1980-1984: Before the Football Kneels Lucy
26. November 16, 1980
Last year's promise has been forgotten (or ignored), kind of. Lucy does not offer her proposal to Charlie Brown in 1980 (unlike almost every year save 1974, and some of the 1950s strips), and Charlie Brown is silent through most of this strip. The "football" only gets mentioned in the final panel. Instead, Lucy returns to scripture. The first panel shows us Lucy looking at the football, which she has ready for Charlie Brown to kick. She says "Ecclesiastes . . Third chapter . ." Lucy is alone in this panel. Is she talking to the football? to herself? to readers? In the second panel, Lucy is holding the football when Charlie Brown walks in. Lucy has not called him this year; she does not sing out his name to get his attention. When Charlie Brown appears, Lucy simply says "Ah! Just the person I wanted to see." Charlie Brown has no response. Lucy begins her recitation of Ecclesiastes 3 in the next panel, and she directly addresses it to Charlie Brown. "'To every thing there is a season.' Charlie Brown . . ." He looks at her but does not respond. Lucy continues with the verse as Charlie Brown turns and walks away from the football. "A time to be born, and a time to die." Lucy continues with one finger of her right hand on the football, one finger of her left hand pointing upward; her eyes are closed as she recites. The view draws back in the next panel, as Charlie Brown stops and Lucy continues with "A time to weep and a time to laugh . ." This view has rarely been presented. Usually, when Charlie Brown turns toward the football, we can not see how close or far he is from it. Usually, we only see this distance closing as Charlie Brown runs toward the football. But here, in the panel, the distance does not look all that great; Charlie Brown is at most ten steps from the football. He is still silent. As he runs up, he looks determined but he does exult; he does not claim that he is about to kick the ball to the moon, or out of the universe. It is almost as if he does not want to interrupt Lucy's recitation, which continues "A time of war, and a time of peace" Charlie Brown's first, and only, word in this strip, is his involuntary "Aaugh!" as he flies through the air after missing the football. "Wham!" Lucy is done reciting, but she adds her own line in the final panel, as she looks down on a prone, frowning Charlie Brown, who looks out at us. "And a time to pull away the football" The time to pull away the football, of course, is in the moment when Charlie Brown has committed to kicking it, the moment when he cannot stop, but also the moment when he will miss the ball. If Lucy pulls the ball away too soon, Charlie Brown will presumably stop. If Lucy waits too long, Charlie Brown will presumably kick the football (or her hand, as we saw last year). Lucy is precise in her timing.
But what about the broader sense of time she appeals to in invoking Ecclesiastes 3, when she says "'To everything there is a season?'" Why does she directly address these lines to Charlie Brown? She must be referring to the recurring time of the football routine, and not just the moment when she pulls the football away. Over the more than forty years of this routine, the majority of the football strips--23-- happen in October. 12 happen in September; a mere one happens in December (and that was December 16, 1956, only the second appearance of the football routine, and thus, its first recurrence); only one happens in August (August 2, 1979, when Charlie Brown gets out of the hospital); the other five occurrences happen in November, like 1980's. In fact, 1980 is the third latest in the year the football routine happens; only November 29, 1981, and the aforementioned December 16, 1956 are later. Why did the time for the football routine happen so late in 1980? Why does it happen even later in 1981? Only Lucy knows and she is not telling us. Instead, she references to Old Testament book that reminds us "One generation passes away, and another generation comes; / But the Earth abides forever. / The sun also rises, and the sun goes down / And hastens to the place it arose." No matter the time scale--be it the generational one of humans, the geological one of the Earth, or the daily one of the Earth turning--nothing will change. The football routine has already happened, it is happening, and it will happen. "That which has been is what will be / That which is done is what will be done, / And there is nothing new under the sun." Lucy's timing will always be perfect. She is the true biblical scholar of Peanuts.
But Lucy and Charlie Brown are in this together. Maybe Charlie Brown is the one who has perfect timing. Ecclesiastes 10 tells us, "He who digs a pit will fall into it, / and whoever breaks through a wall will be bitten by a serpent. He who quarries stones may be hurt by them, / And he who splits wood may be endangered by it." She who holds a football will get kicked in the hand (see 1979). He who tries to kick a football will try again (remember that this whole thing was Charlie Brown's idea in 1952).
