DANGER MOUSE is back ... and he isn't half a GLASSHOLE

They call themselves explorers, but we all know there's a better word for anyone who wears Google Glass. Youtube Video Now the legendary kids' telly character Danger Mouse is set to return to Britain's screens, only this time he's a fully paid up Glasshole. A new series will air next year, with the rodent's eye-patch replaced …

[Anonymous Coward]

Cast?

Any news on the cast for this?

How about David Jason as Colonel K this time around?

[Billa Bong]

Re: Cast?

What better way to re-introduce a techno-savy mouse than to give him the voice of someone who gets confused over IP addresses and domain names...

http://metro.co.uk/2014/06/17/stephen-fry-is-bookies-favourite-to-replace-david-jason-in-the-new-danger-mouse-animated-series-4765291/

Glad to see the Reg willing to re-open the whole "Penfold the hamster is a mole" debate (whether you believe I'm talking about which species or where his loyalty lies depends on how much tin foil you possess). Wasn't that also a question on QI one time?

[Bill Sticker]

Re: Cast?

Fry as DangerMouse? Oh ye cats.

Still think Penfold won't be the same without the voice of Terry Scott.

[Suricou Raven]

I predict suck. DM was a product of the time - a remake just wouldn't be the same. They'll take it too seriously.

[Thorne]

They'll make it politically correct and overly moral......

Will suck big time.

[Rampant Spaniel]

No, leave DM alone. By the time they have finished modernism him he will be a lesbian and have a different accent each scene. DM worked as is. Leaving aside supergran, most kids TV was of a very high quality then, especially compared to the badly dubbed dross flung at our kids these days (although there are a few exceptions). They had plotlines that changed, effort was put into the animation and music. Just watch Fraggle Rock, Thunder cats et al then watch pokemon.

[dan1980]

I don't get it. There are numerous similar ideas that have been churned out over the years. What really differentiates them are the characters. To 'update' those characters is to loose part of what they were. If you're doing that why don't you create a new franchise?

The thing that I feel won't work all that well, or will be lost, is that DM was a kind of parody of a certain type of spy character, from a certain era and much of the personality of the show was in that. The parody can be updated but that character no longer exists.

The answer is, of course, that they want to play on the existing brand.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Nostalgia is good business. Why else do they still sell those Fisher Price pull along phones, with the moving eyes and rotary dials? No child of an age to play with one has ever seen a rotary dial phone. Once they hit three, they're trying to mug all nearby adults for their iPhones and iPads...

But they sell, becuase people my age remember them, and we're now in our 30s and 40s. So I guess they hope for DM merchandise sales. And who amongst us wouldn't want a DM outfit with eyepatch?

[Nick Ryan]

I've wondered that with the pull along rotary dial phones... young children are unlikely to ever see such a device outside of old movies and museums yet they still produce new pull along rotary phones. Somehow my daughter even learnt to pick up the phone handset and talk to it. She's also glued to a more current phone toy model and learnt to mug adults for their touch phones at an early age.

[TRT]

I took my kids to Amberley Museum (it's in the South Downs region and well worth a visit, especially for Bond fans) when they were 10 and 5. I had a fun idea of calling between the village exchange, the phone box outside and the power station. I had to show them how to use the dial phone, because they simply didn't have a clue. Never encountered one before. They were actually amazed at seeing the rotors go round. "How the flippin' heck does that work?" I was asked. The complexities of digital circuit switching... a snap. Analog pulse-dial... bewildering. Same as the interlocking mechanism of an old railway signal box - can't move one lever until three co-linked ones in a bank of 24 are set right. And it's all done with levers and lumps of rolled steel.

[Test Man]

>> I had to show them how to use the dial phone, because they simply didn't have a clue. Never encountered one before. They were actually amazed at seeing the rotors go round. "How the flippin' heck does that work?" I was asked.

Man, I must be old :(

[Benchops]

> "How the flippin' heck does that work?"

It's odd how actual moving parts seems more complicated than the "magic" of a touchscreen to the younger generation!

