Description

Danger Mouse is a British animated television series produced by Cosgrove Hall Films for Thames Television. It features the eponymous Danger Mouse who worked as a secret agent and is a parody of British spy fiction, particularly the Danger Man series and James Bond. It originally ran from 28 September 1981 to 19 March 1992 on the ITV network.

Characters

• Danger Mouse is often called the world’s greatest secret agent—so secret, in fact, that his codename has a codename. His catchphrases include “Good grief” when he becomes upset or shocked, “Penfold, shush” when his assistant makes a foolish remark. He was originally going to be brown; however, the creators thought that he and Penfold needed to be different colours.
• Ernest Penfold is a timid, bespectacled hamster, and Danger Mouse’s reluctant assistant and sidekick. He is often mistaken for a mole; however, Brian Cosgrove has stated Penfold is supposed to be a hamster. Penfold stands just over half the height of Danger Mouse, and always wears thick round glasses and a crumpled blue suit with a white shirt and a yellow and black striped tie. In the first episode, he is codenamed the Jigsaw “because when he is faced with a problem, he goes to pieces.”
• Colonel K Danger Mouse’s boss; often mistaken for a walrus, it was revealed in an issue of Look-in magazine that he is, in fact, a chinchilla. During the last two seasons, he became more absent-minded, tending to frustrate both DM and Penfold with his tendency to ramble nonsense. A running gag in the later seasons is that he botches the usage of the phrase “over and out” multiple times.
• Baron Silas Greenback The recurring villain and Danger Mouse’s archenemy; a toad with a wheezy voice, although, sometimes, he was referred to as a frog. Known as Baron Greenteeth in the unbroadcast pilot episode. Commonly known as the “Terrible Toad”. In America, “greenback” is slang for dollar bill in many regions, adding to the sense of his commercial greed. Allegedly, he turned to a life of crime as a schoolboy when other children stole his bicycle and let all the air out of its tyres.
• Stiletto Greenback’s henchman; a crow. He always called Greenback “Barone”, Italian for “Baron”. In the original British version, he speaks with an Italian accent; this was changed to a Cockney accent for the U.S. distribution to avoid offending Italian-Americans. His last name is Mafiosa. In series 5, he is more incompetent and klutzy that Greenback usually has to whack him with his walking stick, and in series 9, Greenback uses a “hit box” that whacks Stiletto on the head with a mallet.
• Nero Greenback’s pet. A fluffy white caterpillar (equivalent to the stereotypical white cat frequently associated with arch villains, particularly Ernst Stavro Blofeld). He is a non-speaking character, although his noises and laugh are supplied by David Jason’s voice sped up. Readily understood by Greenback and, less frequently, by Stiletto. He does not have any superpowers, except In the season 5 episode “Nero Power”, where he temporarily exhibits the ability of telekinesis. In the special features of Danger Mouse cartoons, audiences were informed that Nero is actually the mastermind of Greenback’s schemes.
• The Narrator  The unseen narrator, who occasionally interacts with the characters, sometimes to the point of halting the plot for one reason or another. In a series 6 episode, he accidentally sends Danger Mouse and Penfold back in time with his broken mike. He often voices his disdain for the show and his job towards the end of the episode and through part of the closing credits. His name is Isambard Sinclair.