The abrupt end of a 49-year run
Charles Schulz announced his retirement from drawing Peanuts on December 14, 1999, following a diagnosis of colon cancer and failing eyesight. Because newspapers had worked through existing backlogs, the comic strip came to a sudden halt nine weeks later, running for a total of 49 years and four months across 17,897 strips without any sabbaticals or assistants.
Schulz passed away in his sleep on February 12, 2000, just a day before the final Peanuts strip appeared in newspapers. In his last televised interview with Al Roker, Schulz recounted drawing the final strip and admitted to an uncharacteristic moment of regret, noting that the character never got to kick the football.
Love’s labors lost
Because of the accelerated retirement, Peanuts did not reach an organized conclusion or feature long-awaited resolutions to running gags, such as the appearance of the Great Pumpkin or the red-headed girl. Instead, the final full strip, published on February 6, 2000, focused on a familiar theme: Charlie Brown’s lack of romantic success.
In the strip, Charlie Brown waits by his mailbox for love letters while explaining the rules of mail delivery to his sister, Sally. Remarking that he keeps the mailbox clean in case a love letter arrives, he observes that rainy-day mail only brings letters containing rejections.
While the installment fits neatly into the character’s long-running sequence of misfortunes, it also captures the characteristic pathos of Schulz’s work, depicting a character continuing to stay positive within a setting built around failure.
