The Mr. Men Show Cartoon Network Premiere
What British book series that has sold over 100 million books has been turned into an animated TV series? For all I know Harry Potter may be headed to TV, but today we’re talking about Mr. Men and Little Miss. This children’s book series was created by Charles Roger Hargreaves, and had already spawned 3 animated series efforts - in 1975, 1983 and again in 1995. Now Cartoon Network and Chorion Ltd. have co-produced 52 11-minute episodes that begin airing in the US on February 4th at 9am ET.
This Flash-animated series is being physically produced by Renegade Animation, based in Glendale, California. Below you can see a clip from the series that is formated as “the first animated program to bring sketch comedy to young children.” More videos are available at the official website.
Tags: Cartoon Network, mr men, Renegade
January 24th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
really smooth animation! Nice work.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:56 am
This is awesome, such a cool way to approach the characters!!
January 25th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Mr. Grumpy sounded kind of creepy at the end. “Let’s face it, not everyone want to be tickled” *shudders*
I just hate that the new generation of kids won’t have the same respect for the show I do. Mr. Men was, is and will always be a beloved children’s classic.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Hey that turned out pretty good! Nice one!
January 25th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Looks fantastic! The cartoon and the new site as well, Aaron!
January 25th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
i can’t wait! that show looks awesome, and the concept sounds very interesting… are those shirts going to get even MORE popular now? good going renegade, can’t wait to see what you do next..
January 26th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
You know, Mr. Men and Little Miss is actually a book series. It’s a British children’s book series and there’s one for each character. They used to be my favorite when I was little and I’m sooo glad that they’re making a TV show out of it!!!
January 26th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I’ve met some of the NY Chorion team behind this when they were in London and they seem really switched on. They’re not interested in mollycoddle TV. They like active stories with lots of gags so it looks hopeful!
February 4th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
The coolest thing about this show is that Joey D’Auria who played Bozo for 17 years on the WGN show is going to play 4 roles on the show.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I was the AD on the ‘95 version produced in London/Paris. I have to say out of everything I’ve worked on over the years, Mr. Men stays closest to my heart. Loved it! Glad its getting another go around!
February 11th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Just watched the bean show, and it was hilarious! When a cartoon can make parents laugh out loud– that’s a pretty darn good cartoon
MR RUUUUDE!!!! Ahahahahaha- lol!
February 12th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I don’t think this show does justice to the book series. The plots and dialogue are forced. They have nothing of the depth and humor of the books. My 4-yr. old loves the books, but after watching 5 minutes of the cartoon, he declared “this is stupid”. I’m sorry to say I agree. I was looking forward to seeing the mister men and little misses animated, but this is disappointing. The books will live on, but after its 52 episodes, this show will fade into oblivion. Too bad.
February 12th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
this show is the coolest show i’ve ever seen. i see it all the time in the morning at8:00am
February 14th, 2008 at 5:04 am
Okay so I’m late to the party but I only just got to see a couple of episodes of this earier today. Looks really nice - like the backgrounds in particular and the characters are animated well enough and have personality.
But the show itself, I think is vile beyond belief. The voices are hideous, the ‘comedy’ obvious, base and, importantly, go completely against the book series which offers gentle yet attention-grabbing moral stories.
What’s the point in securing the rights to something if you don’t like what that something is?
February 14th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I LOVE THIS SHOW!!!!!
I WATCH IT EVERY MORNING!!!!!
GO MR. MEN!!!!!
February 15th, 2008 at 9:31 am
this show kicks ass I want all the shirts
March 11th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I friggin LOVE Mr. Men. My kid and I watch it everyday and I have the DVR set to record all of them. Mr. Rude rocks and my son quotes “What a calamity.” everytime something happens to him! We just got Mr. Grumpy and Mr. Happy tees from Target, and I’m in the process of getting a Miss Naughty tee for myself.
Oh, and the music…jammin’.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Lol, I have some really tattered books in my loft from when i was like 5 of Mr. Men. Stupid infidel Americans trying to take English stuff away. It’s the office all over again.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I am in my thirties (with no children of my own) and have to say that the Mr. Men Show is currently the most entertaining show on television. Mr. Stubborn, Mr. Rude, and Miss Whoops rock my world. My husband and I quote Mr. Stubborn’s CHEAP lines all the time and I can’t get enough of Mr. Rude’s farts. Miss Whoops is my hero. I’m bummed that they haven’t been airing the show all week and I’ll be devastated if they cancel the show altogether. What will I do without my morning Mr. Men/Little Miss cartoon fix? Thanks guys for making me laugh like I’ve never laughed before. You rock!
March 20th, 2008 at 11:06 am
CN should start showing ‘em regularly again on the 31st. Until then, there’s only this Saturday and the following Saturday & Sunday (an extra Baby Looney Tunes seems to be taking up its spot on Easter Sunday).
March 24th, 2008 at 4:58 am
Pathetic!
And why the f**k do we have to have another version for the dumb yanks who can’t understand the Queen’s English???
March 27th, 2008 at 10:25 am
The show is great! It’s not exactly the books version, but the charactors are just a great change of pace compared to the stupidity of Spongebob and other crap that kids are subject to watch. I love ‘em all! Please don’t cancel the show. EVER!
March 27th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Joe, the “dumb yanks” version is the original. It’s what we animate to. Then it’s shipped over to the UK so the “Queen’s English”-speakers can replace all the voices but Scatterbrain & Rude.
