Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt is a fictional character featured in
Charles M. Schulz' comic strip Peanuts. A tomboy, she is one of a small group in
the strip who lives across town from Charlie Brown and his school friends.
She has freckles and auburn/brunette hair and generally displays the
characteristics of a tomboy, although that was slightly changed when Marcie
was paired with her in There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown in 1973. She
made her first appearance on August 22, 1966. The following year, she made her
animated debut in the TV special You're in Love, Charlie Brown and began
coaching a baseball team that played against Charlie Brown and since has had
other adventures with him. She calls Charlie Brown "Chuck" and Lucy "Lucille"
and is the only character to do so. Peppermint Patty's birthday is on
October 4, as determined from the October 4, 1970, strip in which Patty's
father gives her roses on her birthday. Background
Schulz described in one interview how, "By 1966, I realized that it had been
quite some time since I'd introduced a new character, five years since Frieda's
debut and seven since Sally's. I got the idea for her name after looking at a
dish of candy on my desk and decided that 'Peppermint Patty' was such a great
name that I just had to use it before some other cartoonist beat me to the
idea." He also stated that his original intention had been to develop Peppermint
Patty as the main character of a new comic strip, but since he did not have
the time to pursue the project, he instead incorporated her into Peanuts.
At the time, Schulz already had a different character named Patty as a
regular cast member in the strip; the original Patty's role, already in
decline because of Schulz's inability to flesh out a unique role for her, was
consequently cut back to cameo appearances.
Schulz also said that Peppermint Patty was created in response to the women's
liberation movement in the late 1960s as part of an attempt to have a character
that defied standard gender norms. As a result, he gave her a tomboy personality
in addition to being the first female character in the strip to wear a shirt
and shorts instead of a dress. In addition, she was shown as being part of
a single-parent household. Peppermint Patty was first voiced by
Gail DeFaria in the CBS specials, then by various other child performers both
male and female, Linda Ercoli, Victoria Vargas, Gini Holtzman.
"Peppermint Patty" was also the title of a song by pianist Vince Guaraldi, which
is the theme music for the character in the animated specials.
Character traits Peppermint Patty is noted for her
persistent habit of profoundly misunderstanding basic concepts and
ideas that most people would consider obvious, then blindly ignoring any
counsel against her latest fixation, which leads to ultimately embarrassing
situations for which she blames everyone who warned her. For a long time she
seemed unaware that Snoopy was a dog, referring to him as "the funny looking
kid with the big nose." This was a recurrent gag in the strip until an
incident in which Patty declared she was through with school and planned to spend
the rest of her days staying in "Chuck's guest cottage". By the end of this
particular story arc, Marcie, in a fit of exasperation, angrily informed
Peppermint Patty exactly what the "funny looking kid with the big nose" actually
was, which left Patty in stunned shock for several strips. In a later phone
call to Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty finally accepted the truth: "Let's just
say my pride had the flu, okay, Chuck?" Peppermint Patty has brown chin-length
hair, and she has freckles on her face. She almost always wears sandals with
bare feet, even in wintertime. In one series of strips, in which she was
forbidden to wear the sandals in school, it was revealed that these were a gift
from her father because she was "a rare gem." For a time, Patty also put her
candy cigarettes in her sleeve. She also thought a school for gifted
children meant that she would get free gifts if she enrolled. Likewise she once
confused a dog obedience school with a human private school, going so far as to
enroll and graduate with the other dogs. It was only later, when she tried to use
that diploma to show that she did not have to go to regular school, that she
discovered that she had publicly humiliated herself for a meaningless
honor. Although initially angry with Snoopy, who had recommended the school
to her, she forgave him after she got into a fight with the cat named "World
War II" that lived next door to Charlie Brown and Snoopy came to her aid.
She is widely known for receiving a D− grade on every test or assignment in
school. In one comic strip, Patty got a Z−, which she called "sarcasm". In a
series of strips in 1984, Peppermint Patty was held back a grade for failing
all of her classes—only to be allowed to return to her old class when her old
desk in front of Marcie started to emit snoring noises, leading kids and faculty
alike to suspect that the classroom was haunted by a "snoring ghost".
Peppermint Patty's bad grades are possibly exacerbated by her tendency to
sleep through class. This was explained by the fact that her father works late,
and Patty is too insecure to sleep until he returns home. In one series of
strips, Marcie suggests that it is Patty's unrequited love for Charlie
Brown which causes her to fall asleep. At Marcie's urging, Patty also went to a
sleep disorders treatment center to be tested for narcolepsy; once again,
though, it was determined that staying up too late at night, and not
narcolepsy, was the cause of Patty's falling asleep in class.
Peppermint Patty hired Snoopy twice to serve as her watchdog so she could sleep
better at night, but both incidents ended disastrously. The first time,
Snoopy was unable to get off Peppermint Patty's waterbed in the guest room to
catch the burglars who were robbing the house at that very moment, and the
second time, Snoopy was distracted by a girl poodle who became his fiancee,
leading Peppermint Patty to angrily call Charlie Brown in the middle of the night
and demand that he come to her house to serve as watchdog in Snoopy's place.
Besides guard duties, Peppermint Patty also retains Snoopy's services as an
attorney, once even enlisting his help to openly defy the school's dress code.
The first strip in which the character's full formal name, Patricia Reichardt,
was mentioned, published January 15, 1972; her formal name appeared again at
least one more time, in the February 5, 1993 strip, in which she reads to Marcie
an ad she has placed in the paper: First panel: PP: See, Marcie? My ad is
in the paper.. Second panel: PP: "Help
wanted...attractive young lady can't remember history dates."
