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Blackadder
Blackadder (1983, 1986-89, 1999) by Richard Curtis , Ben Elton , and Rowan Atkinson
The Black Adder
The Foretelling
- [Inspiring words before the battle.]
- Harry: Now I'm afraid that there's going to have to be a certain amount of violence. But at least we know it's all in a good cause, don't we?
- [Prince Harry asks Prince Edmund which nobles he killed in the battle.]
- Edmund: Ah! Let me see. Nobles. Um, I think… Lor– Lord Coverdale…
- Harry: Who fought on our side, I believe.
- Edmund: Eh, yes. I think Lord Coverdale saw me slaying, um… Warrick.
- Harry: Warrick the Wild of Leicester?!
- Edmund: Yes, that's it! And pretty wild he was, too! He took finishing off, I can tell you!
- Harry: Yes, indeed! I killed him myself at one point.
- [Edmund congratulates himself on 'his' cunning plan.]
- Edmund: After all, who has the fastest brain in the land?
- Baldrick: Prince Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh!
- Edmund: Who is the boldest horseman in the land?
- Baldrick: Prince Edmund…
- [Edmund stares angrily at Percy.]
- Baldrick, Percy: … Duke of Edinburgh!
- Edmund: Who is the bravest swordsman in the land?
- Percy: Oh, don't tell me! It's that… oh… from Norfolk…
- Edmund: PRINCE…
- Baldrick, Percy: … Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh!
- Edmund: Precisely! Or… as I shall be known from now on… 'The Black… Vegetable'.
- Baldrick: My Lord, wouldn't something like 'The Black Adder' sound better?
- Edmund: No! Wait. I think I have a better idea. What about… 'The Black… Adder'!
Born to Be King
- Edmund: The Eunuchs... have cancelled.
The Archbishop
- Prince Harry: Yes, that's right. A tragic accident.
- Edmund: Almost as tragic as Archbishop Bertram being struck by a falling gargoyle whilst swimming off Beachy Head.
- Prince Harry: Yes, or Archbishop Wilfred slipping and falling backwards on to the spire of Norwich Cathedral.
- Baldrick: There seem to be four major profit areas. Curses, pardons, relics, and selling the sexual favours of nuns.
- Edmund: Selling the sexual favours of nuns... do some people actually pay?
- Edmund: What is it?
- Percy: A bone from the finger of our Lord. It cost me thirty-one pieces of silver.
- Edmund: Good Lord. Is it real?
- Percy: It is, my lord. You stand amazed, Baldrick.
- Baldrick: I am. I thought they only came in boxes of ten.
The Queen of Spain's Beard
- King: Wessex: take 10,000 men and pillage Geneva.
- Lord Chiswick: But the Swiss are our allies, my lord.
- King: Oh, yes. Well, get them to dress up as Germans.
The Witchsmeller Pursuivant
- Prince Harry: I'm afraid Father 's feeling a bit under the weather.
- Edmund: Oh dear, any idea what?
- Prince Harry: Not sure. I think it's probably Black Death.
- Prince Harry: How do you find him guilty?
- Witchsmeller: By trial, or by ordeal.
- Prince Harry: Ah, the ordeal by water?
- Witchsmeller: No, by axe. The suspected witch has his head placed upon a block, and an axe aimed at his neck. If the man is guilty, the axe will bounce off his neck -- so we burn him. If the man is not guilty, the axe will simply slice his head off.
- Edmund: What a very fair test that is!
The Black Seal
- Edmund: We few, we happy few, we band of ruthless bastards!
- All: Hurrah!
- Edmund: All for one!
- All: And each man for himself!
- The Hawk: I return at last, after fifteen years.
- Edmund: And what have you been up to?
- The Hawk: Waiting, plotting, nurturing my hatred and planning my revenge.
- Edmund: So, you've kept yourself busy?
- Edmund: He murdered his whole family!
- Pete: Who didn't? I certainly killed mine.
- Wilfred: And I killed mine.
- Friar: And I killed yours.
- Sean: Did you?
- Friar: Yes.
- Sean: Good on you, Father.
Blackadder II
Bells
- Blackadder: That wouldn't be the Jane Harrington?
- Percy: Yes.
- Blackadder: Jane 'Bury Me in a Y-Shaped Coffin' Harrington?
- [Queen Elizabeth waits impatiently for the wedding to begin.]
- Queen: Edmund, can we get on with it? I want to get on to the reception, so I can get squiffy and seduce someone.
- [Lord Flasheart accosts Baldrick, who's dressed as a bridesmaid.]
- Flash: Thanks, Bridesmaid! Like the beard! Gives me something to hang on to!
- [Next, Flash approaches Nursie.]
- Flash: Hi, Nursie! I like it firm and fruity! Am I pleased to see you, or did I just put a canoe in my pocket?!
- [Flash outrageously makes out with Edmund's intended bride, Kate.]
- Flash: She's got a tongue like an electric eel, and she likes the taste of a man's tonsils!
Head
- Melchett: I've taken the liberty of preparing a list of suitable candidates for the job.
- [Opens scroll wide.]
- Melchett: Lord Blackadder …
- [Closes scroll]
- [Lord High Executioner Blackadder introduces himself to his new staff.]
- Blackadder: My name is Lord Blackadder, and I'm the new Minister in Charge of Religious Genocide.
