Sally Brown
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Peanuts character | |
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| Age | 6 |
|---|---|
| Gender | Female |
| Family | Brother Charlie Brown and unnamed parents |
Sally Ann Brown is the younger sister of Charlie Brown in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles Schulz.
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[edit] Character
[edit] General Traits
Sally has flipped blonde hair with a cluster of curls and sometimes a bow in front, and she wears a polka dot dress, usually pink or light blue. In the winter, and most of the time in the later years of the strip, she switched to a shirt and pants. She has a "take it easy" approach to life, preferring to slide by while doing as little work as possible. Her favorite pastime is sitting in her beanbag chair watching TV. In a series of strips from 1982, Sally actually went to "beanbag camp," which consisted of nothing but lazing around in beanbags, watching TV and gorging on junk food, and returned home fat. She can be stubborn sometimes, and is usually convinced she's right until someone proves her wrong, but she also has a good heart and a strong moral sense; like her older brother she is extremely sensitive to the unfairness of life. Charlie Brown usually goes to Lucy in her psychiatric booth when he's feeling depressed, but Sally prefers to confide her troubles to the school building, which is very protective of her and will drop a brick on anyone who doesn't treat her nicely.
In the later years of the strip, Sally also frequently developed "new philosophies" on life, which were typically short sayings or phrases with little or no philosophical value, such as "We'll always have Minneapolis" (a take on the famous line "We'll always have Paris" from the movie Casablanca), "Who cares?", "Why me?", and "How should I know?" One time, Sally declared that her new philosophy was simply the word "No," which was to be her answer to every question from that moment on, but then Charlie Brown caught her off guard with a question to which she responded, "Yes!," leading her to grumble, "You ruined my new philosophy."
[edit] Sally in School
Sally has a lot of trouble with malapropisms, both in speech and writing. One of the strip's running jokes is the unintentionally humorous school reports she gives at the front of the class, which are frequently inspired by malapropisms and end with her feeling humiliated as all of her classmates laugh at her. Some of the more memorable reports she has given over the years include "Santa and his Rain Gear," "Handbidextrous" people, and "The Bronchitis" (a dinosaur which supposedly became extinct from coughing too much), or her report on the oceans of the world, then proceeding to state that there are no oceans in individual landlocked states in the U.S. She often struggles with homework despite Charlie Brown's patient efforts to help her, and she has a particular dislike for math, which she largely finds both intimidating and incomprehensible. However, she has expressed interest in becoming a nurse once she becomes an adult (although this is due to her interest in wearing white shoes, as opposed to the job itself)
[edit] Relationship with Linus
Sally is in love with Charlie Brown's best friend Linus, and her infatuation with him began in 1960, while her character was still a toddler. Early on, Linus took on something of a "mentor" role to Sally, teaching her about the ways of the world, tutoring her in the New Math, and even, on one occasion, demonstrating to her how to use a security blanket. In fact, ironically enough, in an early strip published soon after Sally's birth, proud brother Charlie Brown found Linus doing some complex calculations of the sort usually associated with physicists. When Linus had finished covering a whole wall with these calculations, he asked Charlie Brown if Sally would go out with him once she was older. However, when Sally began to follow him around and it became obvious that she liked him, Linus was visibly uncomfortable and began to try his best to get rid of her.
She calls him her "sweet babboo" (inspired by Schulz's wife Jeanie, who used to call him that), and when Linus says something Sally finds especially witty or intelligent (even--or perhaps especially--if it's an insult), she'll express her admiration by asking, "Isn't he the cutest thing?". Her crush is a frequent source of embarrassment to Linus, but he endures it stoically for the most part, although he is sometimes driven to yell in exasperation, "I'm not your sweet babboo!". On one occasion, Sally also referred to herself as Linus' "Sweet Babbooette" (to which Linus responded, "I've never heard of a 'Babbooette'!").
As Schroeder does with Lucy, Linus often attempts to fend Sally off with a sarcastic remark. No matter how vigorously he protests, though, her devotion remains unwavering. However, in one of the animated episodes, she treated Linus with an air of indifference, which resulted in him growing jealous, much to her enjoyment.
However, Linus is not immune to Sally's wrath. Sally often regards Linus' belief in the "Great Pumpkin" with scorn; more than once (as in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown) she has joined him to sit in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin, only to become disappointed and angry with Linus when the Great Pumpkin fails to show up. Sally is also disgusted with Linus' security blanket habit, and on several occasions has actually yanked his blanket away from him, declaring that no future husband of hers would hold a blanket.
