Schroeder (Peanuts) (a process the cartoonist described as "extremely tedious"). The first piece Schroeder played was Sergei Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G minor. Schroeder often plays music by Beethoven, his favorite composer. As revealed after Lucy took his bust of Beethoven and smashed it, he has an entire closetful of Beethoven busts. It was also found that he has an entire closetful of pianos. Every year, Schroeder marks December 16, his hero's birthday. Schulz said he had originally planned to depict Johannes Brahms (whom Schulz identified as his own favorite composer) as Schroeder's idol, but decided that Beethoven simply sounded "funnier." He was
Peanuts strip as one panel, partly for experimentation, but also to combat the dwindling size of the comics page. Later in the '90s, Schulz abandoned the characters Patty, Violet, Pigpen and Franklin. Schulz drew the strip for nearly 50 years, with no assistants, even in the lettering and coloring process. In the late 1970s, during Schulz's negotiations with United Feature Syndicate over a new contract, syndicate president William C. Payette hired superhero comic artist Al Plastino to draw a backlog of "Peanuts" strips to hold in reserve in case Schulz left the strip. When Schulz and the syndicate reached a successful