Potato
- Blackadder: Look at this. What is it?
- Baldrick: I'm surprised you've forgotten, me lord.
- Blackadder: I haven't forgotten! It's a rhetorical question.
- Baldrick: No, it isn't — it's a potato.
- Blackadder: [on potatoes] People are smoking them, building houses with them, … they'll be eating them next!
- Percy: Oh, yes, I touched her once.
- Blackadder: You touched her what?
- Percy: Once, in the corridor.
- Blackadder: I've never heard it called that before.
- Captain Rum: Crew, m'lord?
- Blackadder: I was under the impression that it was common maritime tradition for a ship to have a crew.
- Rum: Opinion is divided on the subject.
- Blackadder: Really?
- Rum: Yes, all the other captains say it is, I say it isn't!
Money
- [Baldrick comes upon Blackadder in bed with a prostitute.]
- Blackadder: Baldrick, this is Molly, a dear friend of mine.
- Molly: I'm not dear! I'm very reasonable, actually, Baldrick. Most girls would charge an extra sixpence for all the horrid things he wants to do.
- [After Baldrick takes his leave of Blackadder and the sweet-talking Molly…]
- Blackadder: Well, you're a one, aren't you? When you should whispering sweet conversational nothings like, 'Goodness, something twice the size of the Royal Barge has just hoved into view between the sheets!', you don't say a word! But enter the Creature from the Black Latrine, and you won't stop jabbering!
- Percy: Couldn't you just dip into the family fortune?
- Blackadder: There isn't one. My father blew it all on wine, women and amateur dramatics. At the end he was eking out a living doing humourous impressions of Anne of Cleves.
- [Percy has a hidden £1,000.]
- Percy: You've seen it?
- Blackadder: Seen it, pinched it, spent it. And the same goes for the two farthings Baldrick thinks he's got hidden inside that mouldy old potato.
- Percy: I intend to discover, this very afternoon, the secret of alchemy. The hidden art of turning base things into… gold.
- Blackadder: I see. And the fact that this secret has eluded the most intelligent people since the dawn of time doesn't dampen your spirits?
- Percy: Oh, no. I like a challenge!
- Baldrick: Have you got a plan my lord?
- Blackadder: Yes I have, and it's so cunning you can brush your teeth with it.
- Bishop of Bath and Wells: You see I am a colossal pervert. No form of sexual depravity is too low for me. Animal, vegetable, or mineral, I'll do anything to anything.
- Blackadder: Ah, fine words for a bishop. Nice to hear the Church speaking out on social issues.
- Bishop of Bath and Wells: Drugged, by God!
- Blackadder: No, by Baldrick actually - but the effect is much the same.
- Bishop of Bath and Wells: You fiend! Never have I encountered such corrupt and foul-minded perversity… Have you ever considered a career in the church?
Beer
- Baldrick: But my Lord, I've been with your family since 1582.
- Blackadder: So has syphilis, now get out!
- Aunt: For where there are other guests, there are people to fornicate with.
- Blackadder: I'll just tell them to… fornicate off.
- Aunt: Nathaniel sits on a spike … I sit on Nathaniel. Two spikes would be an extravagance!
- Aunt: Cold is God's way of telling you to burn more Catholics.
Chains
- [Lord Melchett appeals to the Queen for help with his friend's kidnapped son. The Queen asks Blackadder for advice.]
- Blackadder: Only last year, my aunt came to me to beg for help in the ransom of my uncle Osrick.
- Melchett: Well, then you know something of the dreadful pain involved.
- Blackadder: Indeed, I do. And can suggest no better answer than the one I gave to her.
- Queen Elizabeth: Which was?
- Blackadder: 'Get stuffed.'
- [Prince Ludwig, having kidnapped and emprisoned Blackadder, claims they know each other.]
- Blackadder: I don't believe I've had the pleasure.
- Ludwig: Oh, on ze contrary! We have met many times, alzhough you knew me by anozher name. Do you recall a mysterious black marketeer and smuggler called Otto, with whom you used to dine and plot and play ze biscuit game, at ze Old Pizzle in Dover?
- Blackadder: My God!
- Ludwig: Yes! I was… the waitress.
- Blackadder: I don't believe it! You?! Big Sally?!
- Ludwig: [in a squeaky voice] Will you have another piece of pie, my lord?
- Blackadder: But I went to bed with you, didn't I?
- Ludwig: For my country, I am willing to make any sacrifice.
- Blackadder: Yes, but I'm not! I must have been paralytic!
- Ludwig: Indeed you were… Mister Floppy!
- [Prince Ludwig has the also-kidnapped Lord Melchett brought in.]
- Ludwig: Do you remember when you were in Cornwall, at the monastery, there was an old shepherd wizh whom you used to talk?
- Melchett: Good Lord! Dinkins?
- Ludwig: Yes! I was one of his sheep.
- Melchett: His sheep! Not—
- Ludwig: Yes!
- Melchett: Flossy?
- Ludwig: Yes!
- Melchett: But didn't we—
- Ludwig: Yes, Lord Melchett! [bleating] Baaaa!
- [A bored Melchett looks to pass the dungeon time.]
- Melchett: Well, perhaps, um, a pleasant word game.
- Blackadder: Yes, alright. Make a sentence out of the following words: 'face', 'sodding', 'your', 'shut'!
