Mike, Lu & Og

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**Mike, Lu & Og** is an American animated television series produced by Kinofilm Animation that ran on Cartoon Network from 1999 to 2001. The show was the seventh Cartoon Cartoon, based on a short for *The What a Cartoon! Show* (later known as *The Cartoon Cartoon Show*).

Created by Mikhail Shindel, Mikhail Aldashin and Charles Swenson, the show follows a girl named Mike, a foreign exchange student from Manhattan, a self appointed island princess named Lu, and a boy named Og. The trio takes part in a variety of adventures as Mike and the island's natives share their customs with each other. Twenty-six half-hour episodes were produced, featuring two stories per episode. The series featured voice actors Nika Futterman as Mike, Nancy Cartwright as Lu, and Dee Bradley Baker as Og. It began airing in reruns on Boomerang in May 2006.

## Plot

Mike, a young girl from New York, applied as a foreign exchange student, and on a lark asked to be sent to a tropical island (which has the strange capability to briefly sink then and "pop up like a cork" every "few hundred years or so"). She found herself dumped on a forgotten, scantily mapped island populated by descendants of a British shipwreck. This island is called Albonquetine, named after one of their founders, Joshua Wendell Albonquetine. The castaways have "gone native" and are trying to behave like Polynesians, with varying degrees of success. Amongst other things, this explains Og's name and his fashion sense (or lack thereof).

## Characters

**Micheline "Mike" Mazinsky** (voiced by Nika Futterman) — Mike is an 11-year-old Manhattan-born girl who enjoys the features of the tropical island, but misses the life she had in New York and, as revealed in a particular instance, her school. Fortunately, Og is able to recreate many of the things that Mike misses most about the United States.

**Lu** (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) — Lu, a 10-year-old self-proclaimed princess of the island and Og's cousin, is characterized by her loud and arrogant nature. She continually exploits Mike, Og, and her pet turtle, Lancelot. Og, being sagacious to a fault, frequently obliges to her will, even at the cost of his own well-being. Though she has a habit of tormenting everyone, she usually learns a lesson in humility by the end of each episode. Lu's unruly behavior is most likely a result of poor parenting on the part of her father, Wendell.

**Og** (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) — Og, a native of Albonquetine and Lu's cousin, has a surprising predisposition to scientific theory and discovery. His inventions gone awry help develop the plots of many episodes. He is close friends with three animals, a pig named Pig (voiced by Kath Soucie), a goat named Goat (also voiced by Dee Bradley Baker), and a porcupine named Spiney (voiced by Carlos Alazraqui) who are capable of speech and well versed in philosophy. Together, they form the Philosophical Society, discussing such "great thinkers" as Nietzsche, matters of existentialism, and the relevance of time. Og enjoys experiencing new things. To name a few adventures, Og made a video game for himself in "A Boy's Game", performed nude in a fashion show in "Hot Couture", and made jujubombs in an episode of the same name.

**Wendell** (voiced by S. Scott Bullock) — Wendell is Lu's father and the Governor of the Island. He is wiry, weak-willed, and is seemingly unable to control his daughter or of delivering any sort of punishment to her. He is then apt to start crying. He has been the island's Governor for many years. This was misinterpreted by Mike, who thought he was an American-esque governor, which lead to an "election" on the island, not realising that the Islanders came to the island from England (and, as seen in the episode with "King Bob", they hold the "King of England" in great respect). He has a large collection of tea cosies, and speaks in a squeaky falsetto similar in style to Kenneth Williams, although whether this was intentional or not remains uncertain.

**Alfred** (voiced by Martin Rayner) — Alfred is Og's father and Margery's husband. He is eccentric and charismatic, and also has a noticeable speech impediment preventing him from pronouncing his R's. He fancies himself to be the island's hunter, using suction-cup arrows to persistently hunt a single wombat. It appears that the island's inhabitants are vegetarian (though clams and chicken soup appear to be fair game), so one may wonder what happens if Alfred ever catches the wombat.

**Margery** (voiced by Kath Soucie) — Margery is Og's mother and Alfred's wife, who fancies herself to be an artist and writer. Her arts including painting, sculpting, and cooking. The majority of Margery's artwork has to do with the island's ancestors. For this, she is often seen working on a sculpture of several ancestors on the side of a mountain, reminiscent of Mount Rushmore. Every once in a while she will also be found painting food, and often found cooking it. Margery is the island's chef, preparing meals and tea for everyone on her side of the island, as well as preparing buffets and elaborate meals for special occasions. In writing, she is something of a historian. Throughout the series she is working on a book about the island's history titled "Cuzzlewits End". Margery is very level-headed compared to Alfred's eccentric behavior. An example of this is shown in "Scuba Dooby Doo" when Alfred valiantly offers to protect everyone from the mailman whereas Margery plans on serving tea and crumpets.

**Old Queeks** (voiced by Corey Burton) — Old Queeks is the Island Elder and Medicine-Man whom the Islanders seek advice from. He is also seen to be able to perform a kind of magic, summoning dead spirits. He is often opposed to Mike's innovative ways, but sometimes gets caught up in the modern crazes to hit the island. Old Queeks claims to be psychic and he claims to "know all and see all". In one episode, Mike becomes suspicious of Queeks and decides to investigate him. She climbed up the opposite side of the mountain and found that Old Queeks was not psychic but that he spied on the Islanders through a telescope. Even after Mike informed the Islanders about Old Queeks' telescope, they still held onto their beliefs that he was psychic and communicated with a higher power(s). He can see all with a telescope, and he did bring ghosts to the island to plague Mike for annoying him. He lives alone on the top of a mountain in a cave, and enjoys using "bat products" (i.e.: products made with bat guano). This includes everything from toothpaste to snacks.

**Lancelot** — Lancelot is Lu's long-suffering pet land turtle. She dresses him up in gaudy outfits, forces him to perform weird and dangerous stunts, and often makes him carry Lu on his back. For this reason, Lancelot is always running away from Lu, which is why she keeps him on a leash. Despite this abuse, Lancelot tends to be the savior of Mike and the Islanders (especially Lu) when they're in trouble. Like the other animals on the island, Lancelot tends to exercise more common sense than the humans. Unlike the members of the Philosophical Society, he does not speak (except for a "squeaky" type scream when Lancelot's in danger or a snickering laugh.

## Episodes

*Mike, Lu & Og* has a total of 26 episodes spread over 2 seasons that were produced from November 1999 to May 2001. Each half-hour episode contains 2 *Mike, Lu & Og* segments.

## References

1. ↑ Animation World News – Television: Cartoon Network. *Animation World Magazine*. Animation World Network (November 1998). Retrieved on November 20, 2010.