Blackadder?

Citati iz epizoda treće i četvrte sezone serije Blackadder. Mini-tribute scenaristima i odličnim glumcima koji su ovu seriju učinili toliko prepoznatljivom.

301 – Dish And Dishonesty

Blackadder – If we can get one more MP to support us, then you’re safe.
George – Hurrah! Any ideas?
Blackadder – Well, yes, sir. There is one man who might be the ace up our sleeve. A rather crusty, loud-mouthed ace named Sir Talbot Buxomly.
George – Never heard of him.
Blackadder – That’s hardly surprising, sir. Sir Talbot has the worst attendance record of any MP. On the one occasion he did enter the House of Commons, he passed water in the Great Hall, and then passed out in the Speaker’s Chair. If we can get him to support us, then we are safe. According to ‘Who’s Who’, his interests include flogging servants, shooting poor people, and the extension of slavery to anyone who hasn’t got a knighthood.
George – Excellent! Sensible policies for a happier Britain!

Blackadder – Your Highness, Sir Talbot Buxomly, MP.
George – Ah, Buxomly! Roaringly splendid to have you here. How are you, sir?
Buxomly – Heartily well, Your Highness. I dined hugely off a servant before coming to town.
George – You eat your servants?
Buxomly – No, sir, I eat off them. Why should I spend good money on tables when I have men standing idle?

George – You have the physique of a demigod. Purple of cheek, and plump of fetlock, the shapely ankle and the well-filled trouser that tells of a human body in perfect working order.
Blackadder – He’s dead, sir.
George – Dead?
Blackadder – Yes, Your Highness.
George – What bad luck, we were rather getting on.

Blackadder – Sir Talbot represented the constituency of Dunny-on-the-Wold, and, by an extraordinary stroke of luck, it is a rotten borough.
George – Really? Is it? Well, lucky, lucky us. Lucky, lucky, luck. Luck-luck…Lark! Lark! Lark! Lark! Lark! Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Lark! Lark! Lark!
Blackadder – You don’t know what a rotten borough is, do you, sir?
George – No.
Blackadder – So what was the chicken impression in aid of?
George – I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings. So, what is a robber button?
Blackadder – Rotten borough. A rotten borough, sir, is a constituency where the owner of the land corruptly controls both the voters and the MP.
George – Good, yes, and a robber button is?
Blackadder – Could we leave that for a moment? Dunny-on-the-Wold is a tuppenny-ha’penny place. Half an acre of sodden marshland in the Suffolk Fens with an empty town hall on it. Population: three rather mangy cows, a dachshund named Colin, and a small hen in its late forties.

Blackadder – Yes, sir, the land will cost tuppence ha’penny, but there are other factors to be considered: stamp duty, window tax, swamp insurance, hen food, dog biscuits, cow ointment – the expenses are endless.

Blackadder – First name?
Baldrick – I’m not sure.
Blackadder – You must have some idea…
Baldrick – Well, it might be “Sod off”.
Blackadder – What?
Baldrick – 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… “Mr S. Baldrick.” Now, distinguishing features? None.
Baldrick – I’ve got this growth in the middle of my face.
Blackadder – That’s your nose, Baldrick. Any history of insanity in the family? Tell you what, I’ll cross out the “in”. Any history of sanity in the family? “None whatsoever.” Now, then, criminal record…
Baldrick – Absolutely not.
Blackadder – Come on, Baldrick, you’re going to be an MP, for God’s sake! I’ll just put “fraud and sexual deviancy”.

Blackadder – Well, we in the Adder Party are going to fight this campaign on issues, not personalities.
Hanna – Why is that?
Blackadder – Our candidate doesn’t have a personality.