[Matthew 3]

They're still around

I have one in my hallway and my kids love the novelty of dialling on it. It's not difficult to rewire one to connect to the modern sockets using an old modem's lead.

[I ain't Spartacus]

I can still remember a trip to the telephone exchange in the mid-80s. It was Project X that they were so proud of I think? I got a Buzby badge as well. Huge rooms with racks of gear, batteries and generators. There's probably just a small server room there now. Plus backup power.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a colleague who used to work in a telephone exchange and was there around the time of the transition to digital. They kept the room. It had lots of space in it.

[AndrueC]

There's probably just a small server room there now

Maybe not even that. There's this thing called Cloud Communications. You can already purchase (lease?) a cloud-based PBX and I vaguely recall reading about BT being interested in the idea.

So it might be that all that's inside the voice comms part of your exchange is a DAC/ADC bank and a data cable. Somehow that feels to me like 'the world's gone mad'.

Back to DM - I always liked the name of the MoD research centre. 'Putnam Down', I think it was.

[Lionel Baden]

@i ain't spartacus !!

I am ashamed to see MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

There are only a few things i fondly remember when that young, and dangermouse is most definately one of them.

Even is they destroy it, I would still watch it :/ Not sure how i feel about it though.

[Thorne]

"Even is they destroy it, I would still watch it :/ Not sure how i feel about it though."

What about when DM drives a Prius and is worried about recycling his rubbish correctly because the only way to save the world these day is to be an environmentalist?

[Obitim]

The thing that I feel won't work all that well, or will be lost, is that DM was a kind of parody of a certain type of spy character, from a certain era and much of the personality of the show was in that.

So you're comparing Danger Mouse to Archer?

[Valeyard]

Aw man

The dialogue was really good in the original series, some very clever back and forths you only really appreciated the wit of which as an adult. I bet now it'll be sanitised and dumbed down with action and gadgets, I mean they even made postman pat more dull than the original and that's saying something!

I'm going get the drinks in, hole up and play black forest chateau on the c64 and wait for all of this to blow over

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Aw man

> The dialogue was really good in the original series, some very clever back and forths you only really appreciated the wit of which as an adult.

There are all sorts of references and homages in the first series too. "Custard" has a version of the egg scene from Alien.

[Kane]

Re: Aw man

Danger Mouse's trusted assistant, Ernest Penfold. Codename: The Jigsaw, because when he's faced with a problem, he goes to pieces.

[Chika]

Re: Aw man

The dialogue was really good in the original, and that was only partly to do with the writing back then. The problem is that they need to find voice actors that can interact in a similar way to David Jason and Terry Scott, and that's going to be hard to do. Even if they do find people that sound good and write some good lines, if you don't get the chemistry right, it will all be for nothing.

That's even before we get to who will be the voice behind the Baron and Stilletto, the latter being a problem even back when they did the original.

This might be a boon for new viewers but I suspect that the remake is being done for all the wrong reasons and will annoy fans everywhere. I don't mind being wrong about that last bit, but I suspect that I won't be.

[Peshman]

Hmm...

Penfold...Shush!

I still say that to the Mrs when she goes off on one.

[wolfetone]

I have always said that if Pat Sharpe were to be arrested under Operation Yewtree then my childhood would be dead. I fear now with the release of this imposter called "Dangermouse 2.0", my childhood is now effectively dead.

Thank you BBC, no, really thank YOU. Arse.

[stu 4]

Load of Shite

To 'win a new generation of fans' all that would be needed is to put the original series back on the TV.

this has FA to do with winning a new generation of fans.

My wee niece's favourite film is still Wizard of Oz, and it was made in 1939!

Stick Danger Mouse, bagpuss, originial magic roundabout, banana man, etc back on the TV and they'll be happy bunnies.

[Dan 55]

Re: Load of Shite

Is that the original Bananaman or the film coming out in 2015?

http://www.bananamanmovie.com/

[Gordon 10]

Re: Load of Shite

Nnnnnnnnoooooooo!

[PastyFace]

Re: Load of Shite

My 2 year old son loves the original Danger Mouse; we managed to track down a couple of DVDs. Just goes to show we don't need fancy remakes and that the originals stand the test of time!

