* “The Adventures of Micah” was originally called “Adventure” (the latter is still mentioned as an Easter egg to help reveal the series’ history). It all started with my (Micah Barga) first planned video game project “Golfing Adventure”, which was initially titled “Micah’s Golfing Adventure”. If I recall, my older brother (Matthew) warned me that I could get in trouble for having my or anyone else’s name in a video game title (I don’t know for a fact if this is true or not, so don’t take my word for it), thus leading me to remove my name from said project. When I was a kid, Matthew often got jealous of some of my skills such as video games and drawing, which is what led to this personal controversy between him and I.
* Trekker was originally named “Monster Guy”, which is what I reveal in my book “Monstrous Origins”. Matthew (at the time) thought the name was silly, so he wanted to help me come up with something more creative or fitting (whatever the term is). While listing out suggestions, “Trekker” (somehow) was the first to come to his mind. I liked it well enough to go forward with it. I felt bad leaving the Monster Guy name just floating around aimlessly not being used, so I decided to assign it fully to another villain in the series.
* As I mentioned earlier, Matthew often got jealous of some of my skills, and because of this, he would take offense to me placing him in high-numbered slots (rows and columns included) in my planned character roster tables (row 1, column 5, row 2, column 7, slot #8, etc.). He always wanted me to place him in either the very first slot (row 1, column 1) or close to it (such as slot #2 or row 1, column 2).
* The “Trekker Gang” started out consisting of Trekker, Trekker Jr., and Osama Bin Laden in a “movie” I made called “The Four Racers II: The Revenge of The Trekker Gang” (Yes, I made a Four Racers I, or I wouldn’t have brought this up). Shortly after, I added Saddam Hussein to it in “The Five Racers II: The Trekker Gang Strikes Back” (Like The Four Racers, a Five Racers I was also made before this one.). Fast forward a couple of months, I decided to make a sequel to my presentation of “The Adventures of Micah: The Quest to Save Sarah”, in which I would have my two friends (Wesley and Sarah) be kidnapped by three guys who are fans of Trekker. At first, I thought about calling them the “Torture Gang”, but it didn’t stand out to me very well if I recall. I don’t think it stood out to Matthew very well either, so I asked him for help (if I’m remembering correctly) to come up with something more fitting. I believe it was him (coincidentally) who helped me come up with the Trekker Gang. I may have come up with it myself. It’s been so long, so my memory’s foggy. Either way, I liked the name well enough to assign it to this group (Having this name already for my two racer movies slipped my mind). This gang, however, consists of three 18 year-old guys named Adam, Butch, and Chris (Matthew helped me pick out these names, as he felt the guys needed individual names, and these were the first to come to his mind that I liked well enough to assign). After discovering the Trekker Gang assigned to two different groups, I decided to keep the name for the three 18 year-old guys and rename the racing group the “Trekkies”, which was only shown in “The Five Racers III”. After concluding the racer movies, I later assigned Trekkies to Trekker’s army of henchmen and/or minions.
* The subtitle to “The Adventures of Micah: Trekker’s Revenge” was initially going to be “Micah’s Revenge”. I only selected this so I could have my name in the title. I believe this was suggested by Matthew. We were kids when we did this. At the time (if I remember), Matthew told me it was ok to have my name in the subtitle, but not the main title.
* One of my planned video game projects were three board games that were similar to the video game(s) “Mario Party”, all of which were going to be under the title “Adventure Excitement” (1, 2, and 3 respectively), another title Matthew helped me come up with, as I didn’t want to use the same name(s) already taken by Mario Party. These games would also involve players navigating and winning boards, as well as play and win minigames. I ended up scrapping all this due to Matthew criticizing them for copying off of Mario Party (No copyright infringement intended. Never has, never will.). I ended up making a physical board game called “The Adventures of Micah Board Game”, in which I later realized it had some similarities with Mario Party. As a result, I decided to re-assign the Adventure Excitement title to it as an Easter egg, which (to me) combines all three cancelled video game projects under this name.
* Another planned video game project I had at one time revolved around frisbees called “Super Frisbee Adventure”. I ended up scrapping this project as well due to the lack of sports/events involving frisbees. If/when I make Golfing Adventure (which I’ve renamed to “The Adventures of Micah Sports: Golf”), I will add “Frisbee Golf” as a playable mode, depending on my skill level, recruits, and/or available storage space. A part of the character order (for the roster) was carried over to another planned video game that I have called “The Adventures of Micah Sports: Bowling” (formally “Super Bowl”). It had its own roster at one time, but it ended up getting lost. My guess is, it was mistaken for trash and thrown away after it was found lying around anonymously, and I never got around to remaking it.
