Avenger Penguins

"Avenger Penguins" was an animated series produced by Cosgrove Hall Films in 1993, it was animated by Alfonso Productions, a Spanish based animation studio also responsible for bringing Cosgrove's previous show Fantomcat to life. It aired largely on Children's ITV. It has the distinction of being the last Cosgrove Hall cartoon to be animated using freely hand painted cells, it was originally to be called "Hell's Penguins"

The story revolves around three bike riding Penguins that inhabit Big City, uniting to protect it and its citizens from the evil Caractacus P. Doom, an insane and reclusive criminal scientist. The Penguins attempt to prevent Doom's schemes but find themselves often hampered by their own miscommunicating and occasional scraps with other biker gangs infesting Big City, such as The Stink Brothers, a rodent squad of Hell's Angels The series poked fun at the popular concepts of having creatures performing inhuman action feats and stunts in an animated medium, made popular by the then enormously successful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, at its core the show's themes heavily rung of Biker Mice From Mars. The cast, like DangerMouse and Count Duckula had with David Jason, boasted a star talent in a major role, this time in the form of Michael McShane as the Penguin's un-coordinated but brash leader Marlon. To show how the series was mocking the often rushed animation style of the original TMNT series, two supporting characters known as "The Badly Drawn Brothers" were always left with the design construction lines still showing out of deliberate neglect.

Pop culture references were found in abundance in many of the episodes and in the characters, Doom himself is patterned on an elderly Orson Welles, Harry Slime (who talks like Peter Lorre) in the meantime is based somewhat on Harry Lime, a character from the movie The Third Man.

The entire series was released on a three disc DVD box set in March 2006 alongside Alias the Jester

Voice actors

Voices: Michael McShane (Marlon / Caractacus P. Doom),
Jimmy Hibbert (Bluey / Harry Slime / Bella / Brown Badly Drawn Brother / Poodle Stink),
Rob Rackstraw (Rocky / Doc / Cecil Stink / Irv), Lorelei King

Episodes

Season One (1993)

# "The President Is A Fish" - First aired: 9/22/1993
# "The Hog Jamboree"
# "The Quantum Mechanic"
# "Big City, Little City"
# "Computer Chaos"
# "I Married An Android"
# "Cat Pig- Cat Of Iron"
# "Nightmare At Tea-Time"
# "Star Struck"
# "The Labyrinth Of Doom"
# "The Wild Wild Wild Wild West"
# "A Winter's Tale (Part One Of Two)"
# "The Revenge Of Doom (Part Two Of Two)""

Season Two (1994)
# "The 23rd Century"
# "Mummy's Boy"
# "Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Penguin"
# "Surprise Fate"
# "High Doom"
# "The Jewel In The Crown"
# "A Christmas Carol"
# "Fish Finger (Dream episode)"
# "Disgusting Or What?"
# "Rock'N'Roll Penguins"
# "The Computer Of Doom"
# "Sherlock's Penguins" - First aired: 12/2/1994
# "Beauties And The Beast" - First aired: 12/9/1994

Trivia

*In UK the entire two series were released on DVD in March 2006 released by Delta Media PLC.
*In Australia there were six videos from Reel Entertainment releasing all the episodes of series 2 except for Disgusting or What. Each of them contain 2 episodes.

Credits

*A Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall film
*Director: Jean Scott
*Producer: Ben Turner
*Executive Producers: Mark Hall, Brian Cosgrove
*for Granada: Edward Pugh
*Written by: Phil Jackson, Malcolm McGookin, Jimmy Hibbert, Roger Stennett
*Music: Phil Bush
*Vocals: Paul Young
*Business and Finance: Phil Slattery
*Production Co-ordinator: Laura Cosgrove
*Animation Director: Carlos Alfonso (Alfonso Productions)
*Storyboard: Keith Scoble
*Design: Andy Roper, Jon Doyle, Maggie Riley, Alastair Fell, Mike Whaite
*Colourist: Joan Jones
*Film Editing: FLIX
*Dubbing Mix: John Wood
*Digital Dub Editors: Darren Cox, Simon Hall

External links

* [http://www.toonhound.com/avenger.htm Toonhound's entry on Avenger Penguins]
* [http://www.chf.co.uk/ Cosgrove Hall Films Official Website]