That was the one thing that bugged me about the ‘82 musical. They made Aileen Quinn’s “Annie” an FDR fangirl, and she browbeat Daddy Warbucks into supporting his agenda.
I can't blame the '82 filmmakers for that, they were just adapting the plot of the 1977 Broadway musical directly, as have all subsequent versions of "Annie" who go with the 70s musical as their 'source material' instead of Harold Gray's original writing.
The Broadway musical pretty much conveys the exact OPPOSITE message that Gray intended, as it depicts grouchy old fashioned anti-big government capitalist Daddy Warbucks being "enlightened" by Annie and coming around to realize how wonderful FDR's New Deal is for America. In fact, the broadway musical is far worse than any film adaptation in this respect, as it include a sarcastic "We'd like to thank you, Mr. Hoover" musical number that repeats the myth that free-market capitalism is responsible for Hoovervilles and the great depression. It has also has the finale "New Deal for Christmas" number celebrating how FDR's wonderful government programs are gonna help all the widdle poor orphans feed their families on Christmas day, blah blah blah. I don't think either song made it into the movie adaptations.
By his own admission, the guy who turned Annie into a broadway musical didn't like any of the storylines from the comics, so he decided to write his own original story and only keep the characters of Annie, Daddy Warbucks and Sandy the dog. Gray would be spinning in his grave if he saw any of it. Imagine how liberals would react if some conservative adapted the preachy left-wing comic strip Doonesbury into a cheesy musical where Garry Trudeau's characters celebrate the Trump administration.
By 2014, it was so far removed from the original comics that they made Annie a black girl in present-day America and had Jamie Foxx as "Will Stacks" (which is supposedly "based on" Daddy Warbucks), so if any franchise ever needed a complete reboot to erase the bad direction its been veering off for decades, its this one. Someone hire Kelsey Grammer to play Daddy Warbucks in an independent film.
It speaks volumes that the silly 1982 movie is actually the LEAST offensive of the "modern" versions of the story. It might also be the only one where "Little Orphan Annie" actually looks like Gray depicted her (a curly haired 10 year old redhead)
I ain’t never seen Little Orphan Annie.
The source material is a comic and it has a conservative message?!??