Mike and Angelo

MIKE AND ANGELO
Made by: Thames
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: 1989-98

One of television’s greatest mysteries has to be how Mike and Angelo kept being given the green light for another new series. Conceived and written by Lee Pressman and Grant Cathro (see also The Amazing Adventures of T-Bag and Spatz), this kids’ comedy show started off harmlessly enough, with American writer Rita King (Shelley Thompson) divorcing her husband, Tony, and moving herself and her young son, Mike, to a ramshackle old house in the Home Counties.

Mike is not pleased with this change of scene, until he opens the old wardrobe in his room and discovers Angelo, a humanoid who fled from his planet when it began to self-destruct. Of course, Mike has to introduce his alien buddy to his aghast mom, but when she adapts to the idea of a lodger, it all becomes a bit like Mork & Mindy (minus the romance aspect between the leads, of course.) During the first few years, Mike was played by Matt Wright, who I thought was rather cute when I was ten, and the agreeable Tyler Butterworth was in the role of zany, trouble-making Angelo. But it was all change when Mike returned to the USA after the third series; and when his character returned, he was replaced by not-so-cute Michael Benz, who was clearly a good few years younger; and what’s more, Tim Whitnall (now totally bald, btw) took on the guise of Angelo.

Because Mike and Angelo went on for so long, toothy Michael Benz also outgrew the role, and Steven Geller was brought in as the new Mike, but the series was a limping dog by this stage, and the only humane thing would have been to shoot it on the spot. The problem with Mike and Angelo, aside from the irritating canned laughter, was that I suspect the writers came up with the neat title first, and then thought about what they might do with it. The initial premise was not a bad one, but how many low-grade adventures can a boy and his alien have?

SQUARE EYES RATING: 4/10