Blackadder (1983, 1986–89, 1999) is a television series which originally aired on BBC1 written by Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, and Rowan Atkinson. It traces members of the Blackadder dynasty and their associates through different periods of history.

The Black Adder: The Foretelling Born to be King The Archbishop The Queen of Spain's Beard Witchsmeller Pursuivant The Black Seal
Blackadder II: Bells Head Potato Money Beer Chains
Blackadder the Third: Dish and Dishonesty Ink and Incapability Nob and Nobility Sense and Senility Amy and Amiability Duel and Duality
Blackadder Goes Forth: Captain Cook Corporal Punishment Major Star Private Plane General Hospital Goodbyeee
Specials: The Cavalier Years Christmas Carol Back & Forth
Cast External links

The Black Adder

The Foretelling

Edmund: Ah, Percy, you see how the King picks me out for special greeting?
Percy: No, my lord.
Baldrick: I saw it, my lord.
Edmund: And what is your name, little fellow?
Baldrick: My name is Baldrick, my lord.
Edmund: Then I shall call you... Baldrick.
Baldrick: And I shall call you "my lord," my lord.
Edmund: Well, what do you expect? 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!
Baldrick & Percy: Duke of Edinburgh!
Edmund: Who is the bravest swordsman in the land?
Percy: Oh, don't tell me. The Earl of Norfolk?
Edmund: [annoyed] 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!
Baldrick: Very witty, My Lord.
Edmund: Thank you, Baldrick.
Percy: Very, very, very witty, My Lord.
Edmund: Thank you, Percy.
Baldrick: You're certainly wittier than your father.
Percy: And head and shoulders over Richard III! [who he accidentally decapitated]
Edmund: [annoyed] Is that supposed to be witty?
Percy: Er... No, my lord. Th-that was an example of the sort of thing that you yourself would not stoop to.
Edmund: Go away!
Baldrick and Percy: Yes, my lord.

Born to Be King

[King Richard IV is about to set out on a crusade against the Turks]
Richard IV: As the good Lord said: "Love thy neighbour as thyself, unless he's Turkish, in which case, kill the bastard!"
Dougal McAngus: Hope life doesn't get too dull not being able to pass laws over Scotland.
Edmund: [Laughs feebly then mutters under his breath] I wouldn't pass water over Scotland.
Edmund: Don't be absurd. Such activities are totally beyond my mother. My father only got anywhere with her because he told her it was a cure for diarrhoea.

The Archbishop

King Richard IV: [to Edmund] Don't be mistaken about this appointment, Edward. I've always despised you.
Edmund: Well, you are my father. I mean, you're biased.
King Richard IV: You, compared to your beloved brother, Harry, are as excrement compared to cream!
Harry: Oh, father, you flatter me!
Edmund: And me, also!
King Richard IV: So now, my boy, when I've at last found a use for you, don't try to get out of it!
Edmund: Oh no, no, no, no, no! I just thought someone else, someone equally weak-willed and feeble-
King Richard IV: HA! There's no such man!
Edmund: Of course not. Or perhaps someone who believed in God-
King Richard IV: No, no, no! If I needed someone who believed in God, I'd have chosen Harry! Not an embarrassing little weed like you.
Edmund: Um, well, let's take Hell. Hell isn't as bad as it's cracked up to be.
Lord Graveney: What?
Edmund: No, no, no, no. The thing about Heaven is that Heaven is for people who like the sort of things that go on in Heaven, like [makes a face] singing, talking to God, watering pot plants.
Lord Graveney: Ecchh!
Edmund: Whereas Hell, on the other hand, is for people who like the other sorts of things: [with relish] adultery, pillage, torture. Those areas.
Lord Graveney: [excited] Really?
Edmund: Mmm. Once you're dead, you'll have the time of your life.
Lord Graveney: [ecstatic] Adultery, pillage - through all eternity?
Edmund: Yep! Henry, it's your decision.
Lord Graveney: Very well. I'll leave my lands to the Crown and my soul in the hands of the Lord. May he treat me like the piece of refuse that I am and send me to Hell where I belong. Amen!
Edmund: Amen. You're a lucky man. I wish I could come with you, but being Archbishop...
Lord Graveney: I'm so sorry.
Edmund: Oh, it's alright.

The Queen of Spain's Beard

Messenger: My lord, good news! The Swiss have invaded France!
King Richard IV: Excellent! Wessex, while they're away, take ten thousand troops and pillage Geneva!
Chiswick: But the Swiss are our allies, my lord.
King Richard IV: Oh, yes. [to Lord Wessex] Well, get them to dress up as Germans, would you? Chiswick, remind me to send flowers to the king of France in sympathy for the death of his son.
Chiswick: The one you had murdered, my lord?
King Richard IV: [absentmindedly] Yes, yes, that's the fellow.
Baldrick: My Lord...
Edmund: What?
Baldrick: I also have a plan.
Edmund: Yes?
Baldrick: Why not make her think you prefer the company of men?
Edmund: But I do, Baldrick, I do!
Baldrick: No, no, My Lord. I mean, erm, the, er, intimate company of men...?
Edmund: [horrified] You don't mean... like the Earl of Doncaster...?
Baldrick: I mean just like the Earl of Doncaster.
Edmund: That great radish? That steaming great left-footer? The Earl of Doncaster, Baldrick, has been riding side-saddle since he was 17.
Baldrick: Mm! And who would want to marry the Earle of Doncaster?
Edmund: Well, no-one wou - [understanding] Brilliant! Of course! No one would marry the Earl of Doncaster!... except, perhaps, the Duke of Beaufort.

Witchsmeller Pursuivant

Witchsmeller: [talking about ordeal by axe] The suspect 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.
Witchsmeller: Have you or have you not, committed sins of the flesh with him?
Jane Firkettle: I have.
Edmund: You must be joking!
Jane Firkettle: To my deepest shame.
Edmund: And mine. I mean, look at her!
Witchsmeller: Can you describe these foul deeds?
Jane Firkettle: Well, after we had kissed just once, he transformed into a wild animal.
Edmund: Perhaps I do remember you.
Jane Firkettle: Three months later, I was great with child.
Edmund: Oh, for god's sake!
Witchsmeller: You bore him a son?
Jane Firkettle: Mmm. My little Johnny.
Witchsmeller: Can you see this son of Satan anywhere in this court?

The Black Seal

Percy: Well, it could have been worse, my lord.
Baldrick: Yeah, for a second, I was afraid you'd lose the privies.
Edmund: [suddenly stands up] NO! It will not do!
Percy: Uh, no, my lord, you're right! It won't!
Edmund: I must clear away the chaff from my life and let shine forth the true wheat of greatness!
Percy: Do it at once, my lord!
Edmund: Very well. Percy, you are dismissed from my services.
Percy: [laughs and points at Baldrick, then suddenly stops in realisation] Me? Why?
Edmund: Because Percy, far from being a fit consort for a prince of the realm, you would bore the leggings off a village idiot. You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would. Your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly. And the part of you that can't be mentioned, I am reliably informed by women around the court, wouldn't be worth mentioning even if it could be. If you put on a floppy hat and a furry cod-piece, you might just get by as a fool, but since you wouldn't know a joke if it got up and gave you a haircut, I doubt it. That is why you are dismissed.
Percy: [meekly] Oh, I see.
Edmund: And as for you, Baldrick...
Baldrick: [hopefully] My Lord?
Edmund: You're out too.
The Hawk: Fifteen years in France teaches a man to hate! Fifteen years of eating frogs! Fifteen years of wearing perfume! Fifteen years of saying perdon! And all because of you!

