Miss Peach

Miss Peach was a syndicated comic strip created by American cartoonist Mell Lazarus. It ran for 45 years, from February 4, 1957, to September 8, 2002.

The strip came into being because of a United Features Syndicate talent search contest for new comic strips. Lazarus recalled, “I scanned the papers, and there was nothing about schools, so I invented Miss Peach.” Although he did not win the United Features contest, Miss Peach was launched in the New York Herald Tribune and eventually was published internationally in 300 newspapers.

The daily strips often contained only a single panel. The format was "gag-a-day". The drawing was stylized: the children had tiny bodies and large heads with flounder faces (both eyes on the same side of the nose).

The November 29, 1963, episode was pulled from syndication because one of the characters fantasized about saving the President of the United States' life—one week after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Cartoonists prepare their strips many weeks before publication.

From 1980, several television movies were based on the strip: Miss Peach of the Kelly School featured Deborah Grover as Miss Peach and puppets as the children (some voiced by Martin Short). These focused on special holidays, notably Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day.

In the 1990s, the title was changed to the more modern Ms. Peach. For health reasons, Lazarus stopped drawing the strip in August 2002; the last ran on September 8. His other strip, Momma, is still running.

The strip was set in Kelly School, named after Pogo cartoonist Walt Kelly. In the summer, the scene usually shifted to a summer camp, Kamp Kelly.

In 1964, Lazarus commented, "The characters in Miss Peach are not actually modeled on real persons, with the possible exception of Lester, the skinny kid in the strip. Possibly the most loved character is Arthur, the dopey little kid."

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