Shermy

Shermy was one of the four original characters in the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles Schulz. Schulz named him after a friend from high school. When Peanuts made its debut on October 2, 1950, Shermy had the first line of dialogue in the series. As Peanuts matured, however, Shermy eventually became an extraneous character, and by the early of the 1980s he stopped appearing entirely. Shermy was often portrayed as Charlie Brown's superior at the things that mattered to Charlie Brown, especially athletics. Though he spoke the only lines of dialogue in the first strip and was one of the strip's primary figures in its first few years, he was mainly utilized as a "straight man" for Charlie Brown and soon began to be eclipsed by newer characters who were more developed, such as Linus and Lucy. His disappearance from the strip was even faster and more complete than those of the other early characters, Patty and Violet; as early as the late 1950s his appearances were becoming noticeably rare....