- Melchett: Alas! Shall I never see England more? Her rolling fields, her swooping swallows…
- Blackadder: Her playful sheep…
Blackadder the Third
Dish and Dishonesty
- [Filling out an "MP application form", Blackadder asks Baldrick his first name.]
- Baldrick: Uh, I'm not sure.
- Blackadder: You must have some idea.
- Baldrick: Well, it might be "Sod Off".
- Blackadder: What?
- Baldrick: Well, when I used to play in the gutter, I used to say to the other snipes, "Hello, my name's Baldrick." And they'd say, "Yes, we know, sod off Baldrick."
- Blackadder: "Any history of insanity in the family?"
- [Pauses to think]
- Blackadder: Tell you what, I'll cross out the "in". "Any history of sanity in the family?" … "none whatsoever!"
- Pitt the Younger: I intend to put up my own brother as a candidate against you!
- Blackadder: Oh, and which Pitt would this be? Pitt the Toddler? Pitt the Embryo? Pitt the Glint in the Milkman's Eye?
- Prince George: We paid for this seat! And I think it's a damn liberty we should have to stand for it as well.
- Blackadder: Well, we in the Adder Party are going to fight this campaign on issues, not personalities.
- Vincent Hanna: Why is that?
- Blackadder: Because our candidate doesn't have a personality.
- [Reporter Vincent Hanna interviews Pitt after his loss.]
- Vincent Hanna: Master William Pitt, the Even Younger, are you disappointed?
- Pitt the Even Younger: Yes I'm horrified. I smeared my opponents, bribed the press to be on my side, and threatened to torture the electorate if we lost! I fail to see what more a decent politician could have done.
- Blackadder: I've got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel!
- Blackadder: Who cares about a dead cat now that I'm a fat cat?
Ink and Incapability
- Prince George: Last night, I was having a bit of a snack at the Naughty Hellfire Club, and some fellow said I had the wit and sophistication of a donkey.
- Blackadder: Oh, an absurd suggestion, sir.
- Prince George: You're right. It is absurd.
- Blackadder: Unless, of couse, it was a particularly stupid donkey.
- [Dr. Samuel Johnson presents his comprehensive English dictionary to the Prince Regent.]
- Johnson: This book, sir, contains every word in our beloved language!
- Prince George: Hmmm.
- Blackadder: Every single one, sir?
- Johnson: Every single word, sir!
- Blackadder: Oh. Well, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the Doctor my most enthusiastic… contrafibularities.
- Johnson: What?!
- Blackadder: Contrafibularities, sir? It is a common word, down our way.
- Johnson: Damn!
- [Dr. Johnson scribbles in his book.]
- Blackadder: Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm andyspeptic, transmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.
- [Blackadder leaves to fetch the tea.]
- Blackadder: I shall return… interfrastically.
- [Dr. Johnson, storming out, comes upon Blackadder.]
- Blackadder: Leaving already, Doctor? Not staying for your pendigestatory interluditude?
- Johnson: No, sir! Show me out!
- Blackadder: Certainly, sir! Anything I can do to facilitate your velocitous exteriorilisation.
- Johnson: Not only have you impeculiated — heh! — my dictionary, but you have also lost the chance to act as patron to the only book in the world that is even better!
- Blackadder: Oh. And what is that, sir? "Dictionary 2"? "The Return of the Killer Dictionary"?
- Baldrick: So you're asking where the big papery thing tied up with string, belonging to the baity fellow in the black coat who just left, is?
- Blackadder: Yes, Baldrick, I am. And if you don't answer, then the booted bony thing with five toes on the end of my leg will soon connect sharply with the soft dangly collection of objects in your trousers. For the last time, Baldrick, where is Dr. Johnson's manuscript?
- Baldrick: On the fire.
- Blackadder: On the what?!
- Baldrick: The hot, orangey thing under the stoney mantlepiece.
- Prince George: Now I've got my lovely fire, I'm as happy as a Frenchman who's invented a pair of self-removing trousers.
- Blackadder: Now Baldrick, go to the kitchen and make me something quick and simple to eat, would you? Two slices of bread with something in between.
- Baldrick: Wot, like Gerald Lord Sandwich had the other day?
- Blackadder: Yes! A few rounds of geralds.
- [The Prince and Baldrick are helping Blackadder recreate Johnson's dictionary.]
- Blackadder: Baldrick, what have you done?
- Baldrick: I've done "C" and "D".
- Blackadder: Right. Let's have it, then.
- Baldrick: Right. "Big blue wobbly thing that mermaids live in."
- Blackadder: What's that?
- Baldrick: "C".
- Blackadder: Yes. Tiny misunderstanding. Still, my hopes weren't high. Oh, and what about "D"?
- Baldrick: I'm quite pleased with "dog".
- Blackadder: Yes, and your defintion of "dog" is?
- Baldrick: "Not a cat."
Nob and Nobility
- Blackadder: Do you speak English?
- Comte de Frou-Frou: A little…
- Blackadder: Yes, when you say 'a little', what exactly do you mean? I mean, can we talk, or are we going to spend the rest of the afternoon asking each other the way to the beach in very loud voices?
- Comte de Frou-Frou: Ah, no. I can, er, order coffee, deal with waiters, make sexy sexy chit-chat with girls — that type of thing.
- Blackadder: Oh good.
