Literature / Little Princess

"She's a Little Princess!"

Little Princess is a book series by Tony Ross, about a very spoiled princess. The first book, I Want My Potty (published 1986), was popular enough that it spun off an entire series of books, and resulted in King Rollo Productions creating an animated series based on the character. In 2006, The Illuminated Film Company (no relations to Illumination Entertainment) picked up the rights to produce a new animated series for the show; this series ran three seasons with a total of 100 episodes. The show is also so popular it overshadows the books^note The Other Wiki has a whole page for the show, but the books are lumped into the page of writer Tony Ross, and still repeats on Channel 5's Milkshake block in the UK to this day.

Not related to Alice Soft's Little Princess, and in fact targets a completely different audience. Not to be mistaken with A Little Princess, The Little Prince or LilPri. Not to be confused with Little Miss Princess, even if both are British.

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Tony Ross' Little Princess consists of the following tropes:

• Accidental Dance Craze: At the end of "I Don't Want to Dance", Princess is demonstrating what she doesn't like about dancing. Her movements become a "dance".
• Affectionate Nickname: The King and Queen often call the Princess things like "Sweetheart" and "Poppet".
• Age-Appropriate Angst: Little Princess makes a big deal out of things, but lots of preschoolers do.
• Alliterative List: In "I Want to Do Magic", the Princess wants to make "ducks, dogs and a dinosaur" out of balloons.
• Ambiguous Ending:
  • At the end of "I Don't Want a Cold", the Princess recovers from her cold and everyone tries to have the picnic again. However, when the adults all sneeze, the Princess immediately assumes they've caught her cold and cancels the picnic. It's left unclear whether the adults really have caught her cold.
  • "I Don't Want Nits" ends with Puss and several of the adults scratching themselves. It's unclear whether the humans caught the Princess's lice and Puss caught Scruff's fleas, or if they're imagining an itch due to their already-established fear of the insects. At the end, it's rendered moot, since they get shampooed anyway.
• Ambiguously Brown: The gardener. He has brown skin, but his ethnicity is never mentioned.
• Animal Lover: The Princess has never met an animal she didn't like. In fact, in "I Want a Sister", she initially wants another dog (specifically a puppy) instead of a sibling.
• Animated Adaptation: "I Want My Potty" was the first book of the series and came first, and the TV series came much later.
• Appetite Equals Health: In "I Don't Want a Cold", the narrator thinks it's a good sign when the Princess says she's hungry.
• An Arm and a Leg: Gilbert loses his leg in "What's Wrong With Gilbert?", but he's a teddy bear so it can easily be sewn back on.
• Artistic Licence – Biology: In "Can I Keep It?", Taddy the tadpole turns into a frog in a few minutes, whereas in real life, it takes a few days at least.
• Bad Liar: Most of the Princess's lies are unconvincing.
• Bad Mood Retreat: Downplayed for the tree in the yard. The Princess often climbs there to sulk, but it's not her only sulking place and she doesn't exclusively go there to sulk.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: In one of the animated skits not part of the TV series, the Princess falls from a tree and her skirt blows up and she's not wearing underwear, but her vulva is not seen.
• Batman Gambit: In "I Want My Voice Back", the Princess loses her voice and gets it back, but pretends it's still gone. When the maid discovers that she's bluffing, she and the other adults try to get her to know that they know she can talk by using this plan, which relies on the fact that the Princess would want to play hide-and-seek.
  Maid: "Right then. Who wants to play hide-and-seek?"
  Queen: "Oh, I do."
  Prime Minister: "Me too."
  Princess: (jumps up and down and rings her bell)
  Maid: " Just the Queen and Prime Minister then? Anybody else?"
  Princess: (keeps jumping and ringing)
  Maid: "Nobody else?"
  Princess: (keeps jumping and ringing)
  Maid: "Nobody else, then."
  Princess: "Ugh. Me! I want to play!"
  Maid: "Aha! So you can talk!"
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Happens several times.
  • In "I Want a Bicycle", the Princess gets a bike, but can't ride it properly.
  • In "I Want a Sledge", the Princess gets a sledge but is too small for it.
  • In "I Want a Surprise", the Princess is impatient to find out her birthday presents, but is bored and wants a surprise on the day.
• Big "NO!": The Princess shouts, "No!" several times in the series.
  • In "Can I Have It Back Now, Please?" when she realises that she forgot to say that she only lent her cousin Gilbert.
  • She also does one upon learning the maid is taking Gilbert to the laundry room in "What's Wrong With Gilbert?".
• Big Word Shout: In addition to her Big No moments and when she's calling someone, "I Don't Want Nits", when the Princess's head is itchy and the Maid suggests that she has nits and explains what lice are, the Princess shouts out "BUGS!!".
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • "I Want My Dummy" ends with the Princess giving up her dummy of her own accord, but everyone else is sad that they made each other give their hobbies up.
  • At the end of "I Don't Want a Cold", the Princess is happy, yet the adults might have caught her cold and the picnic is off.
  • "I Want to Go to the Fair" ends with the Princess happy and with two new goldfish as pets, but still injured. In addition, she and the Queen are also tired.
