[UPDATED: Bleeding Cool has the first look at the newly redesigned Danger Mouse and Penfold.]
If you have an affinity for cartoons about a British mouse with an eye-patch who lives in the North Pole and also happens to be a spy in the mold of an Ian Fleming novel, then you’re in luck! It turns out that the BBC is in the process of reimagining Danger Mouse for an all new generation. The network has ordered new episodes of the classic series to air in 2015.
Upon hearing this news, two of the NOC’s biggest Danger Mouse fans — the two Shawns — and Raymond took to the Roundtable to share their feelings about the character’s resurrection.
Shawn T: Danger Mouse is in my Top 5 cartoons.
Shawn S: I mean, just to the extent that it was a cartoon I grew up with. And I do own the original box set.
Raymond: Danger Mouse is a show in the haze for me. I can definitely recall watching it in the mid-afternoon cartoon block on Nickelodeon and/or USA, but I can’t say I recall too many details. Was it the foreign quality of it that appealed to you, Shawn and Shawn? Also what is it about rodents that make them so appealing? I say this as someone who as a child was very anxious about seeing the next episode of Capitol Critters. There’s something we connect to with rats and mice, no?
Shawn S: Funny you should ask, because I’ve wondered the same thing on more than one occasion. In fact, given that I was and still am largely unimpressed by Thames animation from that era (i.e., the spin-off Count Duckula is awful), it’s made me all the more curious about the rationale for my Danger Mouse affinity. Guess it boils down to this:
1.) Like Shawn T., I’m a fan of a broad range of British entertainment (especially, espionage-themed content and particularly James Bond). Thus, anthropomorphizing a mouse, hamster, toad and so forth in the mold of character types right out of an Ian Fleming novel was a natural draw.
2.) The largely intentional butchering by British actors of non-British accents (i.e., the Italian crow-henchman of Baron Von Greenback, Stiletto) were just too funny… very Monty Python-ish.
3.) Though animated, the writing on the show felt more mature, as if the dialogue itself could have been carried out by the likes of John Cleese or Robbie Coltrane but it just happened to be animated (particularly, the non-spy related dialogue between Danger Mouse and his sidekick Penfold was at times brilliantly ridiculous).
Shawn T: I hate rodents of all kinds. But I was (and am) a freak about miniature things (DM’s car, their hideout in the mailbox), and about espionage. Also a one-eyed British rat spy populating a world where not one human being exists…
I was also really keen on all things British at the time: Doctor Who, Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Benny HIll (on the sneak tip), Masterpiece Theater… Damn, getting nostalgic.
Keith:The Grey Album is still the epitome of the mashup genre (though Yasiin Gaye — the two-part Mos Def/Marvin Gaye mashup by Amerigo Gazaway — is dope as hell too). I also dig his work with Broken Bells and Gnarls Barkley.
Wait, that’s the wrong Danger Mouse, isn’t it?