[wowfood]

Re: Load of Shite

My dad gave away pretty much my childhood video collection to a friend for their kid to watch. The kid didn't watch 'modern' tv. But he'd sit hours on end watching animals of farthing wood, classic noddy etc.

[Robert E A Harvey]

Re: Load of Shite

oh. farthing.

as you were, then. Sorry.

[Alan W. Rateliff, II]

Re: Load of Shite

And Count Duckula. Maybe this means my DM DVD collection will go up in resale some. Not that I want to sell it, but it could double my net worth.

I am okay with the whole Danger Mouse "Glass" bit, too. It will help to reinforce the idea that the only people who need to use the real-time spying information gathering high-tech stuff are the spooks and plods, and we have nothing to fear if we are doing nothing wrong. Move along, nothing to see here, you can catch it on-line at your leisure.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Load of Shite

And SuperTed, and The Trap Door, and The Goodies...

[I ain't Spartacus]

BBC Radio 4 Extra

The Beeb did a documentary on Cosgrove Hall a couple of years ago, which got repeated this year. Which was excellent fun. With lots of David Jason.

I hadn't realised that in one week Dangermouse got 18 million viewers! It beat Coronation Street and Eastenders for that week. Which is astonishing. I can only imagine there'd been a catastrophic outbreak of flu (or skiving) that week.

They also admitted that all those scenes in the dark, where all you could see were Penfold's eyes and DM's eye, were basically done to save cash. Obviously much easier (and cheaper) to animate. But they were also funny.

I'm not sure the gadgets is all that bad a thing though. The original had gadgets. They had a flying car that could go underwater, videophone watches, computers... Plus Baron Greenback had plenty of Wylie Coyote style gadgets of his own.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: BBC Radio 4 Extra

Used to walk past the offices every time we went to the swimming baths…

Happy days!

[William Towle]

Re: BBC Radio 4 Extra

+1: also thoroughly enjoyed that

...actually, "in 1983 Cosgrove Hall Films' Danger Mouse topped the TV ratings with 21 million viewers - beating Coronation Street[...]" from the show description (at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ccz0r)

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: BBC Radio 4 Extra

William Towle,

Cripes! Thanks for the correction WT.

21 million for a kids cartoon. We 'ad to make oor own entertainment in them days laddie.

They also did Chorlton and the Wheelies. Which is one of those things I had strong memories of, but no-one I spoke to had ever heard of it. It wasn't until the internet that I was able to find out what that show was.

And one of the worst ear-worms in TV music (another show I watched), 'Jamie and his Magic Torch'.

Happy days...

[actually that's another show I watched back then where I still find myself singing the theme tune 30 years later]

[AbelSoul]

Re: BBC Radio 4 Extra

"And one of the worst ear-worms in TV music (another show I watched), 'Jamie and his Magic Torch'."

And once in Cuckoo Land, the jolly japes would begin.

"Come on Wordsworth!"

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: Earworms

I'll see your Jamie's torch and raise you a wun-wun-wun-wuuuuuuundeeeeeerrrrrrrrrwheeeeeeeeeelssssss!

(If anyone has a Cpt. Caveman at the ready I'll forfeit now :) )

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Earworms

Oh Cavey-Wavey, you're sooooo strong!

[Chika]

Re: BBC Radio 4 Extra

"Come on Wordsworth!"

Arrr... Cuckoo. You're all bloomin' cuckoo!

[Alan W. Rateliff, II]

Re: BBC Radio 4 Extra

Not animated, and not Cosgrove Hall, but your mention of others shows you watched and finding things on the Internet reminded me of my own "other show" and trying to find it on the Internet.

"The Young Ones." Absolutely loved that program. Later on in life I decided, hey, maybe I can find it on the Internet. While the proper search results have percolated to the top in Google these days, back then... just say that the results were rather heavy and not quite what the Peoples' Poet would have smiled upon.

[NogginTheNog]

Re: BBC Radio 4 Extra

Hell no, don't tell me you got linked to the Cliff Richard film?!!

