The original Mr. Tickle (lower right) joins a host of old and new characters in the latest incarnation of the Mr. Men franchise. All images courtesy of Chorion.

They say nostalgia runs in 20-year cycles: about as long as it takes for kids to grow up and begin fondly looking back at their childhoods. That may or may not be the case with The Mr. Men Show, the preschool series now airing weekday mornings on Cartoon Network; the ultra-iconic characters have been around in one form or another since 1971, when Roger Hargreaves' son Adam asked his father what a tickle looked like. The obliging dad drew a smiley-faced orange circle with long wiggly arms -- and an entertainment franchise was born.

Mr. Tickle, the first Mr. Men book, was followed by more than 50 additional books starring other "Mr. Men" and "Little Miss" characters -- all thick-outlined, brightly-colored shapes, each one representing a single emotion or attitude in its silliest form. TV series starring the characters were produced in the 1970s, '80s and '90s -- and now they're back again.

These 21st-century Men and Misses come from Chorion Ltd. and executive producers Eryk Casemiro and Kate Boutilier. Casemiro's relationship with the property goes back to the early 1990s, when he attempted to option it from the Hargreaves family (creator Roger had passed away in 1988) while working for Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video. "Lorne was looking for kids' stuff," Casemiro recalls. "He was amassing a library and I was looking for properties that sort of fit the Broadway Video style; I watched the show and thought, 'this is a great sketch comedy show for kids.'"

The two parties weren't able to agree. They went their separate ways and a different studio produced a Mr. Men series in the mid-1990s. Meanwhile, Broadway Video sold off its kids' programming library (sending it through a variety of ownership hands) while Casemiro moved on to Klasky Csupo as its senior VP of creative affairs. After several years of overseeing various iterations of Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys, he left the company and partnered with Kate Boutilier, another K-C alum, whose scripting efforts there included several Rugrats movies, The Wild Thornberrys and the Rugrats spinoff series All Growed Up.

In 2004, Hargreaves' widow Christine sold the rights to the characters to Chorion; the forces that would reunite Casemiro with Mr. Men were set into motion. He and Boutilier were in Paris with Diana Manson, Chorion's executive producer, developing a project that eventually became an all-European production, when Manson asked him if he'd be interested in taking another shot at Mr. Men.

"'Yeah, sure,' I said," recalls Casemiro. "She didn't believe me though, she thought I was being polite. After all, she was buying dinner."

Cartoon Network wanted fewer female characters and more "boy-centric" humor. Little Miss Sunshine was one of the survivors.

Back in the U.S., Mr. Men quickly became a number-one priority for the pair. They introduced the project at MIP Jr. in October 2006 and started writing episodes the next month. Their next stop was a pitch to Cartoon Network at Kidscreen 2007; the network was intrigued but not ready to bite.

Then someone from Mr. Men's homeland stepped into the breach. "Nick Wilson wanted the show for 'Milkshake!'," Casemiro explains, referring to England's "five" channel and the head of its highly successful morning preschool block.

With a British outlet on board, production continued on the series. There was still no word from Cartoon Network; the network was still somewhat preoccupied with the aftermath of Adult Swim's Boston "bomb scare" debacle. Once things settled down, however, CN picked up the show in March 2007.

Producing a show for audiences on both sides of the Atlantic often proved a balancing act. The U.K. audience for the show was slightly younger than Cartoon Network's, leading to some of the show's verbal wit being reined in to a slight degree. "The show still had to be silly and funny for the older end of the audience," says Casemiro. "We made sure to include plenty of physical humor for the younger viewers because the verbal humor was a little over their heads.

"Britain was our tricky audience. Mr. Men is so beloved over there; the only thing to compare it to in the U.S. is [Peanuts]. Ninety percent of British people between 18 and 35 know and love the characters, versus 18 percent in the U.S. The production blog on our website was getting hits early on: 'Why did you change their design,' 'Why did you have to… ' Even some feminists were saying, '"Little Miss" is troubling, why do you have to call them that?' Well, it's the heritage of the show! But once it started airing, the fuss died down and we were well received."

Cartoon Network asked for -- and got -- a slight trim in the number of female characters and a more "boy-centric" attitude in the show's humor. "The network was afraid it would turn off boy audiences," says Casemiro, "so we dropped Little Miss Fickle, Miss Fabulous and the Little Miss Twins. They weren't from the books, we invented them for the show.