Pig-Pen is a fictional character in the
comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
''
Peanuts
''Peanuts'' is a print syndication, syndicated daily strip, daily and Sunday strip, Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. ' ...
'' by
Charles M. Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz (; November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000) was an American cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip ''Peanuts'', featuring what are probably his two best-known characters, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. He is wid ...
. While amiable, he is a young boy who is, except on rare occasions, extremely dirty and attracts a permanent cloud of dust.
History
"Pig-Pen" is a nickname. In a 2000
Gallup Poll
Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its bu ...
, Pig-Pen was found to be the fifth most popular ''Peanuts'' character. In strips up through 1980, Schulz spelled the character's name "Pig-Pen", with a hyphen; since 1981, the name has been spelled "Pigpen". He is also mocked by other characters because of his dirtiness.
Pig-Pen is known for his perpetually filthy overalls and the cloud of dirt and dust that follows him wherever he goes. When he takes a deep breath (to sing, for example), the dust rises briefly around him. He sometimes refers to the cloud that surrounds him with pride as "the dust of ancient civilizations". He cannot seem to rid himself of the dust for more than the very briefest of periods — indeed, in spite of his best efforts, it appears that he ''cannot'' stay clean. He is referred to in an early strip as the only person who can get dirty while walking in a snowstorm. Nevertheless, on rare occasions he has briefly appeared clean, and hence unrecognizable. Once this was in order to impress
Violet
Violet may refer to:
Common meanings
* Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue
* One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly:
** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
Places United States
* Viol ...
, of whom he was a bit fond. On another occasion (September 6, 1954), he managed to keep one side of his body clean and presented this clean side to Patty, causing her to believe that he was completely clean. In ''
The Peanuts Movie
''The Peanuts Movie'' (known in some countries as ''Snoopy and Charlie Brown: A Peanuts Movie'') is a 2015 American computer-animated comedy film based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip ''Peanuts'', produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed ...
'' (2015), although Patty seems to have a crush on Pig-Pen, he seems to have no interest in her.
Once, after bathing and dressing in clean clothes, Pig-Pen stepped outside his house and instantaneously became dirty and disheveled, whereupon he declared to Charlie Brown, "You know what I am? I'm a dust magnet!" On another occasion, Pig-Pen decided it was important to have clean hands, but after failing to wash them, realized that he had "reached a point of no return."
One notable exception is an earlier strip where he gets caught in a brief but heavy rainfall, and while trying to seek shelter, the storm ends, revealing him to be clean. He responds with disdain, stating that "in one minute the rain has washed away what took me all day to accomplish".
Though Pig-Pen is proud of his uncleanliness, Charlie Brown is the only other ''Peanuts'' character to unconditionally accept Pig-Pen for who he is, even defending Pig-Pen's uncleanliness in one strip (which was re-used in ''
A Charlie Brown Christmas
''A Charlie Brown Christmas'' is a 1965 animated television special. It is the first TV special based on the comic strip ''Peanuts'', by Charles M. Schulz. Produced by Lee Mendelson and directed by Bill Melendez, the program made its debut on C ...
'' and
''Peanuts''):
Charles Schulz admitted that he came to regret Pig-Pen's popularity, given the character's essentially one-joke nature; he utilized the character very rarely in the later years of the strip's run; Pigpen was featured in just over 100 of the 17,897 ''Peanuts'' comic strips that Schulz created (though still appearing commonly in the TV specials and movies of the franchise).
Like most of Schulz's characters, Pig-Pen has (both with and without lines) appeared in many of the
animated
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
''Peanuts''
television specials
A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of ent ...
beginning in the 1960s, as well as all five movies. One time, his clean self was shown in a
miniseries
A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...
titled ''
This Is America, Charlie Brown
''This Is America, Charlie Brown'' is an eight-part animated television miniseries that depicts a series of events in American history featuring characters from the Charles M. Schulz comic strip ''Peanuts''. It aired from 1988 to 1989 on CBS. T ...
