Hello Kitty Is Not a Cat and We’re Not OK
Fans are feeling a little hi, little low, little hey, little ho over this news.
Social media was recently set ablaze when users learned that Stuart Little, the titular character of E.B. White’s 1945 children’s book that inspired the 1999 film Stuart Little and its subsequent sequels, wasn’t a mouse at all, but an actual child.
“I’ve just now learned that in the STUART LITTLE book, Stuart is not actually a mouse but a human boy who looks like a mouse,” one user wrote on X, “and I don’t know how to process this.”
And the fan wasn’t alone in their disbelief, as many others jumped into his comments to share their shock.
“That’s just not right. Not right at all. No, sirree, Bob,” one responded. Another added, “All those mouse shenanigans were human shenanigans??”
And one joked, “Finding out Stuart Little is actually a tiny human that just looks like a mouse feels less ‘children’s book’ and more the family made a deal with something and agreed to raise whatever showed up.”
The revelation was likely especially surprising for those who had only seen the film version of the story, in which Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) is adopted from an orphanage by Mr. Little (Hugh Laurie) and Mrs. Little (Geena Davis).
However, in White’s 1945 book, the character has a much different origin story, as the beginning of the book reads, “When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse.”
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“The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way,” the book’s intro continues. “He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse’s sharp nose, a mouse’s tail, a mouse’s whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse.”
The novel noted that when Stuart was “many days old,” he both looked like a mouse and acted like one as well, albeit “wearing a gray hat and carrying a small cane.”
Stuart grew up rapidly, with the book explaining, “When he was a week old he could climb lamps by shinnying up the cord. Mrs. Little saw right away that the infant clothes she had provided were unsuitable, and she set to work and made him a fine little blue worsted suit with patch pockets in which he could keep his handkerchief, his money, and his keys.”
Interestingly, readers of Stuart Little have been surprised about his birth story since the book’s release. Famed writer and librarian Anne Carroll Moore had a very intense reaction when White’s editor sent her the original manuscript, as described in Melissa Sweet’s Some Writer!, a 2016 biography of White.
“’I was never so disappointed in a book in my life,’” she said, with the biography stating, “She wrote an urgent fourteen-page letter to the Whites explaining why Stuart Little, with its ‘monstrous birth,’ should not be published.”
According to the biography, Anne was afraid that White “had blurred the line between fantasy and reality.”
“‘How could a mouse be born to humans? The two worlds are all mixed up,’” she wrote. “‘I fear Stuart Little will be very difficult to place in libraries and schools all over the country.’”
And while the film reimagined the character as being adopted, the suggestion was originally given to White shortly after the book’s release by his boss Harold Ross, who said the author had “made one serious mistake” in having the character born into the family.
And White eventually took the reception to heart. The first editions of Stuart Little had it written that the character had actually been “born” to the Littles, but, in later editions, White changed the novel’s beginning to say he had “arrived” to them instead.
But Stuart Little isn’t the only beloved character with a surprising history. Keep reading to learn more about some of your favorite animated icons.
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Hello Kitty Isn’t a Cat
Many fans were left purrrrrfectly confused after this revelation.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” Jill Cook—an executive at Sanrio, the company behind the character—explained to Today in July 2024. “She’s actually a little girl born and raised in the suburbs of London. She has a mom and dad and a twin sister Mimmy who’s also her best friend. She enjoys baking cookies and making new friends.”
While the news may have surprised some, Cook wasn’t the first to share this insight. As a matter of fact, Christine R. Yano—a professor of anthropology who penned the book Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific—had also previously confirmed that Hello Kitty isn’t a feline.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”
Other fun facts about Hello Kitty? According to Sanrio, she is five apples tall, weighs three apples, was born on November 1 (making her a Scorpio) and dreams of being a pianist or poet.
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Goofy Isn’t a Dog
Gawrsh! Did you know this fact?
Bill Farmer, who’s provided the voice of Goofy for decades, explained why the Disney character can talk while Mickey Mouse’s pet Pluto can’t.
Goofy is “not a dog, but he’s a canine,” the voice actor said on an August 2024 episode of Popcorn Podcast with Leigh Livingstone and Tim Iffland. “So it’s kind of like a wolf is not a dog but it’s a canine—same thing. Goofus canis, that’s what he is. Or, he’s a MOG—he’s a man-dog.”
However, Pluto, he added, is a “regular dog”—a blood hound as it turns out.
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Squidward Isn’t a Squid
You’ll want to get to the (bikini) bottom of this discovery.
SpongeBob SquarePants‘ creator Stephen Hillenburg once revealed that Squidward Tentacles is actually an octopus—not a squid.
“This is Squidward the Octopus, SpongeBob’s grumpy next-door neighboor,” he shared in the 2005 Case Of The Sponge ‘Bob’ video resurfaced by BuzzFeed. “I like the octopus for this character because they have such a large, bulbous head, and Squidward thinks he’s an intellectual so, of course, he’s going to have a large, bulbous head.”
But if you’re wondering how Squidward can be an octopus when he has only six legs instead of eight, Hillenburg had an answer for that, too—noting “it was really just easier for animation to draw him” with fewer tentacles.
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Blue From Blue’s Clues Was Originally an Orange Cat
Break out your handy dandy notebook and jot this one down.
“One of the things that nobody knows is that Blue was originally a cat,” the show’s co-creator Angela Santomero said in the 2006 special Behind the Clues: 10 Years With Blue resurfaced by Mental Floss. “First his name was Mr. Orange and then we’re like, ‘Uh, maybe Mr. Blue.'”
But according to the special, Nickelodeon was already working on a series about a cat—leading animators to toss out the original idea and redesign Blue as a dog.
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Doug Was Almost Named Brian
Now this really isn’t funnie, er, funny.
But as it turns out, Doug Funnie from the cartoon series Doug was almost named Brian. As for what led to the change?
“I just thought Brian was too fancy of a name,” Doug creator Jim Jinkins told HuffPost TV in 2014, “So, I geared it down, and started calling him Doug. If you think about what that sounds like, it sounds incredibly average, and that’s what I was trying to do: express from that point of view.”
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Boo From Monsters, Inc. Isn’t Her Full Name
This fact is so good it’s scary.
In Monsters, Inc.: An Augmented Reality Book, the name of Boo—the little girl who accidentally ends up in Monstropolis and befriends monsters Mike and Sulley—is revealed to be Mary Gibbs, according to BuzzFeed. And if the name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the real-life moniker of the actress who provided the voice of Boo.
Need more proof? In the movie, there’s actually a scene where Boo is sorting through some of her drawings and fans can spot the name “Mary” scribbled at the top of one of the pieces of paper.
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Minnie Mouse Has a Longer Moniker
Speaking of names, while Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend is often called Minnie Mouse, according to the BBC, it was revealed in 1942 that her full name is actually Minerva.
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