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CNN Live Today

Interview with Jeannie Schulz

Aired August 14, 2002 - 10:25   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE BROWN: I wonder if I should try to steal home? This is my big chance to be a hero.

LUCY: Charlie Brown will try to steal home.

BROWN: Take off!

PEANUTS GANG: Oh, you blockhead! Oh, we lost the game because of Charlie Brown!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Oh boy, I tell you, that boy named Charlie Brown and all of his "Peanuts" pals have been parts of our lives for more than a half century now. Well they were all the creation of Charles M. Schulz, a cartoonist who looked at the complexities of life through a comic strip.

Well now more than two years after his death, he is being honored with a new museum. Charles Schulz's widow, Jeannie Schulz, is the founder and president of the museum, and she joins us this morning to give us something of a preview and a little walking tour this morning.

Hi, Jeannie, how are you?

JEANNIE SCHULZ, CHARLES SCHULZ'S WIDOW: Leon, I'm fine, thank you. Glad to be here with you.

HARRIS: I am -- this is such a great idea. Whose idea was it to try to put together all of these items you have there?

SCHULZ: Oh, you know it was actually several of us. And we finally got Sparky to agree that it was a good idea. But the main impetus was the showing of his strips and then putting together the biographical material, which is what we're seeing today, came a little later. We thought you know what are we going to show in the museum besides his original comic strips, which are important and are the focus.

HARRIS: All right. Well why don't you walk us through and show us some of the things. I want to see -- I've got to see what's on his desk. That's what I'm really curious about.

SCHULZ: Yes, the -- here we are in his studio, which we've recreated from his studio which is about two blocks away and where he worked for the last 30 years. And I think they've done a beautiful job. This really -- I really feel as if I'm here. And the -- one of the things that people are most interested in is his drawing board and the chair that he sat in for all those years and the worn spot on his drawing board.

HARRIS: And I believe we have a camera shot now of his -- of his drawing board.

Now let me ask you this, when you -- when you walk through here and you see these things and you see them reconstituted just like this the way that they were back at the studio, how does that make you feel?

SCHULZ: This room actually makes me feel wonderful, because all of the things in here have come from his studio. They were all scattered all over on every counter and now we've collected them behind the plexiglas. People can't touch them, but they can really see things from all around the world that fans have sent to him and that he loves. So it's a -- it's a wonderful recreation. People are going to I think want to spend an hour in here if they look at all the books he read and see how he learned all the things he learned.

HARRIS: Yes.

SCHULZ: So it's a -- it's a -- it's just wonderful.

HARRIS: Well we can't spend an hour, unfortunately, we only have a few minutes, so why don't you walk us through and show us some of your favorite things.

SCHULZ: We're going through the biographical area where people can learn about his life. But I think what everyone is really going to like is the wall. And this is almost as old as his comic strip. This wall was painted in 1951 for his daughter, Meredith, when they lived in Colorado Springs for about a year. And you can see that he drew all the cartoon characters of the time. And you see a very early Charlie Brown and an early Snoopy.

And the people who bought the house kept this -- knew the wall was there. And she spent several years taking off the layers of paint and getting down. She phoned Sparky to find out what he had used. And then she took off the overlayers of paint and got down to the original wall. And I think it's -- obviously it's 50 -- it's 51 years old today. And it's a marvelous look at just how funny I think his drawing was back then and how much he loved what he was doing.

HARRIS: Yes, and it also shows how much his drawings evolved over the years. That -- those pictures you just showed there of...

SCHULZ: Yes.

HARRIS: ... little Charlie Brown and the old -- the old Snoopy, they bring...

SCHULZ: Yes.

HARRIS: ... memories back for me because I used to be a...

SCHULZ: Yes.

HARRIS: ... I was sort of a Peanutsfile (ph). I had almost all of the comic books, even from the very old ones...

SCHULZ: Did you? Yes.

HARRIS: ... like what they had the -- when Snoopy was just like that character, the four-legged Snoopy as opposed to the two-legged Snoopy that most people have come to know and love.

SCHULZ: Well and then Snoopy with the long nose.

HARRIS: Yes, exactly -- exactly.

Did you have a favorite character?

SCHULZ: Oh well, you know now my favorite -- no, I don't. I always say I feel like Sally, but that's because I made up the word sweet baboo. So I always think, I'm Sally.

HARRIS: Well let me ask you this, since I was a Snoopy fan I've got to ask you this, where did he get the idea of a dog sleeping on top of a doghouse?

SCHULZ: You know most of his ideas came from doodling, and that's one of the things that people will see is some of his doodles, that's what we call it when he just sketched. And I think one day he just thought how would it be if he went inside, I mean on top of the doghouse instead of inside the doghouse? And so he drew him on top of the doghouse, and it's been a staple of the comic strip ever since.

HARRIS: Well how much more will this museum tell us about Charles that, or Sparky as you knew him and as you call him, that most of us didn't know? I know a lot of people did know that there actually was a little red-haired girl in his life, but is there anything else there that you would love for us to know about him that we don't already know?

SCHULZ: Well, I think what the museum is really designed to show is to show people his original drawings, which most people see them in about a 2 by 8 format. And to see them in their original size and to look at the expression lines and see how he did that work, because every line came from his own personal feelings. He had to feel, feel the fur, feel the hair, feel the smile. So that's what we really think people will go away with, a greater appreciation than they had before.

HARRIS: Yes. Now we all -- I know how close the two of you were. When you go through there, is there a special spot you got there to make a connection with him?

SCHULZ: You know I find that I get those connections all different places from -- just like everyone else, from hearing a song, from being in a situation; but I think the museum is going to be a happy place. I think he would have liked it.

HARRIS: That's great. Well we sure like what little bit we got to see this morning.

SCHULZ: Yes.

HARRIS: Jeannie Schulz, thank you very much. Good luck to you. You're a very special lady.

SCHULZ: Thank you -- Leon.

HARRIS: We wish you the very best, all right.

SCHULZ: Thanks.

HARRIS: Thank you.

SCHULZ: Thank you.

HARRIS: All right. On the way out to break,...

SCHULZ: Bye-bye.

HARRIS: ... we're going to take some look at some more special little moments here for "Peanuts."

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Bringing back our childhood.

HARRIS: Yes.

KAGAN: And some of our adulthood as well.

HARRIS: Yes, exactly.

KAGAN: Yes.

HARRIS: Guess you can tell I've been sitting here reading it for about the morning.

KAGAN: Fighting over the book.

Take a look as we go to break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I wonder if I should try to steal home? This is my big chance to be a hero.

LUCY: Charlie Brown will try to steal home.

BROWN: Take off!

PEANUTS GANG: Oh, you blockhead!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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