Blackadder II

Bells

Percy: Sorry I'm late!
Blackadder: Oh, don't bother apologizing. I'm sorry you're alive.
Percy: Not bad, Edmund. Ah, I see the target's ready. I'd like to see the Spaniard who could make his way past me.
Blackadder: Well, go to Spain. There are millions of them.
Percy: I advise them to stay there then, keep their hands off our women.
Blackadder: Oh god, who is she this time?
Percy: I don't know what you mean.
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, incidentally, is what you'll be getting if you don't start being a bit more helpful! Do you know where she lives?
Young Crone: 'Course.
Blackadder: Where?
Young Crone: 'Ere. Do you have an appointment?
Blackadder: No.
Young Crone: Oh... you can go in anyway.
Blackadder: Thank you, young crone. Here is a purse of monies... [she tries to grab it] which I'm not going to give to you. [walks in]
Blackadder: Right Baldrick, let's try again, shall we? This is called adding. [gestures to the beans on the table] If I have two beans, and then I add two more, what do I have?
Baldrick: Some beans.
Blackadder: [smiles, impatiently] Yesss... and no. Let's try again, shall we? I have two beans, then I add two more beans. What does that make?
Baldrick: A very small casserole.
Blackadder: Baldrick. The ape-creatures of the Indus have mastered this. Now try again. [helps him count] One, two, three... four. So, how many are there?
Baldrick: Three.
Blackadder: What?
Baldrick: And that one.
Blackadder: Three... and that one. [waves the fourth bean in front of Baldrick's face] So if I add the three to that one, what will I have?!
Baldrick: Oh! Some beans.
Blackadder: [pause] Yes. To you, Baldrick, the Renaissance was just something that happened to other people, wasn't it?
Blackadder: [seeing Percy's abnormally wide new neckruff] You look like a bird who's swallowed a plate.
Percy: It's the latest fashion, actually. And as a matter of fact, it makes me look rather sexy!
Blackadder: To another plate-swallowing bird, perhaps. If it was blind and hadn't had it in months.
Percy: I think you may be wrong!
Blackadder: You're a sad, laughable figure, aren't you, Percy? Baldrick, what do you think of Percy's new ruff?
Baldrick: Four!
Blackadder: What?
Baldrick: Some beans and some beans is four!
Blackadder: No, now we've moved on - from advanced mathematics to elementary dress making. What do you think of Percy's new ruff?
Baldrick: I think he looks like a bird who's swallowed a plate, my Lord.
Blackadder: No, that's what I think. What do you think? Try to have a thought of your own; thinking is so important. What do you think?
Baldrick: I think thinking is so important, my Lord.
Blackadder: I give up! I'm off to see the Queen.
Percy: Should I come too?
Blackadder: No, best not. People might think we're friends. You stay here with Baldrick. Bird-Neck and Bird-Brain should get on like a house on fire.

Potato

Blackadder: Bloody explorers. Ponce off to Mumbo-Jumbo Land and come home with a tropical disease, a suntan and a bag of brown lumpy things, and Bob's-your-uncle, everyone's got a picture of them in the lavatory! I mean, what about the people that do all the work?
Baldrick: The servants?
Blackadder: No, me! I'm the people who do all the work! I mean, look at this! [holds up a potato] What is it?
Baldrick: I'm surprised you've forgotten, my lord.
Blackadder: I haven't forgotten, it's a rhetorical question.
Baldrick: Nah, it's a potato.
Blackadder: To you, it's a potato. To me, it's a potato. But to Sir Walter bloody Raleigh, it's fine carriages, luxury estates and as many girls as his tongue can cope with! He's making a fortune out of the things: people are smoking them, building houses out of them... they'll be eating them next!
Baldrick: Stranger things have happened, my lord.
Blackadder: [dismissively] Oh, exactly.
Baldrick: That horse becoming Pope...
Blackadder: For one.

[Knock on the door]

Blackadder: Get that, Baldrick. Probably some berk with a parrot on his shoulder selling plaster gnomes of Sir Francis Drake and his Golden Behind.

[After Baldrick goes to answer the door, Blackadder hears a young child chanting "Sourpuss! Grumpy-face!" outside his window. Blackadder grabs his bow, leans out the window and looses an arrow. The child screams and calls "Mummy"]

Blackadder: And another thing - why aren't you at school?
Melchett: I see you've started talking to yourself, Blackadder.
Blackadder: Yes, it's the only way I can be sure of intelligent conversation around here.
Blackadder: Not joining us in the ha-has, Percy?
Percy: [despondant] No. I'm thinking of England and the girl I left behind me.
Blackadder: Oh god, I didn't know you had a girl.
Percy: Oh yes. Lady Caroline Fairfax.
Blackadder: Caroline? I didn't know you knew her.
Percy: Oh yes. I even touched her once.
Blackadder: Touched her what?
Percy: No, once, in a corridor.
Blackadder: I've never heard it called that before. Still, when you get home in six months, you'll be a hero. She might even let you get your hands on her twice.
Percy: I fear not.
Blackadder: Why not?
Percy: [hysterical] Because we'll never get home! We're doomed! Doomed! Condemned to a watery grave by a legless captain!
Captain Redbeard Rum: Rubbish! I've hardly touched a drop!
Percy: No, I mean you haven't got any legs.
Captain Rum: Oh yes. You're right there. Carry on. Sorry.
Percy: [despondant] Oh god. We've no hope. No hope of ever returning.
Blackadder: On the contrary, we are certain to return.
Percy: How?
Blackadder: Because, me old salts, we are not going to the Cape of Good Hope at all.
Percy, Baldrick & Captain Rum: [shocked] What?!
Blackadder: We are, in fact, going to France.
Percy, Baldrick & Captain Rum: [shocked] France?!
Percy: Oh, but, Edmund, surely France has already been discovered. By the French, for a start.
Blackadder: Well, precisely, it's a trick! We just camp down in the Dordogne for six months, get a good suntan, come home, pretend we've been 'round the Cape and get all the glory.
Percy: Hooray!
Captain Rum: A masterly plan, me young master! And one that leads me to make an announcement meself.
Blackadder: What's that, Rum?
Captain Rum: Truth is... I don't know the way to the Cape of Good Hope anyway.
Blackadder: Well, what were you going to do?
Captain Rum: Oh, what I usually do - sail 'round and 'round the Isle of Wight 'til everyone gets dizzy, then sail for home.
Blackadder: You old rascal! Still, who cares? The day after tomorrow, we shall be in Calais. [Gets to his feet and raises his mug] Captain, set sail for France!
Percy, Baldrick & Captain Rum: Hooray!

[The day after the day after tomorrow...]

