What About Mimi? is an award-winning Canadian Slice of Life Animated Series created by Chris Bartleman and Blair Peters and produced by Toronto's Decode Entertainment and Vancouver's Studio B Productions (both now part of WildBrain).
The show focuses on the everyday life of Mimi Mortin, a redheaded 11-year-old girl with a highly active imagination, a knack for creative problem-solving, and a bright outlook on life. Mimi lives in the town of Starfish Bay, where she attends school, hangs out with her friends Elaine and Russell, and deals with a variety of everyday kid problems like bullies, rivals (including her former friend and Alpha Bitch Sincerity Travers), parents, and teachers. Mimi, being who she is, can almost always come up with imaginative solutions to any challenges at hand, but even then the best-laid plans of 6th graders can still go astray. Fortunately, Mimi always has her friends, family, and plenty of other people in her life and behind her back to ensure she can always find a way to make sure things turn out okay.
The show debuted on Teletoon on October 4, 2000 and ran until August 14, 2002, ending with a grand total of 39 episodes over 3 seasons. While the first two seasons were full half-hour episodes, the third season changed the format to Two Shorts.
What About Mimi? contains examples of:
- The Ace: Sincerity is pretty, she's popular, and she has the highest grades in her class.
- Alliterative Name:
- Mimi and her dad, Marv, are both this.
- "Jokers Wild" introduces Jamie Jones.
- All-Loving Heroine: Mimi loves her friends, family, classmates and neighbors... Basically, anyone that isn't Sincerity.
- Alpha Bitch: Sincerity Travers.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Korean dub has a completely different theme song
. - Angry Guard Dog: Mr. Greeley's dog Glenn is this to a T.
- Anti-School Uniforms Plot: A proposal to establish a school uniform brought about a heated debate that nearly caused friction between Mimi (against the uniforms) and her friend Elaine (in favor of them). Sincerity was, much to Mimi's displeasure, against the uniforms, until she was given the position to design them herself.
- Borrowed Catch Phrase: When Mimi runs out of ideas about how to make Bradley's business fail in "Lemonade Kid", Bradley steps up to the plate before warning Elaine that he might freak her out by using Mimi's familiar Catchphrase.Bradley: Bradley's got a plan.
- The Bully: Brock and Buddy Wickersham, two devious troublemaking brothers who routinely make life difficult for Mimi and her friends with their incessant pranks. Their favorite target is resident nerd Herbert Finkle.
- Catchphrase: "Mimi's got a plan." If said plan fails and she comes up with another one, she'll say "Mimi's got ANOTHER plan."
- Cats Are Mean: Mimi's cat Wimbledon.
- Character Tic: Mimi tends to bite her pearls whenever she gets anxious. This usually is followed by an Imagine Spot.
- Child Hater: Despite only being 11, Sincerity loathes children. Mimi recalls a story where she tried to refund her baby brother at the mall.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Mimi constantly suffers from this, meddling in other people's affairs in order to set things right. Trouble is, Mimi often misinterprets the things she hears and her wild imagination tends to have her think of the worst possible outcome.
- Cynic–Idealist Duo: Bradley and Mimi respectively, especially when it comes to Mimi's plans:Bradley: I've got this feeling... Something's just waiting to go wrong.Mimi: You've always got that feeling.Bradley: And something always goes wrong.
- Dub Name Change: In the Korean dub Mimi Mortin's name was changed to Juri Ah-chan.
- Dumbass Has a Point: When Mimi tries to deal with Bradley's bully in "Jokers Wild", Jason posits the idea that Bradley asked them to stay out of it because he likes her, and that she's only pranking him because she likes him. Mimi initially dismisses the idea before realizing that her older brother is absolutely right.
- Easily Forgiven: In "The Great Campaign", Elaine forgives Sincerity for using the accidental death of her goldfish to smear her in the election, with Sincerity not even shown apologising on-screen.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Since she was once friends with Sincerity, Mimi has at least one that Sincerety asked her to destroy.
- Expy: Mimi Mortin is basically the Canadian equivalent of Pepper Ann.
- Eye-Obscuring Hat: Lodeman wears one.
- Former Friend of Alpha Bitch: Mimi and Sincerity were best friends as little kids, but they grew apart as they got older—by the start of the series, they're rivals/enemies.
- Free the Frogs: Mimi and Russell do this in "Leapfrog", thinking Mr. Petri brought in live frogs to dissect. However, it actually turned out that the frogs were Northern Spotted Swamp Toads, which are an endangered species. They spend the episode trying to track them down, and discover they've been procreating in the sewers.
- Friend to All Living Things: Elaine Pituskin. She even has a whole bunch of pets.
- Genki Girl: Mimi, if that picture up top didn't clue you in.
