Peppermint Patty

Peppermint Patty is a fictional character featured in Charles M. Schulz' comic strip "Peanuts". Her full name is Patricia Reichardt, which is very rarely used in the strip. She is one of a small group in the strip who lives across town from Charlie Brown and his school friends (although in "The Peanuts Movie", "Snoopy in Space", and "The Snoopy Show" she, along with Marcie and Franklin, lives in the same neighborhood and attends the same school). She has freckles and "mousy-blah" hair, and generally displays the characteristics of a tomboy. She made her first appearance on August 22, 1966. The following year, she made her animated debut in the TV special "You're in Love, Charlie Brown" and began (in the comics) coaching a baseball team that played against Charlie Brown and since has had other adventures with him. Uniquely, she refers to Charlie Brown and Lucy as "Chuck" and "Lucille", respectively. In most of her appearances, she is attracted to Charlie Brown, based on her reactions. Her birthday is on October 4.
History.
Charles M. Schulz modeled Peppermint Patty after a favorite cousin, Patricia Swanson, who served as a regular inspiration for "Peanuts". Schulz had also named his earlier character Patty after Swanson, and he coined his well-known phrase "Happiness is a Warm Puppy" during a conversation with her in 1959. Swanson's roommate Elise Gallaway served as the model for Peppermint Patty's best friend Marcie. In later years, especially after lesbian groups began identifying with Peppermint Patty, Schulz downplayed the fact that the character was based on Swanson to protect her privacy.
In one interview, Schulz stated that he coined Peppermint Patty's name after noticing a dish of peppermint patties in his house and deciding the name was so good that he should use it before another artist thought of the same joke. He created the character design to fit the name. Peppermint Patty debuted in the strip of August 22, 1966. In 1972, Schulz introduced the character's last name, Reichardt, which he borrowed from the last name of his secretary, Sue Reichardt, whose favorite character was Peppermint Patty.
Peppermint Patty was first voiced by Gabrielle DeFaria in the CBS television specials, then by various other child performers both male (such as Christopher DeFaria and Stuart Brotman) and female (including Donna Forman (1974), Linda Ercoli (1974), Victoria Vargas (1983), Gini Holtzman (1984–1985)).
Theme song.
Jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi composed the eponymous theme song for Peppermint Patty in 1967, making its first appearance in the television special "You're in Love, Charlie Brown". In his book "Vince Guaraldi at the Piano", Guaraldi historian and biographer Derrick Bang wrote that the upbeat melody "aptly conveyed her character's feisty, tomboyish nature and just-under-the-radar feminism." Producer Lee Mendelson commented that Schulz was particularly fond of the theme Guaraldi wrote for the character.
Various renditions of Peppermint Patty's theme song appeared in nearly every television special Guaraldi scored that the character appeared in, including "He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown" (1968), "It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown" (1969), "Play It Again, Charlie Brown" (1971), "There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown", "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" (both 1973), "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" (1974) and "You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown" (1975). Unique variations of the song were commercially released on the albums "Oh Good Grief!" (1968) and "The Charlie Brown Suite & Other Favorites" (recorded 1969, released 2003). It also was covered by George Winston on "" (1996) and David Benoit on "It's a David Benoit Christmas!" (2020).
Appearance.
Peppermint Patty has chin-length hair that she describes as "mousy-blah", most often depicted as a medium brown (though the color has sometimes appeared as orange-red or auburn, as in "The Peanuts Movie", and has freckles. She wears a green, striped collared shirt, black or dark blue shorts (long pants in "The Peanuts Movie") with two vertical white stripes on each side, and invariably wears flip-flops (usually green, sometimes brown) that expose most of her bare feet. In one series of strips in which she is forbidden to wear the sandals in school, it is revealed that these were a gift from her father because she was "a rare gem."
Character traits.
Peppermint Patty is noted for her persistent habit of profoundly misunderstanding basic concepts and ideas that most people would consider obvious, then blindly ignoring any counsel against her latest fixation which leads to ultimately embarrassing situations for which she blames everyone who warned her. For a long time she was unaware that Snoopy was a dog, referring to him as "a funny looking kid with a big nose." This was a recurrent gag in the strip until an incident (featured in a series of strips from March 1974) in which Patty declares she is through with school and plans to spend the rest of her days staying in "Chuck's guest cottage" (Snoopy's dog house). By the end of this story arc, Marcie, in a fit of exasperation, angrily informs Peppermint Patty that the "funny looking kid" is actually a beagle, which leaves Patty in stunned shock for several strips. In a later phone call to Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty finally accepts the truth: "Let's just say my pride had the flu, okay, Chuck?"
