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Blackadder

post #1 of 40
2/12/09 at 10:33am
Thread Starter 
Never sure if this caught on in the states. Ben Elton and Rowan Atkinson's finest hour. (FUCK Bean)

I'd rank the series like this:

4 - WW1. It's true, great comedy can come from great tragedy.
2 - Elizabeth. Blackadder's funny AND clever. His Baldrick put-downs are legendary. 'There are ameba on Saturn with more brain power than you'.
1 - The dark ages. Not brilliant. Blackadder is funnier clever than stupid and snivelling.
3 - Some good laughs, but overall the 18th century one never did it for me.
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post #2 of 40
2/12/09 at 10:38am
See, I always preferred the second series. Blackadder got a bit sexy in that series. But really, first series aside, there are barely any duff episodes. Any time Stephen Fry is on screen is a joy, especially as Wellington. Rik Mayall too.

This was probably the last thing Elton put his name to that was worth a damn.

ETA: Historical inaccuracy
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post #3 of 40
2/12/09 at 2:22pm
Oh yeah it's been 20 years since Black Adder has been in my thoughts. Glad to see it brought back again. i would say my favorite was the Elizabethan series with Rowan somehow coming off sexy as hell. Tho I have a fondness for the end of the WW1 series.
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post #4 of 40
2/12/09 at 2:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sackley View Post
See, I always preferred the second series.
Yup. III is close behind it.
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post #5 of 40
2/12/09 at 2:33pm
I haven't watched this in some time, but I recall really enjoying the second series the most. Sackley's summary pretty much sums up my recollection of the entire run.

Damn, gotta get this and watch it all again.
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post #6 of 40
2/12/09 at 4:11pm
Great show the 4th or whichever one deals with WWI was the best particuraly for its fantastic season/series finale. The last few minutes where they're about to leave the trench are still some of the best series finale moments ever.
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post #7 of 40
2/12/09 at 7:21pm
The third season of this featuring Blackadder as the Prince Regents butler is fucking gold. Just outstanding stuff. The episode from the that season 3 that has Blackadder trying to rig the election in the rotten Borough is one of the funniest half hours of television out there, rivaled only by the episode from Season 2 with Edward hosting a dinner for his Puritan relatives, the Whiteadders, and the concurrent monumental piss up.
This contains as many Awesome English Actors as the Harry Potter movies. Every single actor in the show brings their A Game; even that kid that plays Pitt the Younger in the season 3 was hilarious.

Being a history buff really pays off with this one as well; the amount of historical gags and references is quite astonishing.
Saw a poster had a Lord Flashheart Avatar the other day. Good work.
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post #8 of 40
2/12/09 at 7:49pm
This series is a shameful omission from my DVD collection.
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post #9 of 40
2/12/09 at 8:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCallaghan View Post
The third season of this featuring Blackadder as the Prince Regents butler is fucking green.
Fixed
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post #10 of 40
2/12/09 at 9:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCallaghan View Post
Saw a poster had a Lord Flashheart Avatar the other day. Good work.
That would be me. HOORAY!!!

Absolutely love Blackadder - PBS runs all four series every so often, plus Blackadder's Christmas Carol, so I'm a happy camper. Loved Blackadder 2 - first appearance of Lord Flashheart, Miranda Richardson was a pisser as Queenie, and who doesn't love Stephen Fry?

I do think the show hit it's stride with Blackadder the Third - the final episode (Dual and Duality) featuring Fry as Wellington, and Atkinson in a dual role as MacAdder had me rolling ("No, we must do right by Morag. We must return to Scotland where you must do battle with her in the old Highland way. Each of you bare breasted and carrying an eight pound baby.").
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post #11 of 40
2/12/09 at 10:26pm
The only reason I like Season 1 the least is that its production values make it hard to see and understand at times. Otherwise, Brian Blessed alone would make it my favorite.

Season 3 features my favorite Baldrick and my favorite Hugh Laurie character, but I'm not keen on Blackadder as a servant.

Season 4 is the sharpest, and maybe the funniest, but there are too few chances to show Blackadder interacting with women.

