Mikey Simon

Michael Alexander "Mikey" Simon is the titular protagonist of Kappa Mikey. He is a 19-year-old American from Cleveland, Ohio and is the only American main character on LilyMu.

The main joke of the series is that while Mikey is drawn in a typical American cartoon form (thicker outlines, round eyes, large head, only eight fingers), his Japanese co-stars are drawn in a traditional anime style (thinner outlines, more detail, large eyes and mouth, all 10 fingers; use of various face-faults). In addition to this, Mikey is aware of his cast mates' face-faults and once tried to mimic them without success. Likewise, his LilyMu outfit is more like an American superhero's than a Japanese one, with a cape and trunks. On LilyMu, he often uses the same set of defense weapons that recur throughout the show, which include his own motorbike that was given to him by a biker gang called the Chums, a flying orb that can defeat an enemy and then fly back to its owner, a sword that works like a light saber, and a shield with a big M on it.

Off-camera though, he is far from the heroic character he plays on television: He has a rough time adjusting to this new lifestyle, according to "Lost in Transportation" - he doesn't have any room in the battle wagon or Lily's punchbag and he doesn't even have his own actor's chair, which is a wooden goose cage with a picture of him drawn with facial hair, glasses, and horns.

Personality
Smart, friendly, giving, curious, and optimistic, yet dim-witted, immature, naive, egotistical, careless, slightly irresponsible and a bad listener, Mikey often gets himself and his co-stars into strange disasters, which often leads to Ozu firing and rehiring them. His precociousness and failure to adapt reflects many children's experiences of trying to adjust to living in a new country or any kind of life change. He has no clear recreational hobbies except for video games, which is only referenced in two episodes. In fact, off-work, he is very lazy- his apartment is often a mess.

According to "Camp!", he is afraid to perform live onstage due to a traumatic childhood experience that resulted in a big wedgie, though he seems to get over this fear. He also used to be afraid of heights until he conquered that as well.

In The Wizard of Ozu, Mikey plays the part of Dorothy and his smelly sneakers fill in for the part of the ruby shoes.

Appearance
Since he is drawn in a different style than the other characters, Mikey's head is bigger in proportion to his body than to his best friends. He has bright orange hair that curls upward at the front (which looks similar to that of Fry from Futurama).

Mikey wears a blue T-shirt over a tan shirt, and green khakis, with brown shoes.

Relationships
As a member of the LilyMu crew, Mikey is best friends with the other four main cast members and frequently joins in with Gonard in gross and juvenile activities. While he remains on decent terms with his friends, they often express anger and resentment towards his habit of causing disasters. Mitsuki sees the good in Mikey mainly because she has a crush on him and doesn't want to hurt his feelings - she is always the first one to accept his forgiveness and convince the others (namely Lily) to forgive him or help him out.

He originally had a crush on his castmate Lily in the series, but they cannot stand each other. In fact, the two spend more time fighting with each other than actually being friends. However, she has shown in some episodes that she does genuinely care about him. Mikey also has a secret admirer named Mitsuki, but he is usually too clueless to notice her. Though there have been times where he has shown affection for Mitsuki, such as in "With Fans Like These" where after Mitsuki starts to untie Mikey to free him, they look at each other for a good while before they realize the situation. Both get embarrassed and blush red as they make excuses before Mikey runs into a wall of chewing gum. Another instance was in A Christmas Mikey where Mikey kisses Mitsuki on the cheek when both are under the mistletoe, to which Mitsuki swoons and Mikey blushes. Lastly, at the end of "Kappa Karaoke," Mikey looks at Mitsuki while talking about the things he learned and says he "learned how to love" while Mitsuki blushes after he says it. As the episodes proceed (most notably in Season 2), he begins to notice Lily's bitterness and grows very fond of Mitsuki. In "Mitsuki Butterfly," Mikey falls in love with the Kabuki Empress (not knowing it is Mitsuki) and tries hard to ask her on a date, by the end of the episode Mikey finds out the Kabuki Empress is Mitsuki and asks to take her out on a date to which she agrees. In the LilyMu sequence at the end, Mikey saves Mitsuki and they look lovingly at each other as Mikey holds Mitsuki showing their affection for each other. However, Mikey still continues to have a crush on Lily to this day.

