I was always wondering what Mike’s actual species was. Sulley is obviously a Mammal and Randall is Peptile, but I always questioned Mike’s species actually was. I know it’s too much heavy thinking considering they’re all just monsters, but their designs seem to take elements from some animals in the human world. After much thinking, I can’t help but feel like Mike has a fairly Amphibian-like appearance with his green slimy skin and frog-like lips.
Maybe I’m analyzing too much considering his design is rather basic (green sphere-shape with one eye) though I wanted to know what you guys thought.
Wow, haven’t been here in awhile(and I’m sure my arrival will be greeted with much enthusiasm by some other members), but I had to weigh in on this one, as a Biologist who breeds reptiles as a hobby.
First up, no, Randall is NOT a reptile. He has superficially reptilian characteristics, namely scaly skin, but that is not unique to reptiles at all. Randall’s metabolism and skeletal structure is very, very mammalian. I mean, in MU, he’s out and about in JANUARY, during the Scare Games sign-ups, and there are still icicles hanging from the tree branches, indicating that it’s quite cold, still. An ectothermic creature would not be able to do that; Randall would have no choice but to hibernate through much of the Fall, Winter and early part of the Spring semesters if he was a reptile living in a temperate climate, and obviously he could not complete college like that. He would not have even been able to get and keep a job at MI, having to sleep through almost half the year! By definition, reptiles MUST be ectothermic(“cold-blooded”), so that rules him out.
Now, Mike is harder to classify using our system of animal classification. He does NOT appear to have slimy skin, though. He doesn’t leave a trail of slime or moisture behind him where he sits or walks. He doesn’t have “frog lips”, either, since frog lips are fixed and immobile and do not move, and he does not have hands or feet equipped for swimming(no webbing), AND he has fingernails/claws, which amphibians totally lack. Mike also does not have to immerse himself in water frequently(kinda hard to do that and study at the same time)or stay someplace where it’s damp, something that amphibians must do, because their skin will dry out and they will die. Like Randall, Mike is clearly endothermic(“warm-blooded”) because he’s able to move around outside in cold weather. In MI, when he and Sulley were thrown into the Himalayas, he tried keeping warm by putting on mittens, etc., which a cold-blooded creature would have found useless. You can’t hold in body heat that’s just not there to start with. Had either he OR Randall been cold-blooded, both would have perished immediately upon exposure to the icy blast of air through that open iron door, or at least been rendered unconscious within seconds. Too fast a change in body temperature is lethal to ectothermic creatures. Mike would have frozen solid once he wound up in the snow. I would classify Randall as a mammal, in spite of his lack of hair or obvious mammary glands(which aren’t usually so obvious in male mammals, after all), since he has all the other mammal characteristics, but Mike? I guess we’d need a new and separate animal classification for him! Definitely lacks all the obvious amphibian characteristics, though.
Hey Pitbulllady, I was wondering where you were. Nice to see you back. You make a good point about Randall, I always thought of him as reptilian though the though of him not being cold-blooded could pretty much rule him out. And Mike, well his green skin just sort of reminded me of an amphibian in some way, though then again I’m not as knowledgeable about them as you. Thanks for the clear up though, maybe he would need a separate species classification as I don’t see him as mammal in any way.
Mike’s skin actually looks a bit like the skin of a pear-smooth, but not slimy or damp, but if I recall from that incident in Mike’s New Car where he winds up actually inside the engine compartment of said vehicle, he seems to be covered with a sort of fine fuzz, too.
Wow, pitbulllady, you really put a lot of thought into this! I personally just figured they’re monsters and have some animal characteristics, but not enough to be classified as a species. I mean, in the Bud Luckey short on the MI DVD about the origins of monsters, it seems to be that monsters are just extremely mutated humanoids (and I do mean extremely) that then crossbred with others with different mutations and made the enormous variety of monsters we have today. So Mike is probably a bit mammal and a bit reptile in different ways, but not being entirely either one. Just my theory.
Ah, yes, The History of the Monster World explained that ALL of the monsters’ ancestors were humans, albeit humans who were looked down upon for looking different from the others, and were eventually cast out, set adrift on a boat, which must have found its way through a worm-hole into a parallel dimension. There, they washed up on an island, and found that when they ate other animals, they gradually absorbed some of the genetic characteristics of those animals, “you are what you eat”, LITERALLY. The animals’ DNA, rather than simply being digested, was incorporated to some extent with the human DNA. As a result, we got individuals like Randall, who LOOK reptilian, but aren’t, and individuals like Frank McCray and Sonia Lewis and Don Carlton(bless him and his adorable “Yooper*” accent), who have the tentacles of a cephalopod, but who are clearly not even aquatic, and others like Sulley or Johnny, who appear definitely mammalian, but who also have the modified scales, called scutes, like a crocodile’s on their tails, a distinctly reptilian characteristic!
pitbulllady
*A “Yooper”, to save you the trouble of Googling, it, is a resident of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, also known affectionately as “da U.P.” or “da Yoop”. The entire movie, in fact, has a VERY strong Michigander/Midwestern vibe to it, which makes sense given that Dan Scanlon is a native of Clawson(good Monster-sounding town name, no?), Michigan!
