Free Republic

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...

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...