Blackadder: Back & Forth
2000 special based on the BBC mock-historical comedy series Blackadder directed by Paul Weiland
- Blackadder: I'm sorry about the food, by the way. Unfortunately, my cook got invited to an orgy at Delia Smith's house, and so our chef for this evening is the man who cleans out the septic tank. Baldrick!
- Blackadder: Now, where were we?
- George: We were bally well toasting the future!
- Blackadder: Yes. And it might, perhaps, also be a good time to look to the past.
- Lady Elizabeth: How can anyone look to the past? You can't see something that's already happened.
- Melchett: Unless you're on the lavatory.
- George: Good point, Bish.
- Blackadder: Or unless one has a time machine.
- Darling: And how likely is that?
- Blackadder: Well, very likely, actually, Darling, because I've just built one.
- 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? It's just cobblers!
- Blackadder: I can assure you, it is not.
- Blackadder: [unveiling his time machine] This is an original sketchbook by Leonardo da Vinci, and in the last year, I myself have built a time machine to its' exact specifications. 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." Behold, the time machine!
- Melchett: Well, glaze my nipples and call me Winter!
- George: It can't be real, Blackadder. It's a practical joke, surely.
- Blackadder: Certainly not. When was the last time I played a practical joke?
- Darling: Well, there was the time you said you were dying of kidney failure, and I donated one of my kidneys to save your life, but then you said it was an April Fool and... we had to throw my kidney away.
- 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: What puzzles me is this - you rob from the rich?
- Merry Men: [enthusiastically] Yes!
- Robin Hood: That's right, yeah.
- Blackadder: And then, when you rob the rich, you give it all to the poor?
- Merry Men: [enthusiastically] Yes!
- Robin Hood: I love giving it to the poor! Woof!
- Blackadder: Now that's the bit I don't understand. You men risk your lives in battle?
- Merry Men: [enthusiastically] Yes!
- Blackadder: You risk certain death if you're caught?
- Merry Men: [slightly less enthusiastically] Yes...
- Blackadder: You live in this forest in total squalor? I mean, I'd hate to imagine what the toilet facilities are like.
- Merry Men: [thoughtfully chatting] Not very nice, actually.
- Blackadder: And yet you still give every single penny to these so-called poor, who just sit on their backsides all day...
- Robin Hood: [uneasily] Alright, shut up now.
- Blackadder: ...laughing at you and saying "Oh, no need to go to work today. Robin Hood and his Merry Men will be along in a minute with a big pile of cash!"
- Robin Hood: I said shut up!
- Blackadder: I'm surprised they don't call you Robin Hood and his bunch of Complete Lunatics.
- Robin Hood: Right, that's it! Shoot him, boys! I'm great and he's not!
- Blackadder: Robin Hood and his band of Merry Morons.
- Blackadder: Well, Maid Marian was very friendly.
- Baldrick: So was Will Scarlet. Really nice guy.
- Blackadder: [crouched beneath Hadrian's Wall] That's interesting; 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.
- [A horde of bloodthirsty Scots warriors starts charging towards the wall, letting up a fearsome war cry.]
- General Melchicus: [in Latin] Ah. Continue. [heads off]
- Baldrick: Should we run, my lord?
- Blackadder: Yes!
- [Blackadder swipes Georgius' helmet and runs with Baldrick back to the time machine.]
- Centurion Blaccadicus: Perhaps we could negotiate! 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.
- Melchett: Well done, Blackadder! But tell me, all this stuff about changing history through time travel. You must have to have been damnsome careful.
- Blackadder: Oh, I was. Very careful.
- George: So tell us, Blackadder, did you meet up with any big name celebs?
- Blackadder: Why, as a matter of fact, I did. For instance, this hat belong to none other than Robin Hood.
- George: [confused] Who?
- Blackadder: Robin Hood.
- Darling: Never heard of him. You'll have to do better than that, Blackadder.
- Blackadder: Right. So you've never heard of Robin Hood?
- [The guests all give an uneasy 'no']
- Blackadder: Well, this is the title page for Macbeth, signed by Shakespeare himself.
- [The guests look at Blackadder like he's grown a second head]
- Melchett: No, no, wait, you all remember Shakespeare. He's the fellow who invented the ballpoint pen!
- Blackadder: Well, I might have affected one or two things, but nothing important.
- George: Never mind that, you certainly won your bet! So here's your ten thousand francs, and jolly well deserved, too!
- Blackadder: What do you mean 'francs'?
- George: What do you mean "What do I mean 'francs'"?
- Blackadder: Well, sure you mean 'ten thousand pounds'?
- [The guests burst out laughing]
- Melchett: Pounds? We haven't used pounds for two hundred years! Not since Emperor Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo! Which reminds me, it's time for us to get to the television. Monsieur le President will be broadcasting from Versailles at any moment!
- Blackadder: Come on, Balders! We've got to save Britain!
- 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!