  • In "I Want a Bicycle", the Princess never learns to ride a bicycle, but she can ride on the back of the King's.
  • At the end of "I Want My Plaster", the Princess and General's injuries have healed and the kite is now unstuck, but the Princess's other leg is now injured in the same place, and both pets have their own injuries.
• Bedsheet Ghost: This is the King's costume in "I Want to Dress Up." The Queen grumbles that she hopes it's not one of the good bedsheets.
• Birthday Episode: It's the General's birthday in "I Want to Cook" and the Princess's birthday in "I Want a Surprise".
• Blatant Lies: Happens several times.
  • In "I Didn't Do It", the lie that Scruff made the mess seemed reasonable, but the one before it was "Gilbert did it".
  • In "I Want to Play Football", the Princess tries to lie about knocking the head off the statue, but fesses up because none of her lies sounded convincing. First she tried to blame it on the wind, but there was no wind in the house, so she changed it to a big bird, and then a monster, all while acting awkward. If that wasn't enough proof that she was lying, she then adds "It WAS a monster! It was!!" and runs into her room, sobbing.
  • When the Princess steals a cake in "I Can Keep a Secret", she says it's for Gilbert. Later discussed with "I could say it wasn't me [who told the secret], but I'm the only one who knew".
  • In "I Don't Want to Kiss Great Auntie", the grownups all lie to avoid admitting they can't find the Princess. Most of their individual excuses sound reasonable, but put together it's clear that they are lying. That and the Admiral says "[She's in the] navy".
• Bratty Food Demand: In "I Don't Want a Cold", the Princess, who is a bit demanding due to only being four, shouts, "I'm hungry!" at the top of her lungs.
• British Royal Guards: One that rides a cork horse no less.
• Bumbling Dad: Downplayed for the King. He's a bit wacky and sometimes has his moments of incompetence, but isn't outright stupid.
• Butt-Monkey: Poor Puss is clearly a cat that is not cut out for life with a Little Princess. Whether it's being drafted as a replacement for her favourite teddy bear or getting sneezed on when she has a cold, he can't catch a break. What potentially keeps him from descending into Woobie territory is that he seems to revel in any indignities that might happen to the show's dog, Scruff.
• Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: Princess does this frequently. One story is even called "I Want My Potty".
• Canine Confusion: Several examples involving Scruff the dog:
  • In "I Want My Tooth", when his teeth are being brushed, he is shown without fangs and with humanlike incisors and molars.
  • Chocolate makes dogs sick, but in "I Want My Dummy", "I Want a Surprise", "I Want to Cook", and "I Want a Midnight Feast", Scruff eats it and is fine.
  • In "I Don't Want to Leave Home", he and Puss kiss each other. Dogs, in real life, express affection by licking.
• Caretaker Reversal: In "I Don't Want a Cold", the Princess catches a cold. At the end of the episode, when she thinks the adults have caught her cold, she gives them blankets, foot baths, and broth.
• Carrying a Cake: The chef carries desserts sometimes. Sometimes something goes wrong and sometimes not.
• Cassandra Truth: In one of the books, the Little Princess is blamed for eating the Chef's chocolate cake, walking on the Maid's sheet, walking on the gardener's radishes, and muddying the house. She says she didn't do it, but nobody believes her. Turns out, the real culprit was their neighbour, a prince the princess's age. Though he did save her a piece of cake.
• Cats Are Mean: Puss acts mean sometimes, although it's not stated to be a thing for all cats.
• Cats Hate Water: Puss often seems to dislike getting wet.
• Character Death: The Princess's unfortunate snail Speedy in "I Want My Snail". He got squashed.
• Character Tics: The Princess has a habit of skipping when she's happy and circling her feet when she's lying.
• Christmas Episode: In "I Want to Be Good", the Little Princess tries to be good for Christmas.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Every single character in the TV series, making it seem like the show is set in a Cloud Cuckooland. The king is dressed in a business suit instead of royal garbs save for the crown on his head, the palace guard rides a cork horse (and he's the only guard), and an admiral that permanently wears a flotation device shaped like a duck. And that's just a sampling of it. Chef seems to be a bit less of it, if rather obsessed with his job. Maid also isn't quite as wacky, though she has her moments. Princess herself also often comes across as just a normal little girl, if sometimes a bit of a goof.
• Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: Every morning, a rooster is seen crowing in a tree.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: In "I Want to Go to the Fair", the Queen falls over and her bloomers are visible.
• Companion Cube:
  • When the Princess grows a tomato plant, she names it "Tommy" and plays with it like a toy.
  • The Princess never draws with one particular set of crayons, instead she plays with them like toys.
• The Compliance Game:
  • In "I Want Baked Beans", the Princess wants to have baked beans for lunch instead of the pasta that's on offer. The King tries getting her to eat it by pretending the spoon is a plane, but she says, "I'm too old for that game."
  • In "I Want to Cook", the Princess wants Puss the cat to be her food taster, but he refuses to eat anything. She eventually gets him to eat by pretending the spoon is an airplane, since it's what her parents do when she refuses food.
• Cone of Shame: In "I Want My Plaster," Scruff is seen in the cone of shame after hurting his foot. Puss takes it as an opportunity for an amusing game, throwing various coloured balls inside the cone. At the end of the episode, he gets a cone too after he and Princess have an accident.