- Comte de Frou-Frou: Just don't ask me to take a physiology class or direct a light opera.
- Comte de Frou-Frou: Have no fear! The Scarlet Pimpernel will save us!
- Blackadder: Ha! Some hope. The Pimpernel is the most overrated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D. 31 Best Disciple Competition.
- Blackadder: Ah, good evening, my man. Do you speak English?
- Soldier: Little.
- Blackadder: Good, well, just take me to the Ambassador, then, will you?
- Soldier: Pardon?
- Blackadder: [slowly and clearly] I have rescued an [pushes up the end of his nose] aristocrat, from [makes claw hands] the clutches of the evil revolutionaries. Please take me to the Ambassador.
- Soldier: [equally slowly] No, I won't. I am an [makes claw hands] evil revolutionary, and have [slices finger across his neck] murdered the [pushes up his nose] Ambassador, and turned him into [mimes chopping and tasting] pâté!
- Baldrick: I couldn't sleep when I was little.
- Blackadder: You still are little, Baldrick.
- Baldrick: Yeah, well, when I was even littler, see, we used to live in this haunted hovel. Every night, my family were troubled by a visitation from this disgusting ghoul. It was terrible. First there was this unholy smell, then this tiny, clammy, hairy creature would materialise in the bed between them. Fortunately, I could never see it myself.
- Blackadder: Yes… Tell me, Baldrick: when you left home, did this repulsive entity mysteriously disappear?
- Baldrick: That very day…
- Prince George: I say, Blackadder, do you think he really was the Scarlet Pimpernel?
- Blackadder: Well, judging from the ridiculous ostentatiousness of his death, I would that say he was.
- Prince George: Well, then, that's a damn shame, because I wanted to give him this enormous postal order.
- Blackadder: Please, sir, let me finish. I would say that he was…n't.
Sense and Senility
- Blackadder: And the worst thing about it [going to the theatre] is having to go with Prince mini-brain
- Baldrick: Doesn't he like it either?
- Blackadder: Oh no, he loves it! The problem is that he doesn't realise that it's made up. Last time when Brutus was about to stab Julius Caesar the prince shouted out, "look behind you mister caesar!"
- Prince George: I must say, Blackadder, that was a close shave! Why on earth would an anarchist possibly want to kill you?
- Blackadder: I think it might have been you he was after, sir.
- Prince George: Oh, hogwash! What on earth makes you say that?
- Blackadder: Well, my suspicions were first aroused by his use of the words "death to the stupid prince".
- Prince George: It was a bit rude, wasn't it?
- Blackadder: These are volatile times, Your Highness. The American Revolution lost your father the colonies, the French Revolution murdered brave King Louis, and there are tremendous rumblings in Prussia… although that might be something to do with the sausages.
- Blackadder: Disease and deprivation stalk our land like… two giant… stalking things.
- Mrs. Miggins: Still, I don't expect you'd know much about that, being only a little butler! Ha ha!
- Blackadder: They do say, Mrs. M, that verbal insults hurt more than physical pain. They are, of course, wrong, as you will soon discover when I stick this toasting fork in your head.
- Blackadder: Gentlemen, I've come with a proposition.
- Mossop: How dare you, sir! You think, just because we're actors, we sleep with everyone.
- Blackadder: I think, being actors, you're lucky to sleep with anyone.
- Baldrick: My uncle Baldrick was in a play once.
- Blackadder: Really?
- Baldrick: Yeah, it was called Macbeth.
- Blackadder: And what did he play?
- Baldrick: Second codpiece. Macbeth wore him in the fight scenes.
- Blackadder: So he was a stunt codpiece.
- Baldrick: Yes.
- Blackadder: Did he have a large part?
- Baldrick: Depends who's playing Macbeth.
- [Actors Mossop and Keanrick haughtily enter in the middle of a conversation.]
- Mossop: …lest you continue in your quotation, and mention the name of the Scottish play.
- Keanrick: Oh-ho-ho… never fear, I shan't do that.
- Blackadder: By the Scottish play, I assume you mean Macbeth.
- Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah!
- [The actors launch into a bizarre "pattycake" routine while reciting…]
- Mossop, Keanrick: "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends."
- [… and finish by tweaking each other's noses.]
- Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah!
- Blackadder: What was that?
- Keanrick: We were exorcising evil spirits. Being but a mere butler, you will not know the great theatre tradition that one does never speak the name of the Scottish play.
- Blackadder: What, "Macbeth"?
- Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." Aaah-haa!
- Blackadder: Good lord, you mean you have to do that every time I say "Macbeth"?
- Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." Aaah-aaah-haa!
- Mossop: Will you please stop saying that! Always call it "the Scottish play".
- Blackadder: So you want me to say, "the Scottish play"?
- Mossop, Keanrick: Yes!
- Blackadder: Rather than "Macbeth"?
- Mossop, Keanrick: Aaaaah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, Pluck will make amends." Aaah-haa! Oww!
- [Prince George enters.]
- Prince George: For heaven's sake, what is all this hullabaloo, all this shouting and screaming and yelling blue murder? Why, it's like that play we saw the other day, what was it called… uh…
- Blackadder: "Macbeth", sir?
- Mossop, Keanrick: Aaaaah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." Aaah! Oooh!!
- Prince George: No, no, no, no, it was… it was called "Julius Caesar".
