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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU in wondering how Mr Men and Little Misses...

128 replies

TiggyD · 10/12/2015 21:24

...Breed? It not the apparent lack of any genitalia so much as the shapes of them and genetics. If Mr Tickle was to have children with Little Miss Tiny, would the children be tiny with huge arms? Slightly smallish with quite long arms? Could the tickle/tiny genes be totally dominant so that all children will be tiny or long armed? Or even worse, both tiny AND long armed?

OP posts:
Ilikedmyoldusernamebetter · 10/12/2015 22:18

Mr Tickle is tiny and long armed, it says so really near the beginning of the book...

The Mr Men and little Misses are either already paired up (Mr Happy and Little Miss Sunshine, Mr Small and Little Miss Tiny etc.) or sibling pairs, I my children can never decide which...

Ilikedmyoldusernamebetter · 10/12/2015 22:21

Pesky Mr Small did get a job in the end, working for the author...

I once had to spend a night reading every single Mr Man book (52 of them) one after another to DC2 when he had croup, as it was the only thing that kept him and his breathing calm...

springydaffs · 10/12/2015 22:22

Ime Mr Large and Ms Small Vagina had Large children. Ms Small asked Ms Midwife why 'Nature' hadnt taken into account the smallness situ.

So I see the problem on the procreation front.

OwlinaTree · 10/12/2015 22:24

www.amazon.co.uk/review/R24HIHKBR9DYCU crazy Mr man book reviews!

OwlinaTree · 10/12/2015 22:28

That fan fiction is horrendous.Grin

RayFuckingPurchase · 10/12/2015 22:29

I love, but don't quite understand, the way they happily live alongside humans, with no questions asked.

Ilikedmyoldusernamebetter · 10/12/2015 22:29

Brian I think the Mr Men books argue for nurture - after all Mr Happy turns Mr Miserable into a Happy Mr-Happy-Clone just by moving him to Happyland, and in fact total personality transformations are a recurring theme in at least 50% of the books...

Mr Messy even says at the end of his book that he will have to change his name...

Ilikedmyoldusernamebetter · 10/12/2015 22:32

Just read that review - brilliant :o

OwlinaTree · 10/12/2015 22:34

There's a whole lot of them if you Google it!

originalmavis · 10/12/2015 22:34

I had a science teacher called Mr Small.

lorelei9 · 10/12/2015 22:41

YANBU
And of course they're real!
Thing is, they arrive in the world fully formed. And that doesn't include genitalia. It would be no fun at all if they had to get involved in contraception and so on. And imagine what a GP would say to Mr Greedy about type 2 diabetes.
I do agree that Mr Tickle should be stopped; well no, but he should be obliged to carry consent forms and obtain signatures first. No, I'm not joking.

Ilikedmyoldusernamebetter · 10/12/2015 22:47

lore Mr Greedy has become an anonymous, shapeless, generic non overweight Mr Man by the end of his book, out of fear of giants force feeding him multiple times his own body weight in bangers, peas and boiled potatoes...

In Mr Men world it is Mr Skinny who the GP is worried about, and tries to help by eating multiple cream cakes in front of him - he gets sent to Mr Greedy for help and ends up being congratulated by the GP for growing a little pot belly :o

grumpysquash2 · 10/12/2015 22:50

Each of them is probably very inbred to have such distinctive physical characteristics. Offspring would be very interesting.
The lack of genitals is a bit of a problem though :)

grumpysquash2 · 10/12/2015 22:51

I was exactly the same shape as Mr Greedy when I was pregnant. Maybe he is a she and about to drop a sprog???

Bettercallsaul1 · 10/12/2015 22:53

Many of the Mr Men undergo character transformation during the course of the book and some change their appearance accordingly. Mr Greedy changes his eating habits and becomes very streamlined, Mr Messy stops being a pink frizzy mess and becomes a nice, neat shape. Their character traits, even if genetically determined, are very open to change - Mr Mean becomes helpful and co-operative, Mr Jelly conquers his fears etc.

Ilikedmyoldusernamebetter · 10/12/2015 22:57

I think they might procreate by simply splitting in two, like single celled organisms... there are no baby or child Mr Men (the schools in Mr Daydream and Mr tickle are full of human children...)

Either that or Mr Nobody is a hint, and there are proto Mr Men popping into existence from time to time, ready to take on the traits of the first dominant Mr Man to encounter them - Mr Happy being the usual suspect ...

WhitePhantom · 10/12/2015 23:06

Didn't Mr Slow end up with a job driving a steam roller? He got a job reading the evening news first, but that was a disaster because it took him all night. And he had another that was equally disastrous but I can't remember what that one was.

Bettercallsaul1 · 10/12/2015 23:11

I think we are forced to conclude that the Mr Men and little Misses are asexual - unique, and requiring no progeny! The world only needs one of each - a whole extended family of Mr Lazies or Mr Means would be quite unnerving.

lorelei9 · 10/12/2015 23:16

Saul, I think I do know entire families of Mean and Lazy...!

Bettercallsaul1 · 10/12/2015 23:18
Grin
HoneyDragon · 10/12/2015 23:24

It's not just smurfs, there's wombles too.

Though I think they just bred out, it explains all the hipsters

MrsRobbStark · 10/12/2015 23:44

I can already see that this is a classics thread waiting to happen! Grin that fanfic though Confused

Since we're question fictional children's characters can anyone shed some light on the tellytubbies?

When I was in labour ds1 I apparently asked DH (high on gas and air at the time) is they had to pay rent on their house!

And also what are they? Lala and Po are female and TinkyWinky and Dipsy are boys right?

Are they related or just housemates?

I have a lot of questions!

TiaTheTulipFairy · 10/12/2015 23:49

What bothers me is they all get "cured" of their vice/problem in the original stories but subsequently revert in later books to fit their name once more. Nominative determinism wins out maybe?

Bettercallsaul1 · 11/12/2015 00:23

It is true that most of the characters are "cured" of some undesirable trait in their book - there are some honourable exceptions, however! Mr Strong (my favourite!) just continues to be erm, strong throughout his book, putting his phenomenal strength to excellent use. Where would that farmer have been without Mr Strong upending his barn and rushing to the river for water to extinguish the fire in his cornfield?

FishWithABicycle · 11/12/2015 03:39

They live in a world of human beings, and they don't reproduce with one another to have babies. There is some kind of either magical or advanced scientific force field over the town which creates a semianthropogeometric personification in male and female varieties for each discernable characteristic which is formed as a meme in the minds of the human inhabitants. That is, every time a human person dwelling there describes another human with any specific adjective, the force field will detect if this is describe a previously unpersonified concept and if so, one will appear (like the spontaneous appearance of new mythological creatures like the oh god of hangovers and the verucca fairy in Pratchett's Hogfather)