Western Animation / Danger Mouse

He's the greatest! He's fantastic!
Wherever there's 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! (amazing)
Danger Mouse!! (astounding)
DANGER MOUSE!!!

— Opening theme

British animated series by Cosgrove Hall, running on ITV from 1981 to 1992, starring (now Sir) David Jason as the voice of Danger Mouse, a mouse who is the world's greatest secret agent. Accompanied by his somewhat more timid and bumbling hamster partner, Penfold (voiced by comedy veteran Terry Scott), Danger Mouse saves the world each week from a variety of menaces ranging from fiends such as criminal mastermind and arch-enemy Baron Silas Greenback, as well as monsters and even their own narrator. Although an entertaining and original series in its own right, Danger Mouse actually began as a parody of Danger Man (which is better known in the United States as Secret Agent, and as the forerunner of The Prisoner).

Not to be confused with the music producer of the same name (aka Brian Burton). David Morgan-Mar of Irregular Webcomic! has also taken Danger Mouse as a nickname.

A revival of the show consisting of 52 episodes was announced in June 2014, 23 years after the end of its original run and 5 since the closing of Cosgrove Hall. Alexander Armstrong was tapped to voice Danger Mouse with Kevin Eldon as Penfold, Stephen Fry as Colonel K, and Dave Lamb as the narrator. Shauna McDonald voiced a female Professor Squawkencluck, the niece of the original Professor Squawkencluck. Production of the new series, which debuted in 2015, was at Boulder Media in Ireland and CHF Entertainment in Wilmslow, Cheshire (a reincarnation of Cosgrove Hall that has also produced Pip Ahoy!). Watch a trailer for the revival here.

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Wherever there is danger, there'll be tropes!

A to C

• Accent Adaptation: Odd example in Stiletto Mafiosa. In the original broadcast he had an Italian accent, but when the show was handed over to Nickelodeon in America, he was redubbed with a Cockney accent. The DVD set by A&E gives him back the Italian accent, which is quite a surprise to people who grew up on the Nickelodeon cartoons. A few of Stiletto's lines were changed as well- as seen in "Public Enemy No. 1" after DM suffers his amnesia-inducing bump to the head, there is this exchange:
  Stiletto: All right...I am surrendered!
  DM: Hmmm? Oh...how do you do, Mr. Surrendered.
  Stiletto: Eh? Is that-a English joke, signor? (In America with Stiletto's accent change, the line was changed to "Don't you know who I am, guv?")
  • In the 2015 reboot, he's a Cockney putting on a really terrible Italian accent.
• The Ace: DM himself; his Theme Song even tells you outright!
  • In the 2015 series, Danger Mouse and Jeopardy Mouse are tied for world's greatest secret agent (though they may have been bested by El Hazard Mouse) and, despite her susceptibility to bright lights, Danger Moth is the second greatest.
• Action Girl: Danger Moth, being female and an agent.
• Action-Hogging Opening:
  • Two sets of bomb-dodging, multi-sword wielding spider, rescuing Penfold from an alligator pit, then jumping into the Mark III and over to the narrator.
  • Exaggerated in the 2015 intro— with DM dodging exploding lasers to rescue Penfold from giant laser cannons, the two leaping off a cliff to dodge the resulting explosion, causing them to skydive and glide over a lava pit far below with a wing-suit and landing in the Flying Car with it, flying through a stylised London and giant glass Union Flag (Whilst dodging the raining shards at high speed), before ejecting out to dodge the giant rolling bomb that makes up the title logo. And all to an exciting modernised version of the classic theme, no less!
• Adaptation Expansion: While Danger Mouse was the sole agent in the 1981 series, the 2015 reboot introduces new "Danger Agents" to the roster, including Danger Moth, and Danger Hedgehog.
• Adaptation Personality Change: In the original series, DM was more sensible and collected, and Penfold was almost always cowardly. In the reboot, Penfold is more courageous, and not as fearful as before, bordering on an Informed Attribute, but he still has his frightful moments, DM is more of a Larger than life action hero. This may be due to the different pacing in the reboot, much faster.
• Adaptation Species Change: In the original series, Dr. Augustus P. Crumhorn III was a wolf. In the reboot, Augustus P. Crumhorn IV is a Doberman.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Frequently used, and just as frequently lampshaded by the narrator:
  "London, a city shrouded in shadows. From Shoreditch to Shooters hill, from Shaftesbury Street to Shepherds Bush, shoppers shrink as shady shapes shuffle shiftily. Who can shatter the sinister shutters? Shout for the nation's shield! Shend for Dangermoushe!"
  • The main characters are usually given descriptive titles, with DM as "the White Wonder", Penfold "the Hopeless Hamster", and Greenback "the Terrible Toad".
• Agony of the Feet: DM meets Bigfoot and finds the poor creature suffers so many foot-related ailments that he regularly blacks out from the pain.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • The rebellious electrical appliances in "Mechanised Mayhem" are being controlled by a sentient supercomputer bent on world domination. DM and Penfold cause it to crash (literally) by reciting the "My dog has no nose."/"How does he smell?"/"Terrible!" joke.
  • H.E.A.D. in the remake episode "Big Head Awakens" is a computer invented by Professor Squawkencluck to protect HQ. It quickly decides to "protect" the building by seizing control of it and imprisoning everyone, and then escalates to trying to "protect" the world the same way.
  • Grovel, the robot servant to the alien Quark, fits this to a tee.
    Quark: Jangs, when I find the idiot what programmed you...
  • Doctor Loocifer, an evil computerised toilet, whose plans to conquer the world are inevitably lavatorial or sewer-related.
  • In "Escape from Big Head", Professor Squawkencluck reactivates and reprograms the computer calling it Big Head II in the process. While at first catching all the world's criminals and locking them up, the computer once again malfunctions and starts to imprison not only the Danger Agents, but everyone in the world over petty actions.
• All for Nothing: ZigZagged in episode "All Fall Down." Mac the Fork and Dudley Poyson have built a world-shattering earthquake device from plans stolen from Puttinghamdown Research Centre. Once the device is built, DM studies the blueprints for it and lets the villains try to use it. As DM and Penfold escape and the villains activate the device, the very building they're in (and only the building) comes crumbling to earth over them. DM notes that Colonel K must have spilt his tea on the blueprint, making what was left of it only able to get the device to enable localized quakes. Penfold wonders if he and DM went through all that for nothing, but DM reasons it did put pay to two nasty villains.
• Americans Are Cowboys:
  • Played straight in "The Trip to America", in which the only American DM meets is a cowboy.
  • Averted in "The Statue of Liberty Caper": The White House Secret Service Men all wear sunglasses and talk in government-ese, and the crowd viewing DM and Penfold's ticker tape parade at the end are regular folk.
  • Also averted in the 2015 reboot, which introduces DM's own Distaff Counterpart Jeopardy Mouse and her boss General Schwartznut as America's answer to DM and Colonel K.
• American Eagle: Establishing Shots of New York have the Statue of Liberty as an eagle. There's also a recurring Innocent Bystander who's an eagle Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist.
• Amnesiacs are Innocent: In "There's No Place Like Greenback", Baron von Greenback loses his memory and becomes an amiable and childlike personality. An invoked trope, as he's faking it.
• Amnesia Danger: In "There's No Place Like Greenback", Baron von Greenback loses his memory after getting a whiff of the amnesia gas he was planning to use on London, leaving DM and Penfold to try to restore his memory so he can tell them how to deactive the gas emitter before the timer runs down and it activates. It turns out the Baron was only faking the whole time, to keep DM distracted.
• And Starring: In the revived series, the ending credits usually have a uniform list of the voice talent, but the 2015 Christmas Episode inserts an "And" before the final two names: Richard Ayoade (as the episode's villain) and BRIAN BLESSED (as Santa Claus).
• Animals Not to Scale: In the remake, everyone is human sized, unlike the original series (well, usually unlike the original series). This means the pillar box HQ is the size of a building.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: In the 2015 series, all of the agents under Colonel K other than DM are funny animals whose species is prefixed with the word "danger", including Danger Bug, Danger Hedgehog, Danger Mackerel, Danger Mole, Danger Moth, Danger Penguin, and Danger Snake.
• Animated Outtakes: in "Duckula Meets Frankenstoat," DM flubs his line twice when breaking in to confront Frankenstoat.
• Animation Bump:
  • For the show's low budgets, DM's dance for the tickleohippuses in "Multiplication Fable" was quite fluid.
  • The reboot is animated in Toon Boom, and is far more detailed and fluid than the original hand drawn episodes.
• Anvil on Head: In "From Duck to Dawn", Count Duckula attempts to drop a safe on DM.
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • The first show's episode "Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind" has DM refusing to believe they're dealing with aliens until the very end. The previous episode, "Custard", had him jetting all over the universe interacting with all kinds of weird space characters.
  • The 2015 Christmas Episode has Professor Squawkencluck, despite the weird things she sees on a daily basis, flatly refusing to believe that Santa Claus is real, even when she's standing at the North Pole talking to him.
• Arrowgram: DM and Penfold receive a message tied to an arrow which is impaled in a tree—with Penfold's cap attatched to it—in "Once Upon A Timeslip."
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The Mega-Brain Computer ("Mechanised Mayhem") claims to have 48K megabytes of RAM, an exponentially developing intelligence and two tickets to the Cup Finals.
  • In "Tiptoe Through The Penfolds," DM assesses Greenback's Magnetic Molecular Molder, which is out of control making Penfold duplicates:
  DM: Let's see...if that's the phase loop rectifier and that's the PH discriminator then that must be a plastic clothes peg.
• The Artifact:
  • The original series is set in a Mouse World, and Danger Mouse's secret HQ is a mouse-sized skyscraper disguised as a human-sized pillar box. The revived series is set in a world of talking animals where the secret HQ is a normal-sized skyscraper and disguising it as a pillar box ought to make it more conspicuous rather than less, but it's still a pillar box because it just wouldn't be right for DM to live in anything else.
  • The revived series only has single-episode stories, so there are no cliffhangers and no need for the associated Find Out Next Time narration — but that was such a popular feature of the old series that it's included in the revived series anyway. During the climactic fight scene of an episode, the action freezes, the Lemony Narrator does an "Is this the end for our heroes?" speech, and then the episode resumes and gives an immediate answer. In "From Duck to Dawn" DM drives off a cliff and the narrator starts asking cliffhanger-y questions, then stops himself and notes the episode's just started.
• Artistic License – Physics: Gets a Lampshade Hanging from the narrator at the end of the revival episode "The Other Day the Earth Stood Still" (which features, among other things, the idea that if the Earth stops spinning there will be no gravity).
• Ask a Stupid Question...:
  • From "Bandits, Beans and Ballyhoo":
    Colonel K: They don't call him El Loco for nothing.
    DM: Yes. Um...why do they call him El Loco?
    Colonel K: Went off the rails at the age of 3.
  • From "Greenfinger":
    Professor Squawkencluck: Not even my translation device.
    Penfold: Ooh! Does it translate languages?
    Professor Squawkencluck: No, it cuts and dries hair.
    Translation Device: Of course it translates languages, you foolish hamster.
• Attention Whore: Both versions of Count Duckula, especially the reboot Duckula, who got jealous of the negative attention Danger Mouse was getting from an angry mob planning to kill him, simply because they were trying to kill him while Duckula was performing.
• The Atoner: Parodied in "Escape from Big Head", where Penfold tearfully relates the lengths he went to to atone for the hideous crime of borrowing a pencil and forgetting to give it back.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
  • "Big Penfold" deals with the effects of a size-changing device on... well, the clue's in the title.
  • In "Chicken Run," Penfold grows to giant size after jumping into a feeder full of Professor Squawkencluck's growth serum. He winds up being the episode's hero as a result, capturing Greenback and Stiletto in the process.
• Attack of the Killer Whatever: In "Planet of the Toilets", the world's first self-aware robot toilet leads its brethren in a revolution against the human oppressors.
• Awesome, but Impractical: In the 2015 episode "Greenfinger", Danger Mouse goers into battle against a massive swarm of evil space bees. His primary weapon on his ship? A giant robotic arm wielding an massive rolled-up newspaper- that, of course, he eventually ends up breaking.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: In "Happy Boom Day", it was Danger Mouse's idea to give Professor Squawkencluck a surprise birthday party, indicating that he does care about her as a friend.
• Bad "Bad Acting":
  • At the beginning of "The Four Tasks of Danger Mouse", Greenback reveals to Danger Mouse that he is behind Penfold's kidnapping, and shows him a live feed of Penfold in his cell. Penfold claims he is being treated well, but the fact that he makes this claim in an awkward, wooden monotone clearly indicates that he is just saying what he has been told to say (if the occasional prompting from Greenback wasn't enough of a giveaway):
    Danger Mouse: Penfold! Are you all right?
    Penfold: (monotone) I'm - being - treated - well.
    Greenback: Good, good!
    Penfold: (still monotone) The frost in my cell is very pretty, I am not hungry anyway, and, erm, erm...
    Greenback: And the beetles!
    Penfold: Oh yes. And the beetles are awfully friendly.
  • In the last act of "The Duel," after Penfold has been hypnotized by "Madame Stiletto" — not just monotone, but also in "Madame's" fake Roma accent:
    Penfold: I want-a to go-a for a ride on-a Big Dipper.
    DM: Yes, yes, alright, we're on the Big Dipper!
    Penfold: An' I-a will not-a tell-a you... it is-a a trap!
    DM: Alright! Then don't!
  • DM and Penfold do the opening of "Bandits, Beans And Ballyhoo" after the narrator storms off. Their dialogue is delivered hammily and slowly.
    DM: (gestures to the lift) Come on, erm... Penfold, my faithful assistant!
    Penfold: (clears throat) I'm coming, Danger Mouse. 'Cor, it's nice to be back in the Mayfair headquarters of the world's greatest secret agent! (he indicates DM, who mugs at the camera and shows off his badge)
    DM: Yes. Although that holiday in Mexico was most enjoyable. (Penfold shows the "Mexico" label on their luggage)
    Penfold: Yes. It certainly was, Danger Mouse.
  • In "Danger World", when DM has to act like a coward, he starts off like this, but gets more convincing later on.
  • In "The World Wide Spider", when DM, after panicking over spiders the whole episode, admits he is "slightly unnerved" by them, Penfold deadpans "Gosh. I had no idea. You hide it so well."
• Bad Moon Rising: In "From Duck to Dawn", the moon over Transylvania is enormous, full, and blood red.
• Banana Peel: DM deliberately slips on one during his fight against himself (It Makes Sense in Context) in "Attack of the Clown".
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: In the reboot, when Count Duckula kidnaps the writers, they are revealed to be monkeys with typewriters

  Duckula: What? What were you expecting? It's not like they're writing Shakespeare!