Blackadder: So you don't know the way to France either?
Captain Rum: No! I must confess that too.
Blackadder: Bugger.

Money

Blackadder: Well, you're a one, aren't you? When you should be 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!
Molly: He was treating me like a human being!
Blackadder: Look, if I had wanted a lecture of the rights of man, I'd have gone to bed with Martin Luther!
Blackadder: This is the den.
Mrs. Pants: [disgusted] Oh dear!
Blackadder: But I have to tell you, Mr. Pants, that I've had an extremely encouraging nibble from another client, and I think you know me the sort of man not to ignore a nibble for long.
Mrs. Pants: I smell some dry rot in the bedrooms, Timothy.
Blackadder: Well, Mrs Pants, dry rot is as dry rot does.
Mrs. Pants: And the floors are, perhaps, a bit uneven.
Blackadder: Indeed, and at no extra cost.
Mrs. Pants: Strange smell.
Blackadder: Yes, that's the servant. He'll be gone soon.
Mr. Timothy Pants: You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?
Blackadder: No, not really. This is a different thing; it's spontaneous and it's called wit.
Mrs. Pants: What about the privies?
Blackadder: When the master craftsman who designed this home was looking at sewage, he said to himself, "Romeo", for 'twas his name, "Romeo, let's make 'em functional and comfortable."
Mr. Timothy Pants: Oh, well, that sounds nice, don't it, dear?
Blackadder: I'm glad we understand each other, sir. So, sold then. Drink?
Mrs. Pants: [insistent] What about the privies?
Blackadder: Well, what we're talking about in 'privy' terms is the very latest in front-wall, fresh air orifices combined with a wide capacity gutter installation below.
Mrs. Pants: You mean you crap out of the window?
Blackadder: Yes!
Mrs. Pants: Well, in that case, we'll definitely take it! I can't stand those dirty indoor things.
Blackadder: Right, Balders, I've lost the money. I'm going to have to run away.
Baldrick: Why, my lord?
Blackadder: Well, to avoid these monks!
Baldrick: No point. The Black Bank's got branches everywhere.
Blackadder: Oh no! [slumps to the floor] If I die, Baldrick, do you think people would remember me?
Baldrick: Yeah, 'course they would.
Blackadder: Yes, I suppose so.
Baldrick: Yeah, people would always be slapping each other on the shoulder and laughing and saying "Do you remember Old Privy-Breath?".
Blackadder: Do people call me "Privy-Breath"?
Baldrick: Yeah. The ones who like you.
Blackadder: Am I then not popular?
Baldrick: Um... well, put it this way - when people step in what dogs leave in the street, they do tend to say "Whoops, I've trod on an Edmund".
Blackadder: The bloody cheek! I'll show them!
Baldrick: Have you got a plan, my lord?
Blackadder: Yes I have, and it's so cunning you could brush your teeth with it! All I need is some feathers, a dress, some oil, an easel, some sleeping draught, lots of paper, a prostitute and the best portrait-painter in England!
Baldrick: I'll get them right away, my lord!
[On the painting Blackadder had made to blackmail the Bishop of Bath and Wells]
Bishop of Bath and Wells: By the horns of Beelzebub, how did you get me into that position?!
Blackadder: It's beautifully framed, don't you think? Which is ironic, really, because that's exactly what's happened to you.
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?!
Blackadder: No, I could never get used to the underwear.

Beer

Blackadder: Baldrick! Baldrick, why have you got a piece of cheese tied to the end of your nose?
Baldrick: To catch mice, my lord. I lie on the floor with my mouth open and hope they scurry in.
Blackadder: And do they?
Baldrick: Not yet, my lord.
Blackadder: That's hardly surprising. Your breath comes straight from Satan's bottom, Baldrick. The only sort of mouse you're likely to catch is one without a nose.
Baldrick: That's a pity, 'cause the nose is the best bit on a mouse.
Blackadder: Any bit of mouse would be luxury compared to what Percy and I must eat tonight. We are entertaining Puritan vegetable folk, Balders. And that means no meat.
Baldrick: In that case, I shall prepare my Turnip Surprise.
Blackadder: And the surprise is what?
Baldrick: There's nothing else in it except the turnip.
Blackadder: So, in other words, the Turnip Surprise would be a turnip?
Baldrick: [in realisation] Oh yeah.
Blackadder: Get the door, Baldrick.
[There is a crash. Baldrick enters, carrying a door.]
Blackadder: I would 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 1532!
Blackadder: So has syphilis. Now get out!

Chains

Prince Ludwig: Forgive me, Herr Blackadder... I have been neglecting my duties as a host. Please accept my apple-ogies.
Blackadder: I accept nothing from a man who imprisons his guests in a commode.
Prince Ludwig: I hope this scum has not inconweenienced you.
Edmund: It takes more than a maniac trying to cut off my goolies to inconweenience me.
Prince Ludwig: Good. If he had inconweenienced you, I was going to offer you his tongue.
Blackadder: Believe me, sir: if he had inconweeniened me, you would not have a tongue with which to make such an offer.
Prince Ludwig: Let me assure you, Herr Blackadder: if I no longer had a tongue with which to make such an offer, you would no longer have a tongue with which to tell me that, if I had inconweenienced you, I would no longer have a tongue with which to offer you his tongue.
Edmund: Yes, well, enough of this banter. Who the hell are you, sausage breath?
Prince Ludwig: You do not remember me then, Herr Blackadder?
Blackadder: I don't believe I've had the pleasure.
Prince Ludwig: Oh, on the contrary. We have met many times, although you knew me by another name. Do you recall a mysterious black marketeer and smuggler called Otto with whom you used to dine and plot and play the biscuit game at the Old Pizzle in Dover?
Blackadder: My God!
Prince Ludwig: Yes! I was the waitress.
Edmund: I don't believe it! You? Big Sally?
Prince Ludwig: [falsetto] `Will you have another piece of pie, My Lord?'
Blackadder: But I went to bed with you, didn't I?
Prince Ludwig: For my country, I am willing to make any sacrifice.
Blackadder: Yes, but I'm not! I must have been paralytic!
Prince Ludwig: Indeed you were, "Mr. Floppy".
Blackadder: Were you ever bullied at school?
Prince Ludwig: What do you mean?
Blackadder: I mean, all this ranting and raving about power. There must be some reason for it.
Prince Ludwig: Nonsense. No, at my school, having dirty hair and spots was a sign of maturity.
Blackadder: I thought so! And I bet your mother made you wear shorts all the way up to your final year--
Prince Ludwig: Shut up! Shut up! When I am King of England, no one will ever dare call me "Shorty-Greasy-Spot-Spot" again!
Percy: Welcome, Edmund. Did you... miss me?
Blackadder: I certainly did. Many is the time I said to myself "I wish Percy was here..."
Percy: [ecstatic] Oh!
Blackadder: "...being tortured instead of me."
Percy: [still ecstatic] Oh, we have missed your wit!
Baldrick: Did you miss me, my lord?
Blackadder: Um... Baldrick, is it?
Baldrick: That's right.
Blackadder: No, not really.
Queen: And me? Did you miss me, Edmund?
Blackadder: Madame, life without you was like a broken pencil.
Queen: [confused] Explain...?
Blackadder: Pointless.

