Mr. Men

Roger Hargreaves

The first six Mr. Men books were published in United Kingdom in 1971, priced at 20p each. Mr. Tickle was the first Mr. Men character created by Hargreaves, inspired by his son, Adam, who had asked him what a tickle looked like. Hargreaves responded with a round, orange figure with long, bendy arms.

Over the course of the 1970s Roger Hargreaves produced 38 more Mr Men in addition to Mr Tickle, as well as producing a number of other Mr Men books. In the 1980s Roger Hargreaves began the Little Miss series with 'Little Miss Bossy' and he produced 21 characters and books. As well as this two special Mr Men stories were created in 1985 'Mr Nobody' and 'Mr Christmas'. Both of these have been rereleased in later years. Roger Hargreaves died in 1988 and his son Adam was to take over the franchise.

French Mr Men and Little Miss

In France, illustrator Colette David and writers Viviane Cohen and Evelyne Lallemand produced a number of new characters that were not released anywhere else in the world. The characters 'Mr. Crosspatch', 'Mr. No', 'Little Miss Yes', 'Little Miss All-Goes-Well', 'Little Miss Loud', 'Little Miss Careful', 'Little Miss Brilliant', 'Little Miss Flirt', 'Little Miss Pain-in-the-Neck' and 'Little Miss Prim' were only released in France and Greece whereas four Mr. Men characters and nine Little Miss characters were also published in English and can be seen listed below as being released in 1990.

Adam Hargreaves

After his father's death, Adam Hargreaves took over the Mr Men.

A competition was held in the British Sunday Times newspaper for children to submit their own Mr. Men character for inclusion in a limited edition celebrating the 30th anniversary of the series. Mr. Cheeky, submitted by then eight-year-old Gemma Almond, was selected as the winning entry. Gemma's creation led to a book featuring her character being published; it was sold only in W H Smith branches, with a portion of the proceeds going to a charity supporting children with leukaemia.

In 2003 Adam created three new Mr Men characters and three new Little Miss characters. He also created 'Little Miss Christmas' to accompany 'Mr Christmas' after this book was rereleased with new illustrations.

In April 2004, Hargreaves' widow Christine sold the rights to the Mr. Men and Little Miss characters to UK entertainment group Chorion for £28 million. In 2006, to celebrate 35 years of Mr. Men and 25 years of Little Miss, Mr. Birthday and Little Miss Birthday were published. There was also an art exhibition at the Animation Art Gallery in central London. In October 2006, Adam Hargreaves created the first Little Miss character based on a real person, Stella McCartney, which he named Little Miss Stella. This was published as a limited edition of 1,000 copies for use as fashion show invitations.

In February 2011, 20th Century Fox and 21 Laps Entertainment announced plans for an animated film.

In 2011, Sanrio, the Japanese design company best known as the creators of Hello Kitty, announced that they had reached an agreement to acquire the rights to the Mr. Men and Little Miss characters from Chorion after the company was forced into administration. This marked the first time that Sanrio had licensed a third-party character since owning the rights to Osamu Tezuka's Unico character in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which was returned to Tezuka Productions after Tezuka's death in 1989. They also own the rights to the Peanuts characters in Japan. In 2016, four new characters were launched to celebrate the series' 45th anniversary, Mr Marvellous, Mr Adventurer, Little Miss Fabulous and Little Miss Sparkle. In addition, Adam Hargreaves has created several commercial characters such as Mr. Glug for Evian water and Mr. First for money transfer company World First.

Format

Each book contains a title page, 16 to 18 text pages and 15 to 17 colour illustrations drawn with a Magic Marker. Where the name of the title Mr. Men character is too long to fit on the cover horizontally, instead of being in a reduced font size it curves down at the end. The typeface for the original books from Little Miss Bossy to Little Miss Star is Univers, with the books from Little Miss Busy to Little Miss Somersault using Helvetica. All the other books in the series use Optima. The books are paperback with dimensions of 14 cm x 12.6 cm. If all the books of each series are put together in order the words 'My Mr. Men library' or 'My Little Miss library' can be read across the spines and an illustration of Walter the Worm (Mr. Men) or a flower (Little Miss) can be seen.

Setting

The stories are set in a fictional universe called "Misterland", which is inhabited by the Mr. Men and Little Misses themselves, as well as some ordinary human characters such as shopkeepers, doctors and postmen. There are also various animals and Walter the Worm appears frequently. The characters are human in their behaviours and attributes.

Product range

There are 80 licensees selling Mr. Men and Little Miss products, including:

List of books

The following is a list of the book titles with year of first publication and associated ISBNs given in parenthesis. There are many more titles published as translations including works in Mandarin, French, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, Icelandic, Hebrew, German, Portuguese, Irish and others.

"Mr. Men" New Library

"Little Miss" New Library

Mr. Men (Adventures)

Mr. Men & Little Miss (Everyday)

Mr. Men & Little Miss (Magic)

Promotional editions (free with L'Oreal Kids shampoo)

"Be My" series

Little Owl

These stories were published as Little Owl Storytime – The Children's Choice.

Word Books

String Books

Guides

Chunkies

"Start to" series

Board books

Miscellaneous

Original TV series (1974-76)

The Mr. Men characters were adapted into two animated television series in 1974 that consisted a total of 28 episodes. They were produced by Terry Ward's company, Flicks Films (formerly known as 101 Film Productions) in partnership with Trevor Bond and broadcast by the BBC. The voices and narration were provided by Arthur Lowe, best known from his role as Captain Mainwaring in the sitcom Dad's Army, who used regional accents for some of the characters. The musical theme was composed by Tony Hymas.

The 28 episodes were:

Series 1

Series 2

During 1983, a further series featuring the Little Miss characters was produced by Flicks Films. This was narrated by husband and wife John Alderton and Pauline Collins. The 13 Little Miss episodes were:

When the episodes were first broadcast, they were paired with reruns of the 1974 Mr Men series, the theme music and background music of said reruns were changed and rewritten to match the style of the Little Miss theme music.

Mr Men and Little Miss (1995-97)

Another series, Mr. Men and Little Miss, was produced by Marina Productions in 1995 and originally aired on television from 1995 to 1997; these stories were narrated by Geoffrey Palmer aired on Nick Jr. and Channel 5's Milkshake! in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In 2014 fifty of the stories from this series were released as books.

In 1997 the series was localised in the United States and Canada as The Mr Men Show, This series incorporated live action segments as well as 2 episodes from the original series redubbed with Canadian voice actors. This version lasted only 1 season.

The Mr Men Show (2008)

In 2006, Renegade Animation produced a series, The Mr. Men Show, a new American animated series which debuted on the Cartoon Network (US) and on Channel 5's Milkshake! (UK) programme in February 2008. There were only 25 characters featured in the first season, and most had their names or appearances altered. The Mr. Men Show was written and produced by Eryk Casemiro and Kate Boutilier, and directed by Mark Risley. The creative team was a combined effort of personnel from Nickelodeon's Rugrats, The Wild Thornberrys, and As Told by Ginger. The opening and closing narration was voiced by actor Simon Callow in the UK version and Joseph J. Terry in the US version.

UK video and DVD releases

Film

In February 2011, it was reported that 20th Century Fox Animation will produce an animated feature film based on the Mr. Men book series, with Shawn Levy and his company 21 Laps Entertainment producing the film. On 27 January 2015, 20th Century Fox Animation announced that it had acquired the film rights to the Mr. Men Little Miss characters and that Levy will produce the film.