Stranger Things: Mike’s 5 Funniest Quotes (& 5 Most Inspiring)

Mike Wheeler is the boy who made Eleven feel safe and welcome when she’s on the run from seemingly everyone. Everyone in the party trusts Mike, and everything has to get approval from him before moving forward. He’s a natural leader, especially in the first season. But he’s also just a kid.

He gets annoyed easily, and nobody annoys him more than Hopper – which makes for some pretty funny scenes. Here are five of Mike’s funniest quotes, and five most inspiring.

10 FUNNY: “MOM! JUST GET – OFF – THE – PHONE! HOW MANY TIMES?”

Yes, that quote does require all capitals. Most scenes involving Mike and his mom include him yelling at her. Usually, he’s down in his basement with his friends, or more often, Eleven. When he first allows Eleven to sleep in the basement, he’s trying to calm her down quietly, but his mom keeps calling for him to come upstairs. He turns and savagely yells, “COMING!”, then calmly resumes his conversation with Eleven.

In season 3, he’s on the phone to her after Hopper threatens him, trying to come up with an excuse as to why he can’t see her. Karen’s listening in, shocked when Mike tells Eleven his grandmother might die. Cue the frustrated yelling. He goes on to say, uncertainly, that he needs “to be alone with [his] … feelings?”

9 INSPIRING: “I Saw You Guys Laughing Over There And I Think That’s A Real Messed-Up Thing To Do.”

After Will goes missing, Hawkins assumes that he’s dead. The school holds an assembly to acknowledge the tragedy, but Mike catches Troy making fun of the whole affair.

After the assembly, Mike bravely confronts Troy. He tells the truth, even though he’s so nervous that he struggles to get the words out at first. Even though Mike knows that Will isn’t really dead, he’s still willing to stand up for his best friend – and lead the party by example. Eleven, Dustin, and Lucas stand by him, and Eleven helps out by making Troy wet himself.

8 FUNNY: “Blank Makes You Crazy.”

The iconic supermarket scene from season 3 gave us many memorable scenes, one of which involves a sheepish Mike trying to win Eleven back. He tries to act cool and skirt the subject at hand. “You know, they do say it makes you crazy,” he says. We know that the it Mike is referring to is love, but Eleven doesn’t – or maybe she’s just messing with him since she says it back in the season 3 finale.

He stutters his way through an awkward explanation that doesn’t make any sense to anyone. “You never – you’ve never heard that term? You know, like the phrase, like “blank makes you crazy”, like the word.” He makes Eleven guess, and even brings up old people, further confusing her.

7 INSPIRING: “It Was The Best Thing I’ve Ever Done.”

When everyone joins in on exorcising the Mind Flayer from Will’s hosting body, Joyce, Jonathan, and Mike stay with him in the Byers’ shed to try to reach the real Will by talking to him. They’re actually trying to distract the Mind Flayer from their real plan – to look for a code from Will and communicate it back to everyone at the house.

Mike reminds Will of how they first met, how they were both alone, and Mike decided to ask him to be his friend. Will said yes, of course, and Mike says it’s the best thing he’s ever done. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help overcome the Mind Flayer, but it’s still an inspiring thing for the real Will to hear – to know that they’re not giving up on him, no matter what.

6 FUNNY: “What Was Your Test On, Again? Human Anatomy?”

Before things get too dangerous for the Wheeler family, Mike and Nancy are always teasing each other. Mike knows that she’s been sneaking about with Steve, but she doesn’t want their mom to know.

At breakfast the next morning, she lies and tells Karen that she was studying with Barb when really she was with Steve. Mike, his mouth full of food, says, “What was your test on, again? Human anatomy?” Nancy kicks him under the table. How sweet.

5 INSPIRING: “Something Is Coming … Something Hungry For Blood.”

The series opens with an endearing scene of the boys playing in the basement that instantly wins viewers over. Mike is a clear leader, and evidently Will, Lucas, and Dustin all look up to him. As he narrates the campaign that took two weeks to plan, the boys listen to him, enraptured.

He has an aura of certainty and control about him, a precociousness that makes the other boys take him seriously. They hang onto his every word, and this continues for the rest of the season. Viewers are captivated by his skillful storytelling – which is really the series’ skillful storytelling, as the scene foreshadows what’s about to happen.

4 FUNNY: “If Anyone Asks Where I Am, I’ve Left The Country.”

Speaking of Mike’s precociousness, it’s pretty funny to hear a kid telling his mom that he’s going into hiding from the authorities. The Hawkins Lab people have discovered Eleven’s hiding place, and Mike fears for her life. The boys whisk her away, but Mike’s still a kid, so he has to let his mom know he’s going somewhere.

He hurriedly passes on the above information to her, then rushes back downstairs, leaving Karen to exclaim, “What?” She probably thinks the boys have all lost their minds, considering their behavior at dinner the other night.

3 INSPIRING: “No, El, You’re Not The Monster. You Saved Me. Do You Understand? You Saved Me.”

Mike has a way of making his friends feel safe, protected, and wanted. Even though Lucas doubts Eleven’s abilities, Mike decides to give her a second chance. He’s done so much for Eleven that she continues protecting him even when he’s decided to side with Dustin and Lucas and separate from her.

Mike is about to step off a cliff when Eleven saves the day. The bullies won’t be bothering the party again, but Eleven feels ashamed for using her powers now that she thinks the boys don’t trust her – and also because she knows she opened the Upside Down. But Mike doesn’t know this, so he mistakes her worry about something else. He reassures her that they do want her and that he’s grateful for her, making her feel wanted and loved and welcome in the party again.

2 FUNNY: “I Only Have, Like, $3.50, So It’s Hard.”

This is Mike’s first failed attempt to win Eleven back after lying to her. Lucas and Will accompany him to Starcourt Mall to search for an apologetic present, as per Lucas’s advice. Will doesn’t really care, though – he just wants to play D&D.

When Max spots the boys leaving the mall, she and Eleven confront them, catching them right in the middle of Mike’s lie. He sputters that they were looking for something to get his allegedly sick and dying grandmother, but also that he was looking for something to get her. The only thing that caught his eye was a $300 teddy, but he only has $3.50 (ah, the struggles of a fourteen-year-old).

1 INSPIRING: “If We’re Both Going Crazy, Then We’ll Go Crazy Together, Right?”

Sweeter words have never been spoken. Once again, Mike succeeds in comforting one of his friends when everything seems to be spiraling out of control. Will sees the Mind Flayer for the first time when the party is trick-or-treating on Halloween. Mike takes him home and listens to the whole story, then tells him about Eleven.

He doesn’t treat Will like he’s crazy because he understands him. He tries to help Will, as he always does. But in the end, all he can say is, “If we’re both going crazy, then we’ll both go crazy together, right?” Will has always felt like he doesn’t fit in, or that he’s different, so this is exactly what he needs to hear right now – to know that he has his best friend with him no matter what happens and that being “crazy” (or even different) is okay.

About The Author

Svetlana Sterlin
(256 Articles Published)

After years of relocation, Svetlana Sterlin (she/her) was raised by her Russian parents in Brisbane, Australia, where she completed a BFA and contributes to ScreenRant and Our Culture Magazine. An avid cinephile and bookworm, Svetlana also writes creatively across multiple forms and genres. Her fiction and poetry appear in several printed and digital publications. Find more from Svetlana here: https://linktr.ee/svetlanasterlin.

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