Little Orphan Annie - Testing For Diamonds

Summary

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Podcast Summary: “Little Orphan Annie - Testing For Diamonds”

Podcast: Harold's Old Time Radio
Host: Harolds Old Time Radio
Episode Date: May 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode transports listeners to a South Pacific island where Annie and her friends, shipwrecked and recently made royalty by the native chief Zappiti, discover that their royal feather cloaks may be clasped with genuine diamonds. The group’s excitement about possible riches quickly turns to the realization that diamonds are worthless in their present circumstances: survival and the hope of rescue take precedence over treasure.

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Key Discussion Points & Plot Developments

1. Feather Cloaks and the Sparkling Stones

• The group is back at camp, puzzling over the feathered cloaks gifted by native chief Zappiti. Saunders is intrigued by their luxury and jokes about wanting a feather bed.
• [03:19 - 04:22]
  Oscar Saunders admires the cloaks:

  “Oh, how soft they are. All feathers now. Wouldn't it be good to have a bed made out of feathers like these? Stead of the blinking odd cots that we as to sleep on.”

2. The Discovery of Diamonds

• Saunders, known for his shady dealings, notices the large sparkling clasps on the cloaks and suspects they are diamonds.
• [06:02 - 06:47]
  Saunders exclaims:

  “Look, there's a sort of clasp on here. Sort of like a big button and Blimey mighties. Blimey. Have a look at this here clasp…Strike me for a blinking seagull if this crass eater…A diamond, Sir. A diamond.”

3. Testing the Stones

• Saunders explains he’s no scientist, but knows a diamond can scratch glass. Lacking glass, he reluctantly offers to use Mr. Silo’s watch crystal.
• [08:21 - 10:16]
  Saunders:

  “Diamonds, you see, are so blinking odd they'll cut and scratch glass, whereas artificial stones won't.”
  Annie and Joe are disappointed at the lack of available glass until Saunders produces the watch:
  “There's a crystal, Joey. The blinking crystal on the face of the watch. It's glass, don't you see?” – Saunders, [10:11]
  The test is successful: “That stone made a mark on the glass clean across it.” – Annie, [10:42]

4. The Value (or Uselessness) of Riches

• The group realizes the island is full of diamonds. Saunders is practically giddy with dreams of wealth:

  “We're rich, mateys. Rich. Why the old blasted island is covered with these stones. Every blinking native is wearing them in their air, in their ears…” – Saunders, [10:46]

• Mr. Wilcox and Annie soberly point out that diamonds are of no practical use when stranded:

  “You don't seem to realize that these diamonds, if they are diamonds, are worse than useless to us.” – Mr. Wilcox, [12:14]
  “A diamond on this island won't buy one pound of flour or one ounce of meat…we might better have a single field of wheat. We could eat that. But we can't eat diamonds.” – Annie, [12:32]
  “Here we are, rich as the richest man on earth. Yet…unless we're rescued from this island, we'll die here and the riches with us.” – Mighty, [12:51]

5. The Group’s Practical Mindset and Closing Sentiment

• The group collectively shrugs off the newly discovered treasure, refocusing on survival and rescue.
• The closing narration underscores Annie’s optimistic spirit, her “pep and energy,” and the value of attitude over material wealth.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [06:16] Saunders (on the cloak clasp):

  “Strike me for a blinking seagull if this crass eater…A diamond, Sir. A diamond.”

• [10:44] Mr. Wilcox:

  “Then it's a genuine diamond, Saunders.”

• [12:32] Annie (on survival):

  “A diamond on this island won't buy one pound of flour or one ounce of meat. Rather than all the diamonds…we might better have a single field of wheat. We could eat that. But we can't eat diamonds.”

