The first floor has several special exhibits with his cartoons. One of the special exhibits in the museum is a whole collection of Snoopy as the WWI flying ace. Here we saw the small model airplanes that one of his sons, Monte, put together from kits. It was from these models that Schulz got his ideas of making Snoopy’s imaginary life as a WWI flying ace and the first comic with this appeared in October 10, 1965. Schulz described drawing a small fighter ace helmet on Snoopy and ‘suddenly got the idea for it.’ He immediately recognized the potential of the Flying Ace, acknowledging, “I knew I had one of the best things I had thought of in a long time.”
The walls of this room were decorated with comics of Snoopy in his alter life.
And, a room devoted to Charley Brown’s baseball team comics and the football comics.
I also found one that hit home with me.
Another room had several props that ‘kids’ could play with and have their pictures taken with. Well, we’re not going to let this pass us by. We wandered in when several of these props were not being used and took these pictures. Strangely, most of the people posing with these props were adults.
After we roamed around the museum, we headed over to Snoopy’s Home Ice, the ice rink that Schulz built next door to his home. We ordered lunch in The Warm Puppy snack shop and enjoyed the activity around us.
I hadn’t expected to see so many people on the ice rink and in the snack shop with their skates on. Kids, teens, adults, families. It was pretty full. Schulz (from Minnesota) enjoyed ice hockey and played on a team in this rink. One time they put a tennis court on top and Billie Jean King played here. They hold concerts here and teams from town practice here. A real community center.
In the gift shop were quite a few pretty special Charley Brown art work. Like this rug wall with Snoopy leading the scouts on a hiking trip.
And, this beautiful stained glass window.
And, this Mona Lucy.
Here is what another comic artist has said about Charles Schulz. What a good summary. I think we all like Peanuts not for its belly laughs but for its subtle humanity. We could see ourselves in the characters, in their plights and in their relationship to others. That Charles Schulz could come up with a new idea every day for 50 years is truly amazing. Let's see: 50 x 365 = 18,250 different ideas, different drawings and different strips. Amazing.
It was then time to head home and, even though the forecast said sunny, we found ourselves first in a bit of virga rain and then in a full blown rainstorm.
A wonderful museum and we'd recommend it. A fine day.
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