''Little Annie Rooney'' is a

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

about a young orphaned girl who traveled about with her dog, Zero.

King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editoria ...

launched the strip on January 10, 1927, not long after it was apparent that the

Chicago Tribune Syndicate Tribune Content Agency (TCA) is a syndication company owned by Tribune Publishing. TCA had previously been known as the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate (CTNYNS), Tribune Company Syndicate, and Tribune Media S ...

had scored a huge hit with ''

Little Orphan Annie ''Little Orphan Annie'' is 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 Aug ...

''. 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 strip The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in most western newspapers, almost always in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies. The first US newspap ...

s 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 * Ed Verdier (story and art): Jan 10, 1927 - July 20, 1929 * Ben Batsford (story and art): July 22, 1929 - Oct 4, 1930 * Brandon Walsh (story) & Darrell McClure (art): Oct 6, 1930 - 1954 * Darrell McClure (story and art): 1954 - April 16, 1966 Sunday * Brandon Walsh (story) & Darrell McClure (art): Nov 30, 1930 - Feb 4, 1934 * Brandon Walsh (story) & Nicholas Afonsky (art): Feb 11, 1934 - Aug 8, 1943 * Brandon Walsh (story) & Darrell McClure (art): Aug 15, 1943 - April 4, 1954 * Darrell McClure (story and art): April 11, 1954 - May 30, 1965 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.

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 ''

s "Leapin' lizards!" both found their way into the

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

and

Stephen Sondheim Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March 22, 1930November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with sho ...

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

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 Fleischer Studios () is an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of i ...

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 Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

'', Withers' first starring role.

Shirley Temple Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple;While Temple occasionally used "Jane" as a middle name, her birth certificate reads "Shirley Temple". Her birth certificate was altered to prolong her babyhood shortly after she signed with Fox in ...

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 The Big Little Books, first published during 1932 by the Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin, were small, compact books designed with a captioned illustration opposite each page of text. Other publishers, notably Saalfield, adopted t ...

. 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 St. John Publications was an American publisher of magazines and comic books. During the 1947-1958 existence of its comic-book division, St. John established several industry firsts. Founded by Archer St. John, the firm was located in Manhattan a ...

and the ''Treasury of Comics'' annuals (1948–1950), also from St. John.

References

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

External links

''Little Annie Rooney''
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

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from the original on November 10, 2015. {{King Features Syndicate Comics 1927 comics debuts 1966 comics endings Action-adventure comics American comic strips American comics adapted into films Comics about orphans Comics about women Rooney, Annie Rooney, Annie Humor comics Public domain comics