Mr. Big

"Mind-control never gets old."

- Mr. Big

Mr. Big (real name Shelly Smalls) is a villain on the series WordGirl, voiced by actor Jeffrey Tambor. He is a self-proclaimed rich, evil corporate businessman, and CEO of the self-titled Mr. Big Industries (which has a golden corporate logo with Mr. Big's face on it). Mr. Big's specialty is mind-control, as evidenced in his company's mission statement: "We strive to constantly use mind-control."

He invented The Thing and The Mega-Thing, white cubic objects that do absolutely nothing, yet they fly off the shelves. Other Mr. Big Industries' products include: Mr. Big's Big Book of Big Words (a dictionary), the Wordsucker (a microphone), the Hero Sucker (a giant vacuum) and a Walk and Talk WordGirl Doll that does the opposite of the real superheroine, like using the word "strategery" instead of "strategy" and enables them (via mind control) to buy useless spinoff products such as the Official WordGirl Tree-Shaker.

His assistant, Leslie, carries out the majority of details (even some heavy labor and sidekick-monkey-fighting) for Mr. Big's evil plans, and helps to make his attempts at money-making schemes and villainous bids for City Hall successful, even if they never fully succeed due to WordGirl's efforts.

Other than his great love for his self, money, and power, he also loves very squishy things, and is never without his squishy bunny toy. Some hobbies and interests of his over time have been golf, yoga, and being a lead-singer in his own pop band in his youth.

It is revealed that he also has a dislike of children revealed in the episode "Big's Big Bounce," saying that he didn't want to help the Fair City Scout Troop kids, but did anyway so he could win the trampoline - something he had wanted since he was a little boy. Also,in "Tiny Big," he revealed he was once the lead singer in a band called "Rockaroni," where he sang songs like "I Wanna Date Your Money."

He also complains in a couple of episodes that he "didn't go to any fancy word college and only took business classes" as an excuse of not getting all the words right.

Mr. Big also stated that he did magic tricks as a child in the episode "WordGirl Makes a Mistake". When he was a child, he went to Woodview Elementary, where he tried to take over the Daily Rag. He temporarily succeeded later in life in, but was shut down by WordGirl after he printed several misleading articles. The principal then intervened, and took Mr. Big (Shelly Smalls) to her office.

See also: Leslie