Danger Mouse

## 1981 Serie

***Danger Mouse*** is a British animated television series produced by Cosgrove Hall Films for Thames Television. It features the eponymous Danger Mouse who worked as a secret agent and is a parody of British spy fiction, particularly the *Danger Man* series and James Bond. It originally ran from 28 September 1981 to 19 March 1992 on the ITV network.

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

## Characters

### Main

Danger Mouse, as seen in the title sequence.
Penfold in
"The Odd Ball Runaround".

* Danger Mouse (voiced by David Jason) is often called the world's greatest secret agent—so secret, in fact, that his codename has a codename. He speaks 34 languages fluently, including some extraterrestrial ones.[*episode needed*] His skills are of a wide variety, including the ability to shatter metal with his voice,[*episode needed*] perform military style push-ups on his index finger, and reach a 7th level of meditation.[*episode needed*] He is also a practitioner of the ancient martial art of Kung Moggy.[*episode needed*] His catchphrases include "Good grief" when he becomes upset or shocked, "Penfold, shush" when his assistant makes a foolish remark. He was originally going to be brown; however, the creators thought that he and Penfold needed to be different colors.

Brian Cosgrove described Jason's portrayal as "His voice had the perfect mix of forcefulness, humour and gentleness. He was totally committed to doing voiceovers for silly cartoons, which warmed my heart, and we became great friends." Jason said "I wanted to make him sound believable. We decided he would be softly spoken, very British, very heroic, but also a bit of a coward. He’d save the world, but he’d also run for it!"
* Ernest Penfold (voiced by Terry Scott) is a timid, bespectacled hamster, and Danger Mouse's reluctant assistant and sidekick. He is often mistaken for a mole; however, Brian Cosgrove has stated Penfold is supposed to be a hamster. Penfold stands just over half the height of Danger Mouse, and always wears thick round glasses and a crumpled blue suit with a white shirt and a yellow and black striped tie. In the first episode, he is codenamed the Jigsaw "because when he is faced with a problem, he goes to pieces."

Brian Cosgrove came up with Penfold's character design when he was waiting for a meeting with Thames Television, and had drawn up "this little fellow with heavy glasses and a baggy suit" and then realized he had drawn his brother Denis, who worked for the *Sunday Express* and "who was bald with heavy black glasses".
* Colonel K (voiced by Edward Kelsey): Danger Mouse's boss; often mistaken for a walrus, it was revealed in an issue of *Look-in* magazine that he is, in fact, a chinchilla.[*citation needed*] He previously worked for Special Branch, where he was known as Special K.[*episode needed*] He is a champion piano-thrower, decorated judo expert, the first to climb Mount Everest on a pogo stick, was once an Eskimo, took up tap-dancing, is a former kleptomaniac, and cheats at croquet.[*episode needed*][*importance?*] During the last two seasons, he became more absent-minded, tending to frustrate both DM and Penfold with his tendency to ramble nonsense.[*episode needed*] In the episode "Four Heads are better than Two", he botches the usage of the phrase "over and out" multiple times.
* Baron Silas Greenback (voiced by Edward Kelsey): The recurring villain and Danger Mouse's archenemy; a toad with a wheezy voice, although, sometimes, he was referred to as a frog.[*episode needed*] Known as Baron Greenteeth in the unbroadcast pilot episode. Commonly known as the "Terrible Toad". In America, "greenback" is slang for dollar bill in many regions, adding to the sense of his commercial greed. Allegedly, he turned to a life of crime as a schoolboy when other children stole his bicycle and let all the air out of its tyres[*episode needed*]
* Stiletto (voiced by Brian Trueman): Greenback's henchman; a crow. He always called Greenback "Barone", Italian for "Baron". In the original British version, he speaks with an Italian accent; this was changed to a Cockney accent for the U.S. distribution to avoid offending Italian-Americans. His last name is Mafiosa. In series 5, he is more incompetent and klutzy that Greenback usually has to whack him with his walking stick.
* Nero (sounds provided by David Jason): Greenback's pet. A fluffy white caterpillar (equivalent to the stereotypical white cat frequently associated with arch villains, particularly Ernst Stavro Blofeld). He is a non-speaking character, although his noises and laugh are supplied by David Jason's voice sped up. Readily understood by Greenback and, less frequently, by Stiletto. He does not have any superpowers, except In the season 5 episode "Nero Power", where he temporarily exhibits the ability of telekinesis. In the special features of *Danger Mouse* cartoons, audiences were informed that Nero is actually the mastermind of Greenback's schemes.[*episode needed*]
* The Narrator (voiced by David Jason): The unseen narrator, who occasionally interacts with the characters, sometimes to the point of halting the plot for one reason or another. In a series 6 episode, he accidentally sends Danger Mouse and Penfold back in time with his broken mike. He often voices his disdain for the show and his job towards the end of the episode and through part of the closing credits. His name is Isambard Sinclair.

