Mr. Men (1974)
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| ♥ | This article is dedicated to Arthur Lowe (September 22, 1915 - April 15, 1982 at 66 due to him following a stroke). May he rest in peace. |
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 The start of a series-based legacy for the Mr. Men!
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Mr. Men is a British animated series based on the best selling book series by Roger Hargreaves. It features the Mr. Men characters, following them on their interesting adventures, dealing with simple moral lessons. were adapted into two animated television series, with the first beginning on 31 December 1974, consisting of 28 episodes in total. They were produced by Terry Ward's company Flicks Films (formerly known as 101 Film Productions) in partnership with Trevor Bond, and it was broadcast on BBC 1. Actor Arthur Lowe provided the narration and voices and used regional accents for some of the characters.
Why It Was Faithful
- Completely stays 100% faithful to the books of Roger Hargreaves.
- An adaptation that has a great grasp on the source material, as it manages to greatly retell each story from the books.
- Remarkably outdone narration work from legendary English actor Arthur Lowe, who has a cult following, becoming a well remembered icon throughout the Mr. Men franchise.
- Memorable soundtrack and opening theme, composed by Tony Hymas.
- Many positive and interesting episodes:
- Mr. Tickle
- Mr. Happy
- Mr. Bump
- Mr. Silly
- Mr Greedy
- From the books, it adapts the original stories, with some of the characters tackling their main issue(s), usually turning out successful.
- Many likeable characters from the books, particularly every main Mr. character from their own story.
- Good, simple and crisp animation for 1970s children's series standards, this even helps as the art style remains strongly faithful to Roger Hargreaves' illustrations.
- It uses its own unique sound effects, which is rare for any 1970s show to have, as they'd always have the typical Hanna-Barbera sound effects which would get tiring after a while.
- A good example is Mr. Tickle's iconic tickling sound effect, played by a pipe instrument.
- The show stays true to it's British culture.
Bad Qualities
- The animation, while simple and crisp, can be very limited with recycled walk cycles, though it's forgivable due to the reasons above.
- Unlike the 1990s series and like the 1980s series, it was never remastered in high quality and was telecined without any color correction. That explains why the colors of characters look faded (such as Mr. Chatterbox).
- The opening for the episode "Mr. Uppity" hasn't really aged all that well, as it first features Mr. Uppity smoking, which has been considered out of place for a children's animated series.
- Though this is excusable as it was from 1974, when mild acts like this weren't much of a thing to worry about.
- Despite doing a good job with the male voices of the series, Arthur Lowe is suprisingly and a bit shockingly incapable of voicing female characters.
- Luckily, when the Little Miss series came around in the 1980s, things have improved. The BBC decided on two voices (one for the male characters and primary narration, and another for the female characters).
- While the simple flute melody is iconic, it is occasionally repetitive in different variations. There are also moments of dead space where the characters speak without any musical accompaniment.
Reception
The show was met with critical acclaim, praised for it's storytelling, beautiful narration by Arthur Lowe and unique charm. It has a 7.1/10 rating on IMDb.
Trivia
- When the episodes were first broadcast on BBC 1 beginning on 14 February 1983, they were paired with reruns of the 1974 Mr. Men series, as the theme music and background music of said reruns were changed and rewritten to match the style of the Little Miss theme music. Both Little Miss and reruns of Mr. Men aired on BBC 1 from its debut until its last BBC 1 airing on 15 June 1987. Less than a year later, reruns on both Little Miss and Mr. Men were moved to BBC2 beginning on 27 January 1988 until its last airing on 22 December 1988. This was the first Mr. Men based series to air in the United States, getting 2 VHS releases from Warner Home Video with an American redub in 1986. The entire series was released to VHS in October 2003 in the UK.
- Unlike the Little Miss series that came after, this series hardly had any censorship and/or changes made to be slightly different from the books they were based on.
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