The first Little Audrey short debuted on the silver screen in the December, 1947 holiday tale 'Santa's Surprise.' In it, the New York based Audrey along with separate children from around the world, all get the idea to stow away in Santa's sleigh. Tired from his trek around the globe, Santa falls asleep back at the North Pole. Silently, Little Audrey and friends sneak out of the sleigh and clean up St. Nick's workshop for the many gifts he's bestowed the children of the world. Then using an unexpected mastery of Santa's sleigh, the children all return home without Santa being none the wiser.
From 1947-1958, Little Audrey starred in 16 animated shorts for Paramount. 17, if you count her cameo in a 1948 Popeye cartoon featuring Olive Oyl. Little Audrey's appearance with Popeye's girlfriend was fitting as both characters were voiced by Mae Questel, who also was the voice of Betty Boop from 1931-37.
Little Audrey's move from the silver screen to comics was spurred on by competition. Disney and Warner Bros were poaching the best of the best in the animation business. The quality of Famous' new releases were showing major signs of decrease. Paramount began to sell off its catalog in order to keep the animation studio afloat. The character had previously been licensed to St. John's Publications from 1948-52. 24 issues of her own self titled publication were released. But during that time, Paramount still owned the rights to Little Audrey. With the purchase by Harvey in 1952, the publisher owned the character outright along with Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey and others.
Over the course of the 1950s, Little Audrey's design evolved from how she looked in the animated shorts to a style that was more uniform with the rest of the Harvey line. Instead of a Kewpie doll with rosey cheeks dressed in blue, she adopted a red and white ensemble and a face that looked more like she was a distant cousin to Richie Rich.
Little Audrey TV Funtime was one of 4 titles that started Little Audrey and friends during her heyday at her new home. The series ran from 1962-1971 for 33 quarterly issues. This book was a tie-in for a weekly syndicated TV series than showed Harvey's inventory of shorts produced by Famous in the 40s and 50s. This issue has at least 2 ads for the TV series. Though why Harvey Comics only released a TV Funtime based on Little Audrey and not her fellow co-stars is unknown. However, this reviewer speculates that it has something to do with how strikingly different Little Audrey looks on TV compared to her Harvey Comics adapted style.
Little Audrey's cast was nearly identical to Little Lulu. Her best friend and sometimes foil, Melvin had a clubhouse with a sign out front that said 'No Girls Allowed', just like Tubby. Lucretia, Audrey's best gal pal, was a poor little waif who's not very bright, in the vein of Annie Inch, while diminutive Echo was a less bratty version of youngster Alvin Jones.
One thing that Little Audrey outpaced Little Lulu at was diversity. One of her best friends is a bald black child named Tiny. Just like with The Little Rascals, Tiny interacted freely with the white children in a community that seemed to ignore racial segregation. Tiny's vernacular was not made up of broken pigeon English like the character of Ebony White from Will Eisner's The Spirit and his mother appeared as an upper middle class stay at home mom who isn't afraid to clash with anyone, including the local police, when Tiny is confused as being a bank robber in this issue.
Other stories inside this issue includes Little Audrey confusing an insect collector and a hobo both as her long lost uncle, her trying to keep cool with pals Melvin and Lucretia and Tiny accidentally scaring his friends when they turn a haunted house into their new clubhouse. There's also an improbable farce where Lulu thinks she broke her father's favorite chair and is able to replace it with a new one at the department store for just a dollar down.
By 1976, Little Audrey was all but forgotten at Harvey. All of her titles were quietly cancelled; replaced by Wendy the Girl Little Witch, a polka-dot loving clone named Little Dot and the ever hungry Little Lotta. Little Audrey did return in the 1980s; albeit for a very brief period. In 1988 Harvey reissued several classic Little Audrey stories in a 3-D gimmicked one-shot. During Harvey's short-lived revival period when it was purchased by MHM Communications, Little Audrey returned with all new stories in the early 90s. Unfortunately, that series along with several others was quickly cancelled with the new owner focusing on cartoon and live action franchise opportunities.
Since then, the character has been relegated to just a couple of blink and you miss it cameos in media based on Richie Rich and Baby Huey. A classic design of Little Audrey was to appear in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but had to be scrapped as the license couldn't be cleared in time. Little Audrey along with her contemporaries who succeeded her were all given contemporary makeovers the animated series Harvey Girls Forever that aired for 4 seasons on Netflix.
Still no return to comic book form in almost 35 years.
Completing this review completes Task #2 (Comic from the Silver Age (1956-1970) ) of the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.
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