Mr. Men and Little Miss (1990s series)

Mr. Men and Little Miss (also known as The Mr. Men Show in North America) is a 1995 British-French animated series produced by Flicks Films, Marina Productions and France 3. The series contains 105 animated segments, running from 5 September 1995 to 8 September 1997.

In the North American version, the characters were redubbed by Canadian actors and were given live action segments to pad the runtime. This version is now considered rare and hard to find.

Summary
This series focuses on the adventures of the Mr. Men and Little Misses in Misterland, alongside a supporting cast of human characters and a worm.

Why it Rocks

 * 1) This show is able to make original stories with a selection of its existing characters as the main focus, while staying faithful to the book series as possible.
 * 2) The animation in this series is noticeably more fluid and detailed than the previous adaptations, thanks to a co-production with French animators.
 * 3) The UK voices, while not having enough versatility to make them stand out, are pleasant enough. They are done well by the talents of both Gordon Peters and Jill Shilling.
 * 4) Contains many characters from the books such as Mr. Tickle, Mr. Happy, Mr. Bump, Mr. Messy, Mr. Fussy, Mr. Lazy, Mr. Strong, Mr. Quiet, Little Miss Naughty, Little Miss Sunshine, etc.
 * 5) The series was popular enough to gain an American dub, which is considered rare these days and some copies of the dub are hard to track down.
 * 6) The human characters and Walter the Worm, while not having much focus as the Mr. Men and Little Misses, serve as supporting and/or minor characters to the series and co-exists with them in Misterland.
 * 7) Many of the episodes were popular enough to appear on YouTube in recent years, with the UK dub being the most recent. The American dub, on the other hand, was not so lucky.
 * 8) The violence was slightly toned down for a family friendly audience, alongside the 1980s Little Miss series prior. This resulted in making some characters nicer, such as Mr. Grumpy and Little Miss Splendid.
 * 9) Despite playing too safe compared to the sketch comedy style of the recent 2008 cartoon, it was considered popular for its time in the native UK.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) While faithful to the books, the show can be rather bland at times (due to its focus on morality tales than the sketch comedy style, which the 2008 series would later have).
 * 2) The UK voices, while pleasant to listen to, can cause a few characters to sound identical to each other and/or not have enough versatility to make them stand out.
 * 3) In the American dub, most of the characters (namely the Mr. Men) were horribly miscast to the point where the voices sound unfitting for them or too identical to each other, such as Len Carlson playing Mr. Perfect and Neil Crone playing the wizard.
 * 4) * While most of the female characters sound fine here, some of them have unfitting voices as well (such as Miss Splendid sounding like Betty Boop instead of having a snobbish tone of voice).
 * 5) Although most book characters get plenty of focus, some (such as Mr. Sneeze and the French-exclusive characters) hardly get any lines or screen time in this series.
 * 6) Before the 2008 series, there are some episodes that are either bland or downright mean spirited. The most notable offender is "No Food is No Fun for Mr. Greedy", because  Mr. Greedy suffered from hunger in a dream.

Trivia

 * This is the third animated adaptation of the Mr. Men and Little Miss franchise, following the previous adaptations. It is also the first to have original stories rather than ones adapted directly from the books.
 * As mentioned above, it also spawned an American dub, which is lesser known than the British dub. As a result, the North American version never received a DVD release (probably because the one-inch video tapes are either presumed lost and/or destroyed). They can only be found under VHS copies containing the surviving episodes of the American dub.