I was more than pleasantly surprised to see that Square Enix (ugh, hate that name) is publishing two games for the Nintendo DS based on Snoopy and Pingu.

I’ve never really shared this before, but my love for “Peanuts” truly borders on the fanatical. I wouldn’t hesitate to say I have one of the greatest private collections of Snoopy merchandise and memorabilia in the world. So that’s cool.

But Pingu is special for being the first thing that made my brother and me feel like it was safe to go public with our bad penguin selves. This was way before that glut of penguin movies forced penguins into the mainstream. Pingu was hillarious stop-motion animation that just totally rocked our world. Don’t get the picture? Take a gander at “Pingu Looks After the Egg.”

To conclude, I’m kinda sorry that these games won’t make it to American shores — hence the post title. But you never know! The European market gets all kinds of stuff you wouldn’t expect to see. But I’m just happy that these properties are getting games at all.