Pictured above: A horrible, evil, racist Nazi.
Count Dankula is the guy holding him.
Count Dankula is the guy holding him.
Mark Meechan, better known as Count Dankula
, is a Scottish YouTube personality and comedian. His humour videos specialize in Crosses the Line Twice jokes and Rapid-Fire Comedy; however, he also does the occasional video about the nature of freedom of speech, oppression, and tyranny. In September of 2018, he started a new series of videos called Absolute Mad Lads, focusing on Crazy Is Cool historical figures (and occasionally animals). His most (in)famous video by far is "M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi", where he teaches his girlfriend's pug, Buddha, to lift its paw to the phrase "Sieg Heil". This got him in trouble with the law, and he had to pay a £800 fine. He also maintains a second channel for material reacting to an occasional story.
But before we get into the tropes, it is, in fact, your boi, Raid: Shadow Legends!:
- Achievements in Ignorance: The Mad Lad episode for Iron Mike Malloy describes how Mike, through his constant desire for free drinks and meals at a speak-easy, his nearly indestructible organs and an insane amount of luck, managed to become the downfall of a gang of serial killers who were murdering people for their life-insurance money.
- Adolf Hitlarious: The crux of his most famous video, where the point was to make his then-girlfriend (now wife)'s pug Buddha do the least cute thing he could think of - training him to lift his paw to "Sieg Heil" - solely to annoy her.
- Aerith and Bob: When covering Vlad the Impaler:
- When going over figures in Wallachian history Vlad interacted with:Dankula: Can we take a minute to appreciate the first absolutely boring name in this story? Bogdan, Hunyadi, Vlad, Vladislav... Stephen!
- And then there was a fierce rival and a claimant to the Wallachian throne... Dan!
- When going over figures in Wallachian history Vlad interacted with:
- Bad Guy Bar: Deconstructed during the Mad Lads episode for Michael Malloy; the speak easy where the story takes place was actually going under because the regular patrons were scared away from the establishments seedy reputation (even by speak easy standards) and the only people still willing to hang around were criminals who were more than happy to run away from paying their tab.
- Bathos: Can be seen in certain Mad Lads. Just before the Bjork Stalker pulled the trigger while he Ate His Gun, it cut to Dankula making a pop sound. He also does the pop sound just as Gary Plauché shot Jeffrey Doucet near the airline payphone for kidnapping and abusing his son. The infamous suicide of Budd Dwyer changed into the popping of a wine cork as chianti pours into Dank's glass.
- Black Comedy Rape: Used most prominently in The Reds Are Coming, where he inflicts it upon the last unfortunate member of his commune who tried to betray him.
- Broken Pedestal: Discussed in his "Modern Art is Dumb" video, where Dankula established that the notorious street artist and political activist Banksy has become this to him. Despite previously admiring Banksy's bold anti-establishment views, enough to get a tattoo of the artist's works on his arm, Dankula has since come to dismiss him after the numerous societal changes of the 21st century ended up pivoting his art over to being pro-establishment instead. That, and Banksy's acquired pretentiousness in his creations further caused Dankula to grow disappointed in his ideals, which prompted him to start disparaging the artist whenever the topic came up in his videos.Dankula: Banksy used to be anti-establishment, until the establishment adopted his views, so now "technically" he is pro-establishment[...]I know that everytime Banksy gets mentioned in a video, I always give him shit, and it's because he is someone that I once massively respected and looked up to. I mean I've got a fuckin' Banksy tattooed on me for fuck's sake.
- Edutainment Show: His Mad Lad videos are mostly for entertainment, but almost all of the information in them is real.
- Even the Rats Won't Touch It: Dankula suggests that this is why Amou Haji never got ill for decades, since he was so smelly that even the germs wanted nothing to do with him.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- He may have a few laughs at Dragonlord's expense, but he did state that quite a bit of the real-life trolling (as a result of Dragonlord stupidly giving out his real address) has gone too far. In every video on the subject, he states a disclaimer that he does not endorse the trolling.
- Upon reading the lyrics to one song GG Allin was involved in:Count Dankula: You all know I am all for freedom of expression, but damn there are things out there that fucking test you!
- In The Tweet Police, Dank starts off establishing his indifference to text-based harassment before making clear where he draws a line:"If you get offended, you get offended. I don't care. If people are saying mean things to you on the internet, I don't care. However, if you actually start getting beaten up, attacked, fired from your job, or arrested just because of who you are, then call me. Then I'm interested, and then I'll have your back."
