Alexander Armstrong voices the blustering secret agent mouse and Kevin Eldon his jumpy hamster sidekick in this 2015-19 reboot of the 1981 Cosgrove-Hall classic. The setup stays faithful: Baron Silas von Greenback, a German-accented toad mastermind, hatches preposterously British world-domination plots from his flying toad-car, and only Danger Mouse, backed by Stephen Fry’s Colonel K and a holographic Scots-chicken boffin, can stop him. Ed Gaughan’s Greenback purrs with melodramatic menace while Dave Lamb’s narrator keeps winking at the viewer, a device carried over from the original and still the show’s smartest gag.
Flash was rejected for being too limited, so the animators rebuilt the retro look in Toon Boom Harmony, keeping the thick black outlines and limited motion that made the 1980s version feel like a pop-up comic. Within three weeks of launch the series had clocked 2.4 million viewers on CBBC, prompting immediate recommissions and a Netflix pickup in the States. Episodes run a lean 11 minutes, specials stretch to 22, and the writing room packs every frame with puns, fourth-wall breaks and celebrity cameos: John Oliver voices a mad scientist, Lena Headey a rival American agent called Jeopardy Mouse.
Merchandise followed the ratings: Jazwares action figures, Penguin sticker books, a monthly D.C. Thomson comic, mobile racing game The Danger Games, and a Butlins stage show titled Robo Mop that toured UK holiday parks through 2017-18. Awards arrived too, with Irish Animation honours for sound design, music and direction, proving the eyepatch still carries commercial pull three decades on.
Production Details
ITV1 / 10 Seasons / 89 Episodes / 1981
Created by: Brian Cosgrove, Mark Hall
Writer(s): Brian Trueman, Keith Scoble, Angus Allan
Producer(s): Brian Cosgrove
Music: Mike Harding
Main Cast
David Jason as Danger Mouse / Narrator (voice)
Terry Scott as Penfold (voice)
Edward Kelsey as Colonel K / Baron Greenback (voice)
Brian Trueman as Stiletto (voice)
