Template:Infobox character Mo Michaels[1] (real name, Anthony) was a character on The Dumping Ground, for three and a bit series. He was portrayed by Reece Buttery.
Biography
Background
Mo was born to Peter and Caroline, a couple who both had Cerebral Palsy. Despite both parents having the disability, Mo was born without physical defect. Mo was named "Anthony" at birth, but was nicknamed "Mo" by Peter.
Caroline and Peter found it difficult to cope with Mo. One day when Mo was 18 months old, David, Mo's paternal grandfather found that Mo had been left alone while his parents had gone out. David took Mo with him, much to the dismay of his parents, adopted Mo and brought him up with his wife as their son.
By the time Mo was 8, he was living with his grandparents in a shed. While the shed had electricity (from a generator), Mo had to go to the toilet in the bushes, which he was not happy with. He was taken away from his grandparents after they were found to be unfit to look after him.
The Dumping Ground
Season One
Mo arrived at the Elm Tree House prior to the episode Oh, Mo! where he was made to share a room with Tyler. To Tyler's ire, Mo enjoyed collecting rubbish from the bins (which he dubbed treasure, which he made arts and crafts from) and would take it into their bedroom, effectively turning the bedroom into a rubbish dump. This eventually annoyed Tyler to the point that one day, he took Mo's "treasure" and dumped it over the stairs onto the ground floor, declaring that it was what he had to put up with.
Mo was told to take his "treasure" to the attic and Tyler ended up being moved to Rick's bedroom, leading to Mo getting the room to himself, with which he was very pleased and tried to give Tyler a hug (to Tyler's disgust). Whilst the others (except Jody and Elektra) were out, Mo took belongings from the other residents' rooms and (with Floss's help) built an "Ant Theme Park" by placing jam on the belongings to attract the ants, which he had brought into the house. This unfortunately led to Mo receiving more ire from the Dumping Ground residents, only to be stopped by Tee.
Later, Mo offered to build a scarecrow to help scare birds away from Gina's vegetables, which he would build out of his "treasure". Mo did this with Tee's help, as she had befriended Mo to help him settle in. Mo decided to declare Tee his "best friend" and wanted to hang around her including sitting next to her at dinner, much to Tee's ire and the amusement of the other DG residents.
The following morning, Mo wanted to give his grandmother's pearls (which Jody and Elektra had stolen) to Tee, but could not find him, so he went to ask Tee for help. Unfortunately, Tee had reached the end of her tether with Mo and went to destroy Mo's scarecrow with a cricket bat. Tee succeeded in knocking the scarecrow down, which unfortunately landed on top of Mo, who had followed Tee.
Mo was taken to hospital and Mike intended for him to be moved into emergency foster care as Mo was clearly not settling down at Elm Tree House. However, the other kids realised that Mo was no different to them in that they all had a rough start in life, so they rebuilt his scarecrow as a welcome home present, saying that they wanted Mo to stay. Jody also returned the pearls she and Elektra had stolen (to Elektra's annoyance) so Mo could present them to Tee as a gift.
When Tee and Carmen left for a sleepover at Lily's flat, Mo gave Tee a hug (as he was fond of doing) as the girls hugged each other. After the girls left, he said that he wished he could go. The following day, Mo took Tyler's practical joke toys on learning that Tyler no longer wished to play practical jokes.
Prior to Scary Beasts, Mo purchased a "magic" egg, thinking that it would hatch into a bird. One night, the egg hatched. Mo declared this to the house the following morning, declaring that it had hatched into a bird and it had gone missing. It later transpired that Mo's "bird" was in fact a snake, which Johnny and Elektra found. Mo decided to call his snake "Mike", which the others joked would lead to confusion.
Season Two
When Faith was admitted to hospital, Mo decided to make her a "get well soon" card, but ended up with glitter over his face in the process. When Faith later returned from hospital, Mo greeted her saying that they had made her a surprise. Faith was then heard trashing her room (annoyed about being in a wheelchair), leading to Mo commenting that she would not like his invention (a watering can attached to a pole). Later, Mo decided to use one of Bailey's football boots to make shoe prints with, only for it to be taken by Tyler and Rick, who were trying to sell Bailey's boots. The following day, he, Harry and Floss (with whom he had become friends with by this point) were watching the tv when Faith ordered them out to watch a film.
When a training video for care children was being filmed at the Dumping Ground, Mo was given an old camera for him to use. After getting the camera to work, Mo filmed the other residents (including Johnny making a "Care Kid Sandwich") which was later seen by the lady making the training video.
On the day of Lily's leaving barbecue, Carmen tricked Mo into thinking that there was gold underneath the potatoes in the vegetable patch, as a way of getting out of her chores. Later that day, Mo found a golden wrapper in the vegetable patch and believed it to be treasure (when really it was from one of Floss's sweets).
On the day the older residents went out to look for Frank, Mo was due to have a dentist appointment. Mo, fearing the dentist, hid in the garden, but was found by Floss and Harry. Mo was coaxed out, only for a bird to poo on him. Harry cheered up Mo, saying that when a bird pooed on you, it was lucky (something Sapphire had told him). Mo then found a pound coin on the ground and was then told by May-Li that his appointment had been cancelled as the dentist was ill. On learning that Frank had gone missing, Mo, Floss and Harry waited for birds to poo on them, thinking that the lucky bird poo would lead to Frank being found. However, this initially did not work as Mo ended up chasing the birds away by running toward them and shouting at them to pick him. Instead, Floss had Mo and Harry untie one of May-Li's washing lines while she took bread to attract the birds while May-Li was distracted. Consequently, all three children were punished (by being made to tidy up the garden and take the sheets in) when May-Li discovered what had happened with the bread.
