Violet Gray

Violet Gray
Peanuts character
First appearance	February 7, 1951 A Charlie Brown Christmas (television special) A Boy Named Charlie Brown (film)
Last appearance	November 16, 1984 (officially, although she makes cameo appearances in the November 19, 1985, September 28, 1990, April 17, 1995, and November 27, 1997 strips) Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown (film) He's A Bully, Charlie Brown (television special)
Voiced by	Ann Altieri (1966-1969) Linda Ercoli (1972-1975) Stacy Ferguson (1985) Jolean Wejbe (2006)
Information
Gender	Female

Violet Gray is a fictional character in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.

Violet has shoulder-length dark hair, and she frequently wears green dresses (switching to pants and jeans in the winter and in later years). Schulz changed her hairstyle between pigtails, a ponytail, and a bun in the early strips, but after a few years she dropped the braids and went exclusively with the ponytail, which became arguably her most famous trademark. Violet also wears front bangs. It became so rare to see her without a ponytail, in fact, that when she showed up without it on the way to school one day, Linus was startled enough to ask why she was wearing her hair down. She yelled that it was because her mother hadn't had time to comb her hair, since she was in such a hurry to go to Linus's house to play pool with his mother. Based on the character of Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet, she only wears braids when she is wearing blue jeans.

Her birthday is unofficially celebrated by Peanuts fans on June 17, as Charlie Brown and Pig-Pen attended her birthday party on that date in 1962. This appears to be a retcon; prior to 1962, earlier strips implied that her birthday was January 28 (in the February 22, 1951, strip, she had said her birthday was a month ago, and in the January 29, 1955, strip, Charlie Brown claimed her birthday was "yesterday").

One of the strip's earlier characters dating from 1951, Violet was seen less frequently after other female characters such as Lucy, Sally and Peppermint Patty were introduced and developed in the 1950s and 60s. Post-1960s appearances by Violet are rare, with the character making a final speaking appearance in 1984 (followed by a total of 4 "cameo" appearances as a background character between 1985-1997.)

Role in Peanuts

Violet, Lucy, and Patty are best friends, and the two began appearing together almost from the beginning of the strip. Patty was one of the four original characters (along with Charlie Brown, Shermy, and Snoopy), and Violet was the first new major character to join the cast, debuting on February 7, 1951. Her surname was mentioned only once, on April 4, 1953. In the early strips, Violet often acted like a preschool-age Suzy Homemaker: making mud pies, playing "house," and being linked to romantic scenarios involving Charlie Brown. She also collects stamps as a hobby. On rare occasions, Violet was shown walking and keeping company with Shermy.

Violet never really developed a strong personality, especially compared to the next three characters who would be introduced after her (Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus). She tended to be used mostly as a straight woman to set up the punchline. Schulz admitted as much in a 1988 interview. "Some characters just don't seem to have enough personality to carry out ideas," he said, referring to Violet, Patty, and Shermy. "They're just almost born straight men."

A good example has Violet setting up a toy farmyard, including a house, barn, tractor and tree which is suddenly hit by Charlie Brown's kite. Charlie Brown looks embarrassed, but not so worried as he was when his kite had hit Lucy's hand in a previous strip.

As the cast of characters grew, Violet was left with very little to do besides antagonizing Charlie Brown. She also played outfield (and sometimes third base) on Charlie Brown's baseball team, and popped up in that capacity from time to time in later strips.

Snobbery

Violet's most consistent personality trait is that she tends to be a bit of a snob, very conscious of appearances and status. It is implied that her family enjoys a considerably higher class position than the other characters'. Both of her parents are college graduates and her father makes more money than Charlie Brown's, a barber. When walking with Linus once, she insisted she wasn't going to be seen walking with a boy holding a blanket, whereupon he quickly transformed his blanket into an ascot (May 18, 1956). She also frequently criticizes Pig-Pen for his inability to keep himself clean. Violet often looks down on people who fail to meet her social standards, especially Charlie Brown, to whom she once stated flatly, "It simply goes without saying that you are an inferior human being." His adroit reply to that was, "If it goes without saying, why did you have to say it?!"

Being supposedly of upper-class upbringing, Violet also makes it a point to brag frequently about her father, especially to Charlie Brown, sometimes driving him to the point of aggravation. Violet's fatherly boastings were always comparative; to wit, she would say, "My dad is taller than your dad", or "My dad has more credit cards than your dad". But in a Father's Day strip her boasts are quelled, at least for the moment, when Charlie Brown takes her to his dad's barber shop. After telling her about how his dad would always smile at him no matter how bad of a workday he was having, a humbled Violet walked away, but not before quietly wishing Charlie Brown a Happy Father's Day. Her bragging on her dad backfired another time when 555 95472 fired back at her with "My dad goes to PTA meetings!" Charlie Brown once managed to deflate her with the comeback: "My dad has a son." (April 30, 1958)

Her abuse of Charlie Brown

Verbal abuse

Violet's verbal assaults of Charlie Brown (sometimes in tandem with Patty, although Patty wasn't as dominant as Violet) could be quite cruel - sometimes exceeding even the severity of Lucy's insults.

She thoroughly disliked Charlie Brown and clearly made no bones about it. Violet would insult him viciously and with the utmost cruelty, and was very remorseless and even shameless about it.

On occasion, she and Patty will talk about how gentle and kind girls are, then, in the same breath, lash out at Charlie Brown to leave them alone after he showed up. They would also talk about how people should understand others more, especially children, and then, again showing their hypocrisy, cruelly scream at Charlie Brown to go away and leave them alone.