Sally also sometimes becomes so frustrated with Linus' ignoring her romantic overtures that she resorts to physical violence or tries to get Charlie Brown to hit him. One Valentine's Day, when Linus failed to come through with the valentine card she had been expecting, Sally demanded that her big brother punch her "'sweet 'n' sour babboo" in the nose; however, this resulted in Charlie Brown hitting Lucy by mistake when Lucy walked into his fist. Another time, when Linus told her that if he ever got a valentine from her, he'd throw it in the trash, Sally retaliated by clobbering him with her lunch box. Using Snoopy as his lawyer, Linus decided to sue Sally for the assault, only to have Snoopy drop the case when Sally threatened to throw his supper dish over the fence.
[edit] Sports
Unlike most of the Peanuts gang, Sally does not seem to have much interest in playing sports. On the rare occasions when she does play, it's usually because Linus invited her. She is one of the few kids in the neighborhood who has never played on Charlie Brown's baseball team, and her attempts to play catch with a football usually lead to comic results. She is frequently seen sledding downhill in a cardboard box with Linus, and she did join a "snow league" once, when the local adults turned snowman building into an organized sport, but her team wasn't very good. They lost one match when the referee penalized them for "improper mittens," and lost another because their snowman was offside.
[edit] Relationship with Charlie Brown
Being Charlie Brown's sister, she refers to him as "big brother", having called him by his full name only on very rare occasions. Charlie Brown doted on her in the beginning, and was usually very patient with her. Yet Sally has never developed proper respect for her big brother, and invariably ends up disappointed in him when he fails to protect her from being teased or threatened by bullies. However, Sally constantly relies on Charlie Brown to help her with her homework, which usually results in his doing her assignments for her.
For his part, Charlie Brown is often frustrated by Sally's laziness and her reluctance to do the right thing when she finds herself in a difficult situation. His attempts to lecture Sally usually either go over her head or simply fall on deaf ears; however, in one episode in which she lied to her teacher about stealing a crayon, Charlie Brown became very upset with her, and when Sally said that "If a lie works, it isn't a lie," Charlie Brown screamed at her in an uncharacteristically angry voice, GEORGE WASHINGTON!!!, wherein Sally burst into tears and sobbed that she would never lie again. As for Charlie Brown, he stands firm saying that although he hated to do that, he felt he had no choice.
[edit] History
Sally was born on May 26, 1959, with Charlie Brown receiving a telephone call from the hospital and dashing out of the house yelling that he had a new baby sister (Linus and Lucy happened to be standing nearby and saw him run out, causing Linus to remark to Lucy, "You didn't act like that when I was born."). She was given the name "Sally" a week later, on June 2. Although much talked about, and the cause for a celebration that included Charlie Brown passing out chocolate cigars, it was not until August 23, 1959, that she finally made her first appearance. As a baby Sally liked playing with empty baby bottles, which she used for everything from building blocks to bowling pins, and being taken out for walks. The latter caused poor Charlie Brown no small amount of frustration when he had to miss an important baseball game to walk her around the neighborhood in her stroller. He ended up leaving her to return to the game due to the pleading of his team, and, in typical Charlie Brown fashion, quickly lost the game, incurring the wrath of both his mother and his teammates.
Like other characters such as Linus and Schroeder who were also introduced to the strip as babies, Sally grew up quickly. On August 22, 1960, she took her first steps, and in the next day's strip she fell in love with Linus for the first time. Her first day of kindergarten came on September 5, 1962. Although the first glimpse of her new school made her run away screaming, she had a wonderful day once she got there. Unfortunately, her lack of aptitude for formal education quickly became apparent, as she nervously admitted in a later strip that she was sure they'd make her go through kindergarten again because she had failed flower-bringing. Nevertheless, she did eventually complete kindergarten, and settled in at about first or second grade age for the remainder of the comic's run.
[edit] Portrayals
- Kathy Steinberg was the first to voice Sally Brown in 1965. Various actresses had voiced her since. Lynn Mortensen voiced her from "It's A Mystery, Charlie Brown" (1974) to "Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown" (1975). In It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown (1984) and Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown (1985), and the 1985 version of "The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show", Sally was voiced by Stacy Ferguson (Fergie) of the Black Eyed Peas. In It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown (1992), Sally was voiced by Jodie Sweetin from Full House.
- Kristin Chenoweth played Sally in the Broadway revival of the musical You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress.. (The character of Sally did not appear in the original musical; she replaced Patty from the original production, who had long since disappeared in the comic strip.) In this revival, Sally was also given a new song specifically written for her character, titled "My New Philosophy."
[edit] External links
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