- Few topics have disturbed him as much as the sheer brutality surrounding The Ant Hill Kids and their leader Roch Thériault, with the mutilation, botched surgery, and (accidental) murder of a toddler as well as one of the cult leader's wives horrifying him enough to break character. In fact, Dankula even describes Thériault's cruelty as being to such a degree that it can "make Uday Hussein blush", and that without inserting crude humor into his delivery, he likely wouldn't have been able to continue with the topic at all."I'm sorry. I'm very sorry, right? But this is a fucking horrible video, right? And I'm trying to make jokes not to make it easier for you, but to make it easier for me."
- Adding onto the above, the abuse and/or suffering of children in general tends to greatly disturb him overall. While Dankula spent the majority of his Absolute Mad Lads video on Jonestown poking fun at the ridiculousness of Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple, once the mass suicides started happening and the commune's children were the first to go, his tone gradually shifted to that of horror, even more so than in his cover of the Ant Hill Kids.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: His Mad Lads on Bob Ross wasn't because Dank considered him mad (in either sense of the word). He just really respected Bob Ross and found his life story interesting as well. He had an accompanying Bob Ross Rib for the episode.
- Gag Censor: His video "How To Get Paid For Farting" includes images of Japanese woodblock paintings featuring a variety of figures using their fartillery on each other. The NSFW bits are covered up with YouTube's sign for a demonetized video.
- Gag Penis: Frequently refers to his as a "Pringles can". He also had to admit that Rasputin also had a "Pringles can".Count Dankula: [...] I'm gonna show 'em what fascism really looks like, and fascism looks like a Pringles tube with veins. (Beat) What? You think after everything I've put Sue through, she's still with me for my good looks and personality?
- Gallows Humor: In his video on the Ant Kill Kids, he makes several jokes throughout despite the extremely grisly subject matter, stating that he wouldn't be able to get through the topic otherwise.
- It's All About Me: The September 28th, 2020 Absolute Mad Lad was someone Dank described as, "intelligent, funny, handsome, fantastic in bed; just an absolute godlike chad specimen of a man". Himself.
- Maniac Monkeys: His video on the Gonbe Chimpanzee War focuses on the brutal behaviour of the apes involved.
- N-Word Privileges: Not the n-word itself, but a variant has been discussed by Dank, who at more than one occasion stated that he is descended from Irish Catholic migrants. While talking about The General being born as one of fifteen children:Count Dankula: Catholics, man. I'm allowed to make that joke! I'm allowed to make that joke! I can say Fenian, I can say Taignote , those are our words!
- Running Gag:
- Buddha occasionally reappears in his later videos whenever he mentions the Nazis.
- In the Mad Lads episode on Bob Ross, he keeps getting fibers from his wig (or "pubes") stuck in various things.
- The episode on Uday Hussein keeps using the phrase "This angered Uday severely", due to his Hair-Trigger Temper.
- "In the business, we call this foreshadowing".
- A Rare Sentence: One Absolute Mad Lads has Dank introducing Mitsuyasu Maeno:Count Dankula: Here are some words I never thought I would say together: The Yakuza pornstar kamikaze pilot!
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- While some unsavory characters were covered under Absolute Mad Lads, Count Dankula has genuine disgust for Uday Hussein's actions in comparison, that he had one directed at him:Count Dankula: Uday was just a straight up piece of shit! There was nothing funny, there was nothing absurd, the man just actively went out of his way to try and be the most evil on Earth [...] He was a pathetic piece of shit, right? He doesn't deserve the title of Mad Lad at all! The only reason he is in Mad Lads is that he serves as an of example of why governments should always be held accountable by the people! Uday Hussein, I award you no points, and I'm glad you're fucking dead!
- He absolutely has little to no sympathy when ripping into Jon Venables, the second killer of James Bulger, calling him a "pedophile child killer" and refused to label him a "Mad Lad", instead dedicating the episode on focusing on how insane the UK government is at censoring images of Venables (and by an extent, Robert Thompson, the other killernote ) and protecting their identities.
- While some unsavory characters were covered under Absolute Mad Lads, Count Dankula has genuine disgust for Uday Hussein's actions in comparison, that he had one directed at him:
- Silly Simian: Dank did an Absolute Mad Lads on Ken Allen, an Orangutan who lived in the San Diego Zoo, because he found the antics funny enough to do an entire episode on him.
- Success Through Insanity: Some Absolute Mad Lads come across as this. For example, Mad Jack Churchill had an entire episode based upon his unusual, yet successful endeavors during World War II, managing to defeat German troops more often than not with little more than a bow and arrow, a sabre and a set of bagpipes.
- Theme Tune: Tailed Feature's metal cover of Slagsmålsklubben's Show Me Your Pizza.
- Troll: His defining personality trait. Not even his own audience or his editor are safe from his antics to get a rise out of them.
- Violent Glaswegian: Scottish and quite unrestrained in his humor and speech. At the beginning of the Xu Xiaodong video, he even claims the Scots invented fighting and that it's one of their national pastimes.
