50 Fun Facts About Mr. Men

Which Mr. Man follows a staircase inside a tree trunk and cheers up his gloomy double, Mr. Miserable?

Mr. Happy finds him behind a narrow red door at the bottom of the stairs and takes him home to Happyland, where the pair end up laughing until their sides hurt.

Which character was the very first Mr. Man?

Mr. Tickle is said to have begun when Roger Hargreaves's young son asked what a tickle looks like, though his biographer says the doodle came first and the story was too good to dispute.

Which Mr. Man says everything back to front, greeting a hotel manager with 'Afternoon good'?

Mr. Topsy-Turvy goes on to ask for a room with 'I'd room a like', and by the time he vanishes the whole town has been left speaking the same back-to-front way.

After a wizard magics away all his worries, what becomes Mr. Worry's next worry?

Having nothing to worry about: the wizard's cure, a list of every worry that he promises will never happen, keeps Mr. Worry carefree for exactly one week.

A wizard cures Little Miss Bossy with a magic pair of what?

Boots: the pair chat to each other and march her off until she has learned her lesson. Little Miss Bossy was the first book in the Little Miss series.

Which Little Miss visits Miseryland, where smiling is against the rules, and gets its weeping king to laugh?

Little Miss Sunshine makes a new sign for the border reading Laughterland, and the king ends the story giggling that he is now the King of Laughterland.

Which Mr. Man whisks a schoolboy called Jack out of a history lesson for a ride on a huge bird?

Mr. Daydream takes him to the jungle, the North Pole and the Wild West, until the voice calling 'Jack!' from under an outsized hat turns out to be his teacher.

Whose spotless house is wrecked when his long-lost cousin from Australia, Mr. Clumsy, comes to stay?

Mr. Fussy, who keeps even the blades of grass on his lawn straight, finally waves his cousin off, only for another accident-prone friend to arrive at the door.

Before the Mr. Men made his name, Roger Hargreaves spent more than a decade working in which industry?

Advertising: he rose to creative director of a London agency, and his son says the books were partly a plan to escape the daily commute.

Which Mr. Man cannot stand books and tears every page out of one at the start of his story?

Mr. Grumpy is taught better manners by the end, up to a point: these days, when he picks up a book, he tears out only one page.

Which Little Miss loses job after job, then finds the perfect one as the voice of the speaking clock?

Little Miss Chatterbox keeps talking until closing time and is sacked each morning after, until a caller dials the time and hears her say 'At the third stroke it will be…'

Which of these Mr. Men was created by Roger Hargreaves's son Adam and first published in 2003?

Mr. Cool arrived with Mr. Rude, Mr. Good and three new Little Misses; Adam had never drawn the characters before his father died and says it took about three years to learn.

Mr. Quiet, miserable in deafening Loudland, finally finds the perfect job working where?

In a library, where everybody has to keep their voices down; he is so pleased with the job that, for once, he laughs out loud.

Mr. Dizzy, the one dim resident of Cleverland, turns clever after drinking from what?

A wishing well: tired of being teased by a clever pig and elephant, he wishes he were clever as he drinks, then goes back and stumps them both with riddles of his own.

In 2011 the Mr. Men were bought by the Japanese company behind which character?

Hello Kitty's owner, Sanrio, bought the Mr. Men when the British firm Chorion was broken up, seven years after Chorion had paid the Hargreaves family £28 million for them.

The first Little Miss based on a real person, made as a fashion-show invitation in 2006, honoured whom?

Stella McCartney: in the story, Little Miss Stella designs a suit for the ignored Little Miss Nobody and turns her into a somebody; just 1,000 copies were printed.

Adam Hargreaves's 2017 Mr. Men-style series was based on which BBC show?

Doctor Who: each book recast a different Doctor as a Mr. Man, starting in 2017 with Dr. First, Dr. Fourth, Dr. Eleventh and Dr. Twelfth; Spice Girls editions followed in 2019.

Which Mr. Man cures Little Miss Naughty by turning invisible and tweaking her nose whenever she misbehaves?

Mr. Impossible is enlisted by Mr. Small, whom she had wrapped up in Mr. Bump's bandages; the tweaks last all week, three of them on Saturday alone, and by Sunday she is cured.

A 1970s single by the Mr. Men invited listeners 'Let's Go to' which place?

Misterland outlived the single: it is the setting of the 1990s television cartoon, and a 2010 BBC radio documentary about the books reused the song's title.

If you line up all the Mr. Men books in order, what appears across the spines?

The words 'My Mr. Men library' run across the spines, a trick the books themselves pointed out: 'If you collect all 43 Mr Men books, look what happens when you put them together.'

Roger Hargreaves drew the original Mr. Men illustrations with what?

A Magic Marker: the bold black outlines hid the way its colour bled across the paper, and his son still remembers the chemical smell of the pens.

Which actor narrated and voiced the original 1974 BBC animated series The Mister Men?

Arthur Lowe, Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army, was expected to read a trial story straight, his producer recalled, but put on funny little voices for the characters instead.

How do the baker and the butcher finally get Mr. Noisy to lower his voice?

They pretend not to hear him: 'Can't hear you,' says Mrs Crumb when he roars for a loaf, and he keeps leaving empty-handed until he learns to whisper.

The 2008–09 series The Mr. Men Show is set in which fictional town?

Dillydale was invented for the show: in the books each character has a home town or land of his own, but on screen they all became neighbours in one place.

What happens to Mr. Right after Mr. Wrong stays a month to learn his ways?