* My “episode” “Sarah the Dinosaur” is loosely based on some drawings I used to make when I was a kid. I had a crush on a girl named Sarah at the time and would often draw myself saving her from a dinosaur because of it (my love for her motivated me into drawing pictures of whatever fantasies I had about her being in danger and me rescuing her), in which she would be very grateful of me saving her life. So grateful, she would kiss me (only in the drawings, not in reality) and I would get all excited about it.
* The search party that I rally up in my planned movie “The Adventures of Micah: The Scientific Heist”, which was previously titled “Adventure: Micah’s Major Trouble”, is the default character line-up for my planned video game “The Adventures of Micah Sports: Golf” (previously titled “Golfing Adventure”). I did write this as a book, and it can be found here on Google Blogger or Amazon.
* These three topics are what inspired me to make “The Adventures of Micah”: Mario, love, and/or romance. Like I (kind of) mentioned before, I often fantasized about some of the crushes I had (at least when I was a kid, anyway) being in danger and me (as a superhero) saving their life, in which I would get rewarded with a kiss, while at the same time, being a big fan of Mario (and still am today). These three interests of mine allowed me to come up with the idea of having my own series that would feature me and my family, friends, and peers as cartoons.
* The cartoon “Dexter’s Laboratory” was what inspired me to make myself a boy genius with a laboratory in the series, as well as invent gadgets and gizmos. Not only was it one of my favorite shows growing up, I was always fascinated with the high intellect and technology used to help others. I never liked seeing the inventions backfire and cause destruction, which wasn’t something I was going to include originally. But if that’s what makes a good show, I am willing to let it happen every now and then. It probably wouldn’t be as often as Dexter or Jimmy Neutron since the series itself is more focused on superheroes and not so much the scientific stuff.
* In “Trekker’s Fiasco”, one of the missions I take on with my best friend (Wesley) is based on an assignment I did in English 3 class during my junior year at the age of 16/17. What Wesley and I have to do is find Sarah, in which we end up finding her and all other girls on a planet created by Trekker called “Planet of the Feminine”. As for the school assignment, I was required to write a story about boys and girls being separated (or something like that). At first, I chose to focus my attention on an entirely different character, but one of my classmates (who has seen The Adventures of Micah after I showed him some of my content) asked me what I was writing about. I told him and he asked me why I wasn’t writing it on The Adventures of Micah, so I decided to make his day and repurposed my paper The Adventures of Micah style. Unfortunately, I got a little too inspired and neglected to follow directions, which one of them stated it was not to be a search-and-rescue. That’s exactly what my story was, and I ended up failing the assignment as a result (silly me. You live and learn, right?). My teacher did say in her comment that it was very creative, so that’s something, right? The name of my story was “The Adventures of Micah: The Disappearance”.
* Following the events of The Disappearance, I decided to make it into a video game under the title “The Adventures of Micah V: The Disappearance”, which started out as a sequel to Trekker’s Fiasco. It was then followed by another sequel titled “The Adventures of Micah VI: The Runaway Car”, which was an idea given to me by the same English 3 classmate of mine who convinced me to write my paper on The Adventures of Micah. I only made these two games (and another called “A Female’s Tale II”) to have 10 platform games (all of which were made with the software “Game Maker”) all together stored on my computer (two games, I did NOT make. I liked them enough to want to have them. Again, no copyright infringement intended). Both of these games were made during a time when the Trekker’s Fiasco book was still being written from scratch. Taking advantage of this, I decided to add The Disappearance and The Runaway Car to it as missions to help extend the story, as I was still unsure at the time what I wanted to write about. A few years later, I went back through and made revisions to my video games, where I took the time to restructure The Disappearance and The Runaway Car as midquels to the Trekker’s Fiasco game. Another couple of years later, I combined The Disappearance and The Runaway Car into one whole game called “The Adventures of Micah IV: Trekker’s Fiasco Part II” (I tried combining it with the first part, but the entire thing took up too much space and took too long to boot). And then another couple of years later, I was then able to combine both parts of the Trekker’s Fiasco game into one entire game after discovering that the background images I drew myself and updated my games with reduced the file size of the games themselves.