Third panel: PP: "Doesn't understand fractions. Call Patricia Reichardt at
number below.." Fourth panel: PP: What do you think,
Marcie? M: You are extremely weird, sir. Patty is also a star athlete, especially
in baseball, where her team regularly trounces Charlie Brown's squad. In the
first series of strips in which Patty appeared in 1966, she actually joins
"Chuck's" team as its new pitcher, relegating Charlie Brown to the
outfield. However, she quits in disgust after only one game; despite tossing a
no-hitter and slamming five home runs, her new team lost, 37–5, because of
their somewhat porous defense. In another occasion she let Charlie pitch
the last throw of the game, only to see Charlie lose the game. The final score
was 51−50. Peppermint Patty lives with her father
and enjoys a particularly close relationship with him, even though he
apparently has to do a lot of traveling. He refers to his daughter as his "rare
gem", a nickname with which Patty is extremely pleased. Her mother apparently
died long ago, for Peppermint Patty has no memories of her. No siblings are ever
mentioned, thus Peppermint Patty is presumed to be an only child. She has
often lamented her lack of a mother to help her prepare for skating
competitions and such: Peppermint Patty: "Skating mothers are
like stage mothers and swimming mothers. They grumble and complain and gossip and
fuss, but you really need them!" Marcie: "How do they get that way, sir?"
Peppermint Patty: "Early rising and too much coffee."
Peppermint Patty mentions her mother over the course of the television
special He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown, but Schulz repeatedly stated that the
situations presented in the cartoon adaptations are not canonical to the
strip. Relationships with other characters
Peppermint Patty's closest friend, Marcie, calls her "Sir". It is never
revealed whether this eccentric habit, dating to Marcie's first appearance in
the strip in 1971, is the result of misguided manners, poor eyesight, or
some other reason. For a long time, this was a major annoyance to Patty, and she
would continually snap at Marcie, "Stop calling me Sir!" but, eventually, she
got used to it, although she still preferred that Marcie not call her
"Sir". Marcie also called her "Priscilla" in A Charlie Brown
Thanksgiving; however, this is a continuation of a reference Linus had
just made to Longfellow's poem The Courtship of Miles Standish in which
Standish asks John Alden to speak to Priscilla Mullins on his behalf.
The first character to call Peppermint Patty "Sir" was not Marcie, but a
pigtailed girl named Sophie in Peppermint Patty's cabin at summer camp,
who appeared in the same series of strips in the summer of 1968 that
introduced Marcie's predecessor, Clara. When Sophie and Clara re-appeared in
Peanuts in the summer of 1987, they called her "ma'am", which also annoyed
her. Not until a few years after she was
introduced into the strip did it become apparent that Peppermint Patty had a
crush on Charlie Brown. Peppermint Patty frequently plays lovers' games with
Charlie Brown, and gets frustrated or even angry when he does not take the
bait; he does like Peppermint Patty, but only as a friend. Originally, Peppermint
Patty played reverse psychology; she would often say, "You kind of like me,
don't you, Chuck?" when it was clear that it was Peppermint Patty who had the
crush on Charlie Brown, while he not only did not have a crush on her, he
also did not quite know what to make of her. His true love was the unattainable
Little Red-Haired Girl, and having a girl actually like him was unexplored
territory, although Patty once angrily expressed her jealousy to Charlie Brown
for his affection of that girl. Patty frequently denied having a crush on
Charlie Brown at first, writing him off as too wishy-washy and because she
"could strike him out on three straight pitches", and during a game of Ha-Ha
Herman crudely insulting him when she thought he was not listening. However,
to her credit, she was shown to be visibly upset when Marcie pointed out
that he had overheard her comments and apologized to him the very next day. Yet
it was still obvious to Marcie that Peppermint Patty liked Charlie Brown as
more than a friend, wishy-washy or not. In one Sunday strip from 1979,
Peppermint Patty essentially admitted her feelings for Charlie Brown and, in
the same strip, Marcie admitted loving "Chuck," so far as to affirming her
willingness to marry Charlie Brown. Even this strip ended in a denial of sorts;
Patty brought Marcie up to the front desk of the hospital and tried to have
her admitted as a patient, saying, "I think she's sicker than he is!"
Peppermint Patty often tries to talk to Charlie Brown about matters of the heart
and even calls him often on the phone, but Charlie Brown usually manages to
somehow evade the issue, often by simply playing dumb. Patty often grumbles, "I
hate talking to you, Chuck!" whenever she tries to confide in him and he does
not tell her what she wants to hear. Peppermint Patty also developed a crush
on Pig-Pen for a while in 1980, after Charlie Brown set them up on a date for
a Valentine's Day dance. Also, in the movie Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown, both
she and Marcie were shown as being attracted to Pierre, the son of their
host family in Paris, France. Pierre only returned Marcie's affections,
however, a fact to which Peppermint Patty remained oblivious even when they
were holding hands right in front of her.
Peppermint Patty also had a strong friendship with Snoopy. For years, owing
to Snoopy's often human-like behavior, Patty often referred to Snoopy as a
"funny-looking kid with a big nose". The rest of the cast was often confused by
Patty's obliviousness, but she was finally corrected in the strip from
March 21, 1974, by Marcie. Patty has since accepted that Snoopy is a dog but
often still treats him like a human, which pleases Snoopy as he's a dog who
thinks he's not one. Voiced
Gabrielle DeFaria Ritter Christopher DeFaria
Donna Forman Linda Ercoli
Stuart Brotman Laura Planting
Patricia Patts Brent Hauer
Victoria Vargas Gini Holtzman
Kristie Baker Jason Mendelson
Nicole Buda Phillip Lucier
Haley Peel Brittan Reese
Rachel Davey Emily Lalande
Daniel Hansen Rory Thost
Venus Schulthens References