Little Orphan Annie: Difference between revisions
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In 1995, ''Annie: A Royal Adventure'', a [[Made for TV Movie]] starring Ashley Johnson, aired on [[ABC]].
Despite the enduring popularity of the musical and movies, the strip itself declined in popularity after the Leonard Starr era, and [http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/05/13/2010-05-13_little_orphan_gonnie_from_the_daily_news.html ended its 86-year run] in [http://www.gocomics.com/annie/2010/06/13 June of 2010], [[No Ending|in the middle]] of [[Aborted Arc|a story arc that saw Annie kidnapped in Guatemala]] and [[Downer Ending|presumed dead by Warbucks]]. After Warbucks made a few cameos in [[Dick Tracy (comic strip)|''Dick Tracy'']] on his own search for Annie, [[Crossover|a lengthy crossover arc in 2014]] saw Tracy's agency [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|team up with Warbucks to rescue Annie]], thus concluding the storyline and comic in October of 2014.
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{{tropelist|The comic strip includes examples of:}}
* [[Action Girl]]: Annie can fight as well as any boy. April 7, 1936, she decks the toughest kid in school with one punch.
* [[Affectionate Parody]]: The daily radio drama ''Orphaned Belinda'', as shown in the ''Dick Tracy'' crossover arc. Also veers somewhat into [[homage]] territory.
* [[All Just a Dream]]: Played straight in the ''Dick Tracy'' crossover arc. {{spoiler|Axel was not only ultimately behind the kidnapping of Annie upon the strips' ending, but also kidnapped the Silos and others in order to stage a recreation of Simmons Commons circa-1944, and hypnotized everyone there into thinking it [b]WAS[/b] 1944.}}
* [[Amoral Attorney]]: Mr. Busard.
* [[Anti-Villain]]: In late February, 1936, a robber seeing Annie walking along the road makes her get into his car. The reason he gives is that he wants to give her a ride, but it's really in order to use her as protection if the police sees him; they wouldn't shoot at him if there's a risk of killing an innocent girl. He's impressed by the way she won't accept the stolen money he tries to give her, and says that he "could have been that way once, maybe... But it's too late now..." In the end, he tells her to leave him even though he knows that it will vastly increase the risk that the police kills him.
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* [[Applied Phlebotinum]]: Eonite.
* [[Art Evolution]]: The reason why Annie no longer sports an afro.
** Averted in the ''Dick Tracy'' crossover arc, where Annie [[It Makes Sense in Context|is reverted back to her 1940s style and wardrobe]].
* [[Artifact Title]]: She was an orphan at first, but she got adoptive parents quite soon.
* [[Badass Grandpa]]: {{spoiler|Jack Boot}} might not look like a fighter, but he can take out a hired killer that's armed with a knife. Using his bare hands. When he's attacked from behind.
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* [[Deserted Island]]: Annie and Spike Marlin are stuck on one for a number of weeks.
* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: Pretty much every story line ends with a sudden negative twist that prevents Annie from settling down to live happily ever after, and sets up the next arc: an old stand-by is that Annie is reunited with Warbucks after being kidnapped, but Warbucks loses all his money in the process. The next arc would then deal with him getting his fortune back. One of Harold Gray's mandates to his successors was that no storyline should ever end happily.
** Averted with the ending to the crossover arc in ''Dick Tracy'', which saw Annie happily reunited with Warbucks, but in this case, it was to give the comic a proper conclusion.
* [[Downer Ending]]:
** The comic strip ends with Annie, having survived being fed to sharks by drug dealers, being taken in by a war criminal on the run from The Hague. He tells her that her "new life" with him will consist of hiding from the authorities in a South American slum. Her beloved "Daddy" Warbucks meanwhile, has had a [[Heroic BSOD]] upon learning of Annie's apparent demise with it implied that he truly believes that she's dead.
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* [[Happily Adopted]]
* [[Heartwarming Orphan]]: Come on. Take a guess at who it is.
* [[Homage]]: Played straight throughout the ''Dick Tracy'' crossover arc.
* [[Informed Ability]]: Z.Z. Hare's reliability. He betrays people in the strip several times, but never shows any signs of being reliable. And we're told that he's stood by Warbucks in good times and bad, but we've seen Warbucks be in a lot of trouble over the years, and Hare was nowhere to be seen.
* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Ma Green.
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** Chizzler, who cheats Annie and Dan of their earnings.
* [[The Messiah]]: Anybody who wasn't inspired to be a better person after five minutes with Annie was probably completely irredeemable.
* [[No Ending]]: The final strip
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]:
** Mr. Trance, who {{spoiler|ruins what would have been Annie's big movie and break-through as an actress}}, is based on David O. Selznick, a director who Gray felt ruined the RKO ''Little Orphan Annie'' movie. And to be fair, it ''was'' Selznick who slashed the movie's budget.
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* [[Take That]]: Gray was fond of them.
** One particularly interesting one is the several times that people who are cheating "Daddy" Warbucks sing "Happy Days Are Here Again," which was FDR's signature song from the 1932 election. It was a subtle jab at the New Deal, of which Gray was no fan.
** In one strip, Annie's reading a letter to the editor in a newspaper. It's a complaint about how comic strips should stick to being funny. (There had been real-life complaints about how ''Little
* [[The Cameo]]: Quite a few in the ''Dick Tracy'' crossover arc, including ''[[Lum and Abner]]'' and Hotshot Charlie from ''[[Terry and the Pirates]]''.
* [[Uncle Pennybags]]: Warbucks.
* [[Unexpected Inheritance]]: A welcome economic break for {{spoiler|"Uncle" Dan.}}
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* [[Wham! Episode]]: The strip for January 17, 1934.
* [[Wham! Line]]: {{spoiler|"Is it kidnaping for a man and wife to speak to their own ''daughter?''}} from January 17, 1934.
* [[Writer on Board]]
* [[Yellow Peril]]: Averted with Wun Wey, who's a good friend of Warbucks.
* [[You Just Told Me]]: Annie wants to find out if Jack Boot is the one who gave the Jones family the money they needed to keep their farm. This is how she does it:
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{{tropelist|The radio series includes examples of:}}
* [[Merchandise-Driven]]: The radio show was an [[Older Than They Think|early example]] of the trope, as anyone who's seen the lengthy [[Shout-Out]] / [[Take That]] in ''[[A Christmas Story]]'' should know.
** [[Lampshade Hanging|Heavily lampshaded]] in the ''Dick Tracy'' crossover arc, {{spoiler|where Axel hypnotized his hostages into thinking it was June of 1944 via the decoder ring codes on a daily airing of [[Affectionate Parody|''Orphaned Belinda'']]}}. [http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2014/08/10 Annie's reaction] is nearly identical to Ralphie's in ''A Christmas Story''.
* [[Product Placement]]: Drink your Ovaltine!
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