• Conflict Ball: In "I Want a Boyfriend", the Princess and her "boyfriend" Donald argue about what to do which leads to them "breaking up". Donald suggests playing football and Princess says she doesn't like it... even though one whole storyline is called "I Want to Play Football."
• Conforming OOC Moment:
  • At the end of "I Want to Play in the Rain", everybody plays in the rain, including Puss, who usually plays Cats Hate Water straight.
  • At the end of "I Want My Dummy", all the adults except the Gardener and Prime Minister suck their thumbs when the Princess locks their favourite possessions in the cupboard. The Queen and Maid do this too, even though they're normally the most mature out of the adults.
• Counting to Potato: When the Princess is counting the baby snails in "I Want My Snail", she says, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, a hundred!".
• Creative Closing Credits: In "I Want to be a Cavegirl," the instrumental of the show theme used in the closing credits has the cavegirl drumbeat heard within the episode mixed into it.
• Dance Party Ending: The ending of "I Don't Want to Dance" has everyone in the castle dancing.
• Denied Food as Punishment: When the Princess gets Puss to get her a cookie, the Chef sees and says, "Bad cat! No supper for you!".
• Department of Redundancy Department: The Princess claims to be putting "some jam and some jam and some jam and jam" on the toast in "Maid's Day Off".
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: In "I Want to be Tall," Little Princess sings to the theme tune that she's a big princess when faking being tall. In "I Want My Plaster," the "brave song" is the theme tune sung on "la." In another installment, the Queen is playing an instrumental of the theme on a radio while taking a bath. (With the radio on the edge of the bathtub no less, which really isn't advisable.) In "I Want to Recycle," Princess sings her song about how she's not going to waste things to the tune of the theme.
• Disease-Prevention Aesop: In "I Don't Want to Wash My Hands", the Maid tells the Princess to wash her hands at certain intervals because of "germs and nasties", which she claims live "in the dirties and on the animals and in the sneezes".
• Disney Acid Sequence: The opening theme's visuals consist of the Princess and her toys falling and swirling around a blue background, which is very surreal compared to the show proper.
• Does Not Like Shoes: Both the Princess and her baby cousin generally go barefoot.
• Does Not Like Spam: Puss doesn't like bananas or baked beans.
• Dressed to Plunder: The Princess keeps a pirate costume.
• Easter Episode: In "I Want to Find the Treasure", the royal family and their staff have an Easter egg hunt. She finds a map and uses it to find all the eggs, without realising she isn't allowed, and ends up getting cramps from eating too much.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: In "I Want a Sleepover" when the "dragon" that Algie and Little Princess discover actually turns out to be a family of mice, Maid screams as if there actually is a dragon. Puss also seems to be startled when the mice pull funny faces.
• Elvis Impersonator: The Prime Minister's costume in "I Want to Dress Up" is this, complete with an awful attempt at "All Shook Up."
• Embarrassing Damp Sheets: Discussed and averted in "I Can Keep a Secret". The General is behind the door, keeping a secret and the princess is trying to guess what it is. The conversation goes like this.
  General: Princess?
  Princess: Please tell me. I promise I won't tell.
  General: No, no, no.
  Princess: All right, then. I'll guess!
  (Puss and Scruff look annoyed)
  Princess: Um, you got me a present?
  General: No.
  Princess: You took a chocolate biscuit.
  General: No!
  Princess: I know! You wet the bed!
  General (offended): No!
  Princess: When I do, I put a sheet over it.
  General (opens the door and comes to the princess, his hand over his mouth): I did not wet the bed.
• Episode Tagline: The book "I Want My Potty" has the Princess saying the title a lot but it also has "the potty's the place", which highlights the fact that it's about her learning to use the potty.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Amusingly enough, the only regular characters that have actual names are Little Princess's pets, the dog Scruff and the cat Puss. The title character is called either "Princess" or "the Princess" on the show itself. There's also the King, the Queen, the Chef, the Prime Minister, the Admiral, the gardener and the general. Some of the later guest characters, such as Great Uncle Walter and Maid's nephew, Algie, also have names.
• Everyone Knew Already: In "I Want to Play Hide and Seek," Princess is highly impressed at herself for finding a dusty, cobwebby storage closet and nobody thinking to look in there to find her. She's so impressed that she decides she's going to make it into her special "secret room." It later turns out that pretty much everyone in the castle already did know about the room, it's just that they didn't think to look for her there the first time because they didn't think she would want to hide in such a dismal, dusty room.
• Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either: Zigzagged in "I Want My Light On". Nobody believes in ghosts except the Princess and maybe Gilbert. However, at the end, a mother and son ghost are seen and the mother ghosts said there's no such thing as little girls in particular but she never said anything about humans in general not existing, and it's kind of odd that she'd disbelieve in little girls because if she's the ghost of an adult woman, then surely she used to be one herself.
• Filthy Fun: The Princess and Prime Minister really like to play in the mud.
• First Day of School Episode: "I Don't Want to Go to School" focuses on Princess's first day of preschool.
• Flash Back: Happens several times.
