Now you’ll have cause to say both “Wowzers” and “Crumbs” because two classic cartoon series from the 1980s are going to come to Netflix in rebooted fashion. It was announced today (via USA Today) that the streaming service magnate has acquired the U.S. rights to both a CG Inspector Gadget and a new series of popular British series Danger Mouse. Both shows have been updated in their native countries, Canada (via DHX Media) and the UK (via Fremantle and the BBC) respectively, but have never aired in the United States until now. Gadget premieres in March, as in next month, and Mouse will arrive Spring of 2016.
For anybody who had Nickelodeon in the ’80s, you’re probably very familiar with both of these shows, which aired almost incessantly in the pre-Nicktoon days. The amount of old, weird anime or French cartoons that got shown was pretty staggering. Inspector Gadget premiered in 1983 and followed the dunderheaded exploits of a bionic secret agent whose whole body was full of devices to help him solve crimes. However, he was pretty useless and not very observant, so most of the crimes were actually solved by his genius niece Penny and her intelligent but always-exasperated dog Brain.
Danger Mouse aired on Nickelodeon from 1982-1992 and was about a mouse who was a secret agent, wore a badass eye patch and drove a cool, tiny car. His sidekick in these adventures was the timid, always-frightened-or-excited hamster Penfold and, almost exclusively, the villain was the evil toad Baron Greenback and his crow henchman Stiletto Mafioso.
This seems to be the week of updating kids shows; earlier today it was announced that Disney is revamping Duck Tales, and yesterday Pee-wee Herman’s upcoming Judd Apatow-produced film will be coming to Netflix later this year.
What do you think of all these reboots of our childhood? Certainly look like they could be good. If they keep the awesome theme songs to all of them, then I don’t think we’ll have anything to worry about.
eatured Image: GADGET DHX Media; MOUSE FremantleMedia Limited
Bring back FUTURAMA
I live Danger Mouse as much as I hate Inspector Gadget.
Maybe not for inspector Gadget, but the animation for danger mouse and Duckula and all that looked old even for our time (because it was at least a little), and it was still awesome. Just re-introduce the originals, no need for reboot!
Or if you do reboot, do something better than that lifeless, uncanny valley looking Inspector Gadget, and bad flash animation looking Danger mouse…
Come on, man, Count Duckula is bad. Just bad.
They need to reboot ReBoot