[Lionel Baden]

Re: BBC Radio 4 Extra

I'm not sure the gadgets is all that bad a thing though. The original had gadgets. They had a flying car that could go underwater, videophone watches, computers... Plus Baron Greenback had plenty of Wylie Coyote style gadgets of his own.

Gadgets are cool, Everybody loves gadgets. It when they start pushing products like an "iPatch" Some very non specific branding there !!!

[Ed 13]

Step away from the animation suite

Really, *really* don't do it.

I had to resurrect the VHS to play the tapes I had of D.M. for my kids, and they love it!

It doesn't need updating, just showing again!

[Fading]

Re: Step away from the animation suite

Ahh the videos - had fantastically funny, in-between episodes, voice over. Such a shame it wasn't on the DVDs.

[Christoph]

"knee-trembling threats"

Is a knee-trembler really suitable for children's television?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eyebrows that float

Deeply brilliant concept, we know it's daft, they know it's daft, together as sentient beings we can both marvel at the simplicity and ridiculous nature of the animation while enjoying the humour.

Sad to say V2.0 will probably introduce modern irrelevant distraction and “Bring it up to date”,

Completely missing the point.

I bet even the voices won't be a patch on the old ones.

[VinceH]

Re: Eyebrows that float

Quite. Hearing Penfold say "Crikey D.M." in any voice other than Terry Scott's will just be wrong.

[Stuart Elliott]

Re: Eyebrows that float

Cor Chief !

[A K Stiles]

Re: Eyebrows that float

Now if they got Guy Martin to voice that line, it would probably sound about right!

[Stuart Ball]

http://dangermouse.org/

I've been feeding my addiction for years on sounds from this site....

[Charlie Clark]

That's my afternoon gone then!

[27escape]

could be worse

Chubby as he was, at least he was a sidekick to a superhero

#kevinthegerbil

[Aoyagi Aichou]

I see marketing of some companies has the same manners as communist propaganda. Wow....

[Anonymous Coward]

Good grief.

[KirstarK]

Why get rid of the eye patch ?

Is having a partially blind hero a bad thing ?

or did the marketing dept speak to a focus group or something

[Anonymous Coward]

excluding - not including

It's a poke in the eye for representation of the disabled in society.

I'll get my coat....

[Alan W. Rateliff, II]

Seems we will under-represent the half-blind population in these exclusionary practices if the eye-patch is removed. Do I smell a boycott and hashtag?

[Oninoshiko]

"Why get rid of the eye patch ?

Is having a partially blind hero a bad thing ?

or did the marketing dept speak to a focus group or something"

You see, in the land of the blind, the one eye'd anthropomorphic mouse is king, and Mr Magoo was feeling intimidated.

[sabroni]

Or....

...wait and see if it's any good once they start showing them?

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Or....

Don't you go bringing boring sanity into this nostalgia and grumpfest! It's not acceptable!

We shall sit here in our cardigans and slippers, and pontificate about how it were better in t'good old days. In our best Fred Trueman voices. And you shall not interrupt with any of your optimistic rubbish about how anything modern can be any good!

Particularly as in this case the remake is probably going to be crap. And no-one likes to watch people getting paid huge amounts of cash to piss all over their childhood memories. And I didn't mention George Lucas once...

About ten years ago I caught something called 'The New Adventures of Paddington'! In which Paddington helps the police catch a bank robber. Of the many things that were wrong with this appalling travesty were:

1. They were doing it as cartoon action, rather than a nice voiceover (like Michael Hordern) virtually reading it as a story.

2. It was in bright primary colours, rather than the good old faded colours of the original.

3. It was fast-moving and loud. As above, they'd taken it from gentle bedtime story to loud action.

4. The horrible mid-atlantic woman-doing-child sound of whoever voiced Paddington. Nasty, shouty, nasal, bleurgh!

5. He stopped a bank robbery! The worst that should happen to Paddington is that he gets in trouble with the grumpy next door neighbour, or gets so covered in sticky marmalade that he has to go home for a wash.

