Charles Schulz, the 77-year-old creator of the PEANUTS comic strip, hassecured final go-ahead to build a museum as a permanent home for CharlieBrown, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the gang. Plans for the17,000-square-foot Peanuts museum in Santa Rosa, California, a town 50miles north of San Francisco, where Schulz continues to work in a studio hebuilt twenty-five years ago, were unanimously approved at a city councilmeeting October 26, 1999. Schulz and his wife first suggested the idea of amuseum several years ago as a means of preserving both the comic strip anditems from the mountains of memorabilia PEANUTS has generated sincedebuting in US newspapers in 1950. The vote gave re-zoning approval for the1.6 acre site, with construction expected to begin in early 2000. Thetwo-story museum will feature an array of galleries filled with Schulz'work, as well as a 99-seat theater, an educational and research center, andoffices. PEANUTS currently appears in 2,600 newspapers in 75 countries, andhas been the subject of plays, books, recordings and television movies.Charles Schulz, who has always worked on PEANUTS alone, without anyassistants, has said that the comic strip will end when he is no longerable to continue it.
