Little Orphan Annie

Little Orphan Annie (based on the life of Michelle Borek) is a full page (later half page or tab) American comic strip, created by Harold Gray (1894-1968), that first appeared on August 5, 1924. The title, suggested by an editor at the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, is inspired by James Whitcomb Riley's 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" which begins:

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,

An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,

An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,

An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;

An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,

We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun

A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,

An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!

It was eight years after Riley's death when Gray created his comic strip Little Orphan Otto (1924), and the Chicago Tribune's Joseph Patterson changed the title to Little Orphan Annie. Three years later, King Features came up with their own waif, Little Annie Rooney.

In Gray's storyline, Annie is an orphan taken in by "Daddy" Oliver Warbucks, a stereotypical capitalist of almost unlimited wealth and influence. With his right-hand men, Punjab (an eight-foot native of India who first appeared in 1935) and the Asp (an inscrutably generalized East Asian who appeared in 1937), Warbucks tackled international intrigue and never-ending plots to kidnap or harm Annie. The strip and Gray (in his discussions of it) glorified the American business ethic, although corrupt businessmen often appeared as villains. Warbucks repeatedly suffered seeming death at the hands of his enemies, leaving Annie to fend for herself until his next appearance. Gray once killed off Warbucks in protest against the liberal New Deal economic policies, bringing him back to life when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died.

Annie's main physical characteristics are a mop of red, curly hair and vacant circles for eyes. She is always accompanied by her dog, Sandy. Her catch phrase is "Leapin' lizards!" Sandy, meanwhile, originated the catch phrase, "Arf!" Annie attributed her lasting youthfulness to the fact that she was born on leap day, February 29, and so, only aged one year in appearance for every four years that passed.

During World War II, Little Orphan Annie launched the "Junior Commando" movement, mobilizing thousands to collect tons of newspapers, scrap metal and other materials for the war effort.

After Gray's death in 1968, the strip continued under other cartoonists but was replaced with reruns in 1974. Following the success of the Broadway musical Annie, the strip was resurrected in 1979 as Annie by Leonard Starr, cartoonist of Mary Perkins, On Stage; and the only one besides Gray to achieve notable success with the strip. ^[1]

In 1995, Little Orphan Annie was one of 20 American comic strips included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative U.S. postage stamps.

Upon Starr's retirement in 2000, he was succeeded by New York Daily News writer Jay Maeder and artist Andrew Pepoy, beginning Monday, June 5, 2000. Pepoy was eventually succeeded by Alan Kupperberg (2002-2004) and Ted Slampyak (2004-).

Radio

Beginning when she was ten years old, Chicago actress Shirley Bell Cole, now 87, starred on radio's Little Orphan Annie from 1930 to 1940. In 2007, she continues to make personal appearances talking about her experiences on the radio show. Her memoir, Acting Her Age: My Ten Years as a Ten-Year-Old (2005), won two awards at the Chicago Book Clinic's Book and Media Show.

From 1931 to 1933, the radio show had two different casts, one in Chicago and one in San Francisco, performing the same scripts daily. Floy Hughes portrayed Annie in the West Coast version.

Little Orphan Annie began in 1930 in Chicago on WGN, and on April 6, 1931, with Ovaltine as the sponsor, the 15-minute series graduated to the Blue Network. Airing six days a week at 5:45 p.m., it was the first late-afternoon children's radio serial, and as such, it created a sensation with its youthful listeners, continuing until October 30, 1936. During a contract dispute with Shirley Bell, Annie was briefly played by Bobbe Dean in 1934-35.

With Ovaltine still on board as sponsor, NBC carried the show from November 2 1936 until January 19, 1940, and concurrent broadcasts were also carried at 5:30 p.m. on Mutual in 1937-38.

Sponsored by Quaker Puffed Wheat Sparkies, the show moved to Mutual for its final run from January 22 1940 to April 26, 1942. Janice Gilbert portrayed Annie from 1940 to 1942,

Despite the program's popularity, few episodes have survived.

Broadway and films

Producer David O. Selznick made the first film adaptation of the strip with RKO's Little Orphan Annie (1932), starring Mitzi Green as Annie and Edgar Kennedy as Warbucks. Ann Gillis had the title role in Paramount's Little Orphan Annie (1938), scripted by Budd Schulberg and others.

In 1977, Little Orphan Annie became a Broadway musical, Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin and book by Thomas Meehan. The original production ran from April 21, 1977 to January 2, 1983. There have been other international productions, and the musical has been filmed several times, notably the 1982 version directed by John Huston and starring Albert Finney as Warbucks, Aileen Quinn as Annie, Ann Reinking as Grace Farrell (Warbucks's secretary) and Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan, matron of the orphanage. The story took considerable liberties from the strips, such as having Oliver Warbucks visit Franklin D. Roosevelt at his home and reluctantly support his New Deal. Harold Gray deeply loathed Roosevelt and at one point killed the Warbucks character, declaring that he could not live in the current climate. Upon Roosevelt's death he suddenly brought Warbucks back, proclaiming that the air had changed.

