Good Grief! Those were the words of astonishment uttered by the world's greatest secret agent -
DANGERMOUSE
![[Image: e450291246004054.jpg]](http://thumbs2.imagebam.com/87/3e/6e/e450291246004054.jpg)
Danger Mouse was a British animated television series produced by Cosgrove Hall Films for Thames Television. The comedian Mike Harding wrote the music for it and said that he thought it should be serious but then after discussing it with Cosgrove-Hall settled on it being silly. It featured the eponymous Danger Mouse who worked as a secret agent for Ever-So Secret Secret Service. It was a parody of British spy fiction, particularly the Danger Man series and James Bond. It originally ran from 28th September 1981 to 19th March 1992 on the ITV network. The title song is sung by two women, one of them Miriam Stockley who would go on to record ADIEMUS with Karl Jenkins for the British Airways advert.
Secret Agent Danger Mouse dressed in his trademark white jumpsuit and DM badge with a belt of course to hold his trousers up waged a never-ending war of nerves with his major nemesis, Baron Silas Greenback who with his two henchmen(yes he had two to begin with-the one people forget was called Leatherhead who spent most of his time reading comics) and Stiletto Mafiosa 'the right-hand nose' of Baron Silas Greenback. Silas Greenback is based on Ernst Stavro Blofeld of James Bond fame complete with white, strokable animal(in this case a caterpillar called Nero) and intent on taking over and ruling the world. Interesting to note in the unscreened pilot episode he was callee Greenteeth, but then it was changed to Greenback(a nod to the slang term for American money and capitalist greed!) Greenback's mode of transport is the Frog's Head Flyer, a strange kind of spacecraft with legs and capable of all sorts of things and armed with weaponry like missiles and lasers.
Danger Mouse, like all good secret agents has a sidekick assistant, Ernest Penfold who is basically a coward(he was even too scared to go to the Cowards congress once) and couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag, although he says he is well versed in the ancient martial art of Kung Moggy! Penfold is the polar opposite of Danger Mouse, but can be relied upon to come to DM's rescue. He never swears but does say things like 'rotten eck!', 'carrots!' 'ooh-eck' and 'oh, crumbs!' when things look bleak. Their spymaster is Colonel K(once known in Special Branch as 'Special K') 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. (according to Look-In magazine of the time)
Supporting characters:
Agent 57: Initially, a master of disguise, Agent 57 later gained the ability to alter his own molecular structure to transform into any appearance he wished. This ability went temporarily out of control in one episode when he contracted a cold, causing him to involuntarily change shape whenever he sneezed. His original appearance was never shown, and as a result of changing his appearance so many times, he eventually forgot what it was.
Miss Boathook: Colonel K's secretary, only referred to by the colonel and never seen (though sometimes heard). In some versions, the Colonel's secretary is referred to as Miss Prentergast or Miss Hackett.
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.
Doctor Augustus P. Crumhorn III (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert): A mad scientist wolf, he recurred as Danger Mouse's adversary less frequently than Baron Greenback (in four episodes in total). 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.
Fifi: Fifi is an unseen character mentioned occasionally throughout the show, but Danger Mouse is reluctant to discuss her. According to Cosgrove Hall, she is Danger Mouse's ex-girlfriend.
Flying Officer Buggles Pigeon (voiced by David Jason): 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. His name is a reference to James Bigglesworth.
Penfold's Aunt (voiced by Brian Trueman): Penfold's formidable aunt from Abergavenny, Wales, who sends him cookies in the episode, "The Statue of Liberty Caper". The fact that she is Welsh is stated by the piece of a witch's broom in "The Four Tasks of Danger Mouse". The broom is her fifth cousin. She denies that Danger Mouse is a real secret agent and says that he and Penfold are just playing silly pretend games.
Professor Heinrich Von Squawkencluck: (voiced by Edward Kelsey) Mad scientist/inventor/boffin. Inventor of the Mark III, Danger Mouse's flying car, and the Space Hopper, his personal spacecraft. A mole, despite his avian name (which comes from his first appearance on the show, in which, he was engaged in hormone experiments to grow chickens to enormous sizes). 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.
Isambard Sinclair/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 one episode, he accidentally sends Danger Mouse back in time). He often voices his disdain for the show and his job, to the point that he refuses outright to narrate some episodes altogether. He usually comments at the end of every episode when the credits roll before the end theme tune begins.
One of my favourite lines is from an episode called Turn of the Tide when Danger Mouse and Penfold wake up to find the world and London in general is flooded! It involves a visit to Professor Squawkencluck and a space trek to find the problem. However before that DM and Penfold patrol the now undersea London and are chased by a giant shark. This prompts Dangermouse to look through his side mirror to see it and asks Penfold was species it might be. He doesn't know but then DM says "Does it look like a porbeagle" to which Penfold answers "No chief! It looks like a well-fed Alsatian!"
Created by Brian Cosgrove & Mark Hall(Cosgrove-Hall Productions) and responsible for many great animated series like 'Jamie and the Magic Torch', 'The Magic Ball', 'Chorlton and the Wheelies' and produced the film of the BFG(voiced by David Jason)
Voices : David Jason, Terry Scott(RIP), Edward Kelsey(RIP) Brian Trueman, Jimmy Hibbert(added to much later episodes)
David Jason's real surname was White, his brother Arthur was an actor too. Brian Trueman presented Screen Test after Michael Rodd left to do Tomorrow's World. Edward Kelsey recently died but had been an ever-present character in the long-running radio soap 'The Archers'. Terry Scott was the first of the cast to die in the late 80's having been a stalwart of the Carry-on films and starring in the long-running BBC sitcom 'Terry and June'(the late Dame June Whitfield) Terry was also known to millions as the voice-over of the chocolate treat Curly-Wurly where he would also dress up as a schoolboy(something that Benny Hill did years later) and had a hit record 'My Brother' where he related tales of his older brother as a young schoolboy who had done naughty things-which was the inspiration for the voice of Penfold. It was a massive hit in the USA where unfortunately they had to change the voice of Stiletto to a cockney accent(Mafia voice wouldn't be clever!) which sounded a little daft.
I will be looking at Cosgrove-Hall productions very soon. If you remember some of their tremendous series please let me know and I can include it here.
Sources: Memory and Wikipedia(which may or may not be 100% accurate)
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