She also thinks a school for gifted children means that she will get free gifts if she enrolls. She confuses a dog obedience school with a human private school, going so far as to enroll and graduate with the other dogs. It is only later, when she tries to use that diploma to show that she does not have to go to regular school, that she discovers that she has publicly humiliated herself for a meaningless honor. Although initially angry with Snoopy, who had recommended the school to her, she forgives him after she gets into a fight with the cat named "World War II" that lives next door to Charlie Brown (having mistaken it for Snoopy in a cat suit) and Snoopy comes to her aid.
She is widely known for receiving a D− grade on every test or assignment in school (in 1999, the final full year of "Peanuts", her teacher presents her with a certificate naming her to the "D-Minus Hall of Fame"). In one comic strip, Patty gets a Z−, which she calls "sarcasm". In a series of strips in 1984, Peppermint Patty is held back a grade for failing all of her classes—only to be allowed to return to her old class when her old desk in front of Marcie starts to emit snoring noises, leading kids and faculty to suspect that the classroom is haunted by a "snoring ghost".
Peppermint Patty's bad grades are possibly exacerbated by her tendency to sleep through class. This is explained by the fact that her father works late, and Patty is too insecure to sleep until he returns home. In one series of strips, Marcie suggests that it is Patty's unrequited love for Charlie Brown (see below) which causes her to fall asleep. At Marcie's urging, Patty also goes to a sleep disorder treatment center to be tested for narcolepsy; once again, it is determined that staying up too late at night, and not narcolepsy, is the cause of Patty's falling asleep in class.
Peppermint Patty hires Snoopy twice to serve as her watchdog so she can sleep better at night, but both incidents end disastrously. The first time, Snoopy is unable to get off Peppermint Patty's waterbed in the guest room to catch the burglars who are stealing from the house at that very moment, and the second time, Snoopy is distracted by a girl poodle who becomes his fiancée (the engagement is called off on the day of the wedding), leading Peppermint Patty to angrily call Charlie Brown in the middle of the night and demand that he come to her house to serve as watchdog in Snoopy's place. Besides guard duties, Peppermint Patty also retains Snoopy's services as an attorney, once even enlisting his help to openly defy the school's dress code. The first strip in which the character's full name, Patricia Reichardt, is mentioned, was published January 15, 1972; her formal name appears again at least one more time, in the February 5, 1993 strip, in which she reads to Marcie an ad she has placed in the paper:
Patty is the most "tomboyish" girl in the comic strip; a star athlete, especially in baseball where her team regularly trounces Charlie Brown's. In the first series of strips in which Patty appeared in 1966, she actually joins "Chuck's" team as its new pitcher, relegating Charlie Brown to the outfield. However, she quits in disgust after only one game; despite tossing a no-hitter and slamming five home runs, her new team loses, 37–5, because of their somewhat porous defense. In another occasion she lets Charlie Brown pitch the last throw of the game, having so far pitched a no-hit game leading 50–0, only to see him lose the game, 51–50.
Peppermint Patty lives with her father and enjoys a particularly close relationship with him, even though he apparently has to do a lot of traveling. He refers to his daughter as his "rare gem", a nickname with which Patty is extremely pleased. For a time, Patty carries candy cigarettes in her sleeve. Her mother died when she was young. No siblings are ever mentioned, thus Peppermint Patty is presumed to be an only child. She has often lamented her lack of a mother to help her prepare for skating competitions and such:
Peppermint Patty mentions her mother over the course of the television special "He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown", but Schulz repeatedly stated that the situations presented in the cartoon adaptations are not canonical to the strip.
Relationships with other characters.
Peppermint Patty's closest friend, Marcie, calls her "Sir". It is never revealed whether this eccentric habit, dating to Marcie's first appearance in the strip in 1971, is the result of misguided manners, poor eyesight, a snarky reference to Patty's tomboyish ways, or some other reason. For a long time, this was a major annoyance to Patty, who would continually snap at Marcie, "Stop calling me Sir!" Eventually, she got used to it, although she still preferred that Marcie "not" call her "Sir". Marcie also called her "Priscilla" in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving"; however, this is a continuation of a reference Linus had just made to Longfellow's poem "The Courtship of Miles Standish" in which Standish asks John Alden to speak to Priscilla Mullins on his behalf (just as Peppermint Patty has asked Marcie to speak to Charlie Brown).
