Secret Squirrel

Character profile

Secret Squirrel (voiced with a slight lisp by Mel Blanc) serves as a secret agent, taking orders from his superior, Double-Q (voiced by Paul Frees), of the International Sneaky Service. His designation is Agent 000. Secret Squirrel is assisted in his adventures by fez-wearing, bespectacled sidekick Morocco Mole (also voiced by Paul Frees impersonating Peter Lorre).

The pair fights crime and evil enemy agents using cunning and a variety of spy gadgets, including a machine gun cane, a collection of weapons kept inside Secret's trench coat which is also bulletproof, and a variety of devices concealed in his purple fedora (which has eye holes cut in it and which he almost never removes).

Secret Squirrel's recurring arch-enemy is Yellow Pinkie (also voiced by Frees), a parody of both Auric Goldfinger from Goldfinger and of Sydney Greenstreet's portrayal of the Kasper Gutman character from Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. The last three episodes introduced Hy-Spy (again voiced by Frees), the master of scientific criminology.

Broadcast history

The show's debut was on September 12, 1965 in The World of Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel prime-time special on NBC.

The original series was broadcast from October 2, 1965 to September 2, 1967. Secret Squirrel had his own show in 1966 and was then reunited with Atom Ant in 1967 until 1968. Episodes were broadcast in syndication and as part of The Banana Splits variety and compilation series. It used to air from time to time on Boomerang from April 1, 2000 until March 2, 2014.

Super Secret Secret Squirrel

Years later in 1993, Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole were revived in 1993 for back-up segments of TBS Superstation's animated series 2 Stupid Dogs. Titled Super Secret Secret Squirrel, these new cartoons featured Secret Squirrel (voiced by Jess Harnell) and Morocco Mole (voiced by Jim Cummings). 2 Stupid Dogs creator Donovan Cook was asked by then-new Hanna-Barbera president Fred Seibert to choose a classic studio cartoon to revive within the main show, and Super Secret Secret Squirrel was the result. After Cook guided the updated design with artists Paul Rudish and Craig McCracken, supervising producer Larry Huber, the "adult supervision" assigned by Seibert, was responsible for all further aspects of these cartoons. He assigned animator David Feiss to the storyboards to hilarious results, with the conventional wisdom that the cartoons had superior humor to the original, somewhat drab films. The reason to revive Secret Squirrel is because it was one of Cook's favorite Hanna-Barbera shows.

These segments featured different artwork compared to the original 1960s cartoons. All the characters inhabiting the world were now animals. Double-Q (voiced by Tony Jay), now simply called "the Chief", is now a Cape buffalo with a cherry-scented calabash pipe. Yellow Pinkie (voiced by Jim Cummings) is now a sea lion renamed Goldflipper and, despite being Secret Squirrel's arch-enemy, he only appeared in one episode of this version. These new shorts also introduced Penny (voiced by Kimmy Robertson), a female squirrel assistant to Double-Q (à la Miss Moneypenny) as a possible love interest for Secret Squirrel (as hinted at in the episodes "Queen Bea" and "Quark"). Morocco's color scheme has been redesigned, had his wardrobe's palette swapped, wears sunglasses and has an evil twin brother named Scirocco Mole (voiced by Jess Harnell). With the exception of "Egg" and "Agent Penny", every episode is named after the foes Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole encounter. Secret's art design remained relatively intact, but with a more modern design than the previous animated series' version of the character, featuring hard lines and sharper angles, giving him a leaner and more slick style.

His hat has a slightly different style. Secret also loses his signature lisp given to him by Blanc's portrayal similar to Sylvester the Cat (although it was paid homage in the episode "Goldflipper" where Secret spoke with it to mock Morocco's sudden lisp in that episode), but Harnell's portrayal gives Secret an update suave voice in reminiscence of him sometimes breaking into his Wakko Warner voice without the Scouse accent, most notably when he is screaming. Cummings' portrayal of Morocco makes his voice less of a Peter Lorre impersonation but high-pitched with the kept Moroccan accent. The Chief speaks with a British accent now as evidenced by his catchphrase; "Good show, Secret". Apparently, in the 1993 revival, the personality and traits of Secret and Morocco have been switched opposed to their original '60s personality. Morocco was more of a chauffeur and is quite intelligent, but in the revival he is more independent as a sidekick, became too much bungling and is more childlike, often getting injured in most scenes, which was Secret's department in the '60s series, and often saying his catchphrase "Okay!". Secret is more portrayed as a bumbling hero in the original while in the new version, Secret is capable of doing his job right and at some aspects can be part-workaholic and part-easy going, while able to get the job done.

Most of his injuries either come from his job or are from the influence of Morocco's actions. Like the original, he has a gadget used for almost everything but mostly relies more on his mixed martial arts combat. Despite the changes, the new shorts still had a big fanbase and a cult following. This new series seems to have fallen under the villain of the week formula and Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole have once appeared on a 2 Stupid Dogs story in the episode "Let's Make a Right Price", which was an advertisement for Granny's Joybone Doggy Treats, and Little Dog and Big Dog appeared on a Secret Squirrel story in the episode "Scirocco Mole" as contestants in a game show.

Other appearances

LP album

Hanna-Barbera Records released a Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole: Superspy (HLP-2046) LP album in 1966. It featured an adventure with several songs. Mel Blanc voiced Secret Squirrel, but Daws Butler voiced Morocco Mole instead of Paul Frees.

DVD releases

The episode "Sub Swiper" is available on the DVD Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960s Vol. 1. On November 3, 2015, Warner Archive released The Secret Squirrel Show: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna–Barbera Classics Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.

Secret Squirrel: The Complete Series was made available for download via iTunes in August 2016.

Voices

Production credits