  • In "I Want My Tooth", the Princess flashes back to her recent trip to the dentist.
  • In "I Want To Play in the Rain", the Princess flashes back to a time when she changed her mind, by saying she was going to let Gilbert eat the last biscuit and then eating it herself.
  • In "I Don't Know What to Be", the Princess flashes back to having a Potty Emergency to decide whether or not she is "commanding".
• Foot Bath Treatment: In "I Don't Want a Cold," after recovering from her cold, Princess thinks she's spread it to the adults and gives the General a foot bath, using her (thankfully clean) potty chair as the bowl.
• Foul Medicine: Exploited in "I Don't Want to Kiss Great-Aunty" when the Princess pretends to have a made-up Polka-Dot Disease called "warble dots" to get out of kissing her great-aunt. The doctor tricks her into admitting she's not sick by producing a bottle of medicine and claiming it tastes of sweaty socks.
• Friendly Pirate: In "I Want to Be a Pirate", the Princess becomes a pirate and is just as genial as normal, if a bit mischievous.
• Frivolous Summoning: In "What's Wrong with Gilbert?", the Princess demands her parents call an ambulance because her teddy bear Gilbert's leg has fallen off. The doctor is a friend of the Princess's parents, so she agrees to fix Gilbert.
• Funny Photo Phrase: In "I Want My Tooth", everyone is having a group photo and they say, "Cheese!", except for the French-accented Chef, who says, "Fromage!".
• Gass Hole: The Princess's baby cousin farts a lot. "I Want a Best Friend" ends with him farting.
• "Getting Ready for Bed" Plot: Despite the title, "I Don't Want to Go to Bed" is not an example of the trope because it focuses more on the Princess when she's already in bed. There are, however, two stories that play this trope straight.
  • In "I Want My Light On", the Princess has to go to bed but is worried that her room is haunted.
  • In "I Want a Bedtime Story", the Princess only wants the King to read her a bedtime story.
• Girls Have Cooties: "I Want a Boyfriend" ends with the Princess and Donald declaring "I don't like boys" and "I don't like girls" respectively.
• Going Commando: In one of the animated skits not related to the TV series, Princess's skirt blows up and it reveals that she's not wearing underwear.
• Goo Goo Getup: In "I Want to Be a Baby", the Princess is jealous of her baby cousin and so wants to be a baby herself. She wears a pink baby bonnet.
• Green Aesop: "I Want to Recycle" has one about recycling and about not wasting things in general.
• Green Around the Gills: When Puss is sailing, he gets seasick and his face turns green (despite the fact that he's a cat and that would be his fur turning green).
• Grossout Fakeout:
  • In "I Didn't Do It", the Princess spills some water on the ground. The adults see it and think Scruff peed on the floor.
  • In "I Can Keep a Secret", the General is keeping a secret and the Princess thinks it's that he wet the bed.
  • In "I Want Baked Beans", the Princess thinks that her baked beans look like rabbit droppings, then wonders if maybe they are rabbit droppings and the rabbits climbed through the window.
• Happy Rain: "I Want to Play in the Rain" ends with everyone playing happily in the rain.
• Hates Baths: Subverted in "I Don't Want a Bath". The Princess doesn't want to take a bath, but that's only because she doesn't want water in her eyes, she otherwise enjoys baths.
• Height Angst: In "I Want to Be Tall", the Princess wants to be taller because she is having a hard time reaching things.
• Hollywood Mirage: Never "actually" happens but the Scruff does have an Imagine Spot of himself and Puss in a desert, hallucinating water and plants.
• Honesty Aesop: In "I Didn't Do It", the Princess tries to make a den, but spills leaves and water on the floor. She lies that she didn't do it lest the adults take her den away, but then the adults assume Scruff brought the leaves in and peed on the floor, so they lock him in a kennel. The Princess, racked with guilt, tells the truth and demands to be put in the kennel herself.
• Hot Drink Cure: In "I Want My Voice Back", the Princess gets given warm milk with honey to soothe her throat after losing her voice. She doesn't want it, but it works instantly.
• How Unscientific!: Both the books and the cartoon are mainly like the real world with the exception of the Nearly Normal Animal's, however, one of the books, "I Want My Light On", reveals that there are ghosts at the top of the castle. It also shows Gilbert the teddy bear with a thought bubble.
• Hypochondria: Implied. In "I Don't Want a Cold", Princess catches a cold and when the doctor is checking her out, Puss listens to his own heart and breathes with a stethoscope while looking worried. He also looks relieved when the doctor informs the Princess that cats can't catch "people colds".
• I Can't Hear You: "I Want My Voice Back" has the unusual obstruction variant with the royal chef, who had put stalks of broccoli in his ears so that he wouldn't have to listen to Little Princess's constant shouting.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The episode titles are usually in first person POV. For example, "I Want My Potty". The show seems to favor this a bit less the longer it goes on. The first episode to break format is the eighteenth, "What's Wrong with Gilbert?" This is followed with "Maid's Day Off?" as the twenty-second episode and "Can I Keep It?" as the twenty-third.
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham:
  • At the beginning of "I Want Baked Beans", the Princess thinks she will not like the baked beans, but she eventually loves them.
