Blackadder's Christmas Carol is a one-off episode of Blackadder, a parody of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It is set between Blackadder the Third (1987) and Blackadder Goes Forth (1989), and narrated by Hugh Laurie. Produced by the BBC, it was first broadcast on BBC One on 23 December 1988.
Edmund Blackadder and Baldrick his dogsbody are transplanted this time to Dickensian England in this one-off episode. He is kind, gentle and caring, but visits from an assortment of ghosts soon have him back to his old ways. Written by Nizam Ahmed
During the reign of Good Queen Vic, there lives the black sheep of the Blackadder family, Ebeneezer Blackadder, who owns a Moustache Shoppe. As the theme song goes: "He's kind and generous to the sick/ He'd never spread a nasty rumour/ He never gets on people's wick/ And doesn't laugh at toilet humour". He cheerfully gives away nearly everything he has on Christmas Eve, and is, of course, heavily taken advantage of. After light-heartedly poking fun at his idiot clerk, Baldrick, he goes to bed that night, and is visited by the Spirit of Christmas- a ghost who haunts misers and makes them better people by showing them visions of their ancestors. After complimenting Ebenezer on his good taste and behaviour, he shows him two shadows of the past. The first shows Lord Edmund Blackadder buying Queen Elizabeth I a portrait of her for Christmas, finding she's decided to cancel the holiday, finding himself outdone by Melchett and sentenced to execution, and eventually outsmarting them all and winning the queen's favour. The next shows Edmund Blackadder, Esq devising a scheme to get George's presents. After giving Baldrick a disguise, he tells his master a story of a prince who gave away everything he had to an old granny on Christmas Eve. When an elderly lady (VERY coincidentally) arrives at the door, George gladly gives her all his presents; when Blackadder goes to compliment Baldrick, he apologizes for being late and says he was showing a sweet old granny to the door. The Spirit reluctantly shows Ebenezer two visions of the future, if he turns bad or stays good, and to Blackadder the decision seems obvious in the end: "Bad guys have all the fun!" Written by Bloggers!
