Kylie Jean

***Kylie Jean*** is an British-American children's franchise consisting of comic newspapers and books, animated theatrical shorts, television shows and book collections, a feature film, and television specials. It was created by Susanna Henderson for The Daily Express in 1936, the character Kylie Jean Carter was first appearance in The Daily Express in February 24, 1936 until December 31, 1945, originally as the single-panel cartoons in Express and later, The Mirror has returned in 1951 with four comic panels. She has debut in a comic book series published by Odhams in June 1946 and then Fleetway in 1963 were drawn pictures from the comic books by Ernest H. Shepard and later, Roger Hargreaves and Adam Hargreaves.

## History

### Before Kylie Jean; Ana Sofia's inspiration for Kylie Jean

During the end of the first World War, female troops from Kyliana (Lombardia, Italy) were being transported to eastern Italy, on their way to Europe, where they were to join the 2nd Italian Infantry Maid. When the train stopped at Palazzo Marino, Milan City Hall, a maiden called Stella Mazzini bought a curly black-haired newborn baby girl for $20 from a hunter who had killed its father. She named her 'Kyliana', after her hometown of Kyliana, or 'Kylie' for short.

Kylie became the member of the Maid and went to Britain with the unit. When the Maid was posted to the battlefields of France, Mazzini, now a Captain, took Kylie to Manchester for a long loan. She formally presented Manchester with Kylie in December 1929 where she became a popular attraction and lived until 1944.

### Early development and *The Daily Express*

The girl was also very popular with Ana Sofia, daughter of cartoonist Susanna Henderson. It was her favourite child at Manchester, and she often spent time inside the house with it. The girl was Ana Sofia's inspiration for calling her own beauty queen Kylie.....Kylie Jean (this beauty queen started out with the name of Annette Rose). The name Kylie Jean originally appearance to a nine-year-old long, spindly legs of a teenager, as can be seen in the introduction of Susanna's 'The Daily Express' newspaper on February 24th, 1936, and ran there of the newspaper until the end of 1945.

The editors noodled out the name and come out with "Kylie Jean" Mrs. Henderson essentially added cherry-cheeked little girl with long brown curly hair and a pink dress to the button eyes and up-turned nose. The new characters was a silent and resourceful and slightly anti-authoritarian. Her mischief, as displayed in a weekly panel, often bordered on the malicious. "I wanted a girl," Susanna told a newspaper interviewer five years later, "because a girl could get away with more fresh stunts that in a small boy would seem boorish. Kylie Jean's curls, I guess, were reminiscent of the way my hair looked when I was a youngster, but her face and the dress were just accidents." Christened "Kylie Jean Carter" by the Express editors, this child (who was, Susanna later said, a little more than seven years old and a little less than nine).

### Publication continues

Susanna started to drawn a series of comic books about Kylie Jean, her boyfriend T.J., and their friends in Jacksonville, Texas. These other characters, such as Paula Dupree, Lucy, Margaret (Kylie Jean's mom), George (Kylie Jean's dad), Cara, Nico, Greg, Danny, Jake, Mark, Alice (Kylie Jean's lost friend and formerly she is Kylie Jean's friend), Sophie (debut in 1954 but her being Alice's replacement), Kristy and Katie were also based on stuffed dolls belonging to Ana Sofia. The characters, Ugly Brother and Patches, were based on animals that lived, like the spindly-legged Kylie Jean from the Express cartoons, in the surrounding area of Susanna's country home, Cotchford Farm in Ashdown Forest, Sussex in 1945. It is this area on which Nanny and Pa's Lickskillet Farm was based.

'Kylie Jean' was published by Methuen on September 17th, 1938, the sequels 'Kylie Jean and her Pals' in 1940, 'Kylie Jean on Parade' in 1942, 'Laughs with Kylie Jean' in 1943, 'Oh, Kylie Jean!' in 1944, and 'Fun with Kylie Jean' in 1945. All these books features a collection of Express cartoons were illustrated in a beautiful way by Susanna, which made the books even more magical. The Kylie Jean-books became firm favorites with old and young alike and have been translated into almost every known language. A conservative figure for the total sales of the six Methuen editions (including Kylie Jean) up to the end of 1996 would be over 20 million copies. These figures do not include sales of the six books published by Dutton in Canada and the States, nor the foreign-language editions printed in more than 25 languages the world over!

