The Return of Danger Mouse

Here in the UK the BBC have commissioned a new series of Danger Mouse - the superspy rodent whose original series, produced by Cosgrove Hall Films for ITV (Thames Television to be precise) ran from 1981 to 1992.

The new series will be animated by Dublin-based Boulder Media, who made The Amazing World Of Gumball and Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends, in co-production with the BBC and FremantleMedia (who own the rights). Robert Cullen will direct, and original co-creator Brian Cosgrove has been invited to act as consultant.

More emphasis will be placed on modern technical gadgetry - the original, unexplained eyepatch will now be a hi-tech i-patch - but hopefully some elements of the original will remain. His sidekick Penfold the hamster and other supporting characters will also return, but it has not yet been announced who will be voicing them. (In the original series David Jason was Danger Mouse, and the late Terry Scott voiced Penfold.)

The 52 11-minute episodes are scheduled to start airing on the BBC's children's channel CBBC in 2015,

The original series proved internationally popular, and clearly FremantleMedia is hoping to repeat that success.

Well, as much as I loved Dangermouse--especially the bickering that went on between Penfold and Dangermouse like a married couple--I'm unsure if they'll be able to capture the dry wit and charm of the original series. I don't want any toilet humor--that's for sure. Of course, that makes me wonder if a certain green vampire duck will be returning to television as well...

It could happen. The legendary June Foray continued to voice the character Granny for The Looney Tunes Show in her 90's.

Retries are always going to be iffy things, however it was mentioned that creator Brian Cosgrove was invited to join the production staff. My read on this is that Boulder Media and CBBC Broadcasting are aiming for something similar to what Hanna-Barbera did with Secret Squirrel: still the same Crazy-Prepared, unflappable and insufferable hero-spy mentoring his well-meaning but less-than-competent sidekick, facing a new array of sinister fiends with a lot less of the Zeerust of the old series. I believe the changes will largely be in the environments and the villains; our heroes are likely to hue rather close to their beloved originals.

Go ahead and cite me on this one: "This ought to be good."

Well, Super Secret Secret Squirrel was actually quite good--dare I say an improvement over the original--with much more creative looking villains. If they go in that same direction, I'd definitely look forward to it.