27. November 29, 1981
The time of the football routine in 1981 occurs exceptionally late in the year, November 29. Has Lucy contemplated giving up? Have 1979 and 1980 convinced her that the "time to pull away the football" has passed? Lucy seems less invested in the routine this year. In the first panel, she no longer sings out Charlie Brown's name; she looks toward him and calls out, as she kneels and holds the football, "Over here! I'm over here!" Like last year, she cannot quite bring herself to make the proposal. Instead, once the football is ready, she just looks at Charlie Brown with a smile. A smile is all he needs? Unlike his silent acquiescence of last year, Charlie Brown resists the impulse to try to kick the football--at least in his words. He says all the right words of resistance. "Does she really think I'm such a fool?" "Am I dumb enough?" He repeats the phrase "Not again!" four times! But his body betrays him. He walks away from the football like he usually does. But the turn back toward the football he makes in panel six is masterfully drawn. The still image, by showing his feet (and his elbows) pointed in opposite directions, implies an unwilled movement toward the football. The two lines that follow the curve of his left arm show the change in direction that his body has undertaken, seemingly on its own. The routine has become a matter of muscle memory. Whatever he says, Charlie Brown cannot and will not stop. As he runs toward the football he asks "Is it really happening again?" This question reminds me of a scene from season 2, episode 7 of Twin Peaks, which aired nine years after this strip, on November 11, 1990. The character then known as The Giant, appears in a vision to Agent Dale Cooper, and says twice, "It is happening again." Time loops through weird repetitions in Twin Peaks, especially given Cooper's question, "What year is it?" in the final episode of Twin Peaks: the Return, in 2017. Time loops through weird repetitions in Peanuts, too. After he misses the football, "Wump!"Lucy leans over him and says "Again Charlie Brown . . . . and again, and again and again." Charlie Brown looks toward us with a frown. This strip might be the eeriest of all the football routine strips. Look again at panel six. Charlie Brown cannot control his own body. What possesses him?
28. October 10, 1982
1982 returns immediately to the "not again" phrasing of last year; this year, Charlie Brown asks it as a question in the first panel, "Not again?" as he stands in the grass and looks toward the left, presumably at Lucy. He walks in the direction he is looking in panel two as he says "I can't believe it." We do not even see Lucy in the first two panels. When we finally do see her in panel three, she does not even have to speak. She looks at the football she is holding as Charlie Brown speaks. She remains silent, turning her head to watch Charlie Brown as he walks away from the football. He wonders about the symbolism of the football routine. He says "there has to be something deeply symbolic in that." He cannot figure out what it might mean, though. Even as he has "tried to study it from every angle. . . ." he says, as he runs toward the ball, "somehow, though, I've missed the symbolism . . ." Why has Charlie Brown suddenly become so interested in "symbolism?" Is he trying to find a previously hidden meaning to this act? Does he think it reveals something about his character? About his life? Perhaps. But why now, in the 28th occurrence of the routine?
In Franz Kafka's short story "Before the Law," a man from the country seeks access to the law. He meets a gatekeeper at the door that he hopes will allow him to "entry into the law." But the gatekeeper tells the man that he cannot be given access to the law "at them moment." The man asks if he we be allowed to enter later, and the gatekeeper says "It is possible . . . but not now." The man continues to wait and to try to gain access any way he can. "He makes many attempts to be let in" but never is. In one way, Charlie Brown is the man from the country and Lucy is the gatekeeper. The football is the door and kicking the football is the entry into the law. This reading, though, only makes sense when looking at a specific year's comic. In any given year, Lucy controls and denies access; Charlie Brown tries to gain access but fails again and again. But the parallel between "Before the Law" and the football routine points to a more interesting connection in a larger context. "Before the Law" appears in Chapter Nine of Kafka's The Trial, where a priest tells Josef K. "a story" about the man from the country and the gatekeeper. After he tells the story, Josef K. and the priest discuss the story's meaning. From this discussion, it seems clear to me that Lucy is the priest and Charlie Brown is Josef K. The football routine, played out over nearly fifty years of Peanuts, is both the story and the subsequent discussion of it. The priest tells Josef K. that "it talks about self-deceit in the opening paragraphs to the law." Likewise, Charlie Brown tells himself, in 1982, that he's missed something "symbolic" about his exchange with Lucy. In The Trial, the priest and Josef K. discuss many interpretations of the story, so many, that the priest eventually tells Josef K. that he does not believe any one interpretation of the story that the "commentators" have put forth. He tells K. "Don't get me wrong . . . I'm just putting out the various opinions about it. You shouldn't pay too much attention to people's opinions." That last sentence sounds like something Lucy might say as she leans over Charlie Brown in the final panel of a football routine strip. Instead, this year she says, in response both to Charlie Brown's claim that "I've missed the symbolism" and his attempt to kick the football ("Wump!"), "You also missed the ball, Charlie Brown" The priest tells Josef K that "the text cannot be altered, and the various opinions are often no more than an expression of despair over it." That expression of despair is Charlie Brown's repeated "Augh!" every year. Later the priest tells Josef K. that "you don't need to accept everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary." Lucy has been telling Charlie Brown the same thing every year, when she lies to him and when she avoids lying through a justification, often centered on a document. K's reply to the priest is embodied in Charlie Brown's facial expression in the last panel, or more precisely, in every one of Charlie Brown's facial expressions over the years in the last panel, as he looks toward his readers. "Depressing view . . . the lie made into the rule of the world." He knows that the lie is a lie; he knows that Lucy will pull away the football, but still he "stud[ies] it from every angle," and still he tries to kick it. Before the football kneels Lucy.
