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Pen pals (or penpals, pen-pals, penfriends or pen friends) are people who regularly write to each other, particularly via postal mail. Pen pals are usually strangers whose relationship is based primarily, or even solely, on their exchange of letters. Occasionally, pen pals may already have a relationship that is not regularly conducted in person.
A pen pal relationship is often used to practice reading and writing in a foreign language, to improve literacy, to learn more about other countries and lifestyles, and to make friendships. While the expansion of the Internet has reduced the number of traditional pen pals, [1] pen pal clubs can nowadays be found on the Internet, in magazine columns, newspapers, and sometimes through clubs or special interest groups. Sometimes pen pals are used in schools.
Many pen pals meet each other through organizations that bring people together for this purpose.
Organizations can be split into three main categories: free, partial subscription, and subscription-based clubs. Free clubs are usually funded by advertising and profiles are not reviewed, whereas subscription-based clubs will usually not contain any advertising and will have an administrator approving profiles to the database.
While the traditional snail mail pen pal relationship has fallen into a decline due to modern technology closing the world's communication gap, prison pen pal services have combined technology with traditional letter writing. These sites allow prisoners to place pen pal ads online; however, inmates in the United States and most of the world are not permitted to access the Internet. Therefore, the pen pal relationships with inmates are still conducted via postal mail. Other pen pal organizations have survived by embracing the technology of the Internet.
The Australian author Geraldine Brooks wrote a memoir entitled Foreign Correspondence (1997), about her childhood which was enriched by her exchanges of letters with other children in Australia and overseas, and her travels as an adult in search of the people they had become.
In the 1970s, the syndicated children's television program Big Blue Marble often invited viewers to write to them for their own pen pal.
On another children's TV show, Pee-wee's Playhouse , Pee-wee Herman would often receive pen pal letters.
In the Peanuts comic strip from the 1960s and 1970s, Charlie Brown tries to write to a pen pal using a fountain pen, but after several literally "botched" attempts, Charlie switches to using a pencil and referring to his penpal as his "pencil-pal"; his first letter to his "pencil-pal" explains the reason for the name change. [2] In the animated feature film adaptation, The Peanuts Movie , this hobby enables the story to have a happy ending with Charlie Brown to have an active friendship with his dream girl, the Little Red-Haired Girl, in a way that he feels comfortable without significantly affecting the franchise's story world.
The Bollywood film Romance (1983) is about two people, Amar (from India) and Sonia (from the UK) who fall in love after becoming pen pals. The Bollywood film Sirf Tum (1999) has a similar storyline.
The film You've Got Mail (1998) is a romantic comedy about two people in a pen pal email courtship who are unaware that they are also business rivals.
The action-drama film Out of Reach (2004) is about a pen pal relationship between a Vietnam War veteran and a 13-year-old orphaned girl from Poland. When the letters suddenly stop coming, the veteran heads to Poland to find out the reason.
The film A Cinderella Story (2004) is a teen romantic comedy about two people in a pen pal email courtship who plan to meet in person at their high school's Halloween dance.
The claymation film Mary and Max (2009) is about the pen pal relationship between an American man and an Australian girl.
In the 2012 film Moonrise Kingdom the characters Suzy and Sam become pen pals.
Musicians Jetty Rae and Heath McNease have collaborated under the moniker "Pen Pals". [3]
Paul Reubens was an American actor and comedian, widely known for creating and portraying the character Pee-wee Herman.
You've Got Mail is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Nora Ephron, and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan alongside Parker Posey, Jean Stapleton, Dave Chappelle, Steve Zahn, and Greg Kinnear. Inspired by the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklós László, the screenplay was co-written by Nora and Delia Ephron. It tells the story of two people in an online romance who are unaware they are also business rivals. It marked the third pairing of Hanks and Ryan, who previously appeared together in Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and Sleepless in Seattle (1993), the latter directed by Ephron. The film takes its name from the greeting AOL users receive when they get a new email.
Pee-wee's Big Adventure is a 1985 American adventure comedy film directed by Tim Burton in his feature-film directing debut. The film stars Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman, along with E.G. Daily, Mark Holton, Diane Salinger and Judd Omen. The screenplay, written by Reubens with Phil Hartman and Michael Varhol, tells the story of Pee-wee's nationwide search for his stolen bicycle and has been compared to the 1948 film Bicycle Thieves.
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a 1967 musical with music and lyrics by Clark Gesner and Andrew Lippa. It is based on the characters created by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz in his comic strip Peanuts. The musical has been a popular choice for amateur theatre productions because of its small cast and simple staging.
Pee-wee Herman is a comedy character created and portrayed by the American comedian Paul Reubens. He starred in films and television series during the 1980s. The childlike Pee-wee Herman character developed as a stage act that quickly led to an HBO special in 1981. As the stage performance gained further popularity, Reubens took the character to motion picture with Pee-wee's Big Adventure in 1985, toning down the adult innuendo for the appeal of children. This paved the way for Pee-wee's Playhouse, an Emmy Award-winning children's series that ran on CBS from 1986 to 1991. Another film, Big Top Pee-wee, was released in 1988.
