Mr. Men - History

History

The first six Mr Men books were published in United Kingdom in 1971, priced at 20p each. Mr. Tickle was the first Mr Men character created by Hargreaves, inspired by his son, Adam, who had asked him what a tickle looked like. Hargreaves responded with a round, orange figure with long, bendy arms. Each book in the original Mr Men and Little Miss series introduced a different title character and his/her single dominant personality to convey a simple moral lesson. The Mr Men and Little Miss characters frequently reappeared in other characters books. The books' simple stories, with brightly coloured, boldly drawn illustrations, made them very popular, with sales of over 100 million worldwide across 28 countries.

A competition was held in the British Sunday Times newspaper for children to submit their own Mr Men character for inclusion in a limited edition celebrating the 30th anniversary of the series. Mr Cheeky, submitted by then eight year old Gemma Almond, was selected as the winning entry. Gemma's creation led to a book featuring her character being published; it was sold only in W H Smith branches, with a portion of the proceeds going to a charity supporting children with leukemia.

In April 2004, Hargreaves' widow Christine sold the rights to the Mr Men and Little Miss characters to UK entertainment group Chorion for £28 million. In 2006, to celebrate 35 years of Mr Men and 25 years of Little Miss, Mr Birthday and Little Miss Birthday were published. There was also an art exhibition at the Animation Art Gallery in central London. In October 2006, Adam Hargreaves created the first Little Miss character based on a real person, Stella McCartney, which he named Little Miss Stella. This was published as a limited edition of 1,000 copies for use as fashion show invitations.

The typeface for the original books from Little Miss Bossy to Little Miss Star is Univers, with the books from Little Miss Busy to Little Miss Somersault using Helvetica. All the other books in the series use Optima.

In 2011, Sanrio, the Japanese firm best known for its creation of Hello Kitty, announced that they have reached an agreement to acquire the rights to the Mr. Men and Little Miss characters from Chorion. This marks the first time that Sanrio has licensed a third-party character not created in-house since owning the rights to Osamu Tezuka's Unico character until Tezuka's death in 1989.