--- description: Photos of 'Peanuts' creator Charles Schulz at home and at play with his family in 1967. title: Charles Schulz: Photos of the 'Peanuts' Creator at Home in 1967 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt12b2ba9d4c368aee/69884850428a9e7617ccc6db/04_116926605.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Good Ol' Charles Schulz: The 'Peanuts' Creator at Home by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 30, 2014 9:30 PM CUT  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz with one of his family's five dogs in California in 1967. Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz with one of his family's five dogs in California in 1967.Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 30, 2014 9:30 PM CUT It takes a special kind of genius to transform frustration, insecurity, anxiety, clumsiness and outright failure into something so sympathetic and universal that literally hundreds of millions of people embrace your creative output as part of their lives. Comedians, of course, have mined the humor inherent in personal debasement for years — although, with an awful lot of “confessional” comedy, one has to dig through mountains of wretched, indulgent material before finding a nugget of self-revelation that feels even remotely sweet-natured or genuinely vulnerable. Charles M. Schulz, on the other hand, spent decades weaving stories around the central characters in his legendary comic strip, _Peanuts_, that somehow managed to feel both emphatically G-rated and, whether the reader was a kid or an adult, profoundly, recognizably _true_. Working in a medium — the newspaper comic strip — that, by its very nature, is among the most transient creative endeavors ever devised by human beings, Schulz conceived a marvelously undramatic world of flawed, generally kind-hearted youngsters muddling through as best they could, and then spent the next half century exploring that world and its inhabitants as compassionately as, say, Faulkner explored Yoknapatawpha County.  Charlie Brown; Snoopy (and his siblings); Peppermint Patty; Lucy; Linus; the soulful Schroeder; the beloved, never-seen “Little Red-Haired Girl”; the ever-popular Pig-Pen: for generations of readers — and, later, for viewers of the classic Halloween and Christmas TV specials — these and other characters were, and remain, as companionable as old friends. Here, on the anniversary of the October 2, 1950, debut of _Peanuts_ as a daily newspaper comic strip, LIFE.com presents a series of photos — none of which originally ran in LIFE magazine — of Charles M. Schulz at home and at play with his family in 1967. There have been flashier comics, and there have been more impressive illustrators and more psychologically complex comic strip characters and more dramatic storytellers in the genre than Charles M. Schulz. But there was never a more influential comic strip than _Peanuts_, and there was never one more consistently, wonderfully engaging for so many decades. It’s not easy keeping both kids and adults entertained day after day, week after week, for years on end. But that’s just what Charles M. Schulz did with Charlie Brown and the gang. All things considered, that’s not too shabby a legacy for a shy kid from Minnesota who, from an early age, just really loved to draw. ---  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz with his kids, Jill, Amy and Monte, in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz with his kids at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz's daughter, Jill, at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz with one of his family's five dogs in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz with one of his family's five dogs in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz with his first wife, Joyce, and one of his family's five dogs in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz's son, Monte, at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz plays football at his home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz and kids at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Baseball game at Charles Schulz's home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz at work at his home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz at work at his home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz reads the paper at his home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles Schulz's daughters at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz plays football with his own children and kids from the neighborhood at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz's daughters at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz with two of his kids and his first wife, Joyce, at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Charles M. Schulz with one of his family's five dogs and his first wife, Joyce, at home in California in 1967. Bill Ray—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3881041/good-ol-charles-schulz-the-peanuts-creator-at-home/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3881041/good-ol-charles-schulz-the-peanuts-creator-at-home/"},"headline":"Good Ol' Charles Schulz: The 'Peanuts' Creator at Home","datePublished":"2014-09-30T21:30:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:03:36.291Z","description":"Sixty-four years after the Oct. 2, 1950, debut of Peanuts in a handful of newspapers, LIFE.com presents photos of its creator, Charles Schulz, at home and at play with his family in 1967.","url":"https://time.com/3881041/good-ol-charles-schulz-the-peanuts-creator-at-home/","keywords":["Peanuts","Comics","1967","newspaper","black and white photography","Bill Ray"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt12b2ba9d4c368aee/69884850428a9e7617ccc6db/04_116926605.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ben Cosgrove","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt12b2ba9d4c368aee/69884850428a9e7617ccc6db/04_116926605.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Charles M. 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