March 29th, 2008 at 5:24 am
I LOOOOOOVE THIS SHOW!!!! Me and my 4 year old brother watch it all the time and dance to the songs. i’m trying to get my mom to watch a mr men and little miss marathon.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:55 am
Joke’s on you, Joe…..like Keith said, the US audio version is the original we animate to. Good luck removing that foot.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 am
Ah, yes. That it was bastardised before getting to the animators makes it much better.
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
We actually wanted to do the show with the Queen’s English but the U.S. buyers wanted american voices. So we end up with two versions of the show. Also the British version is shorter, so they cut out one of the skits before doing their Queen’s English Dub. The only way to get the show made was to have an american version. If you don’t like the show because it is different from the books, then turn off the telly and go read.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Very good advice in general, B. It does still point to my earlier question though - what’s the point in securing the rights to something if you don’t like what that something is?
April 5th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
what’s the point in securing the rights to something if you don’t like what that something is?
i think you’re making assumptions that things were changed to somehow spite the original material. Not the case. The characters retain their personality and traits in the spirit of the original. This is an adaptation not a literal translation from book to TV. Often books do not make good movies or TV. For example, Let me geek out here, the recent Lord of The Rings movies, not a literal translation from the books but an adaptation. The books are very satisfying on there own but a literal translation to the screen would be deathly dull. The changes that the filmmakers made are perfectly sensible within the constraints of a 2 (or 3) hour movie. I think the books and the films both stand on their own merits and both can be enjoyed individually. In the case of Mr Men there was a prior series that stayed more true to the books, do we need to follow that example or can things grow and change? Do we have to repeat the pattern from the books or the prior series? I know on one hand there are countless examples where changes backfired. ( I’m thinking of the variations of Scooby Doo, A Pup Named Scooby Doo, ouch) The intent here is to breathe a new life and direction into the Mr Men series.
April 6th, 2008 at 1:45 am
Oh I’m sure there was no spite involved. Nobody sets out to make a bad show after all, do they?
But your Lord of the Rings example, while I agree with, has little relevance to the Mr.Men, which has proven on many occasions to be adaptable.
And even LotR, while it made many changes, cuts and so on, retained the spirit of the book.
Mr.Men does not. In any shape or form. It’s the antithesis of what it seems Roger Hargreaves was going for - gentle, well-told moral stories.
So it’s more like turning LotR into a Monty Python-alike sketch show and arguing you kept Frodo three feet tall so it’s cool.
All that’s been retained are some character’s names and looks. And for he other characters it’s quite staggering that you guys had the balls to assume you could design characters better than the man who made them a classic. And then give them ties. That must have taken some impressive degree of arrogance.
Since watching more, I’ve actually laughed a few times at the show. I don’t think it’s an utterly horrific show (and I imagine will be improved by the UK voices). I think some of the look is lovely - particularly the backgrounds. But I still haven’t found any answer to why this is the Mr.Men. It does seem Chorion bought the rights to something they didn’t particularly like in the first place.
Or maybe it was spite, after all.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:41 am
The books are “gentle, well-told morality stories”, and even the original cartoons were. For today’s audience, “gentle” can be seen as “boring”. Not that it must be, just that it can. As for the morality stories… they’ve been done. For the purposes of a Mr. Men series it seems better to avoid that, because it’d force the characters to change: Mr. Grumpy would learn not to be so Grumpy… bye-bye Mr. Grumpy’s personality. Mr. Noisy would learn to not be so loud… bye-bye Noisy. It’s much more fun to let them revel in their personality quirks, positive & negative, and see the interaction of them! It’s a cartoon, it should be fun! Nothing wrong with that.
As for the original designs, many are charming, but crude; they’re incredibly repetitive (as are the personalities) if you look at ‘em as a whole; they’re being tweaked to offer up something different. Even the classic ’70s cartoons weren’t on-model with the books! Only the ’90s one really tried to stay close, although I don’t recall what the stories were like. The point is, it’s been done. The new show is offering up a new spin, that’s all.
Over the last several years there have been lots of adaptations of properties I enjoy, from Lord of the Rings to Superman to Spider-Man to Hellboy. Each version brings something different from its source material, sometimes dramatically so, but they all can be enjoyed on their own merits. I enjoy Spider-Man the comic and Spider-Man the movie and Spider-Man the new cartoon, and they’re all very different. So why not enjoy the Mr. Men books AND the Mr. Men Show for what they are?
April 7th, 2008 at 9:44 am
“what’s the point in securing the rights to something if you don’t like what that something is?”
You’re assuming that the people securing the rights to Mr. Men don’t like this version of the Mr. Men Show. I assure you, it’s quite the contrary.
Please keep your complaining on your own blog.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:52 am
J, you seem to be deliberately misinterpreting the question. At least I hope it’s deliberate.
Keith, on the other hand, thanks for the response. You’re making a lot of good points and, while I certainly disagree with some (especially about the need to redesign the characters for being crude), you’re helping me understand the rationale and showing there is more thought there than I had given credit for.
It seems that just one aspect was important - one character, one clear personality trait. That’s what was attractive and that’s what you’re playing on, right?
So it’s sort of like seeing a Spider-Man comic and thinking, wow a spider who is also a man, that’s a great idea and just running with that one aspect in your own direction rather than what Spider-Man actually was inside that comic. It may piss off Spider-Man fans but could lead to something interesting on its own.
Sometimes it’s not that easy to seperate them but, yes, maybe they should just be looked at for what they are and not what they aren’t.