BlueBrixx Snoopy Surfing on the Beach Set 107354

BlueBrixx's Snoopy Surfing on the Beach is an officially licensed Peanuts diorama built from 84 blocks — Snoopy on a surfboard on a wave.

Nobody else can see it

Snoopy is not surfing. Snoopy is a beagle standing on a piece of wood in a garden, being the World Famous Surfer, and the joke only works because everyone around him knows that.

The personas are the engine of the strip: the World War I Flying Ace on his doghouse, the World Famous Attorney, Joe Cool leaning against a wall at college, the novelist who has written "It was a dark and stormy night" and nothing else for forty years. Each is announced in the caption with complete conviction, and the drawing shows a dog.

Charles Schulz never let the other characters play along. Charlie Brown looks at his dog, sees a dog, and gets on with his own disappointments. That gap between what Snoopy believes he is doing and what is visibly happening is where the comedy lives, and it is also — unmistakably — about the interior life of anybody who has ever imagined themselves as something better than their circumstances.

Which is why a beagle on a surfboard is funnier and sadder than a beagle on a surfboard has any right to be.

Eighty-four pieces

Under ten minutes, and a complete scene including the wave. The smallest sets in the Peanuts line are the ones that work as a gift you hand over rather than a project you commit to.

In the BlueBrixx range

Sets 107356 (Bath), 107358 (Skateboarding), 107359 (Picnic), 107368 (Barber Snoopy), 107426 (Gift Shop), 108115 (Pen Holder), 108609 and 108610 (Garden Rose and Dandelion) are the rest of the Peanuts line.

Specifications

Pieces: 84 · Officially licensed Peanuts product