Hanna – And now it’s time, I think, for a result, and tension is running very high here. Mr Blackadder assures me that this will be the first honest vote ever in a rotten borough, and I think we all hope for a result which reflects the real needs of the constituency. Behind me I can just see the Returning Officer moving to the front of the platform. The Acting Returning Officer, Mr E. Blackadder, of course. And we’re all very grateful that he stepped in at the last minute, when the previous Returning Officer accidently stabbed himself in the stomach while shaving.

 

302 – Ink and Incapability

George – Lucky you warned me. I was about to embrace this unholy arse to the royal bosom.
Blackadder – I’m delighted to have been instrumental in keeping your bosom free of arses.

Blackadder – Sir Thomas More, for instance, burned alive for refusing to recant his Catholicism, must have been kicking himself, as the flames licked higher, that it never occurred to him to say, “I recant my Catholicism.”

Blackadder – Dr Johnson, Your Highness.
George – Ah, Dr Johnson!
Johnson – I celebrated last night the encyclopaedic implementation of my premeditated orchestration of demotic Anglo-Saxon.
George – Didn’t catch any of that.
Johnson – I simply observed, sir, that I’m felicitous, since, during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorisation of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue.
George – I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it sounds damn saucy, you lucky thing. I know some liberal-minded girls, but I’ve never penultimated any of them in a solar sojourn, or been given any Norman tongue.
Blackadder – I believe, sir, that the Doctor is trying to tell you that he is happy because he has finished his book. It has apparently taken him ten years.
George – Yes, well, I’m a slow reader myself.

Baldrick – I have a cunning plan, sir.
George – Hurrah! Well, that’s that, then.
Blackadder – I wouldn’t get overexcited, sir. I have a horrid suspicion that Baldrick’s plan will be the stupidest thing we’ve heard since Lord Nelson’s famous signal at the Battle of the Nile: “England knows Lady Hamilton is a virgin. Poke my eye out and cut off my arm if I’m wrong.”

 

303 – Nob And Nobility

Blackadder – It is the way of the world, Baldrick, the abused always kick downwards. I am annoyed, and so I kick the cat, the cat… pounces on the mouse, and, finally, the mouse…
Baldrick – Agh!
Blackadder – … bites you on the behind.
Baldrick – Well, what do I do?
Blackadder – Nothing. You are last in God’s great chain. Unless, of course, there’s an earwig around here that you’d like to victimise.

Blackadder – Was the man who burned Joan of Arc simply wasting good matches?

Blackadder – The ancient Greeks wrote 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”. When the box was opened, the whole world turned to darkness because of Pandora’s fatal curiosity. I charge you now, Baldrick, for the good of all mankind, never allow curiosity to lead you to open your trousers.

Blackadder – He’s the most overrated human being since Judas Iscariot won the A.D. 31 Best Disciple Competition.

Baldrick – Well, how are you going to win your bet?
Blackadder – By use of the large thing between my ears.
Baldrick – Oh, your nose.
Blackadder – No, Baldrick, my brain.

 

304 – Sense and senility

Blackadder – I’m off to the theatre. The worst thing about it is having to go with Prince Mini-Brain!
Baldrick – Doesn’t he like it, either?
Blackadder – Nah, he loves it. The problem is that he doesn’t realise it’s made up. Last year, when Brutus was about to kill Julius Caesar, the Prince yelled out, “Look behind you, Mr Caesar!”

George – Why on earth would an anarchist possibly want to kill “you”?
Blackadder – I think it might’ve been you he was after, sir.
George – 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”.

Blackadder – They do say, Mrs M, that verbal insults hurt more than physical pain. They are of course wrong, as you’ll soon discover when I stick this toasting fork in your head.

George – Are you sure we can even trust these acting fellows? Last time, three of them murdered Julius Caesar, and one of them was his best friend Brutus.
Blackadder – As I’ve told you about eight times, the man playing Julius Caesar was an actor called Kemp.
George – Really?
Blackadder – Yes.
George – Thundering gherkins! Brutus must have been pretty miffed when he found out.
Blackadder – What?
George – That he hadn’t killed Caesar after all, just some poxy actor called Kemp.

