Lucy van Pelt
| Lucille (Lucy) van Pelt | |
|---|---|
| Peanuts character | |
 | |
| First appearance | March 3, 1952 |
| Voiced by |
Karen Mendelson (1963) Tracy Stratford (1963, 1965) Sally Dryer (1966–1968) Pamelyn Ferdin (1969–1971) Robin Kohn (1972–1973) Melanie Kohn (1974–1975, 1977) Sarah Beach (1976) Lynn Mortensen (1976) Michelle Muller (1977–1979) Laura Planting (1980) Kristen Fullerton (1980, 1982) Sydney Penny (1981) Angela Lee (1983) Heather Stoneman (1984–1985) Jessica Lee Smith (1984-1985) Melissa Guzzi (1986) Tiffany Billings (1986-1988) Ami Foster (1988) Erica Gayle (1988–1989) Jennifer Banko (1990) Marnette Patterson (1992) Molly Dunham (1993) Jamie Cronin (1995-1997) Rachel Davey (2000) Lauren Schaffel (2002) Serena Berman (2002–2003) Ashley Rose Orr (2003) Stephanie Patton (2006) Michelle Creber (2008-2009) Grace Rolek (2011) Hadley Belle Miller (2015) Bella Stine (2016-present) |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | psychiatrist, fussbudget, minor-league center-fielder |
| Family |
Linus van Pelt and Rerun van Pelt (Younger Brothers) Unnamed blanket hating grandmother Unnamed parents Marion (Aunt) Felix van Pelt (Grandfather) |
| Achievements | honorary chairwoman of 1964, National Fussbudget Association |
Lucille "Lucy" van Pelt is a character in the syndicated comic strip Peanuts, written and drawn by Charles Schulz. She is the older sister of Linus and Rerun. Lucy is characterized as a "fussbudget", crabby,[1][2] bossy and opinionated girl who bullies most other characters in the strip, particularly Linus and Charlie Brown.[3]
Personality
Lucy often mocks and intimidates others, especially Charlie Brown and her own younger brother, Linus. Her strong unrequited crush on Schroeder is her second most notable quality. She can be quite antagonistic, playing the villain role in a number of stories.[4]
Christopher Caldwell has said about the character: "Lucy is no 'fussbudget.' She's an American nightmare, a combination of zero brains, infinite appetites and infinite self-esteem, who is (for that reason) able to run roughshod over all her playmates. At her best, she is the most terrifying character in the history of comics."[5]
While she often bullies and makes fun of characters like Charlie Brown, he still thinks of Lucy as a good friend and deep down, Lucy does have a fondness of him, with a couple of times that she said that "he's full of surprises."
Some critics have suggested Lucy’s apparent brutality and meanness may really consist in some sort of feminist backlash against the subordinate role assigned to women, within Puritanism’s social mainframe.
Psychiatric booth
Lucy also operates a psychiatric booth, parodying the lemonade stand operated by many young children in the United States. Here, she offers advice and psychoanalysis for a nickel (five cents), usually to an anxious Charlie Brown. The "advice" is almost always worthless. However, on a few instances, Lucy’s advice may range from street-smart popular psychology, hilarious obvious truths, to somehow insightful investigation. One example is when, while treating Snoopy, Lucy asks him how he related, during his childhood, to the other (if you allow the expression) "dogs" in his family. Needless to say, Snoopy was quick to disallow the expression.
A sign on the front of the booth declares that "The Doctor is" in or out, depending on which side of the "In/Out" placard is displayed. In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Lucy reverses the placard from displaying its "Out" side to reveal the words "Real In". Another time, on the title panel of a Sunday strip, it showed Lucy chewing gum, and the sign read "The Doctor is Preoccupied."
Baseball
On Charlie Brown's baseball team Lucy plays right field (or occasionally center field), and is characterized as a bad player, who, when temporarily kicked off the team, turns to heckling the games. Lucy has a knack for coming up with a nonsensical excuse for every fly ball she misses, such as "The moons of Saturn got in my eyes" or "I think there were toxic substances coming from my glove, and they made me dizzy." Other times, she finds an excuse to have one-sided conversations with Charlie Brown at the pitcher's mound, often over some trivial thing she noticed, which usually result in Charlie Brown blowing his top and yelling at her to "Get back in rightfield where you belong!"