Which is why Season 2 is my favorite. Blackadder without Miranda Richardson is like a broken pencil.
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post #12 of 40
2/12/09 at 11:06pm
Series 3 is the only Blackadder series where he actually wins at the end.
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post #13 of 40
2/12/09 at 11:27pm
Series 2 and 3 are a tossup for me; I love them both to death. That's where the writing is consistently at its sharpest. As OCallaghan mentioned, the election episode was one of the best things in television history.

I've heard a lot of people express a lot of love for series 4, but I just can't appreciate it that highly. It made too much use of recycled routines that were beginning to show signs of overuse. The last episode is brilliant, though.
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post #14 of 40
2/13/09 at 12:00am
The end of S3, with Hugh attempting to reveal that he's not dead via his clever ruse, then realizing he is dead after all, made me laugh much harder than it should have.

Also, the ending of that S2 episode where Edmund comes bouncing in, mumbling, on one leg with a bag over his head, for completely logical plot reasons. It's like they built the entire episode around that final shot.
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post #15 of 40
2/13/09 at 12:19am
Wellington in season 3 may in fact be the best character ever created for tv.
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post #16 of 40
2/13/09 at 2:34am
Wellington is great. "My cheeks are as smooth as a baby's bottom. Which is more than you can say for my bottom."

While Season 1 is the worst, it's still pretty good, especially if you know your Shakespeare. It also benefits greatly from repeat viewing. A lot of greatness was in there, such as the Archbishop episode, which somehow manages to skewer religion as efficiently as anything I've ever seen, in a half hour full of characters, plot, and copious sex jokes. And it introduced the theme song.

I try to pull out some Blackadder for friends only familiar wih Laurie as House. It's like an entirely different person. Speaking of which, why the dick hasn't Stephen Fry guested on House?
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post #17 of 40
2/13/09 at 2:45am
Hugh Laurie has forgotten his roots?

I'd love to see people only familiar with House sit down to watch A Bit of Fry & Laurie. I predict nosebleeds.
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post #18 of 40
2/13/09 at 2:54am
The Baby Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells is the most glorious one shot characters ever. His delivery of the line "I'm a colossal pervert" is one of the greatest moments of filmed entertainment, made even more awesome by the fact the actor played a similar role in Verhoeven's Flesh and Blood.
Going to have to re-acquaint myself with this stuff; been a while.
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post #19 of 40
2/13/09 at 3:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCallaghan View Post
The Baby Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells is the most glorious one shot characters ever. His delivery of the line "I'm a colossal pervert" is one of the greatest moments of filmed entertainment, made even more awesome by the fact the actor played a similar role in Verhoeven's Flesh and Blood.
Going to have to re-acquaint myself with this stuff; been a while.
I always got a huge kick out of him being Toht from Raiders.
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post #20 of 40
2/13/09 at 5:23am
Quote:
Percy: I'll advise them to stay there then. Keep their hands off our women.
Edmund: Oh God, who is she this time?
Percy: I don't know what you mean. Aah, ouch, aah. [Edmund succeeds in pilfering a letter from Percy]
Edmund: Aah, and who is Jane?
Percy: I'm sworn to secrecy. Torture me, kill me, you shall never know. Ooh, ouch... Jane Herrington. We're very much in love, my lord.
Edmund: This is the Jane Herrington?
Percy: Yes.
Edmund: Jane - bury-me-in-a-Y-shaped-coffin - Herrington.
Percy: I.., I think maybe there are two Jane Herringtons.
Edmund: No... Tall, blond, elegant?
Percy: Right, that's right.
Edmund: Goes like a privy door when the plague is in town? Come on, get on with your shot. You'll get over her. ... [Percy aims]
Edmund: I did. ... [Percy aims again]
Edmund: So did Baldrick actually. [Percy's shot ends up way too low]
Greatness.