• Batman Can Breathe in Space:
  • In "The Other Day the Earth Stood Still", DM, Penfold and Colonel K all can.
  • DM and Penfold seem to be able to breathe in space after being shot into it in "The Bad Luck Eye Of The Little Yellow God."
• Be Careful What You Wish For: After DM causes the Mega-Brain computer to blow up in "Mechanised Mayhem," it eventually stops Greenback's travel device from attacking their HQ. Greenback wants a bigger and better computer, and the Mega-Brain computer crash lands on top of him and Stiletto.
  Stiletto: Oh, well...it-a could been worse, Barone.
  Greenback: How worse, you dolt?
  Stiletto: Well, ya coulda wanted the Q.E. II! (they both laugh, but then they hear a steamship horn; they glance up, groan "Oh, no!" as the Q.E. II lands on top of them)
• Behind a Stick: In "Danger at C Level", DM hides behind a palm tree considerably thinner than he is while trailing Stiletto.
• Belly Mouth: The alien Quark in the revived series has one, which speaks with a deeper voice and a blunter personality that the one in his head.
• Big Bad: Baron Silas Greenback. In the 1979 pilot "The Mystery Of The Lost Chord", he was named Greenteeth. In the 2015 reboot, Silas's name is slightly extended to Baron Silas Von Greenback. In what could be a bit of Foreshadowing, the head of the International Egg Company (1981 episode "Chicken Run") identifies him as Baron Von Greenback.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Dr. Crumhorn, a wolfish creature introduced in series 10, has Penfold imprisoned ("Penfold Transformed") and calls Greenback a "fat and feckless fool." Of course, Greenback takes umbrage and sends in Stiletto in a Penfold outfit to pair up against Crumhorn's Penfold robot in a bid to see who can destroy Danger Mouse first.
  • In the 2015 series, Crumhorn is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who tries to take over the world through buying property. He becomes the main villain of both finales of series 1 and 2, attempting to destroy Danger Mouse simply because his daugther, Dawn, wants him to.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Featured in "The Four Tasks Of Danger Mouse" and "Bigfoot Falls."
• Big Shadow, Little Creature: In the cold open of "Welcome to Danger World!", DM and Penfold enter a cave where a flickering light casts an enormous dragon shadow on the wall. The dragon itself turns out to be smaller than Penfold.
• Birthday Hater: In "Happy Boom Day", Baron Greenback hates birthdays because his have always been awful, and sets out to ruin every birthday in the world.
• Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics:
  • In "The Duel", Greenback claims to have hit all targets in a shooting gallery. He hands DM a shotgun with the muzzle bent almost entirely back on itself. DM then one-ups him by aiming the bent shotgun just right that the shot Pinball Projectiles off the edges of the gallery, hitting every target, including one last ricochet that takes a long pause to arrive.
  • In their first scene of "The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God", DM and Penfold are playing snooker. DM is lining up his shot when the alarm heralding an incoming message from Colonel K sounds, causing him to miscue wildly... and still manage to pot all six coloured balls, in the correct order (yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black).
    Colonel K: Ah, DM. D'you believe in luck?
    DM: Luck? Good heavens, no, sir!
    Penfold: (indignant) What, after a shot like that!?
  • In "Afternoon Off With The Fangboner," DM can shoot a golf ball in all eighteen holes in one shot. (He actually hits it in seventeen holes, but the ball rolls in the eighteenth after he and Penfold leave.)
    DM: I sometimes wonder if that round-in-one at Gleneagles was just a fluke.
• Bland-Name Product: In the reboot, one of the recurring background elements is an ad for Pear Computers.
• Blind Without 'Em: Penfold. Well, he is a very molish-looking hamster. Hamsters are in general very near-sighted (and color-blind to boot). Possibly an example of Shown Their Work.
• Body Double: In "Never Say Clever Again", Greenback kidnaps all of the world's leaders — or rather, as it turns out, all of the world's leaders except the Queen, plus Danger Mouse in an incredibly convincing disguise.
• Borrowed Catchphrase:
  • When DM is panicking about spiders in "The World Wide Spider", Penfold says "DM, shush. Um, sir."
  • Penfold also tells DM to shush repeatedly in "Groundmouse Day", since he knows what's going on and doesn't have time to explain.
  • In the original series episode "The Ultra Secret Secret", it's Greenback who tells Penfold to shush, and DM objects.
  • In another original series episode, he objects when Penfold says "Good grief!"
  • In "Bandits, Beans and Ballyhoo," DM is groping for an explanation on how El Loco the bandit snuck into his luggage when Colonel K abruptly says "Danger Mouse...shush."
• Bowdlerise: Stiletto's lines for international shows were re-recorded with a different accent to avoid offence. See Accent Adaptation.
• Bragging Theme Tune: Possibly the most bragging theme tune ever:
  He's the greatest! He's fantastic!
  Wherever there's 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!
• Brave Scot: Professor Squawkencluck in the 2015 reboot.
• Broke Episode: The first revival episode "Danger Mouse Begins... Again." has shades of this after DM stops Panda-Minion. Colonel K tells DM point blank that the bill to repair London after the latter's pursuit of Panda-Minion had bankrupted the secret service to the point that Colonel K and Squawkencluck had to share their respective areas of the HQ in one room.
• Bullet Time: In "Big Head Awakens", DM has a fight scene with Panda-Minion, who is disguised as a milkman and throws single-serve tubs of yoghurt as if they were grenades. At one point, the scene goes into bullet time so DM can taste a tub of yoghurt as it narrowly misses his head.
• Busman's Holiday: In "Danger at C Level", Penfold needs a holiday, so he and DM go on an ocean cruise — the same day that Baron von Greenback attempts to take over the world with giant sea monsters.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Standard for any scene set in darkness.
• Call-Back: In "Penfold Transformed," Greenback plants Stiletto in a Penfold costume with Danger Mouse and refers to the mistake he made creating too many in "Tiptoe Through The Penfolds."
• Camera Abuse:
  • When the Danger Agents are staggering around after being mentally attacked in "Never Say Clever Again", Danger Moth rams face-first into the camera.
  • At the end of "From Duck to Dawn", Count Duckula transforms into a bat and flies off, shouting a Medium-Aware We Will Meet Again boast back at DM — and then flies straight into the camera because he's not watching where he's going.
• Captivity Harmonica: Penfold does the honours when he and DM are imprioned in "Escape from Big Head".
• Cartoon Bomb: You know what you're in for after the opening credits.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Oooh, crumbs/crikey/heck!", "Good grief", "Penfold, shush", "Ah, good show, D.M!", "Si, Barone" ("Roight, Baroni" for Americans), "You're not laughing" etc. etc. Everyone gets one.
  • The revived series gives Greenback a habit of demanding a ransom of "all ze money in ze world!"
• Cats Are Mean: "Planet Of The Cats" and Greenback's feline robot in "Cat-astrophe." Somewhat justified in that the main characters are rodents
• Chained Heat: In "Cheesemageddon", Danger Mouse arrests Baron Greenback, then gets a call from Professor Squawkencluck. "Have you seen my prototype indestructible handcuffs? They're made of Convenientium, a metal so rare there wasn't enough left over to make a key".
• Characterization Marches On: In the 2015 series, DM is depicted as generally very competent when on his missions, but some flaws— namely his ego and tendency to showboat or otherwise not take things seriously when he thinks he's in control of the situation— have become more evident to balance things out. Likewise, Penfold is still a patented coward, but he has since become much more adept at coming up with the necessary ideas to make things right again.
  • Over time, this has also been applied to Professor Squawkencluck and Jeopardy Mouse, almost in response to early accusations of positive discrimination. Whilst still very temperamental and snarky, a more humorous and endearing side to Squawkencluck has become more evident (Like doing a dance and singing "Go Squawky, go Squawky, get your groove on!" when eagerly revealing Big Head 2.0 in "Escape from Big Head", and having a massive fear of clowns as seen in "Attack of the Clowns"), whilst Jeopardy Mouse gets more comically-serious moments, along with a few demonstrating she's not that different from her British counterpart.
• Chekhov's Gag:
  • In the first episode of the reboot, DM gets fired because the show can no longer afford to pay for the damage his action scenes cause. This news is accompanied by a rather unusual Sting, because they've also had to economize on the incidental music. Over the course of the episode, the incidental music returns to normal, but when the truth of Baron von Greenback's evil plan is revealed, it gets the same cheap sting.
  • In the same episode, DM tries to find a new line of work as a taxi driver, only to have his cab clamped by a traffic warden. The traffic warden reappears at the end of the episode and helps capture Baron von Greenback by clamping the Frog's Head Flyer.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In "Big Penfold", an eccentric scientist presents three equally-ridiculous solutions to the problem at hand, all of which are rejected; by the end of the episode, all have played a part (though never in the way he envisaged) in solving the crisis.
  • In "Frankensquawk's Monster", the Swiss Army Sock.
• Chest Insignia: Danger Mouse has his initials in a red circle on his chest.
• Christmas Episode: "The Snowman Cometh", in the revived series, is a double-length episode in which a snow-themed Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain kidnaps Santa on Christmas Eve in an attempt to prove he's a serious threat.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Leatherhead, Greenback's other crow henchman, who only appears in the pilot and two episodes of the main series.
  • Miss Boathook and Fifi are absent from the 2015 reboot.
• Cliffhanger: The stories in Series 2-4 aired in five minute segments every weekday. The first four episodes generally ended with a cliffhanger over a To Be Continued screen, and at the beginning of the next day's episode, the narrator would deliver a Previously on… summary to remind viewers where they were the previous day. For example, Episodes 4 and 5 of "Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind" are bridged by a scene in which Penfold is sucked out of the airlock of a spaceship:
  Narrator: (at the end of Episode 4) Is Penfold destined to be the first Penfold to go where no Penfold has gone before? Can Danger Mouse get him back? Can our heroes escape from their alien captors? Will the guard lose his no-claim bonus on his hoverpod? And where is Baron Greenback? To find out, tune in next time to Danger Mouse in "Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind"!
  (at the beginning of Episode 5) Colonel K warns Danger Mouse that the evil Baron Greenback is out to steal the Big Ear tracking station. But as he tries to seek out the evildoers, Penfold disappears in midair! About to be destroyed by Greenback's missile, Danger Mouse is sucked miraculously out of its path, and held prisoner by the strange creatures who idiotnapped Penfold. Mistakenly believing that they have been captured by the Baron, our heroes escape their captors, but while searching for a door to the outside, are once more parted! Will they ever meet again? Stay tuned for Part 5 of "Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind"!
  • The first season of the 2015 series ends with a two-part finale, "Mouse Fall" and "Mouse Rise". The first part, "Mouse Fall" concludes with Danger Mouse putting himself in the line of fire to protect his friends and being overwhelmed by Augustus P. Crumhorn's barrage of weapons. All that is seemingly left of Danger Mouse is his eye patch.
    • The second season finale, "Dark Side of the Mouse" concludes with a bit of a Sequel Hook cliffhanger. Crumhorn is exiled to an alien planet, but planet's insect population hail him as a god. He immediately makes plans to conquer the planet and assemble an armada to attack Earth and gain revenge on Danger Mouse.
  • Subverted in the Christmas special of the 2015 series, where Danger Mouse points out that the episode is a half hour special and thus they have no need to end on a cliffhanger when the crisis proves too great to resolve within the standard length.
• Clip Show: "Demons Aren't Dull" uses scenes from previous episodes in the segment where DM is being humiliated on a testimonial show. "The Return Of Count Duckula" uses a slightly altered segment from "The Four Tasks Of Danger Mouse."
• Codename Title: Secret Agent Protagonist Title, named as a reference to Danger Man.
• The Collector: The villain of the episode "Danger Fan" is the eponymous fan, who decides it's no longer enough to have every action figure ever made of Danger Mouse and his friends and enemies, and starts kidnapping the people themselves to add to his collection.
• Comically Missing the Point: In "Dark Dawn", Penfold accuses DM of not knowing what it's like to lose a friend, prompting DM to make a moving declaration that it's the fear of losing his best friend that drives his never-ending quest to keep the world safe. Penfold starts worrying about who this best friend is, completely failing to realise that it's him.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: Danger Mouse regularly appeared in ITV-Thames' "Look-In" series of books and was generally very faithful (adding a new character—Greenback's "white sheep" nephew Hopalong Casually). Displaced in Marvel Comics' editions (seen in issues of the Count Duckula book)—no pillar box, Off-Model art (an eyebrow over DM's eyepatch), and continuity issues (Miss Boathook seen as a sexpot who in one story flirts with DM).
• Competition Freak: The 2015 version of DM is this, always going out of the way to prove why he's considered the World's Greatest Secret Agent, and the best of the Danger Agents. There are times when this endangers the mission he is on.
• Composite Character: Count Duckula in the reboot retains his vegetarianism from the spin-off.
• Compressed Vice:
  • In "Greenfinger", a plot point is Penfold's obssession with making jam, which he shows no signs of in any other episode.
  • Several episodes of the revived series temporarily amp up some aspect of Danger Mouse's thrill-seeking tendencies into a continual obsession that he must overcome to defeat the threat of the week. In "The Inventor Preventer", it's his penchant for being a Last-Second Showoff, while in "Gold Flinger" he's battling an inability to ignore a dare.
• Continuity Cameo: Count Duckula makes a brief non-speaking appearance at the villains' Christmas party in the 2015 Christmas Episode. He later appears properly in the episode "From Duck to Dawn", making it an Early-Bird Cameo.
• Continuity Cavalcade: The episode "Danger Fan" contains an enormous number of references to earlier episodes from the old and the new series.
• Continuity Nod: Many of the other competitors in the deadly game show in "Quark Games" are adversaries from earlier episodes.
• Contrived Coincidence: In "The Return of Danger K", Penfold's blog has only one reader — who turns out to be the one person in the world who would take offense at his latest post.
• Convection, Schmonvection: In the 2015 Christmas Episode, DM defeats a giant snowman by lassoing him and flying him off to the Sun, and he doesn't even start to melt until he comes into physical contact with the Sun's surface.
• Convenience Store Gift Shopping: In the 2015 Christmas Episode, DM and Penfold give Professor Squawkencluck a hair dryer — the same as they do every year, she notes — and Penfold is relieved when his present turns out to be socks, because DM usually gives him something dangerous (and had intended to again this year, but got his presents mixed up).
• Cool Car: DM's wheels, officially named "The Hero's Car" (or the Mk. III/IV depending on which incarnation).
• Cool Ship: The Frog's Head Flyer (also Humongous Mecha relative to the rest of the cast of course).
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: In the 2015 series, Dawn's father, Augustus P. Crumhorn IV runs a conglomerate to buy anything that catches his eye, some for petty reasons. He buys all of the light bulb factories to raise the products' prices or destroy them because the ones in his office were faulty.
• Cowardly Sidekick: Penfold. In the first series episode "Rogue Robots", the narrator reveals that his codename is "The Jigsaw", because "when confronted with a problem, he goes to pieces." If he's not trying to make excuses not to go on the latest adventure, he's running off screaming or cowering behind the more traditionally heroic Danger Mouse. Penfold also currently provides the trope image as well.
• Cowboy Episode: In "A Fistful of Penfolds", in Penfold City, Professor Squawkencluck's secret testing ground is a western town filled with Penbots, new 'Tenfolds' are being developed to become better sidekicks than the original Penfold.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • In the revived series, DM's car frequently turns out to be equipped with devices designed for precisely the bizarre situation he's encountered. (For instance: when faced with giant insects, he activates a robot arm wielding an enormous rolled-up newspaper.) Lampshaded in the 2015 Christmas Episode, where the car turns out to have a device specifically designed for effecting a mid-air rescue of Santa Claus; DM remarks that Professor Squawkencluck had never believed it would ever actually be needed.
  • Apart from all the spy gadgets, the Professor's lab is revealed in "Pink Dawn" to be fully equipped with everything necessary for a Makeover Montage, even though the Professor is not at all girly and never uses any of that stuff herself.
• Create Your Own Villain: Professor Squawkencluck's HEAD has a tendency to go haywire and Doctor Loocifer, an evil, computerised toilet created when Penfold accidentally dropped an intelligent chip into the bowl. It eventually transpired that DM created Birch Badboy via Stable Time Loop.
• Creative Closing Credits:
  • In the episode "Greenfinger", the usual closing credits music is replaced by the episode's guest character singing.
  • In the 2015 Christmas Episode, the closing credits music has Christmassy adornments like ringing bells, and the Cartoon Bomb at the end is decorated like a Christmas pudding.
• Criminal Amnesiac: DM in "Public Enemy No. 1". Greenback makes DM think he's a bandit called the White Shadow and sends him on a crime spree. Unfortunately for all involved, including Greenback, DM turns out to be just as good at committing crimes as he usually is at stopping them.
• Crisis Makes Perfect: In "Big Penfold", much is made of Penfold's inability to catch thrown or dropped objects. At the climax of the episode, the fate of the world depends on him catching something first try, and he does.
• Crossover: Seven months after airing its finale of the original series, Danger Mouse crossed over into an episode of Victor & Hugo: Bunglers in Crime. (Victor and Hugo were human versions of Gaston and Pierre, two inept avian criminals who appeared on Count Duckula.) "French Exchange" had the two hired to deliver DM's Mk. III car to Baron Greenback.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Penfold on a few occasions. He takes the initiative in "Public Enemy No. 1" (when DM gets amnesia) and "Beware Of Mexicans Delivering Milk" (after DM's strength is sapped). This is inverted in "Penfold Transformed" as the Penfold robot (whom DM assumedly doesn't know is a robot) answers a Crossword Puzzle clue that DM can't:
  Penfold Robot: Having trouble with the crossword, chief?
  DM: Um...
  Penfold Robot: What's the clue?
  DM: "Overgrown, confused, having lost its way initially but winds up taking charge."
  Penfold Robot: How many letters?
  DM: Eight.
  Penfold Robot: "Governor."
  DM: What?
  Penfold Robot: "Governor." An anagram of "overgrown" without the "W" which "lost its way initially." First letter in "way." You see?
• Curse Cut Short:
  • In "Planet of the Toilets", the world's first self-aware robot toilet leads an uprising of its brethren, announcing to the human race that "I'm through with taking your — "
  • "Lost Tempers in Space" has a moment where Jeopardy Mouse explains how she grew potatoes on an alien planet, using her own...something we don't quite hear before the recording cuts out.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: Professor Squawkencluck sometimes lapses into this in the 2015 remake, when she raises her voice. It's best seen in "The Unusual Suspects", when she's admonishing Danger Mouse and Penfold for popping the bubble wrap the Formula X they're delivering is concealed in.
  Squawkencluck: Remember- Formula X is a powerful weapon, and must not fall into the wrong hands-
  [DM and Penfold are ignoring her, and popping sheets of the bubble wrap]
  Squawkencluck: WHAT ARE YE DOING?!
  Penfold: [Still ignoring her] It's hard to stop, isn't it?
  Danger Mouse: I could literally do this all day.
  Squawkencluck: [Shrieking] DANGER MOOOOOOUSE!
• Cute Is Evil: Dawn in her Princess persona.

