''Little Orphan Annie'' is an American radio drama series based on the popularity of the comic strip ''

Little Orphan Annie ''Little Orphan Annie'' was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and print syndication#Comic strip syndication, syndicated by the Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James ...

''. It debuted on Chicago's WGN in 1930, then moved to the

NBC radio The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (also known as the NBC Red Network from 1927 to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in continuous operation from 1926 through 1999. Along with the NBC Blue Network, it wa ...

network

Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American Commercial broadcasting, radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the ...

on April 6, 1931. It aired until April 26, 1942. Together with ''

Skippy Skippy may refer to: People * Skippy (nickname), a list of people Arts and entertainment * ''Skippy'' (comic strip), an American strip published from 1923 to 1945. ** ''Skippy'' (film), based on the comics strip, released in 1931 and star ...

'' (1932–1935) it is seen as the oldest US children's radio program. Radio historian

Jim Harmon James Judson Harmon (21 April 1933 – 16 February 2010), better known as Jim Harmon, was an American short story author and popular culture historian who wrote extensively about the Golden Age of Radio. He sometimes used the pseudonym Judson Gre ...

attributes the show's popularity in ''The Great Radio Heroes'' to the fact that it was the only radio show to deal with and appeal to young children.

Concept

''Little Orphan Annie'' was based on

Harold Gray Harold Lincoln Gray (January 20, 1894 – May 9, 1968) was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the newspaper comic strip ''Little Orphan Annie''. Early life Harold Gray was born in Kankakee, Illinois on January 20, 1894, to Este ...

's eponymous and equally popular comic strip series ''

''. The show debuted on WGN/Chicago in 1930, but only became a national hit when it moved to

's Blue Network in 1931. It was broadcast in the late afternoon and ran for twelve successful years. In 1931, when the show debuted, radio had yet to establish coast-to-coast networks so two separate casts performed—one in San Francisco starring Floy Margaret Hughes and the other in Chicago starring Shirley Bell as Annie,

Stanley Andrews Stanley Martin Andrews (born Andrzejewski; August 28, 1891 – June 23, 1969) was an American actor perhaps best known as the voice of Daddy Warbucks on the radio program ''Little Orphan Annie'' and later as "The Old Ranger", the first host of ...

as "Daddy", and Allan Baruck (and later

Mel Tormé Melvin Howard Tormé (September 13, 1925 – June 5, 1999), nicknamed "the Velvet Fog", was an American musician, singer, composer, arrangement, arranger, drummer, actor, and author. He composed the music for "The Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts Roa ...

) as Joe Corntassel. When coast to coast networking was established in 1933, the Chicago cast became the permanent one.

Merchandising

The show was initially sponsored by

Ovaltine Ovaltine, also known by its original name Ovomaltine, is a brand of milk flavouring product made with malt extract, sugar (except in Switzerland), and whey. Some flavours also have cocoa. Ovaltine, a registered trademark of Associated British ...

, a flavored milk supplement, and its scripts were written by Ovaltine's Chicago ad agency staff. They shunned the overt political themes of Gray's newspaper strips and concentrated instead on pitching Ovaltine, using almost seven minutes of each broadcast to do so. Fans could redeem Ovaltine proofs of purchase for a secret decoder badge that decoded brief messages airing in the last moments of the show. Contrary to

Jean Shepherd Jean Parker "Shep" Shepherd Jr. (July 26, 1921 – October 16, 1999) was an American storytelling, storyteller, humorist, radio and TV personality, writer, and actor. With a career that spanned decades, Shepherd is known for the film ''A Christm ...

's assertions, the messages were never advertisements for Ovaltine, but were usually related to the following episode. In 1940, Quaker

Puffed Wheat Puffed grains are grains that have been expanded ("puffed") through processing. They have been made for centuries with the simplest methods like popping popcorn. Modern puffed grains are often created using high temperature, pressure, or extrus ...

Sparkies became the show's sponsor and brought fictional aviator Captain Sparks to the show. Sparks eventually became the star, relegating Annie to secondary player. The show featured

product placement Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of t ...

and exploitation of

premium Premium may refer to: Marketing * Premium (marketing), a promotional item that can be received for a small fee when redeeming proofs of purchase that come with or on retail products * Premium segment, high-price brands or services in marketing ...

s to retain and attract new listeners. Among those items were secret decoders, shake-up mugs for drinking

(the show's sponsor product) and

secret decoder ring A secret decoder ring (or secret decoder) is a device that allows one to decode a simple substitution cipher—or to encrypt a message by working in the opposite direction. As inexpensive toys, secret decoders have often been used as promotional ...

