On the 12th of august we celebrated the 41st birthday of the mr. men (and little misses). in 1971, inspired by a wonderfully adorable question from his son adam, roger hargreaves created one of the most enduring and popular series of children's books What's a tickle look like? that was the question which launched the series, asked by a young adam hargreaves of his dad roger. inspired, roger created the first mr. men book, mr. tickle, in 1971. another five books came out that year With some alternate titles, special editions and foreign-language only versions it can be hard to keep track, but there were a classic 48 characters and 42 little misses. our favorites are 1972's mr. daydream, 1976's mr. dizzy and 1981's little miss naughty When roger hargreaves passed away in 1988, his son adam took over the series. he wrote four books based on characters developed by his dad (mr. brave, mr. grumble, mr. perfect and mr. cheerful), before making his own mark with 2003's mr. cool The mr. men first made it to the telly in 1975, with the help of arthur 'captain mainwaring' lowe. he narrated the stories and also voiced all the famous characters. they came back in 1983 and 1995 before returning in 2008 with two runs of the mr. men show. the us cartoons created brand new characters little miss daredevil and little miss calamity, while little misses stubborn and scatterbrain had sex-changes to misters.