History Series / Blackadder

* SwitchToEnglish: Inverted in Back and Forth. The Roman-era characters all speak in English...until Melchett compliments them for practising the language, and switches to Latin.

* WorldOfSnark: The shallowness, stupidity and downright arrogance of the world around him make Blackadder's hijinks as a VillainProtagonist [[KickTheSonOfABitch particularly satisfying]]

** Even Flashheart is disgusted by Darling's refusal to rescue Blackadder in "Private Plane", so he [[KickTheSonOfABitch headbutts him and knocks him out]].

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Flashheart is hardly the nicest of men, but [[EveryoneHasStandards even he is disgusted]] by Darling's refusal to rescue Blackadder after he crashes his plane, so he headbutts Darling and knocks him out.

* BadassOnPaper: Blackadder is a Captain in the British army and the celebrated war hero of Mboto Gorge, however he freely admits that at the time of these exploits the army was "little more than a travel agency for men with unusually high sex drives" and fought colonial wars against enemies that rarely posed a significant threat. He was apparently quite shocked when confronted with 4,500,000 heavily-armed Germans and spends the rest of the war trying to avoid combat entirely.

* KangarooCourt: Edmund's trial by the Witchsmeller Pursuivant is this up to eleven. Where to begin: Edmund's entire case is thrown out when the Witchsmeller convinces Prince Harry that they should ignore the testimony of a witch pleading for his life, Percy -- who is defending Edmund -- is accused of being a witch and is also ignored, and when Baldrick counters the Witchsmeller's assertion that carrots grow on trees, the Witchsmeller uses his knowledge of carrots to 'prove' Baldrick is a witch as well. He then produces a signed confession by a horse, an old woman Edmund has never met and an obvious poodle that he claims is Edmund's son. It is almost fitting to the ridiculousness of the situation that our heroes apparently escape with [[AssPull hitherto unused and never mentioned again magical powers of teleportation]].

* NaughtyNuns: When he becomes Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund is surprised to learn from Baldrick that part of his duties include selling the sexual favours of nuns. When he questions who would pay for such a thing, Baldrick casually explains "Well, foreign businessmen, [[LesYay other nuns...]]"

* TheChewToy: Baldrick, obviously, but also Percy, which is a bit of a {{Woobie}} since he is sincerely a good friend of exceptional loyalty (but also exceptional stupidity). ''Everyone'' is this to Queenie, although Edmund appears to be her favourite target.

* OnlySaneMan: Along with Blackadder, Melchett also tends to steer towards this, obviously humouring Queenie throughout the series. He's still considerably more loopy, however, especially once we learn about a [[NoodleIncident past affair]] involving a [[BestialityIsDepraved sheep]]... that [[TheReveal wasn't quite]] [[{{Squick}} as it seemed]].

** The last two are a ShoutOut to two real minor perennial candidates at British elections at the time the show was broadcast -- Bill Boaks, who usually stood as something like "Democratic Monarchist Road Safety White Resident", and Screaming Lord Sutch of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (which, in their heyday of the 70s and 80s, proposed ludicrous policies. By the 2010s, a couple of them had actually been proposed and enacted by the government -- [[HilariousInHindsight much like the reference to the abolition of slavery was implied to be]]).

* CutAndPasteEnvironments: A French chateau is used as General Melchett's headquarters. We see a court room, a classroom for a flying school, the general's office and a dining hall. They all have the same large round painting above a wide fireplace, though oddly the fireplace frame itself appears to sometimes change colour. Furthermore, the whole set is probably a [[RecycledSet redress]] of the Prince Regent's bedroom from the third series.

** What's remarkable is that the [[EverybodyDiesEnding same basic ending]] was played for laughs in series one and two. RealitySubtext is to blame for the MoodWhiplash. To put it into perspective, it aired 10 days before Remembrance Sunday with no complaints whatsoever. (Well, almost none -- one woman wrote to the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Times Radio Times]]'' to ask why a comedy would want to show people the terrible things that happened, reminding her of her own husband. Another woman wrote in to ''Points of View'' thanking them for such a beautiful tribute. Ben Elton's uncle, who was a refugee from Nazi Germany and deeply supportive of the British Armed Forces, also gave his nephew an earful, but changed his mind and apologized after he saw the second half of the episode, something he hadn't done when it first aired). Though the original ending planned, as seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbR9-etyN6I here]], wasn't nearly as dramatic or moving -- general consensus is that it was a good thing they changed it.

* TakeThat: Blackadder tells George that he finds Creator/CharlieChaplin's films "about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck and discovering there's a gas bill tied to it". Which is even more HilariousInHindsight, given the obvious debt that Creator/RowanAtkinson's [[Series/MrBean subsequent series]] owed to Chaplin's brand of humour.

* WarIsHell: Blackadder's main goal in this series, as opposed to the power grabbing his ancestors have attempted, is simply to survive the war by getting out of the trenches. The final episode really hammers the point home, especially with the TearJerker DownerEnding.

* GrandFinale: ''Blackadder Back & Forth'' is written as being this to the whole series, with the idea of any further entries being humorously {{Jossed}} in the end credits with the line "''Blackadder Back & Forth 2''... coming Summer 3000!"

