He’s terrific. He’s magnific. He’s the greatest secret agent in the world. Yes, my friends, he is the one and only, DangerMouse. Again, it’s all about the Anglophilia with me, isn’t it? It must be a terminal case if I choose this as the first cartoon to appear here, rather than the longest-lived animated love of my life. Ruh-roh.
DangerMouse, however, was not blessed with the longevity of my favorite childhood cartoon. He was unfortunately short-lived in popularity on this side of the pond. Although he and his bumbling sidekick, Ernest Penfold, led their valiant fight against Baron Silas Greenback and his henchman, Stiletto Mafiosa, for slightly more than a decade in the UK, I remember DM gracing our shores for only a fraction of that time, airing on the cable channel Nickelodeon for maybe 5 years (give or take a year; my memory is dodgy sometimes, especially when it comes to time, and years seem to melt together in my head like the colors in a bowl of rainbow sherbet).
I learned recently from one of my lovely English friends that DangerMouse is a spoof of an earlier British series, Danger Man, that starred a pre-Prisoner Patrick McGoohan. I don’t think the Man ever made it over here to the States, but the Mouse remains a staple of our pop culture. Ever hear of the group Gnarls Barkley? It comprises two musicians, one who goes by the nom de mix, DJ Danger Mouse. Apparently, he even used to do shows dressed as a mouse. No word, though, on whether he also wore an eye patch.
Let’s sidetrack here for a moment to talk a little more about Stiletto. See, until the Interwebs, I didn’t know that he had a last name. I also didn’t know that he wasn’t supposed to sound like a Cockney with un-descended testicles. Nickelodeon thought that calling him Stiletto Mafiosa and having him sound stereotypically Italian would be offensive to Italian-Americans. So they dropped the surname and made him sound stereotypically English…and kind of like he had a helium tank shoved up his bum.
First time I heard Stiletto with his real voice, I thought I’d been duped with a fake bootleg. I can’t locate a video or audio clip that contains this American version of Stiletto, which would have been great solely for the comedic comparison. I’ve also learned that Brits enjoy this bit of trivia as yet another reason to laugh at (not with) their somewhat dim-witted but every now and again good-intentioned American cousins.
Still, even with this politically correct silliness, DangerMouse remains a steadfast happy memory from my childhood. So much so that when I took my first hop across the pond, I went giddy girl apoplectic when I discovered a stall in Camden Town selling DangerMouse T-shirts. The image above is a shot of the front of said shirt. I wear it out and about here quite proudly, getting the occasional knowing nod from fellow cartoon geeks.
If you’ve never seen this wonderfully British cartoon, do rectify this immediately. Got a Netflix account? You can rent them. Love Amazon? You can buy them all on DVD (with the original Stiletto voice, of course).
Until then, here is DangerMouse’s theme song. Hope you enjoy!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrM0E9pag8E&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]