Though everyone gets frustrated by his antics, they all (even Lily) care about him. Mikey's importance is especially made clear in the Christmas episode when Mikey asks Ozu for a renewal on his contract, to which Ozu (angry about Christmas) tells him he will not renew his contract and says Mikey is a terrible actor. Mikey then wishes he never came to Tokyo and his guardian angel made his wish come true and Mikey sees all his fellow castmates worse off now that he never came to Tokyo. At the end, Ozu renews Mikey's contract and the cast all celebrate Christmas with him in the studio.

Troubles
Throughout the series, Mikey gets himself into various predicaments, which include: Despite the fact that he usually messes things up, he rarely does it on purpose. This is annoying especially to Lily, who is jealous of the star status that used to be hers, and the fact that in the end, he usually always winds up fixing the problems without getting punished.
 * Constantly ruining a shoot by either destroying the set, improvising away from his lines, etc.
 * Unknowingly making the lives of Lily and Mitsuki miserable after Ozu forced them to take him in and soon getting them kicked out of their own apartment into a cramped and filthy one (that they later traded him for).
 * Accidentally destroying Ozu's prized Bonsai tree, a tree that Ozu loves more than any living human, and destroying the replacement Bonsai later in the episode (though it grew back) and getting himself and everybody else fired (though Ozu changed his mind when the tree grew back).
 * Taking embarrassing pictures of his friends and betraying their trust, in order to save his own reputation due to being photographed with a pimple on his face.
 * Taking the Japanese government's invisible coat, out of curiosity, getting framed and sent to prison for life for its disappearance (though he brought it back), making LilyMu be cancelled and running on the lam in Gonard's room, implicating the rest of his best friends in the process.
 * Lying about his life to an American journalist about his friends, convincing his friends to skip their long-planned vacation to get them to play along with his lies to his parents (who, when they could not make it, were impersonated by Beef and King Pirate at Mikey's insistence).
 * Calling Ozu "just a normal-sized softie, and a pushover", which causes Ozu to put the entire gang in lock-down in the studio so they finish the LilyMu clip show... and probably miss their vacation.
 * Putting fart powder in the ice cream that was supposed to be for Gonard, only to have Mitsuki insist on a taste instead, causing everyone's reputation with the audience, and his and Mitsuki's friendship, to be in jeopardy.
 * By saying that karaoke is for squares, thus, insulting the Karaoke Genie, who puts a curse on them all so they can only sing.
 * Breaking into Mitsuki's father Dadzuki's dressing room while stalking the Kabuki Empress (Mitsuki, subbing for her dad) on whom he had a crush, and making Mitsuki and Dadzuki's secret revealed, to great shame.

Sayings

 * W'ever - a contraction of "whatever". First used in The Good, The Bad, and the Mikey, as a byproduct of remodeling himself as a badboy. He now uses it in succeeding episodes, so much that the cast has been using it as well.
 * Chillax - a combination of "chill" and "relax". Usually uses it as a commentary on the main story conflict, which he often first ignores.
 * Pshaw - Mikey first used this in the episode, The Clip Show. The word probably means "yeah right", similar to his other catchphrase, "W'ever." Used again in Tin Putt.

Mikey's Personality in Musicals
In Kappa Karaoke, the song that epitomizes Mikey is "I Feel Super!", an energetic rock n' roll song, where he sings about how great he feels when he wakes up in the morning. This song was selected for the preview in the official website.

Voice
Michael Sinterniklaas is a frequent Automated Dialogue Replacement (ADR) actor and director under 4Kids Entertainment, and owns NYAV Post, the recording studio for Kappa Mikey. He usually voices as least one character for all of Animation Collective's shows, and directed the voice performances for Three Delivery. As Mikey, he uses a toughed-up version of his "dorkish" voice, also used for Dean Venture from The Venture Bros. He also voices Suave Mikey, the umpire from Mikey at the Bat, and various children. He also voiced the twins Jared and Jesse from Speed Racer: The Next Generation.

Trivia

 * His appearances in the Stephen Squirrelskly and Friends' Movie Spoof Travels are The Reindeer and the Deer and will hopefully in more spoof travels.