Who doesn’t love Snoopy and Charlie Brown?
Everyone does at my house.
We recently visited a museum devoted to their creator, Charles Schulz, with an Australian friend.
What a lovely afternoon walking down memory lane in this cerebral museum!
Who are Snoopy and Charlie Brown?
The main cartoon characters from the Peanuts comic strip, which ran from 1950 to 2000.
Charlie Brown is a round-headed boy. Snoopy is his very creative beagle dog.
Drawn by Northern California resident Charles M. Schulz, the duo and their Peanuts friends were very popular for 50 years!
The final strip appeared the very day Charles Schulz died, which seemed like a sad but satisfying ending for a cartoon.
I read it daily, from my childhood into my adult years.
Visiting the museum
The strip’s conclusion and Charles Schulz’s death were headline news in my local paper when they ended together.
Schulz was a local hero throughout Northern California.
While Schulz wasn’t a hometown boy in Santa Rosa, he made good!
People from around the world love Snoopy and Charlie Brown. See?
We first visited the Charles M. Schulz Museum devoted to his cartooning career when it opened in 2002.
It was wonderful, but felt very cerebral for a mom with kids (which I was then).
They did have activities for children, but most of my visit was spent standing around, reading (or rereading from my past), cartoons hung on the wall.
I enjoyed it.
My daughter and son, not so much.
So I hadn’t been back until recently, when our adult Aussie friend wanted to visit.
Once again, we stood around reading.
Chuckling, laughing, remembering, shaking our heads, and enjoying ourselves.
The galleries were crowded, but we could see everything with ease.
Snoopy and Charlie Brown in 2026
They looked exactly the same — because we read and reviewed old cartoons hung on the walls.
Categorized and organized into themes made it easier to follow Schulz’s story and the “growth” of Snoopy and Charlie Brown.
Snoopy stole the show, of course.
We went through an entire exhibit about Snoopy’s family.
I had no idea he had so many more relatives than the reed-thin Spike!
(He had five siblings: Spike, Belle, Marbles, Olaf, and Andy. He came from a litter of eight. The other two siblings were Molly and Rover.)
The museum was full of interesting facts like that.
I didn’t know, for example, that Schulz ultimately created 70 distinct characters for Peanuts.
The museum is across the street from the ice arena in Santa Rosa that Schulz built years ago because he wanted to play ice hockey.
He ate lunch every day at the “Warm Puppy Cafe” at the ice arena, since his art studio was nearby.
In addition to Charlie Brown and Snoopy, what do you see at the museum?
Videos, movies, a craft center where you can make Peanuts-related crafts, traveling exhibits, and a wall made up of cartoon strips to create a familiar scene.
Here’s the full-size wall:
Here’s what it’s made up of:
Both times I’ve visited, I’ve been pleased to spend time in Charles Schulz’s office, particularly browsing his bookshelves.
Books have been written about Schulz’s Christianity, and the bookshelves demonstrate his beliefs.
In addition to the Interpreter’s Bible collection, I spied many Bibles and classic Christian books.
Jesus of Nazareth was snuggled beside a book about the PGA Tour and the classic Beau Geste. The Abingdon Bible Commentary sat between a biography of Tolstoy and The Boy Scout Handbook.
I have no idea who shelved the books!
Here’s the working office opposite the bookshelves. Notice the board where he invented the daily Peanuts cartoon:
Snoopy and Charlie Brown, plus friendly renditions
Not far from the office is a wonderful room where visitors can try their hand at a little cartooning or origami.
I loved seeing the items pinned on the board — drawn by children and adults from around the world.
As everyone knows, happiness is a warm puppy — or at least Snoopy and Charlie Brown!
Here’s a link to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California.
Which Peanuts character is your favorite?
Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?