This British cartoon about a super-spy rodent didn’t come to my TV until the mid-1980s, by which time I’d already seen my first two James Bond movies (both of them Roger Moores, in case you wondered why I have his autobiography; I was marked at a young age). I’ve often wondered what the show is like for people who saw those things in a more age-appropriate order, since Danger Mouse may be one of the first things I ever recognized as parody.
Why Found-Again? Because even the most puerile grownup—I grant that I may crack a top 500 list in this regard—can only stomach so much punnery at a time, and once the DVDs are in, I refuse to turn them off in the entertainment equivalent of eating the whole bag of chips.
The Premise: The world’s greatest secret agent is a little white mouse with an eyepatch who lives in a mailbox. His assistant is a nervous hamster with glasses and a suit. Together they take on foes natural and un-, including evil toad (but I repeat myself) Baron Silas Greenback and a pre-vegetarianism Count Duckula, saving the world one odd adventure at a time.
For something like this, it might work better if I just list my top 3 episodes, in no particular order:
- “Who Stole the Bagpipes?”—Dangermouse and his not-very-musical assistant Penfold investigate bagpipe theft…and as the bagpipes in question are wheezy, plaid grazing creatures, it gets a little odd.
- “The Duel”—Dangermouse enters a contest with supervillain Baron Greenback; if the mouse wins, Greenback promises to give up villainy. Yeah, that’ll happen.
- “One of Our Stately Homes Is Missing”—in which we learn what DM did before he met Penfold, and about his very unusual piloting ability.
And then there’s the theme song:
The Verdict: Interestingly, the DVDs have made it a little harder for me to rewatch these by restoring them to their original British glory; when I was a kid, some of the transition between episodes was obviated, and Stiletto the hench-crow had a Cockney accent, not Italian. So it’s not quite as I remember it. It is still gloriously silly, though, which is good, because so am I.
Might go well with: Tea, anything you ate as a giddy eight-year-old.
Next time: In all likelihood, a shorter-than-usual Highlander post.
