Dangermouse Collection (DVD)

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DangerMouse is 25 years old this year. And what are they going to do about it? Cosgrove-Hall and Fremantle Media are swamping the market with DVDs celebrating the fact. There are 7 DVDs out there with up to 9 episodes on each or you can go for the jugular and invest in the Anniversary Box set that proudly announces all 161 episodes ever made on 12 DVDs plus some extras. I will come back to that claim again a little later.
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...DVD has a picture of DangerMouse or one of the characters printed on as well as the episodes contained on that particular DVD.


DANGERMOUSE

Meet DangerMouse, the greatest super agent in the world. Mouse by nature but not afraid of anything. His trademarks are black eyepatch and while jumpsuit with the letters DM emblazoned on the front. His base is in a post box in London's Mayfair but we find out that it's actually ... more

ALTOGETHER NOW:

He's the greatest He's fantastic
Wherever there is danger he'll be there
He's the ace He's amazing
He's the strongest He's the quickest He's the best
Danger Mouse Danger Mouse DANGER MOUSE

DangerMouse is 25 years old this year. And what are they going to do about it? Cosgrove-Hall and Fremantle Media are swamping the market with DVDs celebrating the fact. There are 7 DVDs out there with up to 9 episodes on each or you can go for the jugular and invest in the Anniversary Box set that proudly announces all 161 episodes ever made on 12 DVDs plus some extras. I will come back to that claim again a little later.

Packaged in a silver box (after all it's the 25th - silver - Anniversary), you pull out the DVDs. The 12 DVDs are arranged in the form of a 'book' where you can just flip through and turn over from one disc to the next. They are not numbered so even if you take them all out, there is no way of knowing which way they belong in. Each DVD has a picture of DangerMouse or one of the characters printed on as well as the episodes contained on that particular DVD.

DANGERMOUSE

Meet DangerMouse, the greatest super agent in the world. Mouse by nature but not afraid of anything. His trademarks are black eyepatch and while jumpsuit with the letters DM emblazoned on the front. His base is in a post box in London's Mayfair but we find out that it's actually on the corner in Baker Street (close to Sherlock Holmes' address) and if I know my London geography, that's nowhere near Mayfair.

To save the world every secret agent needs a sidekick, an assistant and in this case it appears in the form of a small, slightly dumpy hamster by the name of Ernest Penfold. He is one of the greatest cowards the world has ever seen but travels around with is boss (or Chief as he calls him) facing up to the dangers they inevitably find themselves in. A lot of Penfold's mutterings are high in comedy value and actually very hilarious.

The very secret agency DangerMouse works for is led by Colonel K, nobody really knows what kind of animal he is but that is not really a problem. He is often hard of hearing and tends to repeat what DangerMouse or Penfold have deduced by themselves. He comes over as being less than able in what he does but he's the one with authority.

DangerMouse and Penfold can't always save the world on their own and enlist the help of others. Those characters are only bit players and don't appear often. One character with more than one appearance is Agent 57, a master of disguise who can change shape and appearance at will to look like anyone in the world. There's also Professor Von Squarkencluck who designed and built DangerMouse's flying Mark III car and DangerMouse's personal spacecraft, the Space Hopper.

While DangerMouse is out to save the world you will find he comes across a number of villains but none as nasty and persistent as Baron Silas Greenback and his pet caterpillar Nero (probably based on Bond villain Blofeld and his penchant for white fluffy cats). Greenback can only be described as a rather lazy toad who sends out his henchman Stiletto (a crow with Italian accent) to do his dirty work.

A number of other villains make it into the episodes but they often play a very minor role and only appear on the odd occasion. They include Count Duckula, Mac The Fork or Dudley Poison. There's also a selection of aliens visiting Earth on occasions.

DangerMouse is voiced by David Jason. I have a huge problem with David Jason. I can't stand him as an actor and found him unfunny in most of the TV programmes I have seen him in and that includes 'Only Fools and Horses'**, 'Open All Hours', 'Darling Buds of May' and 'Frost' plus virtually everything he has ever done. BUT as DangerMouse and a number of other characters in this programme, best of all, the narrator, I just love him to bits. He is the perfect voice for the character. It's got just about the right lot of sarcasm and wit to make me laugh.

Of course, Terry Scott as Ernest Penfold is the perfect counterbalance to David Jason's DangerMouse. His voice has just the right amount of despair and mania to make him both extremely likeable and cute. I can't imagine anyone else doing the voice and must admit that Penfold is my favourite character of them all.

ANIMATION:

You will not experience the vivid colours you might know from Disney animations. This is home grown, UK original animation and therefore might not look as sparkly as the American counterparts, but it certainly has its own charm.

DangerMouse is a product of the 1980s with animation looking dated now. The backgrounds hardly move, some are very primitively drawn with just the bare essentials but I always thought that made the UK animation so charming, they did not overdo their programmes, they told a story with just some very basic animation. And while it might not be as shiny and colourful as the stuff we get from the USA, it certainly knows how to tell a story.

SCRIPTS:

I quite like most of the scripts and find a lot of the one liners absolutely hilarious and never tire of hearing them again. Until 1989, the main script writer was Brian Trueman and he wrote some of the best stuff. Later he was replaced by Angus Allen and it's said that the scripts then contained less humour and a loss of quality was apparent. The show didn't last too many seasons after that.

