An interview with Danger Mouse
by Glen Passman.
�����A little backstreet cafe in London on a cold and frosty day in mid January.� It's not the exact place you expect to meet someone who was once at the top of his trade.� As a fine comedy actor, an intelligent special agent of the British secret service, and as a little white mouse.� But it was here the instructions told me to go to if I wanted the scoop of the century.� An interview with the one and only Danger Mouse himself.
�����It was a remarkable moment as I passed through the door to see the once almighty rodent sitting in front of me as large as life.� He had soon disappeared completely from public life after the ending of his television contract and the dissolution of MI5's special rodent agency.� Many rumours had formed about his disappearance, including that he'd joined forces with famed supercriminal Baron Greenback in a vain attempt at world domination, that he'd joined a strange rodent-worshipping cult in the middle of the Nevada desert, or that he'd been eaten up by a large ginger tom.� DM himself takes up the story.
�����"Well, after the split of the programme, I tried my hand at other modes of fame, managed to get a recording contract with Sony which in the end came to nothing, wrote an autobiography that got censored by the MOD, stuff like that.� In the end I have to admit I lost it.� Went onto some heavy shit, you know, drink and drugs and stuff.� In the end I started to have hallucinations that Penfold was in fact Satan's pet hamster sent to signal the start of Armageddon.� When they found me by his bed one morning with a baseball bat and a box of hamster food, I think they realised I'd a serious problem and threw me into drug rehab.� None of it made the news of course, they'd just started rerunning the show, and decided to keep it totally secret.� Kept it from the tabloids too, dunno how they pulled that off!"
�����So, I asked DM, you mentioned Penfold there, do you still have contact with him?
�����"No, that wasn't the first time I'd tried to kill him and quite frankly he was getting a little pissed off at it all.� In the end he got an injunction to keep me away.� Last I heard, he'd settled in a nice postbox over in Surbiton with a wife and kid.� And good luck to him I say.� Of course, we send each other Christmas and birthday cards, but that's all for the past... ooh... three years I think."
�����What was Penfold really like?� Was he really that timid little rodent everyone saw?
�����DM chuckled to himself.� "Ooh, no way!� Okay, when the cameras were on him he played them up.� The cameras loved him!� Okay, there was a rumour at the time that the cameraman also loved him, but that's a different story.� Anyway, when the cameras were off, he was a right foul-mouthed blighter!� Good grief, once the director called cut, he'd eff and blind like nothing you ever heard!� And he had such a temper too!� Production got him the wrong type of cheese once, he'd asked for cheddar, they'd got him wensleydale, and he threw an almighty tantrum!� Half-destroyed the pillar-box, and took ages to sort out the mess.� Cost Thames TV an absolute fortune, it did.� I'm not saying he wasn't great fun though.� Nights on the town were always a riot with old Penfold.� He had this party trick involving a pint glass, a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps and a cheap whore..."
�����Aaaaanyway, what about your boss?
�����"Oh, you mean Colonel K?� Ooh, the stories I could tell you about him.� They say he's got little walruses all over the place, he used to spread it about if you catch my drift.� Used to boast about his 'accomplishments' too, once he claimed he laid three lasses in one night!� He was a sex machine, that guy!� Of course, his wife didn't see him much, it all came out in the papers, they divorced, and he just lost it worse than I did.� He did the whole last series of Danger Mouse whilst out of his tree on this-and-that.� We tried getting a stand-in for him.� Cosgrove wouldn't have any of it though, said we needed to keep him in for the ratings.� I still blame him for it all collapsing like it did.� Haven't seen him or heard from him since."
�����I heard a rumour that there were some dodgy dealings between Colonel K and Baron Greenback...
�����"There was!� You really think that we'd be able to beat Greenback all the time?� I mean that Stiletto was a real hardcase, there was no way we'd get past him like we did.� Yeah, Colonel K had a little 'slush fund' as he called it, kept some money aside in the department's budget, used it for backhanders to Greenback.� Worked though.� Some say it went on in a lot of the Intelligence services, although I can't vouch for it myself."
�����I lined myself up to ask him another question, but I was interrupted by a mysterious figure who tapped Danger Mouse on the shoulder.� He was a rotund fellow, but the shadow cast by the hat he wore masked his face, although I could make out a green hue...
�����"I'm sorry," said DM, "Time's up, I can't answer anymore questions.� I have... erm... things to plan as my lovely *choke choke!* secretary has reminded me...� STILLET... erm... BODYGUARD!� See Mr Passman to the door please, there's a nice crow!"
�����So, that was the end of that.� A meeting and the truth from the one and only Danger Mouse, still a powerhouse by anyone's standards.
� Glen Passman 1998.
Danger Mouse and all connected characters are � Cosgrove Hall Productions. �Not really used with permission, but hoping they don't mind use using them!
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