  • In "I Want to Play in the Rain", all the adults and Puss think that the rain will be too wet or cold, but learn to like it.
  • In "I Want My Potty", the Princess originally thought the potty was worse than nappies, but eventually likes it.
• Illness Blanket: Downplayed in "I Don't Want a Cold". When the Princess catches a cold and Puss mistakenly thinks he has the same cold, neither of them are wrapped in a blanket outside of bed. However, when Princess thinks the adults have colds towards the end of the episode, she wraps the Chef and General in blankets (but only the Chef and General).
• Imagine Spot: When Princess is trying to water Scruff & Puss, Scruff imagines himself and Puss in a desert, experiencing a Hollywood Mirage.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Whenever the Princess or her baby cousin cries, they'll usually be sobbing and have loud, impeded speech, although occasionally, the Princess cries silently when she's in a more sulky mood.
• Injured Limb Episode: In "I Want to Go to the Fair", the Princess is not allowed to go to the fair because she sprained her ankle, so the Queen makes a pretend fair.
• Innocently Insensitive: When the Princess wants to win at a game and tests the adults with board games, she asks them which game they want to "lose at".
• Insomnia Episode: A variation in "I Don't Want to Go to Bed". At first the Princess is simply not sleepy, then she wants to sleep but cannot due to first thinking a monster is in her room, then being lonely, then being kept awake with the maid's snoring.
• Interactive Narrator: Princess and everyone else in the castle can converse with the narrator. That said, he almost always addresses the Princess and can talk with her even when she's hiding someplace where the other characters can't find her, though occasionally at the start of the episode, he won't have a clue where she is either. He's also often a sympathetic ear for the Princess. In "I Want a Pen Pal," he's actually the one who gives Princess the idea that she should have a pen pal when she complains about not having anyone to write to in order to get a letter.
• Iris Out: This is the standard ending for all episodes, generally holding to show what it's focused in on for about two seconds before going to black entirely and going to the credits. "I Want to be a Detective" from the third season is an exception to the rule. It instead ends with a flash photo capture of the final scene, showing Princess, Puss and Scruff all leaping for a biscuit (cookie).
• I Want My Mommy!: One of the books is titled "I Want My Mum!" (U.S. "I Want My Mom!") The plot is described as follows: "All day there had been disasters - the water pot went all over the latest painting; the Little Princess fell off the seesaw and banged her knee; and worst of all, there was a monster under the bed that night. The castle had been ringing with the constant shout of 'I Want My Mum!'. And Mum always knew exactly the right thing to sort out the problem..."
• I Wished You Were Dead: In "I Want to Do Magic", the Princess tries to cast a magic spell to make her teddy bear Gilbert go away, but due to being angry with the Queen, accidentally says, "Make my mum go away" instead, and so when the Queen goes for a walk without telling anyone, the Princess thinks she's made her vanish into thin air. Justified, since A.) The Princess is only four and is a bit too young to think logically, and B.) She thought the magic tricks used real magic.
• Jar Potty: After the General hands the Princess a bucket instead of her potty in "I Want My Voice Back", she uses it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Puss can be quite mean to Scruff at times, but still seems to like him on the whole. Perhaps the most notable example is in "I Want a Pen Pal" - when Scruff loses his squeaky bone, Puss somehow manages to type up a letter and order him a new bone through the post.
• Jumping-to-Conclusions Diagnosis: Averted and then played straight in "I Don't Want a Cold". While the Princess is not thought sick until she develops realistic cold symptoms, at the end, all the adults sneeze once and the Princess assumes they're all sick. She also reckons Puss has caught her cold on the day she recovers, presumably because he was coughing, however, the doctor sets her straight by saying that "cats can't catch people colds".
• Last-Second Joke Problem: From the TV series:
  • At the end of "I Want My Dummy", the Princess has finally given up her dummy (pacifier)... but King, Queen, Chef, Maid, General, and Prime Minister realise that they still made one another give their hobbies up, and they suck their thumbs in disappointment.
  • "I Don't Want a Bath" ends with the Princess no longer hating baths... but unfortunately, she now won't get out of the bath.
• Licensed Game: One edutainment title (Little Princess - I Want to Play!) developed for iOS by JickJack Ltd. It's an average run-of-the-mill title with the usual dress up, memory match, reflexes and "bath-a-pet" type minigames targeting preschoolers.
• Limited Wardrobe: Everyone wears the same outfits all the time, the Princess even has multiple copies of the same outfit.
• Literal-Minded: When the Princess is told she's in charge of combing, she thinks that she's in charge of combing everyone's hair.
• A Lizard Named "Liz":
  • Puss is a cat. Cats are sometimes called "puss" and variations of that word, as in "Who's a lovely puss-cat?" and "Here, puss, puss, puss".
  • The princess's frog is named Taddy, and she got him when he was a tadpole.
  • The sheep the Princess meets is called "Sheepy".
• Loose Tooth Episode: In "I Want My Tooth", which featured in both the book series and the TV series, the Princess gets her first loose tooth and enjoys playing with it until she loses it, and then it goes missing. In the book, she never finds it (but believes her brother, who grew a new tooth, stole it), but in the cartoon, the adults find it.
