Posted on 05/13/2010 8:53:32 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Leapin' lizards!
After 86 years in the Daily News' comics, there are no more tomorrows for "Little Orphan Annie." The plucky redhead with the saucer-shaped eyes appears in her final newspaper strip on Sunday, June 13.
"It's kind of painful," said cartoonist Ted Slampyak, who started drawing Annie, Sandy and Daddy Warbucks six years ago. "It's almost like mourning the loss of a friend."
The strip's debut came on Aug. 5, 1924, exclusively in the Daily News. Cartoonist Harold Gray, who created the character, drew her until his death in 1968. Daddy Warbucks' adopted daughter starred in a radio series in 1930, a Broadway smash in 1977 and a $35 million movie in 1982.
Tribune Media Services reluctantly decided to cancel the cartoon, which was running in less than 20 newspapers - including The News.
For those who care, Gasoline Alley is still rolling along. Of course old Uncle Walt is about 115 by now, but hey...
Daddy Warbucks—believed in hard work, tough but fair, paid workers well. from wikipedia
—It was also about this time (late 20s) that Gray, whose politics seem to have been either conservative or libertarian with a decided populist streak, introduced some of his more controversial storylines. He would look into the darker aspects of human nature, such as greed and treachery. The gap between rich and poor was an important theme. The strip (and Gray, in interviews) glorified the American business ethic of an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. His hatred of labor unions was dramatized in the 1935 story “Eonite”. Other targets were the New Deal and communism. Despite the strip’s pro-capitalist slant, corrupt businessmen often appeared as villains.
Casted?
oops!
Yeah, those were the days...
I miss Fearless Fosdick, the ideel of ev'ry 100% red-blooded American boy.
TV ruined America (not that I don’t like TV).
ping
Creator Harold Gray was critical of the New Deal and union laborism.
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