Annie/Trivia

• The Pete Best:
  • Kristen Vigard played Annie for one week in out-of-town previews before being replaced by Andrea McArdle.
  • Joanna Pacitti was the highly-hyped newcomer cast for the 1997 Broadway revival, but was fired during rehearsals (this became fodder for a Saturday Night Live bit via a "Weekend Update" segment).
• What Could Have Been: And what was. Many studios bid for the movie rights to the stage musical. Hanna-Barbera even tried to get the rights with the intention of turning it into an animated TV special. When Columbia Pictures won out (and paid a record amount for movie rights to any property in the process), Paramount Pictures decided to put their own comic strip-based musical into production to Follow the Leader — the result was Popeye.

1982 Film

• Actor Allusion: Kind of an unusual example. President Roosevelt is played by Edward Herrmann, who had previously gotten Emmy nominations for playing FDR in a pair of '70s made-for-TV biopics.
• All-Star Cast: Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan, Albert Finney as Warbucks, Tim Curry as Rooster, Bernadette Peters as Lily, and so on.
• Cut Song: "You Won't Be an Orphan for Long", "N.Y.C." (which is replaced by "Let's Go to the Movies"), "Something Was Missing", and "A New Deal for Christmas", to name a few.
• Disowned Adaptation: The musical's lyricist and director, Martin Charnin, has stated in an article in 1996 that he refuses to acknowledge the film. However, unlike other instances of this trope, Charnin goes on to state that it's his own fault that the movie turned out the way it did, as, in his own words, he, composer Charles Strouse, and librettist Thomas Meehan, failed to secure any degree of creative control over the film when they signed away the film rights.
  • Considering the musical they wrote turned Harold Gray's politics on their head, he's one to talk.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Hoo boy, where to start?
  • First of all, the Hudson Street Orphanage is run by none other than Eunice Higgins, or Princess Winnifred, or for younger musical fans, Doris Sylvester.
  • Not only that, but her brother's anything but a sweet transvestite.
    • And he's dating the Witch!
  • Annie is adopted by Tom Jones (no, not that Tom Jones).
  • Punjab is none other than Baron Samedi. So that's where he went!
  • Peter Marshall? When the hell did you get into radio?
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The temporal setting was moved from Christmas time to shortly before the Fourth of July because the filming was scheduled for the summer.
• Vindicated by Cable: Or, more accurately, Vindicated by VHS.

Annie: A Royal Adventure!

• Hey, It's That Guy!: A nice sci-fi crossover with Edith Keeler from Star Trek the Original Series and Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. Oh, and Edith is the one who's evil.
  • And Annie is Gretchen Grundler
• The Other Darrin: Everyone, naturally. It's supposed to be a sequel to the 1982 film, but none of the original cast returned (of course, the original kids would be too old, but none of the original adults returned either).

1999 Film

• Hey, It's That Guy!
  • Lily St. Regis is Glinda, or, to less musical-ish audiences April Rhodes.
  • Jesus Christ, who the hell put Annie Wilkes in charge of an orphanage?!
  • The orphans include Haley Dunphy and Miranda Sanchez.