[1] When Peanuts made its debut on October 2, 1950, Shermy sat on the curb with another early character, Patty, and spoke the first lines of dialogue, ending with "Good ol' Charlie Brown ... How I hate him!"
In Schulz's Peanuts-precursor strip Li'l Folks, a character resembling Shermy went by the name Charlie Brown.
(Only eight characters appeared in Peanuts through 1953: Charlie Brown, Shermy, Patty, Snoopy, Violet, Schroeder, Lucy and Linus.)
Nevertheless, by default, Shermy served as Charlie Brown's closest friend until Linus grew old enough to fill that role.
Shermy's major physical characteristic was his short, black hair, which he had styled in a crew cut on April 18, 1953, and kept that way thereafter.
Shermy sometimes made reference to the fact he seemed doomed to have that look; he complained to Charlie Brown he got a new hairstyle one weekend only to shortly come down with an illness that kept him from attending school.
Apparently Schulz was not a big fan of this look, as he once commented that he "disliked" the way he drew Shermy's hair, a possible reason for the character being removed.
[6] Shermy sometimes was said to play the position of first base on Charlie Brown's baseball team and was referred to as the designated hitter in the Sunday strip from March 13, 1977.
Shermy appears in multiple animated Peanuts TV specials (although he becomes more of a minor character after the 1960s), beginning with A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965, where he has one line of dialogue.