Mickey Finn
In “It’s a Hard Knock Life,” the orphans bemoan their current circumstances and dream of ways to torture the cruel Miss Hannigan, including “make her drink a Mickey Finn!” A Mickey Finn is a beverage spiked with an incapacitating liquid or powder. The drink is named for a turn-of-the-century Chicago barkeep who drugged his customers' drinks and subsequently robbed them.
Hooverville
After escaping the orphanage, Annie finds herself in a Hooverville, a shantytown constructed by the unhoused population. Journalist Charles Michelson, who was appointed as press director of the Democratic National Committee in 1929, is credited with creating the name. The moniker is a dig at President Herbert Hoover, who was often blamed for the start of the Great Depression. In the song “Hooverville,” the inhabitants of the temporary settlement sarcastically sing, “We’d like to thank you, Herbert Hoover.”
Al Smith
The residents of the Hooverville sing “They offered us Al Smith and Herbert Hoover,” referencing Smith. The former governor of New York was the 1928 Democratic candidate for President and lost to the aforementioned Hoover.
John D. Rockefeller
Founder of the Standard Oil Company, Rockefeller was one of the wealthiest people in the country at the time. He’s referred to multiple times in the musical as a friend of Oliver Warbucks.
Winchell’s column
Walter Winchell was a journalist whose nationally syndicated column was, for several decades, a gossipy rolodex of who’s who in the world of entertainment. If you appeared in Winchell’s column, you’d made it. Miss Hannigan says that she read about Warbucks in Winchell’s column.
Bergdorf Goodman
Grace promises to buy Annie a warm winter coat from Bergdorf’s, a luxury department store, whose Fifth Avenue address was only a few blocks from Warbucks’ mansion.
Steinway
Steinway refers to the grand pianos of Steinway and Sons. Grace asks housekeeper Mrs. Pugh if the Steinway is tuned prior to Warbucks’ arrival
Kentucky fried chicken
Mrs. Pugh has prepared Warbucks’ favorite dinner, which includes a platter of Ketuncky fried chicken. This is not the crispy fowl of the famed fast food restaurant founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, who, while already selling fried chicken at the time of “Annie,” would not become the KFC known today for a few more years. By referring to Kentucky, Mrs. Pugh’s fried chicken acknowledged the exoticism of the southern dish, which was not often available in northern areas like New York City.
Baked Alaska
For dessert, Mrs. Pugh prepares Baked Alaska, a decadent dessert consisting of ice cream and cake embossed in a torched meringue topping. At the time, this dish was popular among high-end eateries and hotels.
Don Budge
Budge was a famed tennis player known for being the first individual to complete the four tournaments of a Grand Slam in a single year. Upon Annie telling Grace that she’s never played tennis before, Grace tells Drake to have a trainer come: “Get that Don Budge fellow if he’s available.”
Airline refueling
Warbucks arrives home in New York from Chicago, telling Drake that the flight “only had to land eight times.” In the 1930s, airplanes could only travel for a certain length of time; traveling longer distances necessitated frequent landings to refuel.
