Schroeder (Peanuts) - History

History

Schroeder was introduced as a baby on May 30, 1951, but aged to the maturity level of the other characters over the next three years. On his first appearance on the strip Patty refers to him as a next door neighbor. His address is 1770 James Street, easy to remember for him because the number is Beethoven's birth year. Schroeder's birthday was in 1954 revealed to be January 18. He initially had no notable characteristics, but soon, Schulz had the idea to incorporate his daughter Meredith's toy piano into the strip. He decided to give it to the newest character in the strip, and thus the character as he is known to millions of fans was born. The origin of his name can be found in Schulz' 1975 book, Peanuts Jubilee: "Schroeder was named after a young boy with whom I used to caddy at Highland Park golf course in St. Paul. I don't recall ever knowing his first name, but just 'Schroeder' seemed right for the character in the script, even before he became the great musician he now is."

From his first appearance at the piano on September 24, 1951 Schroeder has played classical pieces of virtuoso level, as depicted by Schulz's transcription of sheet music onto the panel. The first piece Schroeder played was Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G Minor. Schroeder is often found playing selections from a sonata by Beethoven, his favorite composer. As revealed in one strip wherein Lucy took his bust of Beethoven and smashed it, he has an entire closet full of Beethoven busts. It was also found that he has an entire closet full of pianos. Every year, Schroeder marks December 16, the birthday of his hero. Schulz once revealed that he had originally planned to depict Johannes Brahms as Schroeder's idol, but decided that Beethoven simply sounded "funnier." He was once in shock when he forgot Beethoven's birthday. When Charlie Brown's baseball team is required to have a sponsor to play games, Schroeder's sponsor is Beethoven. In the early strips Schroeder also played other composers. In one strip, Lucy implies that his idolization of Beethoven is excessive, asking him what he thinks of other classical composers such as Schubert, Brahms, Bach, and Chopin. Schroeder simply replies, "They were great composers too," and continues to play Beethoven. On another occasion, Lucy remarks to Schroeder "Beethoven wasn't so great." Irritated, Schroeder asks Lucy to explain her comment. Lucy replies, "You've never seen his face on a bubblegum card, have you?"

Schroeder is usually depicted sitting at his toy piano, able to pound out multi-octave selections of music, despite the fact that such a piano has a very small realistic range (for instance, and as a running joke, the black keys are merely painted on to the white keys). On one occasion, Charlie Brown tried to get him to play a real piano and young Schroeder burst into tears, intimidated by its size.