Mr Men and Little Miss: who should get a gender change?

So along with a new digital home and a new TV series a few of the Mr Men and Little Miss characters might find themselves with a new, er, gender.

While no one, I assume, would dare play with Mr Tickle and Little Miss Naughty - the most popular of all 80-odd characters - it has been open season on the chosen 25 for the website and TV series.

It seems that Mr Lazy is a bit slimmer and Mr Strong is no longer square - all well and good - but Chorion, which acquired the rights to the franchise in 2004, is also saying that to maintain a "balance" some of the characters might get a wee gender swap.

Seventeen have so far made it onto the website and they all seem to be of standard gender - although Little Miss Calamity seems to be a new female character to balance the books a bit.

Upon scanning the list of the remaining characters who might make the cut for the final 25 it is tricky to find prime candidates for a sex swap, they mostly seem suitable as either Little Miss or Mr Men.

Although I do like the ring of changing Little Miss Magic to Mr Magic - it sounds cooler.

And Mr Perfect (also a well-known WWF wrestler from the 1990s I recall) or Mr Brave would sound good, and work well I think, as Little Miss characters.

And so would Mr Uppity.

In a bit of email banter with the very nice John Collins, the senior marketing manager for Europe at Chorion, he refused to budge on what changes we might see.

"I think at the moment, until these other characters go live in the next phase of the site, we are not in a position to talk specifically about any characters that may have gone from Mr to Little Miss, or vice versa," he tantalizingly said. "But if you have any other questions, please do let us know".

But John that, my friend, is the ultimate question for anyone over about 15 years old?