* My “episode” “Brotherly Heroism” loosely revolves around the jealousy I’ve tolerated with my brothers when we were kids, most notably in a home video we have of me showing off and talking about some pictures (most of which are Mario) that I drew at my dad’s then-apartment, where you can see and hear them making fun of them. Matthew’s superpowers (Electricew, Tundra, Flamethrower, and Bane) and Christopher’s superpower (Fantom) were also created by my brothers themselves in reality. If I remember, they wanted some time in the spotlight.
* The main title to “The Trekker Gang Strikes” was originally “The Adventures of Micah II”, as was the main title for “The Mysterious Kidnapping” being “The Adventures of Micah III”. They can still be referred to as this, but I see some sequels don’t use numbers in their titles. It’s whatever the series is and then the subtitle. From what I see, the only time numbers are used in movie titles is if no subtitle is present.
* “The Mysterious Kidnapping” was originally titled “The Mystery of the Kidnapper”. I came up with this during a time I envied my childhood best friend for his talents of drawing and writing. As part of this, I competed with him for a story that challenged viewers, and along with this “campaign”, I wanted a title that really stuck out. “The Mystery of the Kidnapper” was all that I could come up with, but felt like it was no good. So, I asked my brothers for help in coming up with something more creative. My younger brother, Christopher, came up with “Detective Micah and the Mysterious Kidnapping”, which is what I went with for a while, and then my older brother (Matthew) simply came up with “The Mysterious Kidnapping”. I went with Matthew’s idea because first of all, he’s the oldest (and was always the smartest). And second, his title is more short, sweet, and to the point.
* “Matthew’s Set-Off” was created per a request by Matthew. I believe he wanted to have his own game. It was initially titled “Adventure II: Double Trouble on the Island”.
* Water Micah, one of my superpowers, was originally unable to breathe on land because of his suit acting like gills. Because of his superhero nature (and the lack of sense I feel from such a factor), I decided to ditch the idea.
* My initial idea of transforming into Klaw Micah was by having Wesley and Sarah merge with me from both sides while all three of us were invincible with the Micah Coin. I felt like the two wouldn’t be able to escape, so I decided to go with the same transformation mask my other superpowers use.
* Power Micah was going to be invincible (with the inside of his body being entirely metal) with lightning being the only thing that can hurt him. Before that, he could only get hurt if struck in the face or hands. This idea was later ditched, as I felt like it would make things too lenient.
* I once wanted to make a song about Power Micah, which I wanted to play during the end credits of my planned movie “The Adventures of Micah: The Scientific Heist” (which was called “Adventure: Micah’s Major Trouble” back in the day). I’m still deciding, as we speak, whether or not to go through with this. I’m pretty embarrassed about it at this time, especially of some of the lyrics that I came up with for it.
* I had a dream before that I wrote and had a theme song made about the Trekker Gang. As of right now, I’m still deciding if I want to make this dream come true.
* There was a time I wanted to make Sarah a princess in The Adventures of Micah. I was always fascinated, at the time, with the romance involved between a royal woman and a commoner man, like what you see in movies such as “Aladdin” (the Disney adaptation(s)). I went through with this in my book “Princess Sarah”, but her role isn’t permanent.
* Some of my books are based (fully or partially) on real-life experiences. There are too many to name, so if you want to know, all you got to do is ask.
* Like my family, friends, and peers that are all featured in the series, my old caricature design was supposed to resemble my real-world appearance. The design of me you see now is how I’ve always imagined my appearance as a cartoon character, even before creating “The Adventures of Micah”. I don’t how or why I envisioned this specific appearance, and I don’t know how it came to me either. It just…kind of, sort of happened out of the blue, and from there, all I can say is, I just liked and went with it. Going back to the current design, I drew it twice at the age of 13 in 7th grade back in (I believe) 2003. I didn’t like how they turned out, which embarrassed me to the point of being afraid of getting made fun of. In early 2019 (at the age of 29), I decided to try again after growing out of fear of getting made fun of on my Nintendo 3DS via the system’s AR Cards feature. I liked it well enough to try once more the old fashioned way…on paper with pencil, which I’ve also liked how it turned out. Fast forward a number of months, I decided I would try and draw the design digitally on my computer. I liked how it turned out there and…well… the rest is history.
