The former TV presenter who wrote 'Danger Mouse'
When Brian Trueman was reading the news on Granada TV in the late 1950s, his demeanour was so serious, and his delivery so deadpan, colleagues named him "Old Stoneface". But unbeknown to most viewers, Trueman had a vast well of silliness lurking inside him, said The Times. This would be unleashed some 25 years later when Trueman, who has died aged 92, was asked to provide the scripts for a new children's cartoon about the "madcap adventures" of a superspy rodent – "a secret agent so secret that even his code name has a code name".
In each brief episode, "Danger Mouse" (voiced by David Jason) is tasked with saving the world from the villainous Baron Silas Greenback (Edward Kelsey) – a whispering toad as malevolent as 007's arch-enemy Blofeld. Operating from a futuristic base in a pillar box in London's Baker Street, and assisted by a timid hamster named Penfold (Terry Scott), DM – ingenious, level-headed, quietly heroic, and yet a little bit cowardly – invariably thwarts Greenback's diabolical plot. Yet the terrible toad is never vanquished, and exits with a warning that he'll soon be back, "to show that wretched mouse the meaning of pure terror".
Trueman wrote 79 of the 89 original episodes, which featured surreal storylines (in one episode, Greenback steals all of Scotland's bagpipes to create an unspeakable cacophony) and quick-fire dialogue peppered with catchphrases ("Good grief"; "Penfold, shush"; "Crikey, DM!"). Other notable cast members included Isambard Sinclair, an off-screen narrator who sometimes ruminates on his own life; Stiletto, a trenchcoat-clad crow (voiced by Trueman himself); and Colonel K, a crusty chinchilla who is the head of the Secret Service and given to roaring: "Good show, DM!"
Brian Trueman was born in Manchester, in 1932. His mother was a secretary; his father a newspaper print worker. He started acting on BBC radio while at Stretford Grammar School, and after national service, he studied literature at the University of Manchester, where he was a "leading light" of the student drama club, said The Guardian. He carried on acting until 1957, when he was recruited to the fledgling ITV franchise Granada. As well as reading the regional news, he hosted various programmes including the documentary "A House for the Future", the film-review show "Cinema", and the children's movie quiz "Screen Test". The last was for the BBC, where he briefly had a contract; but he was not happy at the corporation – too big, too "clubby", he said.
In the mid-1970s, Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall – whom Trueman knew from Granada – asked him to come and work at Cosgrove Hall Films, their animation studio in Manchester. His first scripts were for "Chorlton and the Wheelies" (1976-1979) and "Jamie and the Magic Torch" (1977-1979). "Danger Mouse" launched in 1981 and was a huge hit. Blessed with Mike Harding's catchy theme song, it attracted more than seven million viewers at its peak (many rather older than the standard tea-time audience) and was popular in the US, too. The show ran for a decade on ITV (before being revived on the BBC in 2015) and spawned a spin off – "Count Duckula", which ran for five years. In the 1980s, Trueman set aside his gift for the anarchic to write 43 episodes of Cosgrove's charming stop-motion series based on Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows". He is survived by Angela, his wife of 63 years, and their two sons.
