A quick trip to Stratford Festival’s performance of “Annie” produced one of the most magical moments in the life of my 10-year-old — his introduction to the song, “Tomorrow.”
It reminded me of my reaction to hearing it for the first time in the 1982 film, which starred Aileen Quinn as the moppet in a red dress with a white collar.
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Annie’s adventures and antics began 101 years ago this week in the New York Daily News.
Here are highlights from her journey that probably was inspired by a folk tale, then found itself in the pages of the Tribune before the curly-haired character burst from the newspaper onto Broadway and then the big screen.
1885
The rhyme “Little Orphant Annie” by “Hoosier Poet” James Whitcomb Riley was told by an orphan (named Annie) sent to a farmer’s home to earn her keep by washing dishes, sweeping and baking during the day. At night, however, she told stories to the farmer’s children warning them they would be taken away by elves, goblins and witches if they were naughty.
A decade later, Richard Felton Outcault’s character “The Yellow Kid” — considered the first comic published in an American newspaper — debuted. He became an instant sensation, spawning a raft of products and stunning the industry.
The Tribune — which had been running four pages of Sunday comics since 1895, but not in color and with no continuing characters — soon looked for ways to incorporate more visuals.
The paper hired John T. McCutcheon in June 1903 as its regular editorial cartoonist. (His first front-page illustration for the Tribune appeared on July 1, 1903.)
Feb. 12, 1917
“The Gumps,” by Sidney Smith — for decades one of the most popular comic strips — was introduced in the Tribune. Smith signed in 1922, the first million-dollar contract ever given a comic strip artist. “The Gumps” was published until 1959, and outlived its creator, who was killed in a car crash in 1935.
1918
“The Gumps” helped to lay the foundation for the Tribune syndicate (now Tribune Content Agency), which, under various names, was a money-making endeavor that would spread comic strips and other editorial products to newspapers across the world. Joseph Medill Patterson, cousin to Col. Robert McCormick and founder of the New York Daily News tabloid, led the way.
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Patterson helped create and nourish, among many other strips, “Gasoline Alley,” “Moon Mullins” and “Terry and the Pirates.” He was energetically hands-on, offering advice, coaching artists and coming up with ideas to promote the strips. He would regularly assemble his cartoonists to discuss characters and story lines.
In his 1959 book “Comic Art in America,” Stephen Becker wrote: “It is probably true that no other publisher in history … took as much interest in the comics he published as Patterson did. … The Tribune and the News did not dominate the twenties; yet of the dozen enduring strips created in that decade, half are their products. (They were) essential in the transition from comics as an adjunct to journalism to comics as a profession in itself.”
Early 1924
Born in Kankakee but raised in Indiana, Harold Gray had no formal art training. He did, however, have a degree from Purdue and came to Chicago to meet fellow alum McCutcheon in hopes of securing a job at the Tribune. He spent a short time as a cub reporter, but was hired as an assistant to Smith on “The Gumps” after World War I.
Aug. 5, 1924
Daily News readers were introduced to Gray’s Annie, the feisty yet lovable pre-teen girl with no mother or father. Miss Asthma ran the big city orphanage where she lived.
“At the time, little boy strips were all the rage,” Gray told the Tribune in 1946. “That’s one reason I decided on a little girl. I chose an orphan because I didn’t want to get involved with a lot of extraneous relatives. I wanted a simple story built around a character who would be as real to readers as Annie was to me.”
Annie was Gray’s only child, since he had none of his own. Unlike Riley’s poem, however, the comic strip’s target audience was not children.
“It isn’t the kids who buy the papers, it’s their parents,” Gray said.
Sept. 27, 1924
By then a regular feature, the brash billionaire Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks — who didn’t know an orphan could be a girl — appeared in the comic strip for the first time and was instantly smitten with his adopted daughter.
Nov. 2, 1924
Annie pulled at the heartstrings of Tribune readers for the first time. “Leapin’ lizards” became a household term.
“Three days before the country’s headlines flashed ‘COOLIDGE WINS,’ America’s comic-reading public came home from church, put the roast beef in the oven, and settled into a comfortable Sunday routine with the funny papers,” Tribune reporter Norma Lee Browning wrote 22 years later.
Jan. 5, 1925
Sandy, Annie’s dog, was introduced. The dog was the only character in the strip that aged.
Oct. 27, 1925
Pandemonium ensued when Annie was left out of the Tribune. Irate readers called the paper to find out what happened to their beloved comic strip character. One person threatened to bomb the newly completed Tribune Tower if Annie didn’t reappear.
To appease the public, Tribune editors printed two Annie strips — plus a front-page apology — the next day. The Tribune’s explanation: Concern that Annie was getting too big for her britches.
“Annie was behaving herself right democratic like, what with salad forks and all,” the Tribune reported. “But it was thought that possibly she might be getting just a bit ritzy.”
1930
Annie finally had a voice, courtesy of South Side native Shirley Bell Cole. “Little Orphan Annie” premiered on WGN radio as a 15-minute show sponsored by Ovaltine. It was the first time the character was targeted to children, who collected decoder rings and pins to decipher cryptic messages revealed by Annie. The radio program aired until 1942.
May 9, 1968
Gray died in La Jolla, California, at 74. At the time of his death, another 12 weeks of the strip had been prepared. But no clear succession was detailed. Cartoonist Leonard Starr picked it up in 1979.
April 21, 1977
The musical “Annie” debuted on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre (now the Neil Simon) in New York, starring Andrea McArdle (“a self-assured teenager who only came to read the comic strip after she won the title role,” the Tribune reported) and Reid Shelton (who played the Warbucks role with a full head of hair until the director suggested he shave it for more realism).
McArdle received a Tony nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Musical, according to Playbill, but the award went to her co-star Dorothy Loudon, who portrayed Miss Hannigan.
“Annie” spent six years — 2,377 performances — on Broadway.
May 18, 1982
The highly anticipated movie of the summer, “Annie” starred Aileen Quinn as the orphan and Albert Finney as Warbucks.
John Huston, director of “The Maltese Falcon,” “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” and “The African Queen,” created a “powerfully poignant portrait of a wealthy man — the billionaire, right-wing, munitions magnate Oliver Warbucks — who learns that what he really wants out of life is to be a father, to have someone to love and to be loved in return,” Tribune critic Gene Siskel wrote in his review of “Annie.”
One key change from the Broadway musical: The ending no longer included a Christmas scene — where Annie’s trademark red dress with white collar was revealed for the first time — since snow would have been cost-prohibitive. Instead, it’s a Fourth of July party.
Siskel gave the film just 2½ stars — “because it’s so much less that it should have been. Because it’s so much less than it was on Broadway,” he wrote.
June 13, 2010
The last “Annie” comic strip was published.
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