I'd forgotten about those "wide eyed fanatic" strips... classics, without a doubt.

Oh, and the correct Churchill quote actually dovetails with your formulation better:

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

The capacity to steer all topics toward his/her obsession at speed is simply a corollary of the second qualification... since there IS only one subject as far as such people are concerned.

I assume they have to get permission from the copyright owner.

Absolutely, Robert. A hard-bound compilation set of every single Peanuts cartoon, ever, requires not only permission - it requires active help.

So far, they're up to about 1960. The full set would set folks back about $750 (25 x $30 each) or so, but I've no doubt that they'll find many takers.

Im quite sure the linus making clever remarks strips are from the same era as the Lucy the psychiatrist strips, and the Snoopy vs the Red Baron strips. During the 50s,when snoopy was just a dog, Linus was still portrayed as a baby with a blanket. Sally was introduced as Linus became older and more sophisticated.

I'm pretty sure the "fanatic" and "fallout" Peanuts were from the 60s (early 60s). They were very clever and very funny. Once, Linus broke a lamp, and Lucy said, "Just wait til mom hears about this." Linus paused, and then said, "Maybe I can blame it on society."

Schulz could brilliantly encapsulate a point of view in four little boxes of poorly drawn children.

If Callimachus got it from the books, its time provenance is guaranteed pre-1960 because they're only up to 1959. Otherwise, here's the descriptions available via Callimachus' links...

The Complete Peanuts 1957-1958
Introduction by Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections)

As the 1950s close down, Peanuts definitively enters its golden age. Linus, who had just learned to speak in the previous volume, becomes downright eloquent and even begins to fend off Lucy's bullying; even so, his security neurosis becomes more pronounced, including a harrowing two-week "Lost Weekend" sequence of blanketlessness. Charlie Brown cascades further down the hill to loserdom, with spectacularly lost kites, humiliating baseball losses (including one where he becomes "the Goat" and is driven from the field in a chorus of BAAAAHs); at least his newly acquired "pencil pal" affords him some comfort. Pig-Pen, Shermy, Violet, and Patty are also around, as is an increasingly Beethoven-fixated Schroeder. But the rising star is undoubtedly Snoopy. He's at the center of the most graphically dynamic and action-packed episodes (the ones in which he attempts to grab Linus's blanket at a dead run). He even tentatively tries to sleep on the crest of his doghouse roof once or twice, with mixed results. And his imitations continue apace, including penguins, anteaters, sea monsters, vultures and (much to her chagrin) Lucy. No wonder the beagle is the cover star not only of this volume, but of the collector's slipcase.

And...

" The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960
Introduction by Whoopi Goldberg

As the first decade of Peanuts closes, it seems only fitting to bid farewell to that halcyon decade with a cover starring Patty, one of the original three Peanuts.

Major new additions to classic Peanuts lore come fast and furious here. Snoopy begins to take up residence atop his doghouse, and his repertoire of impressions increases exponentially. Lucy sets up her booth and offers her first five-cent psychiatric counsel. (Her advice to a forlorn Charlie Brown: “Get over it.”) For the very first time, Linus spends all night in the pumpkin patch on his lonely vigil for the Great Pumpkin (although he laments that he was a victim of “false doctrine,” he’s back 12 months later). Linus also gets into repeated, and visually explosive, scuffles with a blanket-stealing Snoopy, suffers the first depredations of his blanket-hating grandmother, and falls in love with his new teacher Miss Othmar.

Even more importantly, several years after the last addition to the cast (“Pig-Pen”), Charlie Brown’s sister Sally makes her appearance – first as an (off-panel) brand new baby for Charlie to gush over, then as a toddler and eventually a real, talking, thinking cast member. (By the end of this volume, she’ll already start developing her crush on Linus.)

All this, and one of the most famous Peanuts strips ever: "Happiness is a warm puppy."

Charles M. was a genuis, and I loved him as a kid. But since I became an adult, I've left the fold - because Calvin and Hobbes eclipsed even Charlie Brown and friends for sheer gigawatt brilliance.

I have a hard-bound collection of nine or ten volumes that have the early years. The animation is quite different, and Linus quotes the Bible a lot more frequently than in later years.

And because of Schroeder, on December 16th, I was asking a friend of mine, "What day is today? I know it's some kind of special day, but what?"

We figured it out. Beethoven's birthday.