A classic example of her attitude was where Violet is lashing out at Charlie Brown, and then finishes him off with "And I don't care if I ever see you again, do you hear me?!" Apparently, this tongue lashing was quite vicious, as Linus walks in and notices that Charlie Brown was really hurt. Charlie Brown said that Violet hadn't taken all the life out of him, "but you can number me among the walking wounded." (May 3, 1961)

Schroeder, like Linus, also doesn't like the idea of Violet and Patty insulting and yelling at Charlie Brown all the time. He comes in while the vicious girls insulted him again. (In this one, they called him weak, a real jellyfish; also saying that he was dumb, stupid, ignorant and had a silly face!) As the girls walked off with cruel smiles on their faces, Schroeder calls them "the cats" who had once again used Charlie Brown to sharpen their claws on. Charlie Brown said to Schroeder, "I am sort of a spiritual scratching post."

In the December 4, 1959 daily strip, Violet and Patty basically see Charlie Brown's mere presence, even if he doesn't does anything to them, as an affront to their supposed and self-professed superiority. Because of this, they viciously yell at him to go home. After completely demoralizing him, Violet said, "You know, it's a strange thing about Charlie Brown, you almost never see him laugh."

In the August 16, 1951 strip Violet was the first to call Charlie Brown a "Blockhead," an insult Lucy would later use far more frequently and with other characters.

Another example had Patty and Violet reciting a very mean-spirited poem basically pointing out that "Boys are rotten filled with cotton" and that "Girls are dandy filled with candy!" and then walking off smugly, where Charlie Brown retaliates with the phrase, "Generalities!!!"

Still another involved the two shamelessly berating Charlie Brown about a wrong answer Charlie Brown gave to a teacher's question, both going so far as to call him "stupid" and then walking off laughing at him. ("The teacher asked him why they have so much rain in Oregon... and [Charlie Brown] said, 'Because they have a lot of clouds!'")

Once, after yet another one of Violet's verbal assaults on Charlie Brown (wherein this time she called him, weak, spineless and wishy-washy), Charlie Brown remarked to Linus that she took him down "step by step, line by line, verse by verse". Linus replied, "It sounds like you are a victim of higher criticism!".

In A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Violet, Patty and Lucy gleefully taunted Charlie Brown with the derisive song "Failure Face", in a cold-hearted attempt to stop him from entering a spelling bee and to solidify in his psyche that he was nothing more than a born loser.

"We're Having A Party, and You're Not Invited!"

While Lucy's insults tend to be fairly blunt—calling Charlie Brown names like "blockhead" and making sarcastic remarks at his expense—Patty and Violet preferred to use social exclusion as their weapon, sometimes going to extremes to make him feel like an outcast. For example, they once invited him to join their "secret club", then rejected him after he accepted. In one early Sunday strip, Patty and Violet forced Charlie Brown and Shermy to build a clubhouse for them, without even a break, and then hung a "No Boys Allowed" sign on the door.

On many other occasions, especially in the early years of the strip, Patty and Violet went out of their way - sometimes with unconcealed glee, to make sure Charlie Brown knew that they were throwing a party and he wasn't invited. But Charlie Brown sometimes managed to turn the tables on the two girls. For example:

• November 23, 1951: When they mentioned excluding Charlie Brown from their party, he let it roll off his back saying he didn't want to go to their "dumb ol' party" anyway. After he left, they pondered whether he meant it. Violet was convinced he did, so Patty suggested "In that case, maybe we'd better invite him."
• January 29, 1954: Charlie Brown replied to them saying if they didn't like him they were better off not inviting him. Stunned to silence, the girls just walked away, with Charlie Brown smiling after them.
• September 1, 1954: Charlie Brown uncharacteristically threatened to strafe, then bomb their house if he wasn't invited, to which both girls replied, "Okay, you're invited."

In another instance, Charlie Brown pretended to not care about not being invited until Patty and Violet were out of earshot, when it is revealed that he is in fact very depressed about it.

Physical violence

Another contrast to Lucy was physical violence; Violet's physical attacks, especially on Charlie Brown, were much fewer and further between. In one 1963 Sunday strip, an angry Violet was chasing Charlie Brown threatening to "knock (his) block off". Before she could throw the punch, Charlie Brown stopped her and tried to reason with her that there were better ways to solve problems than with violence. Violet ended up punching him anyway in the middle of his speech, and in the final panel admits to Patty, "I had to hit him quick. He was beginning to make sense!"

But Violet's fighting side backfired on her at times, too; In one particular Sunday strip Violet tries matching her in-fighting prowess against Lucy's by throwing a barrage of insults at her- from a distance. But when Violet physically gets in Lucy's face, Lucy blasts back with, "You're a no-good, tale-tattling, little sneaking snip-snap pony-tailed ape!!". Visibly shaken, Violet retreats, as Lucy smiles smugly. (The whole incident was observed by Linus and Charlie Brown, the latter remarking on Violet's choice of words saying "I'm glad it's not me she's yelling at. I'd never be able to take it!")

Notably, Violet was the first character ever not to let Charlie Brown kick a football (on November 14, 1951). However, her reason for pulling away was for fear of him kicking her hand, whereas Lucy's motivation was usually sheer malice.

Portrayals

Violet also appeared in several of the animated Peanuts television specials. Voice actors who played Violet over the years include Ann Altieri (who also voiced Frieda) from 1965-1969, Linda Ercoli (who also voiced Peppermint Patty) from 1972-1975, and most recently Jolean Wejbe in 2006's He's a Bully, Charlie Brown.

External links

• The first appearance of Violet in the Peanuts comic strip from February 7, 1951.