Annotations of The Complete Peanuts/1963 to 1964

Annotations to The Complete Peanuts: 1963 to 1964 by Charles M. Schulz (Fantagraphics Books, 2007. ISBN 156097723X

  • p. 10 (January 23, 1963). A googol is 10 to the power 100, or 1 with 100 zeros after it. It was given this name by nine year old Milton Sirotta, nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner.
  • p. 19 (February 11, 1963). Divinity is a nougat-like confectionery made mainly with egg white, corn syrup, and sugar.
  • p. 19 (February 13, 1963). In ten pin bowling, 300 represents a perfect score. As there are 10 frames in a game, Violet’s Dad is clearly getting ahead of himself.
  • p. 34 - 35 (March 18–23, 1963). An Honor roll is a list of students at a school recognized for their academic achievements.
  • p. 61 (May 20, 1963). The "movie" Snoopy refers to is the classic Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds, which opened in the spring of 1963. The film was shot on location in Bodega, California - not far from Schulz's residence in Sebastopol.
  • p. 64 (May 28, 1963). Snoopy is mimicking a set of “rabbit ear” antennae on top of a contemporary television set, which needed to be adjusted in this fashion to tune in distant stations; this is still true for direct-reception even today.
  • p. 74 (June 21, 1963). Lucy is reciting "Tinker, Tailor..." She recites it again while skipping rope on March 25, 1972.
  • p. 85 - 86 (July 15–20, 1963). A total solar eclipse occurred over North America on July 20, 1963.
  • p. 94 (August 5 and 6, 1963). In baseball, a pitcher is restricted in the kind of motions he can make while pitching. If he makes an illegal movement, a balk is called and runners on base can advance one base.
  • p. 116 (September 27, 1963). The US Post Office introduced the 5-digit ZIP code on July 1, 1963.
  • p. 118 (October 1, 1963). 5’s last name is his ZIP code (95472), which is the ZIP code for Sebastopol, California.
  • p. 126 (October 20, 1963). Prayer in American public schools was declared unconstitutional in the case of Abington School District v. Schempp, decided on June 23, 1963.
  • p. 150 (December 15, 1963). Albert Schweitzer won the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his medical missionary work.
  • p. 164 (January 17, 1964). Schulz has made an error here - the figure should be "sixty million" and not "sixty billion."
  • p. 175 (February 10, 1964). The quotations are from the book The Gulistan by the 13th century Persian poet Sa-di.
  • p. 177 (February 16, 1964). Doctor Horwich refers to Frances Horwich, the educator and children's TV show hostess also known as "Miss Frances."
  • P. 182 (February 29, 1964). First mention of Snoopy being the owner of a painting by Van Gogh.
  • p. 205 (April 22, 1964). “New Math” refers to the change in how mathematics was taught in public schools in the United States during the 1960s.
  • p. 227 (June 11, 1964. A beanball is a pitch that aims at the batter's body.
  • p. 230 (June 18, 1964). “Highbrow is a term derived from Phrenology, implying that an art form is intellectual, while Lowbrow is supposedly non-intellectual, and Middlebrow is somewhere in between.
  • p. 241 (July 14, 1964). Willard Mullin was an American sports cartoonist, best known for his creation of the “Brooklyn Bum”, a characterization of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team.
  • p. 271 (September 23, 1964). The Maccabees were Jewish rebels who ruled Judea from 164 BCE to 63 BCE. Antiochus Epiphanes was the ruler they were rebelling against.
  • p. 274 (September 28, 1964). Willie Mays was one of the finest baseball players of his time, and indeed, of all time. Linus has thus set his ambitions very high.
  • p. 298 (November 25, 1964). Pebble Beach is a coastal resort town in northern California between Monterey and Carmel. It has several well-regarded golf courses.
  • p. 307 (December 14, 1964). Ipanema is a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A recording of the song "The Girl From Ipanema" became an international hit in 1964.
  • p. 310 (December 21, 1964). Luke 2:8