I always loved the idea that DangerMouse and his fellow characters knew they were in a show. I wonder when they were 'becoming aware' that they could interact with the narrator, hear him, find themselves stopped in the middle of a sentence because the narrator is going off on another rant which he frequently does - so much so that at some point the villainous character of Dr Crumhorn sits at his desk drumming his fingers while the narrator goes on and on and on. Discussions about the merits of a decent script and whether or not DangerMouse should have read it or not are heard in some episodes as well as the mention that they were not doing any more takes as Penfold had already done it 14 times and still messed it up.

ALL 161 EPISODES

The box set boasts that you get 'Every Episode Ever Made' and I believe this statement. However, on the back of the box it says that the show ran for 'an astonishing 161 episodes'.

I counted the episodes per DVD (well, ballpark figure only as they contain between 7 and 9) and came up with just under 90 - the official number is actually 89 episodes.

The only way they can come up to that amount is if they used to have little short 5 minute episodes they counted as individual but that were later combined to make a longer episode. I reckon there are a number of the longer - 30 minutes - episodes that were made up of a number of shorter ones. You notice gaps in some episodes, namely 'All Fall Down' where the screen goes black for a split second before the next chapter starts.

While they say that there are 161 episodes, the truth is more likely the 89 listed on both Wikipedia and the Cosgrove Hall website itself. Don't get taken in that there are more as it's not the case.

I personally would have preferred the episodes in broadcast order to see how, over years, the show changed, if at all. But this is not the case. It appears all they have done is taken the individual DVDs you have been able to buy while and released them in a 12 DVD 25th Anniversary Box Set. It's great to have all the episodes together and at a bargain price, after all buying 12 DVDs individually at anything between £6.00 second hand or £9.95 new will really pull the purse strings.

Also, while the box set contains a booklet with some very basic information about DangerMouse and his pals, it's no good when you are trying to find some actual information. The broshure is mainly advertising Cosgrove Hall products. There's no episode guide printed anywhere other then on the DVDs themselves. It's not so bad when you're not watching and just checking what DVD contains what episode. I have also noticed that even if they print the episodes onto the DVD, it doesn't necessarily mean that you get them in that order. But once the DVD is in the player you have no way of knowing what is on there, unless you learnt the running order off by heart. This is where it would have come in handy if the episodes had been in broadcast order. Even without a booklet there are places online where you can get that information.

RRP for the DVD box set is £49.99 but if you shop around you can get it cheaper. But even at full price it's a bit of a bargain, after all you get the full series on 12 DVDs for that price, just over £4.00 per DVD. I paid £28.99 with Amazon (free delivery) and was astonished that since its release it's been sold out for most of the time. Amazon turned out to be cheapest when I ordered and I only needed to wait just under a week for delivery. Curiously, the day after I completed my order they put up the price to £34.99. I am glad I ordered when I did.

When you first put your DVD into the player you will be given the option to play all episodes or select the episode you want to watch from the menu. There are no other options for the viewer. All episodes are in 4:3 ratio (meaning it's full TV frame, not widescreen), the only available language is English and there are no subtitles. All episodes are in colour but you will find that some are still in Mono while the later ones are in Stereo.

DVD Extras (or rather lack thereof):

I often wonder if it wasn't better to completely omit extras on DVDs if there is not much they can offer. I wish they had done it here and released the set without them. Most DVDs have a photo section where you can see stills from each episode on that particular DVD. Then there is a link to Child Line. And if you are really lucky you will receive some rather boring extra information.

You have extras like:

Dangermouse Quiz - a very easy 5 questions quiz, multiple choice and questions the likes of Penfold's first name.

Find Penfold Game where you have to click on Penfold in a picture.

Can You Drive DM's Car - try and avoid bombs thrown at the car by using left and right on your remote (can't be played on computer)

Very dated (1980s) 5 minutes with the voice actors as well as Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall

As a special treat they put the very first Duckula episode on one of the discs as an extra, while appreciated, I was way past caring at that point.

As I said, no extras would have been preferable to me as the shockingly bad ones they included.

To recap:
· 25th Anniversary Box Set available from all good retailers
· Contains every DangerMouse episode ever made
· RRP £49.99 but look out for bargains, some retailers sell for as little as £28.99
· 12 DVDs total run time is 1348 minutes (that's over 20 hours to you and me)
· inferior extras not worth watching

Of course you cannot compare classic programmes like DangerMouse with the animated programmes you get nowadays on channels like Disney or Cartoon Network. But if you are of the generation that grew up with DangerMouse and liked it when it was out first time around then you might like this collection.

Despite its age, I feel that a lot of the funny scripts still work, they have not really aged that much and they can still raise a smile. Otherwise, why not invest in it just because it's a piece of nostalgia.

Definitely recommended although I suggest you don't go and buy it if you are keen on extras that come with the box set.

** I feel 'Only Fools and Horses' is the absolutely, totally most overrated TV programme I ever had the misfortune to catch glimpses of. I don't care that people think it's the best thing since sliced bread, I find it totally tedious and unfunny.
 

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