Schroeder (Peanuts) that he yanks the piano out from underneath her to get her away from him; on one occasion both Lucy and Frieda lounge on Schroeder's piano until he yanks it from beneath them both after Frieda mistakenly thinks Beethoven is a drink (she says, "All right but I'll just have a small glass"). Schroeder does allow Charlie Brown to lounge against the piano, because of their solid friendship. How Lucy keeps getting into Schroeder's house is never addressed. Lucy regularly vexes and perplexes Schroeder with speculations about what their lives would be like if they were married. On one occasion,
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