Mossop – Now, stance. Your very posture tells me “Here is a man of true greatness”.
Blackadder – Either that, or “Here are my genitals, please kick them”.
Mossop – Sir, I really must ask that this ill-educated oaf be removed from the room. Your presence here is as useful as fine bone china at a tea-party for drunken elephants.

Blackadder – Baldrick, I would like to say how much I will miss your honest and friendly companionship. But as we both know, it’d 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.

Kemp – Your participation is as irritating as a potted cactus in a monkey’s pyjamas.

 

305 – Amy And Amiability

Baldrick – Don’t worry Mr B, I have a cunning plan to solve the problem.
Blackadder – Let us not forget, that you tried to solve the problem of your mother’s low ceiling by cutting off her head.
Baldrick – But this is a really good one. You become a dashing highwayman, then you can pay all your bills and, on top of that, everyone’ll want to sleep with you.
Blackadder – Baldrick, I could become a prostitute and pay my bills, then everyone would want to sleep with me, but I do consider certain professions beneath me.

George – I’ve discovered this terrifically fun new game. It’s called “cards”. You sit round the table with your friends, and you deal out five “cards” each, and then the object of the game is to give away all your money as quickly as possible. Do you know it?
Blackadder – Vaguely, sir, yes.
George – All the chaps say I’m terrific at it.
Blackadder – I was very bad at it. I always seemed to end up with more money than I started with.

Blackadder – I’m as poor as a church mouse that’s just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife ran off with another mouse, taking all the cheese.

Blackadder – Of the 262 princesses in Europe, 165 are over 80, they’re out, 47 are under 10, they’re out, and 39 are mad.
Baldrick – They sound ideal.
Blackadder – They would be if they hadn’t all got married last week in Munich to the same horse. Which leaves us with two.
Baldrick – And what about them?
Blackadder – Well, there’s Grand Duchess Sophia of Turin – we’ll never get her to marry him.
Baldrick – Why not?
Blackadder – Because she’s met him.

Blackadder – I thought I could take her a short note expressing your honourable intentions.
George – Yes, yes, I think so too. All right then, take this down. “From His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to Miss Amy Hardwood. Tally-ho, my fine saucy young trollop.Your luck’s in. Trip along here with all your cash, and some naughty night attire, and you’ll be staring at my bedroom ceiling from now till Christmas, you lucky tart. Yours with the deepest respect etc, signed George. P.S. Woof! Woof!” Well, what do you think?
Blackadder – It’s very moving, sir. Would you mind if I changed just one tiny aspect of it?
George – Which one?
Blackadder – The words.

 

306 – Duel And Duality

Blackadder – I want to be remembered when I’m dead. I want books written about me, songs sung about me. And then, hundreds of years from now, I want episodes from my life to be played out weekly at half past nine by some great heroic actor of the age.

George – Oh, thank God it’s you, Blackadder. I’ve just had word from Wellington, he’s on his way here now.
Blackadder – The Duke must believe from the very start that I am you.
George – Any ideas?
Blackadder – There’s no alternative, we must swap clothes.
George – Fantastic, yes, dressing up. I love it. It’s just like that story,“The Prince And The Porpoise”.
Blackadder – “..and the Pauper”.
George – Oh, yes! “The Prince and the Porpoise and the Pauper”. Excellent, excellent. Why, my own father wouldn’t recognise me.
Blackadder – Your own father never can. He’s mad. Unfortunately, sir, you do realise that I shall have to treat you like a servant?
George – Oh, I think I can cope with that, Blackadder.
Blackadder – And you will have to get used to calling me”Your Highness”, Your Highness.
George – “Your Highness, Your Highness.”
Blackadder – No, just “Your Highness”, Your Highness.
George – That’s what I said, “Your Highness,Your Highness”, Your Highness, Your Highness.
Blackadder – Yes, let’s just leave that for now, shall we? Complicated stuff obviously.

