Stuart Little fans confused after realising he’s not actually a mouse

Stuart Little fans are losing their minds after discovering that the cute little titular character is not actually a mouse - yes, really.

We've all grown up watching the iconic 1999 family comedy movie that follows Stuart the mouse (voiced by Michael J. Fox) as he gets adopted by the Littles and is initially unwelcome by his new human brother, George (Jonathan Lipnicki).

The family cat, Snowbell, is even less enthusiastic about the new addition; however, Stuart faces these challenges head-on, finds his place and wins over his new family in the heartwarming tale we all know and love - well, not quite.

As we say, fans are just now realising that there's quite a huge difference between our hero in the movie and the book it was inspired by - a 1945 American children's novel of the same name by E. B. White, who also famously wrote Charlotte's Web.

In the film series, which comprises 1999's Stuart Little, 2002's Stuart Little 2 and 2006's Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild, Stuart is adopted; however, in the book, that's not actually the case.

Stuart Little fans, prepare to have your mind blown (Colombia Pictures)

In the novel, White pens: "When Mrs. Frederick C. Little's second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse.

"The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high, and he had a mouse's sharp nose, a mouse's tail, a mouse's whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse."

So yes, if the book is anything to go by, Stuart is actually just a human boy who Mrs Little gave birth to; he just looks like a mouse, alarmingly.

But he didn't just have mousey features; we're talking literal whiskers, being two inches high, and looking exactly like a rodent, which is actually even wilder than the premise of the movies.

Fans have taken to social media to react to the shocking news that he's actually a mouse-like boy, not a boy-like mouse. Still with us?

One film fan penned on Twitter: "I’ve just now learned that in the STUART LITTLE book, Stuart is not actually a mouse but a human boy who looks like a mouse, and I don’t know how to process this."

He's actually a mouse-like-boy, not a boy-like-mouse (Colombia Pictures)

While a second wrote: "Well, wtf is he???" and a third agreed: "IT'S HELLO KITTY ALL OVER AGAIN."

"Whatever he was, he got adopted over children who needed a home," pointed out a fourth, while someone else argued: "A boy-like mouse is exactly what Stuart Little is."

Another person desperately questioned: "Okay. I think I can help here. If he “looks exactly like a mouse” then wouldn’t he, in effect, to all intents and purposes, be a mouse?"

I guess we'll never know.