Mike & Friends

Series logo (as of 2023)

***Mike & Friends***, also referred on the logo as ***Mike and Friends***, is an American adult animated comedy webtoon series, created by young Michael Pakenham for YouTube. The series is produced by Ballbuster Animation (formerly by M-Pack Productions), and is found on Pakenham's YouTube channel M-Pack, Mike & Friends is an adult cartoon show related to those adult cartoon shows like Futurama, Napoleon Dynamite (TV series), Queer Duck, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Ren & Stimpy “Adult Party Cartoon”, Regular Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers. Rick and Morty, South Park, Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill, The Brothers Grunt, Cartoon Sushi, Brickleberry, Archer, The Cleveland Show, American Dad!, Wonder Showzen, Drawn Together, Glenn Martin, DDS, and Happy Tree Friends.

The series chronicles the adventures and endeavors of a seventeen-year-old ill-tempered autistic teenager named Mike Mormon, who lives with his parents and his pet cat Buster. He goes to high school with fifteen-year-old dimwit Connor Wettermenn, girlfriend Missy Shellbee, nerdy inventor Kyle Anderson, and chill dude Cody Timber. He works at the Donut Shack with Kyle, and works for his boss, Doug Nutt. Mike is a DVD collector who lives with a perfectionist for a father and alcoholic mother. Connor lives with only his father, who is divorced.

The series originally uploaded its first episode on July 25, 2019, and more episodes have been produced and uploaded ever since. So far, the series has ran for thirty-one episodes. The series has been popular by many for the "Mike Watches Logos" videos and parodies of pop culture portrayed by the characters.

As of December 2021, every episode of *Mike & Friends* is now streaming on FiyahTV.

## Episodes

*Main article: List of episodes*

 2
 3

## Characters

* Mike Mormon
* Connor Wettermenn
* Kyle Anderson
* Missy Shellbee
* Cody Timber
* Ashley Anderson
* Mark Mormon
* Mary Mormon
* Doug Nutt
* Keith Roger
* Seth
* Jack
* Joshua Wettermenn
* Larry MacDonald
* Buster

## Production

Development on *Mike & Friends* began back in 2017. The series was briefly retooled into what would've been called *Mike & Ashley*, with Ashley Anderson being one of the main characters before being used as a minor character. The first episode of *Mike & Ashley* would've been called "Ashley the Insomniac", and it would've been about Ashley not being able to fall asleep, so she calls her friend Sarah for help. The episode, according to Pakenham, will be rewritten into a *Mike & Friends* episode and the plot would be about Mike or Connor than Ashley.

After that failure, Mike & Friends was back on track and comics made for Tapas were produced back in 2017, and is currently on hiatus. The first ever script written for the show was an episode titled "Mike Lemonade" and the plot would've centered around Connor selling lemonade and using a special ingredient from Mike. This episode was scrapped because it was a ripoff to the infamous *SpongeBob* episode "Ink Lemonade". However, this episode did enter the drawing process and was stopped because of said reason.

Another episode which did start production before "Mike's Lagoon" was an episode about Mike getting a conscience simply titled "The Conscience". This was scrapped because of the same reasons as "Mike Lemonade" (because it was a ripoff to the *Ren & Stimpy* episode "Jiminy Lummox").

Episodes of the show are produced with Google Slides and MS Paint. Pakenham draws the frames and puts them all on a slideshow on Slides. However, the recording and editing softwares that were used to produce episodes did change over time. From the original version of "Mike's Lagoon" to "Roomies", episodes were screen-recorded using Screencast-o-Matic. From "DVD Hunt" and the remake of "Mike's Lagoon" onward, episodes were screen-recorded using ScreenRec, because he used the former software with a watermark for it, to his dislike.

From the original version of "Mike's Lagoon" to "Last Resort" and the reupload of "Mike Watches the THX Logo", episodes were edited on KineMaster, according to the watermark. From "Roomies" onward, episodes were edited on OpenShot Video Editor. However, starting with "Secret Santa", Pakenham relied on KineMaster again, and used it to edit the entire episode, and export it. He then puts the KineMaster-edited video and edit it on OpenShot Video Editor, cropping out the watermark. Then in the next episode, "Sugar Bash", he used KineMaster to edit the episode in its entirety, with the screen recording done on AtoZ Screen Recorder.

## Comics

Comics for the show have been produced way back in 2017 and more of them are still being made. The comics were published to the public on November 11, 2019, on Tapas.

## Spin-offs

On February 25, 2021, Pakenham announced on Discord and on 6264jenz's livestream on YouTube that he was going to expand the *Mike & Friends* universe, a la Marvel Cinematic Universe. He announced that he would produce some spin-offs based on the series.

### Mark Mormon's Yesteryears

*Main article: Mark Mormon's Yesteryears*

On that same day, Pakenham mentioned that he was developing a spin-off based on Mark Mormon's high school years in the 1980's, a la *Young Sheldon*. It was originally going to be titled "Young Mark", but Pakenham changed it because he didn't want it to have too much similarities to *Young Sheldon*. He is currently developing it. He also confirmed that "Sappy Anniversary" is the backdoor pilot to this spin-off. As of 2022, there is no word on the spin-off's production.

## Film

*Main article: The Mike & Friends Movie*

A film adaptation is currently being worked on as 2020. He also announced on February 25, 2021, that it could possibly be the series finale, but he doesn't know about that at this point. As of early 2023, the movie is shelved until further notice.

## Gallery

Series portrait posterSeries portrait poster (including M-Pack logo)Series landscape posterSeries landscape poster (including M-Pack logo)
## Trivia

* This series is partially based on Pakenham's life as the titular character is named after him, and his friends are named and based after Pakenham's friends.
* Pakenham wanted the show to be as low-budgeted as possible, like *Mercy's Meeting and* *Greeny Phantom* the latter being one of the show's inspirations.
* The show's other inspirations are *SpongeBob SquarePants*, *The Ren & Stimpy Show*, and *Rocko's Modern Life*.
* The show is rated TV-14 on FiyahTV.