Other Peanuts Statues

The Real Linus statue is on display in front of the public library in the south-central Minnesota town of Sleepy Eye. Sleepy Eye is the hometown of Linus Maurer, a nationally known cartoon artist. Maurer attended a Minneapolis art school where Charles Schultz was an instructor, and the two became close friends. Schultz named his character Linus van Pelt after Maurer.

The Linus Blankets Saint Paul series consisted of 91 statues. An additional statue was commissioned by a group from the city of Sleepy Eye to be a tribute to Maurer. This statue included a figure of Snoopy sleeping on Linus's blanket. Linus had a heart on his shirt, and was holding a large red heart that included the words I Love Sleepy Eye. An unknown vandal stole the heart and Snoopy's nose in May, 2009. The Sleepy Eye Police Department is offering a reward for any information on this crime.

NASA recruited Snoopy as a mascot for the space program in the late 1960s. Charles Schulz was honored by the NASA request and granted NASA free use of Snoopy. The Apollo 10 mission to the moon was named after Schulz's characters, with the command module being named Charlie Brown and the lunar lander named Snoopy. While Apollo 10 was flying a dress rehearsal of the moon landing, Snoopy was atop his dog house dreaming of being an astronaut. Since the lander descended to within 10,000 feet of the lunar surface, Snoopy very nearly fulfilled his wish to be the first beagle to set paws on the moon. This statue of Snoopy The Astronaut is located at the gift shop at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.