Visit to Charlie Brown Museum

I know Charlie Brown, rather the Peanuts through the comic strips on the Sunday newspaper since my childhood. However,I never introduced my son to Charlie Brown. When he was four years old, somehow he managed to find out ‘Charlie brown Thanksgiving’ from Youtube, and from there he came to know about those bunch of big head kids. Anyway,after that he stopped watching until recently when I told him about how he discovered Charlie Brown. Since then, again he has become a huge fan of that little guy. 
He had been watching all the videos whatever available in Youtube on every weekends. One day I had been talking with my friends about his addiction to Charlie Brown. At that time, one of them suggested me taking him to Charlie Brown museum. The name of the museum is  actually Charles Schulz Museum, who was the creator of the character ‘Charlie Brown’. However, I would love to call it Charlie Brown Museum. 

Anyway, after my friend told me about the museum, I decided to take my son there, where he could learn more about the man behind those bunch of kids, who act like a grown up, and sometimes even talk very seriously. Actually, almost all his comic strips were created based on some real life events. The beauty of the comics are that, the children will understand the literal meaning, which will give them fun, but the adults will enjoy the inner meaning. Once Schulz described himself as, “Someone who has to draw something everyday without repeating himself”. Those characters are magically real to us. We enjoy their distinct personality. 

One fine Saturday morning we drove a good eighty miles from our home to reach the museum in Santa Rosa. When we reached there, were very hungry. Just across the street of the museum there was a restaurant named “Warm Puppy Cafe”. The name of the restaurant attracted us so much that we didn’t even think about finding any other restaurant. The restaurant was nothing but a simple burger shop, but the inside of the cafe was so cute, we were totally impressed by that. The place was actually known as ice arena. There was an ice rink just behind the cafe. We could watch the people were skating there sitting inside the cafe. 

Warm Puppy cafe

Charles Schulz, also known as Sparky, he named after a horse name Spark Plug from the comic strip ‘Barney google’. His uncle named him Sparky. He was known as Sparky among his peers. When we watched the documentary of making of ‘Charlie Brown Christmas’, all the people there ,was calling him “Sparky”. Schulz’s father was a barber, even he also had his barber licensee, which we saw in the museum. He faced many ups and downs in his life, and later he incorporated all his experience is his comic strips.  The most popular character among the bunch of kids is the two legged dog,Snoopy.  Schulz’s family had a dog named Spike  from where he got the inspiration in creating the character Snoopy. As usual , my son is also very an avid fan of Snoopy. Few days back we went to watch Christmas decorations in our neighborhood, and he was so disappointed that no one put up a Snoopy on their front yard. 

This was painted by Charles Schulz for their daughter

Charles Schulz grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, areas. Since his childhood he liked drawings. He was also avid ice hockey player. All his hockey gears are kept in the museum. At the age of 20 Schulz served for the United States in WWII. When he was away from home during the war, his mother died at the age of 50. After coming back from the war he started working in an Art school’s cartoon division. While working there he started developing his own style of cartoon. He started posting his cartoon to the newspapers, and he started getting success. The funniest part that the famous “Peanuts” name was not given by him, rather it was chosen by the publishers due to some conflicts arose before publication. He never likes the name Peanuts. 

Schulz's Ice Hockey gears

While living in Colorado after marriage, he painted a wall of their daughter’s room with all the cartoons. The house was bought and sold many times. One of the owners, when came to know that once Charles live in that house, she started to find out whether the cartoonist left any treasure. She found out that one of the wall was painting by Charles for his daughter. She somehow managed to remove the layers of paints and found out the original painting. Later she donated the wall to the museum. 
After moving to California, Charles Schulz settled in Santa Rosa. While he was there, the Schulz museum started taking shape. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see it, as he died in 2000, and the museum has been open to public in 2002. 

Apart from his artwork, we saw several photos of his family, and few of his original sketch. On the second floor, one area is replicated like his original studio in Santa Rosa. We also watched the making Charlie Brown Christmas. The animation was created before computer graphics ear. At that time making animation was very tough and tedious job. Before broadcasting the cartoon on TV, the production house was skeptical about the acceptance of that. However, that was a huge success, and Charlie Brown even won Emmy Award.  

The best part was the huge mural on one of the wall in the museum. The mural was designed by Yoshiteru Otani. It  was built with tiny tiles, and each tile is a comic strip. By all those little comic strips a huge picture of Carlie Brown  and his little sitter holding a football was created . It was a great visit. If you get chance , please visit there, and don’t forget to have lunch at “Warm Puppy Cafe”.