THE STRANGE CASE OF LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE

That's James Witcomb Riley above, author of the poem "Little Orphant Annie." You probably think he stole the character from the comic strip but actually the comic derived the character from Riley, from this poem as a matter of fact.

The poem isn't perfect. You get the idea that an even better one might have been made from the same structural elements, but millions of kids memorized it without much coercion, so it must have had something going for it. Here's (below) a link to a little two year-old girl reciting it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp_ESjq7eGI

The poem was so popular that Harold Gray made a comic strip (above) out of it. Gray must have liked writing because the strip was the most wordy comic ever. It's a wonder that the characters didn't get stoop shouldered from having to scuttle around under word balloons as big as pianos.

Gray solved the balloon problem by running the excess dialogue down the characters' backs and over their faces and chests.

Annie was so goody-goody that she spawned a zillion sex parodies. I'm guessing that Annie was second only to Little Red Riding Hood in that regard. Here's (above) Little Annie Fannie by Harvey Kurtzman.



She was well represented in radio and film, too.  If you have the stamina to listen to this 45 minute video of Jean Shepherd's radio show you'll hear the story of the boy who got the shock of his life when he decoded Annie's secret message and discovered she was a rip-off artist.

Wood (above) did a sexy take-off, too.

Even Tijuana Bibles got into the act. Poor James Witcomb Riley. He was a gentle soul who probably never dreamed his poem would would spawn a whole cottage industry of sex and crime parodies.

BTW: Thanks to Steve for turning me on to Riley.