Blackadder the Third

Dish and Dishonesty

Blackadder: Right. Now all we have to do is fill in this MP application form. "Name"...Baldrick. First name?
Blackadder & Baldrick: Baldrick.
Blackadder: First name?
Baldrick: I'm not sure.
Blackadder: You must have some idea.
Baldrick: Well, it might be Sodoff.
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: ...All right, right, right, right. "Mr S. Baldrick." Now then, "Distinguishing features".... None.
Baldrick: Well, I've got this big growth in the middle of my face.
Blackadder: That's your nose, Baldrick. "Any history of insanity in the family?"... I'll cross out the "in." "Any history of sanity in the family?" ... None whatsoever. "Criminal record?"
Baldrick: Absolutely not.
Blackadder: Oh, come on, Baldrick, you're going to be an MP, for God's sake! I'll just put "Fraud and sexual deviancy". Now, "Minimum bribe level?"
Baldrick: One turnip. Oh, hang on, I don't want to price meself out of the market.
Blackadder: Baldrick, I've always been meaning to ask: do you have any ambitions in life apart from the acquisition of turnips?
Baldrick: No.
Blackadder: So what would you do if I gave you a thousand pounds?
Baldrick: [grins] I'd get a little turnip of my own.
Blackadder: So what would you do if I gave you a million pounds?
Baldrick: Oh, that's different. I'd get a great big turnip in the country.
Prince George: I say, Blackadder, are you sure this is the PM? Seems like a bit of an oily tick to me. When I was at school, we used to line up four or five of his sort, make them bend over, and use them as a toast rack!
Pitt the Younger: You don't surprise me, sir. I know your sort. Once, it was I who stood in a cold schoolroom, a hot crumpet burning my cheeks with shame. But since that day, I have worked every hour God sends to become Prime Minister, and fight sloth and privilege wherever I find it!
Blackadder: I trust you weren't too busy to remove the crumpet...
Pitt the Younger: You will regret this, gentlemen! You think you can thwart my plans to bankrupt the Prince by winning the Dunny-On-The-Wold by-election. But you will be thrashed! I intend to put my own brother up as a candidate against you.
Blackadder: And which Pitt would this be? Pitt the Toddler? Pitt the Embryo? Pitt the Glint in the Milkman's Eye?
Pitt the Younger: Sirs, as I said to Chancellor Metternich at the Convent of Strasbourg, pooh to you with knobs on! We shall meet, sirs, on the hustings! [leaves]
Prince George: I say, Blackadder, what a ghastly squit! He's not gonna win, is he?
Blackadder: No, sir, because, firstly, we shall be fighting this campaign on issues, not personalities. Secondly, we shall be the only fresh thing on the menu. And thirdly, of course, we'll cheat!

Ink and Incapability

Prince George: [waking suddenly] Oh, Blackadder! BLACKADDER! [Blackadder walks in]
Blackadder: Your Highness?
Prince George: What time is it!?
Blackadder: Three o'clock in the afternoon, sire.
Prince George: [relieved] Oh thank God for that, I thought I'd overslept!
Blackadder: I trust you had a pleasant evening, sir?
Prince George: Well, no, actually. The most extraordinary thing happened. Last night I was having a bit of a snack at the Naughty Hellfire Club, and some fellow said that I had the wit and sophistication of a donkey!
Blackadder: An absurd suggestion, sir.
Prince George: You're right, it is absurd.
Blackadder: Unless, of course, it was a particularly stupid donkey.
Blackadder: Ah, good morning. Dr. Johnson, Lord Byron-
Samuel Johnson: Where is my dictionary?
Blackadder: And what dictionary would this be?
[Johnson, Byron, Shelley and Coleridge advance on Blackadder with swords drawn to the tune of an ominous drumbeat]
Samuel Johnson: [outraged] The one that has taken me eighteen hours of every day for the past ten years! My mother died, I hardly noticed. My father cut off his head and fried it in garlic in the hopes of attracting my attention; I scarcely looked up from my work! My wife brought armies of lovers to the house, who worked in droves so that she might bring up a huge family of bastards! I cared not!
Blackadder: [cornered] Am I to assume that my elaborate bluff has not worked?
Samuel Johnson: Dictionary!
Blackadder: Right, well, the truth is - now, don't get cross, don't over-react - the truth is: we burnt it.
Samuel Johnson: Then you die!

Nob and Nobility

Blackadder: Morning, Mrs Miggins.
Mrs Miggins: Bonjour, monsieur.
Blackadder: [disgusted] What?
Mrs Miggins: Bonjour, monsieur. It's French.
Blackadder: So is eating frogs, cruelty to geese and urinating in the street. But that's no reason to inflict it on the rest of us.
Mrs Miggins: But French is all the fashion! My coffee shop is full of Frenchies, and it's all because of that wonderful Scarlet Pimpernel!
Blackadder: The Scarlet Pimpernel is not wonderful, Mrs Miggins. There is no reason whatsoever to admire someone for filling London with a bunch of garlic-chewing French toffs, crying "Oh-la-la" and looking for sympathy all the time just cos their fathers had their heads cut off. I'll have a cup of coffee, and some shepherd's pie.
Mrs Miggins: Oh, we don't serve pies any more! My French clientèle consider pies uncouth.
Blackadder: I hardly think a nation that eats snails and would go to bed with the kitchen sink if it put on a tutu is in any position to preach couthness.
Blackadder: Baldrick, when did you last change your trousers?
Baldrick: [as if rehearsed] I have never changed my trousers.
Blackadder: Thank you, Baldrick. [To Prince George] You see, the Ancient Greeks, sir, wrote in legend of a terrible container in which all the evils of the world were trapped. How prophetic they were. All they got wrong was the name. They called it "Pandora's Box", when, of course, they meant "Baldrick's Trousers".
Baldrick: It certainly can get a bit whiffy, there's no doubt about that!
Blackadder: We are told that, when the box was opened, the whole world turned to darkness and misfortune because of Pandora's fatal curiosity. [to Baldrick] I charge you now, Baldrick: for the good of all mankind, never allow curiosity to lead you to open your trousers. Nothing of interest lies therein!

Sense and Senility

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.
Blackadder: Baldrick, I would like to say how much I will miss your honest, friendly companionship...
Baldrick: [touched] Aw, thank you, Mister B.
Blackadder: ...but as we both know, it would be an utter lie. I will therefore content myself with saying "Sod off", and if I ever meet you again, it'll be 20 billion years too soon. [he leaves]
Baldrick: Goodbye, you lazy, big-nosed, rubber-faced bastard. [Blackadder re-enters the room]
Blackadder: I think, Baldrick, you will soon be eating those badly chosen words. I wouldn't bet a single groat that you could survive five minutes here without me.
Baldrick: Oh, come on, Mr B. It's not like we're gonna get murdered the minute you leave, is it?
Blackadder: Hope springs eternal, Baldrick!

