What is "shermy"

Shermy is a fictional character from the comic strip Peanuts, by Charles Schulz. Schulz named him after a friend from high school. When Peanuts made its debut on October 2, 1950, Shermy had the first lines of dialogue in the series, ending with "Good ol' Charlie Brown . . . How I hate him!"

As Peanuts matured, however, Shermy became an extraneous character who was used less and less frequently, until his final appearance in 1969. In a television interview, Schulz said that in the 1950 debut of the strip, it was solely Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and a few minor characters, then showed the first strip, in which the "minor characters" he spoke of were clearly Patty and Shermy. Shermy's name was first mentioned on December 18, 1950, making him the last of the original characters to have the name revealed. In Schulz's Peanuts-precursor strip Li'l Folks, a character resembling Shermy went by the name "Charlie Brown".