A tastefully vicious collection of [[BritCom British comedies]] which aired on [[Creator/TheBBC BBC One]] in TheEighties, all centering around various generations of the Blackadder family as embodied in its sole visible member, Edmund (Creator/RowanAtkinson): a cynical, snide, and outright caustic British AntiHero (he would be a DeadpanSnarker if he could just stop sneering) who never manages to succeed at most of his schemes, but never quite loses either (except at the end of each series, where he usually either dies horribly or wins spectacularly). Each Blackadder in each generation is aided by a BumblingSidekick in the shape of his corresponding Baldrick (Creator/TonyRobinson), a filthy, ignorant manservant and dogsbody of considerably unhealthy habits and preoccupations. His typical {{foil}} is a classic UpperClassTwit of far higher social station than his own, on whom he is forced to serve hand and foot.

** In multiple senses, in that the Lord Flashheart of the Fourth installment of the series, or more properly, Squadron Commander the Lord Flashheart, is also an AcePilot.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Many, many examples ''per episode'', to say nothing of the show's overall track record. But hey, RuleOfFunny, people! Plus, ''The Black Adder'' can explain away its inaccuracies as Henry Tudor doing a lousy job of rewriting history (and, at a stretch, you could say that [[spoiler:Prince Ludwig as]] Elizabeth I and [[spoiler:Blackadder as]] George IV did something similar for the second and third series).

** ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' ends with [[spoiler:all the main cast members falling victim to the madness of modern war, the real villain of this installment. And to Melchett's questionable strategies.]] In contrast to the second and the third series, the ending ''isn't'' PlayedForLaughs.

*** Stephen Fry admitted in the 2008 documentary ''Blackadder: The Whole Rotten Saga'' that this line was a ThrowItIn on his part.

* DownerEnding: Every series, [[spoiler:except the third one (and even that's up for debate; see TheBadGuyWins for details), and possibly the second if you don't count TheStinger]].

* RoyalFavorite: The second Blackadder is a courtier to Elizabeth I, and spends most of his time trying to earn her favor, which can be difficult as she's more than a little crazy. Baldrick is also Blackadder's favorite, as his most trusted henchman.

* SlidingScaleOfContinuity: The seasons in relation to each other are Level 0 (Non-Linear Installments), the only similarities being the basic premise of "Blackadder surrounded by idiots" (and not even that considering the first season). However, the episodes within a season can be from Levels 1-2.

* CarnivalOfKillers: Unusually used in "[[Recap/BlackadderS1E6TheBlackSeal The Black Seal]]" where its the [[VillainProtagonist ''protagonist'']] who assembles a team of the biggest bastards in all of England (including himself, naturally) to carry out a fiendish plan. [[spoiler:They all turn on him in favor of an even BIGGER bastard by the end of the episode.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler It's not as crippling a TearJerker as the end of the fourth series, but the ending of the first series is still sad. Funny, but sad at the same time]].

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:

** Said pilot (eventually aired in 2023 as ''Blackadder: The Lost Pilot'') is EarlyInstallmentWeirdness even to ''The Black Adder'', with a setting and some characterisations that look much more like ''Blackadder II'', but Phillip Fox as Baldrick. But the weirdest thing about it is that, unlike the strong historicity of later seasons, or even the stated AlternateHistory of the original series, this is set a generic "400 years ago", with Prince Edmund's ([[MamasBabyPapasMaybe official]]) parents being an unnamed King and Queen who don't fit into real history anywhere.

* ParentalFavoritism: Richard IV is so comically biased in favour of his oldest son Harry that he usually doesn't remember that Edmund exists. When he DOES remember, he treats him like something he scraped off his boot, gets his name wrong and makes no secret about what he thinks of his sniveling toad of a son.

* TheUnfavorite: Edmund in comparison to his (''far'' more virtuous) brother Harry.

* AbsurdlyDedicatedWorker: Parodied in the first episode when Blackadder fires Baldrick in favor of [[SweetPollyOliver Bob]].

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: In "Head", Nursie mentions how she put ointment on Queenie's sister after her head was cut off. Except that would have been Mary I of England, who was not beheaded, but died of natural causes. The one who was beheaded was her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. However, it's very possible that Nursie just got the two mixed up, especially since Ludwig correctly says in "Chains" that it was Mary, Queen of Scots who lost her head.

** In "Potato", Percy mentions Mrs. Miggins is baking a pie to honor Sir Walter in the shape of an enormous pie. Raeligh also tries, and fails to amuse Queenie with the tale of how he was nearly eaten by a hammerhead shark, describing it as a shark whose head was funnily shaped exactly like a hammer.

