Gasoline Alley characters have aged in real time.
Posted on 06/13/2010 3:23:54 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CHICAGO (AFP) – Little Orphan Annie, the plucky redheaded star of Broadway musical and comic strip fame, has run out of tomorrows ---at least in print.
The pop culture icon who sang and danced her way to international fame in the Broadway musical that gave us tunes such as "It's The Hard-Knock Life," and "Tomorrow," ended her decades-long run as a comic strip heroine on Sunday, June 13.
Tribune Media Services, the division of media conglomerate the Tribune Company that syndicates the strip to US newspapers, is pulling the plug on the irrepressible Annie, her trusty dog Sandy and her wealthy benefactor Daddy Warbucks after 85 years.
The comic strip debuted in 1924, the brainchild of cartoonist Harold Gray who created a spunky, nine-year-old orphan with an unruly crop of red hair and saucer eyes who had the good fortune to be adopted by a wealthy entrepreneur, Daddy Warbucks.
The character bounced from one hair-raising adventure to another, battling greedy bankers, ruthless gangsters or Nazis, depending on the zeitgeist of the time.
Gray had two rules for his character. Annie could never reach a "happy ending" and she could never grow up.
The "Annie" franchise later grew to include a 1930s syndicated radio show, a 1977 Broadway musical, a 1982 movie, and a 1995 commemorative stamp.
At the height of its popularity, the strip was carried by hundreds of newspapers, but a mere 20 papers carried the cliffhanger finale in which Annie tangled with the Butcher from the Balkans in the last panel.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Garfield has run his course, too.
>>and Cathy<<
I knew there was another one — I DESPISE Cathy.
A modern retelling would have Daddy Warbucks as the villain, a wealthy, crazed secret leader of the ultra conservative military-industrial complex that runs America, and Annie as the heroine who fights for progressive values, like freedom, wealth distribution and universal health care.
I’ve always wondered how those books came to be. I’ll hunt one down on my next shopping trip at Amazon!
What else am I missing that's still around? Krazy Kat? Freckles and His Friends?
“You look radiant, my dear”, said Leopold “Daddy” Kriegmarks to the nubile, yet buxom, pupil-less alien girl, as he admired her skin tight space suit and long curly blond hair; yet she had become fascinated by the jumping iguanas of this far-off planet.
— Illustrated by Frank Frazetta
The song “Tomorrow” should be played loudly for the animals at Gitmo hour after hour.
Actually, I have read that Daddy Warbucks was based on one of the Warburgs . . . one of those banking families that some conservatives insist are "secretly behind Communism."
Oh, and that reminds me, David Rockefeller turned 95 yesterday.
The Moose Miller strip is still around? Amazing!
Arf! Needs a stimulus package to keep her day job.
Gasoline Alley characters have aged in real time.
There was a time, in America, when reading was a popular diversion from everyday life. And comics were the preferred choice for millions of people. Now, reading is passe. Subsequently, comics are no longer what they were.
While not a big fan of LOA, I mourn the passing of the great comic strips - Steve Canyon, Terry and the Pirates, Lil Abner, Smiling Jack, The Phantom, Dick Tracy to name a few. We are not the better for having lost this media.
Don't forget the classic "joke" strips ... Mutt and Jeff, Peanuts (now in repeats), Bring up Father (Maggie and Jiggs), Henry.
I know Gasoline Alley is still around. I think it is time for Uncle Walt to join his wife Phyllis on the other side. Maybe some of the characters mentioned inthe last two posts in addition to Phyllis can be waiting for him there. Plus, perhaps the hand of “God” (Frank King).
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