Fraggle Rocks nod to Peanuts

[RKUNKLER]

I noticed the 3rd season episode is called 21.A Dark and Stormy Night. That is the exact line Snoopy types whenever he starts his book. Were the fraggle Rock writers Peanuts fans paying tribute to Snoopy or is that just a coincidence. What do you guys think.

 

[Foodie]

I noticed the 3rd season episode is called 21.A Dark and Stormy Night. That is the exact line Snoopy types whenever he starts his book. Were the fraggle Rock writers Peanuts fans paying tribute to Snoopy or is that just a coincidence. What do you guys think.

That opening sentence probably predates Peanuts.

 

[lowercasegods]

Actually, Peanuts, which first hit newspapers in 1949 as Li'l Folks to be renamed and retooled as Peanuts a year later, originated the "Dark and Stormy Night" thing in the early 60's.

 

[Fragglemuppet]

Wow, that's interesting!
Maybe you could answer a few more questions for me? I notice at least a few other titles of episodes that are either common frazes or takes on them:

"Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk" (Common daily life expression)
The Incredible Shrinking, (also used in Muppet Babies to my knowledge)
"The Man Who Wouldn't Be..."

I'm sure there are others...
Do you or anyone else know where they originated?
It's rather interesting, no?

 

[RKUNKLER]

Thats very interesting and i dont know why they did that. Maybe someone can answer that.

 

[Foodie]

Actually, Peanuts, which first hit newspapers in 1949 as Li'l Folks to be renamed and retooled as Peanuts a year later, originated the "Dark and Stormy Night" thing in the early 60's.

So, that phrase came from Peanuts then? Golly.

 

[minor muppetz]

=The Incredible Shrinking, (also used in Muppet Babies to my knowledge)

That would be a reference to "The Increditble Shrinking Woman".

 

[Harvey Towers]

The line "it was a dark and stormy night" originally comes from an 1830 novel by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

A competition now exists to attempt to find the worst possible opening line to a novel. More information can be found here: http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

 

[Fozzie Bear]

So, that phrase came from Peanuts then? Golly.

Not "Golly," you mean: Good grief.

Actually, there were no "security blankets" by name until Peanuts, and so many other things came from Schulz's mind that created such a grand thread of pop culture over the years in the blanket of American, and then worldly, culture.

Did anybody buy the book, "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" by Snoopy? It's fantastic! It even has the cover art by Lucy Van Pelt in it, and is in the back of a collection of comic strips by the same name.

From: http://www.peanutscollectorclub.com/peantfaq.txt

4.12) What's the complete text of Snoopy's novel?

As firmly established in the Holt, Rinehart & Winston
book, "Snoopy and It Was A Dark And Stormy Night"
(published in 1971), this is Snoopy's novel...in all its glory:

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night
by Snoopy

Part I

It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out!
A door slammed. The maid screamed.
Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon!
While millions of people were starving, the king lived in
luxury. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a boy was
growing up.

Part II

A light snow was falling, and the little girl with the
tattered shawl had not sold a violet all day.
At that very moment, a young intern at City Hospital
was making an important discovery. The mysterious patient
in Room 213 had finally awakened. She moaned softly.
Could it be that she was the sister of the boy in Kansas
who loved the girl with the tattered shawl who was the
daughter of the maid who had escaped from the pirates?
The intern frowned.
"Stampede!" the foreman shouted, and forty thousand
head of cattle thundered down on the tiny camp. The two
men rolled on the ground grappling beneath the murderous
hooves. A left and a right. A left. Another left and right.
An uppercut to the jaw. The fight was over. And so the
ranch was saved.
The young intern sat by himself in one corner of the
coffee shop. he had learned about medicine, but more
importantly, he had learned something about life.

THE END

(At which point, Linus asked, "But what about the
king?" He got clonked on the head for his impertinence.)

 

[RKUNKLER]

Thats good. I read that in my library. Thanks though it doesnt answer my question.