• [12:51] Mighty:

  “Here we are, rich as the richest man on earth. Yet not one day have we added to our life diamonds, riches. Rather, have a loaf of bread.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:19] – Group examines the feathered cloaks.
• [06:02] – Saunders discovers the stone clasps may be diamonds.
• [08:21] – Saunders describes the diamond test.
• [10:11] – The watch glass is offered for the scratch test.
• [10:44] – Confirmation: “It’s a genuine diamond.”
• [12:14] – Wilcox and Annie explain the uselessness of riches when stranded.
• [12:51] – Mighty sums up the group’s wry realization.
• [13:07] – Narrator reflects on the adventure’s lesson.

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Tone and Style

The group's banter is lively and humorous, especially in Saunders’ cockney-inflected idioms and get-rich-quick grandstanding. Annie remains practical and optimistic, reinforcing the classic series’ themes of resourcefulness and resilience.

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Closing Reflection

“Testing for Diamonds” is a classic tale of adventure and irony—trapped in a paradise overflowing with riches that cannot help, the stranded castaways are reminded that survival and hope are more precious than any gemstone. The episode expertly combines light comic relief with a gentle moral lesson, true to the timeless charm of “Little Orphan Annie.”

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Transcript

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

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[Liberty Mutual Companion]

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[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

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[Liberty Mutual Companion]

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[Liberty Mutual Companion]

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[Narrator (Little Orphan Annie Theme)]

Who's that little chatterbox the one with pretty auburn locks Whom do you see? It's Little Orphan Annie she and Sandy make a pair they never seem to have a care Cute little she this little orphan Annie Bright eyes, cheeks a rosy glow There's a store of healthiness handy My size Always on the go if you want to know Aren't so Sandy always wears a sunny smile now wouldn't it be worth the while if you could be like Little Orphan Annie?

[Narrator (Ovaltine Advertisement)]

Here we are, ready to join Annie for another big adventure on that South Pacific island. But first, if you're not as peppy as you want to be, I'm sure you'll get a good tip from the real life story that's told in this letter from Mrs. Harry C. Wood of Evergreen Park, Illinois. Here's what she My children, Lois, Floyd and Marion were very small for their age. I learned about Ovaltine and started giving it to them. They loved it and now they have it three times every day. My doctor just marvels at the health and pep and color of my children. Thank you for the way it has helped our children. Now that letter certainly gave you an interesting example of the good Ovaltine can often do. Mrs. Wood says it built up pep in energy for Floyd, Marion and Lois. Gave them good health, each other and help them get husky and strong. And don't think that's unusual. No sir. Ovaltine's help thousands of other boys and girls the same way. Because every single glass full of Ovaltine contains lots of important things that everybody needs to build up and get more pep and energy. And so you certainly want to try Ovaltine before another day goes by. Ask your mother to get Ovaltine for you and then see that you drink it regularly. Two or three big delicious glassfuls and every single day from now on. And now getting back to Annie. Last time, Zappiti, the native chief, made Annie and Joe queen and king of the island because he was so impressed with the white man's magic powers. Zappiti Gave Annie and Joe feathered cloaks like his own. And each cloak clasps together with a great sparkling stone which may be a diamond. But it's the next day now and our friends are back in their own camp working on the wireless set which they hope will get them in touch with the outside world. Annie, Joe, Binnacle, Bob, Mr. Wilcox and Saunders are in the farmhouse. And listen, Saunders is talking.

[Oscar Saunders]

Blimey. Never seed any cloaks like that in all my days. Exceptin the one that big bloke of a Zappiti wears. Mind if I look at em, Mighty?

[Annie]

Go ahead, Saunders.

[Oscar Saunders]

Thanks. Oh, how soft they are. All feathers now. Wouldn't it be good to have a bed made out of feathers like these? Stead of the blinking odd cots that we as to sleep on.

[Mighty]

All who's thinking of your comfort, Saunders?

[Oscar Saunders]

And why not Mighty if I don't do well? Answer me that.

[Joe]

Shucks, no one, Saunders. Not anybody as lazy as you are.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Lazy is right. Hand me that wrench there, will you, Annie?

[Annie]

This one, bud.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Righto. Thanks, Daisy.

