Lucy Van Pelt
Lucy van Pelt is a fictional character in the syndicated comic strip Peanuts, written and drawn by Charles Schulz. She is the older sister of Linus and Rerun. Lucy is a crabby and cynical eight-year-old girl, and is often mean to the other characters in the strip, particularly her brother and Charlie Brown. In one word, she is a fuss-budget (a word which was made popular by the strip)[citation needed].
History
Lucy was introduced into the strip on March 3, 1952 as a wide-eyed baby who constantly tormented her parents. Very early on, Schulz eliminated the circles around her eyes and allowed her to mature to the age of the other characters. She soon grew into her familiar persona of a bossy, crabby girl.
Perhaps Lucy's most famous gimmick in her long existence as a character is as the one who pulls the football away from Charlie Brown right as he is about to kick it. The first occasion on which she did this was November 16,1952, taking over for Violet, who had previously (yet, unintentionally) subjected Charlie Brown to this trick on November 14, 1951 all because she was afraid that Charlie Brown would accidentally kick her instead of the ball while Lucy, later on, would intentionally pull the football away from Charlie Brown to trick him. Ironically, the first time Lucy did this, she feared that Charlie Brown's shoes were dirty; and the second time (in the same strip) she, for once, did not pull the ball away, but Charlie Brown tripped when Lucy firmly held the ball in place with unexpected strength.
In one of the final strips, she's called inside while trying to convince Charlie Brown to kick the ball. She has Rerun do the trick this time, and Rerun later walks in holding the football. Lucy wondered if he pulled it away, and Rerun says that she'll never know.
Relationships with other characters
Lucy and Linus
Lucy is frequently irked by her younger and more passive brother, Linus. In particular, she wants Linus to stop his addiction to his security blanket, and has even gone so far as to steal it. She once made a kite out of it and "accidentally" let go of it. The blanket flew around the country and people wrote Linus to let him know they saw it. The Air Force rescued it when it flew out over the Pacific Ocean. Another time Lucy buried the blanket, causing a frantic Linus to dig up almost the entire neighborhood before Snoopy found it.
Aside from trying to cure him of his blanket habit, Lucy also generally treats Linus like dirt, stealing all the crayons (except black, white and gray, of course), changing the channel or turning the TV off entirely while Linus is watching it, and forcing him to shower her with lavish words of praise before she'll even consider sharing some of her food with him ("Thank you, dear sister, greatest of all sisters, without whom I'd never survive!") Lucy also treats Linus like her own personal servant, forcing him to bring her a snack or something to drink while she watches TV. Lucy once bragged that she played Linus "like a pianist plays a concert grand," which isn't far from the truth. Lucy has made no secret of the fact that she wishes she were an only child, and has actually tried to throw Linus out of the house a few times.
By contrast, Linus' attempts to stand up to his sister typically result in a verbal or physical beatdown, including getting knocked out by her in a boxing match, but he sometimes gets by her, getting his revenge on Lucy in more subtle ways. In one strip, he awards her with a printed scroll and congratulates her on being "crabby" for 1,000 days in a row - to which she responded, "One rarely gets a chance to see such carefully planned sarcasm."
On one occasion, however, Lucy was seen to acknowledge Linus' genuine affection for her. Angrily demanding to know what she had to feel grateful for on Thanksgiving Day, Linus innocently replies, "Well, you have a brother who loves you ..." Lucy immediately bursts into tears at this admission - perhaps the only time she's ever shown remorse for her shabby treatment of her hapless younger brother.
Another occasion showed Lucy in a moment where she showed caring and concern for her brother Linus. In "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," when Linus did not return home from the pumpkin patch late in the evening, Lucy got dressed, walked to the pumpkin patch and walked her sleeping brother home.
Lucy and Charlie Brown
Her treatment of Charlie Brown is just as bad (although in the early days, her occasional crushes on him are very questionable, if she had a crush on him). Aside from her football trick, she gives "psychiatric advice" by insulting and belittling him. In the earlier years, Lucy came up with silly theories ( e.g. "Snow comes up out of the ground") and berated and laughed at Charlie Brown's patient efforts to tell her otherwise. When Charlie Brown finally proves that Lucy's theory is false, Lucy makes an insensitive remark about the way he looks. (A similar thing happens when Lucy laughs at Charlie's assertion that birds fly south for the winter; upon learning the truth from her teacher, she wonders if she can change to a different teacher.) When Charlie Brown fails at something, Lucy is one of the hardest on him. She is somewhere between a fair weather friend and a bully to him.
Lucy and Rerun
By contrast, Lucy's relationship with her youngest brother, Rerun (who entered the strip as a baby in 1972 and didn't become a major character until the late 1990s), is much less turbulent. Despite her initial dismay over his birth (lamenting that she was experiencing a "rerun" with another baby brother, thus giving him his nickname), Lucy has in fact taken on something of a mentor role for Rerun, teaching him important things he needs to survive in life, such as how to tie his shoes - in contrast to the outrageous misinformation she has been known to force on Linus (e.g. telling him that leaves falling off trees in autumn were "flying south for the winter"). As a result, Lucy's personality seemed to mellow a bit in the final years of the strip, though she never did become totally "nice." Rerun often shows a knack for getting around Lucy and weakening her defenses, whereas Linus is apt to give up and just let Lucy dominate him.
