Blockhead!

The first strip 10-2-1950

  October 2, 1950 - That's the date "Peanuts" debuted in eight newspapers, in the end the characters looked a little different, the story lines increased and most of knew the "Peanuts gang".
  Charles Schulz, we know now, had great success with the strip which grew into TV specials and merchandise.  It started as something simple and caught on quickly, in 1952 the first "Sunday comic" appeared.  The strip ran until January of 2000 when Mr. Schulz died, and continues to this day in re-runs, a huge success.
  Each of the characters had some special quality or behavior that people would identify with and I think that's the reason for the wide impact of this simple comic, it's almost believable that a dog could play hockey!
  Illustrations from Wikipedia.

Charles Schulz at work in 1956

February 13, 2000 - the last original strip

The Peanuts Gang