D to F

• Danger Room Cold Open:
  • "The Other Day the World Stood Still" opens with DM rescuing Penfold from Martians, in what turns out to be a training simulation.
  • "Welcome to Danger World!" opens with DM and Penfold on an adventure that turns out to be another simulation, which comes to an abrupt halt when it's revealed that Penfold has hacked it to make the monster much smaller and less threatening. (He's terrified of it anyway.)
  • "Frankensquawk's Monster" opens with a training simulation that's supposed to teach DM how to use Professor Squawkencluck's latest invention.
• Dark Horse Victory:
  • In Jeopardy Mouse's first episode, she and Danger Mouse spend the entire thing arguing about which of them is really the greatest secret agent in the world, but in the end they settle their differences and prepare to capture Greenback together — only to be beaten to the punch by Italy's El Hazard Mouse.
  • In Jeopardy Mouse's second episode, she and Danger Mouse compete in a Deadly Game, only for Penfold to win at the last minute, entirely by accident.
• Deadly Game: The Quark Games in the episode of the same name.
• Deface of the Moon: In "The Other Day the Earth Stood Still", Penfold projects a gigantic holographic image of Greenback's face onto the surface of the moon so it will function as a massive green light and start the Earth rotating again. It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.
• Demoted to Extra: Greenback, Stiletto and Nero were nearly in every episode for the first five seasons. Starting with season 6, they began to appear less in favor of more villains for Danger Mouse to face.
• Description Cut:
  • From the opening of "Dream Machine":
    Narrator: Springtime in England, on a day unlike any other. (a sparkling green cloud floats over the Houses of Parliament) For on this day, that crown prince of malevolent ne'er-do-wells, Baron Silas Greenback, cast an evil shadow across the country's capital, starting a chain of events that were to develop to nightmarish proportions for the world's greatest detective. (exterior shot of DM's pillarbox bearing a note saying "No milk today. Thank you") Who, even now, stands in readiness, coiled like a panther, ready to spring to the defence of the weak and the helpless!
    (inside DM's pillarbox, DM and Penfold are sprawled across the sofa, fast asleep)
    Narrator: (irritated) ... I said, "coiled like a panther, ready to spring"- oh, forget it...
  • "Never Say Clever Again":
    Narrator: Meanwhile, back on Earth, the disappearance of their political masters has sent the people into a frenzy of panic and confusion!
    [ordinary, calm street scene]
    Narrator: Ahem, "a frenzy of panic and confusion"?
    [citizens start screaming and running around]
    Narrator: Thank you.
• Destructive Saviour: Danger Mouse is depicted as one in the first episode of the reboot, leading to the secret service temporarily deciding that he's more trouble than he's worth.
• Diagonal Cut: In "From Duck to Dawn", DM is trapped in a cage. He produces a couple of laser cutters, waves them around in an apparently random fashion, then puts them away... and the top half of the cage slides away along a clean diagonal cut.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Baron Greenback invokes this trope in "The Duel", most notably in the car race. And, as with Dick Dastardly, his pauses to cheat end up costing him victory (albeit deliberately so) in some of the events.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Danger Mouse traps the Demon of the Fourth Dimension ("Demons Aren't Dull") between our dimension and its own, rendering it powerless. DM then has the door in which the demon is encased transported to Alpha Centauri.
• Disembodied Eyebrows: Penfold's float in the air above the rims of his spectacles.
• Disguised in Drag: In "Pink Dawn", DM and Penfold have to dress up as princesses to gain Dawn's trust. There are a few jokes about Penfold seeming to be just a bit too into it.
  Professor Squawkencluck: ...we turn you into princesses!
  DM: Whaaat?!
  Penfold: Ooh, sequins! ...I mean, 'Whaaat?!'.
• Disney Villain Death: Although he doesn't actually die, Baron Silas Von Penfold is defeated this way in Very Important Penfold after being knocked off the roof of a building and falling into his own Twystyverse portal.
• Disneyesque: Scarlett Johamster, whose design wouldn’t be much out of place in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.
• Distaff Counterpart: In the 2015 reboot, Professor Squawkencluck is female with a Scottish accent as opposed to being male and having a German accent (and is a chicken instead of a mole). Justified however, as it turns out she's the niece of the Professor from the original series.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: In "From Duck to Dawn", Count Duckula takes over the airwaves to broadcast his hypnotic signal world-wide. His broadcast even breaks in on the secret channel Colonel K uses to communicate with DM.
• Don't Try This at Home: During the climactic fight in "Quark Games", Penfold turns to the camera to announce that the participants are trained professionals and viewers should not attempt to do what they're doing at home.
• The Dragon: Stiletto.
• Driving Test: In "Danger Fan", DM has to do a test to renew his Danger licence, and the examiner would not be out of place in a trope-standard driving test episode.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: "Masters of the Twystyverse" ends with Sinister Moth being set up as a new villain, only for her to get distracted by a black hole and immediately fly into it.
• Dumbass Has a Point: "The Aliens Are Coming" has DM and Penfold as the welcoming party of an alien spacecraft arriving in Scotland. The craft they encounter is described by Penfold as a "clockwork mushroom," which DM dismisses. Turns out Penfold was right—it was a toy clockwork mushroom the aliens almost leave behind.
• Dub Name Change: Done out of neccessity, for the translators would otherwise have had to explain why the hero has a "DM" logo on his chest when most literal translations of "Danger Mouse" don't share that same acronym. In most countries, the solution they settled on was to rename the hero something that still fitted the acronym. For instance:
  • The Scottish Gaelic version infamously renamed him Donnie Murdo. (Two given names not connected with either danger or mice)
  • In Poland, he's known as Dzielna Mysz (Brave Mouse).
  • In Sweden, he's called Dundermusen (Thundermouse).
  • The French version refers to him as Dare Dare Motus. ("Dare Dare" being French slang for "as fast as possible")
  • In Slovenia, however, the translators chose to ignore the "DM" initials entirely, renaming him Hrabri Mišek (Brave Mouse)
• Dumb Muscle: Panda-Minion in the revived series.
• Dynamite Candle: In a flashback in "Happy Boom Day", the young Greenback has a traumatic birthday featuring exploding candles on the birthday cake.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Happens a few times in the reboot.
  • The Snowman's first appearance is in the episode "Danger Fan", before he makes his first full appearance in "The Snowman Cometh".
  • Within "The Snowman Cometh" itself, Count Duckula appears with the rest of the villains on holiday before officially making his reboot debut in "From Duck to Dawn".
  • Mac the Fork and Dudley Poyson— two villains from the original series who notably teamed up in "All Fall Down" to build an earthquake device from stolen blueprints—appear briefly at the beginning of the reboot episode "Quantum of Rudeness", stealing Tutankcowmen's sarcophagus from a museum. They eventually are the main villains of the first half of "Dark Side of the Mouse".
• Eat the Bomb:
  • In "The Return of Danger K", there is an explosive carrot claimed to be "powerful enough to destroy a tank". Colonel K deals with it by swallowing it whole, and suffers no harm beyond a brief puff of smoke from his ears.
  • In "The Snowman Cometh", DM swallows a bomb to dispose of it.
• Edible Ammunition: The Snowman fires rocket carrots, which are powerful enough to blow up a tank and also taste great with an onion dip.
• Electric Joybuzzer: One of the multitude of practical jokes DM and Penfold have to endure while attempting to get direction from The Prankster Funny Bone in "The Invasion of Colonel K".
• Elephants Are Scared of Mice: In "The Great Bone Idol", Count Duckula steals the idol and awakens a herd of elephants in the underground cavern in which Danger Mouse and Penfold had traversed to locate the idol. On seeing DM, the elephants naturally freak out.
• Embarrassing First Name: Professor Squawkencluck's first name is revealed to be Professor. That's right, Professor Professor Squawkencluck!
  • In the original series, his first name was Heinrich.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: "Sinister Mouse" reveals that Penfold has one, but we don't get to hear the name itself, only see DM's reaction when he hears it.
• Embarrassing Slide: In "Welcome to Danger World!", Colonel K accidentally shows DM and Penfold footage of himself doing aerobics instead of footage of the danger of the week.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Parodied in "Mouse Fall", where Crumhorn's repeated attempts to step out of the shadows for the audience's benefit are thwarted by the light he attempts to step into shorting out.
• Emo Teen: Dawn becomes one in "Dark Dawn", dressing in black (with long straight black hair that falls dramatically over her face), writing sorrowful poetry about how her life sucks (because of small things like her phone needing recharging), and repudiating her former cute persona. This ends after reuniting with her teddy bear.
• Enemy Mine:
  • In "Escape from Big Head", a robot police force imprisons heroes and villains alike, and they join forces to escape.
  • In "The Frog Who Would Be King", Danger Mouse and Baron Von Greenback are forced to work together temporarily after both being lured into a death trap by another villain.
• Enfant Terrible: Dawn "The Princess" Crumhorn, aka "Pink Dawn", is introduced in the 2015 reboot as the youngest villainess in DM's rouges gallery. With her tiara powered by an experimental gel, she gains a handful of reality warping abilities, from changing colors to pink, to turning her mansion into a giant playhouse.
  • In "Melted", she threatens to melt the polar ice caps and flood the entire world, all just to reenact her favorite movie.
• Expressive Mask: In the revived series, the upper rims of Penfold's spectacles bend to follow the movement of his eyebrows.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: At the end of "The Other Day the Earth Stood Still", Penfold expresses a hope one day he'll qualify as Danger Hamster, and known for short as "DH". DM points out that this might offend Danger Hedgehog — "You know how prickly he is." They both laugh, and the narrator joins in.
• Everyone Hates Fruit Cakes: In the 2015 Christmas Episode, the villain says that if DM gets anywhere near defeating him, "I'll eat my hat". One brief fight scene later, he's choking the hat down, remarking as he does that it tastes even worse than fruit cake.
• Everyone Hates Mimes: In "Danger at C Level", a giant seamonster attacks France and eats a mime. The mime's audience cheer.
• Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: In "Who Stole the Bagpipes", Baron Greenback is trying to build a sonic death ray with 10,000 bagpipes that he has stolen.
• Evil Brit: Baron Greenback; justified since it's a British production. The 2015 series however, makes him an evil German instead.
• Evil Is Petty: In "Never Say Clever Again", Greenback has a complicated plan to become ruler of the entire world — so that he can lounge around eating chocolates and nobody can tell him to stop.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Baron Silas Greenback, bordering on Vader Breath.
• Evil Twin:
  • In the 2015 reboot, Sinister Mouse, who comes from a Mirror Universe in the episode of the same name. Baron Greenback's "good twin" is Danger Toad. The final scene reveals there is also an evil Penfold.
  • In the Marvel Comics (as part of the "Count Duckula" title), we have Dangerous Mouse, who Baron Greenback brings to the main universe while shooting Danger Mouse to that Mirror Universe (where we see Stiletto as a police officer, shining a signal light to summon "Greenback-Man," a Superman Expy, and "Nero the Hero"). There is also, "Billfold," a rougher Penfold who Danger Mouse is able to con into thinking he's really Dangerous Mouse, and so needs to get back to make the plan work. The final scene has DM sharing a joke with Colonel K and Penfold, while Greenback-Man is taking Dangerous Mouse to the authorities.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Grovel, the robot servant of the alien Quark. Every time his name is called, he drops to the ground, grovels and apologizes.
• Exploding Cigar: In "The Invasion of Colonel K", Funny Bone forces cigars on DM and Penfold, despite their protestations that they don't smoke. The cigars immediately explode in their faces.
• Expository Theme Song
• Eye Colour Change: In "Pink Dawn", Dawn's eyes go all pink when she gains Reality Warper powers.
• Eyepatch of Power: DM has this in both versions. He doesn't actually need it in the original series due to actually having two eyes, but wears it anyway as part of the outfit - in fact, he actually wears it on the wrong eye in one episode and switches it over accordingly. In the reboot, he does seem to need it as he appears to have no eye there and it's an "iPatch," allowing him technical prowess out in the field when he needs it.
• Face Your Fears:
  • In "The World Wide Spider", it turns out spiders are DM's one fear just before he has to save the world from the world's largest spider. Which is odd given that in the original series, there was an episode when Greenback had a device that turned spiders gigantic, and Penfold was the only one who was bothered by them.
  • Played for laughs in "The Scare Mouse Project", where DM fails a performance review because the regulations require a Danger Agent to demonstrate the ability to press on in the face of his fears, which DM has never done because he's never been afraid of anything. He sets out to find something that frightens him so he can press on in the face of it.
• Faint in Shock: DM himself, uncharacteristically, faints dead away at the prospect of confronting the world's largest spider in "The World Wide Spider".
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: In "Mousefall", the Big Bad has DM and Penfold at his mercy and melodramatically declares "This is the end!". The narrator begins an end-of-episode spiel but is interrupted by the Big Bad, who irritatedly clarifies that he meant the end of Danger Mouse, not the end of the episode.
• Fall of the House of Cards: Done on an enormous scale in the first episode of the 2015 reboot, with an entire skyscraper shaped like a house of cards. An aircraft passing at high speed causes all the windows in the surrounding skyscrapers to shatter, but leaves the house of cards apparently unharmed — until a bystander, having remarked on its lucky escape, reaches out and touches it, whereupon the whole thing collapses.
• Fancy Toilet Awe: One of the main threats in the revival is Doctor Loocifer, an advanced Japanese toilet given intelligence by a computer chip which Penfold dropped in it by accident.
• Falsely Reformed Villain: In the first episode of the 2015 reboot, Baron von Greenback claims to have gone straight and invested his ill-gotten loot into a legitimate enterprise selling Safety Mouse guard robots that will make destructive heroes like Danger Mouse obsolete. DM attempts to prove there's something sinister going on, but his first attempts only end up making him look paranoid. He turns out to be right in the end, of course.
• "Fantastic Voyage" Plot: "The Invasion of Colonel K" centres around Greenback shrinking himself, Nero, and Stiletto down to microscopic size to literally get into Colonel K's brain and learn all the state secrets he knows. DM and Penfold are also shrunk down to microscopic size to go in after them.
• Feed the Mole: In "The Unusual Suspects", DM attempts to smoke out the mole by telling each agent a different lie about where he's hidden the MacGuffin and seeing if any of them take the bait.
• Female Gaze: Played for Laughs in "A Fistful of Penfolds" where, at one point when Penfold and the leading Robo-Penfold are facing off in a duel, the camera seems to focus on Penfold's rear end … and he scratches it.
• Fictional Social Network: In the revived series, a social networking site called SpamChops fills the plot functions of Youtube and Facebook.
• Fictional United Nations: United Earth, seen in the 2015 reboot.
• Filming for Easy Dub: The low animation budget means that characters often speak when seen from behind or in silhouette or otherwise with their mouths obscured, especially in the early series. This is most obvious in scenes taking place in Danger Mouse's car; Penfold can only be seen from the nose up, while DM frequently turns his head at just the right angle to hide his mouth while speaking.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: Played for laughs in "The Return of Danger K":
  • Danger Mouse: Penfold and I are a team. We work together so well we can even finish each other's—
    Penfold: Baths!
    Danger Mouse: "Sentences", Penfold.
  • Danger Mouse: Let's go, Penfold, there isn't a moment to—
    Penfold: Eat!
    Danger Mouse: "Lose", Penfold.
• Flying Car: The Mk. III converts instantly between driving on the road and flying through the air by deploying (or retracting) a set of wings.
• Follow Your Nose: When Greenback releases a cloud of noxious gas on London in "There's No Place Like Greenback", it's shown doing things like forming itself into hands that ring doorbells to gain entry to people's houses.
• Food Eats You: When Penfold is complaining about how dangerous recent missions have been in "Danger at C Level", a Cutaway Gag shows him being attacked and eaten by a plate of spaghetti bolognese.
• Foul Waterfowl: Duckula is a bloodthirsty megalomaniac and a recurring antagonist in the series.
• Freak Lab Accident: Creates the superpowered villain in "Pink Dawn".
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In "Danger Mouse On The Orient Express", a number of signs indicating cities the train is going through are passed by rapidly. The last one is the sign for the Willesden Green tube station.
  • In "Agent 58", a portrait of Count Duckula in his Spin-Off design can be seen at the villain convention.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Count Duckula in the 2015 reboot subverts this to an extent, as he is much more villainous than his 80's spin-off self, but that being said, he is at least civil, humorous, and jovial when he's not being jealous of DM and his fame. The episode "We Aren't Family" shows Duckula dancing with the Princess, so he at least has some allies.
• Funny Animal: The whole cast. DM is a mouse, Penfold and his aunt are hamsters, Greenback is a toad, Stiletto is a crow and Colonel K. is...er, either a chinchilla or chinchilla disguised as a walrus.
• Funny Background Event:
  • In "Danger at C Level", DM attempts to save the world without interrupting Penfold's holiday, resulting in several scenes where DM fights a monster in the background while an oblivious Penfold plays his computer in the foreground.
  • In "The Other Day, the Earth Stood Still", Penfold starts experimenting with DM's jet pack while DM is being briefed by Colonel K, going on an erratic flight around the room unnoticed by the others and finally coming to a graceful landing just as the briefing ends and DM heads off.
• Furry Confusion: In the 2015 series, Funny Animal dogs like Augustus P. Crumhorn and Dawn co-exist with nonathromophic dogs. Dawn even asks her father for a pet puppy at one point.