* FictionalPoliticalParty: Going hand-in-hand with the ElectionDayEpisode trope (above), the episode "Dish and Dishonesty" uses these, too, in its parody of British election conventions. After the constituent of rotten borough Dunny-on-the-Wold (consisting of nothing more than a tiny plot of land, many farm animals and only one voter) suddenly died, Prince Regent and Blackadder decide to run Baldrick as their own candidate and tip Parliament in their favor. Baldrick runs on behalf of the "Adder Party", a name which becomes much more appropriate when it turns out that Blackadder was both the borough's Returning Officer and lone voter after both died in freak "accidents". Other fictitious parties on the ballot included "Keep Royalty White, Rat Catching and Safe Sewage Residents' Party" and the "Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party" (whose party line stands for "the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast, free corsets for the under-fives (girls, obviously) and [[TheTriple the abolition of slavery]]" -- though the last one was just put in as a joke).

* RegencyEngland: With some ArtisticLicense taken (inaccuracies are detailed in the DVD extras).

* ArtisticLicenseAwards: Blackadder's medals consist of the Queen's South Africa Medal and the King's South Africa Medal, both for UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar (the latter was never issued by itself[[note]]It was established in 1902 after King Edward VII's coronation, for a total of 18 months service with at least part of it between 1 January and 1 June 1902, while the Queen's Medal was issued for all service in the war between 1899 and 1902[[/note]]), which belies his claim of only fighting unarmed African natives. Blackadder also claims to have fought in the [[UsefulNotes/TheRiverWar Sudan War]] in 1898, yet does not have the Queen's Sudan Medal or the Khedive's Sudan Medal (all British troops were issued both medals for service in that war, never one or the other), and the fictional Battle of Mboto Gorge is stated to have been in Upper Volta (present day Burkini Faso) in 1892, yet he doesn't have the East and West Africa Medal with 1892 bar.

* ShoutOut: The NoodleIncident where Blackadder saved Field Marshal Haig's life from a native armed with a sharp slice of mango. This may refer to the ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' sketch "Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit".

* WhiteSheep: Comparatively speaking, this is the most benevolent Blackadder in the family line, not counting Ebeneezer Blackadder from the christmas special. Unlike his predecessors, his scheming is almost entirerly centered around trying to avoid a brutal, pointless death in no-mans land, rather than aquiring wealth or power. We occasionally get glimpses of a past where he DID appear to be just as evil as his ancestors, being involved with the ugliest parts of British colonialism and all, but being involved in a war that isn't just a CurbStompBattle on either end seems to have given him a HeelRealisation as to the futility of horror of war in general, to the point where he's merely a bit of a dick (something it's hard to blame him for under the circumstances, only George and Baldrick don't deserve it and worse, and he's noticeably more friendly, albeit still snarky and insulting, with them -- more friendly not being a high bar for an 'Adder), but by no means actually EVIL. In fact, when he eventually realised [[spoiler:this truly is the end for him and all his VitriolicBestBuds as well, he even drops the 'bit of a dick' part. It's tricky to imagine any other Blackadders giving genuine words of encouragement as their ''last words''.]]

* ProductPlacement: Downplayed, but present in Blackadder Back & Forth, which was partially funded by Tesco.[[note]]Making it a rare, possibly unique, example of this trope on a show originated on Creator/TheBBC, which strictly forbids it due to being funded by the license fee[[/note]] Time-traveller Edmund tries to present Elizabeth I with a Tesco Clubcard, which, to no-one's surprise, turns out to be a ludicrously pointless gift in the Renaissance; The scene includes a description of a Clubcard and the logo is clearly visible on the card he shows Queenie, but his description is humorously underplayed ("half price baked beans" being his best sales pitch), and no one names Tesco itself outloud. He then wins her and her court's favour with "minty things" [[ProductDisplacement whose packaging/logo are covered by his hand]] [[note]]they're clearly Polo mints[[/note]].

* SmarterThanYouLook: Subverted with Baldrick in ''Christmas Carol''. He can't write, read or count, but he's smart enough to question Ebenezer's StupidGood behavor and points out that the freeloaders (especially the obese orphans) don't need what Ebenezer gives them.

* WhiteSheep: Comparatively speaking, this is the most benevolent Blackadder in the family line, not counting Ebeneezer Blackadder from the christmas special. Unlike his predecessors, his scheming is almost entirerly centered around trying to avoid a brutal, pointless death in no-mans land, rather than aquiring wealth or power. We occasionally get glimpses of a past where he DID appear to be just as evil as his ancestors, being involved with the ugliest parts of British colonialism and all, but being involved in a war the isn't just a CurbStompBattle on either end seems to have given him a HeelRealisation as to the futility of horror of war in general, to the point where he's merely a bit of a dick (something it's hard to blame him for under the circumstances, only George and Baldrick don't deserve it and worse, and he's noticeably more friendly, albeit still snarky and insulting, with them -- more friendly not being a high bar for an 'Adder), but by no means actually EVIL. In fact, when he eventually realised [[spoiler:this truly is the end for him and all his VitriolicBestBuds as well, he even drops the 'bit of a dick' part. It's tricky to imagine any other Blackadders giving genuine words of encouragement as their ''last words''.]]

* IdenticallyNamedGroup: In "Head", Edmund becomes Lord High Executioner and meets his gaoler, man called Ploppy. Despite what many people think, he is not related to Mrs. Ploppy, the last meal cook, their last names being coincidental. To make things easier, they call Baldrick, the executioner, Young Ploppy.