YMMV / Danger Mouse

1981 Series

• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series was very popular in America when it first aired in 1984 on Nickelodeon^note In fact, it was Nickelodeon's idea to give Count Duckula his own spinoff., and it became one of the earliest British cartoons (though not the first) to enter syndication in America, thanks to its quick-witted English humour appealing to both pre-teens and adults. Heck, some Americans believe that Danger Mouse may have helped start The Renaissance Age of Animation.
  • Also, known under the title Dare Dare Motus, this series was popular in France in the time.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In the 1979 pilot, "The Mystery of the Lost Chord", Danger Mouse is not voiced by David Jason, but rather by William Franklyn, who is probably best remembered for voicing "The Book" (the narrator) in the third, fourth and fifth series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978). Come 2015, and the actor who played "The Book" in the film adaption is the current voice of Colonel K.
• Ho Yay: This exchange from "All Fall Down":
  Mac The Fork (on phone to Dudley Poyson) Listen, Dudley...how do ye feel about bein' mah partner?
  Dudley: (laughs giddily) Are you proposing marriage?
• Macekre: This time, it's from English into something else. The series was dubbed into Gaelic for Scottish audiences (population of Scotland: approx. 5.5 million, number of Gaelic speakers: somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000) and the result is rightly regarded as an abomination. For a start, ITV changed the title character's name and theme tune. (He was given the rather generic Scottish name of "Donnie Murdo", because why would "Cunnart Luch" have "DM" on his chest?)
• Memetic Mutation: When the show was at its peak in the mid-80s, any child in the UK with really thick glasses was prone to being called "Penfold" at least three times a day.
• Moe: Take one look at Penfold and try and tell us he isn't this.
• Retroactive Recognition: Colonel K and Baron Greenback are Mr. Growbag.
• Seasonal Rot: Several believe this kicked in the last three seasons, with a few recycled plots and some characters (most notably Colonel K) getting hit with cases of the dumbasses.
• Values Dissonance: Quite a few cultures like Africans, Mexicans, and Native Americans come in for some stereotyping that now comes off as horrifically offensive.

2015 Series

• Abandon Shipping:
  • Some shippers of Penfold and Scarlett Johamster jumped off the ship after "There's Something About Scarlett" ended with Penfold running away from Scarlett. However, "Danger-Thon" implied that the two are still together.
  • The ship between Danger Mouse/Jeopardy Mouse seemed to die down after the latter was more than happy to arrest the former in "Groundmouse Day". DM secretly humiliating her at the end of that episode, coupled with Jeopardy's reaction to his scooping awards in "The Supies" seems to all but confirm the two have stopped being friends altogether.
  • The controversial scene between Danger Mouse and Penfold disguised as Professor Squawkencluck in "The Scare Mouse Project" led a good amount to jump off the Danger Mouse/Squawkencluck ship, namely due to Squawkencluck's disgusted reaction. Ironically (or maybe because of this), the rest of season 2 actually increased the amount of Ship Tease between the two, culminating in the final scene of "The World Is Full of Stuff" revealing they become husband and wife. In hindsight, several now view the scene in "Project" as straight-up Danger Mouse/Squawkencluck teasing.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Some people believe that Professor Squawkencluck is autistic.
  • Many people believe Danger Moth is diagnosed with ADHD. This comes out of the fact that she is easily distracted by light bulbs.
• Ass Pull:
  • At the end of "Attack of the Clowns", Danger Mouse puts a few pies on his face and the super-serial alien clowns suddenly now have a sense of humour. Even after they spent the whole day tipping cream all over London from their spaceships.
  • In "The World is Full of Stuff", Professor Squawkencluck having a skeleton key to free herself, Danger Mouse, and Penfold from chains, stuck in her "skeleton tooth". It's never been mentioned before and never mentioned again.
• Awesome Ego: Danger Mouse and Jeopardy Mouse, duh.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: Much like Gravity Falls, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, and Steven Universe, the show has gained a reputation for taking long hiatuses in between episode batches (season 2 has taken almost 2 years to complete). This has led to fans to become upset with the show's sporadic release schedule, as the hiatuses leave the fans all the more starved, especially after the cliffhanger ending of "The World Is Full of Stuff". Most recently, it has come to light that the franchise rights have been passed over to another company, meaning the show may have very well been cancelled, having produced a total of 99 episodes.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Danger Mouse himself has fallen into this. While many love him for his heroism, smug personality, and sense of humour, others dislike him for his increased recklesness and feel as though he's become a bit dumber and meaner.
