Marcie

Marcie

Peanuts character
Age	8[citation needed]
Gender	Female
Family	Unnamed parents
Original voice actor	James Ahrens
First Appearance	June 18, 1968

Marcie is a bespectacled fictional character featured in Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts. She serves as comedic foil and best friend to tomboy Peppermint Patty, plays a supporting role in some of Snoopy's heroic fantasies, and displays a romantic interest in Charlie Brown.

Appearance

Marcie is one of the few bespectacled characters in the strip (unlike Linus, though he only wears glasses occasionally). She has dark brown chin-length hair and she usually wears a t-shirt and shorts, like Peppermint Patty. She and Peppermint Patty were the only girls in the strip to wear a t-shirt and shorts (although the girls wore pants during the winter in the strip).

History of the character

Marcie made her first named appearance on October 11, 1971. Her animated debut was on the 1973 special There's No Time for Love, Charlie Brown, (although technically first appeared as Clara in Snoopy, Come Home).

In the animated special You're In the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown, Marcie's surname is given as "Johnson", but Schulz never gave her a surname in the comic strip; therefore, Johnson is not considered to be her official name.^[1]

Originally, Marcie was portrayed as a bit dim-witted. For example, in It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown she makes several unsuccessful attempts at boiling eggs to make Easter eggs and then eats one without removing the shell first, to Peppermint Patty's great consternation. Later, she was portrayed as an overachiever (she once quipped that she had already chosen her college and enrolled her three children in preschool) and academically the brightest of the Peanuts cast. Even so, she is possibly the most believing and naïve of the gang. She apparently is under a great deal of pressure from her parents to excel in school, and in a story in 1990 sought refuge from her demanding parents at Charlie Brown's house and fell asleep on his couch.

She first appeared as a named character in a sequence with Peppermint Patty at sleepaway camp; in that sequence, she first calls Peppermint Patty "sir" as a mark of respect for Patty's age and life experience. However, as Marcie joined the regular cast, she often appeared in the same class as Peppermint Patty, sitting in the desk behind her.

The first actor to do Marcie's voice in the TV specials was a boy, James Ahrens, from 1973 to 1977. Various others have played Marcie ever since. As with all of the Peanuts performers who were too young to read a script, director Bill Meléndez sometimes had to speak the children's lines to them. Melendez (who has a distinct Mexican accent) has noted with amusement that some of the performers for Marcie imitated his reading so closely, they repeated his accented "Charlce" instead of "Charles".

Personality

She is a close friend of Peppermint Patty (whom she always addresses as "Sir"), and, like Peppermint Patty, has an unrequited crush on Charlie Brown (whom she usually calls "Charles"), whom she once said that she loved and would be willing to marry if he asked her. Whereas Patty is more likely to flirt with Charlie Brown and play mind games with him, Marcie is more frank in her admissions of her feelings, and often asks Charlie Brown in plain language if he likes her. As he does with Patty, Charlie Brown often responds to Marcie's inquiries by trying to evade the issue, which more than once has made Marcie so angry that she kicked him in the shins in frustration.

Marcie and Peppermint Patty also shared a crush on a boy named Pierre in the animated movie Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!!). Although Marcie was the one in whom Pierre seemed to express interest, Patty misread the signs and seemed convinced that Pierre was really in love with her; however, this incident did not seem to cause any strain in Patty and Marcie's friendship.

Whenever Patty and Marcie truly disagree over something, it is likely to be over Charlie Brown, although the brunt of their frustration in these instances is usually directed more toward Charlie Brown than toward each other. For her part, Marcie seems to enjoy teasing Patty from time to time - particularly whenever she spends time with Charlie Brown, to arouse Patty's jealousy - and throws the occasional caustic barb her way (Patty: "Hey, Marcie, I understand there's a rumor that I may be chosen 'Outstanding Student of the Year." Marcie: "That's interesting, sir. I heard a rumor that the moon is going to fall out of the sky.").

Marcie tries to help Patty as best she can when it comes to academics. Even though she is often frustrated to no end by Patty's laziness and the excuses Patty makes up to get out of doing her homework, she will help Patty out with answers to homework or test questions when needed. In academics and in general, Marcie often acts as Patty's voice of reason, whom Patty typically ignores at her own risk. Marcie is also chagrined by Patty's apparent lack of culture or refinement, which is illustrated in the frequent strips where the two are shown attending "Tiny Tots" symphony-orchestra concerts.

On the other hand, Patty is often frustrated by Marcie's almost complete ineptitude at sports, and even more by the fact that Marcie couldn't care less about sports as she is more interested in academics. Patty's attempts to get Marcie involved in sports - including having her as a right fielder on her baseball team, trying to teach her how to throw a football, and signing them both up to work as golf caddies - invariably end in a hilariously disastrous way. Marcie's athletic abilities, however, did show in You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown, when Peppermint Patty comments that Marcie is in good shape and ought to participate in track and field alongside Charlie Brown, to which Marcie ultimately wins the decathalon (but commends Charlie Brown for giving it his all in such a grueling event).

Similar to Sally Brown, Marcie is also given to using malapropisms in regards to sports - for example, getting the word "Zamboni" mixed up with "Zucchini" or "Spumoni," or referring to the Super Bowl as the "Splendid Bowl."

Marcie also "dated" Snoopy when he was in character as World War I ace fighter pilot Roy Brown, and when he suffered the flu, she nursed him back to health - right around November 11, 1918, the date of the signing of the armistice that ended the War. In the later years of the strip, it was established that the "small French cafe" in which Snoopy the Flying Ace drinks root beer is in fact Marcie's house, and Marcie serves as waitress, serving Snoopy his root beers and doling out words of comfort and encouragement when needed. In a story in which Snoopy was an airline pilot, she served as flight attendant. This storyline, involving Schroeder as a passenger on "Ace Air Lines" on a flight to music camp, blurred the line of "fantasy" and "reality" within the strip and may or may not be considered "real".

Legacy

Marcie also bears a strong resemblance to tennis star Billie Jean King, a fact reinforced when Peppermint Patty, in a moment of exasperation, refers to Marcie's "Billie Jean King glasses". Also, the sport of tennis was an occasional theme in the Peanuts strip and King was a close personal friend of Schulz.

Because of the close friendship between Marcie and Peppermint Patty, some have inferred a romantic relationship between them.^[2][3][4] However, the comic strip's content does not lend support to this conclusion. For example, Marcie's only explicitly depicted romantic interests were (as noted above) male characters, especially Charlie Brown. As a spoof on the characters, in an episode of Family Guy "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", Peter looks up Peppermint Patty, whom he simply calls "Patty", and it is shown that she is with someone else. Marcie comes to the door, a little more tomboyish-looking, and says "Who is it, Sir?" after which she kisses Peppermint Patty.

Notes

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marcie

• Marcie at Snoopy.com