LEGENDARY HEROES

#3 IN A SERIES

LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE

In today's modern world, it's perhaps difficult to believe or understand the hero-worship that Little Orphan Annie commanded in her day and age.  Annie was the creation of Harold Gray, born in Kankakee, Illinois in 1894, who began his comic career as the letterer on the popular comic strip "The Gumps".  Gray worked for Sidney Smith and "The Gumps" for three years and was there in 1922 when Smith signed a million-dollar contract with the Chicago Tribune newspaper syndicate.  Smith had the most successful comic strip in the country and his contract gave him $100,000 a year for ten years.  (In 1935 Smith signed a new contract for $150,000 a year and that very same day he died in a head-on car collision.)  Harold Gray wanted the same success that Smith enjoyed, and began submitting his own comic strip proposals to the Chicago Tribune.

The popular story is that Gray came up with a strip called "Little Orphan Otto" but editor Joseph Medill Patterson changed the boy to a girl and suggested the name Annie and the rest was history.  Gray told a different story in 1957. He claimed that the origin was the result of a chance meeting he himself had with a ragamuffin on the streets of Chicago.  "I talked to this little kid and liked her right away," recalled Gray. "She had common sense, knew how to take care of herself.  She had to.  Her name was Annie."  I don't know which story is true but I know that Medill Patterson was well known for his inate sense of making comic strips successful through his suggestions.

"Little Orphan Annie" debuted on August 5, 1924 with Annie in a dreary orphanage where she is routinely abused by the matron Miss Asthma, who was later replaced by Miss Treat (get it?).  One day the wealthy, high-society Mrs. Warbucks takes Annie into her home on a trial basis.  Mrs. Warbucks decides that she doesn't care for the little girl, but before she can return her to the orphanage her husband Oliver returns from a business trip abroad.  He takes an instant paternal affection for Annie and he insists that the young girl call him "Daddy".  Soon everyone in the strip despises the cold-hearted Mrs. Warbucks who casts Annie out of her home every chance she gets (always when Daddy Warbucks is away on business).  Like an innocent vagabond Annie wanders the countryside and gets involved in little adventures, only to be reunited with Daddy when he would return from his frequent trips and rescue her from dastardly situations and villains.  Her loyal companion and confidant, Sandy, entered the story in January 1925 as a puppy that Annie rescues from a gang of abusive boys.

As an orphan, Annie could evoke chuckles or sympathy as required though she seemed out of place in the funny pages for the simple reason that she was rarely funny.  She was a vulnerable figure on three counts - she was a girl, she was young, and she was an orphan.  Ultimately these traits were irrelevant.  Armed with honesty and guile, if no one else would take her in then newspaper readers would.  Despite her demure appearance she was tough-as-hell with a heart of gold and a fast left hook that would flatten bullies twice her size.  Her oval expressionless eyes allowed the readers to provide their own emotions as they saw the world through her vacant stare.

Throughout the 1920's Annie, the never-aging red-haired tyke, and Sandy rallied to the assistance of decent folk who were more impoverished and less resourceful than herself.  Annie defended hardworking people and poor, struggling farmers against smugglers, crime lords, corrupt politicians, treacherous foreigners, and mortgage holders.  Often Daddy Warbucks would happen along at opportune times with his homicidal henchmen Punjab and The Asp to save her in the nick of time.  In the 1930's the Depression was exacting a cruel toll on millions and America took the comic strip and Annie's message to heart.  Self reliance and realistic optimism struck a chord with millions of readers who became loyal followers of the plucky girl who uttered catch-phrases like "Gee Whiskers" and "Leapin' Lizards."

In 1930 "Little Orphan Annie" took to the airwaves in a 15-minute radio show that debuted on WGN in Chicago (owned by the Tribune), then went national in April 1931 on NBC's Blue Network.  Annie was one of the first comic strips to be adapted to radio and enjoyed 6 million listeners daily.  It also helped that the sponsor of the show was Ovaltine (popularized in Jean Shepherd's "Christmas Story") and children were urged to send away proofs of purchase to be redeemed for secret decoder badges, shake-up mugs for Ovaltine, rings and bracelets as members of Radio Orphan Annie's Secret Society.  Every episode opened with the theme song that asked "Who's that little chatterbox?/ The one with pretty auburn locks?/ Whom do you see?/ It's Little Orphan Annie" and reminded folks that "Arf, says Sandy".  The huge popularity of the show cannot be overstated, primarily because it was one of the few radio programs to deal with and appeal to children.  In 1940 a new sponsor took over the show - Quaker Puffed Wheat Sparkies - that introduced Captain Sparky as a major character and relegated Annie to a secondary role.  This move disenfranchised youthful listeners and popularity dropped off dramatically.  After 12 years Annie signed-off in 1942.

In 1932 David O. Selznick produced an Orphan Annie film at RKO starring Mitzi Green.  It was a box office failure as was a 1938 Paramount feature.  But newspaper polls in the 1930's always placed Annie in the nation's top five most popular comic strips.  In 1937 it was #1.  By 1934 Harold Gray was making $100,000 a year from the comic strip and Radio Orphan Annie premiums earned him another $1000 a week.  In 1933 Franklin Roosevelt became president which distressed Harold Gray.  While some saw the New Deal as the salvation of the working class, Gray saw it as the beginning of Communism in America.  Gray used the comic strip to attack socialism, espouse his conservative views, and expound the joys of capitalism.  Gray hated FDR so much that when Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term, Gray killed off Daddy Warbucks who couldn't coexist in a world with FDR and died of a month-long malingering ailment.  When the President died in 1945 Daddy suddenly came back to life, revealed to have only been in a coma.

In 1977 the comic strip was adapted to the Broadway stage as the musical "Annie" which ran until 1983.  It launched the careers of Andrea McArdle and Sarah Jessica Parker.  In 1982 famed director John Huston made a film version of the successful musical.  The last "Annie" comic strip appeared on June 13, 2010 ending an 86 year run in the newspapers.  Only 20 newspapers still carried the strip.  Creator Harold Gray died in 1968 at his winter home in La Jolla, California.  Like his fictional Daddy Warbucks, Gray was a multi-millionaire.