Mike and Angelo

The shows initially centred on Mike King (played by Matt Wright), and his mother Rita moving to London from the United States after she divorces Mike's father. In their new house, and feeling lonely in his new surroundings, Mike discovers a mysterious wardrobe. It bursts open containing Angelo (Tyler Butterworth), an alien who came from another world; the portal being the wardrobe. Angelo has no knowledge of life on Earth or of his own - so relies on the help of Mike to understand the world he has crashed on. At the same time, Mike is in turn helped by Angelo to integrate into life in London.

Together, Mike and Angelo have many crazy adventures, all within the vicinity of the house that they live in. Angelo is always inventing something crazy, or walking on the ceiling (due to him being an alien), and generally misunderstanding various aspects of human behaviour and daily life which leads to various escapades and situations.

The title of the series is a play on the name of the painter Michelangelo. In the early planning stages of the series, creators Grant Cathro and Lee Pressman had toyed with the idea of making Angelo somehow a guardian angel towards Mike. They were inspired by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, which had inspired the poster for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Although the idea of the guardian angel was ultimately unutilised in the series, they liked the name-play and stuck with it.[2]

The tone of the first two series was more comedy-drama. (Early episodes were even billed as a drama.) Several episodes of the first series focussed on the loneliness Mike was feeling after moving to a different country which was helped by his new friendship with Angelo, and without the canned laughter that would feature from Series 3 onwards. The original two series featured a quirky, whimsical flute-led theme tune on the opening and closing credits, written by Jim Parker; on a repeat run of the first two series in the lead-up up the Series 3, this original theme tune was replaced by the version which would be used from Series 3 onwards, written by David Stafford, as well as a new opening credits narration (read by Matt Zimmerman), also used from Series 3, also added to these repeated episodes. Additionally, the laugh track, which was also added from Series 3 until the end of the show's run, was also dubbed on to these repeated episodes, where it had not originally been present. These changes to the originally shown versions were in part to make the series more 'uniform', as Children's ITV had hoped to sell the series to stations in America; a plan which never fully came to fruition.

The first of the show's many cast changes occurs at the beginning of Series 3, when Tim Whitnall replaced Tyler Butterworth as Angelo. In the first episode of the new series, he fell ill and "regenerated" (borrowing a concept first used in Doctor Who_. Tim Whitnall would remain as the character for the next nine years, for the rest of the programme's run. At around this point, the comedy-drama tone of the first two series shifted shift towards the more fantastical and farcical, with Angelo creating many inventions which typically run out of control, and occasionally summoning up historical figures from the past.

Mike King moves back to the US at the beginning of Series 4 to be with his dad, with Ellie, a young neighbour, filling the gap left by the character for the rest of Series 4, befriending Angelo and getting caught up with his various gadgets and escapades.

Series 5 was the first series to be produced by Tetra Films, resulting in a more farcical tone to the comedy, and features a new theme composed by Kim Goody and Alan Coates, which would remain, in several slight variations, for the remainder of the show's run. Rita's nephew Mike Mason (Michael Benz) is introduced - as well being in keeping with the title of the series (despite the character of Ellie in Series 4), Benz would become the longest-running "Mike" character, featuring in 5 of the 12 series.

By the start of Series 7, Rita has decided to return to the USA. Her place is filled by new character Katy Andrews (Katy Murphy), a new housekeeper.

Series 11 saw the exit of Michel Benz, and the series began with Angelo and Katy reading a postcard explaining that Mike was having a good time in America after returning there. In his place, Daphne Fawkes-Bentley's niece Mickey (portrayed by Gemma Gregory) became Angelo's sidekick.

For the final series, Katy's nephew, also called Mike (played by Steven Geller), joined. The final series was shown in 2000. Geller later passed away in 2015 aged 30. Although the series never came to an official conclusion, it was not renewed after Series 12, broadcast in 2000 (filmed in 1999), due to it being felt that the series had run its course, and a general shift in Children's ITV's audience demographic.

Writers Lee Pressman and Grant Cathro set Mike & Angelo in Cricklewood, London. Their later series Spatz was set in the same area.[3]

In 2013, two episodes of Mike & Angelo were repeated on CITV as part of its 30th anniversary Old Skool Weekend:[4]

• The first, shown on 5 January 2013, entitled "Fuzzball", had originally been broadcast on CITV on 26 October 1989
• The second, shown on 6 January 2013, was titled "Heirs And Graces", and had originally been broadcast on CITV on 7 March 1996.

• Mike and Angelo at IMDb
• Glad You Remember - Mike and Angelo - Fansite featuring an Episode Guide and Interviews.
• Mike and Angelo at British Comedy Guide
• Mike and Angelo at BFI