Mr. Impossible and The Emperor’s New Clothes is a story from the 1981 Annual.
Plot[]
Mr. Impossible was leap-frogging over the woods near William's school. Mr. Impossible soon found William sitting at the bottom of the highest tree crying. Mr. Impossible asked his friend what was wrong and William told him how he was to play the Emperor in his school play tonight but hurt his knee before the show and his teacher said "An important-looking Emperor can't be limping about the stage with a bandage wrapped around his knee." Mr. Impossible was amazed and wanted to hear the play William was to be participating in. The play was about the famous fairy story, The Emperor's New Clothes: the story of how a vain and foolish emperor was tricked by two naughty weavers into wearing an invisible suit of clothes. Now Mr. Impossible never heard the story, so William told it to him.
"There was once an Emperor who was obsessed with fancy new clothes and spent much of the kingdom's expenses on his wardrobe. Two naughty men came to the Emperor one day disguised as weavers and offered to make a special suit for Emperor to wear at the royal parade. They said it would be spun from a gold thread that only the wise and clever people could see and the suit was invisible to everyone else. The trick was that the weavers didn't make a suit at all and kept the gold thread that the Emperor gave them. Since the suit was "invisible" the Emperor was anxious that he would not appear a fool in his new suit. The Emperor pretended to see the work the weavers had done and had the Prime Minister, Chancellor, and Members of the Court look at the suit as well. Not wishing to appear as fools, all who saw the suit prior to the Royal Parade pretended to see the suit as well. By the time the Royal Parade arrived, the Emperor was bare except for his underpants. This made him look silly to his subjects and only realized his deception when a child said, 'the Emperor hasn't got any clothes on!" The naughty men made off with the gold thread while the Emperor learned a valuable lesson on being vain and foolish."
Mr. Impossible loved the story and even made his own hat disappear. The two decided to put on their own play called "Emperor William and the Invisible Clothes" with William as the Emperor and Mr. Impossible's fellow Mr. Men taking part in the other roles. The naughty men posing as the weavers would be portrayed by Mr. Mischief and Mr. Busy, Mr. Fussy would be the Prime Minister, Mr. Chatterbox played the Chancellor, and Mr. Messy, Mr. Grumpy, Mr. Worry, Mr. Quiet, Mr. Tall, and Mr. Clever would be in other roles. Mr. Impossible took it upon himself to be the prompter and remind anyone of their lines if they forget them (as he memorized the play).
Everyone came to watch the show, including William's parents. The play was a rousing success with the only problem being Mr. Chatterbox adlibbing his lines as the Chancellor and making the play go on longer than it should have. William was happy to play the role of the Emperor despite having an injured knee. An injured knee was nothing compared to marching around in your underwear anyway.
List of Characters[]
- Mr. Impossible
- William
- Mr. Tall
- Mr. Fussy
- Mr. Worry
- William's Mother
- William's Father
- Mr. Mischief
- Mr. Messy
- Mr. Busy
- Mr. Chatterbox
- Mr. Clever