Hello Kitty Special: Hello Kitty 101, a brief history of Hello Kitty

The history of Hello Kitty is both boring and fascinating at the same time. To start with, Hello Kitty has no real animated character design history. Unlike Mickey Mouse or Snoopy, she was not born out of a cartoon show or a video game. Put simply, Hello Kitty started out in the ’70s as an image put on stuff. Without any real advertising, the success of Hello Kitty skyrocketed Sanrio into a billion dollar business with half of the revenue from Hello Kitty. Still going strong today, it’s safe to say Hello Kitty’s got more than 9 lives.

In the real world, Hello Kitty was born in Japan in 1974, when a young Tokyo-based company called Sanrio asked designer Ikuko Shimizu to invent a cartoon animal who would appeal to the preteen girl in everyone. Sanrio, which already had a bear and a dog (and, curiously, a strawberry) in its growing cast of characters, needed the new critter to decorate a plastic coin purse it was planning to produce. The plastic coin purse went on to be the first Hello Kitty product in 1974:

Surprisingly in what little details of a Hello Kitty back story there is, she isn’t even Japanese. She lives in the suburbs outside London with her father, George White; mother, Mary White; and twin sister, Mimmy White. Yes, Hello Kitty is a nickname; her birth certificate reads Kitty White. How to tell Kitty and Mimmy apart? Look at the bow. Hello Kitty prefers a red bow in her left ear; Mimmy opts for yellow on her right. Other occupants of the White house include Bear, apparently a living teddy, and Moley, who pops up in the garden. The name White is often recognized as a sign of surging Anglophilia of 1970s Japan, notably the books and illustrations of Beatrix Potter (The Tale of Peter Rabbit) and Lewis Carroll (Alice Through the Looking Glass).

Some fun facts about Hello Kitty:

- Celebs who love Hello Kitty: Christina Aguilera, Drew Barrymore, Big Boi of OutKast, Cameron Diaz, Mariah Carey, Carmen Electra, Calista Flockhart, Heidi Klum, Lindsay Lohan, Mandy Moore, Kelly Osbourne, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kimora Lee Simmons, Raven Simone, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Steven Tyler and Miley Cyrus.
- Hello Kitty’s weight is equivalent to three apples.
- Hello Kitty’s favorite snack is her mom’s apple pie, ideally “served with honey vanilla ice cream topped with cookie crunch,” according to Hello Kitty Hello Everything.
- Hello Kitty’s favorite bedtime story is Mysterious Forest.
- Sanrio has 400 outstanding lawsuits against sellers of knockoff Hello Kitty merchandise, according to Oregon’s Portland Herald. The faux-feline merchandise is an $800 million industry.

Source: Hello Kitty Universe