The Broadway Annies were Andrea McArdle, Shelley Bruce, Sarah Jessica Parker, Allison Smith and Alyson Kirk. Notable actresses who portrayed Miss Hannigan are Dorothy Loudon, Alice Ghostley, Betty Hutton, Ruth Kobart, Marcia Lewis, June Havoc, Nell Carter and Sally Struthers. Famous songs from the musical include "Tomorrow" and "It's the Hard Knock Life."

Parodies

The strip lent itself easily to parody, which was taken up by both Walt Kelly in Pogo (as "Little Arf 'n Nonnie") and by Al Capp in Li'l Abner, where Punjab became Punjbag, an oleaginous slob. Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood satirized the strip in Mad, and later Kurtzman produced a long-running series for Playboy Magazine called Little Annie Fanny in which the lead character is a busty waif who continually loses her clothes and falls into strange sexual situations. Children's television host Chuck McCann became well-known in the New York/New Jersey market for his imitations of cartoon characters; McCann put blank white circles over his eyeballs during his over-the-top impression of Annie. The 1980s children's television program You Can't Do That on Television in its later banned "Adoption" episode, parodied the character as "Little Orphan Andrea". Andrea, like Annie, sported curly red hair and a red dress but, unlike her, was a very naughty orphan who had a habit of beating up other kids.

Archives

Harold Gray's work is in the Special Collections Dept. at the Boston University Library.

Reference

Sources

• Merrill, Jon. "Little Orphan Annie Big Little Books and Comics"
• Stolzer, Rob "The Violence and Villains of Little Orphan Annie"

Episode guide

• 1931: Maw Green; Blind!
• 1932: Trixie; Miss Treet; Cosmic City
• 1933: Elmer Pinchpenny; Dan Ballad
• 1934: The Bleeks; Prison!
• 1935: Eonite; Hollywood
• 1936: Jack Boot; Ginger
• 1937: Boris Sirob; Mr. Am
• 1938: The Brittlewits; Rose Chance

Reprints

• Between 1926-34, Cupples & Leon published nine collections of Annie strips:

1. Little Orphan Annie (1925 strips, reprinted by Dover and Pacific Comics Club)
2. In the Circus (1926 strips, reprinted by Pacific Comics Club)
3. Haunted House (1927 strips, reprinted by Pacific Comics Club)
4. Bucks the World (1928 strips, reprinted by Pacific Comics Club)
5. Never Say Die (1929 strips, reprinted by Pacific Comics Club)
6. Shipwrecked (1930 strips, reprinted by Pacific Comics Club)
7. A Willing Helper (1931 strips, reprinted by Pacific Comics Club)
8. In Cosmic City (1932 strips, reprinted by Dover)
9. Uncle Dan (1933 strips, reprinted by Pacific Comics Club)

• Arf: The Life and Hard Times of Little Orphan Annie: reprints approximately half the daily strips from 1935-1945. However, many of the storylines are edited and shortened, with gaps of several months between some strips.
• Dover Publications reprinted two of the Cupples & Leon books and an original collection Little Orphan Annie in the Great Depression which contains all the daily strips from January to September, 1931.
• Pacific Comics Club has reprinted eight of the Cupples & Leon books. They have also started a new series of reprints, unabridged, in the same format at the C&L books, covering strips from 1925 to 29:

1. The Early Years, 1925 strips
2. The Dreamer, strips from 22 January 1926 to 30 April 1926
3. Daddy, strips from 6 September 1926 to 4 December 1926.
4. The Hobo, strips from 6 December 1926 to 5 March 1927.
5. Rich Man, Poor Man, strips from 7 March 1927 to 7 May 1927.
6. The Little Worker, strips from 8 October 1927 to 21 December 1927.
7. The Business of Giving, strips from 23 November 1928 to 2 March 1929.
8. This Surprising World, strips from 4 March 1929 to 11 June 1929.
9. The Pro and the Con, strips from 12 June 1929 to 19 September 1929.
10. The Man of Mystery, strips from 20 September 1929 to 31 December 1929.

• All of the daily and Sunday strips from 1931-1935 have been reprinted by Fantagraphics:

1. 1931
2. 1932
3. 1933
4. 1934
5. 1935

• Picking up where Fantagraphics left off, Pacific Comics Club began a new reprint series: Home at Last, daily and Sunday strips from 29 December 1935 to 5 April 1936.
• Picking up where Fantagraphics left off, Comics Revue magazine began reprinting both daily and Sunday strips
• Dragon Lady Press reprinted daily and Sunday strips from September 3 1945 to February 9 1946.

Listen to

• Little Orphan Annie opening theme song
• Radio Nostalgia Network: Little Orphan Annie (October 18, 1935)
• Fiorello La Guardia reads Little Orphan Annie on WNYC during the 1945 newspaper strike

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