Theatrical Crime! The De-Daddification of Mr. Warbucks
Mr. Warbucks. Father to little Orphan Annie. Musical theatre icon. And yet, he is at the center of a conspiracy that threatens the sanctity of...well, me. Who is Oliver Warbucks? And is he Daddy??
It’s 2:30 pm and you’re driving home from work, when you receive a call from a local theatre. They are doing a production of Annie and an actor (and their understudy) is out sick. They ask you to drive to the theatre tonight, learn the role, and go on as an emergency cover the following morning. As a student of “the craft” (TM), you obviously say “yes.”
This happened to me earlier this month.
But what I discovered was much greater than my ability to step into a new role quickly and efficiently. What I discovered was a conspiracy.
Annie, the tale of the fiery redheaded orphan staying with a billionaire for the holidays, changing hearts and minds in the process, has always been one that I have enjoyed. I was asked to fill in the role of said billionaire, Oliver Warbucks. After a few hours of rehearsal, aided by some very generous cast members, I went on, script in hand to a full house. It was a whirlwind twenty four hours, but a wonderful experience overall.
As is customary today in the year of our Bernadette Peters 2025, I made a social media post about the experience, saying something along the lines of “happy to fill in as Daddy Warbucks…”
And APPARENTLY we don’t all call him that??
While most messages and responses that came in were congratulatory, a few remarked on me calling the character DADDY Warbucks.
But surely that’s what we all know the character as…right? Am I crazy? I remember growing up, and encountering the overjoyed redheaded Annie with Daddy Warbucks, but apparently this was not a shared experience. Next you’ll tell me it’s Tom & Joey, Kermit & Peggy, or even Pinky & the Brian?!
I started to wonder, have we as a society de-Daddy’d Warbucks? Or perhaps, am I as a gay man so normalized into calling rich bald men “Daddy??” The truth was out there.
So I decided to do a deep dive to find out: was he always Daddy, and had that changed, or have I just been living in my own personal Mandela effect?
I immediately consulted the sacred text: the official Annie libretto, licensed by MTI. Produced on Broadway in 1977, the musicalized version of Annie has now become the most recognizable, with roughly 700-900 productions annually in the US alone. To my surprise however, the name “Daddy Warbucks” is only used one time in the entire script, and at the very end of the show, no less. Otherwise, he is referred to as “Oliver,” “Oliver Warbucks” or simply “Mr. Warbucks.”
After coming to this dead end, I started to question my sanity, so I pivoted to see if any of the five film adaptations changed the narrative, and instilled the Daddy Warbucks name into my brain. The musical has been adapted to film 4 times; the original Annie comic strip was adapted into one non-musical film.
The four musical adaptations (1982, 1999, 2014, and 2021 respectively) all vary in quality, but have one thing in common: a distinct lack of calling a bald man “Daddy.”
Damn.
The 1999 and 2021 versions stick closely to the licensed production, referring to Warbucks as “Daddy” only once, at the very end. Though I will say, all of the promo materials for the 2021 Annie Live did refer to Harry Connick jr. as playing “Daddy Warbucks.” So I’m not completely alone in my delusions.
The 1982 version however calls him Daddy TWICE! Admittedly, yes that’s not a huge improvement. Still, it’s better than the 2014 version, which doesn’t even call him “Warbucks,” let alone “Daddy.”
Lastly, I turned to the 1932 Little Orphan Annie movie. Based more on the original comics, this version has Warbucks missing from most of the plot (just like a lot of those comics) BUT does refer to him as Daddy! Had I finally found my missing piece? Turning to the comics (the original source material for these characters) shone even more light on this.
Little Orphan Annie was first published as a weekly comic strip starting in 1924, by Harold Gray. It recounts the adventures of a precocious young orphan who gets adopted into the Warbucks family. In the original comic strip, her biggest foe is actually the mean spirited Mrs. Warbucks! This character tends to get left out of future adaptations, or rather: her personality traits and story beats are merged into other characters. In the comic strip, we are also introduced to Oliver Warbucks, who Annie quickly begins to refer to him as “Daddy,” since he’s…her adopted father.
This was it! I had found where the original Daddy-ness had started. And it makes sense: the comic strips go much further than their initial meeting, so their relationship as father-daughter is established. While the character is often traveling for plot reasons, he is very rarely referred to as anything other than “Daddy.” This comic strip ran from its original publication, all the way to 2010! That went some way in explaining how the name “Daddy Warbucks” became part of the cultural zeitgeist, while also explaining why younger audiences might not recognize the character’s name as such.
Examining the plot of the musical adaptations, they all focus on the initial meeting of Annie and Warbucks, not covering his later tenure as “Daddy” Warbucks.
So, this feels less like an intentional de-daddyfication, and more like a choice of narrative necessity. I also realized that when I was coming of age and first introduced to the story, the comic was still in print, so I had that terrifyingly pupil-less touchstone to re-enforce the “Daddy Warbucks” name for me.
So fine, maybe he’s not colloquially known as “Daddy Warbucks.” But I encourage us all to continue to embrace the Daddy (as a vibe, keep your hands to yourself) in our productions of Annie going forward, and to not ignore the almost centuries worth of adventures that he and his optimistic little Orphan went on. Besides…you’re gonna look at these men and not call them Daddy?