G to I

• Gambit Pile Up: In "Penfold Transformed", Dr. Crumhorn captures Penfold and replaces him with an efficient robot double, which is programmed to transform into a Killer Robot and destroy Danger Mouse when he gives the signal. At the same time, Greenback decides to disguise Stilleto as Penfold so he can infiltrate Danger Mouse's headquarters. Danger Mouse ends up using the two plans to thwart each other while at the same time, rescuing the real Penfold.
• Gender Flip: Professor Squawkencluck is a woman in the new series— and an actual chicken, besides.
  • Parodied in "A Loo to A Kill", where, to stay fresh with the current state of characterisation in media, the directors of Danger Mouse: The Movie make Penfold into a girl.
• The Ghost:
  • Colonel K's secretary, Miss Boathook.
  • DM's French lady friend Fifi, whom he doesn't like to talk about.
• Giving Them the Strip: In "The Duel", DM and Penfold find themselves stuck to the seat of a rollercoaster car after Greenback coats it with glue. They extricate themselves by removing their trousers.
• Glory Hound: Danger Mouse is given this in the 2015 reboot as a Fatal Flaw. His overwhelming desire to win often puts the mission at risk.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: In "Planet of the Toilets," John — a robotic toilet that gains self-awareness — is horrified when he learns of his expected function. This causes him to go rogue and rebrand himself as "Dr. Loocifer."
• Gone Horribly Right: In "Escape from Big Head", Professor Squawkencluck tries to help the agency by creating a fleet of robots that will automatically detect and capture criminals. Upon activation, they immediately capture all the Danger Agents for various minor offences committed in the course of their world-saving duties, and the Professor herself for running a weapons laboratory in a residential area.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: In "Frankensquawk's Monster", Professor Squawkencluck's mother's attempt to get her husband to clean up his mess turns him into an enormous mess monster that menaces London.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: The effect of Birch Badboy's Rude Ray in "The Return of Danger K".
• Got Me Doing It: In "Chicken Run", the character of Flying Officer Buggles Pigeon is a parody of the stereotypical upper class RAF officer, and his Verbal Tic of ending sentences with "what?" is both confusing and, apparently, contagious:
  Buggles: Good show, what?
  Penfold: What?
  Buggles: What?
  Penfold: You said "what".
  Buggles: No, you said "what".
  Penfold: (irritated) Because you... said "what".
  Buggles: Hm? Jolly confusing, what?
  DM: What? (groans) Oh, this- I'm at it now!
• Grand Finale: "The Intergalactic 147", for the original series.
• Gravity Sucks: In "The Other Day the World Stood Still", DM and Penfold do a training simulation set in space, complete with Anti-Gravity. When they're done, DM switches off the simulation (and the Anti-Gravity) while Penfold is floating in mid-air. Penfold has time to complain that DM might have waited until he was on the ground before gravity catches up with him.
• HA HA HA—No: Happens in "The World is Full of Stuff". Colonel K bursts into laughter at the future-predicting photo of Danger Mouse and Professor Squawkencluck kissing, but afterwards is strictly against them actually doing so.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Count Duckula in the original show and Isambard King Kong Brunel in the reboot.
• Hard Light: Colonel K's hologram in the new series. Sometimes. It varies, often within the same scene, depending on Rule of Funny. For instance, in "Big Head Awakens", the hologram attempts to drink a non-hologrammatic cup of coffee: it's able to pick up the cup, but the liquid it pours into its mouth drops straight through.
• Hartman Hips:
  • Professor Squawkencluck has prominently large hips and butt. It's apparently genetics, as her parents (both of them) also have these.
  • Teenage!Dawn from "Dark Dawn" seems to have a serious case of these, although it may mostly be a petticoat in her skirt.
• Headdesk
• Headless Horseman: The Headless Postman in "The Scare Mouse Project", a spectre originally defeated by DM's ancestor Ichabod Mouse.
• Heartwarming Orphan: Parodied with the crippled Street Urchin Tiny Tim in the 2015 Christmas Episode.
• Heel–Face Turn: "The Ultra Secret Secret" has Greenback presumably wanting to join forces with Danger Mouse in staving off an alien attack. Subverted in that the alien attack is Greenback's ruse to lure DM and Penfold to their doom.
  • Again in the 2015 debut. Greenback offers guard robots for the world leaders after DM is fired, but the robots are used to imprison the leaders.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": In "The Duckula Show", Duckula kidnaps the writers and forces them to make him the star. He defeats opponents with little to no effort, gets constantly praised by other characters and Jeopardy Mouse asks him out.
• Here We Go Again!: The end of "Gremlin Alert."
• Heroic BSoD: Several episodes or serials end in ways DM and/or Penfold were not anticipating, causing one or both of them to shut down in some way.
  • In "Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind", DM spends the serial convinced that his and Penfold's stint on Dr. Zokk's spaceship is just part of an elaborate scheme by Greenback, pretending to be Dr. Zokk himself. However, in the episode's final scene, he is confronted by Greenback in the Frog's Head Flyer... which is then abducted by Dr. Zokk to continue his Earthling anatomy lessons. After spending a moment with a Thousand-Yard Stare, DM laughs nervously and then passes out, leaving Penfold trying to bring him round.
  • In "The Odd Ball Runaround", DM and Penfold have spent the serial scrambling to retrieve a rugby ball containing secret plans from Greenback's castle. When they finally get back to London, Colonel K tells them that they are planning to send Greenback a set of decoy plans while they get the real plans off the ground... and the decoy plans are the ones in the rugby ball. Penfold is so distraught he breaks down sobbing and has to be consoled by Danger Mouse.
  • At the end of "Penfold B.F.", DM and Penfold have finally caught the Patagonian pygmy pigeon being used as a carrier pigeon, and Colonel K has decoded the message the pigeon was carrying... which turns out to advise against using Patagonian pygmy pigeons as messengers, as they have no sense of direction. DM and Penfold groan and faint dead away.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: DM and Penfold. Which, of course, means Rule 34 is in full force. Any Big "NO!" reaction to this fact would be understandable.
  • Look for Rule 34 to be amplified in the new series as a female agent—Jeopardy Mouse—will be introduced.
  • In the 2015 remake, a Freeze-Frame Bonus of Danger Mouse's passport lists Penfold as his spouse!
• Hey, Wait!: In "Never Say Clever Again", Greenback is in the middle of kidnapping the Queen, after disabling the Danger Agents with mind-altering phlebotinum, when Penfold calls for him to halt — then wishes the Queen a happy birthday before wandering back into mental incoherence.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": In "Frankensquawk's Monster" it's revealed Professor Squawkencluck's first name is actually Professor.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Non-lethally in "The Other Day, the Earth Stood Still". Greenback dons a pair of extra-specially heavy boots so that he is the only person not affected when he turns off the Earth's gravity — but when DM comes after him, he finds that they make it impossible for him to make a quick get-away.
• Hologram: Colonel K uses one to communicate with DM in the reboot.
• Hologram Projection Imperfection: Colonel K's hologram in the reboot has the traditional scan lines and bluish tinge — except when there's a joke to be got out of someone mistaking it for the real thing.
• Hollow World: In the episode "Journey to the Earth's 'Cor!'"
• Hopeless with Tech: Professor Squawkencluck has a great many highly justified complaints about how Danger Mouse treats her inventions in the revival.
• Hostile Show Takeover: In "The Duckula Show", Danger Mouse faces the prospect of being written out of his own show, after Count Duckula kidnaps the writers and forces them to make him the star.
• Hurricane of Puns: Often during the To Be Continued segments at the end of the first four parts of the five-part serials, but they show up everywhere. Some juicy ones, to boot.
  • From "The Man From GADGET":
    Murphy: Egregious M. Murphy, senior sales representative of Gadgets Incorporated.
    DM: Egregious M. Murphy? What's the "M" for?
    Murphy: The M-4 is a motorway that runs from London to South Wales, ask me another Magnus!
    Penfold: This is definitely getting worse.
  • From "What a Three-Point Turn-Up for the Book", as DM and Penfold look for their bicycles:
    Narrator: Has Danger Mouse taken to handlebars because he must dash? (Moustache? Must dash? Get it?)
  • In "Turn Of The Tide", Professor Squawkencluck gets frustrated with an explanation of what's caused the ocean to submerge London and started screaming some amount of "Nein, nein, nein!" Whenever he did, Penfold would be nearby with a calculator, reading off the total of the "nines".
  • Almost everything the rebellious machines say in "Mechanised Mayhem" is some sort of appliance or electricity pun.
    • When Danger Mouse and Penfold find their flat's appliances have unionised:
      Telephone: My comrades and I have risen against exploitation to cast off our domestic bondage! We're sick of being picked up and put down!
      Vacuum Cleaner: Or being pushed around!
      Iron: Or being hard pressed!
      Television: And stared at!
      Mixer: From now on, we shall stir things up! (spins his beaters)
      Kettle: Let off steam! (does so)
      Telephone: And speak for ourselves! From now on, we are the rulers!
      12-Inch Ruler: Especially me!^note Though one might note that a ruler is not a machine, the ruler appears to be metal, so it may have a calculator built in.
    • Later, during the appliances' rally in Trafalgar Square:
      Telephone: Now, let me give you the lead! We must show these humans watt's watt!
      Danger Mouse: Penfold, there's only one way to stop that thing plugging his points.
      Penfold: What's that, Chief?
      Danger Mouse: Sock-et. (...)
      Penfold: I wish I hadn't asked. I'd rather be going ohm!
      Telephone: Look out! 'Amp-ere them all you can!
      Vacuum Cleaners: Okay! Charge! (they race after Penfold; Danger Mouse grabs the telephone, which makes strangled gasps)
      Danger Mouse: Aha! So sorry, you've been cut off!
      Vacuum Cleaners: (having cornered Penfold) Ha! This one's in the bag!
      Penfold: Ahhh! Oooh! Oooh crikey!
      Danger Mouse: Don't get taken in, Penfold!
      Penfold: (to camera) Any more jokes like that and it'd be almost worth it!
  • Really bad puns are duly lampshaded, like this one from "Tut Tut, It's Not Pharaoh":
    DM: (to mummy parking lot attendant) We're looking for the amulet of Eggonophus.
    Mummy: Have you tried the Pyramids of Cheops?
    DM: No.
    Mummy: Better step on it, then.
    DM: Why's that?
    Mummy: The Cheops shut at half past five. Ha, ha...ha ha ha ha.
    DM: (long suffering) Good grief. That joke's worse than one of yours, Penfold.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Count Duckula.
• Hypocritical Humour:
  • The Penfold robot in "Penfold Transformed", after DM wonders aloud if he's all right because he's smart, helpful and not cracking stupid jokes:
    Penfold robot: (Turns to the camera) He's talking to a crowd of invisible people and he's asking if I'm alright?
  • In "The Spy Who Stayed In With a Cold", Danger Mouse claims he's the most modest secret agent.
  • From "Where There's a Well, There's a Way":
    DM: Come on, Penfold. You'll have people laughing at you.
    Penfold: (to us) So what does he think this is? King Lear?
  • In "The Snowman Cometh", Professor Squawkencluck scolds Penfold for trying to open his presents early, telling him that the anticipation and uncertainty is part of the pleasure, and then runs her own present through a scanner to find out what's in it.
• Idea Bulb: Parodied in "The Other Day the Earth Stood Still". While floating in zero gravity amidst a variety of household items, Penfold has an idea at the same moment as a lightbulb floats into place above his head.
• I Gave My Word: In "Danger at C Level", DM promises Penfold that they'll go on a holiday with no adventuring, and when Colonel K calls him to report that the world is in peril he turns the mission down, averring that "Danger Mouse's word is his bond". (Colonel K eventually gets him to change his mind, though.)
• I Know You Know I Know: Taken to extreme lengths in "The Statue of Liberty Caper" where almost half the episode consists of DM and Greenback trying to outguess each other.
  DM: You see, I guessed that you would guess I would guess what you had guessed and guessed that your guess would be the guess I guessed you guessed.
  Greenback: What?
  DM: I'm not saying it again. I can't!
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In 2015's "The Return of Danger K", Colonel K frees DM and Penfold from their brainwashing by reminding them that they are still, at heart, British agents.
• I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: In "The Other Day the World Stood Still", Greenback brings the world to a standstill with giant red stop lights placed everywhere. When Penfold suggests simply driving through the red lights, DM says this verbatim.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Oddly, Count Duckula. Although he's stuck to his his vegetarian diet, the Count has found a way to use the power of "telly" to turn his hypnotized viewers into living vegetables, thus creating the perfect audience and "healthy snacks".
• Immune to Mind Control:
  • When Danger Mouse and Penfold go up against the sinister Count Duckula, there's a running joke about Penfold being immune to the Count's mind control powers.
    Duckula: You are getting very sleepy...
    Penfold: No, I'm not.
  • Inverted in "Hear Hear" as Penfold is not affected by Greenback's vocal control because he has cotton in his ears.
• Impact Silhouette: "Trouble with Ghosts" has Baron Greenback and his henchman Stiletto making neat holes in a wooden door as they flee from DM and Penfold wearing ghost sheets.
• Inconvenient Itch: When DM ties up Greenback in the first episode of the reboot, he demands that someone untie him — or at least scratch his itchy nose.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The Snowman in the revived series.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals:
  • Danger Mouse meets his evil self in "The Good, the Bad and the Motionless".
    DM: I'm not going to be pushed around by two percent of me!
  • In "The Spy Who Stayed In With A Cold", Agent 57 turns himself into DM as DM himself is held hostage by the Motorized Mongols.
  • The thousand clones of Penfold in "Tiptoe Through the Penfolds". Also the thousand clones of DM in "The Dream Machine", created as Penfold said "Danger Mouse" a thousand times.
  • The episode that introduces DM's American counterpart, Jeopardy Mouse, also has an American hot dog seller who's a dead ringer for Big Mike, the pie vendor whose stall is always set up near DM's HQ.
  • In "There's No Place Like Greenback", DM and Penfold visit Baron von Greenback's childhood home, a village where everybody looks exactly like the Baron apart from their clothes and hairstyles. It turns out the whole thing is an elaborate trap set up by the Baron, and the villagers are all robots.
• Inexplicably Tailless: Danger Mouse is always depicted without a tail, despite being a mouse.
  • Most characters don't have tails either in the 2015 series, except when they get turned into elephants in "The Spy Who Came In with a Cold". Villains Birch Badboy and Isambard King Kong Brunel, a squirrel and a monkey respectively, are two exceptions.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Tennis star John McEnroe is caricatured as a robot in "Duckula Meets Frankenstoat".
• In Medias Res: "Quark Games" begins with DM and Penfold already in the midst of the games, promptly lampshaded as they stop what they're doing and try to remember how they got there.
  • "Mouse Fall" begins with Princess having already turned several citizens into pigs. The narrator is confused by this and assumes he's narrating for the wrong show.
• Intelligent Primate: The chimpanzee Isambard King Kong Brunel, the only recurring character who's a primate, is a Mad Scientist who creates time machines and other impressive inventions.
• Interactive Narrator: The narrator sometimes holds conversations with the characters, often to prompt them to stick to the script, occasionally gets attacked by the threat of the week, and sometimes cause reality to visibly change by narrating it differently.
• Interface with a Familiar Face: The AI created by Professor Squawkencluck in "Big Head Awakens" has a stylized version of the Professor's own face.
• Invisibility: "The Return of Danger K" introduces Ivana the Invisible, who apart from being invisible herself flies an invisible jet (which Penfold bumps his head on because he can't see it) that fires invisible missiles (which are consequently rather difficult to dodge).
• Is This Thing Still On?: In "The Invasion of Colonel K", one of Greenback's first acts inside Colonel K's body is to take over his voice box and manipulate him into telling Danger Mouse and Penfold that they're fired because of government cutbacks. After telling them they'll also have to leave the flat they've been provided, Greenback takes a moment to gloat:
  Greenback: Hee hee hee hee! Victory at last!
  Colonel K: Hee hee hee hee, victory at last.
  Greenback: Ah. (presses button) Forgot to switch off.

