Richie Rich, the poor little rich boy, is turning 70 years old. Created by Alfred Harvey and Warren Kremer, Richie Rich debuted in Little Dot #1 (September 1953) and went on to become a staple at Harvey Comics. The popular character appeared in multiple titles at Harvey from 1950 to 1982 and was later revived by Ape Entertainment in 2011.
He is the only child of a ridiculously wealthy couple; he lives in a giant mansion and can buy anything he wants. But instead of being a selfish, spoiled brat, Richie is actually a kind and charitable boy who helps his friends when he can.
Richie appeared in multiple Harvey titles from the time he was created until he got his own Richie Rich title in 1960, which ran for 254 issues until ’91. At the same time, he starred in Richie Rich Millions that saw 113 issues from ’61 to ’82, Richie Rich Dollars and Cents contained 109 issues from ’63 to ’82, and Richie Rich Success Stories ran 105 issues from ’64 to ’82.
Off the page, Richie has starred in both animation and live-action, starting with the Richie Rich Saturday morning cartoon that began in 1980 and featured the voice of Sparky Marcus. Macaulay Culkin played him for the live-action Richie Rich movie in ’94, which also starred Edward Herrmann, Christine Ebersole, Jonathan Hyde, and John Larroquette. There was another cartoon series voiced by Katie Leigh that ran in the mid-1990s, a live-action Christmas movie starring David Gallagher, and a Netflix live-action show featuring Jake Brennan.