[Oscar Saunders]

Now, I never claimed to be no blinking beaver for work. I didn't. And how could I help you? Building a bloomin wireless set. I don't know nothing about wireless. I don't. Course I could be handing you them blinking wrenches and tools like Annie's doing, sir. Only I'm sitting down here and she's closer to them than what I am.

[Mr. Wilcox]

You'd rather just look at those feather cloaks and think what a fine bed they'd make.

[Oscar Saunders]

Ay, that I would, sir, to be honest. And no man can ever say Oscar Saunders ain't the blinking soul of honesty. They kind of so there. Oh, of course I might cheat a little now and then, but that's just to keep me bloomin and in. It is in case I ever got a really big chance to cheat. You know how it is, sir. Unless you've had training at a job.

[Mr. Wilcox]

I don't know how it is, Saunders. Can those pliers please any?

[Annie]

Yes, sir.

[Oscar Saunders]

Of course you don't, sir. No offense was meant.

[Mighty]

Maybe you just better dream, Saunders, about what you find featherbed those clocks of anything jewels would make.

[Oscar Saunders]

And that ain't odd, Mighty. Say, Joey, how does it blinking well feel to be a king anyhow?

[Joe]

Sure it doesn't feel any different from just being myself, Saunders.

[Oscar Saunders]

Blimey. Perhaps I'd better start giving you lessons in how to be a king, Joey. Now if I was king.

[Mighty]

You never will be, Saunders.

[Oscar Saunders]

Oh, I knows it Mighty, but strike me pink. There's no harm in just wishing, is there? Now if I was you Joey and was king of the tribe on this island, I believe me I'd get some service around here. I would. First of all stead of these ere feather cloaks I'd have the blinkin nighties make me a bed of em. I would about 3ft thick and in the blinkin shade. Then I'd have about four body servants what was just to wait on me. One of the blighters'd have nothing to do but bring me nice long cooling drinks. The second one would have a big palm leaf fan and keep it a going all the time so's I'd have a cool breeze a blowing over me. The third would nighties. Mighty's.

[Annie]

What is it Saunders?

[Oscar Saunders]

This cloak. This blinking feather cloak I've been turning over in me hands while I've been talking.

[Mighty]

What about it?

[Oscar Saunders]

Look, there's a sort of clasp on here. Sort of like a big button and Blimey mighties. Blimey. Have a look at this here class.

[Joe]

What about it Saunders?

[Oscar Saunders]

What about it? What about it? Strike me for a blinking seagull if this crass eater.

[Mr. Wilcox]

A what Saunders?

[Oscar Saunders]

A diamond, Sir. A diamond.

[Narrator (Little Orphan Annie Theme)]

Diamond.

[Oscar Saunders]

Blimey if it ain't I'm a. Let me have a blinking look at this other cloak. Strike me pink. Yes, the same sort of stone. Blue fire in the blinking things sparkle like the sun glinting through the top of the waves. By the beards of the King of England for 14 generations. We got something here, Mighty. We got something.

[Annie]

You really think these are diamonds?

[Oscar Saunders]

If they ain't miss. They're so like him that even a blinking jeweller couldn't tell the difference. Now I've handled a few diamonds in me die. Yaz.

[Mr. Wilcox]

I thought so.

[Oscar Saunders]

Ay Sir.

[Narrator (Little Orphan Annie Theme)]

Nothing.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Go on Saunders.

[Oscar Saunders]

Aye. Handled a few hyahs. What comes into me hands in various ways. Always got a good price for em. From pawnbrokers too. From Liverpool to Sydney, Australia. And if these ain't diamonds, say what Saunders? Strike me pink. These natives around here. I've saw em. Watson wearing these blinking stones and their ears and in their ear. But I seed so blinking many of em. I never thought for a moment it. And this is the first chance I've had to see any of em up close. Cause I ain't such a brave man I'd go and investigate what some bloomin Ethan was wearing in his ear. I ain't.