  • Professor Squawkencluck. Some don't like her for occasionally coming off as a Jerkass towards Danger Mouse and for her short temper, while others love her for being very Adorkable and for being the smart, level-headed member of the Danger Agency.
  • Jeopardy Mouse is probably the most divisive. While she has a good amount of fans for her Awesome Ego and cool-looking appearance, she also has a large amount of detractors who view her as overbearing, contemptuous, hubristic, supercilious and has little redeeming qualities.
• Broken Base:
  • As mentioned above, Danger Mouse's change in personality. Several aren't happy about it as they view it as him being less of an appealing character, while others like it due to it making him seem more down to earth.
  • The fact that none of the original cast came back to the show^note That is, in the UK version. In the Mexican Spanish dub, Luis Alfonso Mendoza reprises Count Duckula.. Several believe that it doesn't work as well as the original show due to David Jason and Terry Scott being replaced by Alexander Armstrong and Kevin Eldon respectively^note Though in the latter case a recasting was necessary due to Scott's death., while others are welcome to the voice change (some even think Eldon is better at voicing Penfold than Scott).
  • Of the writers, Andrew Burrell tends to be the most divisive. Several fans don't like his episodes due to several characters (usually Danger Mouse and/or Professor Squawkencluck) grabbing hold of the Jerkass Ball, while others consider his episodes to be some of the show's most hilarious.
• Designated Villain: Isambard King Kong Brunel is presented as one of the villains, but for his episodes he seems a pretty decent guy who just wants some attention and to make the world a better place. Even when he does dangerous and stupid things willingly it's usually because he wants his inventions to go well, and he always seems just as concerned as anyone else when the world is in serious danger because of them. He even seems to quite like Danger Mouse and Penfold and in the episode "Squawkenbard Kingcluck Brunel" he's genuinely overjoyed when they actually like his inventions.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Danger Moth is one of the most popular characters of the 2015 series despite having so little screentime.
  • Of the villains, Isambard King Kong Brunel is one of the most popular, with several viewing him as not actually being that villainous, while others have said that they find him cute.
  • Based on the /co/ forums, Ian is extremely popular.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • What exactly is underneath Danger Mouse's eyepatch? While in the original series his eye was perfectly fine and the eyepatch was just uniform, in the reboot he seems to actually need it. Several fans have theorised that his eye could be blind, lazy, or maybe he doesn't even have an eye there.
  • A throwaway script gag in "The Duckula Show" regarding the vegetarian vampire's attempts to work in a date with Jeopardy Mouse inspired one fanfiction author to run with the idea of the two having a will they/won't they relationship. In a Continuity Nod to the "Duckula Show" episode, Jeopardy in one fanfic reveals she loves Duckula under the belief that he wrote this admission of love into the script. She's livid when he admits that he had written something completely different, and non-romantic, into the script instead and that she said this under her own power.
  • The ending of the episode "Duplicated Mouse", where it's revealed Squawkencluck's experiments with a light speed hyperdrive resulted in the creation of a duplicate Earth, has allowed some fanfiction authors to continue developing their fanon pairings without risk of being restricted by the show's canonical developments, as they can now say their favourite 'ships can still occur on one of these two Earths.
• Fanon:
  • Several fans tend to write Danger Mouse as secretly having PTSD. This tends to cross over with a backstory about why he wears an eyepatch.
  • A few have given Danger Mouse's real name as "Danny". His real name has never been revealed in the actual series, though it seems most likely that "Danger Mouse" is his real name.
  • Professor Squawkencluck being embarassed at her oversized bottom. It's been mentioned in at least three fanfics (two of which it's the main focus), but in the series proper it's almost never commented on.
  • Many like to view Danger Moth as being a lesbian.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: The Squawkencluck/Penfold 'ship.
  • Danger Mouse/Danger Moth and Danger Moth/Squawckencluck fanfics are quite popular with some fanfic authors.
  • Danger Mouse/Penfold is INCREDIBLY popular, particularly with older fans who emigrated from the original show to the reboot.
• Genius Bonus: In the 2015 episode "Greenfinger", the "Welsh Space Plant" closes the show by singing a triumphant song. Welshians in the audience will recognize it as the traditional Welsh song "Men of Harlech" sung in Welsh.