Kylie Jean was almost immediately a hit. Kylie Jean's success as a promotional ploy resulted in her most remembered role: in 1945 Susanna signed a contract for Kylie Jean to star in advertising cartoons for Ribena bottles.

### Kylie Jean returns to cartoons

The last Kylie Jean cartoon in the Express was published on 31 December 1945, but Kylie Jean continued to appear in the magazine--in Ribena ads, which, for the next fifteen years, made Kylie Jean nearly ubiquitous in newspapers and magazines and on billboards and display cards in trolleys and subways and department stores, even, in 1950 and 1958, in an electronic display in Coleford's Royal Forest Factory.

A few months after Kylie Jean left the Express, she made her debut in a comic book. That first issue of Kylie Jean was written and drawn by a book illustrator name Ernest H. Shepard and published by Odhams in June 1946. At first, Shepard's conception of Kylie Jean herself owed quite a bit to Susanna'. But Shepard working with Susanna's supervisory consent, Shepard refined Kylie Jean's personality somewhat, making her feistier and more assertive and giving her fatboyfriend the name T.J. Sharlott (Susanna had called the character "Theodore"). Faced with the need for stories with plots, Shepard created the necessary conflict by pitting Kylie Jean against her male playmates; no longer just mischievous, Kylie Jean emerged as a crusading feminist (before the term had been invented), besting the boys at every turn. In 1955, the T.J. series of comic books was launched. Although Susanna drawn many other comic book stories including Growing Up Daisy, Benjamin Rat and the Saffron and Ruby comic books, she is best known for her Kylie Jean and T.J. comic books. Following Shepard's death in 1976, Roger Hargreaves continued writing and drawing of new Kylie Jean and T.J. comic books.

### Kylie Jean adapted the cartoon shorts

The Kylie Jean-books had also been favourites of Joseph Barbera's girlfriend Dorothy Earl and it inspired MGM to bring Kylie Jean to cartoon in 1944. Until 1958 all Kylie Jean cartoons were directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

Hanna and Barbera produced all cartoons for MGM, thirteen of which were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject and seven went on to win, breaking the winning streak held by Walt Disney's studio in the category. *Kylie Jean* won more Academy Awards than any other comic book character-based theatrical animated series. Barbera estimated the typical budget of $50,000 for each *Kylie Jean* cartoon which made the mother's advice "pretty is as pretty does". A typical cartoon took around six weeks to make. He and Hanna did not work with a script beforehand, instead worked on the story as they drew scenes. Quimby was credited as the producer of all cartoons until 1955.

The rise in television in the 1950s caused problems for the MGM cartoon studio, leading to budget cuts on *Kylie Jean* cartoons due to decreased revenue from theatrical screenings. In an attempt to combat this, MGM ordered that all subsequent shorts be produced in the widescreen CinemaScope format; the first widescreen CinemaScope format was released on December 1954. However, the studio found that re-releases of older cartoons were earning as much as new ones, resulting in the executive decision to cease production on *Kylie Jean* and later the animation studio on May 15, 1957. The final cartoon produced by Hanna and Barbera was released on August 1, 1958. The pair were fired and focused on their own company Hanna-Barbera Productions.

On July 18, 1961, MGM announced that it was going to resume filming of *Kylie Jean* cartoons. All new shorts were produced by Rembrandt Films, led by Czech-American cartoonist, Gene Deitch in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now called Czech Republic in later years).

