Tuesday 29 November 2016

Danger Mouse, Set 2 (1981)



Danger Mouse is the world's greatest secret agent.  From his base in a post box in Mayfair, London, he protects the world from the wicked schemes of evil-doers.  He's "aided" (for want of a better word) in this by his cowardly assistant Penfold.  DM's major adversary is the wicked toad Baron Silas Greenback (who is as clearly inspired by Ernst Blofeld as Danger Mouse is on James Bond), though he also has run-ins with the vampire Count Duckula, as well as other guest villains.

Like a lot of kids' cartoons, the original DVD releases of this show grabbed a more or less random assortment of episodes and jammed them onto a disc.  This "box set" is actually just a collection of the 4th, 5th and 6th such random assortments.  As you might surmise, box set 1 (which I also own, but watched before this blog started) collected the first through third.

This set of 22 episodes sees DM and Penfold transported through time (twice, in fact), encounter aliens, and thwart villainous plans involving giant chickens or the theft of stock from a bagpipe farm.  It's all very silly stuff on the whole, packed full of puns, randomness, breaking of the fourth wall, and what these days come across as quite a lot of offensive racial stereotypes.  I mean it's no Mind Your Language, but it's quite noticeable.

Six minutes of "Mind Your Language".  I doubt you'll get to the end.

Given the advances in animated TV fare in the past thirty years; which has given us well written, well constructed shows like Justice League, Avatar the Last Airbender or My Little Pony; I can't really recommend Danger Mouse except for those for whom it is a treasured childhood memory.  It's quite badly dated both visually and in terms of its content.  Though on the plus side, if you do want to purchase it, you can get all 161 episodes in a single box set.

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