YMMV / Pippi Longstocking

• Adaptation Displacement: Few children nowadays are introduced to Pippi by reading the books. More often, they watch the movies or cartoons first and might read the books later.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Blom and Dunder-Karlsson in the 1997 animated movie. Considering how they mean no real harm towards Pippi, and how their motivations are revealed to be relatively harmless in their "I Want" Song, they could be analyzed as a couple of tragically poor buffoons who desperately want to live a better life. On the other hand, they make no qualms about robbing a little girl blind, and they had to have done something to land themselves in jail in the first place.
  • Mrs. Prysselius in the animated adaptation as well. In the 1969 TV series, she was certainly a bit overbearing, but she was genuinely concerned for Pippi's well-being, considering how Pippi was possibly an orphan who needed proper adult supervision to avoid running into dangerous situations, or even causing any trouble, as she was admittedly a rather loose cannon. However, in the 1997 film, it seems she has no concern for Pippi's safety, only wanting Pippi in the children's home so she could maintain her vision of order in the town by having Pippi out of the picture, and the fact that she sends two (albeit harmless) criminals to capture her supports this, making her a persistent Control Freak.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Swedish policemen were indeed armed with swords at the time the book was published. Until the 1960s, in fact.
• Awesome Music: The 1969 TV opening song has gone memetic. Just about every child in Sweden knows it. It's especially popular in Germany, to the point that it's been covered by punk bands, remixed by techno DJs, and even big crowds at soccer games will spontaneously sing it. Also very popular in Finland.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: From the 1997 animated movie, Blom and Dunder-Karlsson's song of wishing for a bowler and a gold tooth, respectively. While it does have a catchy tune and offers an introduction to these two and their motives, it comes right out of left field and is never addressed again afterward.
• Designated Villain: Mrs. Prysselius is your standard "social worker/nosy busybody just doing her job" brand of Designated Villain depending on the writer.
• Escapist Character: Pippi is essentially a power fantasy for children.
• It Was His Sled: All through the first book, everyone except Pippi thinks her father drowned in a storm. At the end of the book, he turns out to not only be alive and well, but pretty much all of Pippi's tall tales and speculations about him turn out to be completely accurate. Surprising when the book first came out, but by now everyone with even the slightest bit of knowledge about the franchise knows that he isn't dead.
• Jerkass Woobie: Despite being small-time criminals, Dunder-Karlsson and Blom can count as this. They're so poor that their time in jail is one of the few times when they're relatively happy.
• Questionable Casting: Astrid Lindgren was not happy with the 1949 film partially due to nine-year-old Pippi Longstocking being played by then-26-year-old Viveca Serlachius.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Lying is Serious Business; Annika doesn't like that Pippi is a Consummate Liar, even though Tommy points out that anyone can realize that Pippi is just being The Gadfly and it's more like her telling stories. A lot of people take offense when they realize Pippi is a liar, even though her stories are too ridiculous to be true. These days, she'd just be seen as an imaginative child.
  • Pippi's father is titled "Negro King of the South Sea" or "Cannibal King". The books were written in the middle of the 20th century, when this was still considered socially acceptable. Lindgren made it clear early on that the Kurrekurredutt were not really cannibals, having given it up many years before Ephraim was there. The Animated Adaptation from 1997 tried to soften it by changing it to "Rear Admiral of the Kingdom of Kurrekurredutt" with someone else introduced as head of state, and recent Swedish editions of the book as well as the modern Norwegian audio adaptations refer to him only as a "King of the South Sea". Astrid Lindgren herself later expressed embarrassment at giving him that title.
    A white guy who arrives in the south seas, puts on a bamboo skirt and is immediately crowned king?! Times change, and there's no way I'd make him a "negro king" today. He would have been a sea captain or a pirate.