Once, Charlie Brown berated her for letting fly balls drop, telling her he would not brook any more excuses; Lucy caught the ball cleanly, and tossed it back to him on the mound silently, after which he admitted he was actually looking forward to her next excuse. In a series of strips that later became part of the 2003 TV special Lucy Must Be Traded, Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown traded Lucy to Peppermint Patty's baseball team for Marcie (and a pizza), but once Patty discovered what a terrible player Lucy really was, she traded her back. Even on the diamond, Lucy vainly flirts with Schroeder, who plays catcher on Charlie Brown's team.
History
The third new character in Peanuts after Violet and Schroeder, Lucy made her debut on March 3, 1952. She was originally a goggle-eyed toddler who continually annoys her parents and the older kids, but aged up over the next two years so that by 1954, she was the same age as Charlie Brown (the early strips with toddler-age Lucy were not reprinted until after Charles Schulz’s death). Schulz then altered Lucy's eyes to have the same appearance as that of the other characters, except for small extra lines around them which were also sported by her two siblings.
Lucy has short, black hair and wears a blue dress with blue socks and saddle shoes until the 1970s when Schulz began showing the strip's female characters in pants and shirts in order to keep their outfits more contemporary. By the late 1980s, she had switched to this look permanently.
Lucy frequently pulls the football away from Charlie Brown right as he is about to kick it.[6][7][8]
The first occasion on which she did this was November 16, 1952 (Violet unintentionally did the same thing a year before because she was afraid Charlie Brown would accidentally kick her), but unlike subsequent stunts, Lucy first pulled the ball away because she did not want Charlie Brown to get it dirty (he took a second try in the same strip, only to trip over it at the end).
The football strips became an annual tradition, and Schulz did one every year for the rest of the strip's run. One infamous example of this is the animated special It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, where her actions (she pulled the ball away four times) cost the school football team a win in the Homecoming game, yet Charlie Brown is blamed even though he is clearly not at fault. Charlie Brown did in fact kick the football in the September 12, 1956 strip, but only because Schroeder was holding the ball.
Lucy was named after Louanne van Pelt, a former neighbor of Charles Schulz in Colorado Springs and, according to David Michaelis of Time Magazine, was modeled after Schulz's first wife, Joyce.[9]
Voiced by
- Karen Mendelson (1963)
- Tracy Stratford (1963, 1965)
- Sally Dryer (1966–1968)
- Pamelyn Ferdin (1969–1971)
- Robin Kohn (1972–1973)
- Melanie Kohn (1974–1975, 1977)
- Sarah Beach (1976)
- Lynn Mortensen (1976)
- Michelle Muller (1977–1979)
- Laura Planting (1980)
- Kristen Fullerton (1980)
- Sydney Penny (1981)
- Angela Lee (1983)
- Heather Stoneman (1984–1985)
- Jessica Lee Smith (1984-1985)
- Melissa Guzzi (1986)
- Tiffany Billings (1986-1988)
- Ami Foster (1988)
- Erica Gayle (1988–1989)
- Jennifer Banko (1990)
- Marne Patterson (1992)
- Molly Dunham (1993)
- Jamie Cronin (1995-1997)
- Rachel Davey (2000)
- Lauren Schaffel (2002)
- Serena Berman (2002–2003)
- Ashley Rose Orr (2003)
- Stephanie Patton (2006)
- Michelle Creber (2008-2009)
- Grace Rolek (2011)
- Hadley Belle Miller (2015)
- Bella Stine (2016)
References
- ↑ Choy, Penelope (2005). Basic Grammar and Usage. Thomas Wadsworth. p. 160. ISBN 1-4130-0892-5.
- ↑ Umphlett, Wiley Lee (2006). From Television to the Internet: Postmodern Visions of American Media Culture in the Twentieth Century. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 66. ISBN 0-8386-4080-X.
- ↑ Mansour, David (2005). From ABBA to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century. Andrews McMeel Publishing. p. 281. ISBN 0-7407-5118-2.
- ↑ "Peanuts cartoon 07". Gocomics.com. January 1956. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
- ↑ "Against Snoopy". StrausMedia. Christopher Caldwell. January 4, 2000. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
- ↑ Inge, M. Thomas (2000). Charles M. Schulz: Conversations. University Press of Mississippi. p. 89. ISBN 1-57806-305-1.
- ↑ Grossman, Anna Jane (2007). It's Not Me, It's You: The Ultimate Breakup Book. Da Capo Press. p. 101. ISBN 0-7382-1090-0.
- ↑ Williams, Jean (2002). A Game for Rough Girls? A History of Women's Football in Britain. Routledge. p. 166. ISBN 0-415-26337-9.
- ↑ "Holiday TV: Mariemont woman inspired Lucy Van Pelt". December 18, 2012. Archived from the original on December 19, 2012. Retrieved December 18, 2012.