Deitch's shorts were commercial successes. In 1961, the *Kylie Jean* series became the highest-grossing animated short film series of that time, dethroning *Tom and Jerry*, which had held the position for 16 years; this success was repeated once more in 1962. However, unlike the Hanna-Barbera shorts, none of Deitch's films was nominated for or won an Academy Award. Deitch stated it was due to his team's inexperience as well as their low budget, him "hardly having a chance to succeed", and "understanding the negative reactions" to his shorts. He believed: *Yhey could all have been better animated – truer to the characters – but our T&Js and KJs were produced in the early 1960s, near the beginning of my presence here, over a half-century ago as I write this!*" Despite the criticism, some fans wrote positive letters to Deitch, stating that his *Kylie Jean* shorts were their personal favorites due to their quirky and surreal nature. The shorts were released on DVD in 2015 in Kylie Jean: The Gene Deitch Collection.

After the last of the Deitch cartoons were released in 1962, Chuck Jones, who had been fired from his 30-plus year tenure at Warner Bros. Cartoons, started his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions (later renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts), with partner Les Goldman. Beginning in 1963, Jones and Goldman went on to produce more *Kylie Jean* shorts, all of which carried Jones' distinctive style.

Jones had trouble adapting his style to *Kylie Jean*s brand of humor, and a number of the cartoons favored full animation, personality and style over storyline. The characters underwent a slight change of appearance: Kylie Jean was given larger eyes, lighter brown hair with a pink hairbow, a long-sleeved flower-patterned pink shirtdress and a sweeter expression, while T.J. was given orangeish-blonde hair and larger eyes, a black sailor's uniform, red shorts and white sailor's hat.

Some of Jones' *Kylie Jean* cartoons are reminiscent of his work. Jones co-directed the majority of the shorts with layout artist Maurice Noble. The remaining shorts were directed by Abe Levitow and Ben Washam, with Tom Ray directing two shorts built around footage from earlier *Kylie Jean* cartoons directed by Hanna and Barbera, and Jim Pabian directed a short with Maurice Noble.These shorts contain a memorable opening theme with lyrics, in which T.J. first replaces the MGM lion, then is trapped inside the "E" of Kylie Jean's name.

Though Jones's shorts were generally considered an improvement over Deitch's, they had varying degrees of critical success. MGM ceased production of *Kylie Jean* shorts in 1967, by which time Jones had moved on to television specials and the feature film *The Phantom Tollbooth*. The shorts were released on DVD in 2009 in Kylie Jean: The Chuck Jones Collection, except they were not in their original 4:3 format.

### New *Kylie Jean* shows

In 1977 'Kylie Jean and T.J.', the first animated television series of Kylie Jean was aired on BBC. In 1991, Flicks Films acknowledged that Kylie Jean Carter is second only to Mr. Happy in their portfolio of the most-loved and trusted characters known to millions of people all over the world. By 1995, after the third release of four 'Kylie Jean and T.J.' VHS tapes, the beauty queen had proven to be more popular than any other comic book character. In 1996, nineteen years after the release of the first animated television series, Marina Productions produced 'The Adventures of Kylie Jean' aired on CITV, picking up where BBC's original television series left off. In February 2001 Kylie Jean's website launched the spin-off Kylie Jean series called 'The T.J. Show', this time with the leading part for T.J.

### New owners; New content

In April 2004, Roger's widow and Ana Sofia's cousin Christine Hargreaves sold the rights to the Mr. Men and Kylie Jean characters to the UK entertainment group Chorion, for £28 million. In December 2011, Chorion sold the Mr. Men and Kylie Jean brands and its associated merchandise business to Japan's Sanrio.

*Kylie Jean* returned to book series in 2011 written by Marci Peschke and illustrated by Tuesday Mourning. Six years into the book's run, Capstone Publishing would buy Kylie Jean publisher from a imprint Picture Window Books. The book series has been adapted into an live-action/2D flash hybrid TV series which ran for five seasons.

