Mike Wazowski

"I don't know, but it's been said, I love scaring kids in bed!"

- Mike about his excitement on the job. "Well, then, you find some place for it to sleep... (screams bloody murder) WHILE I THINK OF A PLAN?!"

- Michael "Mike" Wazowski's most famous quote. "Now I don't know about you gentlemen, but I for one spotted several mistakes. Let’s watch my favorite part again...shall we?"

- Mike revels he got Mr. Waternoose's confession on tape.

Michael "Mike" Wazowski is the deuteragonist of the 2001 Oscar winning Disney/Pixar film Monsters, Inc. and the main protagonist of it's 2013 prequel Pixar's 14th full-length animated feature film Monsters University. He is Sulley's best friend, assistant, and former arch-rival, Randall's former friend turned enemy and Celia Mae's boyfriend.

He is voiced by Billy Crystal in both films and Noah Johnston as Young Mike in the prequel.

Monsters University
"I can't believe, I'm officially a college student!"

- Mike

Unfortunately, as a young child, Mike didn't have many friends, shown when he and his class went on a field trip to Monsters, Inc., and he was partnered with the teacher. Mike was amazed by the scare floor and the scarers themselves, and one scarer, "Frightening" Frank McCay, told him that he learned how to be a scarer at Monsters University. Mike secretly followed Frank into a door he was scaring in, much to the shock of his class and teacher. Frank was amazed, not even knowing Mike had been in the room with him, and gave him his Monsters University cap. Mike decided from then on, that he would grow up to be the best scarer of all.

Years later, thanks to his hard work and lots of studying, Mike is accepted as a freshman at the prestigious Monsters University, majoring in scaring. On his first day, Mike befriends his roommate, the nerdy and shy Randall "Randy" Boggs, who desires to be popular and has difficulty controlling his camouflage power.

While studying for the scare final one night, Mike encounters a fellow scare student, an arrogant, playful, all-brawn, large blue monster named James P. "Sulley" Sullivan, who inadvertently sneaks into Mike's room with Archie, the mascot of rival college, Fear Tech. After greeting each other, Archie steals Mike's hat and escapes. Mike and Sulley follow Archie outside where they have a struggle to capture Archie. When they do catch Archie, Sulley is invited to join Roar Omega Roar, the top fraternity on campus. Mike tries to join, but an argument with Sulley ignites a rivalry between the two.

Eventually, Mike and Sulley's petty competition gets out of hand and causes Dean Hardscrabble to drop both of them from the program and Sulley to be kicked out of his fraternity. Unhappy in his new major of Scream Can Design, Mike decides to prove himself by entering the Scare Games, a college competition to determine a monsters scaring abilities. However, the competitors are teams from MU's fraternities and sororities.

But hope arises when he joins Oozma Kappa, a fraternity of misfit monsters, consist of Art, Scott, Don, Terri &amp; Terry. Mike reluctantly lets Sulley join the team so they can enter, and makes a deal with Dean Hardscrabble for the entire Oozma Kappa fraternity to be allowed in the Scare Program if they win, but for Mike to leave Monsters University if they lose the games. Sulley is concerned since Oozma Kappa has a high level of ineptitude when it comes to scaring, but Mike decides to train them to be more scary.

Despite Mike and Sulley's rivalry, Oozma Kappa unexpectedly advances through the first rounds of the Games. During a party at ROR house, the ROR pranks Oozma Kappa and humiliates them in front of the whole university. Mike arranges a secret visit to Monsters Inc. lifts their spirits, causing Mike and Sulley to begin to like each other, and with Mike's help and training, Oozma Kappa makes it to the final round against ROR.

Even as the final round arrives, Sulley has a hard time believing Mike can be a good scarer. So in the final round, he manipulates the equipment so that Mike can register a perfect score and allow Oozma Kappa to win the tournament. When Mike discovers this, he is heartbroken and decides to prove to everyone that he is capable of being a good scarer. So, he breaks into the door lab and uses a newly-crafted door to enter the human world at a summer camp, but his plan goes wrong and he fails to scare the kids.

Sulley soon enters the door to look for Mike. After finding and reconciling with Mike, the pair attempt to return but Dean Hardscrabble deactivates the door until the Child Detection Agency arrives, trapping them in the human world. Mike realizes that the only way to get back into the monster world is to generate enough scream energy to power the door from their side. Using both Mike's knowledge and Sulley's natural abilities, Sulley and Mike are able to scare the investigating adults to the point that they are able to make back through the door. Their actions prompt their expulsion from the university, but before they leave, Hardscrabble acknowledges that Sulley and Mike have surprised her and she wishes them luck. Mike and Sulley decide to take jobs at Monsters, Inc. in the company mailroom, and over time, work their way up to janitors, then cafeteria workers, then scream can wranglers, until they become part of the scarer team, thus establishing the story for Monsters, Inc.

Monsters, Inc.
In the film, Mike works as Sulley's assistant at work on the scarefloor at Monsters, Inc. and is his best friend and roommate. He is Celia Mae's boyfriend and is constantly watched by Roz, who seems to dislike him for always bringing in paperwork late. While at Harryhausen's for Celia's birthday, Sulley appeared out of nowhere to tell Mike that he had lead a human girl into the Monster World. Putting her into a Monsters, Inc. gym bag, Sulley tried to show him, but the human girl got out of the bag and wreaked havoc all over the restaurant. The two secretly took her out of the restaurant before the CDA found her and disinfected the entire restaurant.

