It's the Mr Men Show!

Oh dear. Oh dear. Despite the innate wrongness of the Mr Men Show, it's, erm, oh no, it really is, good. Yes. Very much so. Bonkers, non shouty and really very amusing.

Totally, totally (slightly) unconnected to the original Mr Men, other than some of the characters being the same and an acknowledgement of the late, great Roger Hargreaves.

Aside: I should listen to that Radio 4 podcast about the Mr Men. I may be reiterating points the only person on the planet that cares about this has already heard. Ah well. This is not original, it's the observations of someone that hasn't a clue what anyone else thinks.

Back (vaguely) to point:
The Mr Men Show is set in a place called Dillydale, all the Mr Men and Little Misses live there and interact with one another. While there was interaction between the original characters, they lived in their own lands - happyland, loudland etc, and they lived amongst people. Although in the most recent issues by Adam Hargreaves, there are several Mr Men all living in one place. So, dunno. Move with the times. Or tomes as my dyslexic thumb decided, which would seem a difficult way to move really.

Mr Lazy is not a pink blob, he's a green sluglike shape with a floppy cap. Mr Nosey is completely the wrong shade of green, and is always, always with Mr Small. (Mr Nosey is my new favourite, for reasons that may become apparent). And Mr Strong is not square, he's all "I workout a lot" shaped and he wears a weightlifters belt. Like the original Mr Strong would need a belt...

The voices are quite probably not PC in their stereotyping, but they are amusingly apt.

Mr Happy has a very jolly Tony Blackburn voice.
Mr Stubborn is of course Scottish
Mr Grumpy is countryside old man - Cornish/Yorkshire? you know the voice.
Mr Messy is Scouse and should really be wearing a tracksuit.
Mr Rude is French. No comment.
Mr Scatterbrained has a American clown type voice that is exactly like some entertainer whose name/identity eludes me.
Mr Nosey is a Geordie which makes him entirely loveable, having the second best accent in existence. The other accents I can't quite place, but Little Miss Chatterbox sounds excitedly chattery, Mr Lazy sounds lazy, Mr Strong speaks like you'd expect someone who wears a weightlifting belt to sound.

I'm sold. I'm disloyal. I'm sorry.

Although I did have a sneaky read of Original Mr Men "Mr Tickle and the Dragon" and was slightly disturbed by the fact that most of the the residents had their house burnt down. Most advanced from the stories of old, so if it's good enough for Adam Hargreaves, it's good enough for me.

Mr Men

A renewed love of the Mr Men, totally excluding the Little Misses, coincides with a vicious slur being recommenced over on It Is What It Is. Which I can't properly link to but I'm sure it's mentioned over there on your right.

Anyhoo.

The love, incidentally, does not extend to the rather bizarre Mr Men Show which is presently being shown. Nuh uh. Old school Mr Men all the way. The only benefit of this show is that Mr Men merchandise is available, except they all look wrong.

The Mr Men books are, in short, genius. Long have I adored them and have gifted them to many's a bemused adult. The reaction of the adult to the book cements my opinion of said adult.

The boys (ok, me) had a small collection going until the other day when a windfall, erm, fell.

Untold joy to discover that on that dark, dark day (at the age of 15) when all of my books were given away in error, every last book had not been lost to me forever. Some had survived, and included in this wondrous booty were all of my very own Mr Men books. Only a handful of duplicates and ok, my old books don't say "My Mr Men Library" along the spines if you have them all, but goodness! I had most of them! And now I once more have Mr Slow to ensure my translation of Monsieur Lent isn't too rusty. Sadly there is no English version of Monsieur Non, which is the greatest Mr Men story of them all.

Digress? Moi?

Tonight's bedtime story was the heartening tale of Mr Nosey. One of the green ones, incidentally, if you are interested in such things. Not as funny as others, but still a grand story to read. This copy cost 20p and suggested that if you enjoyed it you might also enjoy one of the other SIX Mr Men titles.

I am so old. Which probably explains why I don't fit into my sons' Mr Tickle costume.



Yes. Mr Tickle. The undisputed leader. Tickle power defeats all.