Feb 13, 2025 - News

The last "Peanuts" strip published 25 years ago today

Nick Halter

A photo of Charles Schulz surrounded by small statues of Peanuts characters — Charles M. Schulz with a few of his Peanuts characters in 1962. Photo: CBS via Getty Images

Twenty five years ago Thursday morning, readers opened up their newspapers and read the last original "Peanuts" comic strip.

What he said: In his last cartoon, creator Charles Schulz wrote that after nearly 50 years of drawing Charlie Brown, he had fulfilled his childhood ambition.

"Unfortunately, I am no longer able to maintain the schedule demanded by a daily comic strip. My family does not wish Peanuts to be continued by anyone else, therefore I am announcing my retirement," he wrote.

Yes, but: Readers would later learn that Schulz had died in his sleep the night before the last strip published. He was 77.

Zoom in: Schulz was raised in St. Paul and the first iterations of Charlie Brown appeared in the Pioneer Press in the late 1940s.

At the time of his death, "Peanuts" was syndicated in over 2,600 newspapers worldwide.

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The last "Peanuts" strip published 25 years ago today

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