Lucy and Snoopy
Lucy is terrified of being licked or kissed by Snoopy, and usually runs off screaming whenever he does kiss her. Snoopy is naturally infatuated with her and likes to tease her about it.
Lucy and Snoopy have also occasionally found themselves in not-so-friendly competition - the two faced off in an arm-wrestling tournament once (the competition ended abruptly after Snoopy kissed Lucy on the nose and she recoiled in horror), and more than once in the course of the strip have actually come to fighting (again, Snoopy often wins by default by trying to kiss or lick Lucy's face). As it turns out, Snoopy is perhaps one of the few characters in the strip who usually winds up outsmarting Lucy.
Lucy and Schroeder
Lucy is in love with Schroeder, who constantly rejects her advances. She spends much of her time leaning against his toy piano as he plays, striving to gain the attention Schroeder gives to his music. Schroeder often responds to her flirting with a sarcastic quote.
Lucy constantly sees herself as being in competition with the piano, which she has even tried to steal and destroy, and sometimes succeeding, earning her none of Schroeder's love or affection. To an extent, she also believes she is competing with Schroeder's favorite composer, Beethoven, and often makes a point to belittle and insult Beethoven to Schroeder's face (which angers Schroder immensely). In one strip, Lucy tossed Schroeder's piano up into the Kite-Eating Tree which always eats Charlie Brown's kites, and in another strip, she threw his piano down a sewer. Schroeder, for his part, has on occasion exacted revenge by yanking his piano out from under Lucy, causing her head to strike the floor. Schroeder often is annoyed by Lucy's materialistic outlook on life (especially when she suggests that Beethoven's birthday is an ideal day to buy girls gifts).
Lucy is even highly protective of "her man". On occasion during the 1960s, Lucy and naturally-curly-haired Frieda were shown as rivals for Schroeder's affections; she once spotted Frieda taking Lucy's place at Schroeder's piano, and (egged on by Snoopy) beat her up. Another time both Frieda and Lucy are leaning on Schroeder's piano-and Schroeder yanks the piano from both of them!
Other personality traits
Psychiatric booth
Lucy is also the manager of a psychiatric booth, parodying the lemonade stand operated by many young children in the United States. Here, she gives advice for five cents to the other characters in the strip, most frequently an anxious Charlie Brown. Of course, the advice that Lucy offers often leaves Charlie Brown feeling even worse than before. The psychiatric booth is a prime example of the more adult-oriented humor that Schulz incorporated into his comic strip, making it accessible to people of all ages. In the early years of the psychiatric booth, another of Lucy's most frequent clients was her own brother, Linus; Schroeder, Sally, Frieda, and Snoopy have also been beneficiaries of Lucy's psychiatric wisdom, which is usually of little actual help and accompanied by "5 cents please."
Baseball
On Charlie Brown's baseball team Lucy plays right field (or occasionally center field), and is characterized as a bad player, who, when temporarily kicked off the team, turns to heckling the games. Lucy has a knack for coming up with a novel excuse for every fly ball she misses (for example: "The moons of Saturn got in my eyes," or "I think there were toxic substances coming from my glove, and they made me dizzy."). Other times, she finds an excuse to have one-sided conversations with Charlie Brown at the pitcher's mound, often over some trivial thing she noticed, which usually result in Charlie Brown blowing his top, twice, he has screamed at her to "Get back in center field where you belong!". Once, Charlie Brown traded Lucy to Peppermint Patty's baseball team for Marcie (and a pizza), but once Patty discovered what a terrible player Lucy really was, she traded her back. Even on the diamond, Lucy flirts with Schroeder, who plays catcher on Charlie Brown's team: once she called for a "squeeze play...I'll squeeze the catcher!" Only once has Lucy ever produced on the baseball diamond: in one game, Lucy (using a bat signed not by a ballplayer, but by actress Liv Ullmann) slammed a home run, after Schroeder jokingly suggested that he would kiss her if she hit a four-bagger. (Lucy let him off the hook: "If that's the only way I'll get you to kiss me, forget it! Another victory for women's lib!")
Ironically, during the younger years of the comic strip, Lucy is seen as being amazing with the base ball and the mitt. She is seen throwing the ball to herself, and jumping up to catch it, not missing one pass.
Portrayals
1960s child actress Tracy Stratford first voiced Lucy in 1965 and since then many actresses including sisters Robin (from 1972 to 1973) and Melanie Kohn (from 1974 to 1977) have voiced her. Actress Sally Dryer provided Lucy's voice from 1966-1968. Pamelyn Ferdin also provided a voice to Lucy in Play It Again, Charlie Brown. 1980s child actress Angela Lee voiced her in 1982 and 1983. Heather Stoneman voiced her in 1984 and 1985. Erica Gayle and Ami Foster both voiced her in "This Is America, Charlie Brown" (1988-1989).
In the stage musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Lucy was portrayed by Reva Rose in the original off-Broadway cast in 1967, and by Ilana Levine in the 1999 Broadway revival.
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