The Boy With Numbers For a Name

According to Wikipedia, the below Peanuts character — who may be most familiar as the kid who does the pigeon-toed shoulder dance from the Charlie Brown Christmas special — is officially named 555 95472.


Charles Schulz took the first part from the traditional Hollywood non-functional phone prefix, while the last part comes from the zip code of Schulz's hometown of Sebastopol. This guy, arguably, is even more obscure than Charlotte Braun. A quote from the Wikipedia page on the origins of the obscure name:

As 5 once explained to Charlie Brown, his father, morose and hysterical over the preponderance of numbers in people's lives, had changed all of the family's names to numbers. Asked by Lucy van Pelt if it was Mr. 95472's way of protesting, 5 replied that this was actually his father's way of "giving in." 5 also has two sisters named 3 and 4. ("Nice feminine names," in Charlie Brown's estimation to which 5 responds, "We think so."). It can be assumed that their parents are named 1 and 2.

It should also be noted that 3 and 4 are both two cute little red-haired girls, meaning that Charlie Brown's universe was populated with two additional fire-haired love interests in addition to the infamous, nameless Little Red-haired Girl.

A final notes of Peanuts wonderment: No shitting you, there actually exists a Peanuts special with the title It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown.

EDIT: Ah, it seems the the blog TGLOB did a good job explaining Number Boy's entry into the Peanuts comics.

The Death of Charlotte Braun

Wikipedia is an endless source of amusement for me. It has information, sure, but as a result of being constructed by anyone with computer access, it often has useless or sucky information. For example, all Wikipedia articles can be classified under some type of category. European Union member nations or racquet sports, for example. This week I stumbled upon the category for fictional cyborgs. You know, because you might be writing a paper on Seven of Nine and need another cyborg for comparison. Also, please note that no comparative category for real-life cyborgs exists.

Other articles are quite gratifying.Take Charlotte Braun, for example. I have read Peanuts all my life but had never heard of this character, whom Charles Shulz apparently created to be some distorted, female version of Charlie Brown. Unlike Charlie, Charlotte was mean and pushy and even louder than Lucy. But Shulz tired of her quickly and blinked her to the cornfield, never to be seen again. (Later, he created Charlie's sister Sally as a new and improved female twist on Charlie.)

Shortly after Charlotte went away, Shulz received a letter from an avid Peanuts reader who disliked the character and requested that she be eliminated. Shulz responded by asking the reader if she felt comfortable being responsible for the death of a child, and enclosed in the post script a sketch of Charlotte with an axe in her head. It almost seems to urban legendy to be true, but the letter was apparently donated to the Library of Congress, which posted a scan of it online. Amazing.

Charlotte Braun, rest in peace.