I guess all the changes stemmed from the fact they'd aimed it at older kids. i.e. destroyed the whole point, spirit and charm of the original. Philistines! Nothing wrong with child heroes stopping bank robbers on kids cartoons. Just bloody well make up your own, and leave millions of peoples' early childhood nostalgia out of it. Paddington would have given the producers one of his sternest stares.

[Richard Taylor 2]

Re: Or....

Yes - in our family giving someone a 'Paddington' is a mark of deep disapproval.

[chr0m4t1c]

Re: Or....

That reminds me, I've always quite liked the idea of inviting a load of my friends over for a Peruvian Dinner Party and then serving marmalade sandwiches.

[TRT]

God help us all; you're right.

From the BBC website just now:

"The movie also stars Nicole Kidman as an evil museum taxidermist who has Paddington in her sights, and Julie Walters and Hugh Bonneville as Mr and Mrs Brown - the marmalade-loving bear's adopted parents."

At least Colin Firth has pulled out of the project as he couldn't get the voice right. Kudos to the guy.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Or....

Because we know they'll fuck it up.

I'm not totally against remakes or new interpretations but they - Battlestar Galactica - are very much the exception rather than the rule.

All this bringing stuff up to date is total bollocks. Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine and Bagpuss were already old when I watched them back in the 70s and 80s but they were timeless because the focus was on the story and the characters and not the fucking technology. This is the whole point of the classics.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Or....

Ah. Happy memories...

Back in the 70s, I was arrested for Noggin' the Nog.

[NogginTheNog]

Re: Or....

Back in the 70s, I was arrested for Noggin' the Nog.

Yes I remember it well! Still having therapy thank you :-(

[TRT]

I used to go to college with the son of the guy who drew Dangermouse.

[Jim 59]

Apologies for Cynicism

"...this rebooted version will be brought up-to-date for today's tech-savvy and content-hungry kids.

Right on. Laurel and Hardy would much funner if they stopped pouring tar into each others hats and sat down with iPads instead.

"In this new 21st-Century version the laughs are set to be even louder as the world's smallest secret agent faces mightier missions, voracious villains and knee-trembling threats."

Translation: it will follow the inevitable pattern as surely as Bigtrack. Many strong, overbearing, testy female characters bullying a couple of simpering "male" characters in a PC-tastic parody of the original. Chortle !

[Blackbird74]

Re: Apologies for Cynicism

Fear not! DM will be getting an interesting back-story:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/dangermouse-to-get-gritty-origin-story-2014061887740

[Graham Marsden]

On being nick-named "Penfold"

Given a lot of the potential nicknames that could have been applied (usually by petty-minded bullies who thought that references to Mars Bars were the ultimate in wit) "Penfold" was certainly not the worst by any means.

I got tagged with Penfold almost 30 years ago and still to this day there are people who call me that, rather than Graham and it's never bothered me in the slightest.

Crikey, Chief!

- Penfold

[Valeyard]

Re: On being nick-named "Penfold"

Yeah there's a guy at my last company who everyone knew as Penfold because he looked EXACTLY like him

The depressing thing is though that half the student placements didn't know who the original Penfold was and completely missed out on the joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: On being nick-named "Penfold"

Better than being called Graham :)

Oh, wait

[Graham Marsden]

@AC - Re: On being nick-named "Penfold"

I blame my parents for that...

[Daz555]

I have the full set of original Danger Mouse. My kids think it is superb.

[carl_cdk]

noooo

who betting either dangermouse or penfold is a girl..

[Charlie Clark]

Re: noooo

Yeah, and sidekicks aren't allowed to be stupid anymore. Sigh, no more thicko Bullwinkle J. Moose.

[Chika]

Re: noooo

Actually, there was an episode in the original where Penfold went all girly...

[Ugotta B. Kiddingme]

Re: noooo

Narrator: "...known to his friends as Very Little Anything At All John. But in good faith his name is, verily, Little John."

Penfold: [indignation] "It is NOT! Verily's a GIRL'S name" [/indignation]

best. episode. ever.

DM: "Well, my guess is the varactor tripler has gone astable with the earth-loop emitter strap on the announcer's microphone." Almost peed my pants laughing at that one.

