‘For the US, we had to change Stiletto the crow’s comical Italian accent – because the mafia wouldn’t have liked it’
We based Danger Mouse on a 1960s TV series, Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan, not
James Bond as people always thought. We reckoned a secret service mouse foiling the plans of an evil toad – Baron Silas Greenback – was suitably ridiculous. We had trouble coming up with a sidekick. Mark Hall, my business partner in [animation studio] Cosgrove Hall, and I were waiting one day at Thames Television, our financial backers, for a meeting when I doodled this little fellow with heavy glasses and a baggy suit. Mark said: “That’s the one.” I’d actually drawn my brother, Denis. He was northern editor of the Sunday Express and was bald with heavy black glasses. He did start getting called Penfold in the office. I think he was rather pleased.