Mike, Lu, and Og was Cartoon Network’s last original cartoon and it’s the only original cartoon I didn’t like. The show centers around a Manhattan girl named Mike who participates in a foreign exchange program and gets sent to a forgotten tropical island populated by descendants of a British shipwreck. On the island she befriends Lu the self-proclaimed spoiled princess of the island and Og the boy genius who could pretty much make anything Mike and Lu asked him to make or anything that piqued his interest. I really don’t know what they were trying to accomplish with this show, it’s like everything just flies over my head every time I watched it. In each episode Mike tries to introduce the natives of the island to common American lifestyle and in each attempt it usually backfires on her. Here’s where the comedy fails, it never really gets to her. She’s not mad, upset, or the one on the receiving end of the pain most of the time. Whenever something failed she just shrugged it off and just went to the next thing. There’s also no comedic suffering on her part. She doesn’t seem to mind staying on the island, if anything she blends right in with the villagers and everything so where’s the part where I start laughing? There’s even no comedic suffering on the villagers part as well. Yeah, most of the time they would be on the receiving end of Mike’s plans but they would shrug it off as well and move on from not really caring or phased by it so once again there’s really no comedic suffering on their part.
If I had to name the only interesting thing in the show it would be the intelligent animals. Yeah, on the island there’s a pig, a goat, and a porcupine who can talk and are well educated in philosophy. Together with Og they form a secret society called the Philosophy Society and discuss famous philosophers, matters of life, and the relevance of time. From a philosophical stand point their talks are interesting but from a child stand point you have no idea what they’re talking about. There’s also this group of shipwrecked pirates who would occasionally try to steal Lu’s pet turtle Lancelot so they could eat him. Really guys? There is a pig, a goat, and fish all around the island and you choose to go after a turtle. Get your priorities straight. I will admit however the pirates are a little funny they manage to get a chuckle out of me once or twice but other than that their not really all that good. That’s pretty much the whole show, you have no idea what to laugh at and what to find interesting which is why the show only lasted for about 2 years making it the shortest original cartoon and rightfully so. Mike, Lu, and Og was Cartoon Network’s first major flop and would serve as the window for one of Cartoon Network’s biggest and dumbest mistakes.