Posted By Dan Greenfield on Aug 5, 2024 | 2 comments

13 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT one of comics’ greatest features…

By PETER BOSCH

Leaping Lizards! Just in time to celebrate Little Orphan Annie on her newspaper strip premiere of August 5, 1924 – making this her 100th Annie-versary – here are 13 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT this world-famous, eternally young adventuress.

1. Before the Beginning. In 1883 (some say 1885), four decades before Harold Gray’s newspaper comic strip debuted, there was a poem called Little Orphant Annie (yes, “Orphant”) by James Whitcomb Riley. It was a cautionary tale in which an extremely hard-working orphan girl warns other children that if they don’t say their prayers, that if they disrespect their elders and mistreat others, and don’t help those that need it, they better watch out… goblins will come and get them.

Whether Gray used this as inspiration has been debated, but it certainly is possible. Little Orphant Annie was made into a movie in 1918:

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2. Harold Gray. Gray was born January 20, 1894, in Kankakee, Illinois. His parents died while he was still a teenager and he went to work for an Indiana newspaper and then became a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Starting in 1921, he worked as an assistant on the comic strip The Gumps while actively submitting ideas for his own strip to anyone who would look at them. One strip idea finally did get the OK: Little Orphan Otto.

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3. The Comic Strip. While Gray wanted it to be about a boy orphan, they said it should be a girl and so Little Orphan Annie appeared August 5, 1924, but in just one newspaper: the New York Daily News (it didn’t go into syndication until November). It took almost two months after the initial strip for Annie to meet the second most important person in the feature, Oliver Warbucks. And, finally, Sandy appeared in January 1925.

The first Little Orphan Annie strip. August 5, 1924.

Annie meets Oliver Warbucks. September 27, 1924.

And Sandy makes three. January 5, 1925.

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4. The Radio Show. The strip was a hit and a Little Orphan Annie weekday radio show began in 1930 with Shirley Bell as Annie. When the show went coast-to-coast, they dropped the “Little” and called it Adventure Time with Orphan Annie. And, boy, did the sponsor Ovaltine really plug their product.

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5. Merchandising. The strip was a hit and Ovaltine was not the only one to cash in. Across 100 years, there have been decoder rings, dolls, games, Secret Society club membership kits, Big Little Books, mugs, comic books, coins, watches, lunchboxes, pins, books, coloring books, toy stoves, tea sets, wind-up toys — and so much more!

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6. The Movies (Part 1). Little Orphan Annie was first brought to the screen in 1932 with Mitzi Green as Annie. It wasn’t much storywise (Annie takes an orphan under her wing). Six years after the first attempt, Little Orphan Annie was again on screen, this time with Anne Shirley in the title role.

Posters for the 1932 (left) and 1938 (right) films

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7. Little Annie Fanny. There were plenty of satires of Little Orphan Annie over the years. One of these was in Mad #9 (March 1954, EC), which concluded with this page…

Script by Harvey Kurtzman, art by Wallace Wood

…which may have led its author, Harvey Kurtzman, to go on to parody the strip with his ongoing Little Annie Fanny comic feature in Playboy (beginning with the October 1962 issue).

An early Little Annie Fanny splash page written and laid out by Kurtzman, with art by Will Elder. Playboy, January 1964.

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8. Annie. Almost a decade after Harold Gray died in 1968, Broadway produced a musical based on Little Orphan Annie. Actually, Annie was more than a musical — it was a blockbuster moneymaker that won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Andrea McArdle was an incredible Annie, Reid Shelton was Oliver Warbucks, and Dorothy Loudon was Miss Hannigan, the overstressed head of the orphanage.

Here’s a video clip from the 1977 Tony Awards:

A sequel was tried, Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge, but it ran into script problems during out-of-town tryouts and closed before getting to Broadway. Another attempt, Annie Warbucks, did better with a pre-Broadway production but it ran into financial difficulties and, again, didn’t make it to the Great White Way. Not to despair, though, because Hollywood came calling.

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9. The Movies (Part 2). Annie (1982), the big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical had good moments, but it also had one major problem. John Huston was a very well-respected director, best known for hard-hitting movies like The Maltese Falcon (1941), but he never handled a musical before. Even with a cast that included Albert Finney as Warbucks and Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan, along with Broadway notables Ann Reinking, Geoffrey Holder, Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters (with Aileen Quinn as Annie), the film’s musical numbers didn’t thrill and the whole affair had some audience members feeling it should have ended an hour before it did. A sequel, with an entirely different cast and no songs (just a reprise of “Tomorrow”), was released on TV in 1995, Annie: A Royal Adventure!

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10. The TV Movie. However, just when despair was setting in that there would be no faithful rendering of the Broadway musical, in 1999 Annie came together, with just the right casting, wonderful direction, and exceptional choreography. Plus, plus the TV adaptation of the Broadway show kept more songs than the movie, with total and complete joy in the onscreen musical numbers! Director Rob Marshall was a seasoned Broadway performer, choreographer, and director, and he brought his talent and appreciation of the original material to this made-for-television movie. (Three years later, he directed the Best Picture Oscar winner, Chicago, another adaptation of a Broadway show.) The cast included many Broadway stars (Victor Garber, Audra McDonald, Kathy Bates, Alan Cumming, and Kristen Chenoweth) and newcomer Alicia Morton as Annie. Oh, and a very special appearance by the original Broadway Annie, Andrea McArdle as the Star-to-Be in a Broadway musical number “N.Y.C.” watched by Annie, Warbucks, and Grace. Here it is in two parts:

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11. The Movies (Part 3). Annie (2014) was given a 21st century update with the Broadway story taking place today, instead of the usual setting of the Great Depression. Quvenzhané Wallis was good as Annie, as was Rose Byrne as Grace Farrell. And to give the film credit, the basic plot points of the Broadway show were there, just reimagined. However, about three quarters of the original songs were jettisoned and some of the remaining were in their original form and others were given a modern beat. As a whole, the movie was disjointed.

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12. Annie Live!: In recent years, NBC did a number of live productions adapted from Broadway musicals in front of a live audience. Annie Live! was one of them, airing December 2, 2021, with Celina Smith as Annie.

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13. The Comic Strip. And, yes, we come full circle back to the comic strip. As previously mentioned, Harold Gray died in 1968 and the strip was passed on to others to continue, including Leonard Starr (famous for his Mary Perkins On Stage newspaper strip) who did the writing and drawing for 20 years. Alan Kupperberg (brother of Paul) also worked on the strip for a three-year period. The strip came to an end on June 13, 2010 — but Annie wasn’t done, because Little Orphan Annie ended on a cliffhanger with her being kidnapped.

Starting in 2013, Daddy Warbucks and others appeared in the Dick Tracy newspaper strip until such time as she was rescued! And, more recently, with the aid of Tracy, in March of 2024 Annie learned the truth about her parents, Harold and Winifred Gray. (Winifred was the name of Gray’s real-life wife.)

Dick Tracy, March 29, 2024 (Tribune Content Agency). Written by Mike Curtis, with art by Charles Ettinger.

And, so, Little Orphan Annie is now 100 years old — and still looking like she’s 12. Happy Annie-versary, Annie!

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MORE

— A Tribute to MODESTY BLAISE — One of Comics’ Greatest Strips. Click here.

— Frank Robbins’ JOHNNY HAZARD: An 80th Anniversary Salute in 13 STRIPS. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. He is currently at work on a sequel, about movie comics. Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.