When they learn that Randall and their boss Mr. Waternoose are in on a scam of draining children of screams, while Sulley tricks Waternoose into confessing, Mike records the confession and smugly replays it to watching CDA agents. After Waternoose is arrested and Sulley becomes the CEO of Monsters Inc., Mike becomes his assistant as well as a laugher for the newly established laugh floor. He also secretly rebuilt Boo's door to let Sulley see her occasionally.

Mike proves to be not only a great assistant but a great "laugher".

Personality
Confident and driven, tenacious and ambitious, from the earliest age Mike Wazowski was driven to fulfill his childhood dreams - becoming the greatest scarer of all time.

To fulfil this, during his years at Monsters University Mike was determined and somewhat obsessed. He never showed any interest in becoming popular or surrounding himself with the "cool crowds" (unlike Randell) and he took his learning extremely seriously (unlike Sulley) and because of this never partied or distracted himself, usually remaining in his dorm or studying. Whereas over monsters rely on their own scariness or appearance, Mike was not as blessed and very much dedicated to sharpening his own abilities by the use of educating himself throughout his time at Monsters University. He was extremely intelligent as evidenced by his high scores, correct answers throughout his classes and in this area he was able to beat Sulley despite being much less scary than he was.

Underneath his confident demeanor, Mike in reality is full of self-doubt. Having been told all his life that he is not scary and will never achieve his life-long ambition of becoming a scarer, Mike was more driven than ever to prove everyone and secretly himself wrong. Mike can also act confrontational if he feels wounded. When Sulley says he doesn't belong at Monsters University before the Scare Finals he responds by mockingly roaring at him which results in a duel and the two accidentally end up getting themselves expelled from the Scaring Program. Also, he wagered with Hardscrabble if he wins the Scaring Games he would be allowed to re-enter the Scaring Program after previously being expelled by the latter and finally, entering the human world to prove that he was scary after Sulley had cheated to win after angrily claiming that "he didn't have it".

A fatal flaw Mike developed throughout his teenage years was not knowing his own limitations. As he himself was aware (or maybe subconsciously aware) that he was not scary, Mike deluded himself into thinking he was a cut above the others rather than face the stone-cold reality that the dream he had been hoping to achieve his entire life was actually unobtainable, and thought that he himself was scary enough to carry the entire team of Oozma Kappa. After winning his team the Scaring Games, Mike was overjoyed but later outraged when he discovered that Sulley cheated by lowering the setting on his go. The knowledge that his teammate and friend did not think that he was scary only hurt him more until, desperately trying to prove himself that he is scary, goes to the human world to collect screams. After finally coming to terms that he was not scary, he depressively gains self-acceptance.

While he was leader of the Oozma Kappa, Mike proves to be very bold, fearless and charismatic. After his teammates were humiliated by Roar Omega Roar, Mike was able to moralize them by taking them to Monsters Inc and inspiring them with his own philosophy; a monster's scariness is because of his own uniqueness and how he uses it, not his own appearance. He was an inspirational leader, able to properly motivate Oozma Kappa, having been treated similarly all his life and under his guidance they were able to properly compete in the Scare Games. His lack of fear and determination impress many people around him, such as entering the human world while at a field trip and the Scarer was amazed that even he did not know Mike was there. He was also one of the few, if perhaps the only person to impress Dean Hardscrabble as his planning with Sulley to scare a group of adults allowed both of them to escape the human world.

After being expelled from Monsters University, Mike did appear sad but somewhat humbled. When Hardscrabble indirectly advises both him and Sulley to begin working with Monsters Incorporated, for a while he was consent with either his job in the mail room or cafeteria and though it's unknown whether he auditioned himself, he genuinely appeared comfortable with not being the greatest scarer ever and instead assisted Sulley, who did become one.

Even with this, Mike shows some traits of his old fame-seeking self. He did appear more focused and obsessed with obtaining the all-time scaring record, even though he would share none of the fame for securing such a title as Sulley was the scarer of the duo. His obsession with the title was further reinforced when after being accidentally kidnapped by Randall, he believed the sole basis of such an act was so he could jeopardise Sulley's chance of winning the record and after being banished he was outraged that because of his obsession with Boo, Sulley prevented them from ever winning the record.

Mike has a very sarcastic and tender sense of humour which can be perceived as childish at times. He was capable of humour at his own expense and causing himself physical pain for a laugh. His sense of humour is very relatable to children and was able to get a child to laugh to the brink of tears on his first day at Monsters Inc.

Trivia

 * His voice actor, Billy Crystal, also voiced Gary Grossman in The Critic, Calcifer in Howl's Moving Castle, Rugs Turkell in Animalympics and will later voice Tracker in the Nickelodeon Jr. TV show, Paw Patrol.
 * In an earlier draft of Monsters, Inc., Mike was the assistant of Randall rather than Sulley.
 * Eddie Murphy originally auditioned for the role of Mike Wazowski, but turned down the role, due to being in Shrek. In addition to Murphy, Drew Carrey, David Schwimmer and Sinbad originally auditioned for the role of Mike Wazowski.