Danger Mouse: From Duck to Dawn – review

Directors: Robert Cullen & Simon Hall

First aired: 2016 (episodes)

Contains spoilers

So before we had the show Count Duckula the character had appeared in four episodes of the series Danger Mouse as a villain. When Danger Mouse was rebooted as a series in 2015 it seemed sensible that Duckula (Rasmus Hardiker) would be repurposed for that show.

Cut forward and this compilation DVD was released featuring the villainous vampire duck on the cover. And yet, of eight episodes only two featured Duckula (his portrait and a statue appeaed in others as background eye candy). Two… Two measly episodes. The character has been in more than that… I feel as though I need a mouse super-spy to come along and work out why we’ve been diddled.

adversaries

Not that the other episodes were bad, mind you. This reboot is very well done with Alexander Armstrong taking over the reigns as the titular Danger Mouse and Kevin Eldon as Penfold, the series stayed very true to the original with some nice twists – I rather liked the idea of Arkwright Asylum. As for Duckula… well he is villainous once again (and just as inept) and likely he is a different incarnation to the vegetarian vampire duck of his own series (the resurrection ritual was botched to create his less villainous persona).

shadow of the vampire

Duckula is still obsessed with being famous. In the episode From Duck to Dawn we get a mission to Transylvania, where Duckula is broadcasting a hypnotic show that turns the viewers, literally, into vegetables. We get a crap bat carrot, a bar called the Slaughtered Llama and an appearance by a werewolf. In the episode The Duckula Show, tired of being the second rate villain that he is, Duckula kidnaps the Danger Mouse show writers (shown to be monkeys) and uses them to alter the fabric of the show’s reality.

with the radish Renfield

It is all good stuff… But dagnabbit I wanted more Duckula than that. Be that as it may, we have to live with what we have and I am certainly not down marking the DVD set for its lack of Duckula. All in all I think this was an excellent reboot, great fun episodes… but needing more Duckula (fans of Danger Mouse will be well served, to be fair). 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.