The Pee-wee Herman Show is a stage show developed by Paul Reubens in 1980. It is the first significant appearance of his comedic fictional character, Pee-wee Herman, five years before Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and six years before Pee-wee's Playhouse. The show debuted as a midnight show in February 1981 at the Groundlings theater, and was later moved to the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, California that same year, in September 1981, where the HBO cable network taped one of the shows and aired it as a special that year. This TV special was released on DVD by Image Entertainment in 2006. This nightclub show had more adult humor than the later children's television series.
A love letter is an expression of love in written form. However delivered, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation and description of feelings.
The Little Red-Haired Girl is an unseen character in the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, who serves as the object of Charlie Brown's affection, and a symbol of unrequited love. The character was first mentioned in the strip on November 19, 1961.
A Charlie Brown Valentine is the 40th animated television special based on characters from the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts. It features the Peanuts characters during the week leading up to Valentine's Day. It is the second Valentine's Day-themed Peanuts special, following Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown (1975).
Wee Pals is an American syndicated comic strip about a diverse group of children, created and produced by Morrie Turner. It was the first comic strip syndicated in the United States to have a cast of diverse ethnicity, dubbed the "Rainbow Gang".
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown is the 29th prime-time animated musical television special based upon the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. This adaptation of the 1967 musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown originally aired on the CBS network on November 6, 1985, and rebroadcast on June 14, 1988. The special was produced by Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates and Mendelson-Melendez Productions.
Donald Henry "Pee Wee" Gaskins Jr. was an American serial killer and rapist from South Carolina who stabbed, shot, drowned, and poisoned more than a dozen people. Before his convictions for murder, Gaskins had a long history of criminal activities resulting in prison sentences for assault, burglary, and statutory rape. His last arrest was for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, 13-year-old Kim Gehlken, who had gone missing in September 1975. During their search for the missing girl, police discovered eight bodies buried in shallow graves near Gaskins' home in Prospect, South Carolina.
WriteAPrisoner.com is an online Florida-based business. The business's goal is to reduce recidivism through a variety of methods that include positive correspondence with pen pals on the outside, educational opportunities, job placement avenues, resource guides, scholarships for children affected by crime, and advocacy. The site began primarily as a place to post pen-pal profiles and requests for legal assistance for inmates and has evolved to take a more comprehensive approach to addressing the challenges in the life of an inmate. Studies show many inmates have experienced trauma early in their lives that may have been the impetus for the actions that led to incarceration.
Finding Cassie Crazy is a novel by Jaclyn Moriarty. It was first published 2003 in Australia. The novel is both a stand-alone and also the second book of the Ashbury/Brookfield series.
Last Days of Summer is a 1998 novel written by Steve Kluger. It is an epistolary novel told completely through forms of correspondence; letters, postcards, interviews with a psychiatrist, progress reports, and newspaper clippings.
Capri Anderson is an American pornographic actress.
The Peanuts Movie is a 2015 American animated comedy film based on Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts, produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was directed by Steve Martino from a screenplay by Cornelius Uliano and Craig and Bryan Schulz. Uliano and the Schulzes also serve as producers alongside Paul Feig and Michael J. Travers. It stars the voices of Noah Schnapp as Charlie Brown and, via archival recordings, Bill Melendez as Snoopy and Woodstock. The film sees Charlie trying to improve his odds with his love interest, the Little Red-Haired Girl, while Snoopy writes a book where he is a World War I Flying Ace trying to save his fellow pilot and love interest, Fifi, from the Red Baron and his flying circus. It was the fifth full-length Peanuts film and the first in 35 years, following Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown.
Pee-wee's Big Holiday is a 2016 American adventure comedy film directed by John Lee and written by Paul Reubens and Paul Rust. The film stars Reubens as Pee-wee Herman and Joe Manganiello as himself. It is the second standalone sequel to Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), following Big Top Pee-wee (1988), and Reubens' final feature film role before his death in 2023.
The Charlie Charlie challenge is a divination game in which the putative answer to a yes–no question is found by waiting for a balanced pencil to point towards the word "Yes" or "No" written on a sheet of paper. As with a Magic 8-Ball, most players, typically teenagers, do not sincerely believe in the power of the mechanism. The game is a modern incarnation of an older Spanish game called Juego de la Lapicera. It was popularized in the English-speaking world in 2015, partly through the hashtag #CharlieCharlieChallenge. On 29 April 2015, an alarmist tabloid television newscast about the game being played in Hato Mayor Province of the Dominican Republic was uploaded to YouTube, and the unintentional humor in the report led to the game trending on Twitter, crossing the language barrier to be played around the world.
