Danger Mouse - Close Encounters of the Absurd Kind [VHS] [1981]

Anyone who was a child in the first half of the 1980s will be rushing out to buy Danger Mouse, a readymade time machine to transport you back to those halcyon days of coming home from school to collapse cross-legged in front of the TV. In each action-packed episodes, our righteous rodent triumphs time and again over his arch-nemesis Baron Silas Greenback--the world's most evil toad--battling off everything from aliens and monsters to exploding custard and runaway washing machines. As ever, each episode opens in Danger Mouse's hidden hideaway (located under a post box "somewhere in Mayfair"), the furry Secret Agent duly receiving his instructions from spluttering boss Colonel K. Then it's into the Mousemobile and out onto London's streets, as DM and his trusty sidekick Penfold set off to find their croaky foe and save the day. While the animation is basic and, at 20 minutes a pop, the stories have a tendency to lose momentum, the knowing wit and fabulous theme tune more than compensate. Much of the credit has to go to writer Mike Harding, who mercilessly mimics spy movie clichés until every last laugh is wrung out, but even more should go to David "Del Boy" Jason. Not content with simply voicing the eponymous hero, he also conjures up unrecognisable tones for Colonel K and two of Greenback's loyal hench-creatures, Nero and Count Duckula. And then there's his deliciously portentous voice-over, greeting each cross-cut with the obligatory "meanwhile . . .". An all-round must-buy, but with one important warning: don't expect to sleep once that signatory music starts whizzing round your head: "He's the greatest, he's fantastic, wherever there is danger, he'll be there. Danger Moooouuuusssseeee...." --Jamie Graham