### Supporting

* Professor Heinrich Von Squawkencluck is an inventor mole, first appearing in the series where he was engaged in hormone experiments to grow chickens to enormous sizes. He invented the Mark III, Danger Mouse's flying car, and the Space Hopper, his personal spacecraft. He speaks in a broken German accent. Penfold is naturally leery of the professor, as he often winds 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 afterward.
* Agent 57: A master of disguise, appearing initially as an earthworm. Agent 57 has disguised himself so often that he forgot his original appearance. In the series 6 episode, "The Spy Who Stayed In with a Cold", he gained the ability to change shape to resemble any character or animal whenever he sneezed, but when he shows Danger Mouse his original form, Danger Mouse is horrified.
* Leatherhead : Greenback's other crow henchman. Even less intelligent than Stiletto, he appeared in several of the early episodes, where he spent most of his time reading comic books.
* Count Duckula (voiced by David Jason): A fame-obsessed vampire duck who wants to appear in television. However, his utter lack of anything approaching talent makes his attempts to "entertain" rather terrifying (he has been known to use his "act" as a torture device). This resulted in a spin-off series, titled *Count Duckula*, starring the Count himself. The two versions of the character differ, however; the character featured in *Danger Mouse* is not a vegetarian, makes far greater use of his vampiric magic, and has an accent consisting of a lisp and a stutter, as well as occasional stuttering and duck-like squawks and quacks.
* J. J. Quark: a space alien who recurs in series 6. He claims possession of Earth based on a cosmic charter granted to his great-great-great-great grandfather. He has a robot assistant named Grovell, who always grovels whenever his name is mentioned.
* Doctor Augustus P. Crumhorn III: A mad scientist wolf, he recurred as Danger Mouse's adversary less frequently than Baron Greenback. In one episode, he attempted to undermine Danger Mouse by metamorphosing into a Shirley Temple lookalike. In only one episode, "Penfold Transformed", as opposed to his stage name "Augustus P. Crumhorn III", he lists his full name as, "Aloisius Julian Philibert Elphinstone Eugene Dionysis Barry Manilow Crumhorn", omitting both Augustus and the III. Crumhorn and Greenback were at odds; once Crumhorn kidnapped Penfold and Penfold managed to escape simply because the two villains were too busy quarreling to notice his absence.

## Production

### Development

The show was created by Mark Hall and Brian Cosgrove for their production company, Cosgrove Hall Films. Danger Mouse was based on Patrick McGoohan's lead role in *Danger Man*. The show was intended to have a more serious tone as seen in the pilot episode but Mike Harding gave Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall the idea to make the series silly. Mike said: "The characters had got stuck in reality and were doing James Bond type things rooted in the solid real world. I argued that once you invented a Mouse Secret Agent then all of creation and a good chunk of not creation was his oyster. In other words we could be as barmy (crazy) as we wanted." In an interview with *The Guardian*, Cosgrove said "We reckoned a secret service mouse foiling the plans of an evil toad – Baron Silas Greenback – was suitably ridiculous."