- Granola Girl: Mimi's mother is this in spades, forbidding her family from eating any meat. Mimi herself has shades of this.
- Gretzky Has the Ball: Mimi repeatedly gets sports terminology wrong during "Wildthing", prompting Elaine to correct her.
- Grumpy Old Man: Mr. Greely.
- Imagine Spot: Plenty, usually courtesy of Mimi.
- Insult Backfire: In "The Great Campaign", Sincerity says in a speech that Elaine still wears an undershirt (implying the latter suffers from A-Cup Angst, despite only being 11). Elaine's response? Tell everybody that Sincerity stuffs her bra with toilet paper.
- Ironic Name: Sincerity is anything but sincere. She has no qualms about lying to make herself look better.
- It's Personal: In "The Great Campaign" Elaine refuses to go along with Mimi's suggestions to stoop as low as Sincerity in the election up until Sincerity crosses the line by using the fact that Elaine accidentally killed her pet goldfish the previous month as a smear against her.
- Jerkass: Sincerity is a huge self-centered bitch.
- Jerkass to One: Mimi is nice and polite to everyone except Sincerity.
- Love Freak: Any plot involving romance (whether real or perceived) will instantly grab Mimi's attention. The very first scene in the series is Mimi gushing about how love is in the air with the arrival of spring.
- In "Cupid's Arrows", Mimi says she only makes an exception for romance when it involves her parents.
- Loving Bully: The episode "Jokers Wild" centers around a girl bullying Bradley because she likes him. A short flashback reveals that Mimi did something similar to a boy she liked when she was younger.
- The Matchmaker: "Second Honeymoon" involves Mimi getting her parents to have the titular second honeymoon, while simultaneously setting up Hayley with Russell at a party at her place. Hayley ends up matching with Brock.
- "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: In "The Stepford Twins", Mimi imitates this to infiltrate the home of her neighbors, as Sincerity is babysitting their kids and has left with them after activating the security system. To drive the parody home, Mimi declares it "Mission Possible" beforehand.
- Ms. Imagination: Mimi frequently lets her imagination get the better of her, prompting her to meddle in other people's affairs. For her part, she admits that she needs to rein it in a bit.
- Not So Above It All: As much as Elaine is all about peace and pacifism, she can be coerced into more underhanded tactics if pushed too far.
- Only Sane Man: Mimi's younger brother Bradley is this when his big sister has a plan.
- Oral Fixation: You know an Imagine Spot is going to start when Mimi starts biting on her necklace.
- The Pollyanna: Thanks to her intense imagination, Mimi often believes the best can come out of any plan she comes up. This tends to backfire on her whenever said plans don't work out.
- Professional Voice Dissonance: Jake Amore in "Lights, Camera, Action" is a very big, muscular man—while he's portrayed with deep baritone-like voice in his movies, it's revealed that it's digitally altered, and that his natural voice is very high and squeaky.
- Putting the Pee in Pool: One of the Crabdinkle kids pees in the kiddy pool at the end of "The Stepford Twins".
- Real Men Wear Pink: As it turns out, Brock is really into tea parties with stuffed animals.
- Shout-Out: The bullies are called Brock and Buddy Wickersham.
- Sleep Deprivation: Mimi's trials and tribulations with the Crabdinkle kids leave her wanting for sleep. She eats her lunch bag instead of what's inside it.
- Speech Impediment: Brock speaks with a Daffy Duck-style lisp.
- Spit Take: Mimi does this in "Poster Cat" when she finds out Wimbledon will be put down for being "vicious."
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In "Poster Cat" Mimi tries to fix Wimbledon's behavior and teach him tricks. It doesn't work, as cats cannot be taught obedience and tricks the same way dogs can.
- There Will Be Toilet Paper: In "Forget Etiquette" Mimi rushes her dad out of the bathroom when he's shaving because the Travers have arrived. The next scene is him sitting at the dinner table with bandages on his face.
- Tsundere: Mimi has some traits of this, being normally sweet but can get angry like nobody's business. When it comes to her cat Wimbledon and the Crabdinkle kids, she frequently gets frustrated with them but defiantly admits that she loves them both.
- The Unpronounceable: In "Outta Sync", Trevor from the band Outta Sync is unable to pronounce Hayley Kinaschuk's last name. Nobody else has a problem pronouncing it.
- Urine Trouble: Wimbledon pees on Brock's boot in the episode "Second Honeymoon."
- Upper-Class Twit: Sincerity's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Travers, are this.
- Wild Teen Party: "Second Honeymoon" has Jason throw one.
- We Used to Be Friends: Mimi and Sincerity were good friends when they were younger but grew apart as their interests diverged. This forms the crux of their intense rivalry, although it's hinted on occasion that they do care about each other. Any attempt to reconcile said friendship though will result in failure.
- Youthful Freckles: Mimi and Bradley.