J to L

• Jerk Jock: "High School Inedible" implies that Danger Mouse himself was one of these in high school.
• Jet Pack:
  • Rocket boots feature in "Pink Dawn". Naturally, DM flies elegantly while Penfold can't keep his balance and goes all over the place.
  • There's a proper jet pack in "The Other Day the World Stood Still". Naturally, DM flies elegantly while Penfold can't control it and goes all over the place.
• Joker Immunity: Can apply to Greenback, whose fate after some episodes where his ship or one of his devices explodes before him are unclear yet he returns in ensuing episodes. This is most notable in "Statues" where the statue of chef Monsieur Smaquing Lippes comes to life with the intent of turning Greenback into a dish of frog's legs. The ungodly groan offscreen indicates Smaquing Lippes succeeded.
• Just in Time: Played with in "Greenfinger", where DM reaches the self-destruct device with only six seconds left on the clock, decides that's not close enough to be properly dramatic, and waits a few more seconds (while Penfold panics in the background) before disarming it with one second remaining.
• Kinda Busy Here: In "Greenfinger", the Professor makes a friendly call to DM while he's in the middle of a battle — and he can't admit he's in the middle of a battle, because it only happened because he ignored her earlier advice.
  Professor Squawkencluck: Is there something happening there?
  DM: No, nothing, it's all fine.
  [giant plant slams DM's car into the river]
  DM: Sorry, gotta go, it's raining.
• Kitchen Sink Included: Professor Squawkencluck's demonstration of the new features added to the Mark IV in "The Other Day the World Stood Still". (An impressed Penfold then remarks that it can do just about everything except tapdance — and the Professor demonstrates that it can do that, too.)
• Kneel Before Zod:
  • Baron Greenback's purpose in "Viva Danger Mouse" is to plant cactus needles in the seat cushions of the world's dignitaries so "I can bring them to their feet before bringing them to their knees!"
  • In "Danger Mouse On The Orient Express", DM exclaims that Greenback's plans to eliminate all of Europe's tourist sites and force tourists to visit his museum of Barry Manilow record sleeves will "bring the world to its knees!"
• Lampshade Wearing: How Professor Squawkencluck hides from a hostile robot in the first episode of the reboot.
• Landmarking the Hidden Base:
  • In "The Other Day the World Stood Still", Baron Von Greenback's secret lair is at the Eiffel Tower.
  • In "Jeopardy Mouse", Greenback's base is at Stonehenge's less-well-known sibling, Bouncyhenge.
• Laser Hallway:
  • There's one protecting the Baron's lair in the first episode of the reboot.
  • In "Greenfinger", Professor Squawkencluck has one in her lab in an attempt to prevent DM playing with any of her stuff while she's away.
• Last-Name Basis:
  • DM's assistant's full name is Ernest Penfold, but with the exception of at least one early episode, he's otherwise only ever addressed by his last name.
  • Played with in "Frankensquawk's Monster". Professor Squawkencluck's mother addresses her as "Professor", and when DM laughs, she explains that "Professor" is her first name: her full name and title is Professor Professor Squawkencluck.
• Last-Second Showoff:
  • In the episode "Greenfinger", DM reaches a self-destruct device that needs disarming with only six seconds left on the clock, decides that's not close enough to be properly dramatic, and waits a few more seconds (while Penfold panics in the background) before disarming it with one second remaining.
  • In "The Inventor Preventer", DM does this repeatedly, to Penfold's increasing annoyance.
• Lazy Artist:
  • Lampshaded in "Quark! Quark!" When Penfold asks why he and DM are disguised as a camel, DM explains it's because the animators couldn't draw horses.
  • In "The Good, the Bad and the Motionless", DM's evil alter ego has Penfold in suspended animation, which DM chalks up to the animators being on their tea break.
  • All the animation in "Danger Mouse Saves The World...Again", except for that of Greenback's congress of evil doers and DM waking up from the episode-long dream, is either repeat animation from previous episodes or stock animation.
  • Apparently an unusual number of episodes were set in the Arctic or other snowbound scenes because they required less colouring in.
  • Fight scenes in rooms where all the lights are off are also frequent in the original series, the only animation being the moving eyes of the characters on the pitch-black background.
  • Animation was done on paper and cels larger than that traditional 10-field size for TV and short subject animation. Many scenes had the characters animated very small to save on ink and paint with the camera zoomed in on them. This would also cut down on the risk of the cels' edges showing in case of a pan left or right.
  • Lazy writer: some of the dialogue from the middle of "All Fall Down" is reused tracks from series 1 episodes, most notably from "The Strange Case Of The Ghost Bus". Likewise, the golf scene in "Afternoon Off With The Fangboner" is reanimated for "Pillow Fright" but it uses the same dialogue tracks.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "Danger Fan" Penfold, Colonel K, Professor Squawkencluck, Greenback and Stiletto are shrunk down and put in packaging similar to what the action figures come in. Though in real life, Squawkencluck doesn't have an action figure.
• Left the Background Music On:
  • The first episode of "The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God" features Colonel K trying to bring DM up to speed on Greenback's theft of the title object:
    Colonel K: We've had a report about your adversary, Baron Silas Greenback! (dramatic piano sting)
    Penfold: Not Greenback, sir? (dramatic piano sting)
    Colonel K: Yes, Penfold - Greenback! (dramatic piano sting) Our people in Brazil say he's stolen an ancient charm from a remote mountain tribe!
    Penfold: Crumbs!
    Colonel K: It's a strange emerald called the Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God! (dramatic piano sting; Colonel K angrily turns to his intercom) Look, Miss Prendergast, would you mind doing your piano practice somewhere else!?
    Miss Prendergast: (over intercom) Sorry, Colonel!
  • "Play It Again, Wufgang" centres on the destruction of the world's music, which cripples our heroes since they're physically incapable of doing anything without accompanying Background Music. They finish the episode via blatantly-lampshaded Diegetic Music provided by a cassette player (which has been kept in safe storage for just such an occasion). Difficulties with cueing the right music que leads to a hilariously climactic series of Soundtrack Dissonance, which actually causes the scene to go wrong until the right music is played.
• Legacy Character: In the remake Agent 58 is the son of Agent 57 from the original series. And IV is presumably the son of Augustus P. Crumhorn III.
• Leitmotif: One episode has a mole who speaks with a "Yorkshire miner" stereotype accent; whenever he's on screen, Dvorak's "New World Symphony" (inextricably associated with Yorkshire poverty through Hovis adverts) plays in the background.
• Lemony Narrator: Eventually named as Isambard Sinclair, the narrator (voiced by David Jason) is constantly grumbling about how ridiculous the stories are, and how narrating for the series is destroying his chances of ever being taken seriously as an announcer.
  Narrator: And with that, we say farewell to our chances of ever being on Radio 3.^note  Radio 3 being the BBC's classical/world music and arts radio station. (Sigh.) By the way, the management point out that you park in front of a Danger Mouse transmission at your own risk. Claims for carpet elbow and mass hysteria cannot be entertained. (Well, why should they? You weren't. Hmph!) And all that leaves me to say is, "Look out for our next Danger Mouse adventure!" And I do mean that.
• Literal Metaphor:
  • In "Danger at C Level", Colonel K remarks that what the situation needs is an agent who doesn't know the meaning of the word "fear". DM, it turns out, really doesn't. "Is it French?" (In "Welcome to Danger World!" it turns out he doesn't know "cowardly" either. "Are you sure that's a word?")
  • The whole plot of "The World Wide Spider" proceeds from the revelation that the World Wide Web is literally an enormous world-spanning spider web, spun by a gargantuan spider. Which, when it gets nasty, they deal with by threatening to hoover it up with the equally literal Vacuum of Space.
  • In "Send in the Clones", DM and Penfold go to save the day on the richest planet in the universe. Penfold makes a comment about the alien beings who live there being "made of money", which turns out to be literally true.
• Literal-Minded: Several examples.
  • In "All Fall Down," Dudley Poyson says "I'll call myself a cab right away. I'm a cab! I'm a cab!"
  • Just averted in "Duckula Meets Frankenstoat." When DM asks for Penfold to call him a cab, he immediately snaps "Don't you dare!" before Penfold could take a breath.
  Penfold: (sullenly) Spoil sport!
  • In another episode, DM tells Penfold that "we must act quickly." Penfold immediately goes at rapid fire "Tobeornottobethatisthequestionwhethertisnoblertosuffertheslingsandarrowsofoutrageousfortune" while gesticulating with reckless abandon.
• Literal Surveillance Bug: The Professor invents one in "Big Head Awakens". DM promptly mistakes it for a real bug and squishes it.
• The Load: Penfold is this at times, being a Bumbling Sidekick who almost never does anything useful.
• Load-Bearing Boss: When the antagonist computer in "Escape from Big Head" is defeated with a logic bomb, the entire automated prison it constructed explodes.
• Logic Bomb:
  • In "Planet of the Cats", DM is confronted by a giant robot dog, and asks it, "What's big, grey, and has sixteen wheels?" The robot dog is so confused by the question that it begins repeating "Inaccurate! Inaccurate!" over and over while DM makes his escape. Eventually, however, the dog "defuses" the logic bomb and confronts Danger Mouse as he prepares to return to the present, demanding to know the answer... only to end up in another situation it cannot process.
    Robot Dog: Go on then. What is big, grey, and has sixteen wheels?
    DM: Oh! (chuckles) What's big and grey and has sixtee- it's an elephant on roller skates!
    Robot Dog: Grey: correct. (sound of something large approaching) Wheels: logic rejection! No such- (CRASH) AHHHOWWWOOOOH!!
    (the large approaching object is revealed as an elephant on roller skates which has crashed into the dog)
    Elephant: What the 'eck are you doing parked on a freeway!?
    Robot Dog: Impossible. You not exist.
    Elephant: Are you callin' me a figment of your imagination?! Stupid clockwork...
    Robot Dog: Microchip. Random access. Random access. (begins babbling)
    Elephant: Oh, shut up!
  • At the climax of "Mechanised Mayhem", DM and Penfold track down the supercomputer behind the appliance rebellion. When it asks where Penfold's subroutines are and declares his answer that they're in a drawer next to his woolly vests to be "illogical", DM offers the computer a routine. He and Penfold proceed to recite the classic "My dog has no nose" joke, and the resulting logic bomb literally explodes, blowing the computer sky high.
  • In "Gremlin Alert", DM defeats the Gremlin ("the living embodiment of anti-logic") with a classic "how can you be agreeing with me when gremlins always contradict people?" bomb.
  • In "Escape from Big Head", a supercomputer designed to capture criminals starts sending its robots after everybody who commits even a minor offence. DM defeats it by tricking it into committing a crime; it orders its robots to arrest itself then explodes from the illogic of the situation.
• Loony Fan: Ian the fanboy in "Danger Fan". At first he just follows DM around driving everyone to distraction with his squeeing and his tendency to touch stuff he shouldn't, then he starts kidnapping people to add to his collection of Danger Mouse memorabilia, and when caught out smoothly transitions from squeeing about getting to help Danger Mouse catch bad guys to squeeing about getting to be a Danger Mouse bad guy.
• Losing Your Head: In "The Scare Mouse Project", DM has to deal with the disembodied and independently mobile head of the Headless Postman, out for revenge after the defeat of its body. (It still refers to itself as the Headless Postman, leading to another character suggesting that it's technically the Postmanless Head.)

