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Some ideas just make sense in retrospect. No matter how odd it might have seemed at the time that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, or that the Red Sox would win the World Series on the night of a lunar eclipse, or that a late-night block of cartoons aimed at college students would be a runaway success, looking back makes it clear that these events were necessary–nay, ordained. And some things are immediately recognizable as bad ideas, like going to war in Iraq or making a hip-hop album about a block of cartoons aimed at college students. These ideas aren’t just bad–they’re the sort of things that bring countries and careers to ruin.

Unless, of course, you bring together a brilliant producer who doesn’t get the respect he deserves and a rapper who tends to get respect from the “wrong” quarters–the English majors, the jazz fiends, the backpackers. The Mask and The Mouse, in which Danger Mouse and MF Doom collaborate in just the first of the huge collaborations of the fall, could have turned into a horrible, syncophantic whorish enterprise, destroying careers and sullying–nay, negating–the name of Adult Swim in our hearts.

Sure, Danger Mouse has caught flak for being gimmicky. But The Grey Album was another one of those totally-obvious-in-retrospect ideas, and was the perfect vehicle to showcase his twisted pop genius. This is a man who can find the pop in everything from reggae beats to opera arias. Here, his beats are much more tense and compressed than most of his earlier work. Danger doesn’t know when to stop at points. Drumlines, violins, guitars, flutes and (the has-to-be-a-reference-) accordion get layered over one another until the whole thing threatens to break, and that he keeps it from the brink of cacophony is a testament to the man’s skill. There’s, like, four different drumline mixed together on “The Mask,” with horn stabs and soft synths trading off on top of it. “Perfect Hair” uses a flute solo to sound light even with all the complexity going on beneath it, while “Mince Meat”–one of the simpler songs on the album–still keeps morphing underneath Doom’s steady flow.

Because what Doom does here is dominate–nay, destroy: presented with a beat that morphs instead of the sudden jazzy shifts that marked Madvilliany, the man goes all English major on us. People expecting the same inventive wordplay and absurd rhyme schemes that have marked his career so far won’t be disappointed, though the similes have been turned down a notch. Doom doesn’t so much ride the beat as use his flow as its counterpoint. Watch Doom dodge and dart around the beat: on “Bada Bing” he starts by perfectly matching the rat-a-tat pace of the early song before coming unhinged and just loosely staying with the beat like a jazz soloist: “And Doom, [breath], maybe it’s him. / Called up my lady and said baby, it’s Slim. Make me up a margarita; I need to take a swim.” Chiasmus, effictio, blazon: this is the vocabulary one reaches for to describe Doom’s lines.

The specific Adult Swim content is hit or miss, though. Songs revolving around Harvey Birdman and Sealab 2021–for all of Doom’s previous success sampling cartoons–fall flat. It’s at it’s best when the characters have contributed something new to the album. Shake’s phone calls begging onto the album actually stay funny, and Meatwad performing “Beef Rap” off Mm..Food–that’s another one of those obviously-brilliant-in-retrospect ideas. The Mooninites make an appearance on the surprisingly not-childish “Vats of Urine.” Space Ghost shows up, not with Ghostface on “The Mask,” but to proclaim that, “America’s craving some Doom.” Lord knows it should be.