Mike the Knight is a British-Canadian CGI Preschool Show produced by Nelvana and HIT Entertainment and created by Alexander Bar that aired on Treehouse TV and Nick Jr. from 2011 to 2017 with 75 episodes over 3 seasons.
The show's title character is a young knight-in-training who happily lives in a castle. His parents are the king and queen of the land, but his father is a knight currently away on a quest. Mike deeply admires his father and tries his best to protect the kingdom and the queen. Alongside his horse Galahad, his magician friend Evie, and two dragon companions named Sparkie and Squirt, Mike always tries to emulate the ideal knight to the best of his ability. While his inexperience means he regularly makes mistakes and messes up, Mike always makes the effort to fix his mistakes and make everyone happy, learning a lesson or two along the way.
This show provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: The Vikings, the closest thing the show has to a regular antagonist. Being raiders, most of the conflicts involving them taking the episode's MacGuffin, but their motivations in doing so are rooted in child-like ignorance rather than true malice.
- An Aesop: Each episode includes a moral. Even the viewer is reminded of the moral at the end of the episode when a Robin Hood-like minstrel comes and plays a small song on his guitar and sings.
- Catchphrase:
- "It's time to be a knight, and do it right!"
- "By the king's crown, that's it!"
- A Day in the Limelight: Sometimes there are episodes where a character gets more focus than Mike. When this happens, the character says "It's time for me to do it right!"
- Disappeared Dad
- Mike's father is mentioned as existing and being part of his life, but he's always off questing during the episodes.
- He was one, but then in one of the Christmas specials he showed up and joined Mike on a knightly adventure. He's also a major part of Journey to Dragon Mountain.
- Squirt has both a Disappeared Dad and Missing Mom until he finds them both at the end of Journey to Dragon Mountain. And then, his new baby sister, Flutter hatches from an Egg MacGuffin.
- Mike's father is mentioned as existing and being part of his life, but he's always off questing during the episodes.
- Expository Theme Tune and Title Theme Tune: "There'll be trouble, double trouble! But you know it's gonna be alright. 'Cause every day is an adventure for Mike the Knight! Be a knight, do it right!"
- Functional Magic: Evie, being a witch-in-training her spells don't go right.
- Funny Foreigner: The Vikings. They speak in Scandinavian-sounding gibberish (but do understand the local language of Glendragon), like to jump and bounce around everywhere like a troupe of acrobats, and are generally pretty jovial for a group of plunderers.
- Obviously Sparkie, a spanish-accented Dragon can be silly at times.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All episodes follow the formula “Mike the Knight and (noun)”.
- Inept Mage: Evie, being a witch-in-training her spells don't go right.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: The King is a knight and his children- Mike and Evie- are, respectively, a knight and a witch.
- Santa Claus: In one episode, Mike tries to deliver the presents for Santa to get off the naughty list, not realizing he was never on the naughty list, it's just that his present was very big and so hadn't been delivered yet. A followup episode had Mike as Santa's good friend and trying to help him out when one of his reindeer got sick.
- So Proud of You: Mike's father to him and Evie in Journey to Dragon Mountain, Squirt's father to him.
- Transformation Sequence: The contraption that puts Mike in his armour.
- You Can Talk?: In Journey to Dragon Mountain, Mike to the giant dragon, who turns out to be Squirt's long lost father.
