Summary

• In many Peanuts strips, Charlie Brown is portrayed as a loser, but some showcase his intelligence and sarcasm.
• Charlie Brown's moments of crisis can be both dramatic and comically relatable, earning sympathetic laughs.
• Despite being the strip's punching bag, Charlie Brown occasionally gets rare wins, like kicking a football with Spider-Man's help.

Aside from his dog Snoopy, Charlie Brown is the most notable character of the classic comic strip Peanuts. Charlie Brown is known for a lot of things: His ion for baseball, his crush on the Little Red-Haired Girl, and his eternal struggle to kick a football held by Lucy van Pelt. Charlie Brown often serves as the strip’s punching bag, with many jokes made at the unfortunate child’s expense.

But not every the funniest Peanuts strips featuring Charlie Brown.

15 Earmuffs

Charlie Brown is often derided by his peers for his ignorance. In this strip, Charlie Brown is playing a drum until he’s told how annoying it is. But despite agreeing, his only solution is to put on a pair of earmuffs. If there’s a strip that perfectly encapsulates Charlie Brown’s tendency to be a blockhead, it’s this one.

14 “Rabies Shot”

Snoopy might be his own dog, but Charlie Brown is occasionally forced to deal with the harsh realities of pet ownership. Here, Charlie Brown drags Snoopy to the vet for a rabies shot as Snoopy desperately claws to get away. It’s rare to see the pet/owner dynamic between the two, but it’s a funny sight to see, especially with Linus as a bemused witness to the event.

13 “Leaving the Country”

Letter-writing was a commonly used gag in Peanuts. Here, Charlie Brown has had a worse day than usual, blowing a game and embarrassing himself in front of his crush. For Charlie Brown, life is so bad he asks for directions on how to make it to his pen pal’s country. Charlie Brown’s moments of crisis are pretty dramatic, but they can earn a sympathetic laugh as well.

12 “Faith in Human Nature”

Anyone even probably Peanuts’ most iconic joke and this strip sums Lucy and Charlie Brown’s routine up perfectly.

11 “You’re a Fanatic!”

Charlie Brown’s friend Linus never ed up an opportunity for a soliloquy. In this Sunday strip, a rainy day has ruined an afternoon’s baseball practice, but Charlie Brown wants to wait it out. Linus launches into an overly dramatic speech about Charlie Brown’s ignorance only for Linus to realize Charlie had left during his speech. It’s one of the few occasions where Charlie Brown isn’t the biggest blockhead in the comic.

10 Unrequited Love

Every Peanuts fan knows that Charlie Brown holds a candle for the Little Red-Haired Girl, and here readers see how lovesick the kid really is. Just watching his crush and contemplating the idea of sitting next to her is enough to spoil his appetite and ruin his peanut butter sandwich. It’s an awfully relatable strip for those who their schoolyard crushes.

9 “Feel Like a Fool”

This strip sees Peppermint Patty in a rare sour mood. She wishes to commiserate with someone who knows what it feels like to feel like a failure. Not missing a beat, Charlie Brown motions to himself. Charlie Brown might be the comic strip medium’s biggest sad sack, but the instances where he shows how much he’s aware of his failures is always tragically hilarious.

8 Lucy Cares

Charlie Brown is picked on by many of his friends, but none more than Lucy. In the rare instance where she isn’t giving him bad psychological advice or making him trip himself, Lucy convinces Charlie Brown she cares about him only to insult his large forehead. It’s a brutal, but hilarious subversion that captures the core of Lucy and Charlie Brown’s friendship.

7 “Fuzz!”

Even when Charlie Brown gets the slightest bit of confidence, it’s not long before he loses it. Here, Charlie Brown embraces the authority that comes with being a safety officer, at least until Lucy shatters his illusion by calling him the ‘fuzz’. While he keeps up his job, Lucy’s statement has ruined it for Charlie Brown. It’s funny, but a real shame the poor kid just can’t have anything nice.

6 Dreams

Charlie Brown is generally a pretty friendly and affable kid. But here, he displays a rare contemptuous vibe as Violet explains her dreams to him. One would think Charlie Brown would be happy for the attention, but here, he just can’t the monotony of hearing someone discuss what they saw in their sleep. It’s humorous, relatable, and provides a rarely seen side of the iconic comic strip character.