Cosgrove and Hall brought in Brian Trueman, who was working as an announcer on *Granada TV*, as the main writer. For the voice of Danger Mouse, they picked David Jason after they saw him in the show *Only Fools and Horses*. For the voice of Penfold, they picked Terry Scott, who was known for the show *Terry and June*

On 4 June 1984, the show was the first British cartoon to appear on Nickelodeon and became one of the earliest ones to be in syndication in America, as it appealed to both preteens and adults with its quick-witted English humour. It was often compared to American audiences as a British equivalent of *The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show*, due to its gentle satire of politics and outrageous plots.

It returned to terrestrial television after the BBC purchased episodes of it to broadcast in its daytime schedules with its first broadcast on 12 February 2007.

The show was expensive to make, sometimes needing 2,000 drawings thus footage was reused while certain scenes were set in the North Pole or "in the dark" (i.e. black with eyeballs visible only, or, in Danger Mouse's case, simply one 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 almost all the scripts from the beginning.

## 2015 Serie

***Danger Mouse*** is a British animated television series, produced by FremantleMedia and Boat Rocker Media until 2017 and by Boulder Media as of 2018. The series, which is a revival of the 1981 television series of the same name, revolves around Danger Mouse, the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Secret Agent", and his hamster sidekick Penfold, who protect the world from a variety of dangers. With help from his boss Colonel K and the genius scientist Professor Squawkencluck, Danger Mouse is equipped to defeat his nemesis, Baron Silas von Greenback.

Plans for a reboot of *Danger Mouse* were first considered in 2013, before being announced the following year, with original series co-creator Brian Cosgrove helping to develop the series. The main cast were announced in 2014, with more cast members being announced later in the year. The series premiered on CBBC on 28 September 2015, more than 20 years after the end of the show's original run.

Within three weeks of the series running, *Danger Mouse* achieved 2.4 million viewers and became the highest rated show on the CBBC channel. On 19 May 2016, the series was commissioned for a second series and on 4 April 2017, for a third series of 26 episodes.

## Production

In 2013, FremantleMedia confirmed to *Broadcast* that an updated version of the series was being considered, and in June 2014 it was announced that a new series consisting of 52 episodes; was being made for broadcast on CBBC in 2015. The series is produced by Boulder Media for Boat Rocker Media, who acquired FremantleMedia's kids and family entertainment business in January 2018.

It is directed by Robert Cullen, with Brian Cosgrove, one of the original creators being a creative consultant. Alexander Armstrong and Kevin Eldon voice Danger Mouse and Penfold, Dave Lamb takes the role of the narrator, whilst Stephen Fry and Ed Gaughan take on the roles of Colonel K and Baron Greenback respectively. Armstrong's *Pointless* co-host Richard Osman also appears in the series as Professor Strontium Jellyfishowitz. It was also announced that John Oliver would voice Dr Augustus P. Crumhorn IV and Lena Headey would voice new character Jeopardy Mouse. According to Eldon, the animation style is 'much the same as the original'. The series is animated in Toon Boom Harmony, as the animators thought that Flash was too limited.

The series was picked up by Netflix in several countries, including the United States. In August 2019, CBS All Access acquired the US streaming rights to the series.