Blackadder – “Congratulations on choosing the Armstrong Whitworth four-pounder cannonette. Please read instructions carefully and it should give years of trouble-free maiming.”

 

401 – Captain Cook

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 a cunning plan, actually.
Blackadder – Of course it is.
Baldrick – You see, you know they say that somewhere there’s a bullet with your name on it?
Blackadder – Yes?
Baldrick – Well, I thought if I owned the bullet with my name on it, I’d never get hit by it, ‘cos I won’t ever shoot myself.

Blackadder –  If you were to serve one of your meals in staff HQ, you’d be arrested for the greatest mass poisoning since Lucretia Borgia invited 500 of her close friends around for a wine and anthrax party.

Blackadder – Hello, the Savoy Grill. Oh, it’s you… Yes, I’ll be over in 40 minutes.
Baldrick – Who was it then, sir?
Blackadder – Strangely enough, Baldrick, it was Pope Gregory IX, inviting me for drinks aboard his steam yacht “The Saucy Sue”, currently wintering in Montego Bay with the England cricket team and the Balinese Goddess of Plenty.
Baldrick – Really?
Blackadder – No, not really. I’ve been ordered to HQ.

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, sir?
Melchett – How could you possibly know that, Blackadder?
Blackadder – It’s the same plan that we used last time and the seventeen times before that.

Blackadder – This is going to be art’s greatest moment since Mona Lisa sat down and told Leonardo da Vinci she was in a slightly odd mood.

Blackadder – You want me to sit in No-Man’s Land painting pictures of the Germans?
Melchett – Precisely… good man!
Blackadder – Well, it’s a very attractive proposition, but unfortunately, not practical. You see, my medium is light.  It’ll be pitch-dark… I won’t be able to see a thing.
Darling – I tell you what…We’ll send up a couple of flares. You’ll be lit up like a Christmas tree.
Blackadder – Oh, excellent. Glad I checked.

 

402 – Corporal Punishment

Blackadder – Ever heard of Bob Massingbird?
Baldrick – Oh, yes indeed, sir! A most gifted gentleman!
Blackadder – Quite. I remember Massingbird’s most famous case, the Case of the Bloody Knife. A man was found next to a murdered body, he had the knife in his hand, thirteen witnesses had seen him stab the victim, and when the police arrived he said, “I’m glad I killed the bastard.” Massingbird not only got him off, he got him knighted in the New Year’s honours list, and the relatives of the victim had to pay to have the blood washed out of his jacket.

Baldrick – In fact, I have a cunning plan. This is not food, but an escape kit.
Blackadder – Good Lord! With a saw, a hammer, a chisel, a gun, a change of clothes, a Swiss passport, and a huge false moustache, I may just stand a chance. Let’s see, what have we here? A small painted wooden duck.
Baldrick – Yeah, I thought if you get caught near water, you can balance it on the top of your head as a brilliant disguise.
Blackadder – Yeeeesss. I would, of course, have to escape first. Ah, but what’s this? Unless I’m much mistaken, a hammer and a chisel.
Baldrick – You are much mistaken!
Blackadder – A pencil and a miniature trumpet. Yes, a pencil so you can drop me a postcard to tell me how the break-out went, and a small little tiny miniature trumpet in case, during your escape, you have to win favour with a difficult child.

Kapetan streljačkog voda – You see, us firing squads are a bit like tax men, sir, everyone hates us, but we’re just doin’ our job, ain’t we, lads?
Blackadder – My heart bleeds for you.
Kapetan streljačkog voda – Well, sir, we aim to please.

Blackadder – Could I ask you to leave a pause between the word “aim” and the word “fire”? Thirty or forty years, perhaps?

Kapetan streljačkog voda – Attention! Take aim!
Kurir – Stop! Message for you, Captain.
Kapetan streljačkog voda – Of course it is. Read it, please.
Kurir – Here’s looking at you. Love from all the boys in the firing squad.
Kapetan streljačkog voda – You soft bastards, you!
Vojnik – I saw the card, I couldn’t resist it.