[Mr. Wilcox]

We know that Saunders. Go on about that cloak clasp you have in your hand there.

[Oscar Saunders]

Aye sir. I'D eat me blinking at if it ain't a ginny wine diamond. The blinking colour, the sparkle, the way it feels in me. And oh, of course there is a test for a diamond. What may not be a ginnywine test leastwise. A blinking chemist mightn't go for it. But I found in dealing with the stones. And I've had a few over in Limehouse just handling a few, you see, that might have been smuggled or might have been stole. Not by me, you understand. Just handling them for almighty so to speak. However, not being no chemist, I always tried him out on a piece of blinking glass. A shop window or the like. Diamonds, you see, are so blinking odd they'll cut and scratch glass, whereas artificial stones won't.

[Joe]

Shocks. Just our luck. Not a piece of glass to test them with on the whole island.

[Annie]

Leaping lizards. Now we won't know whether they're diamonds or not.

[Oscar Saunders]

Oh yes we will, miss.

[Annie]

How?

[Oscar Saunders]

We'll give him the blinking glass test.

[Joe]

But shucks, there isn't any glass here. Zappiti's natives don't have glass. And every glass bottle we brought ashore from the wreck we threw into the ocean with messages in em.

[Oscar Saunders]

We still got a piece of glass, Joey. Oh, I hates to do this, but I supposes it's for the good of all concerned.

[Annie]

Mr. Silo's gold watch.

[Joe]

Shucks, it is his watch?

[Oscar Saunders]

Why yes, matey's. Cause it's his watch.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Saunders, have you had that watch all the time we've been here on this island?

[Oscar Saunders]

Why yes sir. You know, Zaez, don't you remember? I was carrying it when we landed. On account of a little tide I made with him on board ship before she sank.

[Mighty]

Saunders is right, sir.

[Oscar Saunders]

And then during the bloomin rescue work it warn't right that Mr. Cyrus should wear his watch when any time he might have fell overboard from the blinking raft and had a shark eat him in his watch too. So I just went on carrying.

[Annie]

But you never told us you had it. Saunders suffering sunfish. In all the excitement that's happened to us here on the island, I forgot all about it. And I guess Mr. Silo did too.

[Oscar Saunders]

No miss, I didn't tell you. Cause I thought.

[Annie]

You thought if we were ever picked up and rescued you could get away with the gold in it.

[Oscar Saunders]

Oh Miss Annie, now to be honest, and let me tell you, I am honest at times. Oh yes, I did have some such thought in me mind. But for the blinking good of all concerned, I produced the what so as we can make a test time for these here diamonds?

[Annie]

Yeah, diamonds would interest you more than gold.

[Oscar Saunders]

And why not, miss? Strike me pink. Ain't they a lot more valuable?

[Annie]

All right, but after you've made your test, I'll just take that watch and give it back to Mr. Silo where it belongs.

[Oscar Saunders]

Yes, I was afeard of that. But the sacrifice is a sacrifice, I says.

[Joe]

But how are you gonna make the test with the watch on?

[Oscar Saunders]

There's a crystal. Joey. The blinking crystal on the face of the watch. It's glass, don't you see?

[Annie]

Gosh.

[Joe]

Say it's right.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Get to it, Saunders.

[Oscar Saunders]

Aye, sir. I'm as blinking interested as you are to see whether. Now then, I'll just take this stone clasp of the cloak and draw it across the face of the watch crystal.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Well, what happened, Saunders?

[Oscar Saunders]

Mighties Mighty's well, mighty's all. Strike me pink and bless every king George from one to 17. Look, Mightys, look.

[Annie]

That stone made a mark on the

[Oscar Saunders]

glass clean across it.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Then it's a genuine diamond, Saunders.

[Oscar Saunders]

Blimey, if it ain't, then I knows a lot of blinking pawnbrokers from Liverpool to Sydney. What's been done in? We're rich, mateys. Rich. Why the old blasted island is covered with these stones. Every blinking native is wearing them in their air, in their ears. All we got to do is take them away from them.

