Little Annie Rooney

Last updated
Little Annie Rooney
AnnieRoon360927.jpg
Nicholas Afonsky's Little Annie Rooney with script by Brandon Walsh (September 27, 1936).
Author(s)Ed Verdier (1927–1929)
Ben Batsford (1929-1930)
Brandon Walsh (1930–1954)
Darrell McClure (1954-1966)
Illustrator(s)Ed Verdier (1927–1929)
(dailies) Darrell McClure (1930–1966)
(Sunday strips) Nicholas Afonsky (1934–1943)
Launch dateJanuary 10, 1927 (January 10, 1927)
End dateApril 16, 1966 (April 16, 1966)
Syndicate(s) King Features Syndicate
Publisher(s) Big Little Books
David McKay Publications
St. John Publications
Genre(s)Humor, Action, Adventure

Little Annie Rooney is a comic strip about a young orphaned girl who traveled about with her dog, Zero.

Contents

King Features Syndicate launched the strip on January 10, 1927, not long after it was apparent that the Chicago Tribune Syndicate had scored a huge hit with Little Orphan Annie . The name comes from the 1889 popular song of the same name, still familiar to many at the time. Although the King Features strip was an obvious knock-off with several similar parallels, the approach was quite different, and Little Annie Rooney had a successful run from January 10, 1927, to April 16, 1966.

Publication history

The strip's creators over the years included Ed Verdier (1927–29), Ben Batsford (1929-30), Sunday strips by Nicholas Afonsky (1934–43), writer Brandon Walsh (1930–54) and Darrell McClure (1930–66). McClure's assistants were Bob Dunn and Fran Matera.

Daily

Sunday

The Sunday page had a topper in the 1930s and early 40s. The first one, Fablettes, began in the early 1930s and ended on March 10, 1935. This was replaced by Ming Foo, which ran from March 17, 1935 to March 28, 1943. [2]

Origins

Little Annie Rooney became popular in a 19th-century song by Michael Nolan. After Nolan sang "Little Annie Rooney" in English music halls in 1890, Annie Hart (also known as "The Bowery Girl") brought it to the United States. When she performed at New York's London Theatre, the song became a hit, but the absence of any international copyright laws kept Nolan from collecting royalties.

A bitter Nolan retired from composing, and his song later became a favourite piano roll and calliope tune, heard at circuses and carousels. The lyrics make it clear that the Annie of the song and the Annie of the strip are two different characters:

A winning way, a pleasant smile,
Dress'd so neat but quite in style,
Merry chaff your time to wile,
Has little Annie Rooney.
Ev'ry evening, rain or shine,
I make a call twixt eight and nine,
On her who shortly will be mine,
Little Annie Rooney.
She's my sweetheart, I'm her beau;
She's my Annie, I'm her Joe,
Soon we'll marry, never to part,
Little Annie Rooney is my sweetheart!
The parlor's small, but neat and clean,
And set with taste so seldom seen,
And you can bet, the household queen,
Is little Annie Rooney.
The fire burns cheerfully and bright,
As a family circle round each night,
We form, and ev'ry one's delight
Is little Annie Rooney.
We've been engaged close on a year,
The happy time is drawing near,
I'll wed the one I love so dear,
Little Annie Rooney.
My friends declare I'm in a jest,
Until the time comes will not rest,
But one who knows its value best,
Is little Annie Rooney.

There is also a Scottish saying: "She is having an Annie Rooney," which means that someone is displaying rage and anger. Annie Rooney's pet expression was "Gloriosky!" That unique G-rated expletive and Little Orphan Annie's "Leapin' lizards!" both found their way into the Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim song "Gee, Officer Krupke!" in the musical West Side Story .

Harvey Kurtzman had both Annies in mind when he created his satirical Little Annie Fanny for Playboy , though the ribald parody owed far more to the original Harold Gray strip.

James Joyce referred to Little Annie Rooney early in the first chapter of Finnegans Wake : "Arrah, sure, we all love little Anny Ruiny, or, we mean to say, lovelittle Anna Rayiny, when unda her brella, mid piddle med puddle, she ninnygoes nannygoes nancing by."

Films

Mary Pickford in the 1925 film Little Annie Rooney Pickfordannierooney.jpg
Mary Pickford in the 1925 film Little Annie Rooney

Prior to the creation of the identically titled comic strip, Mary Pickford starred as a girl of the slums in William Beaudine's 1925 silent comedy-drama Little Annie Rooney (United Artists), set in New York's Lower East Side. Audiences found nothing unusual about 32-year-old Mary Pickford portraying a 12-year-old, and this became one of her most successful films. Turner Classic Movies has aired a restored version, produced by the Mary Pickford Foundation. The Fleischer Studios did a Little Annie Rooney animated Screen Song in 1931.

Fox Film Corporation purchased the rights to the comic strip and planned to turn it into a film starring child actress Jane Withers. This project became the 1935 film Ginger , Withers' first starring role. [3]

Shirley Temple did her first teenage role (receiving her second screen kiss) in Miss Annie Rooney (1942); the George Bruce screenplay is not an adaptation of the comic strip but instead dramatizes the situation of a poor girl with a wealthy boyfriend. In Gavin Lambert's 1963 novel "Inside Daisy Clover," which is set in the 1950s, Daisy becomes a star after appearing in her first movie, a musical remake of Mary Pickford's "Little Annie Rooney."

Reprints

Little Annie Rooney on the Highway to Adventure was one of several Big Little Books. After a 1935 book of reprints, Little Annie Rooney was seen in comic book reprints — David McKay Publications's Feature Book #11 (1938), King Comics, a 1948 three-issue series published by St. John Publications and the Treasury of Comics annuals (1948–1950), also from St. John.