• Lost Voice Plot: In "I Want My Voice Back", the Princess loses her voice and when she gets it back, she pretends it's still gone so she can use a bell to communicate.
• Loud Sleeper Gag: In "I Don't Want to Go to Bed", the Princess gets lonely in the middle of the night, so the Maid is sent to bunk with her, but she snores, keeping the Princess awake. After a few failed attempts to get the Maid to stop snoring, the Princess goes to sleep in the pets' basket.
• Lovable Coward: The Maid and General seem to be easily scared.
• May It Never Happen Again: In "I Want My Voice Back", the Princess loses her voice and so uses a bell to get the grownups' attention. When her voice returns, she pretends it's still gone because she likes using the bell. Once she's caught, she whispers to the offscreen voice that talks to her that she might still use the bell sometimes... but then we cut to Scruff the dog burying it, so she won't be able to.
• Merchandise-Driven: As with all book-based properties, the western animation series was originally created to sell the books. But then the market became flooded with various other merchandises after the show came out.
• Mistaken for Own Murderer: In "Can I Keep It?", Taddy grows into a frog and the next morning, Princess thinks that "a horrible animal has eaten Taddy and it's still in the bowl!".
• Mistaken for Thief:
  • In "I Want My Crayons", Princess's crayons go missing and she suspects all the adults, who get offended.
  • In "But They're Mine!", Scruff takes some of Princess's old clothes and Puss tries to give them back, but Princess thinks Puss is stealing them.
  • In "I Want to Be a Detective", Scruff eats some biscuits the Princess made and she thinks Puss did it.
• The Moving Experience: In "I Don't Want to Leave Home," Little Princess overhears the King and Queen saying that she needs to "leave home," becomes convinced she's moving away for good. So when they send her on a trip to her great auntie's, she packs a huge suitcase and makes a huge production, and is in tears when Scruff and Puss are discovered in her luggage and kicked out.
  King: Oh, poppet. Back tomorrow, eh?
  Princess: What?! Tomorrow!?
• Nearly Normal Animal: Little Princess's cat, Puss, looks like a cat, pretty much behaves like a cat and can't talk or anything. However, he sometimes reacts as if he understands stuff that the humans are saying or doing. Also, he is sometimes shown doing stuff like holding popcorn and giggling while Scruff is getting a bath, or dressing up as a cat burglar to try to swipe Little Princess's tadpole. Somewhere between a Mostly Normal Animal and a Largely Normal Animal, though exactly where on the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism, it's hard to pin down exactly. Scruff occasionally shows shades of this as well, but his general behavior is much closer to that of garden-variety dog than Puss's is that of a cat.
• Neat Freak: The maid is such a neat freak that she screams when she sees disarray.
• Never Trust a Title: In "I Want My Treehouse", the Princess spends most of the episode not wanting her treehouse.
• New Baby Episode: In "I Want a Sister", the Princess learns that the Queen is pregnant. She wants a sister, because she thinks brothers are smelly, but when she gets a brother, she thinks he's a cute baby.
• No Name Given: No-one but the pets, toys, and a few of the other children are named.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Zigzagged. The Princess stays four, while her brother (who does not appear in the show) seems to have aged two years.
• Not Listening to Me, Are You?: In "I Want a Trumpet," when the King becomes absorbed in a music box with a little toy that plays a trumpet, Little Princess says that she wants a trumpet too, but the King doesn't even hear her, as he's completely absorbed in the music box. So she asks him "Can I have lots of ice cream... for breakfast?" and he just replies "Whatever you say, poppet." In the next scene, she's not eating ice cream, she's just irritated because she wants a trumpet but doesn't have one.
• Official Couple: The King and Queen are married and the Maid and the General are dating.
• One-Episode Fear: In "I Want to Be Queen", the Queen climbs a tree and is apparently surprised to discover she's scared of heights. When the Princess tells her the fear will go away, it does.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "I Didn't Do It", the Princess takes it as a bad sign when she tries to cheer her dog Scruff up with some chicken but he refuses it.
  Princess: "Oh dear! You must be really sad if you won't eat chicken!"
• Ow, My Body Part!: Twice, after falling out of a tree, Princess says, "Ow, my leg!" in "I Want My Plaster".
• "Pan from the Sky" Beginning: One episode begins in the sky with a closeup of the flag and the narrator notes, "The flag's up; that means the family is at home".
• Pass the Popcorn: As Scruff gets a bath in "Maid's Day Off?", Puss sits on a chair giggling, holding a tub of popcorn and a cup with a straw in it. He gets his when Scruff splashes him and his treats with bubbles, then Princess concludes he needs a bath too, forcing him to run off to escape.
• Playing Sick:
  • "I Feel Sick" is all about the Princess claiming she feels sick in order to slack off.
  • "I Don't Want to Kiss Great Auntie" has the Princess pretend to have "warble dots" for one part.
• Politicians Kiss Babies: The Prime Minister claims he sometimes kisses babies and when the Princess wants to take his job, he shows her how by kissing Gilbert.
• Polka-Dot Disease: In "I Don't Want to Kiss Great Auntie", Princess draws green spots on her face so that the adults would think she was carrying "warble-dots". However, she gives up upon hearing that the supposed cure tastes of sweaty socks.