He starts getting things wrong: the longer the pair share a house, the more Mr. Wrong gets right and the more his host slips into his guest's old habits.

Which Mr. Man is called Mr. Nervous in America and in The Mr. Men Show?

Mr. Jelly, who trembles at the snap of a twig, kept his American book title on screen; in his story a tramp teaches him to steady himself by counting up to ten.

What colour is Mr. Bump?

Blue, and bandaged for good reason: fetching a very long ladder to mend his chimney pot, he swings it round the corner of the house and straight through the glass.

Mr. Strong gets his strength from eating a great many of what?

Eggs: when a farmer's cornfield catches fire, Mr. Strong lifts a whole barn, fills it with water and tips it over the flames, and the grateful farmer pays him in eggs.

Which two Mr. Men clean Mr. Messy's house and give him his first ever bath?

Mr. Neat and Mr. Tidy scrub him so thoroughly that he is no longer a scribble at all, and he laughs that he will have to change his name.

Mr. Greedy's story teaches him a lesson when he is caught by whom?

A giant catches him nibbling in a cave of enormous food, makes him eat every outsized dish until he feels fit to burst, and frees him only on a promise never to be greedy again.

Where does Mr. Small live?

Under a daisy in a garden: he is as small as a pin, and after falling into mustard pots and getting shut in matchboxes he finds work with a man who writes children's books.

Which Mr. Man lives in a teapot and drives a car shaped like a shoe?

Mr. Funny's shoe car sets a pig and a worm laughing on his way to the zoo, where he cheers up the animals by pulling funny faces.

Which Mr. Man lives in Sleepyland, where a day lasts four hours?

Mr. Lazy's homeland has short days because everything there takes so long that four hours are all it can fit in, and being fast asleep is known as being slow asleep.

Which Mr. Man comes from Shivertown, where everyone has a red nose?

Mr. Sneeze walks so far from Coldland in search of a cure that he meets a wizard, who is astonished to hear the country has no sun and warms the whole place up by magic.

Mr. Silly wins Nonsenseland's silliest-idea contest by painting the leaves of a tree which colour?

Green: in Nonsenseland, where dogs wear hats and birds fly backwards, a tree with ordinary green leaves was the silliest thing anyone had seen, and the King gave him the Nonsense Cup.

What is Mr. Uppity's punishment for being rude to a goblin?

Rich, rude Mr. Uppity of Bigtown is shrunk small enough to fit into a hole in a tree.

Sent to report a sheep loose in the lane, Mr. Forgetful instead announces what?

Goose asleep in the rain: on the walk from the village policeman to Farmer Fields, the animal, what it is doing and where it is doing it all change in his head.

Which Mr. Man starts his day with a tea-making alarm clock and a toothbrush that squeezes its own toothpaste?

Mr. Clever calls himself the cleverest person in the world, yet he spends the day stumped by his friends, unable to tell one a joke, another a recipe or a third the cure for a cold.

Mr. Mean is so miserly that he gives his brother what as a festive present?

A piece of coal was his idea of a gift; a wizard's spells then cure his meanness, up to a point, and the following year his brother gets two pieces.

Mr. Chatterbox is sold a magic hat that does what when he talks too much?

Grows: Mr. Bowler the hatter sells it to him after one long chat too many, and it swells with every word until the brim is down at his feet.

What does Father Christmas ask his nephew Mr. Christmas to do?

Deliver presents: Mr. Christmas, who lives at the South Pole, is asked to stand in for his famous uncle, and a wizard lends him a flying teapot for the round.

Which Mr. Man finally finds his ideal job driving a steamroller?

Mr. Slow first tries reading the nine o'clock news, which takes him until midnight, and driving a taxi, which makes his passenger late for a train; nobody hurries a steamroller.

Mr. Rush, hopeless as a bus driver and a waiter, earns his holiday money delivering what?

Express letters: a postman's round suits the fastest thing on two feet, whereas his bus never stopped for passengers and his plates left the table before anyone could eat.

How do the townspeople finally cure Mr. Nosey of prying into their business?

They set painful traps: his nose is painted by a decorator, snapped in a clothes peg and hit with a hammer, once for each time he pokes it where it is not wanted.

How does Mr. Bump pick the apples in his ideal job at Mr. Barley's orchard?

By walking into the trees: he needs no ladder, because every accidental collision brings an apple down, and he catches it as it falls.

One page of Mr. Silly was redrawn for later editions because its pig wore sunglasses and was doing what?

Smoking a cigar: the 1972 pig was judged a poor example for young readers, so today's editions show him in trousers and a bowler hat instead.

By 2021, roughly how many Mr. Men and Little Miss books had been sold worldwide?

250 million, yet Roger Hargreaves took the first book from publisher to publisher without luck before an old friend who ran a publishing firm agreed to print it.

How were Mr. Calm and Little Miss Brave chosen to join the series in 2021?

By a public vote: Adam Hargreaves drew five candidates for the 50th anniversary, readers picked their favourites, and the two winners were announced in a Channel 4 documentary.

Which pair of characters marked the Mr. Men's 35th anniversary in 2006?

Mr. Birthday and Little Miss Birthday also marked 25 years of the Little Misses; Adam Hargreaves says he reread his father's first books to get the feel of the stories right.

The Mr. Men film announced in 2025 comes from the producers of which family film series?

Paddington: StudioCanal and Heyday Films took the Mr. Men on fourteen years after 20th Century Fox announced a Hollywood version that never reached the screen.