Little Orphan Annie was a daily American
comic strip created by
Harold Gray and
syndicated by the
Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "
Little Orphant Annie" by
James Whitcomb Riley, and it made its debut on August 5, 1924, in the New York
Daily News.The plot followed 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 reruns.
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 was adapted on screen four times, once in
1982, once on TV in
1999, once in
2014, and a live TV production in
2021). The strip's popularity declined over the years; it was running in only 20 newspapers when it ended on June 13, 2010. The characters now appear occasionally as supporting cast in
Dick Tracy.
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