Related Research Articles

<i>Little Orphan Annie</i> 1924–2010 American comic strip

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.

<i>Bringing Up Father</i> 1913–2000 American comic strip

Bringing Up Father is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 2, 1913, to May 28, 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Gray</span> American cartoonist (1894–1968)

Harold Lincoln Gray was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the newspaper comic strip Little Orphan Annie.

<i>Mary Perkins, On Stage</i> American comic strip by Leonard Starr

Mary Perkins, On Stage is an American newspaper comic strip by Leonard Starr for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. It ran from February 10, 1957, to September 9, 1979, with the switch to the longer title in 1961. Some papers carried the strip under the shortened title Mary Perkins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Topper (comic strip)</span>

A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Hershfield</span> American cartoonist

Harry Hershfield was an American cartoonist, humor writer and radio personality. He was known as "the Jewish Will Rogers". Hershfield also was a columnist for the New York Daily Mirror. His books include Laugh Louder, Live Longer and Now I'll Tell One. As a comics artist he is best remembered for his newspaper comic Abie the Agent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Rosher</span> English cinematographer (1885–1974)

Charles G. Rosher, A.S.C. was an English-born cinematographer who worked from the early days of silent films through the 1950s.

<i>Secret Agent X-9</i> American newspaper comic strip

Secret Agent X-9 is a comic strip created by writer Dashiell Hammett and artist Alex Raymond. Syndicated by King Features, it ran from January 22, 1934 until February 10, 1996.

David McKay Publications was an American book publisher which also published some of the first comic books, including the long-running titles Ace Comics, King Comics, and Magic Comics; as well as collections of such popular comic strips as Blondie, Dick Tracy, and Mandrake the Magician. McKay was also the publisher of the Fodor's travel guides.

<i>Little Iodine</i> American comic strip (1943–1983)

Little Iodine is an American Sunday comic strip, created by Jimmy Hatlo, which was syndicated by King Features and ran from August 15, 1943, until August 14, 1983. The strip was a spin-off of They'll Do It Every Time, an earlier Hatlo creation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darrell McClure</span> American cartoonist

Darrell Craig McClure, was an American cartoonist and illustrator best known for his work on the comic strip Little Annie Rooney from 1930 to 1966. The strip took its name from an 1890 song by Michael Nolan.

<i>Nemo</i> (magazine) Magazine focusing on the history and creators of vintage comic strips

Nemo, the Classic Comics Library was a magazine devoted to the history and creators of vintage comic strips. Created by comics historian Rick Marschall, it was published between 1983 and 1990 by Fantagraphics.

King of the Royal Mounted is an American comics series which debuted February 17, 1935 by Stephen Slesinger, based on popular Western writer Zane Grey's byline and marketed as Zane Grey's King of the Royal Mounted. The series' protagonist is Dave King, a Canadian Mountie who always gets his man and who, over the course of the series, is promoted from Corporal to Sergeant. King has appeared in newspaper strips, comics, Big Little Books, and other ancillary items.

<i>Little Annie Rooney</i> (1925 film) 1925 film

Little Annie Rooney is a 1925 American silent comedy-drama film starring Mary Pickford and directed by William Beaudine. Pickford, one of the most successful actresses of the silent era, was best known throughout her career for her iconic portrayals of penniless young girls. After generating only modest box office revenue playing adults in her previous two films, Pickford wrote and produced Little Annie Rooney to cater to silent film audiences. Though she was 33 years old, Pickford played the title role, an Irish girl living in the slums of New York City.

<i>Room and Board</i> (comic strip) Two American comic strips

Room and Board is the title of two American comic strips. The first, created by Sals Bostwick, debuted on May 21, 1928. He drew it until his death in 1930, after which it was continued by cartoonists Brandon Walsh, Benbee, Darrell McClure, Dow Walling and Herman Thomas before coming to an end in 1932.

Little Joe is a 1933-1972 Western comic strip created by Ed Leffingwell and later continued by his brother Robert Leffingwell. Distributed by the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, this Sunday strip had a long run spanning four decades. It was never a daily strip.

Frankie Doodle, originally called The Doodle Family, is an American comic strip that ran from April 23, 1934, to 1938. It was created by Ben Batsford.

Little Orphan Annie is an American radio drama series based on the popularity of the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. It debuted on Chicago's WGN in 1930, then moved to the NBC radio network Blue Network on April 6, 1931. It aired until April 26, 1942.

Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit is an American Disney comic strip that ran on Sundays from October 14, 1945, to December 31, 1972. It first appeared as a topper strip for the Mickey Mouse Sunday page, but after the first few years, almost always appeared on its own. The strip replaced the 1932-1945 Silly Symphony strip, which had spent its final year on gag strips featuring Panchito from The Three Caballeros.

<i>Annie</i> (franchise) American media franchise

Annie is an American media franchise created by Harold Gray. The original comic strip created by Harold Gray, Little Orphan Annie, The comic strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley. Its most notable adaptation is the 1977 musical Annie that won 7 Tony Awards which has been adapted four times on screen for both the big screen and television. The musical also has two sequels titled Annie 2: Miss Hannigan's Revenge (1989) and Annie Warbucks (1992). The 1982 film also has a television film sequel Annie: A Royal Adventure! (1995).

References

  1. Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. pp. 236–237. ISBN   9780472117567.
  2. Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. pp. 145, 266. ISBN   9780472117567.
  3. "Ginger (1935)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films . American Film Institute. 2019. Retrieved April 23, 2020.

Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, California: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN   0-9700077-0-1