![]() ![]() Schulz was hitting the courts most frequently, thanks to his tennis-loving wife, Jean, as well as a close pal with 39 Grand Slam titles to her name. The heyday of tennis in the beloved strip coincided with the tennis boom of the 1970s, which is when Peanuts creator Charles M. It wasn’t quite as prevalent as baseball or ice hockey, but forehands in the funny pages weren’t uncommon the sport was shown or mentioned in a total of 236 Peanuts installments. Throughout its 50-year run, tennis was a leitmotif in Peanuts. The last panel shows both boys to be a half foot below the net as ol’ Chuck proposes, “One point if you hit the ball, two if you get it over the net!” He whiffs, then walks to the net to discuss a rule change with his pal Shermy, a once prominent but since forgotten character. In May 1951, seven months after a new comic strip called Peanuts debuted, an extremely roundheaded Charlie Brown is shown trying to return a tennis ball. This story is produced in partnership with Racquet magazine and appears in issue no. Patrick Sauer | Racquet and Longreads | April 2019 | 11 minutes (2,896 words) ![]() ![]() Join Longreads and help us to support more writers. ![]()
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