Count Duckula

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Count Duckula is a fictional character, a vegetarian vampire duck, in the animated TV series of the same name created by British studio Cosgrove Hall, and a spin-off from Dangermouse, a show in which an evil version of the Count Duckula character was a recurring villain. The series first aired on September 6, 1988. In all, 65 episodes were made, each about 22 minutes long.

The show was a loose parody of the story of Count Dracula. Set in Transylvania, Duckula lived in a spooky castle known as Castle Duckula, alongside his servant Igor, and his Nanny (always referred to as "Nanny" and perpetually in an arm sling). Almost all of the characters in the show were (anthropomorphised) birds.

The story (as shown in the title sequence each episode) was that Duckula was active as a vampire for centuries. He could only be destroyed by exposure to sunlight or by a wooden stake thrust through his heart. Duckula had in fact died numerous deaths. But he always returned through a mystic ritual, performed once a century, "when the moon is in the eighth house of Aquarius". However a theme explored through several episodes was that each resurrection created a new incarnation with little to no memory of its past. Thus every incarnation was free to develop its own personality and pursue its personal interests (somewhat similar to the regenerations of Doctor Who). Thus the vampire was able to pose as a dynasty of Counts of Duckula. The various succeeding generations included knights, sorcerers, scientists, artists and even professional gamblers. All of them also secretly being "vicious vampire ducks".

But as the title sequence put it, "the latest reincarnation did not run according to plan." The successful conclusion of the ritual required blood, the source of sustenance for any vampire. But his servants accidentally substituted it with tomato ketchup. Consequently the newest version was not a blood-sucking vampire but a vegetarian one. He was more interested in juicy carrots rather than hunting for victims. Igor naturally felt appalled. Even worse, his "new" master was obsessed with pursuing wealth and fame as an entertainer.

The show often centred around Duckula's adventures in search of riches and fame, assisted by the castle's ability to teleport around the world. Another regular part of the story was Igor and his attempts to turn Duckula into a proper vampire. Some episodes featured Duckula's nemesis Doctor Von Goosewing (obviously based on Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, the nemesis of Dracula), a vampire hunter who blindly refuses to believe the current incarnation of Duckula is harmless. Still others featured a whole array of bizarre, often supernatural foes, from zombies to mechanical werewolves.

Speculation has been rife as to what species of duck Duckula is actually intended to be, though majority opinion holds that his character's features are based on those of the mallard.

The first season was released on Region 1 DVD on October 4, 2005. A series of annuals and monthly comics further detailing the adventures of Count Duckula and associated characters were released thoroughout the time that the series originally aired and for a short time after.