Amy and Amiability

Blackadder: [after noticing a portion of his newspaper has been cut out] Baldrick, why has half the front page been cut out?
Baldrick: I don't know.
Blackadder: You do know, don't you?
Baldrick: Yes.
Blackadder: You've been cutting out the cuttings about the elusive 'Shadow' to put in your highwayman's scrapbook, haven't you?
Baldrick: Oh, I can't help it, Mr B.! His life is so dark and shadowy and full of fear and trepidation!
Blackadder: So is going to the toilet in the middle of the night, but you don't keep a scrapbook on it.
Baldrick: I do!
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! Outrageous, sir, to come here with such a suggestion! Leave now, sir, or I shall take off me belt, and by thunder, me trousers'll fall down!
Blackadder: No, sir, you misunderstand. The prince wants to marry your lovely daughter.
Josiah Hardwood: Oh! Can it be possibly true? Surely love has never crossed such boundaries of class?
Amy Hardwood: What about you and Mum?
Josiah Hardwood: Well, yes, I grant thee, when I first met her, I was the farmer's son and she was just the lass who ate the dung, but that was an exception.
Amy Hardwood: And Auntie Dot and Uncle Ted?
Josiah Hardwood: Yes, yes, alright, he was a pig poker and she was the Duchess of Argyle-
Amy Hardwood: And Auntie Ruthie was a milkmaid and Uncle Isiah was-
Josiah Hardwood: The pope! Yes, alright! Don't argue! Suffice to say, if you marry, we need never be poor or hungry again. Sir, we accept.
Blackadder: Wonderful. So obviously you'll be wanted an enormous ceremony... What did you say?
Josiah Hardwood: Well, obviously, now we're marrying quality, we'll never be poor or hungry again.
Blackadder: Meaning that you're poor and hungry at the moment?
Josiah Hardwood: Oh yes. We've been living off lard butties for five years now. I'm so poor, I use my underpants for drying dishes!
Blackadder: So you're skint?
Josiah Hardwood: Aye.
Blackadder: Well, in that case, the wedding's off. Good day.
Amy Hardwood: But what about George's lovey-wovey poems that won my hearty-wearty?
Blackadder: All writteny-witteny by me-we, I'm afraidy-waidy. Goodbye.
[As Blackadder plans to run off with Amy]
Baldrick: [annoyed] I still can't believe you're leaving me behind!
Blackadder: Oh, don't worry, when we've established on our plantation in Barbados, I'll send for you. No more sad little London for you, Balders. From now on, you will stand out in life as an individual.
Baldrick: Will I?
Blackadder: Of course you will; all the other slaves will be black.

Duel and Duality

Baldrick: [entering with a letter] Mr. Blackadder?
Blackadder: Leave me alone, Baldrick. If I wanted to talk to a vegetable, I'd have bought one at the market.
Baldrick: Don't you want this letter, then?
Blackadder: No, thank you. God, I'm wasted here. It's no life for a man of noble blood, being servant to a master with the intellect of a jugged walrus and all the social graces of a potty!
Baldrick: I'm wasted too. I've been thinking of bettering myself.
Blackadder: Oh really, how?
Baldrick: I applied for the job of village idiot of Kensington.
Blackadder: Oh. Get anywhere?
Baldrick: I got down to the last two, but I failed the final interview.
Blackadder: Oh, what went wrong?
Baldrick: I turned up. The other bloke was such an idiot, he forgot to.
Blackadder: Yes, I'm afraid my ambitions stretch slightly further than professional idiocy in West London. 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. Now, what's this message?
Baldrick: I thought you didn't want it.
Blackadder: Well, I may do, it depends what it is.
Baldrick: So you do want it?
Blackadder: Well, I don't know, do I? It depends what it is.
Baldrick: [frantically] Well, I can't tell you what it is unless you want to know, and you said you didn't want to know, and now I'm so confused, I don't know where I live or what my name is!
Blackadder: Your name is of no importance, and you live in the pipe in the upstairs water closet.
Blackadder: A man may fight for many things; his country, his principles, his friends, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn! You're on!

Blackadder Goes Forth

Plan A: Captain Cook

[First lines]
Blackadder: Baldrick, what are you doing out there?
Baldrick: I'm carving something on this bullet, sir.
Blackadder: What are you carving?
Baldrick: I'm carving "Baldrick", sir!
Blackadder: Why?
Baldrick: It's part of a cunning plan, actually!
Blackadder: Of course it is.
Baldrick: You know how they say that somewhere there's a bullet with your name on it?
Blackadder: [haltingly] Yyyyyyyyes...?
Baldrick: Well, I thought that if I owned the bullet with my name on it, I'll never get hit by it! Cause I'll never shoot myself...
Blackadder: Oh, shame!
Baldrick: ... and the chances of there being two bullets with my name are very small indeed!
Blackadder: Yes, it's not the only thing around here that's "very small indeed". Your brain, for example. Is so minute, Baldrick, that if a hungry cannibal cracked your head open, there wouldn't be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
Melchett: Field Marshal Haig has formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field.
Blackadder: Ah. Would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy?
Captain Darling: How could you possibly know that, Blackadder? It's classified information!
Blackadder: It's the same plan that we used last time and the seventeen times before that.
Melchett: Exactly! And that is what is so brilliant about it! It will catch the watchful Hun totally off guard! Doing precisely what we've done eighteen times before is exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do this time! 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 this may be depressing the men a tad. So he's looking for a way to cheer them up.
Blackadder: Well, his resignation and suicide seems the obvious choice.
Melchett: Hmm, interesting thought. Make a note of it, Darling.

Plan B: Corporal Punishment

Melchett: Anything to say before we kick off, Captain Darling?
Darling: May it please the court, as this is clearly an open and shut case, I beg leave to bring a private prosecution against the defence counsel for wasting the court's time.
Melchett: Granted. The defence counsel is fined £50 for turning up!
[After Blackadder has gotten a reprieve, no thanks to George and Baldrick]
Blackadder: I'm not a religious man, as you know, but henceforth I shall nightly pray to the God who killed Cain and squashed Samson that he comes out of retirement and gets back into practice on the pair of you! [the phone rings] Captain Blackadder speaking. Ah, Captain Darling. Yes, well, some of us just have friends in high places, I suppose. Yes I can hear you perfectly. You want what? You want two volunteers for a mission into no man's land? Codename: "Operation Certain Death"? Yes, I think I have just the fellows. [he hangs up and grins cruelly at George and Baldrick] God is very quick these days!

