Blackadder Series 3, episode 2: Ink and Incapability
The Plot:
Prince George decides he needs to shake off his reputation as England’s greatest thicky, so he agrees to patronise Dr Johnson’s new dictionary. Unfortunately, Baldrick doesn’t recognise the infinite value of the manuscript, which took the finest mind in England ten years to complete, and he throws it on the fire. Dr Johnson and his poet friends are on the point of killing Blackadder for losing the dictionary, when George miraculously appears with it in his hands. It seems that Baldrick did in fact burn Blackadder’s own manuscript for a novel which would have made him a millionaire.
We hail Prince George:
George: Why, only the other day Prime Minister Pitt called me an idle scrounger. It wasn’t until ages later that I thought how clever it could have been to have said, “Oh bugger off, you old fart!” I need to improve my mind, Blackadder. I want people to say, “That George, why he’s as clever as a stick in a bucket of pig swill.”
Insult of the week:
George: Do you think he’s a genius?
Blackadder: No sir, I do not. Unless, of course, the definition of genius in his ridiculous dictionary is ‘a fat dullard or wobble-bottom; a pompous ass with sweaty dewflaps.’
1766 and all that:
Jane Austen was in fact a man. A huge Yorkshireman with a beard like a rhododendron bush.
Quotes:
George: Now I’ve got my lovely fire I’m happy as a Frenchman who’s invented a pair of self-removing trousers.
Blackadder: Baldrick, believe me, eternity in the company of Beelzebub and all his hellish instruments of death will be a picnic compared to five minutes with me and this pencil if we can’t replace this dictionary.
Blackadder: “Something is always wrong, Balders. The fact that I am not a millionaire aristocrat with the sexual capacity of a rutting rhino is a constant niggle.
Read the other episode guides:
Series 1:
1. The Foretelling
2. Born to Be King
3. The Archbishop
4. The Queen of Spain's Beard
5. Witchsmeller Pursuivant
6. The Black Seal
Series 2:
1. Bells
2. Head
3. Potato
4. Money
5. Beer
6. Chains
Series 3:
1. Dish and Dishonesty
2. Ink and Incapability
3. Nob and Nobility
4. Sense and Senility
5. Amy and Amiability
6. Dual and Duality
Series 4:
1. Captain Cook
2. Corporal Punishment
3. Major Star
4. Private Plane
5. General Hospital
6. Goodybyeee
These guides were brought to you by the BBCi Comedy website.
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