* The Micah Coin design you see now (with my caricature’s face engraved on it) is how I’ve always envisioned its appearance, just like my caricature that I talked about previously. I first drew it at the age of 10 back in Summer 2000 when I made my first draft of my first planned video game “Golfing Adventure” (now called “The Adventures of Micah Sports: Golf”), where I drew my power meters, character tables, and distance hit from each character. I didn’t like how it turned out, so I decided to just have the letter “M” on it, as I couldn’t think of any other way to design it. I went with this design for years, just like my old caricature design that I had before its current design, until I got my caricature’s design right where I wanted it, and then the Micah Coin got its makeover.
* The initial invincibility appearance from the Micah Coin was just a barrier covered in dots surrounding the host, as I couldn’t come up with an idea. I didn’t like this design, so I decided to color the host gray instead. I ended up not liking this idea either, so the last thing I came up with was to outline the host gold, the same color as the coin itself.
* Christopher’s original superpower was “Mega Arm”, in which the idea was given to me by Matthew. Christopher himself didn’t like it, which is what led up to him creating Fantom. Mega Arm was eventually repurposed into a villain in my book “Senior Living”. I once asked Christopher if he wanted Fantom to be a good guy or bad guy, and his answer was the latter. It was this that sort of convinced me to make Mega Arm a villain.
* My laboratory was originally set up in the garage of my house. I later felt guilty about having it there, as I wanted the garage to serve its sole purpose of storing vehicles, and instead moved my laboratory underground beneath the foundation of my house.
* Wesley’s laboratory was previously set up inside the barn at his house. Just like me previously having my laboratory in my garage, I also felt guilty about this, so Wesley’s laboratory was also moved underground beneath the foundation of his house so that his barn could serve its sole purpose.
* I once dreamt that Trekker was in the movie “Madagascar” as the main villain. In this dream, my brothers and I were watching the movie with a scene where Alex and Gloria were looking for a way off the island with Alex panicking at point, causing Gloria to slap him across the face to help get a hold of himself and say a line that Alex retaliates to with “Not even Trekker knows!” (if I’m remembering correctly. No idea how or where this all came from. A lot of my dreams make no sense at all. I don’t ask for them to happen. They just do). Trekker later appears in the dream movie, confronting Alex and Gloria and talking to them while instructing some of his henchmen to do something dastardly (I remember one part in the dream where he beckons and his henchmen take something. It’s been so long since I’ve had this dream.). I even remember the dream me making a comment to dream Matthew as Trekker makes his appearance in the dream movie. I remember dream me saying to dream Matthew, “It looks just like him.” (or something like that). Trekker’s appearance in dream Madagascar had my design, but with two additional fangs hanging out of his mouth, a furry body, and wearing some pirate pants and possibly other attire.
* Another dream I remember having involved my planned racing game “The Adventures of Micah Go-Karting” (called “Racing Adventure” back in the day). What happened in this dream was, I won a race and stood on top of a winners podium (above 1), where Trekker pulls up in front of me in his go-kart and looks at me angrily, shaking his fist in the air while saying, “I’ll get you next time!” (I think). There’s another part of the dream where a crash or something occurs at the podium as part of an old Cartoon Network bumper going to commercials that causes me to stand on the edge of the podium and keep my balance as I’m about to drop my trophy.
* I once dreamed (before “The Adventures of Micah” was created) that it was my first day of 3rd grade and I was a cartoon (in the same design that you see on here and everywhere else you find “The Adventures of Micah”), wearing blue overalls and a blue long-sleeve shirt, probably because I had a pair of blue overalls and a red shirt like Mario that I wanted to wear on the first day. Back to the dream, my cartoon caricature was talking to someone off-screen and then cuts to Wario (who was my substitute teacher in the dream) angrily saying, “Ok, everyone! Clean up this mess!”. I don’t why he said that. A lot of my dreams are awkward and make no sense, and along with that, Wario had a ghostly tail like a genie instead of legs.
* One other dream I remember having one time involved The Adventures of Micah: The Scientific Heist being aired on TV. The channels were changing and then suddenly, my movie (displaying Adventure: Micah’s Major Trouble) shows up with a scene of me leading my search party over rocks in the water that we had to jump to.
* In my story “Goo-fee Parents”, I mention Trekker Jr. hears a “messy sound” coming from Trekker, leading to a diaper change. The messy sound is referring to droppings.
* I mention in my story “The Attack of Bill” that Dalton has a “unique attack”. The attack is flatulence.
* I’ve had other dreams where some of my Adventures of Micah content appears. You just have to ask. I have so many.
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