A Polygon feature marks 26 years since Peppermint Patty's final appearance in Charles Schulz's Peanuts, arguing that her closing moment on 2 January 2000 remains her most memorable line despite her usually being the strip's academic underachiever rather than its philosophical voice. The piece revisits how Patty, whose full name Patricia Reichardt was revealed only once in 1972, always felt slightly apart from the rest of Peanuts, and suggests her farewell strip may double as an unspoken send-off for the entire series, which ended roughly six weeks later.

In the strip, Patty stands alone on a rain-soaked football field insisting to an absent Charlie Brown that it is "a great game," even after her friend Marcie arrives with an umbrella and cannot convince her otherwise; Patty is not shown leaving, instead musing that "no one shook hands and said 'Good game.'" The article notes Schulz never explained or commented on the strip, and that it stands out among the largely routine final weeks of Peanuts as the one moment that hints, perhaps only in hindsight, at the comic's impending end.