Severance’s Danger Mouse cameo references a very Severance cartoon

The third episode of Severance season 2 offers new insight into the outie life of Dylan G., showing that, unlike his driven, perk-obsessed innie, the “real” version of Zach Cherry’s character isn’t exactly a go-getter. Outie Dylan seems content to sit on the couch, read the latest issue of Midlife Driver magazine, and nominally care for his kids while his wife (Merritt Wever) bears the family burden of emotional labor.

What’s even more interesting to me, as someone who sometimes obsessively dissects what’s on the TV on the TV, is the cartoon that Dylan’s kid is glued to during the aforementioned scene. It’s an episode of the classic British kids animated series Danger Mouse — an episode that feels pretty Severance-coded.

The episode of Danger Mouse included in that episode, “The Invasion of Colonel K,” is from the third season of the show and first aired in 1982. The plot involves the evil toad Baron Silas Greenback shrinking himself and his ship, the Frog’s Head Flyer, down to microscopic size and invading the brain of Colonel K, an anthropomorphized chinchilla who runs the British Secret Service in the world of Danger Mouse.

Greenback’s plan is “to seize the secrets of the world from the brain cells of Colonel K,” he says, and to ultimately rule the world as the puppeteer of the colonel. The titular hero of Danger Mouse and his sidekick Penfold, with the help of brilliant scientist mole Heinrich von Squawkencluck, likewise shrink down in order to enter K’s body and kick Greenback out.

Danger Mouse and Penfold journey to the brain of Colonel K to clean out his memory banks, where we learn that Colonel K’s consciousness still exists inside his head, even though Greenback has taken control. The episode takes extreme anatomical liberties with the inside of a chinchilla’s head, and Danger Mouse winds up expelling Greenback by shouting him out of K’s ear canal.

Whether this is a clue about the future events of Severance, or just a fun nod to a kids cartoon that may have inspired the show’s creators many decades ago, is unclear. Mark Scout finally seems keen to pursue reintegration in the latest episode of the show, and the situation with Danger Mouse’s Colonel K may just be a fun parallel. But with every line, prop, and character decision seemingly a thoughtful, highly intentional one in Severance, maybe even the inclusion of a 40-year-old episode of Danger Mouse may have some deeper meaning.

If you’d like to catch up with Danger Mouse, if only to pass the grueling weeklong wait between new Severance episodes, the original series and its 2015 revival are available to stream on Peacock.