555 "5" 95472 Peanuts character First appearance September 30, 1963 Last appearance 2011 Voiced by Silent character (1965–2011), Brett Johnson (1984)InformationGenderMaleFamily3 & 4 (twin sisters), 1 (father), 2 (mother)
555 95472, or 5 for short, debuted in the September 30, 1963, strip, and appeared occasionally until the 1980s. A boy close in age to Charlie Brown and Linus van Pelt, 5 had brown spiky hair, and he wore an orange shirt with the number 5 on it. 5 was given a numerical name by his father, who was upset over the preponderance of numbers in people's lives; when questioned, 5 clarified that this was not his father's way of protesting, it was his way of "giving in." His last name, 95472 (the accent is on the 4), was taken from the family's ZIP code; it is also the zip code for Sebastopol, California, where Schulz lived at the time.
5 had twin (presumably older) sisters, dark-haired girls named 3 and 4. ("Those are nice feminine names," Charlie Brown dryly commented.) All three siblings appear in A Charlie Brown Christmas, where they have non-speaking roles, but demonstrate distinctive 1960s dance moves during the dancing scene. 5's dance is the famous head-bobbing, side-to-side shuffle that has been widely parodied. 5 also played for Charlie Brown's baseball team; his position was never expressly stated, but it is conjectured that he played third base, since the other spots seemed to be taken (Charlie Brown, pitcher; Schroeder, catcher; Shermy, first base; Linus, second base; Snoopy, shortstop; and some combination of Lucy, Patty, Violet, and Frieda in the outfield). Fittingly, 5 is scorer's shorthand for the third baseman.
5 was largely phased out of the strip by the late 1960s, except as a background extra. Despite this, he appears in multiple animated Peanuts television specials, mainly as a background character, and is also briefly seen in the films A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Snoopy Come Home, and Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. In his animated appearances during the 1960s, the number 5 on his shirt was generally absent, though he was still distinguished by his thin, spiky hair and orange T-shirt, which remains the color orange throughout the majority of his appearances. Despite having few speaking appearances, 5 is seen much more frequently in the television specials and movies than any other minor character from the Peanuts comic strip and was considered a regular character until the 1980s, after which his animated appearances ceased. However, he did make a cameo appearance in Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown along with Frieda, Faron, and his twin sisters 3 and 4. His name also appears on the test scores sheet in The Peanuts Movie, and a boy is shown doing his dance in the film's dance sequence