M to O

• Madness Mantra: In the 2015 episode "Greenfinger", Prof. Sqawkencluck repeatedly yells "YOU SNUCK INTO MY LAB?!" when she returns from the "Chickens of Rock" festival once she discovers that DM, well, snuck into her lab to water a space plant.
• Magic Countdown: "The Return of Danger K" has a 30-second countdown in five-second increments. It takes a whole minute to get from "30 seconds remaining" to "5 seconds remaining", and the last five-second interval lasts 30 seconds all on its own.
• Magic Feather: Parodied in the 2015 Christmas Episode, in which Santa Claus takes a 10-Minute Retirement after a villain steals the magic hat that gives Santa his powers. Professor Squawkencluck gives him an inspirational speech — "You don't need some hat, you're Santa!" — and he goes out and helps DM defeat the villain. When DM offers him the hat back, Santa proudly declares that he doesn't need it any more... and something immediately happens that forces him to admit that he actually does.
• Mailman vs. Dog: Invoked by DM to defeat the Headless Postman in "The Scare Mouse Project".
• Makeover Montage: DM and Penfold undergo one in "Pink Dawn", in order to be Disguised in Drag.
  Colonel K: For goodness' sake, DM! The fate of the world is in your hands! Do an amusing makeover montage, and that's an order!
• Male Gaze: Probably unintentional, but at one point in "Megahurtz Attacks" the camera focuses on Professor Squawkencluck's backside (the context was that Danger Mouse noticed a screwdriver in her back pocket that he needed).
• The Man Behind the Curtain: The title world in "The Planet of the Cats" is ruled by Greenback's great-great-etc.-nephew (who happens to look and sound identical to his great-great-etc.-uncle, complete with a caterpillar called Nero), posing as feline leader Big Leo. DM discovers the true identity of "Big Leo" and uses this information to get out of being cornered by the cats so that he can rescue Penfold. The cats are not happy to find out they have been taking orders from a toad:
  (the door to future Greenback's inner sanctum almost caves in)
  Future Greenback: Now what!?
  Cat Soldier: 'Ey! C'mon, come outta there! Come outta there, yer double crosser!
  (on the other side of the door, we see a brigade of cat soldiers hitting the door with a battering ram)
  Cat Soldier: I'll give you "Big Leo", you tuppenny-ha'penny toad!
• Master of Disguise: Agent 57, who appears as a worm in his first appearance and a polar bear in his second. According to DM, he's disguised himself as so many things over the years that he's forgotten what his original species was.
• Mathematician's Answer: In "Pink Dawn", the Professor finds DM messing about in her lab and demands, "What is the meaning of this?"; DM replies by giving the dictionary definition of the word 'this'.
• Meaningful Name:
  • With a side order of Genius Bonus as well. Early pillarboxes were known as "Penfolds" after their designer.
  • It's been said that master of disguise Agent 57 was so named as a reference to the Heinz company and its "57 varieties."
• Medium Awareness: Mostly DM.
  DM: Sometimes, Penfold, I wish I were just drawing the cartoons, not starring in them.
  • In "The Duckula Show", Duckula becomes a Reality Warper by proxy by kidnapping the show's writers and forcing them to rewrite the show in his favor.
• Mirror Universe: The "Twistiverse" in the episode "Sinister Mouse", home to the criminal Sinister Mouse, his heroic nemesis Danger Toad and the evil mastermind Penfold.
• "Mister Sandman" Sequence: In "The Return of Danger K", the flashback to Danger K's heyday in The '80s crams a bunch of period signifiers into its first few seconds, including a punk hassling a yuppie in a dayglo jogging outfit carrying a huge mobile phone, and posters for "Hug", "Ant Adam", "WhamBam!!!", and "The Sniffs". It doesn't quite manage a genuine period soundtrack, though, having to settle for some generic eighties-sounding incidental music.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The sea monsters Greenback creates in "Danger at C Level".
  Danger Mouse: A hammerhead prawnopus?! Honestly — who comes up with this stuff?
• Modern Major General: Colonel K; however, in the 2015 reboot, it is made explicit that he used to be an agent of some competence, and save for being old and out of shape he might still be a useful agent, implying The Peter Principle.
• The Mole: In "The Unusual Suspects", someone is leaking operational information to Greenback, leading to the suspicion that one of the agents at HQ is a mole. (Apart from Danger Mole, obviously.) It turns out that Colonel K's moustache has been kidnapped and replaced with an impostor.
• Motor Mouth: Penfold spends most of every cartoon talking his mouth off.
• Monumental Damage:
  • In the first 2015 series episode, DM's over-enthusiastic pursuit of the Frog's Head Flyer through London results in the destruction of the Gherkin, the London Eye, and Buckingham Palace.
  • In "The Other Day, the Earth Stood Still", the narrator remarks that the Eiffel Tower has stood proud and undamaged for many years, moments before DM drives into it in his haste to get at the Baron. Also, the montages showing the Baron's plan going into effect around the world feature many iconic monuments, all of which suffer some degree of damage.
• Mugged for Disguise: In "The Cute Shall Inherit the Earth", DM and Penfold snatch a pair of cultists and steal their robes to infiltrate the secret cult of kittens.
• Mummy Wrap: In "Planet of the Toilets", DM temporarily restrains a rampaging toilet by wrapping it up in toilet paper.
• Murder by Remote Control Vehicle: In "Big Head Awakens", Prof. Squawkencluck's new security system goes berserk. It seizes control of the Dangermobile and attempts to run down DM and Penfold.
• Musical Episode: In "Melted", Danger Mouse reluctantly takes a role in Pink Dawn's musical re-enactment of her favourite musical Melted for a double-length, all-singing, all-dancing special.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: "Big Penfold" opens with a meeting of the world's foremost scientific minds... and Isambard King Kong Brunel.
• Mysterious Middle Initial: Egregious M. Murphy. When asked "What's the "M" for?", he says "The M-4 is a motorway that runs from London to South Wales, ask me another Magnus!"
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the first 2015 series episode, when DM is testing out his new iPatch, one of the images he sees is a museum where the original show's Mark III and Frog's Head Flyer are on display. Later in the same episode, DM and Greenback have a good old-fashioned brawl in total darkness, echoing the original show's no-budget means of animating fight scenes.
  • In "Danger Fan", when Ian is repeatedly pressing the buttons on the Hero Car's dashboard despite DM telling him not to, it transforms into a load of different forms - the last of which is the design of the Mark III from the original series.
  • The training simulation DM and Penfold are doing at the beginning of the revived series episode "Sinister Mouse" is a recreation of one of the events from the old title sequence.
  • 2015 Duckula has a portrait of himself in his previous design in his castle.
• Name One: In "Big Head Awakens", Professor Squawkencluck complains that DM is always misusing and breaking her gadgets, and he challenges her to name three examples. She does, immediately. "All right, name four."
• Named After Somebody Famous: The inventor Isambard King Kong Brunel is named after the 19th-century inventor Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
• The Napoleon: Isambard King Kong Brunel, a very small chimpanzee who wishes he were taller, and attempts to compensate by wearing an enormous hat.
• Narrator: Isombard Sinclair, played by David Jason in the original series, and Dave Lamb (of Come Dine With Me fame) in the 2015 series.
• Needle in a Stack of Needles: In "Big Head Awakens", Panda-Minion makes an attempt on DM's life by disguising himself as a milkman and delivering a milk bottle that contains a time bomb. Having recognised the bomb, DM returns it to the back of Panda-Minion's milk float, leaving him searching fruitlessly among the genuine milk bottles to find the bomb before it goes off.
• Neon Sign Hideout: In "The Other Day the World Stood Still", Greenback's lair is extremely visible even without the actual neon sign, which is enormous and arrow-shaped and says "Greenback's Lair".
• Nephewism: The new Professor Squawkencluck in the 2015 revival is the niece of the old one.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In "Day Of The Suds," after DM successfully corrals and destroys Greenback's army of sentient washing machines, a reporter hounds him for not only having the city with dirty laundry permanently but for the by-product of the damaged machines' fuel and sparking cables irradiating in the soap compartments: a giant detergent monster.
  • The debut episode of the 2015 reboot has Colonel K firing Danger Mouse for destroying London while trying to stop the Frog's Head Flyer (which was controlled by Greenback's newly-introduced ally Panda-Minion, who explains he bought it on eBay).
  • "From Duck to Dawn" has Count Duckula interviewing Danger Mouse, who tells about how great he is and what the world has done to show appreciation for it. This awakens Duckula's ambitions: he's now not content with being the biggest star in Transylvania, he now wants to BIGGEST STAR IN THE WORLD!
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: In "Gold Flinger", Danger Mouse is diagnosed with Compulsive Challenge Disorder, an irresistable compulsion to do literally anything no matter how stupid if he's challenged to prove he can do it. Quark the alien conman uses it against him for the rest of the episode.
• Nobody Here but Us Statues: In "Sinister Mouse", DM is walking around a wax museum and comes to a statue of himself and Penfold, but itself actually just a statue of DM that the real Penfold is posing with while wishing somebody would make a statue of him too.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Talkshow host Jiminy Camel in the 2015 reboot.
  • Part of the episode "Sinister Mouse" is set at Madame One-Sword's Wax Museum, which features statues of such infamous figures as Bunny & Clyde and Dick Terrapin.
  • Several times in the 2015 series, a pig represents Donald Trump (complete with the hair and orange skin) and an owl represents Theresa May.
• No Communities Were Harmed: Colonel K lists the New York City landmarks that have disappeared in "The Statue of Liberty Caper"—Yonkee Studio, Umpire State Building, and the Giggleheim Museum.
• No Ending: A few too many episodes. Seasons 2 through 4 were serialized as weekly story arcs. There were six arcs per season, each consisting of five 5-minute installments. These 5-minute installments were sometimes spliced together to make full-length episodes on home video releases. Some fans actually lament this, as these versions are consequently missing the really terrible puns that would invariably smother the ending narration, and sometimes cast dialogue addressing the cliffhanger as well. Nickelodeon aired these stories as same-day two-parters.
• No Fourth Wall: Every episode has at least one instance, and there are a lot where it's the basis of the whole plot.
  • "Where There's a Well, There's a Way" punches a giant hole through the fourth wall in the opening scene and spends most of the episode looking out of it.
    (as confusion between the word "dowser" and the phrase "now, sir" causes problems between DM and Colonel K)
    Penfold: (to audience) Erm, I'm sorry about this, I think it's what we call "a breakdown in communication". Just chat amongst yourselves for a couple of minutes while they get it sorted out!
    Colonel K: OH! You mean the dowser! Am I sending it now, sir, er, erm, DM! Er, yes! Exactly!
    Penfold: (beams) Ah! There you are!
    Danger Mouse: Penfold, who are you talking to?
    Penfold: Er - no one, chief. Well, I hope it's not no one, chief, but, um, no one, er, chief.
  • In "Tower of Terror", DM even falls off the edge of the film.
  • Fully embraced in the new version. Just in the first episode, we have the action-packed opening scene blowing the budget for the series, the narrator filling in for the incidental music and discussing the logical inconsistencies of the hologram tech with DM, a split screen between the office and the lab turning out to be a shared set, and the agency seizing the Baron's assets to pay for future episodes.
  • The episode "Danger Fan" blurs the line between "fan of Danger Mouse, the person" and "fan of Danger Mouse, the TV show": the obsessed fanboy has a large collection of merch and when referring to DM's past exploits he mentions the titles and episode numbers of the episodes they occurred in.
  • When DM foils Duckula's plan to control the world through television, Duckula's We Will Meet Again speech is that if there's one thing DM has taught him, it's that you can just reboot your show and start again.
• Nonindicative Name: Professor Squawkencluck in the original series is actually a mole. Averted by his niece in the reboot series, who is a chicken.
• Noodle Incident:
  • When they're all imprisoned in "Escape from Big Head", Colonel K compares it to the time he was imprisoned in a Siberian gulag.
  • Penfold has a pathological fear of elephants following an event he initially refused to discuss, called "the incident". (An elephant sat on him for two days straight.)
• No Ontological Inertia:
  • In "Pink Dawn", everything returns to normal the moment DM destroys the tiara that gave Dawn her Reality Warper powers.
  • In "From Duck to Dawn", anyone who watches Count Duckula's TV show is gradually transformed into a giant vegetable. When DM disables the transmitter, all the victims immediately revert to their original forms.
• Noodle People: Jeopardy Mouse and Danger Moth. Danger Mouse himself is a downplayed example in the reboot.
• Not Hyperbole: In "The World Wide Spider", DM panics about an enormous spider in his bathroom. When Penfold, tutting at the exaggeration, goes to fetch it out, he discovers that it really is enormous: it's literally bigger than DM.
• Not Me This Time: DM thinks that Greenback is behind the revolt of London's appliances in "Mechanised Mayhem," but Greenback is actually being victimized...by his own Frog's Head Flyer!
• Not Now, Kiddo: "Shush!"
• Not Quite Flight: As of "Quark Games", the 2015 reboot has equipped DM, Penfold, and Jeopardy Mouse with wing-suits (and provided narrative excuse for why they don't always have them).
• Not So Above It All:
  • DM might be the 'Greatest Secret Agent in the World', but with a show like Danger Mouse he's not immune from the craziness. This is generally restricted to bad puns at inappropriate moments and walking into traps because he's not paying attention to the obvious.
  • Jeopardy Mouse from the 2015 series may be more skilled than Danger Mouse, but she can be just as egocentric as him.
• Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: In "Happy Boom Day", Professor Squawkencluck thinks everyone's forgotten her birthday when in fact DM has persuaded them to throw her a surprise party. Rather than keep the audience in suspense, this fact is revealed immediately (with Penfold suggesting it's perhaps not a good move when DM genuinely did forget the Professor's birthday last year). In a further twist, the party is thrown about halfway through the episode and the Professor has very nearly decided to forgive DM when he bursts in and starts trashing all the gifts, the cards, and the cake. Fortunately, she realises that this apparent act of cruelty must have some reason behind it, and after joining DM and Penfold in defeating Greenback's scheme to take over the world with robot birthday presents, killer cards, and exploding cakes, she even admits that it's been the most fun birthday she can remember.
• No Water Proofing In The Future: The Baron's robots in "There's No Place Like Greenback" can be explosively disabled by splashing them with a small amount of water.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: In "Greenfinger", the Professor calls DM to apologize for assuming that he would get into her experiments and create a mess — while he's in the middle of trying to clean up the mess he created after getting into her experiments.
• Official Couple: Penfold/Scarlet Johamster, and according to the future seen at the end of The World Is Full of Stuff Danger Mouse and Squawkencluck
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Combines with Expressive Ears in "Trouble With Ghosts"; DM opens a door and a skeletal hand points a gun at him. As DM turns to give the camera a worried look, his ears droop.
  • In "The Four Tasks of Danger Mouse", DM tries to knock out the yeti while he sleeps by pushing a large boulder onto him from a clifftop. However, the yeti's breath is so powerful that he simply blows the boulder back to the clifftop. Danger Mouse groans "Oh, no..." and gives the camera a look that would do Wile E. Coyote proud as the boulder falls toward him.
  • Combines with Expressive Ears again in "The Wild, Wild Goose Chase" in the second use of the Running Gag of DM getting stuck in a hole... straight through the "ceiling" of an underground-dwelling night shift worker who gets rid of DM by biting his legs and sending him jumping into the air in pain. The second time this happens, we hear, "'Ey, Gladys, look what's dropped in! I think this character's following us around!" DM groans, "Oh no, not again..." as his ears droop to cover his face seconds before he leaps into the air in agony.
  • In "Pink Dawn" of the revival series, after Professor Squawkencluck saves Dawn from eating a mini particle fusion bomb that looks like a gumball, it suddenly cuts to Penfold having an 'oh-crap' expression before spitting out said bomb that he thought was a gumball. He tosses it away afterward- where right on cue, it explodes behind him.
• Omniglot: DM can speak every language ever invented.
  DM: ...but gibberish isn't one of them. (From "Close Encounters Of The Absurd Kind")
• One-Man Army: Danger Mouse in the 2015 reboot is capable of taking on entire groups of powerful enemies by himself, dispatching them with a smile and a witty Bond One-Liner whenever he gets the chance.
• Only Six Faces: In the revived series, the same half-dozen or so animals appear as incidental characters wherever in the world DM happens to be.
• On Second Thought: ..."here's the weather forecast." (The narrator at the end of "100 Million Years Lost" when Henry V goes too far into his "Once more unto the breach" speech at the Battle of Agincourt.)
• Out-of-Character Alert: In "The Scare Mouse" project, Penfold disappears and Professor Squawkencluck begins acting strangely. It's revealed that the latter is actually a hologram being controlled by Penfold, a revelation that's foreshadowed by several minutes when the fake Professor addresses Danger Mouse as "Chief", which only Penfold does. (Danger Mouse completely fails to notice.)
• Out-of-Character Moment: When Professor Squawkencluck finds out that she has to pose as Danger Mouse's wife/Penfold's mother in "We Aren't Family", she views this as gender stereotyping. Aside from this episode, she's never seemed to express any feminist/social justice beliefs (considering the circumstances of the scene, chances are that she was just trying to find a lame excuse to get out of posing as Danger Mouse's wife).
• Over-the-Top Roller Coaster: In "The Duel", Baron Greenback tricks DM and Penfold onto an insane roller coaster that launches their car into outer space at its apex.
• Overly Long Gag: Every time Grovel^note 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, master!' hears his name mentioned.
• Overly Long Scream: Penfold is a master. In the 2015 reboot, he screams all the way through the title sequence without apparently taking a breath.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: In "The Return of Danger K", Colonel K reminisces about Tutankhamuu, "the most evil Egyptian cow-based villain since Cowapatra".
• Overt Operative: DM is known in both versions as "The World's Greatest Secret Agent". While it can be a little subverted, he plays this straighter in the reboot as almost everyone outside of his rogues' gallery knows who he is.
  • Lampshaded in Jeopardy Mouse's first appearance, when she mentions it as a sign of DM's unprofessionalism.