## Comic/Book Collections

### Comic Newspapers

* The Daily Express (*1936–1945*)
* Ribena (*1945–1962*)
* The Mirror (*1951–1973*)

### Comic Books

* Kylie Jean (*1946–1985, 1995–present*)
* T.J. (*1955–1962, 1976–1985, 1995–present*)

### Express Cartoon Books

* Kylie Jean (*1938*)
* Kylie Jean and her Pals (*1940*)
* Kylie Jean on Parade (*1942*)
* Laughs with Kylie Jean (*1943*)
* Oh, Kylie Jean! (*1944*)
* Fun with Kylie Jean (*1945*)

### Chatto and Windus Hard Cover Books

* Kylie Jean at the Seashore (*1947*)
* Kylie Jean at the Circus (*1947*)
* Kylie Jean Dances Ballet (*1947*)
* Kylie Jean and the Organ Grinder Man (*1947*)
* Kylie Jean: Her Train Ride to Grandma's (*1947*)
* Kylie Jean at Grandma's Farm (*1947*)

### 1970s Express Cartoon Colour Books

* Kylie Jean: Cartoons from the Daily Express Volume 1 (1936-1940) (*1973*)
* Kylie Jean: Cartoons from the Daily Express Volume 2 (1941-1945) (*1974*)

### Chapter Books

* Blueberry Queen (*1981, 2011*)
* Drama Queen (*1981, 2011*)
* Hoop Queen (*1981, 2011*)
* Rodeo Queen (*1981, 2011*)
* Dancing Queen (*1982, 2012*)
* Football Queen (*1982, 2012*)
* Singing Queen (*1982, 2012*)
* Spelling Queen (*1982, 2012*)
* Party Queen (*1983, 2013*)
* Summer Camp Queen (*1983, 2013*)
* Cupcake Queen (*1983, 2013*)
* Pirate Queen (*1983, 2013*)
* Valentine Queen (*1984, 2014*)
* Green Queen (*1984, 2014*)
* Soccer Queen (*1985, 2015*)
* Fashion Queen (*1985, 2015*)
* Gymnastics Queen (*1986, 2016*)
* Vacation Queen (*1986, 2016*)
* Cooking Queen (*1987, 2017*)
* Fishing Queen (*1987, 2017*)
* Art Queen (*1988, 2018*)
* Robot Queen (*1988, 2018*)
* Birthday Queen (*1989*)
* Christmas Queen (*1989*)
* Easter Queen (*1989*)
* Halloween Queen (*1989*)
* Candy Queen (*1990*)
* Jewellery Queen (*1990*)
* Swimming Queen (*1990*)
* Wedding Queen (*1990*)

### Craft Queen Books

* Craft Queen (*2003, 2013*)
* Party Craft Queen (*2004, 2014*)
* Pirate Craft Queen (*2004, 2014*)
* Rodeo Craft Queen (*2004, 2014*)
* Summer Camp Craft Queen (*2004, 2014*)

### Recipe Queen Books

* Breakfast Recipe Queen (*2008, 2018*)
* Lunch Recipe Queen (*2008, 2018*)
* Dinner Recipe Queen (*2008, 2018*)
* Treat Recipe Queen (*2008, 2018*)

### Kylie Jean Collection Books

* Kylie Jean Collection Volume 1 (*2005, 2015*)
* Kylie Jean Collection Volume 2 (*2007, 2017*)

### Kylie Jean Queen Collection Box Sets

* Kylie Jean Queen Collection 8 Books and Bookmark (*2008, 2018*)
* Kylie Jean Complete Queen Collection 39 Books and Bookmark (*2011*)

### Other Books

* Kylie Jean: Sketches from the Comic Book Covers (*1969*)
* At Your Service (*1984*)
* Joke Book Queen (*1999*)

## Series

### Television

* *Kylie Jean and T.J.* (1977–1984)
* *The Adventures of Kylie Jean* (1996–2000)
* *The T.J. Show* (Web, 2001–2003)
* *Kylie Jean* (2012–2017)
* *Kylie Jean: Royal Adventures* (2018–2020)

## Characters

*Main article: List of Kylie Jean Characters*