It happens all the time. A popular long-running show runs out of steam, the talent takes itself off to do other stuff, bereft fans are left to pore over old clips on YouTube. Then after many years it makes a triumphant return from the dustbin of history. I’m not talking about the rumoured exhumation of Blackadder, or all those Seventies game shows that have had garish 21st-century makeovers. No, on this occasion it’s a kids’ show that has risen from the dead. And hurrah, because it’s great.

'I don't need to play Bond now.' Alexander Armstrong is the new voice of Danger Mouse Credit: BBC

Danger Mouse, made by Thames TV between 1982 and 1991, was a whip-smart parody of British spy action capers starring the titular titchy rodent super-agent alongside Penfold, “the world’s 12th greatest sidekick”. It has returned as a CBBC series in an age when the decline of children’s television is axiomatic. I don’t catch much children’s TV, mine having flown the coop, but I must now make a furtive exception.

Why? Danger Mouse is smarter and funnier than most grown-up comedy. Like the best Pixar scripts, it trades in irony and self-commentary. The show often refers to its own production budget, much of which was blown in the first episode’s opening sequence when London was flattened, requiring the narrator to supply the incidental music.

The original Danger Mouse Credit: Ronald Grant Archive

It also doesn’t patronise its junior audience. The opening potshots at London’s grandiose toytown architecture showed the Millennium Wheel, the Gherkin and, hilariously, the Tennis Racket and the House of Cards (which duly collapsed). There were snappy riffs about talk shows, holograms and ringtones. And the language is a treat. “Activate the liquid disrupter distributers!” ordered Danger Mouse. “Eh?” said Penfold. “Fire the splat guns!” Alexander Armstrong brought just the right level of spiffing all-English pep to the voice of the hero. Stephen Fry had fun as the head of the secret service, and there was top-line support from, among other star vocal gymnasts, Kevin Eldon and Morwenna Banks.

Danger Mouse is a snappy British triumph. Credit is due to head writer Ben Ward, Hollywood-savvy composer Sanj Sen and animation studio Boulder Media. It’s on every day this week and beyond. Seriously, sit down with a child and catch it.