Peanuts by Charles Schulz for December 19, 2023

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …but we did have shampoo, soap and coffee!

Unfortunately the adaptation of the book to the screen often involves major changes to the plot and characters. It’s dangerous to write a book report based on the movie instead of the book.

Probably should have watched almost any version of “A Christmas Carol” instead.

Why do I think this will end badly?

I’ve never seen the movie, and it’s been about 60 years since I red the book in senior English class, so I can’t predict how similar the two are.

Anybody know?

Books are better then movies. The reader can supply their own imagination as to how the characters look and sounded like. With movies what you get is what Hollywood or Pinewood decided things should look like and sound like. “They” can even change what characters say and in doing so chance how the story runs. And thus you get a different story than what the Author wanted.

´Tis a far greater book I read than any movie I have seen before.

Best of times, worst of times.

It was the best of comercialsit was the worst fo comercials…

I got out of reading Hamlet by watching a video of the Royal Shakespearean Company/BBC production of Hamlet with Derek Jacobi, Patrick Stewart and Lalla Ward.

““Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; – the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!”

Poor Patty, not a lick of common sense.

Sir, you have it all wrong. You need to read the original source material, because some adaptions tend to be unfaithful, inaccurate, completely butchered, and in-name only, which can give you the wrong idea of what made the original so good in the first place. Take Pet Alien, George of the Jungle 2007, Jem and the Holograms, the Percy Jackson movies, and Lightyear, for instance. Those IPs had a lot of neat stuff to adapt, but it was clear that the people behind those adaptations didn’t really understand what made those IPs so special in the first place, causing serious alienation from both loyal fans and newcomers alike.

In the case of Dickens, I would rather see a movie than read his books. The stories are great but he is often too wordy for my taste. I know it’s because in his time books were far longer and often had more detail than we want in the modern age. All of the writers in those days were similar, like Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and others. Though I do really love their books and the movie adaptations.

I did a book report on that very book and only read the first page. I opened my book ‘report’ (in italics) with the opening sentence, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Many people consider this as belonging to “Classic Literature.” Yet I question that. For the past two weeks you the teacher have been teaching us how to write a proper sentence structure which consists of a subject and a predicate. And the sentence should be clear and simple and follow all the grammatical rules.

Yet in this book that is a world record for a run-on sentence! I would think the first sentence should just simply be, ‘It was the best of times.’ (Period! Full stop!)

Why, teacher, do you teach us one way and this classical author writes completely in the opposite way?

I got a C grade. Probably the teacher didn’t have the nerve to give me an F!

Don’t forget all those parts with ridiculously sickly upbeat scenarios and catchy jingles about some drug one cannot pronounce and you are never told what it is for and one side effect may be death.

(turns off and unplug TV) Library! Now! MARCH!

It is a far, far better thing that I brew, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better lather that I go to than I have ever known.

With some of the commercials these days, I can understand PP’s confusion…

Shampoo, soap, and coffee—-very Dickensian motifs…

She should buy a Cliff Note on the book instead!

It won’t work, they change too much. What do you do if you watch the movie of “The Lord of the Rings” and the teacher asks you about Tom Bombadil or the Scouring of the Shire?

Maybe it’s time to revisit the private school idea…

I usually like the book better than the movie. However, sometimes I do understand why the producers of the movie make changes. In the book, The French Connection, there is a suspenseful build up during a stake out which would have translated into minutes of two people sitting in silence. On the other hand, the car chase scene did NOT appear in the book.

I did like the mini-series Shogun, Roots and The Winds of War better than the books. Some books require a series rather than a movie.

Get the Cliff’s Notes for the book Patty. It’s your last hope.. I sometimes used them in school too. I always read the book, but used the notes for things like symbolism etc. Gave me a deeper understanding of the book.

PP might not ever read the book, so the movie is a good fit for her.She only remembers the commercials anyway.

That’s an awfully intense book for a young girl. Patty is what? Maybe 7?

The book was such an exciting adventure especially the part where Acme Shampoo can make your hairy all shiny and the new cars are in at Acme Car Lot.

Patty is amazingly dumb. Even when I was 7 and had my first tv, I understood what a commercial was. Though when I was 8 I thought that the battery for a transistor radio was actually a radio that used batteries. And the the other radio just ran without batteries. Ah, childhood, those were the days with imagination filled in so many voids.

Uh, Peppermint Patty, you do realize the teacher said to read “A” book, right?

I just had a horrible thought. What if apps for reading books start implementing ads, youtube-style? You’ll be swiping through a book or comic, when suddenly you get an ad for Grammarly that you can’t skip?

It’ll happen. Capitalism sucks.

I already just saw this arc while watching my DVD of “It’s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown.” So I guess I didn’t really need to read this strip! :)

Soap and shampoo are the differences between the rich and the poor

PP is the smartest dumb person (or is it the dumbest smart person) ever.

This book report should be hilarious! Dove Shampoo, Good to the last drop!

I can just imagine what kind of ultra-failing grade she’d get if told to read The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse and she instead watched Blade Runner the 1982 movie. There is absolutely NO connection (except the title) between the novel, which is about illegal charitable medical services (for eugenics purposes, medical treatment has been outlawed for anyone who isn’t genetically “acceptable,” and some doctors are rebelling against that), and the movie, which is about synthetic humans….

This storyline was adapted into “It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown!”

The Martha’s Vineyard made for TV mysteries were a huge disappointment also. To save money nothing was filmed on MV, but the main charm of Philip R. Craig’s books were his description of locations and life there.

If I ran the world, people who said things like that would be punished by law.

He went to the guillotine with clean clothes, fresh breath, and voluptuous hair.

You should of ponied up for the commercial-free Hulu package, Patty’s dad

I saw the 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities. Good, but not exactly a cheery movie.

Read the book Patty. It is a far, far better thing than you have ever done.

Someone slap her dad.

“The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many”. If you don’t want to watch all of it skip ahead to about 3:07. But it is worth it to watch all of it. LLAP _\\//. https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=q9GWWW2d700

On “Mystery Science Theater 3000” Joel gets a bunch of Christmas show VHS tapes sent up, including ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’. Crow excitedly says “I love the scenes where they eat all the Dolly Madison cakes!” and Joel has to tell him those are the commercials.