Plan C: Major Star

Baldrick: Sir, it's all over the trenches!
Blackadder: Well, mop it up then!
Baldrick: No sir, the news! The Russian Revolution has started! The masses have risen up and shot all their nobs!
George: Well, hurrah!
Blackadder: Oh no, the bloody Russians have pulled out of the war!
George: Well, we soon saw them off, didn't we?! Miserable, slant-eyed sausage-eating swine!
Blackadder: The Russians are on our side, George.
George: [surprised] Are they? Oh.
Blackadder: And they've abandoned the Eastern Front.
Baldrick: And they've overthrown Nicholas II who used to be bizarre!
Blackadder: Who used to be the tsar, Baldrick. The point is that now that the Russians have made peace with the Kaiser, at this very moment a quarter of a million Germans are leaving the Russian Front and coming here with the express purpose of using my nipples for target practice!
[Blackadder is meeting "Bob" Parkhurst, who he realises is actually a woman disguised as a man]
Blackadder: So you're a chap, are you, Bob?
Bob: Oh yes, sir. [bursts out laughing and growls like a tiger]
Blackadder: You wouldn't say that you were a girl at all?
Bob: [nervously] Oh, definitely not sir! I understand cricket, I fart in bed, everything.
Blackadder: Let me put it another way, Bob. You are a girl. And you're a girl with as much talent for disguise as a giraffe in dark glasses trying to get into a "Polar bears only" golf club!
Bob: [Horrified] Oh sir, oh sir, please don't give me away, sir. I just wanted to be like my brothers and join up. 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 Olaf the Hairy, High Chief of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered eighty thousand battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Bob: I want to do my bit for the boys, sir!
Blackadder: Oh, really..?
Bob: [pleading] I'll do anything, sir!
Blackadder: Yes, I'd keep that to myself if I were you.

Plan D: Private Plane

Flashheart: The first thing to remember is: always treat your kite [Whacks diagram with his pointer.] like you treat your woman! [Whips the air. Hard.]
George: Ho-how do you mean, sir? You mean, um... you mean, take her home over 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: I'm beginning to see why the Suffragette Movement want the vote.
Flashheart: Hey, any bird who wants to chain herself to my railings and suffer a jet movement gets my vote!
Baron von Richthofen: Ha ha ha! You English and your sense of humour! How lucky you English are to find the toilet so amusing! For us, it is a mundane and functional item...for you, the basis of an entire culture!

Plan E: General Hospital


Darling: In short, a German spy is giving away every one of our battle plans.
Melchett: You look surprised, Blackadder.
Blackadder: I certainly am, sir. I didn't realise that we had any battle plans.
Melchett: Well of course we have! How else do you think the battles are directed?!
Blackadder: Our battles are directed, sir?
Melchett: Well of course they are, Blackadder, directed according to the grand plan.
Blackadder: Would that be the plan to continue with total slaughter until everyone's dead except for Field Marshall Haig, Lady Haig and their tortoise, Alan?
Melchett: [horrified] Great Scott! Even you know it!
Blackadder: Remember you mentioned a clever boyfriend?
Nurse Mary: Yes.
Blackadder: I leapt on the opportunity to test you. I asked if he'd been to one of the great universities: Oxford, Cambridge, Hull.
Nurse Mary: Well?
Blackadder: You failed to spot that only two of those are great universities!
Nurse Mary: You swine!
Melchett: That's right! Oxford's a complete dump!
Blackadder: [looks startled - this was an improvised joke by Stephen Fry, who went to Cambridge whereas Rowan Atkinson went to Oxford, its rival] ... Well, quite.


Plan F: Goodbyeee

George: Sir...I'm scared, sir.
Baldrick: I'm scared too, sir.
George: I'm the last of the tiddly-winking leap-froggers from the golden summer of 1914. I don't want to die...I'm really not overly keen on dying at all, sir.
Blackadder: How are you feeling Darling?
Darling: Ah, not all that good, Blackadder. Rather thought I'd get through the whole show. Go back to working at Pratt and Sons. Keep wicket for the Croydon Gentlemen. Marry Doris. Made a note in my diary on the way here. Simply says... "Bugger".
[Last lines of the series; Blackadder, Baldrick, George and Darling are ready to go over the top]
Darling: Listen... Our guns have stopped.
George: You don't think...?
Baldrick: [with rising hope] Maybe... the war's over. Maybe it's peace!
George: [overjoyed] Oh, hurrah! The big knobs have gone round the table and yanked the iron out of the fire!
Darling: [also overjoyed] Thank God! We lived through it! The Great War, 1914 to 1917!
George: Hip-hip...
George, Baldrick and Darling: HOORAY!
Blackadder: [sadly] I'm afraid... not. The guns have stopped because we're about to attack. Not even our generals are mad enough to shell their own men. They think it's far more sporting to let the Germans do it.
George: [afraid] So we are, in fact, going over? This is, as they say, "it"?
Blackadder: I'm afraid so. Unless I can think of something very quickly.
Captain in background: COMPANY, ONE PACE FORWARD! [the group obey]
Baldrick: Oh, there's a nasty splinter on that ladder, sir! A bloke could hurt himself on that!
Captain in background: STAND READY!
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.
Captain in background: 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 have noticed another madman round here? [a whistle is heard] Good luck, everyone. [blows whistle, and they go over the top]

Specials

Blackadder: The Cavalier Years

Blackadder: I just don't understand it. Where on Earth did they find a man so utterly without heart and soul, so low and degraded as to accept the job of beheading the King of England? [as his words sink in, Blackadder has a realisation] Baldrick? That little job that fell into your lap? It wasn't, by any chance, something to do with an axe, a basket, a little black mask and the King of England?
Baldrick: No.
Blackadder: Go on...
Baldrick: I couldn't find a basket.
Blackadder: You very small, total bastard! [grabs a meat cleaver and holds it to Baldrick's throat]
Baldrick: Please, Sir, don't kill me! I have a cunning plan to save the king!
Blackadder: Well, forgive me if I don't do a cartwheel of joy. Your family's record in the department of cunning planning is about impressive as Stumpy Oleg McNoLeg's personal best in the Market Harborough marathon! [sighes] All right, what's the plan?
Baldrick: [holds up a pumpkin]
Blackadder: A pumpkin is going to save the king?
Baldrick: Ah. But over here, I have one that I made earlier. [holds up a pumpkin with a face and wig] I will balance it on the King's head, like this, then I will cover his real head with a cloak. And then, when I execute him, instead of cutting off his real head, I will cut off the pumpkin and the king survives!
Blackadder: I'm not sure it's going to work, Balders.
Baldrick: Why not?
Blackadder: Because once you've 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 a large pumpkin with a pathetic mustache drawn on it."
Baldrick: I suppose it's not 100 percent convincing...
Blackadder: It's not 1 percent convincing. However, I am a busy man and I can't be bothered to punch you at the moment. Here is my fist. Kindly run towards it as fast as you can. [Baldrick does so]