- Blackadder: Oh yes, of course. "Julius Caesar"… Not "Macbeth".
- Mossop, Keanrick: Aah! "Hot potato, orchestra stalls, pluck will make amends." Owwww!
- Blackadder: Are you sure you want these people to stay?
[later]
- Keanrick: From a play connected with Scotland …
- Blackadder: [having just walked in] That's Macbeth, isn't it?
- Mossop, Keanrick: Aaah! …
- [The actors have the Prince assume an awkward, legs-spread pose for his speech.]
- Keanrick: Why, your very posture tells me, "Here is a man of true greatness."
- Blackadder: Either that or, "Here are my genitals. Please kick them."
- [Blackadder fumes over the Prince's rude treatment.]
- Blackadder: One more foot wrong, and the contract between us…
- [He picks up a glass jug.]
- Blackadder: … will be as broken as this milk jug.
- Baldrick: But that milk jug isn't broken.
- Blackadder: You really do walk into these things, don't you, Baldrick?
- [He breaks the jug over Baldrick's head.]
- Blackadder: Baldrick, I would like to say how much I will miss your honest and friendly companionship.
- Baldrick: Ahhh, thank you, Mr. B.
- Blackadder: But, as we both know, it would be an utter lie. I will therefore confine myself to saying simply, "Sod off," and if I ever meet you again, it'll be twenty billion years too soon.
- [Blackadder has the dim Prince arrest the actors for plotting murder.]
- Keanrick: It was a play, sir! A play! Look, all the words you heard written down on that paper.
- Blackadder: Textboook stuff again, you see. The criminal's vanity always makes them make one tiny but fatal mistake. Theirs was to have their entire conspiracy printed and published in play manuscript form. Take them away!
- Keanrick: Alas! We beg for mercy! Mercy!
- Mossop: Mercy, please, sir!
- Blackadder: I've only got one thing to say to you… "Macbeth"!
Amy and Amiability
- [Blackadder discusses finding the Prince a wealthy girl to marry.]
- Prince George: Yes, you fix it up! You know the kind of girls I like. They've got to be lovers, laughers, dancers!
- Blackadder: And bonkers.
- Prince George: Well, that goes without saying!
- Prince George: Honestly, Blackadder, I don't know why I'm bothering to get dressed. As soon as I get to the Naughty Hellfire Club, I'll be de-bagged and radished for non-payment of debts.
- Blackadder: "Radished", sir?
- Prince George: Yes. They pull your britches down, and push a large radish right up your—
- Blackadder: Yes, yes, yes, alright, sir! [pauses] There's no need to hammer it home.
- Prince George: As a matter of fact, they do often—
- Blackadder: No, NO!
- Baldrick: He is the Prince of Wales.
- Blackadder: Have you ever been to Wales, Baldrick?
- Baldrick: No, but I've often thought I'd like to.
- Blackadder: Well, don't. It's a ghastly place. Huge gangs of tough, sinewy men roam the valleys, terrifying people with their close-harmony singing. You need half a pint of phlegm in your throat just to pronounce the place names. Never ask for directions in Wales, Baldrick. You'll be washing spit out of your hair for a fortnight.
- Blackadder: Sir, I come as emissary of the Prince of Wales with the most splendid news. He wants your daughter Amy for his wife.
- Josiah Hardwood: Well, his wife can't have her! It's outrageous, sir, to come here with such a suggestion!
- [Hardwood rises in anger.]
- Josiah Hardwood: Mind, sir! Or I shall take off me belt and — by thunder! — me trousers'll fall down.
- [Blackadder realizes the Hardwoods are destitute.]
- Blackadder: Well, in that case, the wedding's off. Good day!
- Amy Hardwood: Oh, but — what about George's lovey-wovey poems that won my hearty-warty?
- Blackadder: All writteny-witteny by me-wee, I'm afraidy-waidy.
Duel and Duality
- Blackadder: Leave me alone, Baldrick. If I wanted to talk to a vegetable, I would have bought one at the market.
- Blackadder: I want to be remembered when I'm dead. I want books written about me. I want songs sung about me. And then, hundreds of years from now, I want episodes of my life to be played out weekly at half past nine by some great heroic actor of the age.
- Baldrick: Yeah, and I could be played by some tiny tit in a beard.
- Blackadder: Quite.
- Blackadder: An unwise action, Baldrick, since McAdder is a homicidal maniac.
- Baldrick: My mother taught me to stand up to homicidal maniacs.
- [After Baldrick unwisely volunteers Blackadder to pretend to be the Prince for a duel with Wellington.]
- Blackadder: Baldrick, does it have to be this way? Our valued friendship ending with me cutting you into long strips and telling the Prince that you walked over a very sharp cattle grid in an extremely heavy hat?
- [Wellington is arriving to challenge the Prince.]
- Blackadder: There's no alternative, sir. We must swap clothes.
- Prince George: Ah. Fantastic, yes! Dressing up! I love it! It's like that story, ah… The Prince and the Porpoise.
- Blackadder: and the Pauper.
- Prince George: Oh, yes yes yes. The Prince and the Porpoise, and the Pauper.
- [Blackadder explains the subterfuge to the dim-witted Prince.]
- Blackadder: And you have to get used to calling me "Your Highness", Your Highness.
- Prince George: Your Highness, Your Highness.
- Blackadder: No, just "Your Highness", Your Highness.