 

403 – Major Star

Blackadder – I find Chaplins films about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck and then discovering there’s a gas bill tied to it.

Blackadder – Well, frankly sir, I’d rather spend an evening on top of a stepladder in No-Man’s Land smoking endless cigarettes through a luminous balaclava.

Blackadder – So you’re a “chap,” are you, Bob?
Bob/Kate – Oh, yes, sir.
Blackadder – You wouldn’t say you were a girl at all?
Bob/Kate – 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.

Blackadder – A war hasn’t been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, high chief of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the “inside”.

 

404 – Private Plane

Baldrick – My lord, I’ve got every cigarette card they ever printed of you. My whole family took up smoking just so that we could get the whole set. My grandmother smoked herself to death so we could afford the album.

Flashheart – Always treat your kite like you treat your woman.
George – How… how do you mean, sir? Do you mean… Do you mean take her home at weekends to meet your mother?
Flashheart – No, I mean get inside her five times a day and take her to heaven and back!

Blackadder – I couldn’t be more petrified if a wild rhinoceros had just come home from a hard day at the swamp and found me wearing his pyjamas, smoking his cigars and in bed with his wife.

 

405 – General Hospital

Blackadder – I spy with my bored little eye something beginning with “T”.
Baldrick – Breakfast!
Blackadder – What?
Baldrick – My breakfast always begins with 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 – Nah, it never begins with a letter. The postman don’t come ’til 10:30.

Darling – Look, I’m as British as Queen Victoria!
Blackadder – So your father’s German, you’re half-German, and you married a German?

Blackadder – I think he might be as difficult to find as a piece of hay in a massive stack full of needles.

Nurse Mary – Cigarette?
Blackadder – No, thank you. I only smoke cigarettes after making love. So, back in England, I’m a 20-a-day man.

Nurse Mary – Tell me, Edmund, do you have someone special in your life?
Blackadder – Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do.
Nurse Mary – Who?
Blackadder – Me.
Nurse Mary – No, I mean someone you love and cherish and want to keep safe from all the horror and the hurt.
Blackadder – Um… still me, really.

 

4×06 – Goodbyeee

Blackadder – This is a crisis… a large crisis. In fact, if you’ve got a moment, it’s a 12-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour porterage, and an enormous sign on the roof saying, “This is a large crisis”.

Baldrick – What is your name?
Blackadder – Wibble.
Baldrick – What is two plus two?
Blackadder – Wibble, wibble.
Baldrick – Where do you live?
Blackadder – London.
Baldrick – Eh?
Blackadder – A small village on Mars, just outside the capital city… Wibble.

Baldrick – Permission to ask a question, sir.
Blackadder – Permission granted, Baldrick, as long as it isn’t the one about where babies come from.
Baldrick – No. The thing is, the way I see it, these days there’s a war on, right? And ages ago, there wasn’t a war on, right? So there must have been a moment when there-not-being-a-war-on went away, and there-being-a-war-on came along. So… what I want to know is, how did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?
Blackadder – Do you mean, how did the war start?
Baldrick – Yeah.
George – The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire-building.
Blackadder – George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory In Tanganyika. I hardly think we can entirely be absolved from blame on the imperialistic front.
George – Oh, no… no sir, absolutely not.
Mad as a bicycle.

Melchett – George. How’s the patient?
George – It’s touch and go, I’m afraid, sir. I really can’t vouch for his behavior… He’s gone mad, you see, stir-fry crazy.
Melchett – I see. Is this genuinely mad…
George – Oh, yes, sir.
Melchett – … or has he simply put his underpants on his head and stuffed a couple of pencils up his nose? That’s what they all used to do in the Sudan. I remember I once had to shoot a whole platoon for trying that.

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?