Blackadder's Christmas Carol

[Blackadder shouts from outside.]
Ebenezer Blackadder: HUMBUG! HUMBUG! HUMBUG!
[Blackadder enters his shop, holding a paper bag]
Ebenezer Blackadder: Humbug, Mr. Baldrick?
[Blackadder offers him the bag, which contains humbug sweets.]
Baldrick: Oh, thank you very much.
Mrs Scratchit: No goose for Tiny Tim this year!
Blackadder: Mrs Scratchit, Tiny Tim is 15 stone and built like a brick privy. If he eats any more heartily he will turn into a pie shop.
Baldrick: Go on my lord. Give it a little pull, you know you want to, it will be ever so exciting...
Blackadder: [completely uninterested] Oh, god...[Blackadder pulls the tiny Christmas cracker with Baldrick. There isn't a bang] [sarcastic] Yes, terrifying.
Baldrick: And look, there's a surprise present inside. It's a novelty death warrant, and you give it to a friend.
[Baldrick gives the death warrant to Blackadder]
Blackadder: [sarcastic] Oh, just what I've always wanted.[crumples it into a ball]
Baldrick: Have you got anything for me?
Lord Blackadder: Oh it's nothing, really!
Baldrick: [touched] Oh sir!
Lord Blackadder: No, it's really nothing; I haven't got you anything. I spent all my cash on this damn thing for the Queen. [reveals a portrait of Elizabeth I] She'd better bloody like it, she dropped enough hints! That woman's about as subtle as a rhinocero's horn up the backside! Door!
Lord Blackadder: Ah, Melchett! Greetings! I trust Christmas brings you its traditional mix of good food and violent stomach cramp.
Lord Melchett: And compliments of the season to you, Blackadder. May the Yuletide log slip from your fire and burn your house down.
Lord Blackadder: I'm glad I saw you; I feel it only fair to warn you that the Queen has banned Christmas. So I wouldn't get her a present this year.
Lord Melchett: Oh, I'm indebted to you for that advice, Blackadder, and I shall, of course, follow it to the letter...[under his breath as he walks away] the day I get my brain replaced by a cauliflower.
Lord Blackadder: [jubilant] Ha! Got him with my subtle plan!
Baldrick: I can't see any subtle plan.
Lord Blackadder: 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!"
Nursie: Pity about this, tinky-wink; you always used to love this time of year!
Queenie: I know. Leaving a little mince pie and a glass of wine out for Father Christmas, and then scoffing it, because I was a princess and could do what I bloody well liked!
Nursie: And wondering if your father's wife would last until Boxing Day without having her head cut off!
Queenie: We knew if he gave her a hat, she'd probably be alright.
Queenie: Now Blackadder, what have you got me?
Lord Blackadder: [having destroyed her Christmas present] Um...
Queenie: I WANT A PREZZIE! Give me something nice and shiny, and if you don't, I've got something nice and shiny for you: it's called AN AXE!
Edmund Blackadder, Esq.: So, shall I begin?
The Prince Regent: Absolutely, as long as it's not that terribly depressing one about the chap who gets born on Christmas Day, shoots his mouth off about everything under the sun, and then comes a cropper with a couple of rum coves on top of a hill in Johnny Arab land!
Edmund Blackadder, Esq.: You mean, Jesus?
The Prince Regent: Yes, that's the bloke! Keep him out of it; he always spoils the Xmas atmos!
[After Blackadder discovers his plan to rob the Prince Regent of his Christmas valuable has gone badly wrong, thanks to Baldrick's stupidity]
Baldrick: Something wrong, Mr. B.?
Edmund Blackadder, Esq.: No, don't worry, I should've known not to trust a man with the mental agility of a rabbit dropping!
Baldrick: Sorry, Mr. B.
Edmund Blackadder, Esq.: Oh, it's perfectly alright, it's not your fault. [he floors Baldrick with a punch] Still, I fear for a frail, elderly woman, laden down with valuables, traveling through the inadequately lit streets of London!
Baldrick: Yeah, she's not safe!
Edmund Blackadder, Esq.: Well, not from me, certainly!
[after the Spirit of Christmas has left. Ebenezer Blackadder wakes up the next morning]
Baldrick: Mr. Blackadder. [comes into the room holding his sock] Looks like Father Christmas just forgot about me this year.
Ebenezer Blackadder: Oh, dear me, [takes the sock] but don't be too unhappy. [puts his hand into the sock] Because if you look very carefully there's something in this stocking from me. In fact, it's something I made for you.
Baldrick: Well that's the kind of present that shows the most love. What did you make for me, Mr. B?
Ebenezer Blackadder: I've made you...[holds out his fist] a fist.
Baldrick: A fist?
Ebenezer Blackadder: Yes, it's for hitting.
[punches Baldrick in the face]
Ebenezer Blackadder: What's wonderful about it is that you can use it again.
[punches Baldrick again]
Ebenezer Blackadder: And again.
[punches Baldrick again]
Ebenezer Blackadder: And again.
[punches Baldrick again]
Ebenezer Blackadder: Well, what do you say?
Baldrick: Thank you, Mr. B.
Ebenezer Blackadder: [puts his fist back into the sock] Think nothing of it, Baldrick. I after all think nothing of you.
[punches Baldrick again]
[A reformed Ebenezer Blackadder hands Baldrick the money he just lifted from his niece's fiancée.]
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. I'm going to have a party, and no one's invited but me!
[As he goes to leave, the door opens, and Mrs. Scratchit, a con artist who had openly extorted £17 from him the previous day, enters]
Mrs. Scratchit: Coo-eee!
Blackadder: No peace for the wicked.
Mrs. Scratchit: [sweetly] Ah, Mr. Ebenezer, I was wondering if you had perhaps a little present for me? Or had found me a little fowl for Tiny Tom's Christmas?
Blackadder: I have always found you foul, Mrs. Scratchit, and more than a little. [she looks shocked] As for Tiny Tom's Christmas, he can stuff it up his enormous muscular backside.
Mrs. Scratchit: But he's a cripple!
Blackadder: He's not a cripple, Mrs. Scratchit. Occasionally saying "phew, my leg hurts" when he remembers to wouldn't fool Baldrick.
Baldrick: It did, actually.
Blackadder: However, if you want something for lunch, [picks up a pale] take this. It's a pound a lump and, as luck would have it, there are 17 lumps left. [Takes back the money she had swindled from him earlier] Thank you.
Mrs. Scratchit: But what about my Tiny Tom?
Blackadder: Well, if I was you, I'd scoop him out and use him as a houseboat. Good day.
[Mrs. Scratchit walks out, crying]
Baldrick: Mister B, where's the milk of human kindness?
Blackadder: It's gone off, Baldrick. It stinks. [the doorbell rings] Get that, and whoever it is, slam the door in their face, otherwise I'll slam your face in the door!
[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: What, all three of you?
Queen Victoria: [laughs] My dear little hobgoblin...here is our Royal Seal [she presents it to Baldrick, who goes down on one knee]. We are here to present your master with £50,000 and the title of Baron Blackadder for being the kindest man in England!
Baldrick: Lovely, your Majesty. [Blackadder, not realising what's going on, storms over]
Blackadder: Baldrick, what did I tell you I'd do if you didn't slam the door in the faces of these scrounging loafers?!
Baldrick: But, Mr. Blackadder, it's-! [As promised, Blackadder slams the door in Baldrick's face, then slams it shut on the royals]
Blackadder: I am not at home to guests! [the royals let themselves in again]
Prince Albert: I flatter myself, we are rather special guests.
Blackadder: [not realising who they are] But of course! I must apologise; it is not often that one receives a Christmas visit from two distinguished guests!
Prince Albert: Ah, so you recognise us at last?
Blackadder: Yes, unless I'm very much mistaken, you're the winner of the "Round Britain Shortest, Fattest, Dumpiest Woman" competition! And for her to be accompanied by the winner of this year's "Stupidest Accent Award" is really quite overwhelming! [Victoria and Albert look mortified]
Queen Victoria: Sir, I cannot believe-!
Blackadder: Cork it, fatso! Don't you realise that this is the Victorian Age where, apart from Queen Piglet Features herself, [Albert covers her ears] women and children are to be seen and not heard!?
Prince Albert: [outraged] Queen Piglet Features!?
Blackadder: Yes, Empress Oink, as lads call her! The only person in the kingdom that looks dafter than her is that stupid frankfurter of a husband! [Albert covers his own ears] "The Pig and the Prig", we call them! How they ever managed to produce their 112 children is quite beyond me! The bed chambers at Buckingham Palace must be copiously supplied with blindfolds!
Queen Victoria: Sir, we have never been so insulted in our entire lives! [they storm out]
Blackadder: Well, all I can say is you've been damned lucky!