Some time afterward, the other DG residents teased Mo's snake, now renamed "Rocky", saying that he was boring. Out to prove otherwise, Mo purchased a box of locusts that escaped after Mike untaped the box and left it on the piano with the lid open. Consequently, Mo, with Harry and Floss, set about rounding up the 50+ locusts from other places in the Dumping Ground. After finally rounding them up, Mo revealed to the rest of the DG why he had bought them: they were bait for Rocky to perform tricks in a show he was putting on. Unfortunately, Rocky refused to respond to Mo's commands (despite having responded in practice) even when Mo attempted to charm him with a recorder. Faith later suggested to Mo that Rocky was depressed, prompting Mo to give Rocky to a man who owned numerous other snakes, on the reasoning that Mo could play with his friends whenever he wanted and so wanted to let Rocky do the same thing.
When the DG residents held the "Touch The Telly" challenge, Mo was the only care kid to not pick a side. Instead, he was appointed the referee and was repsonsible for seeing who was out of the game, how long people had taken on their toilet breaks and how many they had been on. Like the other kids, Mo fell asleep in the lounge the following night and saw neither the footbal game nor the talent show.
In I Have a Dream, the DG residents were informed of a short story competition and May-Li decided to hold a competition in the house and would send off the winning entry. Mo decided that he wanted to submit a story, but had trouble deciding what it would be on (though he did get as far as the first line "I like cheese"). He was also made to go shopping with Bailey, whom he annoyed by asking who decided where everything in the supermaket was positioned. Mo later pestered Bailey by asking why he had not yet read his letter, saying that he would be excited to receive one, and eventually sussed out that Bailey was dyslexic, going on to say that his dad was dyslexic and that he had to read letters for him. Bailey initially denied being dyslexic, then later asked for Mo's help in reading it (albeit, claiming he could not read it because the writing was untidy). Mo then decided to help Bailey write a short story at the cost of writing his own story. Bailey went on to win the short story. However, Mo revealed the plot when he started reading Bailey's story and when Carmen read the story for herself, she wondered how Mo could have known the plot it was Bailey's story. This led to Johnny accusing Bailey of bullying Mo to write his story, which led to Mo shouting that they had got it all wrong and storming out of the kitchen, leading to him telling May-Li about Bailey's problem afterward. Bailey went on to win the competition and won tickets for himself and another person to take with him, so he picked Mo, who proceeded to give him a hug.
When Harry was told that he could not go to a wrestling tournament, he came up with the idea of having a wrestling tournament with one of the other DG kids. Mo declined to be Harry's opponent, but they both went to find Tyler, who agreed to be the announcer. Later, after Harry had had his costume made by Tee, Mo suggested that Harry have a tattoo on his face, which he agreed to.
On learning that Floss was to be adopted, Mo asked her if she would still live at the DG, only to be told by Harry that adoption meant Floss would be leaving and never coming back. This upset Mo, who told May-Li that she needed to turn away any parents who wanted to adopt him, to which May-Li said to him that Mo was not going to be adopted and was only living at Ashdene Ridge until his parents were fit to take care of him.
Some time afterward, when Liam came to the Dumping Ground to look for Frank, Mo answered to door to him. When asked where Frank was, Mo told Liam that he was at the cinema with Johnny, prompting Liam to leave, despite Mo offering to get Mike. Later when Liam came to temporarily stay at the DG, Mo's part in the plan to get Faith her work placement back was to sing "Twelve Tiny Hours" (a song Liam had written) with Johnny and Rick, but Mo's singing was so atrocious he decided that he did not want to sing at all.
Season Three
On the day of The Dumping Ground's open day, Mo helped to add food colouring some cupcakes for the guests. Later in the day, however, Mo decided to run a bath and poured the food colouring that he had used on the cupcakes. The water overflowed the bath, fell into the living room downstairs (soaking Matt, Stephanie Brantston and Carmen) and also soaked Johnny's bedroom as well. Mo was caught after he tried to get away from the living room and was made to show his hands which were coloured red by the food colouring. Mo explained that he did this to prevent Carmen being fostered by the Brantstons, calling them "nasty people". Consequently, Mo was made to share with Ryan, who arrived the following day.
On the same day, Mo discovered the purses that had gone missing had been dumped in a bin outside the DG. He was going to tell Mike, but was stopped by Ryan who convinced him to show him first, then was convinced to keep quiet by Ryan on the grounds that the police would implicate him as his fingerprints would be on the purses, as Mo had told Ryan he had touched them a bit.
Tee managed to get the truth out of Mo eventually after Mo started to talk at the kitchen table, but then kept quiet. They searched the bins only to find the purses were now gone. Tee and Mo confronted Ryan, who lied that he had not moved the purses. Later that day, while Ryan was speaking to Maude Gordon (Harry's potential foster sister, who had taken the money from the purses) in the attic, Mo followed Tee (who was recording Ryan and Maude's conversation) and sneezed, prompting Ryan to get Maude to turn herself in.