Mr. Tickle: 1 (Mr. Men Classic Story Books)

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Many will remember the BBC TV show of the 1970s – voiced by Arthur Lowe, better known as portraying Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army – which seemed to form part of children's TV programming for years. Jude Exley is editorial director for the Brands & Licensing team at Farshore, the HarperCollins imprint that publishes the Mr Men books. She has edited the series for the past 20 years. Exley explains that the brand hasn’t been kept alive merely through merchandising, but by stories that place old characters in new scenarios (as in Mr Impossible and the Easter Egg Hunt in 2015, and Mr Men Little Miss Happy Diwali in 2020). She says the characters have to be updated often: “You have to think about how you make them still have that nostalgic appeal, but make them feel relevant to audiences today, so that can be quite a juggle.”

Mr Men: His son, Adam Hargreaves on Roger Hargreaves and the Mr Men: His son, Adam Hargreaves on

That wasn’t through any kind of deliberate strategic placement. This was before the era of influencers,” Allen says. The appeal was organic. “I think once the IP has touched your life in some way, you don’t forget it.”

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I still think it was the right decision," he says of the decision to sell. "I think for the Mr Men to be owned by one family without the kind of investment that a multi-national company has was going to mean Mr Men would dwindle to a degree and never quite reach its further potential in the future. That was one of the principle reasons for selling. Obviously we got a good offer as well. He explains: "I felt quite strongly about it, especially when I first started writing the stories. I felt they were my dad's. Since the 1990s when I first started writing the books, his name has become part of the brand. Now it's a dual thing – me, for not wanting to take credit for the idea, and also it's part of the brand strength. My mum stayed at the farmhouse and I took over the management of the farm for a few years after he died," explains Adam. So I was doing farming and handling the Mr Men business straight after my dad died. My mum stayed there until about 1992 and then she sold the farm." By 1976, Hargreaves had quit his day job. In 1981, the Little Miss series of books began to appear. It, too, was made into a television series in 1983, which was narrated by John Alderton, who, with Pauline Collins, voiced the Men and Misses, respectively. Although Hargreaves wrote many other children's stories, including the Timbuctoo series of twenty-five books, John Mouse, and the Roundy and Squary books, he is best known for his 46 Mr. Men books and 33 Little Miss books.

Mr. Tickle: 50th Anniversary Edition: The Brilliantly Funny

Yet plenty of Mr Men merchandise isn’t aimed at children – in recent years there’s been everything from Mr Grumpy tea towels to 2019’s four Spice Girls stories about Little Misses Ginger, Baby, Scary and Sporty (Exley admits that Adam didn’t know who the pop group were before drawing their characters). A 2018 study by Farshore titled “Media Use and Attitudes” found 51 per cent of those who bought Mr Men books in 2017 did so because of “fond memories of reading them as children”. There is an enormous nostalgia market for the brand, which blossomed when the entertainment group Chorion bought the rights.

Little Miss Calamity · Little Miss Daredevil · Mr. Scatterbrain · Mr. Stubborn · Mr. Metal · Bunko the Monkey I regret the way I felt now as, because my dad died so young, I didn't get to tell him how I felt about Mr Men and what a brilliant idea I think it is," says Adam. Charles Roger Hargreaves was an English author and illustrator of children's books. He created the Mr. Men series, Little Miss series and Timbuctoo series, intended for young readers. The simple and humorous stories, with bold, brightly coloured illustrations, have sold over 85 million copies worldwide in 20 languages.