Danger Mouse the 1981 animated series

20 September 2021

Danger Mouse is a British cartoon television series produced by Cosgrove Hall Films for Thames Television. It features the namesake Danger Mouse who worked as a secret agent and is a parody of British spy fiction, most notably the Danger Man and James Bond series. Originally broadcast from September 28, 1981 to March 19, 1992 on the ITV network.

The series spawned a spin-off, Conte Duckula, which aired between 1988 and 1993, and an updated series, of the same name, began airing in September 2015 on CBBC.

Characters

Danger Mouse

Danger Mouse is often called the greatest secret agent in the world, so secret, in fact, that his code name has a code name. His slogans include "Good pain" when he becomes upset or shocked, "Penfold, shut up" when his assistant makes a silly remark. Initially it had to be brown; however, the creators thought he and Penfold needed different colors.
Brian Cosgrove described Jason's performance as “His voice had the perfect blend of strength, humor and kindness. He was totally committed to voiceover for silly cartoons, which warmed my heart and we became great friends. " Jason said: “I wanted to make it believable. We decided that he would speak softly, very British, very heroic, but also a little cowardly. He would have saved the world, but he would also have run away! "

Ernest Penfold

Ernest Penfold is a shy bespectacled hamster and reluctant assistant and sidekick to Danger Mouse. It is often mistaken for a mole; however, Brian Cosgrove stated that Penfold is supposed to be a hamster. Penfold is just over half the height of Danger Mouse, and always wears thick round glasses and a crumpled blue suit with a white shirt and black and yellow striped tie.
Brian Cosgrove came up with Penfold's character design while he was waiting for a meeting with Thames Television, and he drew "this little guy in heavy glasses and a loose suit" and then realized he drew his brother Denis, who worked for the Sunday Express and "that he was bald with heavy black glasses".

Colonel K

Colonel K: Chief of Danger Mouse; often mistaken for a walrus, it was revealed in an issue of Look-in magazine that it is actually a chinchilla. Over the past two seasons, he has become more distracted, tending to frustrate both DM and Penfold with his tendency to ramble on nonsense. A recurring gag in subsequent seasons is that he misuses the phrase "over and over".

Baron Silas Greenback

Baron Silas Greenback Danger Mouse's recurring villain and archenemy; a toad with a wheezing voice, although, at times, it was referred to as a frog. Known as Baron Greenteeth in the un-broadcast pilot episode. Commonly known as the "Terrible Toad". In America, "greenback" is jargon a dollar bill in many regions, which adds to the sense of his commercial greed. Presumably, he devoted himself to a criminal life as a schoolboy when other children stole his bicycle and let all the air out of the wheels
Stiletto (voiced by Brian Trueman): Greenback's henchman; a crow. He always called Greenback "Barone", Italian for "Baron". In the original English version he speaks with an Italian accent; this was changed to a Cockney accent for US distribution to avoid offending Italian Americans. Her surname is Mafiosa. S5 ep 7 In series 5, he is more incompetent and clumsy that Greenback usually has to hit him with his walking stick, and in series 9, Greenback uses a "hit box" that hits Stiletto on the head with a hammer.
Black (sounds provided by David Jason): Greenback's pet. A fluffy white caterpillar (equivalent to the stereotypical white cat often associated with bitter villains, most notably Ernst Stavro Blofeld). He is a character who does not speak, although his noises and laughter are provided by the accelerated voice of David Jason. Easily understood by Greenback and, less frequently, by Stiletto. He has no superpower, except in the fifth season episode "Black Power," where he temporarily exhibits the ability of telekinesis. S5 ep 10 In the special content of Danger Mousecartoons, the audience has been informed that Nero is actually the mastermind of the Greenback schemes.

