Schroeder (Peanuts) once mortified when he forgot Beethoven's birthday. When Charlie Brown's baseball team is required to have a sponsor to play games, Schroeder's sponsor is Beethoven. In early strips, Schroeder frequently plays the music of other composers. Once, Lucy implies that his idolization of Beethoven is excessive, and she asks him what he thinks of other classical composers such as Schubert, Brahms, Bach, and Chopin. Schroeder simply replies, "They were great too," and continues to play Beethoven. On another occasion, Lucy remarks to Schroeder "Beethoven wasn't so great." Irritated, Schroeder asks Lucy to explain her comment. Lucy replies, "You've never seen
Peanuts agreement, United Media stored these unpublished strips, the existence of which eventually became public. Plastino himself also claimed to have ghostwritten for Schulz, apparently uncredited, while Schulz underwent heart surgery in 1983. In the 1980s and the 1990s, the strip remained the most popular comic in history, even though other comics, such as "Garfield" and "Calvin and Hobbes", rivaled "Peanuts" in popularity. Schulz continued to write the strip until announcing his retirement on December 14, 1999, due to his failing health. The final daily original "Peanuts" comic strip was published on Monday, January 3, 2000. The strip contained a note