[Mr. Wilcox]

That'll do, Saunders.

[Oscar Saunders]

Hey, you don't understand, sir.

[Mr. Wilcox]

That will do, I say.

[Oscar Saunders]

But you don't understand. We're rich. Why there are diamonds on this blasted island to burn thousands of.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Silence.

[Oscar Saunders]

Ay, sir.

[Mr. Wilcox]

Well friends, it looks as if what we thought is true.

[Mighty]

Ay, that it does.

[Oscar Saunders]

Oh, what you thought. Blimey, you don't mean to sight you to suspicion. All along these was diamonds.

[Mr. Wilcox]

For once you're right, Saunders. We just wanted to try them out on you.

[Oscar Saunders]

Lor Lummy. Blast they all clean through me.

[Mr. Wilcox]

I had an idea that you'd probably had more or less dealings in the stones outside the law, which you admitted. So we tested you out as our expert to find out whether these were real diamonds or not.

[Oscar Saunders]

Well, blast me for a North Sea lummox.

[Mighty]

Apparently the stones are real, sir.

[Joe]

Gosh, yes.

[Annie]

And as Saunders says, the island's literally full of them.

[Mighty]

Thousands of them, no doubt.

[Oscar Saunders]

Yes, thousands of mighty thousands. Why there must be millions of pounds worth of diamonds here on this flinking island. Lor Lummy, what's your set there so calm for? Don't you realize we're rich? Rich even if we don't take em from the Bloomin natives. We can find the mine. We can mine it ourselves. Dig diamonds out of the blinking rocks. We're rich. Rich. We can be lords of the world.

[Mr. Wilcox]

That'll do, Saunders. Hey, that will do. You don't seem to realize that these diamonds, if they are diamonds, are worse than useless to us.

[Oscar Saunders]

But I don't get you, sir.

[Annie]

Mr. Wilcox is right.

[Joe]

Yeah, diamonds.

[Oscar Saunders]

But I don't.

[Annie]

We've been lizards. What good are diamonds to us here? In diamonds we may be the richest people in the world. But a diamond on this island won't buy one pound of flour or one ounce of meat. Rather than all the diamonds that may be on this island, we might better have a single field of wheat. We could eat that. But we can't eat diamonds.

[Mighty]

You're right, lass. Here we are, rich as the richest man on earth. Yet not one day have we added to our life diamonds, riches. Rather, have a loaf of bread. For unless we're rescued from this island, we'll die here and the riches with us.

[Narrator (Ovaltine Advertisement)]

Can you imagine that? Surrounded by diamonds on that unknown island are friends of untold riches within their grasp. And yet jewels, riches are useless to them now. The important thing is to find some way of escaping from that lonely, unknown spot. But hopeless as things seem, do you notice how cheery our Annie is? Yes, sir. She's queen of the natives now. And with all her pep and energy, she's getting loads of fun out of her life on the island. And that's the way you want to be. Too Full of Orphan Annie pep. And then you just can't help having a good time out of everything that comes along. And one of the best ways I know of to have pep like Annie is to make sure you get plenty of Ovaltine to drink with your meals. And in between meals too. Because every single glassful of Ovaltine brings you lots of important food elements, special things to help build up pep and energy and help you to be husky and healthy like Orphan Annie herself. So ask your mother to get you some Ovaltine at her grocery or drugstore right away. Tell her there are two kinds of Ovaltine. Regular Ovaltine and new chocolate flavored Ovaltine. Ask her to get you the kind you like best. And then you can treat yourself to two or three big delicious glassfuls every day from now on. And be here right on time tomorrow to see what happens to Annie next. And club members, bring your pencils tomorrow for an important message in Annie's secret code. Until tomorrow, then. Goodbye.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Liberty Mutual Companion]

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[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual Together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Companion]

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[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

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[Liberty Mutual Companion]

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[Oscar Saunders]

Visit your nearby Lowe's.