• Potty Dance:
  • The Princess does a brief one (shuffling her feet because she has to pee) in "I Want My Voice Back".
  • Scruff does a variation in "I Don't Want Help". It could not be described as a dance, but he is vibrating because he needs to pee.
  • Implied in "I Don't Like Thunderstorms"; the King and Gardener are doing movements similar to this while waiting outside the bathroom but it's unknown if they're doing it because they have to pee.
• Potty Emergency: Several times, a character has been desperate to pee.
  • Happens to the Princess in "I Want My Potty", at two points, one is a major event.
  • Happens to the Princess "I Want My Voice Back", albeit only for a few minutes.
  • Happens to Scruff in "I Don't Want Help".
  • Implied in "I Don't Like Thunderstorms". The Queen is waiting impatiently outside the bathroom, but it is unexplained if she needs to use the toilet or if she just wants to wash or something. The King and Gardener are also waiting outside doing Potty Dance-type movements, although it's never actually confirmed if they need to go.
• Potty Failure: At the end of "I Want My Potty", the Princess has wet herself. Little Princess also mentions bedwetting in one episode.
• Put Off Their Food: In "I Don't Like Worms", the Princess is put off spaghetti because it reminds her of worms. It wears off, though.
• Rapid Aging: Taddy the tadpole grows legs and turns into a frog overnight.
• Real After All: In "I Want My Light On", the adults insist that ghosts don't exist, but at the end, two ghosts are seen at the top of the castle.
• Relax-o-Vision: In "I Want to Recycle," Princess drops a lollipop on the grass after a fly lands on it, but declares she's still going to eat it because to not do so would be wasteful. She tells the narrator, however, that he doesn't have to watch. He replies that he won't and the "camera" pans to a view of a bluebird splashing in a birdbath with relaxing music playing until Princess is all done.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In "I Want to Be a Detective", the Princess is correct when she concludes that one of her pets took the cookies. But she thinks it was Puss (the cat), when it was actually Scruff (the dog).
• Rhyme Theme Naming: The book "I Want to Make a Friend" features three mean kids: two girls and a boy. The girls are named Molly and Polly.
• Scary Shadow Fakeout: The Princess thinks she sees the shadow of a monster in "I Don't Want to Go to Bed" but it turns out to just be that of a tree.
• The Scream: The Princess (because she's a preschooler) and the maid (because she's a bit fearful), sometimes scream.
  • The Princess screams when Gilbert's leg falls off in "What's Wrong with Gilbert?"
  • The Maid screams in "I Don't Want to Go to Bed", when she wakes up and finds the Princess not in her bed, due to thinking that the monster the Princess mentioned earlier had taken her.
  • They both scream in "I Don't Want to Comb My Hair" when they see a mouse, due to thinking it's a rat and fearing that rats will nest in the Princess's hair if she doesn't comb it.
  • The Princess screams in "I Don't Want Help" when she sees the spider for the first time.
  • The Princess screams when she gets her potty in "I Want My Potty" because she thinks potties are worse than diapers.
• Secret Room: Subverted in one episode. The Princess discovers a room in the castle which nobody uses and thinks it's a secret one only she knows about, but it turns out that everybody knows about it, they just don't use it because they see it as useless.
• Serious Business: The Princess takes everything she dislikes (new shoes, dance class etc) very seriously.
• Share Phrase: "Oh dear" seems to be the most common negative exclamation among the whole cast.
• Shout-Out: In "I Don't Want to Comb My Hair", when the Admiral thinks a comb is a fish that's been mutilated by a sea monster, a bit of the Jaws theme plays.
• Sick Episode: Princess is the unfortunate victim of this in "I Don't Want a Cold".
• Silence of Sadness: In "I Want to Go to the Fair", the Princess is sulking about not being able to go to the fair due to her injured foot. Until she cheers up, she doesn't say much beyond "[activity the Queen suggested] is boring" and one-word sentences.
• Sleepyhead: Downplayed for the King and Puss, who do take a lot of naps, but they don't seem to always be tired.
• Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome:
  • In the book "I Want a Sister", the Little Prince (Princess's brother) is born. In all the other books, he's about two but the Princess is still four.
  • The Princess's pet frog Taddy grows from a tadpole to a frog overnight.
• Soup Is Medicine: When the Princess catches a cold, she is served broth. Later, when she believes the Chef is sick (even though he might not be) she wants to give him some broth.
• Spoiled Brat: Princess herself, although much more in the books than in the show. Here's a girl who demands that her potty be brought to her instead of her going to the potty (which she doesn't know the location of, but still she doesn't actively search for it). Additionally, when she makes a request, the castle's inhabitants would try to do their best to please her. And if she doesn't get her way, she throws a tantrum.
• Standard Snippet: Puss plays a bit of the opening of Vivaldi's "Spring" towards the opening of "I Want My Treehouse."
• Stereo Fibbing: When the adults don't know where the Princess is, they each tell a different lie about her location.
• Still Sucks Thumb: At the end of "I Want My Dummy", the adults feel indignant at having to give up their hobbies and suck their thumbs.