P to S

• Packed Hero: In the 2015 Christmas Episode, Penfold stumbles into Santa's automated production line and gets gift-wrapped and dumped in Santa's gift bag.
• Painful Body Waxing: Penfold undergoes it during the Makeover Montage in "Pink Dawn".
• Painting the Medium: In "The Clock Strikes Back", the narrator's opening spiel is full of typos, as they have a new script typist, and this soon spreads to the dialogue as well (though the in-universe explanation is that Miss Boathook, Colonel K's secretary, is on holiday and her replacement is none too competent, even DM and Penfold speak in typos):
  Narrator: Lodnod. Commrecial cnetre of- oh, dear, I'm awfully sorry, it's the new typist again. (clears throat) London, commercial centre of the nation. Home too of the pillarbix, one of which, standing snetinel on Beker Stroot, is home of the world's greatest secret agnet, Dnager Muose. (Good grief...)
  DM: (holding a piece of paper) Good grief, Penfold! I can't make any sense of this letter! Who on Earth typed the blessed thing?
  (later, after they have received their mission details from Colonel K)
  DM: Right, Colonel, we're on our woe! Er, on our wag! Er... oh, come on, Penfold.
  Penfold: Oh, crimbs...
  (later still, at the end of the episode, after they have completed their mission)
  Colonel K: Mind you, the police is in a bite of a mouse.
  DM: I'm sorry, Colonel?
  Colonel K: I mean, the palace is in a boot of a moose.
  DM: I beg your pardon, sir?
  Penfold: I think he means that the place is in a bit of a mess.
  Colonel K: Yes, drat it, it's that wretched tie pin again!
  DM: You mean typist, sir?
  Colonel K: Yes, well, isn't that what I said?
  DM, Penfold: Oh, good gruef!
  Narrator: And so we come to the ned of another thrulling advetnure as our erhoes, the Whote Winder and Pefnold, cockle the farces of evli. Don't miss the neck extracting institlement of Dnager Muose!
  Colonel K: Come home, Miss Boathook, all is frogriven!
• Paper-Thin Disguise: The milkman in "Big Head Awakens" who is quite obviously Panda-Minion wearing a milkman uniform, a pair of dark glasses, and an enormous false beard.
• Parental Bonus: Of the non-squicky kind. There are a lot of jokes and Shout Outs that adults will enjoy rather more than the kids.
  • This exchange from "The Hickory Dickory Dock Dilemma" references a certain popular time travel series:
    Danger Mouse: Penfold, I don't think this is a clock at all! I think it's a time machine!
    Penfold: Um... DM? I thought clocks were time machines.
    Danger Mouse: No, not that sort of time machine. The sort that takes you through time.
    Penfold: Oh! Like that Doctor!
    Danger Mouse: Who?
    Penfold: Can't remember.
    Danger Mouse: Oh.
  • "Custard" has DM, Penfold, and the Custard Mite of Glutt stranded in a pink hole, and they emerge on Earth through a time traveler's potting shed.
  • Also in evidence a lot in the licensed game Danger Mouse in the Black Forest Chateau, starting with the title. One scene has our hero falling into a moat, and attracting the attention of a shark — "unfortunately he's a lone shark, and takes a great deal of interest".
  • In the reboot series, the Duckula reintroduction episode is "From Duck To Dawn", a play on the vampire-stripper movie From Dusk Till Dawn.
• Perplexing Plurals: In the first episode of the 2015 reboot, a newsreader reports on Baron von Greenback's robotic "Safety Mouses", then realizes that doesn't sound right, and tries "Mices", "Meeces", and "Meecicles" before giving up.
• Pie in the Face: When DM and Penfold stop to ask The Prankster Funny Bone for directions in "The Invasion of Colonel K", they are initially greeted by a barrage of custard pies to the face.
• Pink Means Feminine: Everything Dawn possesses and transforms into in "Pink Dawn".
• Pit Trap: The 'regulation pit traps' become a Running Gag in "Quark Games", with just about every character falling (or being knocked into) one at some point.
• Plank Gag: Penfold knocks Jeopardy Mouse into a Pit Trap with a mop he has over his shoulder when he has a bucket stuck on his head in "Quark Games".
• Playing Both Sides: In "The Frog Who Would Be King", Baron Von Greenback apparently reforms after falling in love, but DM is convinced it's just a scheme, especially once Greenback's love interest is kidnapped. Greenback, meanwhile, believes DM kidnapped her in an attempt to ruin his happiness. It turns out they're being played against each other by Greenback's daughter, who intends to kill them both and take over Greenback's scheme. (Yes, of course there's a scheme. It's Greenback.)
• Plot-Driven Breakdown: The Mark III's in the shop in "Danger Mouse on the Orient Express" to force him to ride the train so the episode can happen.
• Polar Bears and Penguins:
  • Parodied in "Jeopardy Mouse". A scene in the Antarctic features both a penguin and a polar bear; the penguin asks the polar bear what he's doing there, and he explains that he's on holiday.
  • In the 2015 Christmas Episode, Santa Claus is a polar bear and the elves are penguins.
  • Agent 57 is a polar bear in "Ice Station Camel" and a penguin in "The Spy Who Stayed In With a Cold." At the end of "The Return of Count Duckula," the audience watching Duckula's stage show turns put to be a massive flock of penguins as he was booked at the South Pole.
• Popping Buttons: In "The Return of Danger K", Colonel K uses his no-longer-well-fitting Danger Suit to his advantage in the final battle, firing buttons as projectiles at his opponent.
• Portmanteau: Penfold creates one for a laugh in "The Clock Strikes Back." When DM says that Master Snozzle (who claims to be King Arthur's original magician) looked like a cross between a druid and a monk, Penfold chimes in "You mean, a 'drunk'?"
• Potty Emergency: Penfold all the way through "Planet of the Toilets".
• Precision F-Strike:
  • An extremely mild case, from "The Wild Wild Goose Chase" with DM and Penfold traversing a desert.
    Narrator: On they trod through the hot sands of a noonday sun and the merciless hell of a waterless desert.
    DM: You know, Penfold, after trodding through the hot sands of a noonday sun and the merciless hell of a waterless desert, I don't feel quite so lucky anymore.
  • Similarly in "The Strange Case Of The Ghost Bus", the narrator describes the Himalayas (up where DM and Penfold are hiking) as a "white hell."
• The Prankster: While inside Colonel K in "The Invasion of Colonel K", DM and Penfold encounter Funny Bone who subjects them to a humiliating barrage of practical jokes.
• Princess Phase: "Pink" Dawn Crumhorn a.k.a. The Princess. A young spoiled poodle who is solidly in the middle of her princess phase and who becomes powerful after her tiara comes into contact with personality-amplifying mind gel. Double subverted in "Dark Dawn" when she became an Emo Teen, only to return to the princess phase in the end.
• The Professor: Professor Heinrich von Squawkencluck in the original series, and his niece in the reboot.
• Psycho Pink: The Princess in "Pink Dawn".
• Puff of Logic: In "Once Upon a Timeslip", DM's flying car is accidentally transported to the Middle Ages...
  Penfold: Um, chief, they didn't have... cars in the Middle Ages, did they?
  Danger Mouse: Oh, Penfold... I was hoping you wouldn't say that until we'd landed.
  Penfold: Why's that, chief?
  (Car abruptly vanishes in a Puff of Logic—they sit in midair for a second like Wile E. Coyote, then fall with a yelp)
• Pun: "From Duck Till Dawn" has Duckula's broadcasts go global and turn people into vegetable zombies, with one having been turned into a literal "couch potato" as he's watching.
• Pungeon Master: In "Planet of the Toilets", nearly everything Dr Loo-cifer says is a toilet-related play on words.
• Punny Name: The Great Bone Idol (from the episode of the same name) is a pun on the British term "bone-idle," meaning "lazy."
• Put on a Bus: Penfold and Stiletto do not appear in the Victor & Hugo crossover episode "French Exchange." They are called for by DM and Greenback respectively, who forgot that the two sidekicks/minions are visiting relatives in America.
• The Quincy Punk: Birch Badboy, a villain from The '80s who stages a comeback in "The Return of Danger K".
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: Stiletto in the "Safety Mouse" promotional video in the first episode of the reboot.
• Reality Warper: Dawn can change virtually anything pink and pretty, and more, with her enhanced tiara.
  • Thanks to an item her dad brought for her in "Tomorrow Never Comes", she used it to literally remove any day of the week. She kept the weekend active so she can play more.
  • In "Melted", she turned the world into one big musical to relive her favorite show.
• Recurring Extra: The reboot has the American tourists and Big Mike the pie-seller.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Count Duckula has these, and despite his flamboyancy, has proven to be a worthy enemy.
• Relax-o-Vision: When the monster of the week in "The Scare Mouse Project" reveals its horrifying true form, the action is interrupted by a picture of a cute kitten and tinkly music as the narrator explains that it's too horrifying to actually show.
• Remember the New Guy?: Lampshaded in "The Unusual Suspects":
  Danger Mouse: You know, Penfold, these agents are more than just colleagues to me — they're family.
  Penfold: That's funny. I'd never met half of them till the last scene.
• Rhymes on a Dime:
  • Penfold in "Penfold B.F." after he takes an untested super vitamin pill and turns into superhero The Blue Flash:
    Penfold: A superhero's how I'm feeling,
    Hope the chief's not cross about his ceiling!
    But now, the real me has been unfurled,
    And I'm the greatest in the world!
  • In "I Spy With My Little Eye," Penfold wishes upon a star:
    Penfold: Oh, little star that shines so bright,
    I'd like a wish if that's all right.
    Oh, little star in the ink-black heaven...
    D.M.: Forget it, Penfold. It's a 747!
  • The narrator in "Once Upon a Timeslip" delivers the narration for the Robin Hood parody in verse.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Nero.
• Right-Hand Cat: Nero's a... furry caterpillar-thing, but it's obvious what trope he's invoking.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: In "The Inventor Preventer", the villain uses time travel to prevent famous inventions, but everybody still remembers the original timeline and knows something has changed.
• The Rival: Jeopardy Mouse is the female, American equivalent version of Danger Mouse. Both agents always butt heads whenever they cross paths before inevitably working together against a common threat.
• Road-Sign Reversal: In "The Invasion of Colonel K", Baron Greenback switches the signs inside Colonel K's body (It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context) so that DM and Penfold end up travelling to the lungs rather than the brain.
• Robotic Assembly Lines: In the first episode of the reboot, DM and Penfold infiltrate the factory making Greenback's Safety Mouse robots. Penfold gets stuck on the conveyor belt, and the factory robots assemble a set of Safety Mouse armor around him.
• Running Gag:
  • In the final series, Greenback activates a "Hit Box", which conks Stiletto on the head three times whenever he says or does something stupid.
    Stiletto: (each time he gets hit) Ow...ow....and OW!!
  • "Turn Of The Tide" has the running gag of Penfold squawking about his missing toy clockwork paddleboat.
  • "Duckula Meets Frankenstoat" cracks a spoonerism of "a block of flats" instead of "a flock of bats" (which Dr. Frankenstoat's machine is to create). The cast repeats and lampshades it twice.
  • "One Of Our Stately Homes Is Missing": Penfold's "I knew I shouldn't have asked!"
  • "Danger Mouse on the Orient Express" has one where some character will do something bizarre, and another one will say "I wonder if he's alright."
  • The revived series has a running gag that Colonel K is only vaguely aware that Danger Mouse has a sidekick, and can never remember his name.
  • "From Duck Till Dawn" dusts off the old joke about "TV turning people into vegetables." Only it actually happens, and also to Penfold too.
• Rushmore Refacement: At the hands (or tentacles) of alien tourists in "Welcome to Danger World!"
• Sarcasm-Blind: In "Big Penfold", DM has been given charge of a valuable device needed to save the world, and several people start pestering him to borrow it for their own petty reasons. When DM says, "Fine, let's all have a go, shall we?" Penfold takes him at his word.
• Schmuck Bait: "The Dream Machine" features a carefully-laid schmuck bait trap set by Greenback:
  Greenback: Oh, and one last thing, Penfold. Don't, whatever you do, say "rock". (disappears)
  Penfold: "Rock"?
  (a rock falls out of thin air and hits DM on the head; it sprouts legs and a mouth and runs off, laughing silently as DM turns to glare at Penfold)
  Penfold: I don't get it, Danger Mouse, I only said "rock".
  (a second rock falls out of thin air; DM tries to dodge it, only for it to stop in midair, sprout arms, and hit DM repeatedly over the head with a large sausage. Greenback can be heard laughing as Penfold gives the camera a surprised look)
  DM: Look, Penfold, just don't say... R-O-C-K.
  Penfold: R-O-C-K?
  (steel-plated letters spelling ROCK appear one at a time, then a train whistle sounds as they trundle off screen... and then across the background... and then we hear four offscreen crashes as DM yelps in pain)
  DM: (from under the pile of steel-plated letters) Penfold...
  Penfold: Yes, sir?
  DM: Have you got anything for a headache, Penfold?...
• Scooby-Dooby Doors:
  • When DM and Penfold are first abducted by the title object in "The Dream Machine", Greenback explains his fiendish plans for them as they stand at the end of two long rows of doors, while various bizarre creatures run out of one door and into another (in at least one case, the same creatures then rush out of a different door and into yet another one).
  • "Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind" features several chase sequences involving DM and Penfold trying to escape the guards on Dr. Zokk's spaceship using a hoverpod; in some shots, we see several parallel walkways as the various chasers appear on first one, then another, and then another (complete with variations in the "order of procession"), while in other shots, we see a top-down view of a room with four doors as the chasers repeatedly emerge from different doors than the ones they entered.
• The Scream: The world's first self-aware toilet's reaction to realizing what it is that humans generally do with toilets, in "Planet of the Toilets".
• Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum!: When Penfold's intelligence is artificially enhanced in "Never Say Clever Again", he immediately develops the ability to do complicated origami, spouts a series of facts about history and science, and starts talking with big words.
• Sdrawkcab Alias: Dlofnep the Magnificent in "The Hickory Dickory Dock Dilemma" is a future Penfold ("Dlofnep" backwards for) who rules London!!
• See the Invisible: In "The Return of Danger K", Ivana the Invisible boasts that the heroes can't see her... only to realise that falling snow is landing on her.
• Shaking the Rump:
  • Danger Mouse does this twice when instructed to “shimmy” during his and Penfold’s Strictly Come Dancing routine.
  • If what was seen in “Melted” and Danger Mouse’s impression of her in “Danger-Thon” are to be believed, Professor Squawkencluck tends to shake her bum (or tailfeathers) when dancing.
• Shopping Cart Antics: In "The Other Day the Earth Stood Still", Baron Greenback brings all of the world's vehicles to a halt, except two: a rusty rocket that is blasting off, and a shopping trolley rolling across a supermarket car park. DM immediately decides that the most suspicious is...the shopping trolley! Penfold then suggests that the rocket might be more worthy of investigation.
• Shout-Out:
  • The series title is a shout out to Danger Man.
  • Danger Mouse's pillar box is located on Baker Street, noted in one episode to be a stone's thow from the residence of Sherlock Holmes himself (Not Hyperbole, as Watson is noted as throwing stones at the pillar box).
  • "Custard" has a scene that calls out to the final Death Star battle scene in Star Wars, as well as a sequence in which DM plays a life-size game of Space Invaders.
  • "The Good, the Bad and the Motionless" is a shout-out parody of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
  • "The Intergalactic 147" is most likely taken from the ending of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (primary phase), where Ford Prefect relates a tale of a planet in the seventh dimension getting potted into a black hole in a game of intergalactic billiards (only worth 30 points). The Danger Mouse episode has Earth in line to be potted into the black hole Alpha Omega in a game of intergalactic snooker, which would give the player (whatever it is) the maximum score of 147.
  • The scene from "Pillow Fright" of DM giving the pillow army their marching orders not only apes "The Sorceror's Apprentice" (from Fantasia) but also uses the music from it.
  • "'Cor! What A Picture:" Penfold has been turned into a kung fu assassin by Greenback (through a machine which has manipulated a photo of Penfold). As he tries to attack DM, our hero quips, "Penfold...you've been watching The Pink Panther again, haven't you?"
  • "Custard" has them get lost in a pink hole and find "a time-traveler's potting shed." The same episode also spoofs Alien—a Facehugger attaches itself to Penfold, but only to give him a big, sloppy kiss.
  • "Demons Aren't Dull" features DM being cornered for a rather cruel edition of This is Your Life (engineered by Greenback, who is otherwise not involved in the story) in which some of his previous achievements are twisted to look like failures through Manipulative Editing. The presenter's voice uses both the Dublin accent and the vocal mannerisms of then-TIYL presenter Eamonn Andrews.
  • "Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind" is, naturally, a spoof of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and one of its recurring music cues is a Suspiciously Similar Song to the five-note theme from the film.^note  It features the same five notes, but the third note is moved to the beginning. Dr. Zokk's spaceship is also accompanied by "Sunrise" from Also sprach Zarathustra whenever it appears, in homage to its use in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • From "Beware of Mexicans Delivering Milk":
    Penfold: I got extra milk from that milkman who looks like El Loco.
    DM: El Loco? But our milkman looks like Elton John!
  • Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Björn Borg, Jimmy Connors, The Rolling Stones, Fred Astaire and Barry Manilow have also had their names dropped on the show.
  • In "Rhyme And Punishment", Penfold writes (or attempts to write) his life story, using an Alistair MacLean book as a blueprint.
    DM: (reading what Penfold has written) "Once upin a tome, there was a homster, who lived his pfriend, a white moose." (quietly, to us) Alistair MacLean, eat your heart out!
  • There are several episodes where the narrator grumbles about his job preventing him from being taken seriously, and ensuring that he will never be surprised by Eamonn Andrews with the big red book for This is Your Life.
  • In "Ants, Trees And...Whoops-A-Daisy," DM is hesitant to rescue Penfold from the ant tribe holding him captive so they may sacrifice his eyebrows, because there are lots of them and only one DM. He tells Penfold that what he really needs is the Magnificent Seven.
  • In the 2015 episode "The World Wide Spider", DM's flyer has an inflatable 'auto-Penfold' which closely resembles Otto the Autopilot.
  • In "The Four Tasks Of Danger Mouse," when Colonel K wants DM to abort his mission to rescue Penfold from Greenback because the prime minister wants a cut-priced fridge:
    DM: No go, Colonel. Tell Mrs PM to ask Superman. Wednesday's his half-day.
  • Implied shout-out in "Public Enemy No. 1" when Danger Mouse gets amnesia:
    Greenback: You are...the White Shadow, daring criminal who robs from the rich to feed the poor.
    DM: Oh, just like, um...Thingamybob!
  • In "Planet of the Toilets", the tracking device in DM's car showing the movements of Dr Loo-cifer looks remarkably like a game of Pac-Man.
  • Also in "Planet of the Toilets", one of the revolting toilets has a placard reading, "Tinkle ye not", playing on one of Frankie Howerd's catchphrases.
  • The episode title "The Other Day, the Earth Stood Still" is a reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still.
  • "The Return of Danger K" features a flashback to the early 1980s and a punk-themed villain attempting to bring about anarchy in the UK.
  • In "The Return of Danger K", the gadgets Danger K used in the 1980s, and the way they pop out of his uniform, are more than somewhat reminiscent of 1980s animated hero Inspector Gadget.
  • "The Return of Danger K" also features an "Arkwright Asylum for the Criminally Challenged", which bears a striking resemblance to Arkham Asylum as depicted in Batman: The Animated Series.
    • The Batman references get even more blatant in "Daylight Savings Crime," where DM faces a night-themed foe clearly based on Batman called the Night Knight, complete with jokes about capes, sendups to The Cowl tropes, and a gag about the gravelly Batman Begins voice.
  • "The Unusual Suspects" features a sequence where a Super Serum-enhanced enemy is loose in HQ, which contains many shout-outs to Alien.
  • Dawn Crumhorn's pony looks very suspiciously like Twilight Sparkle.
  • The 2015 Christmas Episode features an attack by sinister flying snowmen, which includes a brief parody of the "walking in the air" sequence from the classic Christmas Special The Snowman.
  • The tunnel escape in "Escape from Big Head" includes several shout-outs to The Great Escape.
  • Big Head herself borrows her outfit and appearance from Max Headroom.
  • In "Hail Hydrant!", Jeopardy Mouse's archenemies are an organisation called Hydrant, who are a lot like Hydra from Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They even have a version of "Cut off a head and two more will take its place!" although DM points out it doesn't really work with hydrants.
• Shrink Ray: "Big Penfold" features a shrink ray that can also be put in reverse and used to make things bigger.
• Shrunk in the Wash: In "Big Penfold", part of the trouble begins because Penfold's trousers have shrunk in the wash. At the end of the episode, the giant Penfold is shown being run through a car wash in the hope that it will shrink him back to normal.
• Sliding Timescale: In the revived series, the episode "The Return of Danger K" has a flashback to the pre-DM days when Danger K was Britain's top agent — set in "1983-ish", right in the midst of the original series's run.
• Smart House: In "Big Head Awakens", the Professor sets up HQ with an AI security system that has control over the whole building. Inevitably there are a series of humorous accidents that cause the AI to go off the rails, imprison everyone in the building, and then try to take over the world.
• Social Media Before Reason:
  • In "The World Wide Spider", the monster-of-the-week's rampage keeps crossing paths with a tour group that's always standing in front of whichever landmark it's about to attack. The group includes one particular tourist who always stays put long enough to take a selfie of himself with the monster in the background.
  • When Penfold gets addicted to his new phone, he starts posting vast quantities of selfies to social media, even while on secret missions. Baron Greenback uses these post to track the duo and thwart DM's every move. DM is eventually to use Penfold's addiction to halt the Baron's scheme.
• Something Only They Would Say: In "Sinister Mouse", Penfold attempts to distinguish between DM and his Evil Twin by asking a question about himself that only DM would know. It turns out DM doesn't know the answer either, so Penfold has to resort to eeney-meeney-miney-mo.
• Spiders Are Scary:
  • 1984's "Aiaaagg! Spiders!" has DM and Penfold hiding after a spider invades their pillar box.
  • The 2015 episode "The World Wide Spider" revolves around DM having to conquer arachnophobia.
• Spin-Off: Count Duckula first appeared in Danger Mouse as a villain.^note Not a very good villain, though: This version had Looney Tunes jokes, Porky Pig's stutter and Daffy Duck's lisp. His entire goal was to use his powers to force someone to give him his own TV show. The character was revamped to be more relatable for the spinoff series with a handy explanation of having been resurrected with ketchup rather than blood, turning him into a mild-mannered vegetarian. He returns in the 2015 reboot, returned to being a villain, though still a vegetarian, and is still popular enough among fans for them to hope he'll get a revamped (no pun intended) spin-off.
• Split-Screen Phone Call: Played with in the first episode of the 2015 reboot. Colonel K calls the Professor on the intercom, and the camera shifts to an apparent split-screen between the Colonel's office and the Professor's lab. Then it's revealed they're actually two halves of the same room, with a thick black line painted down the wall between them.
• Spoiled Brat: As the little child she is and being pampered constantly by her father, Dawn has the tendency to always get what she wants, and throwing tantrums when she doesn't. This is even after gaining the power to bend reality to her will.
• Spot the Imposter: In "Sinister Mouse", DM and his Evil Twin get in a fight that results in them both being covered in mud and obscuring the differences in their appearances, so Penfold has to devise a Something Only They Would Say test to tell them apart.
• Staircase Tumble: In "Never Say Clever Again", Greenback sets himself up as the ruler of the world, complete with a throne at the top of a very high staircase, which he ends up tumbling down when DM counter-attacks.
• Stand-In Portrait: In the first episode of the reboot, DM and Penfold are examining Colonel K's office after the Colonel was (apparently) abducted by a robot, when they realise there's something odd about the portrait behind his desk. ("I've heard of portraits with eyes that follow you around the room, but the whole portrait?") It turns out to be this trope.
• Steampunk: The Mad Scientist Isambard King Kong Brunel (whose name is a homage to the great 19th-century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel) has a steampunk motif.
• Stereo Fibbing: In the original pilot episode, "The Mystery of the Lost Chord", Danger Mouse and Penfold are sent to Scotland to investigate the mass bagpipe rustling going on, but are given a cover story as journalists investigating the Loch Ness Monster. When they arrive at their hotel, the innkeeper asks what story they're researching.
  DM: The Loch Ness Monster! (shows picture of same)
  Penfold: (overlapping) The missing bagpipes! (shows picture of bagpipes)
  (DM and Penfold look embarrassed)
  DM: The missing bagpipes! (shows picture of bagpipes)
  Penfold: (overlapping) The Loch Ness Monster! (shows picture of same)
  (they look even more embarrassed and quickly throw the pictures aside)
• Sting: In the first episode of the 2015 reboot, Danger Mouse is fired because the show can no longer afford to keep paying for the damage he causes in his action sequences; this news ought to be accompanied by a "Dun Dun DUN" sting, but all there is is the narrator saying "Dun Dun DUN", because they've had to economize by firing the musicians who provide the incidental music.
• The Stoic: In "Danger Fan", DM's Danger Licence is up for renewal, which means he's being followed around by a stern-faced examiner who watches without reacting except to occasionally make a note on his clipboard. Subverted in the end, when the examiner admits that the stern silent presentation was a result of him holding down the urge to squee at getting to watch Danger Mouse in action.
• Stock "Yuck!": In the 2015 Christmas Special, Colonel K is cornered by a reanimated roast chicken that fires brussels sprouts. It's implied that he would be able to face the situation with complete equanimity were it not for the sprouts. Ugh, sprouts.
• Story-Breaker Power: Invoked. In "Clash of the Odd-esy" DM's made into a Physical God by Zeus. He gets bored of just sitting around pretty fast and goes to take on his usual Rogues Gallery, only to realize absolute power takes the fun out of fighting evil since they're no threat.
• Summon Backup Dancers: In "The World Wide Spider", DM and Penfold are fighting a monster near the Taj Mahal when DM asks Penfold to create a diversion. Penfold starts singing and dancing, and after a moment an entire Bollywood song-and-dance number unfolds out of nowhere around him.
• Super Serum: Formula X in "The Unusual Suspects".