- Prince George: That's what I said. "Your Highness, Your Highness", Your Highness, Your Highness.
- [Baldrick is confused at the clothing change.]
- Blackadder: Don't even try to work it out, Baldrick. Two people you know well have exchanged coats, and now you don't know which is which.
- Prince George: I'm pretty confused myself. Which one of us is Wellington?
- Blackadder: [long pause] Wellington is the man at the door.
- Prince George: Oh, right. And the porpoise?
- Blackadder: [another long pause] Hasn't arrived yet, sir. We'll… we'll just have to fill in as best we can without him.
Blackadder Goes Forth
Plan A: Captain Cook
- George: Great Scott, sir! You mean… you mean the moment's finally arrived for us to give Harry Hun a darn good British-style thrashing, six o' the best, trousers down?!
- Blackadder: If you mean, are we all going to get killed, yes.
- [General Melchett, attended by Captain Darling, is briefing Captain Blackadder on the 'secret' plan.]
- Melchett: So! It's maximum security. Is that clear?
- Blackadder: Quite clear, sir. Only myself and the rest of the English-speaking world is to know.
- . . .
- Melchett: There is, however, one small problem.
- Blackadder: That everyone always gets slaughtered in the first ten seconds?
- Melchett: That's right! And Field Marshal Haig is worried that this may be depressing the men a tadge. So! He's looking to find a way to cheer them up!
- Blackadder: Well, his resignation and suicide would seem the obvious answer.
- Melchett: Interesting thought! Make a note of it, Darling!
- George: If we should happen to tread on a mine, what do we do?
- Blackadder: Well, normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet into the air and scatter yourself over a wide area.
Plan B: Corporal Punishment
- Blackadder: [on the telephone] You'd like to book a table for three, by the window, for 9:30 p.m., not too near the band, in the name of "Oberleutnant von Genschler". Yes. Yes. I think you might have the wrong number.
- [At his court martial, Blackadder confronts a smirking Captain Darling.]
- Darling: Good luck, Blackadder.
- Blackadder: Why, thank you, Darling. And what's your big job here today? Straightening chairs?
- Darling: No. In fact, I'm appearing for the prosecution. I woudn't raise your hopes too much — you're guilty as hell, you haven't got a chance!
- Blackadder: Why, thank you, Darling, and… and I hope your mother dies in a freak yachting accident.
- Melchett: The case before us today is that of The Crown versus Captain Edmund Blackadder, the Flanders Pidgeon Murderer! Oh, um… clerk, hand me the black cap, shall you? I'll be— I'll be needing that. Thank you!
- Blackadder: I love a fair trial.
- [George is reading from his prepared closing statement.]
- George: … and I firmly believe that, like me, you will conclude that Captain Blackadder is, in fact, totally and utterly… guilty!
- [He sits. Blackadder turns over the page. George jumps up again.]
- George: … of nothing more than trying to do his duty under difficult circumstances!
Plan C: Major Star
- [Melchett comments on Baldrick's Charlie Chaplin routine.]
- Melchett: I liked the slug balancer. The slug fell off a few times but you can't have everything. I just might suggest a bit more practice and a little sparkly costume for the slug.
- Blackadder: Bob, take a telegram: "Mr C. Chaplin, Senet Studios, Hollywood, California. Dear Mr Chaplin, congrats. Stop. Have found only person in world less funny than you. Stop. Name Baldrick. Stop. Yours E. Blackadder. Stop." Oh, and put a P.S.: "Please, please, please. Stop."
- Captain Darling: We received a telegram this morning from Mr Chaplin himself at Senet Studios. "Twice nightly screening of my films in trenches: excellent idea. Stop. But must insist E. Blackadder be projectionist. Stop." Oh, "P.S. Don't let him ever...Stop."
Plan D: Private Plane
- Flasheart: Mind if I use your phone? If word gets out that I'm missing, 500 girls'll kill themselves. And I wouldn't want them on my conscience, not when they ought to be on my face! Heh!
- [Accompanied by ecstatic female screams, Flashheart enters the training room.]
- Flasheart: Enter the man who wears no underwear. Ask me why!
- Class: Why do you wear no underwear, Lord Flash?!
- Flasheart: Because the pants haven't built yet that'll take the job on!
- . . .
- Flasheart: The first thing to remember is… always treat your kite like you treat your woman.
- George: Hah! How do you mean, sir? You mean, um… you mean, take her home over the weekend to meet your mother?
- Flasheart: No. I mean, get inside her 5 times a day and take her to heaven and back!
- Flasheart: Now, I may be packing the kind of tackle that you'd normally expect to find swinging about between the hind legs of a grand national winner, but I'm not totally stupid.
Plan E: General Hospital
- [Blackadder, Baldrick, and George are killing time in the dugout.]
- Blackadder: I spy with my bored little eye… something beginning with 'T'.
- Baldrick: Breakfast!
- Blackadder: What?!
- Baldrick: My breakfast always begins wif tea. Then, I have a little sausage. Then, a egg with some little soldiers.
- Blackadder: Baldrick, when I said it begins with 'T', I was talking about a letter.
- Baldrick: Nooo, it never begins with a letter! The postman don't come 'til 10:30.
- Blackadder: I can't go on with this. George, take over.
- George: All right, sir. Um… I spy with my little eye… something beginning with 'R'.