In he opening panel of October 16, 1983, Charlie Brown stands in the same posture he did in 1982, hand at his side as he faces toward the left, presumably looking at Lucy. There is a tree in the background this year, and Charlie Brown's words are different, too. He says "She's got to be kidding!" Just like last year, he walks toward Lucy and the football, and says "She must think I'm really dumb . . .," a variation on a theme he has stated many times before. Lucy greets him with a smile and says "Here we go, Charlie Brown . . ." before she makes the same proposition she has made before. In response, Charlie Brown spreads his arms wide and begins to pontificate. In the next panel, he faces Lucy, and with his arms gesturing before him, he says, "Well, I have news for you . . . Never again! Forget it!" Lucy frowns ands begins to panic. She picks up the football and exclaims "Wait!" Charlie Brown walks away. He does not turn back; he controls his body. He turns his head, but only his head. As he continues walking, he says, "I'm just glad you're the only person in the world who thinks I'm dumb enough to fall for that trick again . . . " CHARLIE BROWN DOES NOT TURN BACK! HE DOES NOT RUN UP! HE DOES NOT TRY TO KICK THE FOOTBALL!! FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1973 (and for one of the few times ever) THERE IS NO "AUGH!" THERE IS NO "WUMP!" OR "WHAM!" This is the beginning of the end of the football strip as it has existed since the 1950s. In 1984, we will not see Charlie Brown try to kick the football, and the football strip takes place in a single weekday four panel strip. There is NO FOOTBALL ROUTINE in 1985. Most of the rest of the strips in the 1980s will be reflective on the football routine itself, even nostalgic. While the 1990s strips will return to earlier themes and ideas, there is no football routine with Lucy in 1990, and in three years of the 90s there is either no attempt to kick the football, or the attempt takes place off-stage. The last football strip will run in 1999, but 1983 is the beginning of the end. But I'm getting too far ahead of myself.
Something else happens in 1983. After he turns back and tells Lucy that he is glad she's the only person "in the world" who thinks he would fall for "that trick again, " Charlie Brown walks into the last panel and into perhaps the most Kafkaesque panel that Charles Schulz ever drew. In "Before the Law," the gatekeeper tells the man from the country that the gatekeeper is only one of many gatekeepers standing between the law and the man from the country. The gatekeeper says "And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can't endure ever one glimpse of the third." The man from the country cannot simply sneak past or walk away from the gatekeeper. Charlie Brown looks shocked as he realizes that he cannot just walk away from Lucy and the football. Arrayed before him in the final panel are five kneeling, smiling figures looking at him--Woodstock, Snoopy, Sally, Peppermint Patty, and Marcie. Each holds a football ready to be kicked. Woodstock's football is tiny.
30. October 13, 1984
October 13, 1984 was a Saturday. Peppermint Patty lies on a beanbag chair and speaks on the phone. "Hi, Chuck," she starts. She complains about how Marcie is "driving me crazy" because "she'll never be a football player." In panel two, Patty is drawn closer up, like a camera is zooming in on her. She says "Some people just never learn, do they Chuck?" Where is this going? How is this a football routine strip? Except for the special case of 1979, every football routine strip has been a Sunday strip, a longer stand alone story that takes place mostly outside the plot of the daily strips. The Sunday football routine strips refer to each other more than they do to the strips that surround them on the calendar. Nonetheless, and to continue the filmic metaphor of the close up, there is a jump cut between panels two and three. We no longer see Patty talking, but we do not see the expected cut to Charlie Brown responding over the phone from his house. Instead, we see Lucy. She is kneeling and holding a football, but she is right outside of Charlie Brown's house. She calls out, with a pair of eighth notes to show that she is singing out his name "Charlie Brown . . . C'mon outside . . . I'll hold the ball, and you kick it . . ." Suddenly we are in the midst of the football routine. The final panel of the comic takes us to the expected scene of Charlie Brown speaking into his phone. He says "No, we don't" He does not say, "No, they don't." He says "we." He knows he is one of the people who "just never learn." Charlie Brown is standing near a window. His eyes are looking toward the window and away from his phone conversation. He has heard Lucy's call, which, given the time frame of the comic and the way it cuts from place to place, she must have been making either as Patty was talking or in the moment after she finished talking and before Charlie Brown responded. The comic ends. If readers were expecting a Sunday football routine strip in 1984, they were disappointed. If they were expecting the Monday, October 15 strip to pick up where the Saturday, October 13 strip left off, they were disappointed. On October 15 we are with Spike in the desert. The next football routine strip is two years away!
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