Blackadder - General Discussion

[formerlyfreedom]

Discuss Series 1: The Black Adder.

[formerlyfreedom]

Discuss Series 2: Blackadder II.

[formerlyfreedom]

Discuss Series 3: Blackadder the Third.

[formerlyfreedom]

Talk about Series 4: Blackadder Goes Forth.

[formerlyfreedom]

Edmund Blackadder discussion here!

[formerlyfreedom]

Baldrick discussion.

[Meredith Quill]

Post your favourites here!

[Meredith Quill]

Absolute comedy gold! Love, love, love this show. Series 2 is my favourite, (love Queenie, Nursey -RIP & Lord Flashheart - RIP *sad face*), closely followed by series 3.

[Meredith Quill]

Blackadder: Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?

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Blackadder II

From 'Bells':  
    Blackadder: Tell me, young crone, is this Putney?
    Young Crone: [cackling] That it be! That it be!
    Blackadder: "Yes, it is," not "That it be". And you don't have to talk in that stupid voice to me, I'm not a tourist! I seek information about a  
    Wise Woman.
    Young Crone: The Wise Woman? The Wise Woman?!
    Blackadder: Yes. The Wise Woman.
    Young Crone: Two things, my Lord, must ye know of the Wise Woman. First... she is a woman! And second... she is...
    Blackadder: Wise?
    Young Crone: [normal] You do know her, then?
    Blackadder: No, just a wild stab in the dark, which is incidentally what you'll be getting if you don't start being a bit more helpful.

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From 'Money':
    Percy: My Lord! Success! After literally an hour's ceaseless searching, I have succeeded in creating gold! Pure gold! Behold!
    Blackadder: Percy, it's green.
    Percy: That's right, my Lord.
    Blackadder: Yes Percy, I don't want to be pedantic or anything but the colour of gold is gold. That's why it's called "gold". What you
    have discovered, if it has a name, is some "green".
    Percy: [astonished, picking up the blob] Oh Edmund! Can it be true? That I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest green?
    Blackadder: Indeed you do, Percy. Except it's not really a nugget, is it? It's more of a splat.
    Percy: Well, yes, a splat today, but tomorrow - who knows, or dares to dream?
    Blackadder: [dryly] So, we three alone in all the world can create the finest green at will?
    Percy: Just so! Not sure about counting in Baldrick, actually.
    Blackadder: Of course, you know what your great discovery means, don't you, Percy?
    Percy: Perhaps, my lord...
    Blackadder: That, you Percy, Lord Percy, are an utter berk!
    [Percy smiles and clenches his fist in the air]

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Blackadder Goes Forth:

General Melchett: If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

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Blackadder: Well, George, I strongly suspect that your long wait for certain death is nearly at an end. Surely you must have noticed something in the air...?
George: Well, yes, of course, but I thought that was Private Baldrick.

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Blackadder: We've been sitting here since Christmas 1914, during which time millions of men have died, and we've advanced no further than an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping.

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Blackadder: We're in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun.

[Meredith Quill]

Baldrick makes me laugh so much bless him!

[Meredith Quill]

His wit is so scathingly hilarious. I love this Rowan Atkinson character the best of any he's done, even Mr Bean.

[The Crazed Spruce]

Definitely my favourite season of the show. I loved the dynamic between Edmund and Prince George (easily the funniest performance of Hugh Laurie's career). And, as I recall, it's the only season in which Edmund actually won in the end.

It's not an accident that this is the only season I have on DVD right now. :)

[Gweilo]

I quote Baldrick's "definition" of irony all the time.

 

Blackadder: Do you even know what irony is, Baldrick?

Baldrick: Of course I do!  It's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron.

[M. Darcy]

 

And, as I recall, it's the only season in which Edmund actually won in the end.

 

He did become King for two seconds in series one.  Before horribly dying.

 

I was watching a special on BBC about royal wardrobes and Dr. Lucy Worlsey got to George IV she actually described him as the guy Hugh Laurie played in Blackadder.

[M. Darcy]

I know its the least popular of the series but I always liked it. 

[The Crazed Spruce]

I thought it was okay, but I thought that Edmund's character was too close to Mr. Bean's this season.  Give me Series 3 any day.

[Featherhat]

I only watched this season after watching the others and got a huge shock! I think the things I enjoy most about is the theme song and that is did indeed have a "fortelling" or reimagining of immediately pre Tudor England 30 years before "The King in The Car Park" etc, even though it too would have Richard apologists  annoyed.

[Featherhat]

So hilarious yet so poignant. The final episode rightly gets a lot of praise but all the final series leading up to that was brilliant, and very few of the most well acted, heart breaking dramas about WW1 recently come close to the poignancy of the poppy field after a legitimately hilarious comedy.  

