Film
- Adaptation Displacement: Many who grew up watching the Feature Films for Families version are unaware that it's a bowdlerized version.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: Are we supposed to believe that Peggy's mother is in the right (in the Feature Films for Families version), or is she basically a depiction of an older character torn between standing by what she was taught was correct and sympathy for the Robbins children?
- Base-Breaking Character: Peggy's mother in the Feature Films for Families version. Some think her moralizing is over-the-top and contradictory to the story, while others appreciate her sentimentality in baking the wedding cake.
- The Woobie: The Robbins children lost their mother, are placed in a hellish home, and have a case worker with very little (if any) sympathy for them.
Series
- Retroactive Recognition: The show was vehicle for the Smolett siblings, with two of the siblings Jussie and Jurnee Smollett being the most famous out of the group.