## Characters

### Main characters

* **Danger Mouse** (voiced by Alexander Armstrong): The main protagonist and titular character, Danger Mouse is the world's greatest secret agent. Supremely confident in his abilities, Danger Mouse is a bit vain, which sometimes leads him to take actions that unnecessarily create risky situations.
* **Penfold** (voiced by Kevin Eldon): A hamster who works as Danger Mouse's assistant. A cowardly type, and very meek, he is often known for shouting "Oh, Crumbs!" when frightened. This version is not as misinterpretive as his original counterpart.
* **Colonel K** (voiced by Stephen Fry): A chinchilla who serves as Danger Mouse and Penfold's boss. In the episode "The Return of Danger K", it is revealed that the Colonel was once an agent himself called Danger K. A running gag is he either forgets Penfold's name or who he is.
* **Professor Squawkencluck** (voiced by Shauna Macdonald): A chicken who is chief scientist of the secret service. She gets annoyed with Danger Mouse when he doesn't pay attention to her, uses her inventions without her permission, or breaks/messes with her latest creation, to the point of a love-hate relationship with him. Revealed in "The World Is Full of Stuff" to be Danger Mouse's future wife. Whether she is any relation to the original series' Prof. Heinrich von Squawkencluck has not as yet been revealed.
* **Baron Silas von Greenback** (voiced by Ed Gaughan): The main antagonist, a criminal mastermind and Danger Mouse's archenemy. Though Greenback was a mainstay of the 1981 series, in the 2015 series, the prefix "von" (which had previously been incorporated briefly in "Chicken Run", an episode of the original series) has been incorporated into his name. He is given a German accent to match.
* **Nero** (vocal effects by Marc Silk): Greenback's pet fluffy white caterpillar, whose intelligence and cunning is often underestimated.
* **Stiletto Mafiosa** (voiced by Dave Lamb): Greenback's Italian crow sidekick.
* **The Narrator** (voice of Dave Lamb): As with the original series, The Narrator, an unseen character, frequently breaks the fourth wall, interacting with both the viewer and the other characters and often finds himself in danger from the episode's antagonist.

### Recurring characters

* **Pandaminion** (voiced by Ed Gaughan): A panda and Greenback's newest unintelligent minion.
* **Dr. Loo-cifer (née John)** (voiced by Kayvan Novak): An advanced robotic toilet gone rogue.
* **"Pink" Dawn Crumhorn**/**The Princess** (voiced by Morwenna Banks): A young spoiled poodle who becomes powerful after her tiara comes into contact with personality-amplifying mind gel. She is later revealed to be the daughter of Doctor Augustus P. Crumhorn IV (and thus, the granddaughter of the original Crumhorn) in "Mousefall".
* **Isambard King Kong Brunel** (voiced by Kayvan Novak): A scientist monkey who comes up with impractical inventions. He once created a time machine to replace all useful inventions with his own.
* **Quark** (voiced by Ed Gaughan): A money-hungry alien huckster who tries to use DM in get-rich-quick schemes.
* **The Snowman** (voiced by Richard Ayoade): An embarrassingly inept living snowman with the ability to freeze things with his left arm and fire explosive carrots from his nose.
* **Count Duckula** (voiced by Rasmus Hardiker): A stardom-obsessed vampire duck. This incarnation of the character combines aspects of both his villainous counterpart from the original *Danger Mouse* series, and his more amicable vegetarian counterpart from his own spin-off series.
* **Baron Silas von Penfold** (voiced by Kevin Eldon): An evil version of Penfold from an alternate reality known as the Twystyverse. He is often seen working alongside his enforcer, Sinister Mouse, as that dimension's greatest supervillains.
* **Sinister Mouse** (voiced by Alexander Armstrong): The world's greatest Evil Agent and DM's Twin from the Twystyverse.
* **The Queen of Weevils** (voiced by Miranda Richardson): An evil beetle witch from Arthurian Legend, who was sealed away inside a gem over a thousand years ago by Merlin before accidentally being released by DM into the modern world.
* **The Queen** (voiced by Morwenna Banks): The Queen of the UK. Her depiction as a corgi is a reference to them being kept as pets by the Queen in real life.
* **Jeopardy Mouse** (voiced by Lena Headey): The female American equivalent of Danger Mouse. Clad in a slick military jumpsuit and working under orders from General E. Normous Schwartznut, she performs her missions professionally and without fuss—but has a tendency to be overbearing and take herself too seriously.
* **Doctor Augustus P. Crumhorn IV** (voiced by John Oliver): The father of The Princess and the son of Doctor Augustus P. Crumhorn III, he is an ambitious trillionaire Dobermann Pinscher who vows to defeat Danger Mouse in order to make his daughter happy and buy up all the companies in the world.