[pootlus]

For me, it wasn't even the end of the final episode that was most poignant, it was actually George's realisation, earlier in that episode, that he was the only one of his class still alive.  Well, that and his "Yes, sir. Wouldn't want to face the German machine guns without my stick." just before they go over the top.

 

George was frequently portrayed as a buffoon, but unlike Baldrick, occasionally got to have moments of genuine pathos (I'm trying and failing to remember if Baldrick got any).

[pootlus]

This will always hold a special place in my heart not just because it was the first but because Brian Blessed is so awesome as Richard IV:

 

"As the good Lord said, 'Love thy enemy as thyself', unless he's Turkish, in which case - kill the bastard!"

[pootlus]

Blackadder: "Hello, the Somme public baths. No running, shouting, or piddling in the shallow end."

 

(Blackadder is listening to a scratchy gramaphone record. After it stops, the scratching continues)

Blackadder: "Baldrick, what are you doing?"

Baldrick: "I'm carving something on this bullet, sir."

Blackadder: "What?"

Baldrick: "I'm carving 'Baldrick', sir."

Blackadder: "Why?"

Baldrick: "Well, it's a cunning plan, actually..."

Blackadder (resigned): "Of course it is."

Baldrick: "Well you know how they say that somewhere there's a bullet with your name on it?"

Blackadder: "Yeeeesss..."

Baldrick: "Well I thought if I owned the bullet with my name on it, I wouldn't ever get shot with it, because I wouldn't ever shoot myself..."

Blackadder: "Oh. Shame."

Baldrick: "And the chances of there being two bullets with my name on are very small indeed!"

Blackadder: "Yes, that's not the only thing that's very small indeed. Your brain, for example, is so minute, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open in search of sustenance, he wouldn't find enough inside to cover a small water biscuit."

 

(Blackadder and George are getting trained by Lord Flashheart of the RAF)

Flashheart: "The first thing to remember is - always treat your kite, like you treat your woman!"

George: "How do you mean, sir, do you mean take her home at the weekend to meet your mother?"

Flashheart: "No, I mean get inside her five times a day and take her to heaven and back!"

 

Blackadder: "There's nothing else for it, I'm going to have to sell the house. Baldrick, go out into the street and let it be known that Lord Blackadder wishes to sell his house. Percy - just go out into the street."

 

Blackadder: "Baldrick, get the door."

(There is an almighty crash and Baldrick returns carrying the door.)

Blackadder: "Baldrick, I'd advise you to make the explanation you are about to give phenomenally good."

Baldrick: "You said 'get the door'."

Blackadder: "Not good enough, you're fired."

Baldrick: "But my Lord, I've been in your family since 1533!"

Blackadder: "So has syphilis, now get out!"

 

I can type huge chunks of the show out from memory, it's really rather tragic.

[pootlus]

Two's probably my favourite although four runs very close. Not enough Hugh Laurie but then there rarely is.

 

Contains the 30 minutes of comedy genius known as 'Beer'.

[BizBuzz]

Someone that shall remain nameless forced me into watching this but told me to start with the second season.  I am not usually one to start any series without starting it from the beginning.  She assured me that watching it this way wouldn't hurt me.

 

I have to say I haven't cried from laughing so often as I have watching this nutty show.

 

Beer?  OMG  ::giggle::

[M. Darcy]

 

I quote Baldrick's "definition" of irony all the time

One of my favorite quotes comes right after that one:

 

Baldrick: Hire a horse!? For ninepence? On Jewish New Year in the rain!? A bare fortnight after the dreaded Horse Plague of Old London Town!? With the blacksmith's strike in its fifteenth week and the Dorset Horse Fetishists Fair tomorrow!?

[pootlus]

"Bob" Parkhurst: "I want to see how a war is fought - so badly!"

Blackadder: "Well, you've come to the right place, Bob.  A war hasn't been fought this badly since King Olaf the Hairy, High Chief of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered eighty thousand battle helments with the horns on the inside."

 

(Baldrick has presented Blackadder, in jail awaiting court martial, with a sponge bag)

Blackadder: "Baldrick, let me get this straight.  You sent a request for a sponge bag to the finest mind in English legal history.  Which means you send the request for legal representation to..."

George: "Well, tally-ho, with a bing and a bong and a buzz-buzz-buzz!"

 

Blackadder: "Lord Flashheart, this is Captain Darling."

Flashheart: "Darling? The last person I called 'darling' was pregnant twenty seconds later!"

 

RIP Rik Mayall :(

[Meredith Quill]

Well whoever that was, what great taste she has!