• Girl-Show Ghetto: Averted for the show itself (a quick search on Tumblr shows that it has a faithful female following), but several have accused the merchandise of falling into "boy's toys", namely as Professor Squawkencluck, one of the main characters, remains unreleased as an action figure to this very day, despite all the other (male) main characters being available.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The shot of Danger Mouse and Professor Squawkencluck hugging in "Big Head Awakens", now that "The World is Full of Stuff" implies that they will become an Official Couple in the future.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The 2016 episode "Hail Hydrant" shares some parallels with the "Hydra Cap" controversy. Though it first aired a month afterwards, the episode would have been made long before.
  • "Bot Battles" isn't the first time a TV series parodied Fight Club and Robot Wars at the same time.
• Ho Yay: Danger Mouse's passport lists Penfold as his spouse.
• Moe: The reboot gives off quite a few:
  • Penfold. Is. Adorable. He was already pretty Adorkable in the original series, but in the reboot...good grief! He's so childlike and endearing that you can't help but want to hug him. He also makes Puppy-Dog Eyes surprisingly often.
  • Professor Squawkencluck is also very adorable herself, namely thanks to her Tareme Eyes. Though short tempered and snarky, she's been shown on various occasions to be a very Nice Girl at heart.
    • Especially when she was a teenager.
  • Danger Moth also fits this trope, without a doubt.
  • Dawn Crumhorn deliberately envokes this, as she is an adorable poodle puppy … who is also terrifying.
  • Teenage!Dawn can also cross over into this. She's probably meant to be a bit less adorable due to her being an Emo Teen, but many thought she looked just as, if not more adorable than usual.
  • The Danger Babies.
  • Heck, the entire reboot is pretty much this trope - even Danger Mouse himself has had a few surprisingly adorable moments.
  • Even some of the villains can be viewed as this. As well as Dawn, mentioned above, many find both Count Duckula and Isambard King Kong Brunel to be surprisingly cute.
  • The Queen in this series is a tiny corgi.
• Nausea Fuel: The "fart cannon" that Danger Mouse built onto his robot in "Bot Battles".
• Retroactive Recognition: Count Duckula is Alfur.
• The Scrappy: Quark is generally disliked by most fans, who find him to be rather bland and unfunny.
• Shallow Parody: "Melted" is meant to be a parody of Frozen (2013), but it's not as well done as a parody as the stories are very different from each other (The Film in "Melted" features anthropomorphic characters, and focuses on a love triangle instead of the relationship between sisters). Tropes Are Not Bad, however, as when the episode aired, Frozen parodies had been done to death in the media and as such a "parody" which was more original was viewed as a breath of fresh air.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Danger Mouse/Danger Moth, Danger Moth/Squawkencluck, Duckula/Jeopardy Mouse
• Ship Teasing: While not seen all that much in the first season of the reboot, the second season has begun to sow seeds for more personal relationships from the leads and their supporting cast, this has even extended to giving Penfold a recurring love interest with hollywood actress Scarlett Johamster.
  • Jeopardy Mouse longs for DM's company when the pair lead separate lives stranded on an alien planet in "Lost Tempers in Space", and one of the captives on the planet is a Shipper on Deck for the pair. In "Thanksgiving Sinner", Jeopardy invites both DM and Penfold to America to spend thanksgiving dinner with her..and gets slightly emotional when she explains to them how much she values their friendship (of course, DM gets the wrong end of the stick and thinks she's talking about people in her life other than himself and Penfold)
  • The episode "Day of the Derek" reveals Danger Mouse and Penfold's future descendants will marry.
  • The teasing for Squawkencluck and Penfold hit it's apex in the latter stages of the second season. In "A Fistful of Penfolds" Squawk rescues Penfold from an army of rogue "Tenfold" drones she had created. At one point in the episode, she openly admits to wanting to kiss him, with Penfold attempting to reciprocate with a kiss before Squawk declines. "Jam Session" sees Squawk attempt to persuade Penfold to take her out to a cosplay convention, one of the favours she does for him is give him massage therapy. In "Crouching Hamster, Hidden Wagon" she refers to Penfold as her hero. The musical episode "Melted" also furthered the teasing, revealing the two share a mutual love of a musical.