• Surreal Theme Tune: The Theme Tune would like you to know that she's a Little Princess and nothing else. And it veers straight into Disney Acid Sequence territory after trying to stay sane for the first five seconds. Quite appropriate given the setting and characters though...
• Sweet Tooth: The King, Princess, Queen, General, and Chef all have an appetite for dessert.
• Talking in Your Sleep:
  • Maid does it in "Maid's Day Off?" while having a nap outside following a picnic by herself. As little woodland animals munch on the remains, she mutters to herself while snoring. Most of it is indecipherable, though "Where are the pigs?" can be made out at the end.
  • At the end of "I Don't Know What to Be", Princess says, "meow" in her sleep.
  • In "I Want a Surprise", the Queen says, "My truffles?" in her sleep.
• Talk Like a Pirate: When the characters take turns playing pirate in "I Want to Be a Pirate", they say things like "Arr" and "swab the deck".
• Tastes Better Than It Looks: In "I Want Baked Beans", Princess sees a plate of baked beans and exclaims, "They look like rabbit poos!" before eating them and deciding she likes them.
• That Cloud Looks Like...: Princess does this in "I Want My Duck" after being freed of her duck-watching obligation. She sees one that looks like a duck.
• The Diaper Change: The Queen changes the Princess's cousin's diaper in "I Want a Best Friend", although we don't see it happen. He also gets a diaper change in "I Want to Be a Baby".
• Theme Tune: Yep, the series has a theme tune.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night:
  • In "I Don't Want to Go to Bed", the Princess mistakes the shadow of a tree for a monster in her bedroom and has her parents search for it. The next morning, when the Maid sees that the Princess is in her bed, she (wrongly) thinks the monster has taken her.
  • In "I Want Baked Beans", the Princess mistakes the sound of her own stomach growling for a monster under her bed.
• Title Theme Tune: The opening theme would like you to know that she's a Little Princess, and those are the only words in the entire song. Also counts as Expository Theme Tune.
• Toilet Humor: Happens several times.
  • The General searching for an Easter egg in the compost, which consists of rotten food and horse poo.
  • The Princess using said compost to try and make herself taller in "I Want to Be Tall".
  • The compost again, this time being put on the General's lip in an attempt to make a mustache grow.
  • The Princess saying that baked beans "look like rabbit poos" in "I Want Baked Beans".
  • The baby messing his diaper in "I Want A Best Friend" and "I Want to Be a Baby". The former also has a fart joke in it.
  • The Princess has a Potty Emergency in "I Want My Voice Back", and points to the shelf her potty is on. The General gets a bucket down. The Princess pees in that.
  • The Princess and General's conversation about bedwetting in "I Can Keep a Secret".
• Toilet Training Plot: "I Want My Potty" focuses on Princess learning to use her potty.
• Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: In "I Didn't Do It", Scruff is sad about having to stay in his kennel and Princess tries to cheer him up by feeding him chicken, which he doesn't want.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chocolate for the Queen and Princess, chocolate eclairs for the General, fish for Puss, and bones for Scruff. Princess also really likes mashed potatoes, but only with tomato sauce. These foods are downplayed examples, the characters' appetites for them are significant, but they're not obsessed with them.
• Transformation at the Speed of Plot: In "Can I Keep It?", Little Princess's tadpole is shown to have transformed into a frog overnight and visually in the space of about 10-15 seconds. When Little Princess awakes, she believes that the awful creature, which she doesn't recognize as a frog, has eaten her "Taddy." In real life, tadpoles slowly grow legs and gain frog-like features.
• Unconventional Food Usage:
  • In "I Want to Be Good", the Princess uses her mashed potato to make a fake man similar to a snowman.
  • In "I Want a Sledge", the Princess builds a snowman and asks for a carrot to use for its nose.
  • In "I Want My Voice Back", the Chef blocks his ears with broccoli due to the Princess shouting and later ringing her bell.
• Unsuccessful Pet Adoption: In "Can I Keep It?", Princess raises a frog named "Froggy" from when he was a tadpole. However, he's too loud at night, so she puts him back in the pond.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In "I Want Baked Beans," Puss comes up two failed plans to swipe sausages from the table - first trying to hook one with a fishing line and then dressing up in a ninja outfit complete with Mission: Impossible style music and having Scruff operate a device to lower him down to the bowl on the table. In both cases, the King, Queen and Little Princess, all of which are sitting at the table, either don't notice or aren't bothered by the unusual activity going on.
• Wasn't That Fun?: Invoked by Princess in several episodes. The talking plush demonstrates it best - It plays the Princess saying the phrase "Let's play again!" enthusically and loudly three times back to back.
• Wearing It All Wrong:
  • In the book "I Want My Potty", the Princess wears her crown on her butt as part of a trick.
  • In the episode "But They're Mine", Princess is looking for uses for her old clothes, so she puts undies on the heads of two dolls, and socks on the heads of two plushies.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Princess and the pets are all scared of spiders. The Maid is scared of rats and mice, and sometimes the Princess and Puss seem to be too, though Puss tries to catch them sometimes. The General is also scared of crocodiles. Princess is also afraid of ghosts but the ghost is afraid of little girls.

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