Blackadder Back & Forth

Melchett: Stuff and stonsense! I've heard some rubbish in my time - every time I open my mouth, as a matter of fact! But a time machine?
Blackadder: [unveiling his time machine] Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest breakthrough in travel since Mr. Rodney Tricycle thought to himself, "I'm bored with walking, I think I'll invent a machine with three wheels and a bell, and name it after myself."
Blackadder: [To Baldrick] Fascinating. One of history's great mysteries solved. The dinosaurs were in fact wiped out by your pants.
Blackadder: Well, Balders, this is a turn-up for the books. You've built a working time machine and are therefore, rather surprisingly, the greatest genius who has ever lived!
[Blackadder punches William Shakespeare.]
Blackadder: That is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next 400 years! Do you have any idea how much suffering you're going to cause? Hours spent at school desks trying to find one joke in A Midsummer Night's Dream? Years spent wearing stupid tights in school plays saying things like 'what ho, my lord' and 'look, here cometh Othello talking total crap as usual'? Oh, and... [kicks Shakespeare] 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.
Robin Hood: Well, well! What have we here, my tough band of freedom fighters, who have good muscle tone and aren't gay?!
Blackadder: [crouched beneath Hadrian's Wall] That's odd; the machine seems to be seeking out our DNA across time!
[Atop the wall, a Roman Blackadder and Baldrick stand at attention]
Centurion Blaccadicus: Just brilliant!
Legionary Baldricus: What, O Centurion?
Centurion Blaccadicus: We're facing a horde of ginger maniacs, with wild goats nesting in their huge orange beards-or to put it another way, the Scots!-and how does our inspired leader Hadrian intend to keep out this vast army of lunatics!? By building a a three-foot high wall! [sarcastic] A terrifying obstacle! About as frightening as a little rabbit with the word "Boo!" painted on its nose! [Baldricus shudders]
Consul Georgius: Oh come now, Centurion! I won't have that! This wall is a terrific defence mechanism! Surely you're not suggesting that a rabble of Scots could get the better of Roman soldiers!?
[Further conversation is halted by the arrival of General Melchicus]
Consul Georgius: Ah, welcome General!
General Melchicus: Splendid! Good to see you practicing your English, Georgius! [continues in Latin] However, important news- Rome is being attacked on all sides, and so far the Emperor's only response has been to poison his mother and marry his horse. The Senate is therefore withdrawing troops from Britain to defend our Imperial city.
Centurion Blaccadicus: Did you hear that, Balders?
Legionary Baldricus: I certainly did, Centurion!
Centurion Blaccadicus: Back to Rome, at last!
General Melchicus: [in Latin] BAAA!
Consul Georgius: [looking beyond the wall] I say, this is interesting! There appears to be a large orange hedge moving towards us!
Centurion Blaccadicus: That's not a hedge, Consul. That's the Scots!
Blackadder: [to Baldrick, as they run from a mob of bloodthirsty Scots] Last one there gets hacked to pieces by Rod Stewart's great-great-grandfather!
Blackadder: Let's get home, Baldrick.
Baldrick: [wailing] But we don't know where home is! We're doomed to float through time, for all time! OH, WOE IS ME...!!
Blackadder: [notices a button] Shut up, Baldrick, shut up. There is one final thing to push which may be our salvation! [he pushes it; nothing happens] ...Or not. [Pulls it out] Because it is, in fact, a lollipop.
Baldrick: Raspberry flavoured, my lord.
Blackadder: [sitting down] Oh God! I'm going to spend the rest of my life in a small wooden room with two toilets and the stupidest man in the world.
Baldrick: Wait, my lord, do not despair. For I have a cunning plan.
Blackadder: ...Can I say I'm not optimistic, Baldrick?
Baldrick: To be quite frank, my lord, neither am I. My family have never been very good at plans.
Blackadder: So, with suitably low expectations, what is your cunning plan to get us home?
Baldrick: Well, my lord, you know how, when people drown, their whole life flashes in front of them?
Blackadder: Yeeees?
Baldrick: Well, if you stuck your head in a bucket of water and didn't bring it out again, then your whole life would flash in front of you, and you'd see where all the knobs and levers were when first set off. And then, if you pulled your head out again, just before you died, you could guide us home!
Blackadder: [standing up] Baldrick...
Baldrick: My lord?
Blackadder: Good plan. But perhaps just one tiny modification...
Baldrick: Hmm?
[Blackadder punches Baldrick and shoves his head down a toilet]
Blackadder: [pulls Baldrick out] How's it going?
Baldrick: I'm eighteen years old, I've just left nursery school!
Blackadder: Okey-dokey! [drowns Baldrick some more, then pulls him out]
Baldrick: I'm twenty five; I'm back at nursery school!
[Sighing in annoyance, Blackadder drowns him even more; he finally sees the combination, and Blackadder pulls him out]
Baldrick: [spitting out water] GOT IT!
Blackadder: Very good.
Baldrick: [gasping] I wish... I wish I'd flushed the loo first!
Blackadder: [looking down it] Oh, yes...
Baldrick: As we approach the end, my lord, what do you think we've learned on our great journey?
Blackadder: Good question, Baldrick. I suppose I've learned that I must buy you a much stronger mouthwash for Christmas this year. How about you?
Baldrick: Oh, I dunno. I suppose I've learned that human beings have always been the same. Some nice, some nasty; some clever, some stupid; there's always a Blackadder and there's always a Baldrick.
Blackadder: Yes, very profound, Baldrick.
Baldrick: Also, it occurs to me...
Blackadder: [annoyed] Oh God, there's not more, is there?
Baldrick: ...If you're in the right place at the right time, then every person has the power to go out and change the world for the better.
Blackadder: God, you really are as thick as clotted cream, that's been left out by some clot, until the clots are so clotted up you couldn't un-clot them with an electric de-clotter... aren't you, Baldrick? Real change comes from huge socioeconomic things that individuals have no effect on.
Baldrick: Unless you're King or Prime Minister or something.
Blackadder: Well, yes, I suppose they can make a difference. But for the rest of us, all we can do in life is to try to make a bit of cash! [the machine finally arrives home] Which is what I intend to do right now.
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!

Cast

The Black Adder

Blackadder II

Blackadder the Third

Blackadder Goes Forth

Blackadder: The Cavalier Years

Blackadder's Christmas Carol

Blackadder Back & Forth

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