Meet Charlie Brown, a little boy going through the normal trials and tribulations of a kid his age. He worries about school, his dog, and the the little red haired girl he has a crush on. He likes to spend a lot of his time with his friends, like the shrewd little Lucy, Linus who can’t go anywhere without his blanket, the budding pianist Schroeder, the tomboy Peppermint Patty, and his faithful dog Snoopy.

Now that the introductions are out of the way, let’s take off the rose-colored glasses, and look at the dark, depressing truth about Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang.

Folks, these are some of the most fucked up children to be ever put into a newspaper strip.

Get this kid a fucking Valium!

Take another look at Charlie Brown. Bless him, he can never catch a break. His baseball and football teams lose every game they play; he can’t get his dog to behave like an actual dog; he’s prematurely bald; the little red haired girl is somehow always on the opposite side of a crowded room; and his little sister won’t stop sexually assaulting his best friend, which spells out all kinds of bad signs about her future. Every time you’ve ever seen Charlie, he’s looked like the most bummed out fourth-grader you’ve ever seen whose parents are still supposedly alive. Of course, maybe his life wouldn’t be so bad if that bitch Lucy wasn’t constantly going out of her way to make it a living hell. Despite her psychiatry booth (and a price of $0.05 per session, it’s no wonder her advice sucks), I somehow doubt the constant yelling and attempts to break his neck by moving his football mid-punt are helping him any.

Maybe Lucy took her aggressions out on others because the boy she’d been stalking since preschool wasn’t giving her the time of day. The young reclusive pianist Schroeder clearly wasn’t interested in her, but one has to wonder how she constantly appeared in his house, leaning on his piano when nobody else was home.

Then you’ve got Peppermint Patty, the only girl in school who shows any interest at all in Charlie Brown, but nobody notices because her assistant Marcy is constantly hanging onto her, confusing Patty’s tomboyishness with her own stoic lesbianism.

Oh, but we all loved the Peanuts gang, didn’t we? We watch the Christmas and Halloween specials every year, and I’m sure we all wished we had pet beagles that wrote unpublished thriller novels in their spare time. However, I dare you to go back and watch a few animated Charlie Brown ‘toons, knowing just how depressing and wry it all is. Go ahead. Then look at the world around you, and you’ll suddenly realize why we’re all such cynical bastards.

Now, if only someone would explain to me why everyone thought Snoopy was just a “funny looking kid” whenever he put on a baseball hat…