First broadcast 20040110. First repeated 20100522.
The tiny (3 miles by 5 miles) European Duchy of Grand Fenwick, nestled in the Alps between Switzerland and France, proudly retains a pre-industrial economy, dependent almost entirely on making Pinot Grand Fenwick wine.
When an American winery makes a knockoff version, "Pinot Grand Enwick", it quickly puts the tiny country on the verge of bankruptcy. The Prime Minister decides that their only course of action is to declare war on the United States. Expecting a quick and total defeat (since their standing army is tiny and equipped with bows and arrows), the country confidently expects to rebuild itself through the generous largesse that the United States bestows on all its vanquished enemies (as it did for Germany through the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II.)
Instead, the Duchy defeats the mighty superpower, purely by accident: landing in New York City, almost completely deserted above ground because of a city-wide disaster drill, the Duchy's invading "army" (composed of the Field Marshal, three men-at-arms, and twenty longbowmen) wanders to a top secret government lab and unintentionally captures the "Q-bomb", a prototype doomsday device that could destroy the world if triggered.
The "army" had been sighted by a Civil Defense Squad ensuring everybody was 'safe' in the subway tunnels and was immediately taken to be "men from Mars!" due to the metal chain mail of the invaders. When the Secretary of Defense pieced together what had happened (with help from the five lines in his encyclopedia on Grand Fenwick and the Fenwickian flag left behind on a flagpole), he was both ashamed and astonished that the United States was unaware that it had been at war for two months.
The Mouse That Roared was made into a 1959 film starring Peter Sellers in three roles (Duchess Gloriana XII; Count Rupert Mountjoy, the Prime Minister; and Tully Bascomb, the military leader), and co-starring Jean Seberg (as Helen Kokintz, as an added love interest).
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