Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray (1894–1968) and syndicated by Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and made its debut on August 5, 1924 in the New York Daily News. It ranked number one in popularity in a Fortune poll in 1937.
The plot follows the wide-ranging adventures of Annie, her dog Sandy, and her benefactor Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks. Secondary characters include Punjab, the Asp and Mr. Am. The strip attracted adult readers with political commentary that targeted (among other things) organized labor, the New Deal and communism.
Following Gray's death in 1968, several artists drew the strip and, for a time, "classic" strips were rerun. Little Orphan Annie inspired a radio show in 1930, film adaptations by RKO in 1932 and Paramount in 1938 and a Broadway musical Annie in 1977 (which itself was released as a film in 1982). The strip's popularity declined over the years and was running in only 20 newspapers when it was cancelled on June 13, 2010.
Read more about Little Orphan Annie: Story, Characters, Background, Parodies, Imitations and Cultural Citations, Archives, Episode Guide, Reprints, Audio, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the word orphan:
“A man should not go where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,Mnot bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He should preserve in a new company the same attitude of mind and reality of relation, which his daily associates draw him to, else he is shorn of his best beams, and will be an orphan in the merriest club.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)