Horrid Henry

"Don't be horrid, Henry!"

Series of children's books about the eponymous Horrid Henry, his friends the Purple Hand Gang, his enemies (like teachers, dinner ladies, classmate Moody Margaret) and his family. Has been made into a cartoon series for ITV and a 2011 live action film.

The books to date are:

• Horrid Henry (1994)
• Horrid Henry and the Secret Club (1995)
• Horrid Henry Tricks the Tooth Fairy (1996)
• Horrid Henry's Nits (1997)
• Horrid Henry Gets Rich Quick (1998)
• Horrid Henry's Haunted House (1999)
• Horrid Henry and the Mummy's Curse (2000)
• Horrid Henry's Revenge (2001)
• Horrid Henry and the Bogey Babysitter (2002)
• Horrid Henry's Stinkbomb (2002)
• Horrid Henry's Underpants (2003)
• Horrid Henry Meets The Queen (2004)
• Horrid Henry and the Mega-Mean Time Machine (2005)
• Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend (2006)
• Horrid Henry's Christmas Cracker (2006)
• Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman (2007)
• Horrid Henry Robs The Bank (2008)
• Horrid Henry Wakes the Dead (2009)
• Horrid Henry Rocks (2010)
• Horrid Henry and the Zombie Vampire (2011)
• Horrid Henry's Monster Movie (2012)

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Horrid Henry contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Henry's parents are guilty under Emotional Abuse towards Henry.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Everyone's nickname; Horrid Henry, Sour Susan, Perfect Peter, etc.
• Adults Are Useless
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Subverted in Horrid Henry, Horrid Headmaster, when he becomes the headmaster of Ashton Primary.
• Always Someone Better: In Horrid Henry and the Dinner Guest, Mum's boss, Mr. Mossy, reveals to Henry that he was a lot like him in his childhood and discovered that sooner or later you'll find someone better than yourself.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Perfect Peter.
• Anti-Hero/Anti Role Model: Horrid Henry.
• Ascended Fanboy: One episode features Henry joining the Killer Boy Rats, his favourite band.
• Babysitter From Hell: Rabid Rebecca
• Beware the Nice Ones: Peter may look like a "smelly nappy baby", as Henry calls him, but as we find out in Perfect Peter Pumps Up, he can get pretty nasty if someone messes with his bunny
• Big Bad: Moody Margaret Perfect Peter and Miss Battle Axe are mostly this but the movie has Vic Van Wrinkle who wants to close down ashton primary so he is a Dean Bitterman Turned up to eleven
• Big Eater: Greedy Graham.
• Big No: Henry gets a lot of these, at least Once an Episode.
  • And not just Henry, the majority of the main characters has done this at least once.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Perfect Peter enjoys seeing Henry get into trouble, and tries to provoke him into bullying him when Henry's trying to behave himself.
• Book Dumb: Henry.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Horrid Henry and Moody Margaret.
• Big Brother Bully: Henry, to Peter.
• Catch Phrase:

Beefy Bert: "I dunno." Happy Hippos: "We're happy, we're clappy, we're the Happy Hippos." Gross Class Zero: "Snot, bogies, fart, poo! We're all sick and so are you!"

• Chekhov's Gun : In the movie, while the kids are lining up for the talent show, we have a short scene where we are introducted to Vicious Vicky, Sour Susan's little sister, who bites a boy, with narration from Henry explaining who she is. Later on, when Soggy Sid tries to stop the Zero Zombies' performance, Vicious Vicky is let loose on the stage to stop him. She does this by, among other things, biting him on the ass!
• Comic Book Time : Not to the extent of The Simpsons or South Park, as the Horrid Henry tv series isn't as much of a Long Runner as them, but although officially its third season hasn't ended yet, it has been running since 2006 and none of the characters have aged a day.
• Cross-Dressing Voices : Lizzie Waterworth and Emma Tate as Henry and Peter receptively in the cartoon
• Dance Party Ending : The Movie has one It names the actors of Henry Battle Axe Soggy Sid Miss Oddbod Greasy Greta Miss Lovely Vic Van Wrinkle Prissy Polly and The 2C4S Hosts
• Devil in Plain Sight : Rabid Rebecca.
• Eureka Moment
• Eyes Always Shut : In "Horrid Henry Reads a Book", Henry decides to make up various "Happy Nappy" stories for the competition to write the most book reports, saying that Miss Battle-Axe can't have read all the books in the world. He makes up stories about Happy Nappies in various places around the world such as Happy Nappies in Germany, Paris, New York, Japan, Australia, and Canada. The Japanese Happy Nappy just happens to have closed eyes.
• Fiery Redhead : Henry; his father may also qualify.
• Game Show Appearance : Fake game show 2Cool4School features in the film version.
  • It also appears in two episodes of Series 3 of the TV series. Strangely, only the opening sequence is shown on both occasions.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel : In one of the episodes when Peter turns horrid his devil is telling him to be like his brother & his angel is telling him not to because he's born to be good.
• Gotta Catch Em All : Henry and his friends collected Gizmos once, with the Gold Gizmo being the most prized. The Gizmo is the focus of a book
• story, a TV episode, and an online game, Horrid Henry 2, where Henry has to take all 30 of Peter's Gizmos.
• Go to Your Room : Henry's parents often say it to him.
• Gray and Grey Morality : Henry and Margaret see each other as arch-enemies, though they're probably both as mean and badly-behaved as each other.
• Hair of Gold: Peter and his mother.
• Imagine Spot: Henry often gets one, usually involving him turning into a predatory animal and harrassing Peter.
• Jerkass: Several, including Horrid Henry and Rabid Rebecca.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: For all of the bullying he does, when it comes down to it, Henry does care about Peter, once pushing him away from a falling bookcase and getting crushed himself. Of course, he didn't want to admit he did it because he cared.
• Lovable Rogue / Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist : Henry is perhaps the king of these tropes.
• Meaningful Name : Hear a character's nickname and you know what they're about.
• Momma's Boy : Perfect Peter.
• My Name Is Not Durwood : Henry's Great Aunt Greta calls him Henrietta, as she thinks he's a girl due to her senility.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast : Miss Battle-Axe.
• No Fourth Wall: The animated series just completely throws the fourth wall away, with Henry and the other characters constantly addressing and explaining things to the audience. Also broken in the movie, but not as much as the series.
• Oh Crap: In one episode where Henry tries to watch a football match even though he has to go to Stuck-Up Steve's birthday party, he resorts to listening to it on a portable radio. The match gets so exciting he accidently knocks the giant birthday cake over Aunt Ruby, when everyone yells "Henry!", the episode ends on Henry: "Oops."
• Parental Favouritism: Pefect Peter often seems to be the favourite child, especially to his mother, which naturally leaves Henry as The Unfavourite.
• Long Running Book Series: Been running since 1994, currently 20 books with a 21st coming soon.
• Remake Cameo: Elizabeth Waterworth-Santo, who voices Henry in the animated series, has a non-speaking cameo in the movie as Nitty Nora the nit nurse.
• Rich Bastard: Stuck-Up Steve, who acts like a male version of the Alpha Bitch.
• The Stool Pigeon: Perfect Peter.
• Teens Are Monsters: Rabid Rebecca