Jerry, Snoopy Brown is a plagiarist. "It was a dark and story night..." is actually the opening line to the novel Paul Clifford by Edw. Bulwer-Lytton. From W'pedia:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

Each year there is a contest to write the most convoluted opening sentence to a supposed novel, and that was the joke in the Peanuts comic. But the original is always the best (worst?).