'', where he is an
astronaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
aboard a futuristic
space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station i ...
, demonstrating how personal hygiene would apply in
zero gravity
Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight. It is also termed zero gravity, zero G-force, or zero-G.
Weight is a measurement of the force on an object at rest in a relatively strong gravitational fie ...
. True to form, the clean Pig-Pen is immediately dirtied again when dirt is attracted to him magnetically. In the 1990s, he appeared (in an animated overlay against a live-action backdrop) in a series of television
commercials
A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
for
Regina vacuum cleaners
A vacuum cleaner, also known simply as a vacuum or a hoover, is a device that causes suction in order to remove dirt from floors, upholstery, draperies, and other surfaces. It is generally electrically driven.
The dirt is collected by either a d ...
where all the dirt is sucked off his body and filthy trousers by one of the company's products, arguably one of the few times where Pig-Pen remains clean. In 2015, Pig-Pen appeared in a commercial for All laundry detergent for a tie-in with ''
The Peanuts Movie
''The Peanuts Movie'' (known in some countries as ''Snoopy and Charlie Brown: A Peanuts Movie'') is a 2015 American computer-animated comedy film based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip ''Peanuts'', produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed ...
''. In the commercial, Snoopy, dressed as a magician, puts a cloth over Pig-Pen and instantly makes him clean, causing Snoopy to get dirty. This is also one of the few times where he remains clean.
Geoffrey Ornstein first voiced Pig-Pen in the 1965 movie ''A Charlie Brown Christmas''. Although he also later played the role in ''
Charlie Brown's All Stars!
''Charlie Brown's All Stars!'' is the second prime-time animated television special based upon the popular comic strip ''Peanuts,'' by Charles M. Schulz. It was the second such TV special (following '' A Charlie Brown Christmas'') to be produced ...
'', other various actors have voiced him ever since.
He last appeared in the ''Peanuts'' comic strip on September 8, 1999. That strip was very uncharacteristic of him in that it showed him embarrassed to the point of shame in his dirtiness, with none of the pride or sense of destiny that he expressed in earlier strips.
Pig-Pen is very good at playing the drums, as shown in the special ''
Play It Again, Charlie Brown
''Play It Again, Charlie Brown'' is the seventh prime-time animated TV special based upon the comic strip ''Peanuts,'' by Charles M. Schulz. It originally aired on CBS on March 28, 1971.
This was the first ''Peanuts'' TV special of the 1970s, ai ...
''. He is also shown playing the
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
, notably in ''A Charlie Brown Christmas'', as well as in ''
Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!
''Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!'' is the 30th prime-time animated television special based upon the popular comic strip ''Peanuts,'' by Charles M. Schulz. It aired on the CBS network on January 1, 1986. The special focuses on Charlie Brown's dif ...
'' He plays third base on the ''Peanuts'' baseball team.
Voiced by
*Geoffrey Ornstein (1963–1966)
*Gabrielle DeFaria Ritter (1966–1969)
*Christopher DeFaria (1969)
*Chris Inglis (1971)
*Tom Muller (1974)
*Carl Steven (1984–1986)
*Jacob Ferry (1994)
*Brandon Taylor (1997)
*Corey Padnos (2000)
*Jake Miner (2003)
*
Shane Baumel
Shane R. Baumel (born February 12, 1997) is an American former actor. He made his film debut playing Crispin in ''Daddy Day Care''. He also had a role in ''Wild Hogs'', starring Tim Allen, and appeared on TV a few times, in shows such as ''The Em ...
(2011)
*AJ Teece (2015)
*Sage Correa (2016)
*David Stone (2017)
*Jacob Soley (2021)
References
{{Peanuts
Peanuts characters
Fictional musicians
Comics characters introduced in 1954
Male characters in animation
Male characters in comics
Child characters in television
Fictional characters without a name