Danger Mouse (2015 TV series)
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 : 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 : 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 : 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 : 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 : 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" has been incorporated into his name. He is given a German accent to match.
- Nero : Greenback's pet fluffy white caterpillar, whose intelligence and cunning is often underestimated.
- Stiletto Mafiosa : Greenback's Italian crow sidekick.
- The Narrator : 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 : A panda and Greenback's newest unintelligent minion.
- Dr. Loo-cifer : An advanced robotic toilet gone rogue.
- "Pink" Dawn Crumhorn/The Princess : 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 in "Mousefall".
- Isambard King Kong Brunel : A scientist monkey who comes up with impractical inventions. He once created a time machine to replace all useful inventions with his own.
- Quark : A money-hungry alien huckster who tries to use DM in get-rich-quick schemes.
- The Snowman : An embarrassingly inept living snowman with the ability to freeze things with his left arm and fire explosive carrots from his nose.
- Count Duckula : 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 : 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 : The world's greatest Evil Agent and DM's Twin from the Twystyverse.
- The Queen of Weevils : 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 : 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 : 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 : 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.
Episodes
Home media
Video games
In July 2017, it was announced that an official Danger Mouse mobile game was in development by 9th Impact and the game Danger Mouse: The Danger Games was released on iOS App Store and Google Play Store in August 2017. The game is a multiplayer racing battle with card trading.It was nominated for Best Mobile Game at the 2017 Best of Gamescom awards, but lost to . It was also nominated for "Best Racing Game" at The Independent Game Developers' Association Awards 2018, but lost to F1 2017.
The game was also released for the Nintendo Switch on September 13, 2018.
DVD releases
The first DVD of the series was released on 2 November 2015. The whole of series 1 has been released across 6 DVDs, with 1 being released in 2015, 2 in 2016 and 3 in 2017. All 2015 episodes have been released for digital download through Amazon and other services.| DVD title | Series | Episode count | Total running time | Release date | Episodes |
| Danger Mouse: Mission Improbable | 1 | 7 | 88 mins approx | 2 November 2015 | "Danger Mouse Begins... Again" "Planet of the Toilets" "Danger at C-Level" "The Other Day the Earth Stood Still" "Welcome to Danger World" "Big Head Awakens" "Greenfinger" |
| Danger Mouse: Quark Games | 9 | 99 mins approx | 15 August 2016 | "Quark Games" "Pink Dawn" "The World Wide Spider" "Jeopardy Mouse" "The Return of Danger K" "Danger Fan" "Big Penfold" "The Unusual Suspects" "The Inventor Preventor" | - |
| Danger Mouse: Merry Christmouse | 7 | 89 mins approx | 24 October 2016 | "The Snowman Cometh" "#Sinister Mouse" "There's No Place Like Greenback" "Happy Boom Day!" "Frankensquawk's Monster" "Escape From Big Head" "Megahurtz Attacks" | - |
| Danger Mouse: The Mouse Awakens | 9 | 105 mins approx | 6 February 2017 | "The Hamster Effect" "The Good, the Baaaaa and the Ugly" "Attack of the Clowns" "Cheesemageddon" "Send in the Clones" "Hail Hydrant" "Wicked Leaks" "Queen of Weevils" "Masters of the Twystyverse" | - |
| Danger Mouse: The Agents Who Saved Summer | 10 | 17 July 2017 | "Never Say Clever Again" "Tomorrow Never Comes" "Half the World Is Enough" "Danger Is Forever" "The Spy Who Came in With a Cold" "Agent 58" "Thanks a Minion!" "High School Inedible" "Mousefall" "Mouse Rise" | - | - |
| Danger Mouse: From Duck to Dawn | 8 | 93 mins approx | 18 September 2017 | "From Duck to Dawn" "The Duckula Show" "Very Important Penfold" "The Cute Shall Inherit the Earth" "All 5 It" "Dream Worrier" "The Confidence Trick" "Sir Danger de Mouse" | - |