- Baldrick: Army!
- Blackadder: For God's sake, Baldrick! 'Army' starts with an 'A'. He's looking for something that starts with an 'R'. Rrrrrrrr!
- Baldrick: Motorbike!
- Blackadder: What?
- Baldrick: A motorbike starts with a 'Rrrrrrrrmmm'! Rrrrrrrr…
- Blackadder: All right! Right, right, right! My turn again. What begins with 'Come here' and ends with 'Ow'?
- Baldrick: I don't know.
- Blackadder: Come here.
- [Baldrick steps closer. Blackadder punches him in the face.]
- Baldrick: Ooh!
- Blackadder: Well done.
- [Blackadder has tied up Captain Darling and is grilling him as if he were a German spy.]
- Darling: Look, I'm as British as Queen Victoria!
- Blackadder: So, your father's German, you're half-German, and you married a German?
- . . .
- Darling: You'll regret this, Blackadder! You better find the real spy, or I'll make it very hard for you!
- Blackadder: Please, Darling, there are ladies present.
- [Blackadder tells how he determined that Nurse Fletcher-Brown is the German spy.]
- Blackadder: I then leapt on the opportunity to test you. I asked if he'd been to one of the great universities: Oxford, Cambridge, or Hull.
- Nurse Fletcher-Brown: Well?
- Blackadder: You failed to spot that only two of those are great universities!
- Nurse Fletcher-Brown: You swine!
- Melchett: That's right! Oxford's a complete dump!
Plan F: Goodbyeee
- [Blackadder is bewildered by George's enthusiasm for going 'over the top'.]
- Blackadder: Well, for God's sake, George, how long have you been in the army?
- George: Oh, me? Oh, I joined up straight away, sir! August the 4th, 1914. God, what a day that was! Myself and the rest of the fellows, leapfrogging down to the Cambridge recruiting office and then, playing tiddlywinks in the queue. We'd hammered Oxford's tiddlywinkers only the week before and there we were, off to hammer the Boche! Crushingly superb bunch of blokes. Fine, clean-limbed… even their acne had a strange nobility about it.
- Blackadder: Yes, and how are all the boys now?
- George: Oh, uh, well… Jacko and the Badger bought it at the first Ypres, unfortunately. What a shock, there. I remember Bumfluff's house-master wrote and told me that Sticky'd been out for a duck, and the Gubber had snitched a parcel sausage-end and gone goose-over-stump frogside.
- Blackadder: Meaning?
- George: I don't know, sir, but I read in the Times that they'd both been killed.
- Blackadder: [to Baldrick] This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if you've got a moment, it's a twelve-storey crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour porterage and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Crisis'. A large crisis requires a large plan. Get me two pencils and a pair of underpants!
- Blackadder: 'Til then, we've got bugger-all to do, except sit and wait.
- George: Oh, I don't know, sir! We could, uh… we could have a jolly game of charades!
- Baldrick: Oh, yes!
- George: And, uh… sing-along with musical hits, like 'Birmingham Bertie' and, ah, 'Whoops, Mrs Miggins, You're Sitting on My Artichokes'.
- Blackadder: Yes, I think 'bugger-all' might be rather more fun.
- [Baldrick is asking how the war started.]
- Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cuz he was hungry.
- Blackadder: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.
- Baldrick: No, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.
- [Just before they go over the top…]
- Baldrick: I have a plan, sir.
- Blackadder: Really, Baldrick, a cunning and subtle one?
- Baldrick: Yes, sir.
- Blackadder: As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
- Baldrick: Yes, sir.
- [Another call is heard: 'On the signal, company will advance.']
- Blackadder: Well, I'm afraid it'll have to wait. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was better than my plan to get out of this by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would've noticed another madman around here?
- Baldrick: Hear the words I sing, war's a horrid thing, so I sing, sing, sing, ding a ling a ling.
Specials
Blackadder: The Cavalier Years
- "The other was the sole descendant of an unfortunate meeting between a pig-farmer and a bearded lady. History has, quite rightly, forgotten his name."
- Notes: Narrator introducing Baldrick.
- "I've assured him that he is as likely to be caught as fox being chased by a pack of one-legged hunting tortoises."
- "He spells my doom? Wonderful! Well, that's particularly exciting, because so many people these days can't spell at all!"
- "Oh, damn - one measly civil war in the entire history of England, and I'm on the wrong bloody side!"
- "They will never find an executioner, and if they do, may my conjugal dipstick turn into a tennis racket."
- "For God's sake, stop that, Baldrick! It's bad enough having one's life in utter ruins without being serenaded by a moron with all the entertainment value of tap-dancing oyster."
- Notes: Blackadder complaining about Baldrick's singing.
- "Not the first time that there's been a little something in your lap, Baldrick."
- "Because, once you cut it off, you have to hold it up in front of the crowd and say, "This is the head of a traitor," at which point, they will shout back, "No it's not -- it's large pumpkin with a pathetic moustache drawn on it."
- Notes: Blackadder debunking Baldrick's plan.
- "I thought, with the money I got from executing the King, I could sneak out and buy a brand-new king when no-one was looking, and pop him back on the throne without anyone noticing."
- Notes: Baldrick's other plan.
- "Your head is as empty as a eunuch's underpants."
- Notes: Blackadder calling Baldrick stupid because of his other plan.
