Kappa Mikey

Kappa Mikey is an American animated comedy television series created by Larry Schwarz. Animated by Schwarz's production company, Animation Collective, The series ran from February 25, 2006 to September 20, 2008, with repeats until November 29, 2010. across two seasons. 52 22-minute episodes were produced.

The series was announced in 2002, when it was announced that Noggin's teen block The N would be co-developing and airing the series. Animation World Network reported that Noggin/The N had signed on as a co-producer. However, the show was moved to Nicktoons Network, a sister channel to Noggin. With the move, it became the first half-hour series to premiere exclusively on Nicktoons.

Plot
Intended as a parody of Japanese anime, the series follows a young American actor named Mikey Simon whose appearance is "rendered in a thick-line, pop-graphic, American cartoon style". He travels to Japan to star in a tokusatsu show called LilyMu, where his anime-influenced co-stars represent common anime clichés.

Each episode follows a specific formula. A typical episode starts with the cast filming a LilyMu segment, but the take is ruined, sometimes revealing the conflict that the characters deal with through the rest of the episode, with a minor subplot running beneath the main plot. After the problem is resolved, the LilyMu segment will be shot again and successfully completed the second time, often rewritten to incorporate whatever lesson was learned during the main story.

Deep into season 2, Kappa Mikey has stopped showing a LilyMu sequence at the end of an episode whenever it would make the episode too long, when the characters are in their LilyMu uniforms enough as it is, or when they successfully film a sequence without any mistakes before the ending.

The show's title is a play on the word kappamaki, a type of sushi. It is suggested that the show was the inspiration for naming the title character "Mikey" and used the prefix "kappa". Like Mikey, who is a "fish out of water" in Japan, the kappa itself is a water demon creature who can live on land. The kappas first appeared on this show in the episode "Mikey, Kappa" on August 5, 2007, where the origin of the title was explained.

Characters

 * Mikey Simon (voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas) is a 19-year-old American actor and portrays the superhero and main lead Kappa Mikey.
 * Gonard (voiced by Sean Schemmel) is LilyMu's main antagonist, a purple-skinned, blue-haired humanoid set on either domination or destruction. He is an actor who is actually a sweet-natured young man.
 * Guano (voiced by Gary Mack) is a small purple creature with long pointed ears (similar to those of a rabbit), whiskers, a long thin tail topped with a ball of fur, and a blue crystal on his abdomen. Not only is he an actor on "LilyMu", but he's also the show's writer and director.
 * Lily (voiced by Kether Donohue) is an actress who portrays the damsel-in-distress role. She's also a temperamental and self-centered actress who was the original star of LilyMu
 * Mitsuki (voiced by Carrie Keranen) is a friendly, selfless young woman and actress. She also plays a headstrong bad girl on LilyMu.
 * Ozu (voiced by Stephen Moverly) is the producer of LilyMu and owns various things in Tokyo.
 * Yes Man (voiced by Jesse Adams) is a hyperactive, overdramatic yes man/servant/scapegoat. He enjoys working for his boss and is very joyful or lack minded.

Production
Larry Schwarz conceived the series in 2000, when he was working at Rumpus Toys, a toy design company in New York City. In September 2001, Rumpus and Sunbow Entertainment partnered to work on the series. In May 2002, the project was picked up by Noggin (a channel owned by MTV Networks) for its teen-oriented programming block, The N. Noggin/The N signed a co-development deal for the series, while Animation Collective retained the series' copyright and distribution rights. By the time animation was completed, The N had shifted more to live-action shows for young adults, so Kappa Mikey was moved to another MTV Networks-owned channel: Nicktoons Network. The series was tweaked in order to fit Nicktoons Network's younger audience. Voice talents were usually local, and its audio was recorded at Manhattan-based NYAV Post, which Michael Sinterniklaas owns. Larry Schwarz, along with the other executive producers, oversaw all phases of production, but only had writing credits on the pilot episode, "Mikey Impossible" and "A Christmas Mikey". All the episodes were directed by Sergei Aniskov. The instrumental score was composed by John Angier, who also wrote the lyrics to "The Recycling Song", "Ori and Yori's Hits", "Living With Mikey", "How Did We Get Here?" and the songs from "The Karaoke Episode".

Unlike other cartoons produced at the turn of the 21st century, the property was owned by the studio instead of an agency, the animation was not outsourced and the episodes were written by full-time staff. After producing Internet-based projects and television spots, the series became Animation Collective's first television series. The series was produced in New York City; pre-production began in 2002 and animation started in the summer of 2005. Production wrapped in September 2007.

The series was animated in Adobe Flash, with some moments of CGI rendered in Maya. To further emphasize the contrast in animation styles, one group of animators was assigned to the anime characters, and another group was in charge of Mikey and the other American characters. The vehicles on LilyMu and around Tokyo, as well as the weapons, the Gonard balloon, Pirate King's ship, the Karaoke Genie Machine, etc., were created in Maya and exported into Flash using the Toon Filter. The backgrounds were modeled in Maya, and texture, details, and clouds were added in Photoshop. Some of the backgrounds were inspired by actual locations in Tokyo. The show's anime-style characters perform with large comedic overuses of face faults, such as a face and/or body turning into an exaggerated general appearance, or becoming much smaller. This allowed animators to have more control over how a character looks and acts than on many other Flash shows, and they did not always have to be on-model. The show uses clichés common to anime, including the sweat drop, lines over the eyes or no eyes at all, big heads, flaming eyes, and bodies becoming smaller. Sometimes Mikey will try to do these things, which was one of the show's running gags, but cannot due to being drawn in an American style.

Episodes
Note: All episodes of the series were directed by Sergei Aniskov.

Dancing Sushi
Dancing Sushi is a spin-off series based on the brief bumpers within the series. The series features four sushi characters – Salmon, Larry, Roro, and Meep – who all want to become the world's biggest pop stars. Unlike the main series, Dancing Sushi lacks any dialogue. The sushis were "voiced" by individuals involved in the original Kappa Mikey series including John Angier, the composer of the series, and director John Holt.

Dancing Sushi was produced from October 2007 to December 2007. It was intended as a way to continue offering fans of Kappa Mikey more of the same kinds of characters in the same universe, and also to keep animators working on the transition between the studio's two major shows; Speed Racer: The Next Generation was in production soon afterward. At one point, there was consideration to reprise some of the Kappa Mikey characters into this series as well.

Home media
A Kappa Mikey DVD was released on September 18, 2007 under the Starz Home Entertainment brand, and includes the episodes "Lost in Transportation," "Easy Come, Easy Gonard," and "The Man Who Would Be Mikey," all from the first season, as well as bonus material, including a fictional music video of "I'm Alright" taken from the episode "Battle of the Bands," wallpaper, an interactive game parodying Hollywood Squares, and a How-to-Draw-Mikey tutorial.

In 2008, the Animation Collective site advertised a second DVD that was scheduled be released sometime later that year. However, the announcement was removed from the website, leaving the exact release date to be unknown. The DVD was intended to include the first season in its entirety, with DVD extras, and would have been considered more of an "official" volume than the last one. No further announcement has been made as the status of this DVD. As of 2009, this release is shelved.

Season 1 (Episodes 1–13) was released on DVD on September 12, 2007, and Season 2 (Episodes 14–26) was released on DVD on March 12, 2008 by Anchor Bay Entertainment in Australia.

The soundtrack for "The Karaoke Episode" is available as a downloadable album on iTunes. Both seasons of the show itself were also available for download from iTunes before they were later taken down from the online retailer.