  • Danger Mouse/Professor Squawkencluck get their fair share of ship teasing in season 2 as well, to the point that it's now rivalling Penfold/Squawkencluck. To elaborate: in "Daylight Savings Crime" Squawkencluck accidentally pinches Danger Mouse's butt. Then, in "Bot Battles", Squawkencluck accidentally farts and Danger Mouse promptly teases her for it. "Melted" has Squawkencluck being driven to tears at Danger Mouse's singing voice. More recently, in "We Aren't Family", Danger Mouse and Squawkencluck pose as a married couple (with Penfold as their son) and they perform a romantic dance together during a dance competition. "Danger-Thon" also hints that Danger Mouse wants to be like Squawkencluck, with a video clip having him act like her. Most tellingly, in "The World Is Full of Stuff", Squawk invents a camera that can take snapshots of future events, revealing that she and DM share a kiss. While the events of the episode show all is not as it seems (DM and Squawk's "kiss" is just a way of transferring a key in Squawk's mouth to DM's mouth), the cliffhanger ending of the episode sees the alien antagonist take another photo of the two which reveals they get married in the future!
  • Danger Mouse/Penfold gets its fair share of ship teases, the main ones being Penfold being listed as DM's spouse on his passport, DM and Penfold singing a romantic duet, a Danger Mouse worshipping cult referring to Penfold as Danger Mouse's "special one", and not least the official Danger Mouse twitter posting this image.
  • The musical episode "Melted" actually seems to have done a lot of ship teasing. It may very well open the doors to Danger Mouse/Pink Dawn (especially that last big duet the two shared), some fanfic writers are a little uneasy with this because of the Jail Bait Taboo implications, but some authors cite the episode "Dark Dawn" as a way out due to it's reveal Dawn is a much older (and moodier) teenager when she isn't wearing her tiara, which merely creates the illusion she is a little girl. Her actual age remains a mystery, it could range from thirteen to nineteen (age of consent)
  • Another possible pairing is Dawn and Mr.Snuggles, largely in part to their reconciliation in Dark Dawn
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: At first, shipping fans of the series generally got along with each other well, with arguing over ships being almost non-existent. Then "The World is Full of Stuff" happened, and the reveal that Danger Mouse and Professor Squawkencluck become an Official Couple in the future was not met well with several shipping fans. Most notably, such combat has happened between Danger Mouse/Professor Squawkencluck and Danger Mouse/Penfold shippers since then, in a manner similar to Tomstar vs. Starco.
• Spiritual Adaptation: The 2015 series has been considered by some to be a better Powerpuff Girls reboot than the actual reboot.
• Strawman Has a Point: Danger Mouse in "There's Something About Scarlett" is portrayed as being in the wrong for constantly saving Penfold and Scarlett's lives from the villains trying to steal the latter (albeit by making it look as though Penfold was saving her). While it is true that his advice to Penfold on being an action-hero type towards Scarlett was definitely wrong, it wasn't his fault at all that the villains kept crashing Penfold and Scarlett's dates and they did need to be ridden of.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: The ending of "Melted".
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some are not happy about the 2015 series lowering DM's intelligence and succumbing to the Flawless Token route by introducing two female protagonists who are for the most part smarter and more competent than him.
  • Although this may be less a case of dumbing down and simply a case of Technology Marches On- as an agent who was active in the early 1980's and about twenty years out of step even then would naturally be clueless about innovations such as advanced security systems and digital tablets, while the younger, more tech-savvy next generation would be far more familiar with such things.^note However, this doesn't explain him crashing through buildings in the first episode, so it's quite hard to tell.
  • Likewise, the fame-hungry Count Duckula (Christmas Special cameo notwithstanding.) might suffer exactly the same sort of Culture Shock upon re-awaking in 2016 and finding that YouTube has superseded "telly" and social media has replaced the newspaper. ^note Neither of which has actually happened.
  • Danger Mouse's reduced intelligence aside, Baron Greenback is an evil German all-of-a-sudden, and is now known as Baron Silas "von" Greenback.^note In the original series, he was British, just like everyone else...except for Stiletto, who is Italian, but became British in the both the remake and the American version of the original series. Although, he was referred to as "Silas von Greenback" in the episode Chicken Run.
  • The increased amount of Toilet Humour in the series has been disliked by several fans due to the fact that the original almost never used such humour^note However, the reason why the original series didn't indulge in such jokes was not due to the creators having a personal dislike for them, but rather because back in those days toilet humour was still considered rather taboo for British children's programming., and believing that the use of it in the reboot is due to such jokes being more popular in today's children's shows.

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