[geekguy]

This isn't going to work

Danger mouse had two brilliant things about it, David Jason and Terry Scott, who were locked in combat for the prize of best voice acting. You can almost hear them trying to out do each other on every line.

Without these voice actors the brand is simply a basic cartoon, kids are now way more sophisticated and will not latch onto such basics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooh, Crumbs!

"Don't you go bringing boring sanity into this nostalgia and grumpfest! It's not acceptable!"

Hear, hear!

The biggest crime with all these modern re-makes is that they dumb them down so much, when the originals had several levels of humour to appeal to viewers of all ages. Urban myths aside, such as those surrounding Captain Pugwash, it's a huge amount of fun to re-watch series I grew up with and find a whole new level of sophistication that wasn't apparent to a child of 5-10 years old.

Grumpfest out of the way, lets turn to nostalgia;

Chorlton and the Wheelies, which has already been mentioned, is one that I've always remembered through repeated use of the phrase "little ol' lady" (spoken in a broad Yorkshire accent). Besides, who could possibly forget the cackling welsh witch, Fenella the Kettle Witch?

I'm also suprised that more people haven't already mentioned the spin-off from DangerMouse - Count Duckula. Nanny's familiar cry of 'I'll get it!' is still frequently heard in my Parents house, as my Mum picked it up from watching the series with myself and 3 younger siblings over 25 years ago!

And talking nicknames... we have a Junior Engineer whom we've nicknamed Zippy - because he doesn't know when to shut the f**k up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oooh, Crumbs!

it's a huge amount of fun to re-watch series I grew up with and find a whole new level of sophistication that wasn't apparent to a child of 5-10 years old

Actually I've found something similar listening to music from my youth - as a 40-something I can now comprehend and empathise so much more with some of the lyrics than I ever could as a teenager!

[Lamont Cranston]

Re: Oooh, Crumbs!

I'm slightly too young to remember Chorlton & The Wheelies, but my dad got it on DVD for my kids. Not sure I could get all that nostalgic over what appears to be a recording of someone's nightmares.

Brr.

[RocketBook]

Theme Tune

One would hope the keep the original Myfanwy Trelog voiced theme tune - written by Mike Harding.

Myfanwy was David Jason's partner at the time.

[Zog_but_not_the_first]

My recurring nightmare

A CGI version of "Noggin the Nog" voiced by a sampled replica of Oliver Postgate's voice.

[Lamont Cranston]

There's plenty of content on CBBC that manages to bridge the parent/child gap.

"Horrible Histories", Help, I've Got No Head!", "Strange Hill High" and "Shaun The Sheep" all come to mind (less so on CBeebies*). Reimagining (blech!) a series from the parents' era won't do this, it'll have the opposite effect.

Bet it'll be CGI, too.

*the updated, post-privatisation "Postman Pat" is a prime example of how jarringly wrong a reimagining can be. I would like to see the return of "Bertha", though, preferably crossed with Stephen King's "The Mangler".

[Stevie]

Bah!

Surely Penfold should be the one to receive the dubious benefits of the iGlasses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does every marketing announcement these days and especially those of TV companies have to inevitably include the (supremely irritating) word 'thrilled'?!

It'll usually include 'excited' too.

Do they just push a button on a 'missive generator' and await the crap that spews forth?

[Will Godfrey]

Hope I never get to accidentally see any of it

It would ruin the fond memories I have of all these cartoons and animations going right back to The Flower Pot Men. Anything I've ever seen 'remade' has been a total disaster.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it going to be CGI?

And is it going to be in bright LSD colours like other modern kids' shows?

[Anonymous Coward]

David Jason and Terry Scott

Part of the charm was that David Jason and Terry Scott kept trying to better each other and pushing each other on to go more OTT when doing the voiceovers. Adds a real energy do it.

[RAMChYLD]

BBC's anti-product placement policy

But wouldn't including the Google Glasses violate the said policy where BBC will not allow product placement in their shows? Or is it going to a not-BBC channel? (the mention of CBBC makes me assume it's going to said channel?)