[BizBuzz]

I seriously cannot believe this is the same person.  Believe me when I tell you I am all things British, I can't help it if I was born in America. I have put up with Benny Hill even (and laughed till I cried), but Mr Bean?  I was like, I just don't get it.

 

I am amazed at how much I love this guy!  I feel sorry for him that he is more well known for Mr Bean than this character.  If @SilverStormm wouldn't have recommended watching Blackadder, I would have looked at it, saw who was starring in it and never watched it. 

 

I am sad however, that there are not very many episodes.  However, what I have learned about British entertainment is that it has rewatchability that America  could only ever hope to have. 

[BizBuzz]

I think straight men are what make comedians what they are.  Without the proper straight man, I think comedy falls flat on it's face.  Baldrick is amazing in that capacity.  Bravo to straight men!

[Constantinople]

The last episode, and the ending, were poignant, much more so than Downton Abbey's handling of WWI.  I'm not sure if that speaks well of Blackadder, or ill of DA, or both

 

Obviously we all know that Blackadder Goes Forth was set during a real-life event, but now it transpires that the characters in the BBC series also had namesakes that fought in the first world war. The Daily Telegraph reports that Forces War Records, a military genealogy website, has trawled through 6m military records and found there was actually a Captain Blackadder, Private Baldrick, Captain Darling and Lieutenant George. Dominic Hayhoe, from Forces War Records, said: “As fans of the television show, we wondered if we could find the military records of the characters’ namesakes, and we did. The only person we haven’t been able to track down so far from the first world war is a General Melchett. But according to the military records we have, he makes an appearance in the second world war.

 

Guardian: Blackadder characters found to have real-life military namesakes

[Constantinople]

At or near the start of the new mini-series The Honourable Woman, we see the titular character in a lord's robes of state.

 

I couldn't help but think about Blackadder and Mr. Frisky.

[Gweilo]

Hang around any bunch of pilots (We have several in our family) , and they'll be quoting Flashheart and sniggering like schoolboys.

 

Flashheart: Always treat your kite like you treat your woman

George: What, you mean take her home on weekends to meet your mother?

Flashheart: No, I mean get inside her 5 times a day and take her to heaven and back!

[honeywest]

"My path is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own herd."

 

"See the little goblin, see his tiny feet/See his little nosey-wose/Isn't the goblin sweet? Yes!"

[pootlus]

The Piggy Woo song, which really has to be heard for its full effect:

 

 

(Unfortunately it's out of sync but you get the idea).

 

From the very first episode, "The Foretelling":

Percy: It will be a great day tomorrow for we nobles.
Edmund: Well, not if we lose, Percy. If we lose, I'll be chopped to pieces. My arms will end up in Essex, my torso in Norfolk, and my genitalia stuck up in a tree somewhere in Rutland.
Baldrick: With you at the helm, my lord, we cannot lose.
Percy: Well, we could if we wanted to.
Edmund: Ah, but we won't, Percy. And I shall prove to all that I am a man!
Percy: But you are a man.
Edmund: But how shall it be proved, Percy?
Percy: Well, they could look up that tree in Rutland.

[Sandman87]

I learned today that there's a local charity group called the Saint Baldrick's Foundation. They have a cunning plan to fight cancer which involves shaving people bald. According to their web page there isn't any actual Saint Baldrick.

[Meredith Quill]

Baldrick Rawks! We should start a campaign for sainthood ;)

[jadecorleone]

Both from Blackadder himself

 

"Baldrick, you wouldn't see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord singing 'subtle plans are here again'." 

""I find his films about as funny as getting an arrow in the neck, and then discovering there's a gas bill attached to it."

[Ilovemylabs]

I am paraphrasing.

 

"Baldrick that is the worst idea since Abraham Lincoln said to his wife, "Not much happening tonight.  Why don't we take in a play?"

[Tom Holmberg]

On ‎7‎/‎3‎/‎2014 at 6:00 PM, SilverStormm said:

Lord Flashheart - RIP *sad face*),

I had never heard Rik Mayall passed away (probably not big news to most Americans).  You're right, it's quite sad. I always enjoyed his work.

[Glendenning]

I was watching the election episode of Blackadder the Third and I noticed the joke that when the "Standing at the Back, Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party" guy is explaining their policies, he DOESN'T qualify that "free corsets for the under-fives" means little girls. Heh Heh Heh. 

[Anela]

I remember when I finally got mum to sit down and watch this, and she loved it. 

From the first season, her favourite part was the woman with the translator. When she was lying in the dark, with her partner, and she said something, followed by the translator piping up with, "my love, my love." 😄