O.K. boys and girls, get out your Little Orphan Annie decoder ring and follow along as we head toward the Oscar awards. Claims have been made that the Academy Awards are racist and do not reflect on the talents or abilities of African-American performers.

The case in point is little black Annie, the third or maybe fourth takeoff of the story of Little orphan Annie, who was created August 5, 1924 in the New York Daily News. Poor little Annie was raised in a very dickensenian orphanage. It wasn’t a group home. She was rescued from that horrible place by a multimillionaire World War One munitions profiteer named Oliver Warbucks. By no stretch of the imagination was he a cell phone manufacturer running for mayor.

Unfortunately it was the third movie remake of a cartoon character. It’s hard to see, in more ways than one, how this particular story would be Oscar caliber. I can’t see it and neither could Little orphan Annie, Oliver Warbucks, Punjab or the Asp (Warbucks’ bodyguards and assassins) or even the cute little dog Sandy, because Harold Gray, the cartoon strip’s creator, neglected to put pupils in the eyes of any of his characters.

It did when a particular award however. It won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel and Cameron Diaz was nominated for Worst Supporting Actress.

So why would the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences give this turkey an Academy award? Maybe the voters were still repulsed by the constant and endless repetition of the song “Tomorrow” by a decade of “Toddlers In Tiaras”