I have been saving this for awhile, and thought it would fit nicely with the Fess Parker tribute, and the ever-popular DHI Sunday Funnies (the proverbial two birds with one stone). I was asked last month to write a tribute to Fess Parker for the upcoming Disney’s twenty-three magazine (WHAT, you haven’t joined D23 yet? You should, go to: The Greatest Disney Enthusiast Club On The Planet!). In doing so, I pulled all my old Davy research from my book The Davy Crockett Craze (which being some fifteen years old, and with the state of my archives, really took some doing). I hoped to find something new and of interest to share in the tribute. What resulted was a wonderful two-day trip down memory lane. It had slipped my mind how pervasive the Crockett craze was, and at the center of it all was the genial Fess Parker.

I also found the above Peanuts comic strip from 1955 (and a few others). The beloved cartoonist Charles Schultz created the strip while living in Minnesota, where it appeared weekly as “Lil Folks” in the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1947 to 1950. By October 1950, the strip appeared in syndication as Peanuts, and from there it took off and became a real part of American life. At its peak it had a readership of over 350 million in 75 countries, and spawned several popular television specials.

By 1955, Schultz started to add pop culture references to the strip. With the Crockett Craze hitting in 1955, and being one of the biggest American pop cultural events ever, it was only natural that it found its way into several Peanuts strips. In this one, the controversial and ever present argument of Beethoven vs. Davy Crockett is tackled.

Enjoy. And don’t forget to click on the cartoon for a high-res and readable image.