August 13, 1997.

This version of The Spirit of Christmas features an animation style very similar to Charles M. Schulz's original drawing style, which it is used in the eventual Peanuts series, as well as more developed versions of Snoopy, Charlie, Sally, Lucy and Linus (each of whom are referred to by name) living in South Park. Recurring characters Wendy Testaburger and Kenny McCormick appear unnamed in a non-speaking role as children sitting on Santa's lap. The film largely establishes the characters as they are used in the show and contains elements that recur in the series, such as Snoopy speaking, Charlie and Sally being part Jewish and rats eating Kenny McCormick's corpse. The film reportedly had a budget of $750, with Parker and Stone keeping the remainder of their commission.

Production
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Animation
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Voice cast

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Guest stars

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Music
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Title sequence
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Distribution
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Episodes
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International
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Syndication
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Home media
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Streaming
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Re-rendered episodes
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Reception
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Ratings
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Recognitions and awards
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Criticism
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Controversies
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Influence
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Cultural
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Political
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Films
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Shorts
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Music
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Video games
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Merchandising
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Trivia

 * This is what Peanuts and South Park would be the same show.
 * In this show, Snoopy is the main protagonist instead of Charlie, and is able to speak, act as a human and is a crazy adult companion to the four kids, being self-centered, self-interested, devious, cheated, and ridiculed.
 * Unlike the comics, Charlie is now called "Charlie" rather than "Charlie Brown".
 * Also, he is not unlucky anymore. His famous unlucky gags (Football, Kite and Baseball) are drooped. In Lucy's Silly Hate Crime 2000, it was revealed that Lucy does not pull her football prank anymore, after Charlie revengefully kicked her instead, making her fly right into the Pumpkin Patch.
 * John Kricfalusi (the voice actor for Snoopy)'s company Spümco worked with the series (adding his character George Liquor as a recurring character), until its closedown in 2005, but with Kricfalusi still vocing Snoopy.
 * In this series, Sally and Lucy are rivals (since they are in the respective roles of Kyle and Cartman).
 * Spike, Snoopy's brother, is also the star of some episodes (such as A Million Little Fibers, Sponsored Content, Truth and Advertising and PC Principal Final Justice), as well as webisodes.