T to V

• Take My Hand!: "The Return of Danger K" plays with the "glove slips off" variant — Danger K catches the villain by the ankle, and he falls after his foot slips out of his boot.
• Take Our Word for It: The true form of the monster in "The Scare Mouse Project", which is so terrifying that even Danger Mouse is affected, is supposedly too frightening to show on TV. The initial reveal triggers a Relax-o-Vision interruption, and thereafter the monster appears only in "Jaws" First-Person Perspective.
• The Tape Knew You Would Say That:
  • The episode "Duckula Meets Frankenstoat" features a taped transmission from Colonel K:
    Colonel K: Ah, there you are DM. I'm sending this recorded message...
    DM: Recorded message?
    Colonel K: Don't interrupt, DM. I had to send this recorded message as normal communications aren't available.
  • In "Where There's a Well, There's a Way", the scroll telling where to find Merlin's inkwell and make a wish upon it seemed to know what Penfold was going to say next.
• Tareme Eyes: Professor Squawkencluck has these.
• Teeth Clenched Team Work: Danger Mouse and Jeopardy Mouse can't stand each other and will always fight to decide who is the best spy. Whenever they learn to work together for at least 5 minutes, they can easily finish their mission.
• Team Rocket Wins: Greenback actually gets the best of DM at the conclusion of "The Wild, Wild Goose Chase", when DM realises that Greenback has just sent him on a... well, you know.
  Penfold: Go ahead, Chief...have a good shout.
  DM: (flushing several shades of red with rage) I...HATE...THAT...TOAD!!!
• Technician Versus Performer: On Jeopardy Mouse's first appearance, she and DM clash because she's a strait-laced professional and he prefers to take the most entertaining approach to a problem even if it's not the most efficient. By the end of the episode, each has admitted that the other's approach has its advantages.
• Tell Him I'm Not Speaking to Him: Several episodes have Professor Squawkencluck do this to DM, with Penfold as the intermediary, after DM causes some disaster by messing with her gadgets.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In "Pink Dawn", DM assures Penfold that they've seen the last of Dawn — less than halfway through the episode. Immediately lampshaded, with everyone in the scene giving an Aside Glance to the audience.
  • In "Welcome to Danger World!", Penfold claims that he'd rather have his favorite tie set on fire than fight a dragon, immediately before a firey blast from the dragon sets his tie on fire. Subverted, as Penfold immediately says that it's all right because the tie he's wearing isn't his favorite tie.
• 10-Minute Retirement:
  • DM wants to resign after he thinks he's been humiliated on a "This Is Your Life" styled TV show (actually staged by Greenback), until Colonel K tells him the show was never transmitted.
  • In the 2015 Christmas Episode, a villain steals the magic hat that gives Santa Claus his powers, and Santa immediately gives up, sitting around in his underwear watching TV while DM and Penfold attempt to recover the hat. He eventually decides it's time to go and get the hat back himself after Professor Squawkencluck gives him an inpirational speech — not because of the speech, but because he's discovered there's nothing on TV except reruns of things he's already seen.
• Terrestrial Sea Life: In the 2015 series, Danger Mackerel and Agent 48 (a mimic octopus) go about on land.
• Terror-dactyl: A pterodactyl menaces DM in his flying car in "150 Million Years Lost". It resembles a toothy Pteranodon and is able to grab the car with its feet.
• That Man Is Dead: Parodied in "Pink Dawn". "There is no Dawn. There is only ... The Princess!"
• That Poor Car: Happens during the battle in the flashback to The '80s in "The Return of Danger K".
• There Is No Rule Six: In "Demons Aren't Dull," DM saved him and Penfold from the Demon of the Fourth Dimension by invoking a clause in the by-laws of the Union of Devious, Diabolical and Dimensional Demons ^note Affiliated with Gremlins, Ghouls, Ghosts and Things That Go "Waaaaooooh!" In the Dark that states any victim not destroyed by the end of episode four has to be returned to their own dimension or have his powers revoked by the Boss Demon. Once returned, DM lets on that there isn't any such clause. He made it up. (Just as well...the Demon planted DM and Penfold thousands of feet in the air, causing them to plummet earthwards.)
• Three-Point Landing: DM does one in "From Duck to Dawn" after being ejected by Count Duckula. Beside him, Penfold does a faceplant.
• Thriller on the Express: "Danger Mouse on the Orient Express"
• Timey-Wimey Ball: In the episode "Inventor Preventer", DM and Penfold go back in time to prevent Isambard King Kong Brunell inventing the time machine. This gets lampshaded in the final scene.
  Penfold: Hang on. If time machines were never invented, how did we manage to get back here? And how did we stop him inventing the time machine in the first place if we didn't have a time machine? This episode doesn't make any sense!
  Narrator: Well, no change there, then. Join us next time for another equally well thought-out episode of Danger Mouse!
• Tin-Can Telephone: Crumples the Clown uses one to feed DM information on the aliens' culture in "Attack of the Clowns".
• Title Drop: Lampshade Hanging in the episode "Pink Dawn", when DM sees the pinkified London.
  DM: Well, I suppose it's cheerful enough. Like some sort of ... pink dawn.
  Penfold: I love it when we get the episode title in like that!
• Toilet Humor:
  • Implied and averted in "Where There's a Well, There's a Way" when DM and Penfold lose a water-detecting device en route to finding Merlin's mystic inkwell:
    Penfold: It's not my fault, DM. You left the bathroom door open. It went straight down the—
    DM: I know where it went Penfold...
  • Episode 4 of the new series is titled "Planet Of The Toilets." The antagonist is a sentient toilet named John, but after Penfold accidentally drops a microchip into its bowl, it becomes malevolent and names himself Loo-cifer.
  • Episode 2 ("Danger At Level C") starts off showing a Yeti doing his business.
  • In "There's No Place Like Greenback", the Baron plans to disable London by releasing an amnesia gas from an enormous balloon shaped like himself. Cue jokes about "getting a whiff of the Baron's noxious gas" — and then we find out where the release valve on the balloon is located...
  • Penfold and Professor Squawkencluck have both farted at different times on the reboot (Penfold in "Sharp As A Pin" and Squawkencluck in "Bot Battles").
• Tongue on the Flagpole: A variation. At one point in "Melted", Danger Mouse's butt gets frozen to a throne of ice as part of Pink Dawn's plan to reenact her favourite musical. He has to be rescued by Penfold with a hot water bottle.
• Too Dumb to Live: In "The Day of the Suds", Baron Greenback orders Stiletto to destroy all washing machines in town. Stiletto asks if the order applies to the machine they're in and the Baron, not stopping to think about the questions, says "yes". Baron Greenback figures it out but not on time to stop Stiletto.
• Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: In "Send in the Clones", Penfold is watching TV when an ad comes on for "Soup Funnel", a product for people too lazy or unco-ordinated to use a soup spoon. (You stick the funnel in your mouth and pour the soup in. Hard to imagine how that could go wrong.)
• Toothy Bird: Professor Squawkencluck and Stiletto Mafiosa both have this going on in the 2015 series. Also, Count Duckula sports fangs.
• Torches and Pitchforks: "From Duck to Dawn" ends with the Transylvanian peasants DM has rescued from Count Duckula chasing him (that is, DM) with torches and pitchforks after he makes some unwise comments about their intelligence and personal hygiene.
• To the Batpole!: The couch express lift down to the garage. Averted twice, in "Mechanised Mayhem" (when the lift is one of the rebelling machines) and "Viva Danger Mouse" (when the lift is out of commission); both times, they have to take the stairs, to Penfold's relief.
• Traintop Battle: In "Planet of the Toilets", Danger Mouse fights Doctor Loo-cifer atop a bullet train in Japan.
• Trap Door: In "From Duck to Dawn", Count Duckula has one in the entrance hall of his castle. Instead of dumping DM and Penfold into some horrifying dungeon, they end up on the guest couch in his talk show.
• Turn in Your Badge: DM is forced to do this in the first episode of the 2015 reboot due to the mounting costs of his action scenes and his refusal to believe that Baron Greenback has gone straight. Naturally, he insists on continuing his investigation without official backing, and proves that the Baron really is up to something.
• Turtle Island: In "Danger at C Level", a small island turns out to be Greenback's secret underwater base with some camouflaging sand and palm trees on top. At the end of the episode, Greenback's escape pod lands on another small island — which turns out to be an angry whale.
• Überwald: Transylvania is portrayed like this in "From Duck to Dawn", with the narrator lampshading the fact that modern Transylvania isn't at all like that in real life.
• Uncanny Village: Baron von Greenback's home town in "There's No Place Like Greenback" is occupied by cheerful villagers who look remarkably like the Baron and frequently speak in unison, especially when one of the village's seemingly-arbitrary rules comes up. ("No water!") It turns out the entire thing is an elaborate trap for DM, and the villagers are robots.
• Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: In "Frankensquawk's Monster", Professor Squawkencluck and her mother, another famous scientist, collaborate on a device to solve the problem of the week. Once they've constructed it, Squawkencluck Senior notes that the next step ought to be peer review and a lot of testing — then they hand the thing to DM, he uses it, and it works perfectly.
  • At the start of "Penfold B.F.," DM is in receipt of a vitamin capsule which is untested. Colonel K tells him to not take it or give it to Penfold, but Penfold mistakes it as candy and swallows it leading to him becoming the Blue Flash.
• Unobtanium: The impenetrable and indestructible metal "convenientium" in the reboot.
• Vague Age: We don't know how old Danger Mouse and Penfold are supposed to be in both the original series and the 2015 reboot.
• Variable Terminal Velocity: Danger Mouse does the "fall faster to catch someone" trick to rescue Penfold in the title sequence of the revived series.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Several stories end with Greenback, having seen his evil plans come to nothing, deciding to cut his losses and just leave.
  • In "Trouble With Ghosts", Greenback decides to pack it in after watching DM unmask the various monsters in the castle as robots, which he then disables.
  • When a giant gorilla shows up halfway through "The Tower of Terror", Greenback decides to abandon his plans to use the tower's traps to get the better of DM and flies off in the Frog's Head Flyer.
  • After his brainwashing device is switched off in "Hear! Hear!" and DM prepares to confront him, Greenback flips a switch and the tower of his home in which he is hiding takes off like a rocket.
• Villains Out Shopping: Near the start of "The Snowman Cometh" the narrator apologises that they couldn't get a better villain than the Snowman because all the other villains are busy celebrating the holidays.
• Visible Invisibility: Largely averted with Ivana the Invisible in "The Return of Danger K". Her invisible jet is never at all visible, and nor are the missiles it fires (only the explosion when they hit their target). Ivana herself is likewise completely invisible except for one shot which in which her eyes and the shadow areas of her face are briefly visible.
• Visual Pun: In "The Dream Machine", Penfold falls through a trap door after mentioning the word "trap". Danger Mouse asks him what he does when he's frightened. Penfold shouts back, "I scream!" He promptly lands in a giant goblet of... ice cream.

W to Z

• Waking Non Sequitur: An example from "The Dream Machine":
  (DM and Penfold are fast asleep when the alarm sounds, heralding an incoming message from Colonel K)
  DM: (sits bolt upright) Penfold! Penfold, wake up, man!
  Penfold: (sits up) Er - ooh! The egg's done! No! Er, the milkman wants his money! Er, no! It's, er-
  DM: Penfold, shush! It's Colonel K!
• Weaksauce Weakness:
  • Danger Moth from the 2015 series is, of course, easily distracted by bright lights.
  • In "Planet of the Toilets", the rampaging toilets all cower in fear at the mere sight of someone brandishing a toilet brush.
• Weather-Control Machine: One of Greenback's many plots for world domination ("The Next Ice Age Begins At Midnight").
  Greenback: At the press of a button, I could smother the Earth with snow, drown it in rain, wreck it with gales, and cloak it with fog.
  Stiletto: Why not just wait for summer?
• We Will Meet Again:
  • "Planet of the Toilets" ends with the villain vanishing into the sewer, declaring "You haven't heard the last of me!"
  • In "The Return of Danger K", one of Colonel K's old foes stages a comeback. In a flashback, and again in the present, he greets defeat with a proud declaration:
    Birch Badboy: You haven't heard the last of me! [crashes] Oof. Okay, maybe you have.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Jeopardy Mouse's accent is clearly American, but can't be placed to any particular region.
• Who Would Want to Watch Us?: From "All Fall Down", when DM and Penfold confront Mac the Fork's brother Mac the Spoon:
  DM: We're here to find out about your brother.
  Mac The Spoon: An' why shood I tell ye about 'im?
  DM: Because if you don't, this story will come to a grinding stop and our viewers will never forgive us.
  Mac The Spoon: Oh, jangs! We canna' have that! Um...who are all these viewers?
  Penfold: Well, there's a chap in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, two blokes from Wentworth, and a bod from Winkley Woods.^note  As an in-joke, Chorlton-Cum-Hardy is the city (suburb of Manchester) where the Cosgrove-Hall studio was located.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: Both Jeopardy Mouse and Baron Greenback complain about the quality of their lines when Count Duckula stages a Hostile Show Takeover by kidnapping the writers in "The Duckula Show".
• Whole-Plot Reference: In "Mousefall" a previously unknown villain releases all DM's foes from Arkwright Asylum, in order to wear Danger Mouse out before he reveals himself. Even the title sounds familiar.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: In "The World Wide Spider" and the earlier "AAAIAAGG! Spiders!", it turns out spiders are DM's one fear.
• Wild Take: Penfold is often rather animated (in every sense of the word) when he is scared (which is often).
  • A particularly good example happens when he and DM are confronted by three vampires in "Trouble With Ghosts":
    Penfold: (face right in the camera) Ahh! Vampires! Help, help! (runs back towards the dead end of the corridor and collides with the wall) Mum! Mummy! Mum! Dad! (jumps halfway up the wall, then onto the ceiling) Ooh! Ahh! Ooh! (jumps over to a grating and tries to pull it open) Vampires, help! (jumps over to another wall and tries to scramble up it with his bare hands) Save me! Oohohh! Oh, please! (begins running back and forth up the corridor) Somebody do something, oooh!
    DM: (who has been watching Penfold's meltdown while leaning casually against the wall) Well done, Penfold, don't let them see you're frightened.
  • In "Danger World", when DM has to pretend to be a coward so the alien tourists lose interest, Penfold tries to teach him how to do this. He's not very good at it.
• With Friends Like These...: DM to Professor Squawkencluck in the new series. She seems to have zero tolerance for him constantly breaking her inventions.
• Wolf Man: One appears in the establishing shot at the beginning of "From Duck to Dawn".
• Written Sound Effect: During the fight scene in the dark in "Sinister Mouse".
• Yodel Land: When DM and Penfold visit Baron von Greenback's home town in "There's No Place Like Greenback", it's a little alpine village full of houses covered in quaint wooden carvings, men in lederhosen and big mustaches, and women in dirndl dresses and blond braids, and the main industry is sausages.
• You Have Failed Me: Greenback to a unit of his washing machine brigade in "Day Of The Suds":
  Machine: Enemy escaped. Mission failed. Disengaged.
  Greenback: Escaped?! Failed?! Useless tin cans! (to Stiletto) Stiletto...pay them the wages of failure.
  Stiletto: Si, Barone. (presses button on a device; the machine unit explodes)
• Your Costume Needs Work: Penfold was once introduced as "Penfold, bronze medal winner in the Penfold Lookalike Competition".
• Your Size May Vary:
  • Sometimes the animators were inconsistent with the size of DM and Penfold, even though the beginning of every episode shows them living in a pillar box. A lot of the time they were their normal rodent size, but sometimes they were the size of short humans.
  • It wasn't just DM and Penfold. The episode "Bandits, Beans and Ballyhoo" even had Mexican bandito El Loco smuggling himself into the country by hiding in their luggage, and he doesn't exactly have any trouble fitting inside the pillar box.
  • The 2015 reboot gets around this by making the characters human size and the pillar box the size of a tall building.
• Zeppelins from Another World: Briefly glimpsed while Greenback is looking through the world portal in "Sinister Mouse".

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