- "Well, I'm always absolutely fascinated to meet people from all walks of life, but, er, yes, particularly manufacturing industries."
- "Well, at times like this, Baldrick, there is no choice for a man of honour. He must stand and fight, and die in defence of his future sovereign... Fortunately, I'm not a man of honour..."
Blackadder's Christmas Carol
- [Baldrick talks about his Nativity play woes to the kindly Ebenezer Blackadder.]
- Baldrick: At the last moment, the baby playing Jesus died!
- Blackadder: Oh, dear! This high infant mortality rate's a real devil when it comes to staging quality children's theatre. What did you do?
- Baldrick: Got another Jesus!
- Blackadder: Oh, thank goodness. And his name?
- Baldrick: Spot.
- [Blackadder stares at Baldrick.]
- Baldrick: There weren't any more children, so we had to settle for a dog instead.
- Blackadder: Oh, dear. I'm not convinced that Christianity would have established its firm grip over the hearts and minds of mankind if all Jesus had ever said was, "Woof!"
- Baldrick: Well, it went alright 'til the shepherds came on. See, we hadn't been able to get any real sheep, so we had to stick some wool…
- Blackadder: … on some other dogs.
- Baldrick: Yeah. And the moment Jesus got a wiff of 'em, he's away!
- [Ebenezer Blackadder brings in a pine twig for Christmas tree.]
- Baldrick: It's a bit of a tiddler, ain't it?
- Blackadder: Yes, but size isn't important, my friend. It's not what you've got, it's where you stick it!
- Mrs. Scratchit: [sobbing] No goose for Tiny Tom this year!
- Blackadder: Mrs. Scratchit, Tiny Tom is fifteen stone and built like a brick privy! If he eats any more heartily, he will turn into a pie shop!
- [In the court of Queen Elizabeth, Baldrick has just given Lord Blackadder a gift.]
- Baldrick: You got anything for me?
- Blackadder: Oh, it's nothing, really.
- Baldrick: Oh, sir!
- Blackadder: No, it's really nothing. I haven't got anything.
- [Lords Blackadder and Melchett run into each other.]
- Blackadder: Ah, Melchett! Greetings! I trust Christmas brings to you its traditional mix of good food and violent stomach cramp.
- Melchett: And compliments of the season to you, Blackadder. May the Yuletide log slip from your fire and burn your house down.
- [Prince Regent George's butler, Edmund Blackadder, reluctantly joins his master's Christmas party.]
- Prince George: Ah, hurrah! Welcome, lads! Ah, this is the stuff, eh? Christmas sherry and charades with honest, manly fellows! I mean, for heaven's sake, what can I do with a girl that I can't do with you, eh?
- Blackadder: I cannot conceive, sir.
- [In the far future, Queen Asphyxia XIX's "triple husbandoid" questions Grand Admiral Blackadder.]
- Lord Frondo: What news of the foul Mamydons?
- Blackadder: Scattered to the nine vectors, my lord.
- Lord Frondo: And the Sheepsqueezers of Splatticon Five? Have they been suckcreamed as a Qvarnbeast's nobbo?
- Blackadder: Well, they're dead, if that's what you mean.
- Lord Pigmot: Plus, Commander, did you vanquish the Nibblepibblies?
- Blackadder: No, my lord Pigmot, I did not vanquish the Nibblepibblies, because you just made them up.
- [A reformed Ebenezer Blackadder hands Baldrick the money he just lifted from his niece's fiancé.]
- Blackadder: Baldrick, I want you to take this and go out and buy a turkey so large, you'd think its mother had been rogered by an omnibus.
- [Baldrick opens the door to find Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their aide prepared to give Blackadder a reward for his generosity.]
- Queen Victoria: We are Queen Victoria.
- Baldrick: Wot, all three of you?
Blackadder Back & Forth
- [Blackadder enters the time machine with a cunning plan.]
- Blackadder: Baldrick, I have a very, very, very cunning plan.
- Baldrick: Is it as cunning as a fox what used to be professor of cunning at Oxford University, but has moved on, and is now working for the UN at the high commission of international cunning planning?
- Blackadder: Yes, it is.
- Baldrick: Mm... That's cunning!
- [After getting an autograph, Blackadder floors Shakespeare with a right cross.]
- Blackadder: That is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next 400 years.
- . . .
- Blackadder: Oh, and…
- [Blackadder kicks Shakespeare in the foot.]
- Blackadder: That is for Ken Branagh's endless, uncut, four-hour version of Hamlet!
- Shakespeare: Who's Ken Branagh?
- Blackadder: I'll tell him you said that. And I think he'll be very hurt.
- [Blackadder runs into Robin Hood.]
- Robin: Am I Robin Hood? Is Will Scarlet a poof in tights? Is Friar Tuck a fat tub of lard with a ridiculous haircut?
- [Kate Moss emerges from the crowd and wraps herself around Robin.]
- Robin: Is Maid Marian a hot little honey with thighs like two halves of a nutcracker?
- [After Blackadder's final time-meddling, he winds up King Edmund III, with the lovely Marian of Sherwood (Kate Moss) as his Queen. As the credits roll, a sing-along version of the Blackadder theme plays.]
- Let joy fill every Briton's heart,
- For now our country's going to make it.
- At last a king who looks the part,
- At last a queen who looks good naked.
See also
External links
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