Little Annie Rooney
Little Annie Rooney
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Little Annie Rooney

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Little Annie Rooney

Little Annie Rooney is a comic strip about a young orphaned girl who traveled about with her dog, Zero.

King Features Syndicate launched the strip on January 10, 1927, not long after it was apparent that the Chicago Tribune Syndicate had scored a huge hit with Little Orphan Annie. 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.

The strip's creators over the years included Ed Verdier (1927–29), Ben Batsford (1929-30), Sunday strips 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

Sunday

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.

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 favorite 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:

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