Mike, Lu & Og

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Mike, Lu & Og is a Cartoon Network original from 1999. The show's premise was that an urban girl named Mike (Nika Futterman) through a student exchange program, winds up on a sparsely populated tropical island, and had to fit in with the island life. The oddity of the island was that while the residents look like natives, they acted more like upper class Brits (Their ancestors wound up shipwrecked on the island. But didn't bother trying to leave it or attempt rescue). The other title characters were a young yet smart boy named Og (Dee Bradley Baker) and a princess (or so she says) named Lu (Nancy Cartwright) who really is the spoiled daughter of the island's governor who is used to getting her own way.

The show was mostly about the culture clash of Mike's urban city ways and the islanders' oddball customs and the hilarity that result from it. Many episodes followed a similar formula, with Mike lamenting the absence of a modern luxury or convenience, prompting Og to build it out of whatever materials he has to hand. From there, the invention would either be exploited by Lu, or cause massive disruption to island life, and in either event will end up getting destroyed.

The least successful of CN's original 8, It lasted at least two seasons before ending.

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Tropes used in Mike, Lu & Og include:

• Accidental Public Confession: Lu purposely spread a cold to the islanders that Mike caught in a plot to get her blamed and kicked off the island. However, when Og created a cure for the cold, she lost her temper and accidentally revealed that she spread the cold.

"There wouldn't have been a cure if I hadn't spread the cold".

• All Animals Are Dogs: Lu keeps Lancelot on a leash and makes yelping sounds when trying to communicate.
• Amusing Injuries: Alfred getting squashed flat in "Fathers And Pies".
• Anachronism Stew: Invoked. Og creates many modern necessities at Mike's request...with Bamboo Technology of course.
  • Plus Lu and Herminoe are dressed in modern pyjamas in "The Three Amigas"...on an island where all clothing is made of grass or fur.
• Authority in Name Only: Nobody takes Wendell, the governor seriously, mostly because he really does not have any politics to do. Ditto for "Princess" Lu.
• Bamboo Technology: Og's inventions.
• Bare Your Midriff
• Berserk Button: Don't call Mike by her real name (Michelanne).
• Big Eater: Wendel. In one episode when he exercised and developed a buff physique, he gorged on chocolates and went back to his old self in a matter of hours.
  • Lu eats at least 5 candies each about the size of her head. What's more, she swallows them whole.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: in "Nobody's Nose", Mike, thanks to Queeks, is chased by a thundercloud until she fulfils her duty as the "nose" of the First Day Of Spring Festival.
  • Queeks himself revives one at the end of "Flustering Footwear Flotsam".
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: At the end of "Giant Steps"

Mike: You didn't expect a happy ending, did you?

• • Also in the What a Cartoon pilot, where a Narrator introduces us to the kids. Mike then remarks "Is he talking about us?"
• Bumbling Dad: Alfred and Wendell.
• Cave Behind the Falls: Lampshaded in "Brave Sir Lancelot"

Og: Why does it always have to be behind the waterfall?

• Child Prodigy: Og.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Everyone sans Mike.
• Companion Cube: Petey (a palm tree) from "Palm Pet".
• Cool Big Sis: Hermione of the Cuzzlewit clan is notably smarter and saner than her two brothers.
• Culture Clash
• Deadpan Snarker: Mike to a T.
• Deranged Animation: "No room for you!"
  • Look at the original concept art and tell me it's not one of the ugliest things you've ever seen.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Goat and Pig.
  • Averted with Spiney (a porcupine).
• Does Not Like Shoes: In one episode, a cargo box of shoes washes ashore. While Mike (who hates shoes) could care less, the islanders go nuts for them. It doesn't work out so well.
• Eldritch Abomination: The germ monster from "Sneeze Please".
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Alfred. Bonus points for the fact he's a hunter.
• Everything's Better with Princesses: Lu definitely thinks so. Mike, not so much.
• Expository Hairstyle Change : Everyone at the end of "Repeat After Me".
• Expy: The designs of the characters were based on co-creator Mikhail Aldashin's shorts by Pilot Moscow in the early 90s ("Poumse" and "The Hunter").
• Fan Girl: Mike with Action Guy. She even dresses up as him and lip-synchs to audio tapes to ward off the pirates!
• Fantastic Racism: The Albonquetine and the Cuzzlewitz clans live on opposite sides of the island and have strong animosity.
• Fish Out of Water: Mike.
• Flash Back: In "Flustrering Footwear Flotsam", Mike relates to the horrors of shoe shopping when she lived in New York told through still pictures. There is even a picture of her as a toddler crying.

MOMMY!!! JUST LET ME GO HOME!!!

• Foot Focus: There's plenty to go around, folks!
• Four-Fingered Hands
• Freudian Couch: In "Flustering Footwear Flotsam", everyone came to Queeks when their new shoes started disrupting their lives (Alfred feels he has no purpose after catching the wombat, Margery obsessed with creating "shoe portraits", etc.).
• Funny Animal: The goat, the pig, and the porcupine are rather fond of discussing philosophy.
• G-Rated Drug: Lu with Jujubombs.
  • Also in "Hot Dog" where everyone got addicted to hot dogs. There was even an A.A.-esque meeting about their problems.
• Grumpy Old Man: Queeks
• Humans Are Cthulhu: In "Losing Lancelot", while Lu is running, we're treated to a closeup of her feet to see ants running away screaming.
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: Lu when it comes to a new modern fad. Take "Jujubombs" for example.
  • And from "Hot Dog"

Lu: (eats hot dog) It stinks! (eats the rest of it) Give me more of this stuff that stinks!

• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The pirates
• Intellectual Animal: The goat, the pig, and the porcupine
• Jerkass: Lu
• Kick The Turtle: Lu does this a lot.
• Limited Wardrobe: At one point, Mike is shown to own several identical pairs of red sneakers - the kind she wears all the time.
  • Ditto her red t-shirt:

Mike: [Holding two identical shirts] Which of these do you think looks best? Lu: [beat] The red one.

• Missing Episode: The What a Cartoon pilot.
• Multi Character Title
• Mythology Gag: Co-creator Mikhail Aldahin's film "Poumse", the partial inspiration for the show, was about a salesman who came to sell his items to a group of island natives. Guess what was the plot of the episode "The King Of Curtains".
• Not in Front of the Parrot: "Repeat After Me".
• The One Who Wears Shoes: Mike. Possibly the ONLY human example!
• Off-Model: Sometimes, Mike is drawn with buck teeth like the other islanders. Other times a character's eyebrows may be thicker for one shot.
  • The animation in the pilot short was a little choppier than the series.
• Only Sane Man: Mike
  • Og, Queeks, and the animals to a lesser extent.
• The Other Darrin: Kath Soucie filled in for a few lines as Lu (normally voiced by Nancy Cartwright) in "Roller Madness".
• A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: The island has a trio of pirates who are the shipwrecked descendants of the pirates who shipwrecked the island's other inhabitants.
• Right Behind Me: In "Night Of The Living Ancestors", Lu is badmouthing her deceased Aunt Lulu, calling her a self-centered, old hag". Guess whose ghost was behind her.
• Royal Brat: Lu, oh sweet god, Lu.
• Say My Name: LANCELOOOOOOOOT!!!!
• Sanity Slippage: Mike in "Sultans Of Swat"
  • Og in "Hot Dog".
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior! Queeks
• Seldom-Seen Species: You don't see Wombats that much outside of Australian Media.
• Serious Business: Mike with baseball.

Og: Hey, it's only a game. Mike: Only a game? ONLY A GAME?!? Baseball is not only a game! Baseball is THE game!

• Shaggy Dog Story: "Giant Steps".
  • To elaborate, Wendell told everyone that a giant is on an annual rampage and Queeks gets Mike to fetch three things (a shark's tooth, a spider web, and and egg shell) to keep the "giant" away. However, it turned out that the giant story was metaphorical for the rainy season and that Margery had the objects the whole time, revealing that Mike had to go get those things for nothing.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Lu
• Springtime for Hitler: In "For The Love Of Mike", the Cuzzlewitz boys go crazy for Mike and her attempts to drive them away get them even more attracted to her. And that included cooking terrible food and covering herself with bat guano! She finally gets them away by wearing a dress and putting on perfume.
• Strong Family Resemblance: The Ablonquetines (sans Margery) all have buck teeth. Likewise, the Cuzzlewitz have buck teeth from the bottom set.
  • The ghosts from "Night Of The Living Ancestors" looks like older versions of the islanders.
• Sudden Anatomy: In "The Three Amigas", Mike suggests that she, Lu, and Hermione paint their nails. In the next scene, they suddenly have visible and painted nails.
  • Same goes for Lu when she told Mike to trim her toenails in "To Serve Lu"
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:

Lu: There are no other kids in this class! And if there were other kids, and I'm not saying that there are, they would not be Cuzzlewitz. Because no one in their right mind would be caught dead with a Cuzzlewitz!

• Taken for Granite: While planning a party Lu gets coated with hard candy by Mike and Og (since they're sick of her jujubomb addiction), and becomes her own centrepiece.
  • A nice aspect is that she doesn't really mind, licking her own lips to taste all the candy she wants.
• The Renaissance Age of Animation
• The Tetris Effect: In-universe. Og creates a Game Boy out of Bamboo Technology and gets hooked on it to the point of playing it out during a hurricane and neglecting the island's defences.
• Theme Initials: Mike's former friends from New York are named Melissa and Max.
• Through a Face Full of Fur: Og's face turns bright red with anger in "Hot Dog".
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mike and Lu.
• Unstoppable Mailman: Floyd from "Scuba Doobie Doo", despite being a ditz.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Alfred and the wombat have their moments.
• Vocal Dissonance: The Albonquetines dress in faux-Polynesian attire, but speak in proper British accents. Justified, as their ancestors were British. Strangely, Lu and Og speak with more American dialects.
  • Averted with most of the Cuzzlewit clan.
• Wild Child: The Cuzzlewitz kids, Haggis and Baggis. Subverted with their sister, Hermione.
• With Friends Like These...: Mike says the Trope Namer phrase at the end of "Scuba Doobie Doo".