Danger Mouse: Season 01Twelve episodes of the satirical British cartoon series Danger Mouse were dished up during the show's inaugural season in 1981. The opener, "Rogue Robots," details Danger Mouse's first confrontation with the sinister and somewhat dyspeptic Baron Silas Greenback. Episode number two, "Who Stole the Bagpipes" is actually a reworking of the series' never-shown pilot episode "The Mystery of the Lost Chord," originally produced in 1979. "The Trouble With Ghosts" finds Danger Mouse and his timorous sidekick Penfold taking a working vacation to Transylvania. "The Chicken Run" features the first appearance of absent-minded boffin Professor Skwakencluck. "The Martian Misfit" is yet another Baron Greenback-generated diabolical diversion, as are "The Dream Machine," "Die Laughing," "The World of Machines," and "Ice Station Camel." The plot of "Lord of the Bungle" is dictated by the delusions of an amnesiac Penfold. And the season finale, "The Plague of Pyramids," finds London plagued by...pyramids, what else? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Danger Mouse: Season 02Dauntless, dashing secret agent Danger Mouse and his mild-mannered mole sidekick Penfold make the world safe for bad British music hall puns in six new episodes, telecast during the series' second season. Future A Touch of Frost star
David Jason provides not only the voice of Danger Mouse but also the dreaded Custard Might of Glut in the season two opener. Next, "Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind" whisks D.M. and Penfold to the Bermuda Triangle. "The Duel" is between Danger Mouse and his worthy adversary Baron Silas Greenback, winner take all. In "The Day of the Suds," London is besieged by killer washing machines. The title tells all -- practically -- in "The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God." Finally we have "The Four Tasks of Danger Mouse," in which our hero crosses paths with another Cosgrove-Hall Productions cartoon character, Count Duckula. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Danger Mouse [Animated TV Series]Part of Series:Danger Mouse [Animated TV Series]Sometimes described as "The British Bullwinkle," the bitingly satirical cartoon series Danger Mouse was the first major success for the animation firm of Cosgrove-Hall (named for producer/writer/voice actors Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall). Created by Brian Trueman, Danger Mouse was a half-hour James Bond spoof featuring a muscular, resourceful white mouse who sported a dashing eye patch. Secret agent Danger Mouse (his voice provided by future A Touch of Frost star David Jason) took his orders from Colonel K and was frequently accompanied in his adventures by his nervous assistant, a mole named Penfold, who rather resembled perennial British comedy foil Roy Kinnear. Danger Mouse's principal foe was a megalomaniac, fabulously wealthy frog named Baron Silas Greenback, who, rumor has it, was based on English entertainment mogul Sir Lew Grade. While the series' storylines were top heavy with Bondlike gimmickry and fiendish world-domination plots, they were just as thick with regional-dialect music hall humor, zany verbal and visual non sequiturs, inside references (hero and villain alike would gripe about the series' low-budget animation and their own meager paychecks), and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of pop-culture throwaway gags. And in fine Bullwinkle tradition, the show was outfitted with a pompous offscreen narrator, who frequently chided the onscreen characters for their behavior (in turn, those characters would argue with the narrator or simply tell him to shut his fat gob). On occasion, we'd be honored with a "crossover" episode, in which Danger Mouse came face to face with another classic Cosgrove-Hall cartoon concoction, the vampiric Count Duckula. After two abortive pilot episodes filmed in 1979, Danger Mouse made its British television bow over the ITV network on September 28, 1981, and remained in production until 1992. In America, the series was first syndicated in early 1984, then unveiled on cable's Nickelodeon network on June 4 of that same year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
