Here's a routine, non-mythic version of the joke:
Of the many humiliations Schulz put his star character through, this one was one of the most often repeated. I'm reasonably sure that it resonated with both Schulz and his readers because it placed Charlie Brown in the position of willfully choosing to be sucked into Lucy's cruel trickery. But all of the "football gags" I've seen are pretty simple and straightforward, and thus not the stuff of myth--
Except this one.
To spell things out, I'm not saying that a given PEANUTS cartoon is automatically mythic simply because lay preacher Schulz worked in a Biblical quote or reference. The strip I've entitled "How Long O Lord" maintains an intense (if brief) mythic discourse in striking an unlikely parallel between the mundane interactions of two modern-day suburban children and the mythic interaction of an Israelite prophet and the God of his fathers. The comparison becomes incongruous, and thus humorous, precisely because the readers of the strip know that Schulz is not serious about it.
Yet, even if neither Schulz nor his readers believed that Lucy and Charlie Brown were enacting any sort of *imitatio dei,* Schulz is at the very least commenting upon the ongoing but intentionally static relationship between Lucy and Charlie Brown, between the "con girl" and her fall guy.
It will be noted that in the preceding passages of the Book of Isaiah, God has charged the prophet with a duty to preach to the rebellious people of Israel. Lucy's interpretation, that the prophet is expressing a "protest" against "the finality of the Lord's judgment," is not the only possible reading, but it may well be the dominant one in modern times. Many other "Lucy and the football" jokes stress Lucy coming up with some new ploy by which to gull her hapless victim. Here, though, Charlie Brown himself gives her a clue as to how to con him once more. By comparing the girl-bully's deceptions to a deity's perverse determination, he's initially conferring self-importance on himself, giving his suffering the stature of a prophet's ordeals. Lucy simply plays along with Charlie Brown's self-inflation, talking scripture as if she were agreeing with her target's desire to "beat the odds." But in the end she fulfills the role of a pitiless God-- maybe more in the line of a deity worshiped by Sisyphus than one venerated by Isaiah-- and pulls the football once again. This time, she adds eternal insult to injury by proclaiming that he's going to be the victim of crafty bullies like herself "all your life."
On a side-note, one of the other "Lucy and football" jokes of later years includes a brief post-defeat conversation between Charlie Brown and his sister Sally. Sally can't understand why Charlie Brown allows Lucy to gull him repeatedly, and asks if he's in love with Lucy. Charlie Brown's odd response is, "I should hope not." To the best of my knowledge, Schulz never suggests any sort of "crush"-level affection between Lucy and Charlie Brown, even though both characters are entirely capable of crushing on other kids their age. But Lucy clearly enjoys not only deceiving and insulting Charlie Brown. He's also the character she most often browbeats with her self-glorifying displays of illogical whimsy, and whereas her brother Linus occasionally finds ways to undercut Lucy's gigantic ego, Charlie Brown rarely, if ever, does so. But this reserve doesn't stem from any feelings of love. Rather, it's the relationship between completion and incompletion. Lucy may be a demanding termagant, but she almost always knows what she wants, and that gives her a degree of power, even when her desires are never fulfilled (cf. Schoeder). Charlie Brown can never demand anything of anyone, and on some level he envies Lucy's peerless confidence. And this is the deep appeal of his futile attempts to kick the football: Lucy will always have one up on him, but he'll always keep trying to catch up with her, albeit without ever comprehending how she managed to supersede him so easily.
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