A new friend...

Hope you are all enjoying the updated Mr. Men Show site. I can't get enough of the Mr. Rude game! I mean when has pulling someone's finger been so much fun.

Beyond the site, in Mail on Sunday we revealed an old favorite, re-imagined for the Mr. Men show: Mr. Strong.

Excited to hear which new games are your favorites, and as always, would love to hear your thoughts. K
 

Comments

[Lucas]

I like the new Mr. Strong - his rejigging doesn't bother me at all (but will he still eat so many eggs in this cholestorol-conscious world?). I feel the same about Mr. Quiet. I love the fact that he is a yoga buff! Mr. Messy is great. And I really love Miss Whoops, and can already do a pretty good imitation of her deadpan voice: "How exciting." And the classic Mr. Lazy works great as a line drawing, but would be hard to animate (not that Mr. Lazy moves very much ANYWAY), so the new Mr. Lazy is fine. But I do MUCH prefer the old Mr. Nosey, and I REALLY prefer the classic Little Miss Naughty - especially as she's my favorite 'Little Miss' (and I suspect a lot of other fans feel similarly). The new one is too fussy.

The two big questions now are - which Mr. Men will fill out the silhouettes (I'm guessing Little Miss Chatterbox and Little Miss Splendid are soon to come) - and which Mr. Men will be omitted? I don't see a silhouette for Mr. Sneeze!

[kurt]

Thanks for your post. So glad you like some of the new iterations- I agree Mr. Quiet as a yoga buff is wonderful. Your favorite, Miss Naughty, I hope you enjoyed the game. Would love to hear feed back.

As for the remaining cast, they should be revealing themselves soon, so stay tuned. K

[Baffled]

You guys have balls of steel to mess with a classic. In terms of being 'animatable', I'm sure pretty much all of the classic characters have been animated, including Mr.Lazy and Mr.Nosey so that couldn't have been an issue.

As for the actual content of the show, well it sounds great. I love the idea of a sketch show.

I'm curious though - will you not have a serious branding problem given that the classic books will still be available. There's even ads right now in the UK advertising Mr.Men toys and they are the classics using the classic theme tune from the cartoon. There will be two Mr.Strongs out there that don't match. And the Mr.Men was big in France too so it's not just the UK that is going to have a conflict. Is that a problem?

[Matt]

This is just awful. You've messed with a British institution here. Basically, you couldn't come up with any ideas for your own animated series so you are hijacking a well-loved brand to get a leg up. I can't believe Roger Hargreaves son took the dollars and betrayed his father's legacy here.
My kids have, and will stick, to the originals. How long before the Arthur Lowe DVD is taken off the shelves after being sued for breach of copyright? I'm just gobsmacked by this.

I'm off to find some wisecracking UK animators to rewrite Tom & Jerry as a dog & a hamster, or maybe Mickey & Minnie Mole. Mr Nosey doesn't even have a big nose. Persnickety isn't even a proper English word. Another great UK TV show remade for the US is going to fail as you'll have killed what made it so good in the first place.

[Brian]

I'm with Matt: the original Mr. Men books and British TV shows had a very soothing and gentle mood about them, even when they were funny and entertaining. They had an elegant simplicity that was unlike any other show (or books) of its kind.

I think you folks think that anything SpongeBob Squarepants can do, Mr. Men can do it zanier and cruder. I like the goofiness of SpongeBob (there is a place for it in childrens TV) - but I don't see any reason why the unique, whimsical charms of the Mr. Men and Little Missus have to be sacrified in order to make them more 'attractive' to 21st century kids. The 'old school' is still wildly popular. Why turn them into a SpongeBob wannabe?

[Baffled]

As much as I actually like the idea of a sketch show, Matt and Brian definitely bring up one good point - are you working with the strengths of the Mr.Men or against them?

If you're working against them, what's the point? Why not just create a show from scratch in which every aspect is designed to match that format?

With the Mr.Men, you have a series of gentle morality tales beautifully told with wonderful language. That was the strength. It does seem like that has been entirely lost and I can't imagine for one second, whatever about Adam, that Roger Hargreaves would have wanted that. I can't speak for the man of course.

But, you know, I do love some of the work I'm seeing here so I do wish you well with it and hope it's a great show. Many children won't be familiar with the original so you'll be starting fresh. That's muddied slightly by the mixed branding but it does mean children aren't going to have the same issues with it we adults have.

But, like I said in my earlier post, it requires serious courage. To think that you can do a better design job than the man that created the classic? That is courage. But I just hope you know what you're doing.

[Steve]

The website looks great, and I am sure that the new cartoon will also look great.

However, I was a little dissapointed by the makeovers. That's probably because I was a Mr Men obsessive as a kid.

I do think that the charm of the Mr Men seems to have been replaced by a Spongebob mentality, and I think that it was the innocent charm and simplicity of the original Mr. Men that made them such a huge success here in England and elsewhere. I have a gut feeling this new look might leave a bad taste in a lot of British mouths.

That said, I'm positive that most American kids will love the cartoon. It's kind of a cross between Sesame Street and Spongebob.

Good luck with launch!

[Michael]

Matt above complained that 'persnickety' isn't a proper word. He should by relieved that it is truly an OED-defined word, if informal (like 'dotty', 'chatterbox', 'whoops' and 'cool'). His essential point, though, that unnecessary changes are irritating, is proper.

[Neil]

I have to add my voice to some of the comments above - the Mr Men are a classic show with sales over 100 million worldwide in 22 languages. So why does it have to change for an American Market? Was it OK for the rest of the World, but not good enough for the US? First impressions of the new series; its tacky, brash and false. I'm sticking to reading the original books to my son, and staying well away from this fake attempt of a true global classic.....

[Joshua Hood]

One of the new charcters is Little Miss Star and you can see what a new character looks like in miss scary's video.

[Joshua Hood]

guys, what you are saying is mean. they've worked alot of hard work and who cares if the change names or looks and make up new characters. imagine how much work they've done. that's pretty silly and mean what you said. sorry people who work for this show, this show is going to be great! i'd wacth it if it premeires in canada in winnipeg. i live in winnipeg and i wanna wacth it.
Does it premeire in Winnipeg? If so, what time and day?

[Joshua Hood]

who's the new friends?

[M Couchman]

What a stupid idea to redesign the Mr Men. Where has Mr Nosey's nose gone??? Is this some politically correct nonsense in case people with large noses take offence?

[I heart the Mr. Men Show]

We love the games on the Mr. Men website but lately my daughter Melody and I have been playing our own game it's called 'Somebody needs a tickle'. It's played similarly to 'tag' where contestants hide and try not to be found but in our version if you're discovered you get a tickle! Melody has even enlisted our kitty Grabnar into the game, much to Grabnar's dismay:D

I see other Cartoon Network shows on my cable company's On Demand menu. Any chance the Mr. Men Show will be available anytime soon?

Thanks so much for creating a TV show with characters that a mother & daughter can enjoy together.