Peggy Jean

Peggy Jean is a fictional character in the comic strip Peanuts. She was the girlfriend of Charlie Brown for about two years in the early-1990s. Charlie Brown first met her at summer camp in 1990, and she appeared intermittently in the strip until mid-1999, a few months before the strip ended. Because of Charlie Brown's extreme nervousness upon meeting her, he mistakenly gave his name as "Brownie Charles," which she continued to use thereafter, thinking it was 'cute.'

Peggy Jean and Charlie Brown's relationship hit a brief snag almost immediately after it began, however. At summer camp, Peggy Jean once held the football down for Charlie Brown, who apparently declined, worried that she would pull it away like Lucy did. The fact that he took so long to make up his mind led Peggy to think that he did not trust her and she allegedly went home enraged. Peggy Jean came back and made up, kissing Charlie Brown in the process. Charlie Brown went so far as to call Linus on the phone and tell him that she kissed him. But the phone was actually answered by Lucy who asked "What is this, an obscene phone call??!!"

Later, Charlie Brown wanted to buy her some gloves for Christmas but did not have the money for them (Linus suggested he send her a card advising her to keep her hands in her pockets). Charlie Brown sold his entire comic collection in order to buy the gloves, only to meet Peggy Jean in the shop and her telling him that her mother had bought her the same sort of gloves; in the end, Charlie Brown gives the gloves he bought to Snoopy. This storyline was adaptated as a portion of the animated special It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown; curiously, Peggy was depicted there as a redhead instead of having brown hair as she did in the strip, which may have led to viewers confusing her with the Little Red-Haired Girl (the original VHS release of the special even mistakenly referred to her as the latter character).

Charlie Brown liked Peggy Jean as much as the Little Red-Haired Girl, if not more, but in her final appearance in the strip in 1999, she revealed to him that she had another boyfriend who was waiting at the football field, leaving Charlie Brown brokenhearted.

Possible connection to music

Maury Dean writes, "Perhaps it is no coincidence his camp romance is a girl named PEGGY JEAN. Buddy Holly, we recall, sang the golden charms of 'Peggy Sue' (#3, 10-57). 'Jean' (#2, 1969) is the breathtaking ballad done by 'Good Morning Starshine' star Oliver (Swofford, 1945-2000), who died the same week as the beloved Charles Schulz."