Unexpected flashback: DM

A recent thread on SportsJournalists.com about Gnarls Barkley took me back to my youth. Stay with me here.

Gnarls Barkley is a band - perhaps you've heard "Crazy" on the radio. It's a pretty sweet song, and you can hear it on their homepage.

Of course, their page also breaks down the band nicely. "Gnarls Barkley = Cee-Lo + Danger Mouse." An important distinction here - that's DJ Danger Mouse, not the pint-sized hero of that people of a certain age that had Nickelodeon might remember.

Reading about DJ Danger Mouse brought back fond memories of the cartoon Danger Mouse. Luckily, there are episode clips here and there on YouTube and IFilm, and one complete episode ("The Dream Machine") that I found on Google video.

I used to watch that show as religiously as I watched the 90-minute block of Thundercats, Transformers and G.I. Joe. I can't say for sure why I liked it; I guess the idea of programming from someplace as remote as England was cool (though the number of Asian names during the credits during Thundercats probably made that more remote than England; yet the T-cats never spoke with an accent).

I always thought Penfold was the shit. As before, I'm not sure why I identified with a right-hand-hamster; perhaps it was because he served as the comedic relief. I always strived to be the comedian, but its effect was limited because I was (and still am) rarely quick-witted.

Maybe I just always wanted a car that could take off and fly. Maybe I wanted a direct patch-in to HQ in my living room. Maybe I just wanted a seventh-floor flat in a mailbox on the corner in a city.

Who knows? But then again, who can say as 11-year olds why we're attracted to one thing and not another? For me, Danger Mouse was always kick-ass.

Since I found videos and SJ.com folks who knew of it, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one.