The invisible narrator, who occasionally interacts with the characters, sometimes to the point of interrupting the plot for one reason or another. In one episode of Series 6, he accidentally sends Danger Mouse and Penfold back in time with his broken microphone. He often expresses his contempt for the show and his work towards the end of the episode and through part of the credits. His name is Isambard Sinclair. S6 ep "Bandits"

Professor Heinrich Von Squawkencluck is an inventor mole, first appearing in the series in which he was engaged in hormone experiments to grow huge-sized chickens. S1 ep 4 He invented the Mark III, Danger Mouse 's flying car, and the Space Hopper, his personal spaceship. S2 ep 1, S3 ep 1 Speak with a broken German accent. Penfold is naturally wary of the professor, as he often ends up on the wrong side of his experiments.
Flying Officer Buggles Pigeon: Another of Colonel K's agents who came to the aid of Danger Mouse and Penfold in the episode "Chicken Run", and appeared in several episodes afterwards. S1 ep 4, 10

Agent 57: A master of disguise, who initially appears as an earthworm. Agent 57 disguised himself so often that he forgot his original appearance. S1 ep. 8 In series 6 episode, “The Spy Who Stayed In with a Cold,” he acquired the ability to change shape to resemble any character or animal whenever he sneezes, but when he shows Danger Mouse his original form, Danger Mouse is horrified. S6 ep. 6

Leatherheads: Greenback's other raven henchman. Even less intelligent than Stiletto, he appeared in many early episodes, where he spent most of his time reading comics. S1 ep. 8, S3 ep. 4 "ghost bus"

Count Dacula : A fame obsessed vampire duck who wants to appear on television. However, his total lack of anything close to talent makes his attempts to "entertain" rather terrifying (he is known to use his "act" as an instrument of torture). This led to a spin-off series, titled Count Duckula, starring the Count himself. However, the two versions of the character differ; Danger Mouse's character is non-vegetarian, makes much greater use of his vampiric magic, and has an accent consisting of a stutter and stutter, as well as occasional stutters and squeaks and duck-like quacks.
JJ Quark: A space alien that recurs in series 6. He claims possession of the Earth based on a cosmic charter granted to his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-by. He has a robot assistant named Grovell, who always humiliates himself whenever his name is mentioned.

Doctor Augusto P. crumhorn III A mad wolf scientist, he recurs as an opponent of Danger Mouse starting in series 9. In the episode, "Penfold Transformed", he lists his full name as "Aloisius Julian Philibert Elphinstone Eugene Dionysis Barry Manilow Crumhorn", omitting both Augustus and the III. He and Greenback disagreed; once Crumhorn kidnapped Penfold and Penfold managed to escape simply because the two baddies were too busy fighting to notice his absence.

Production

The show was created by Mark Hall and Brian Cosgrove for their production company, Cosgrove Hall Films. Danger Mouse was based on the lead role of Patrick McGoohan in Danger Man. The show was supposed to have a more serious tone as seen in the pilot episode, but Mike Harding (who wrote the music for the show) gave Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall the idea of making the series goofy. “The characters were stuck in reality and were doing James Bond-like things rooted in the solid real world,” said Harding, “I argued that once a secret rat agent was invented, all creation and a good portion of non-creation were his oyster. In other words, we could be as picky (crazy) as we wanted. " In an interview with The Guardian, Cosgrove said, "We felt that a secret service rat foiling the plans of an evil toad - Baron Silas Greenback - was suitably ridiculous."

Cosgrove and Hall brought in Brian Trueman, who worked as a presenter on Granada TV, as the lead writer. For the voice of Danger Mouse, they chose David Jason after seeing him in the show Only Fools and Horses. For the voice of Penfold, they chose Terry Scott, known for the show Terry and June

On June 4, 1984, the show was (along with Belle and Sebastian) the first animated show to appear on Nickelodeon in the United States and quickly became the second most popular show on the channel after You Can't Do This on Television, as it appealed to both pre-teens and pre-teens. to adults with his witty English humor. It has often been compared to American audiences as a British equivalent of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, due to its polite satire of politics and outrageous plots.

It returned to terrestrial television after the BBC bought episodes of it to air on its daytime programs with its first broadcast on February 12, 2007.

The show was expensive to make, sometimes required 2.000 drawings so the footage was reused while some scenes were set in the North Pole or "in the dark" (ie black with only the eyeballs visible, or, in the case of Danger Mouse, simply an eyeball) as a cost-cutting measure. This time and money saving device was cheerfully admitted by both Brian Cosgrove, who conceived the character and the show, and Brian Trueman, who wrote nearly every script from the start.

Technical data

Country UK
Author Brian Cosgrove, Mark Hall
Music Mike Harding
Studio Cosgrove Hall Films, Thames
Network ITV
1st TV September 28, 1981 - March 19, 1992
Episodes 161 (complete) in 10 seasons
Episode duration 60 -70 minutes
Italian network Tele Switzerland
Gender adventure, comedy, espionage