Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Some very punny moments
Cons: Overall a little dry
The Bottom Line:
Some pun and some fun
But not as I remembered
Lots of slower parts
"Wherever There is Danger, He'll Be There"
Danger Mouse is a television cartoon from the 1980's.
Created in England ,
it was made famous on this side of the pond by Nickelodeon in its early years
on the air. A low budget series with only passable animation, it features the
adventures of the world's greatest secret agent, Danger Mouse. Assisted by
Penfold (a hamster), they must continually save the world from the plots of
Baron Silas Greenback (a toad) and his henchman Stilletto (a crow).
This set contains the cartoon from the first two seasons of
the show. Season one had 11 episodes. Each episode is about seven and a half to
eight minutes each. As such, the stories are a bit weak and decidedly short.
Still, Danger Mouse faces a planet of machines, a dream cloud tuned to
Penfold's worries, missing bagpipes, attack robots, elephants turning into
sugar cubes, and some deadly laughing gas.
Season two changes the format significantly. There are only
six storylines this time, but each episode is 25 minutes in length. Originally,
these episodes were broken down into five-minute segments with cliffhangers and
their own intros and closing credits. These breaks are preserved on this DVD,
but fortunately, chapter breaks make skipping past the repetitive credits and
intros easy. Season two finds Danger Mouse facing Greenback in a duel for the
fate of the world, dealing with a lot of bad luck, and fighting washing machines
programmed to kill him.
I never watched Danger Mouse much when it was on TV, but I
remember liking what I had seen. Unfortunately, this set didn't live up to my
memories. While I still enjoyed the bad puns and corny jokes, I found them to
be too far between. Furthermore, the plots are just a little too silly for my
taste, frequently finding Danger Mouse in space for no real reason. I realize
that this is a tongue in cheek spoof of James Bond and Dr. Who, among others,
but this show just seems to fall a little flat. More then anything it's
probably because I have never completely gotten British humor.
Those who do remember the show with fondness from their
childhood will like this set. The picture, while showing a few spots of dust
and grain, is very good for being a low budget show from the 80's. Extras are
limited to character descriptions and the unaired pilot episode. Basically,
this is a longer version of the "Who Stole the Bagpipes?" episode
from season 1. What I found most interesting was that the voices for some of
the characters changed slightly when the show actually started production.
Season 1 Episodes:
Rogue Robots
Who Stole the Bagpipes?
Trouble with Ghosts
Chicken Run
The Martian Misfit
The Dream Machine
Lord of the Bungle
Die Laughing
The World of Machines
Ice Station Camel
A Plague of Pyramids
Season 2 Episodes:
Custard
Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind
The Duel
The Day of the Suds
The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God
The Four Tasks of Danger Mouse
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