Which Peanuts character is famous for pulling away the football? Lucy Van Pelt. Her repeated prank on Charlie Brown is one of the most recognizable running gags in Peanuts.
Lucy holds the football while Charlie Brown runs up to kick it, then yanks it away at the last moment, sending him flying onto his back. The first Lucy version of the gag appeared on November 16, 1952. In that initial strip, she claimed she was protecting the football from Charlie Brown’s dirty shoes, but the routine soon became an intentional deception.
The football bit became an almost annual autumn tradition throughout Charles M. Schulz’s run. Charlie Brown repeatedly trusts Lucy despite her history, turning the joke into a story about optimism, disappointment, and the characters’ stubborn persistence. The gag is often associated with Charlie Brown’s general inability to win, alongside his failed kite attempts and losing baseball games.
Violet Gray had thwarted Charlie Brown in an earlier football incident in 1951, so Lucy was not literally the first character involved in a football-related mishap. Even so, Lucy is the canonical answer to this question because she became the character permanently identified with pulling the ball away.