The first character to call Peppermint Patty "Sir" was not Marcie, but a pigtailed girl named Sophie in Peppermint Patty's cabin at summer camp, who appeared in the same series of strips in the summer of 1968 that introduced Marcie's predecessor, Clara. When Sophie and Clara (this time sans glasses) re-appeared in "Peanuts" in the summer of 1987, they called her "ma'am", which also annoyed her.
Not until a few years after she was introduced into the strip did it become apparent that Peppermint Patty had a crush on Charlie Brown, although it is pursued and received with varying degrees of projection, enthusiasm, and obliviousness, especially on the part of Charlie Brown. Peppermint Patty frequently plays lovers' games with Charlie Brown, and gets frustrated or even angry when he does not take the bait; he "does" like Peppermint Patty, but only as a friend (though their friendship is occasionally strained by her strong personality and bossiness toward him). Originally, Peppermint Patty played reverse psychology; she would often say, "You kind of like me, don't you, Chuck?" when it was clear that it was Peppermint Patty who had the crush on Charlie Brown, while he not only did not have a crush on her, he also did not quite know what to make of her. His true love was the unattainable Little Red-Haired Girl, and having a girl actually like him was unexplored territory, although Peppermint Patty once angrily expressed her jealousy to Charlie Brown for his affection of that girl. Patty frequently denied having a crush on Charlie Brown at first, writing him off as too wishy-washy and because she "could strike him out on three straight pitches", and during a game of Ha-Ha Herman crudely insulting him when she thought he was not listening. However, to her credit, she was shown to be visibly upset when Marcie pointed out that he had overheard her comments and apologized to him the very next day. Yet it was still obvious to Marcie that Peppermint Patty liked Charlie Brown as more than a friend, wishy-washy or not.
In one Sunday strip on July 22 from 1979 (drawn as part of a storyline in which Charlie Brown was in the hospital), Peppermint Patty essentially admitted her feelings for Charlie Brown and, in the same strip, Marcie admitted loving "Chuck," so far as to affirming her willingness to marry Charlie Brown. Even this strip ended in a denial of sorts; Patty brought Marcie up to the front desk of the hospital and tried to have her admitted as a patient, saying, "I think she's sicker than he is!"
Peppermint Patty often tries to talk to Charlie Brown about matters of the heart (often depicted with both characters sitting under a tree) and even calls him often on the phone (usually taking up the majority of the conversation), but Charlie Brown usually manages to somehow evade the issue, often by simply playing dumb. Patty often grumbles, "I hate talking to you, Chuck!" whenever she tries to confide in him and he does not tell her what she wants to hear.
Peppermint Patty also developed a crush on Pig-Pen for a while in 1980, after Charlie Brown set them up on a date for a Valentine's Day dance. Also, in the movie "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown", both she and Marcie were shown as being attracted to Pierre, the son of their host family in Paris. Pierre only returned Marcie's affections, however, a fact to which Peppermint Patty remained oblivious even when they were holding hands right in front of her.
Peppermint Patty also has a strong friendship with Snoopy. For years, owing to Snoopy's often human-like behavior, Patty often refers to Snoopy as a "funny-looking kid with a big nose". The rest of the cast is often confused by Patty's obliviousness, but she was finally corrected in the strip from March 21, 1974, by Marcie. Patty since accepts that Snoopy is a dog but often still treats him like a human, which pleases Snoopy since most of the characters treat him like a dog, albeit a remarkably gifted one. Snoopy acts as Peppermint Patty's ice skating coach. Although he is silent and grumbling most of the time, he acknowledges Patty's successes with a kiss on her nose.
Family.
Peppermint Patty's mother is never seen or mentioned. In the strip of September 27, 1973, Peppermint Patty simply says she doesn't have a mother. The fate of her mother is never revealed in the strip.
Peppermint Patty's dad often calls Patty "a rare gem". In the cartoons his voice, like those of all adults, is heard as "wah-wahs" (made by musician Dean Hubbard).