Avenger Penguins

Avenger Penguins is a British animated series produced by Cosgrove Hall Films, Granada Television, Thames Television, and Anglia Television in 1993, and animated by both Alfonso Productions, a Spanish-based animation studio also responsible for bringing Cosgrove Hall's show Fantomcat to life, and in-house by Cosgrove Hall themselves. It aired largely on Children's ITV and was originally to be called Hell's Penguins, although was renamed in concern to how the religious audience in the US would respond. It has the distinction of being the last Cosgrove Hall cartoon to be animated using hand painted animation cels, as all 2D animated series from the studio thereafter would use computers for the ink and paint process; with the animation drawings scanned and then digitally coloured. 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 canine squad of Hell's Angels. As with most Cosgrove Hall cartoons, 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. The core of the show's theme is coincidently similar to Biker Mice from Mars. The cast, like Danger Mouse and Count Duckula had with David Jason, boasted a star talent in a major role, this time in the form of Mike McShane as the Penguin's un-coordinated but brash leader Marlon, as well as the villainous Doom. 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 season 2 episode, "The 23rd Century" also served as a parody of Star Trek. The entire series was released on a three-disc DVD box set in March 2006.