Quote:
Blackadder : Tell me do you ever stop bullying and shouting at the lower orders?
Wellington : NEVER! There's only one way to win a campaign shout, shout and shout again.
Blackadder : You don't think that inspired leadership and tactical ability have anything to do with it?
Wellington : NO! It's all down to shouting. WAAGGHH!.
No-one shouts quite like Stephen Fry.
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post #21 of 40
2/13/09 at 11:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Ma View Post
No-one shouts quite like Stephen Fry.
Robbie Coltrane as Doctor Johnson comes close with his "SAUSAGE?!" outburst. "Ink and Incapability" is glorious and apart from anything else, it has this exchange:

Quote:
Prince George: Ah, Dr. Johnson! Damn cold day!

Dr. Johnson: Indeed it is, sir, but a very fine one, for I celebrated last night the encyclopedic implementation of my pre-meditated orchestration of demotic Anglo-Saxon.

Prince George: (nods, grinning, then speaks) Nope -- didn't catch any of that.

Dr. Johnson: Well, I simply observed, sir, that I'm felicitous, since, during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorization of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue.

Prince George: Well, I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds damn *saucy*, you lucky thing! I know some fairly liberal-minded girls, but I've never penultimated any of them in a solar sojourn, or, for that matter, been given any Norman tongue!

Edmund: I believe, sir, that the Doctor is trying to tell you that he is happy because he has finished his book. It has, apparently, taken him ten years.

Prince George: Yes, well, I'm a slow reader myself...

Dr. Johnson: (places two manuscripts on the table, but picks up the top one) Here it is, sir: the very cornerstone of English scholarship. This book, sir, contains every word in our beloved language.

Prince George: Hmm.

Edmund: Every single one, sir?

Dr. Johnson: (confidently) Every single word, sir!

Edmund: (to Prince) Oh, well, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the Doctor my most enthusiastic contrafribularities.

Dr. Johnson: What?

Edmund: `Contrafribularites', sir? It is a common word down our way...
Dr. Johnson: Damn! (writes in the book)

Edmund: Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm anispeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.

Dr. Johnson: What? What? WHAT?

Prince George: What are you on about, Blackadder? This is all beginning to sound a bit like dago talk to me.
I'm definitely a season three man myself, but two is there or thereabouts. Goes Forth was good but there was a bit too much recycling of earlier material and convoluted "the X-est, Y since Z did A" jokes for it to stand up on the same level.
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post #22 of 40
2/13/09 at 5:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vernon Signpost View Post
Goes Forth was good but there was a bit too much recycling of earlier material and convoluted "the X-est, Y since Z did A" jokes for it to stand up on the same level.
Nailed it. Its a well put together series with some great acting and that finale is breathtaking, but yes, a bit too... what you said.
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post #23 of 40
2/13/09 at 6:12pm
the scarlet pimpernel one from series III is one of my favorites. Expedition to the new world, and Blackadder as the queen's lord executioner, from series II are also right up there with the final and the scarlet pimpernel.
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post #24 of 40
2/13/09 at 11:23pm
the reason the US is losing in Iraq, not enough SHOUTING!!!!

season one is pretty good. On it's own it would stand well but I think the reason no one likes it as much is the shift in the blackadder character from a wuss to a bastard.
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post #25 of 40
2/14/09 at 12:10am
Series 2 man myself. I own the complete set on DVD and I still remember being introduced to this series and Red Dwarf on VHS tapes from PBS pladge drives by the expatriate brit father of one of my best friends in high school. Blackadder was my gateway drug into British Comedy without a doubt.

Mayall's Lord Flasheart is bar none my favorite supporting character.

"She's got a tongue like an electric eel and she likes the taste of a MAN's tonsils!"

His delivery of that line absolutely slays me no matter how many times I watch that episode. I also love when he meets Adrian Edmunson's Red Baron in S4 who starts a long monologue about men of honor. Flasheart then shoots him and bellows "WHAT A POOFTER!" Pure gold. How Rik Mayall is not a bigger star is beyond me.

(oh yeah... Drop Dead Fred. *sigh*)
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post #26 of 40
2/14/09 at 10:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by CountZero View Post
Mayall's Lord Flasheart is bar none my favorite supporting character.
"Melchett! Still worshipping God? Last I heard, He started worshipping me!

A Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!
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post #27 of 40
2/14/09 at 6:23pm
I still have trouble reconciling that Lord Flashheart and Rick from The Young Ones are the same guy.
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post #28 of 40
2/14/09 at 7:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg David View Post
I still have trouble reconciling that Lord Flashheart and Rick from The Young Ones are the same guy.
Richie from Filthy, Rich & Catflap is the missing link!
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post #29 of 40
2/14/09 at 8:07pm
Nursie! LOVE the beard! Gives me something to... HANG ON TO! WOOF!
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post #30 of 40
2/14/09 at 8:53pm
"...Bob?"
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post #31 of 40
2/14/09 at 9:03pm
Another Flashheart quote (he's so dreamy!)

"Enter the man who wears no underwear, ask me why!"
(why do wear no underwear, Lord Flash?)
"Because the pants haven't been built yet that can take the job on!"


"Mind if I use your phone? If word gets out that I'm missing, 500 girls will kill themselves and I wouldn't like them on my conscience. Not when they ought to be on my face!"
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post #32 of 40
2/14/09 at 9:14pm
Bah! Flashheart is the most over-rated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D.31 Best Disciple Competition!
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post #33 of 40
2/14/09 at 9:25pm
My favorite Blackadder isn't from any of the series, but 'Blackadder's Christmas Carol'...yet, by the same token, my most HATED is 'Blackadder: Back and Forth'...

Go figure.
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post #34 of 40
2/14/09 at 9:29pm
Back and Forth was pretty sad. No real laughs, and dull to boot.
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post #35 of 40
2/14/09 at 9:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham View Post
My favorite Blackadder isn't from any of the series, but 'Blackadder's Christmas Carol'

I saw this for the first time this past Christmas Eve, and loved every second of it.
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post #36 of 40
2/14/09 at 9:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacob Singer View Post
I saw this for the first time this past Christmas Eve, and loved every second of it.
The stars were truely right when they made that sucker...'Back and Forth' was a cynical cash-grab for the opening of the 'Millenium Dome', and shows in the writing, acting, production values, etc of the final product.
I KNOW the premise of Blackadder is that he is MEANT to be unlikable (yet amusing)...but in this one, I preferred his charactor in 'The Tall Guy'.
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post #37 of 40
2/14/09 at 9:53pm
I was just about to say more or less what you've just said, Graham. The fact that Christmas Carol was made between series 3 & 4 and has Jim Broadbent in would give you a fair idea of its pedigree. Back & Forth, on the other hand, was a big pile of old dog tod made 10 years after the fact for tourists!
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post #38 of 40
2/15/09 at 3:04am
Back and Forth had the good sense to be one half hour and out. And it did have one great line:

Shakespeare: Who's Kenneth Branagh?
Blackadder: I'll tell him you said that. And I think he'll be very hurt.
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post #39 of 40
2/16/09 at 1:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vernon Signpost View Post
Richie from Filthy, Rich & Catflap is the missing link!
Okay... I had seen Young Ones and Bottom, but F,R,&C is new to me. So is Bottom an honest-to-god spin off from that show or more of a spiritual sequel? I'm watching F,R,&C on Youtube now and I'm not that far into it, so forgive me if I'm missing some pieces of this puzzle.

Oh and sorry for the Mayall sidetrack. As a result of this thread I introduced my GF to Blackadder this weekend but she didn't like it as much as I would have hoped. May have something to do with the fact that I introduced her to The Wire this weekend too and as she works as a crime analyst for the local police she got quite frothy about it.
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post #40 of 40
2/16/09 at 2:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by CountZero View Post
Okay... I had seen Young Ones and Bottom, but F,R,&C is new to me. So is Bottom an honest-to-god spin off from that show or more of a spiritual sequel? I'm watching F,R,&C on Youtube now and I'm not that far into it, so forgive me if I'm missing some pieces of this puzzle.
Yeah, Filthy... was the midpoint between The Young Ones and Bottom in pretty much every sense. None of the shows are strictly related, but there's obviously plenty to compare. F,R & C only ever ran for one series of six episodes and I think I'm correct in saying that the money the BBC were going to spend on a second batch of shows got spent making Red Dwarf instead!

Also, I'd suggest the one-off Comic Strip episode Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door is probably another proto-version of Bottom.
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