s for the Little Orphan Annie secret society.CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT AND DECODER RINGS
Stephen A. Kallis, Jr. The 1934 fan club's member's handbook included a simple substitution cipher with a resulting numeric cipher text. This was followed the next year with a membership badge or pin that included a cipher disk - enciphering the letters A-Z to numbers 1-26. Announcer

Pierre Andre Muhammad Pierre Andre bin Nazrul Andre (born 17 March 1985) is a Malaysian actor, director and writer, born of mixed Malay-French descent. His role as Reza in the 2005 film ''Gol & Gincu'' was his first major role. Since then, he has since ...

often talked about the virtues of the shows' products, sometimes stretching towards three minutes in length.

Cast

* Annie - Shirley Bell Cole ( Bobbe Deane briefly played the part between 1934 and 1935 during a contract dispute involving Shirley Bell. Between 1940 and 1942

Janice Gilbert Janice Gilbert ( 1920 - 1992) was an American child actress on radio and a game-show personality on television who became an expert on bridge. Early years Gilbert was born Janice Wolfe in New York City 1920. Her father was Eddie Wolfe, and her un ...

performed the role.) * Mr. Silo - Jerry O'Mera * Mrs. sfx - Henriette Tedro * Joe Corntassel - Allan Baruck (later

) * Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks -

Henry Saxe Henry Saxe (born September 24, 1937) is a Canadian artist who creates sculpture, painting and drawing. Career Born in Montreal, Quebec, Saxe attended Sir George Williams University (1955-1956) and the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal (1956-1 ...

, Boris Aplon,

* Punjab - Quentin Young * Sandy the dog - Brad Barker

Theme song

The theme song was sung by announcer Pierre Andre, as "Uncle Andy", or Lawrence Salerno, who was a WGN staff baritone who appeared on various musical programs on the station. Leonard Salvo was the show's organist. ''Who's that little chatter box?'' ''The one with pretty auburn locks?'' ''Whom do you see?'' ''It's Little Orphan Annie.'' ''She and Sandy make a pair,'' ''They never seem to have a care!'' ''Cute little she,'' ''This Little Orphan Annie.'' ''Bright eyes cheeks a rosy glow,'' ''There's a store of healthiness handy.'' ''Mite-size, always on the go,'' ''If you want to know - "Arf", says Sandy.'' ''Always wears a sunny smile,'' ''Now, wouldn't it be worth the while,'' ''If you could be,'' ''Like Little Orphan Annie?''

In popular culture

used the show as the basis for his short story "The Counterfeit Secret Circle Member Gets the Message, or The Asp Strikes Again." In the story,

first-person narrator A first-person narrative (also known as a first-person perspective, voice, point of view, etc.) is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from that storyteller's own personal point of view, using first-person grammar suc ...

Ralphie Parker is an avid listener of the program and eagerly awaits the arrival of his decoder ring to find out the secret messages in each episode. When the ring arrives, he anxiously decodes the secret message in that day's episode, only to be disappointed when it turns out to be an

commercial. The short story was included in Shepherd's compilation book '' In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash'', and the story was also adapted as one of the scenes in the 1983 film ''

A Christmas Story ''A Christmas Story'' is a 1983 Christmas comedy film directed by Bob Clark and based on the 1966 book '' In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash'' by Jean Shepherd, with some elements from his 1971 book ''Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories ...

''.

Legacy

As with most daily radio serials, very few recordings of the series' thousands of episodes survive. The

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

has 38 15-minute recordings in its Old-Time Radio collection. In 1990 the show was inducted in the

National Radio Hall of Fame The Radio Hall of Fame, formerly the National Radio Hall of Fame, is an American organization created by the Emerson Radio Corporation in 1988. Three years later, Bruce DuMont, founder, president, and CEO of the Museum of Broadcast Communicati ...

. In 1995, Shirley Bell Cole was heard in a reenactment of ''Little Orphan Annie'' on

Chuck Schaden Charles Leroy "Chuck" Schaden, born June 29, 1934, is a Chicago-area broadcaster and historian who hosted the program ''Those Were the Days'' on local radio from 1970 to 2009. Schaden played recordings of classic old-time radio shows and remini ...

's ''Those Were the Days'' radio show.

Sources

{{Reflist

External links

Radio Hall of Fame page

Some scripts of the radio show
American children's radio programs American radio dramas 1931 radio programme debuts 1942 radio programme endings Radio programs based on comic strips NBC Blue Network radio programs NBC radio programs Mutual Broadcasting System programs 1930s American radio programs 1940s American radio programs Radio programs about animals