Contents

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Voices

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Characters

  • Count Duckula: Count Duckula himself was a deliberate send-up of many traditional vampire traits. As his name would suggest, he was a duck. Besides his vegetarianism and aspirations of fame, he was a very squeamish and often cowardly character. The Duckula Family Motto was: "Per Ardua ad Sanguina" which meant "Work hard for blood". He had a very modern outlook, and often despaired over the traditional vampire image he was expected to embody. He hated living in a dark, gloomy castle, and found the behaviour of his servants to be depressing. Although he retained vampiric powers such as teleportation, he rarely used them. He often went outside in the daytime without suffering any ill effects, but this is likely because of his own personal oddities. In the "Doctor Goosewing and Mr. Duck" episode, Count Duckula briefly turned into a "proper" vampire, desiring blood from the villagers outside the castle, but turned away from the door when he discovered that the sun was still out. Another episode featured a prehistoric "first vampire duck" who went out in daylight, and only returned to his coffin because Igor advised him to, while another Count of Duckula, in yet another episode, crumbled into a pile of stone when exposed to sunlight. Duckula has been seen on occasion wearing pyjamas with the Danger Mouse logo, a reference to the character's origin. Duckula was a short green duck with black hair and the traditional vampire evening wear complete with cape. He had no fangs, although his more old-fashioned relatives did. His favourite food was broccoli sandwiches.
  • Igor: Igor was a traditional horror servant, and added a decidedly dark streak to some of the show's humour. He greatly disliked his master's behaviour, and often encouraged him to act in a far more ghastly manner. He remained convinced that if he could only talk Duckula into biting, maiming, torturing and otherwise brutalizing people it would be a return to the "good old days". He was a hunched balding bird (possibly a vulture)with a depressed and slow voice. He had served under several previous incarnations of Count Duckula, making his age uncertain. Seeing as he can only be brought back "once a century" and Igor had performed the task multiple times in his life, he was clearly very old and possibly ageless. Episodes in the first season hinted that Igor had served the Duckulas for 700-800 years or more.
  • Nanny: Nanny is, as her name would suggest, Duckula's nanny, as well as housekeeper. She was an extremely large and clumsy hen, possessing incredible strength and inevitably messing up whatever task she was set to do. In particular she had a blind spot regarding doors, and would often crash through a door without opening it first, or even walk right through the wall. As this behaviour suggests, she was a supremely unintelligent character, and completely unreliable. She was amazingly devoted to her "Ducky-Boos", as she called Duckula, and had a deep maternal affection for him, though her clumsiness often inadvertently caused him harm. A recurring gag was her inability to understand what people around her were talking about, often mixing up words and taking insult at conversations not directed at her. Like Igor, her age was uncertain, as she had apparently been with Duckula for several of his incarnations. Her right arm was perpetually in a sling, though the reasons for this are unrevealed. The sling itself seemed to have unlimited carrying capacity, as she was able to produce any number of items from it, Harpo Marx style. It is possible that if she did have a broken arm, that it has healed and she forgot to remove the sling.
  • Dr Von Goosewing: Von Goosewing was a mad scientist and vampire hunter, who was a spoof of Abraham Van Helsing. He was a goose, as his name suggested. He was never able to comprehend that Count Duckula was a threat to nobody, and stalked him relentlessly. He was a terrible scientist, often getting maimed by his own crack-pot inventions. He was also supremely unobservant, and capable of bumping into Duckula and conversing with him for several minutes without realising who he was talking to. Von Goosewing spoke in a German accent, and had an assistant who never appeared on screen named "Heinrich". Von Goosewing often called for Heinrich and Heinrich was often blamed for Von Goosewing's mistakes. The comic book version of the characters by Marvel Comics revealed that Heinrich was actually his former assistant who was always complaining for his low wage. Von Goosewing mentioned that Heinrich threatened to resign but was still with him. Apparently Heinrich did quit but his former employer failed to realise it. When not inventing some new machine to hunt vampires with, he would rely on an old fashioned rifle which was loaded with a wooden stake (although curiously it actually fired laser beams). The Marvel comic books based on the show also added a supporting character to him: his niece Vanna who Duckula had a crush on. Von Goosewing often flew a dirigible with 'VG' written on it.
  • The Crow Brothers: Four criminally inclined crows who were typically seen scaling the walls of Castle Duckula with the aid of mountaineering equipment. They rarely made it to the top. The four brothers were led by the tallest crow, who often had plans that went off. The crows scaled the walls to get at the treasues inside the castle.
  • Gaston and Pierre: A pair of French criminals who served as occasional villains. Although they were both undeniably incompetent, the arrogant Gaston was ostensibly the brains of the outfit.
  • Narrator: The narrator opened and closed every episode, talking like a traditional horror host, and trying to make it seem as if the contents of the show were genuinely horrifying. Episodes usually began with him describing Castle Duckula and its gloomy atmosphere. They often closed with the narrator saying "Goodnight out there...WHATever you are!" Variants of this line were also used to close certain programmes.
  • Castle Duckula: An old fashioned Transylvanian castle with all the trimmings: dungeon, torture chamber, library of macabre texts, laboratory, etc. The castle could teleport to any place on earth (and beyond) but returned automatically at dawn, "Transylvania standard time" as mentioned by Igor in the show. It was activated when Duckula entered an upright coffin while saying where he wanted it to take him. The controls to this device were inside an old fashioned cuckoo clock that hung on the wall. Inside the clock lived two mechanical bats, Dmitri and Sviatoslav, who would punctuate each episode by coming out and delivering stale jokes to each other. These jokes were so bad that they actually drove a character who had been given the clock insane. The fact that the characters had thick Slavic accents, and that Sviatoslav often didn't understand the punchlines didn't help matters. The castle had an often referred to but never seen werewolf named Towser living in it.
  • Relatives: Duckula had any number of vampiric relatives all over the world. These were more classic vampires than Duckula, possessing fangs, red eyes and evil personalities. They came from many different countries, such as Spain, Scotland and Australia, and inevitably represented the culture they were from.
  • The peasants: The town situated below Castle Duckula was home to many peasants who lived in constant fear of the Count, despite his dislike of human blood in his current incarnation. A recurring joke in the series and associated books was that 'the peasants are revolting.'
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Other credits

  • Writers: Brian Trueman, Jimmy Hibbert, Peter Richard Reeves, Jan Needle, John Sayle
  • Animation directors: Carlos Alfonso, Jean Flynn
  • Design: Chris Randall, Dan Whitworth, Margaret Riley, Paul Salmon, Vincent James, Edmund Williams
  • Storyboard: Ben Turner, Vincent James, John Stevenson, Andy Roper, Keith Scoble, Gordon Davis, Mario Phillips, Stephen Simpson, Gregor Smith, Holio Martinez, Raul Nixon, Ted Stephens, Clive Hamilton, Mike Whaite
  • Music: Mike Harding
  • Theme Song Sung by: Mike Harding, Doreen Edwards
  • Editing: Zyggy Markiewicz, Hilary Wyatt, Patrick Haggerty
  • Assistant Editors: Bob Ashton, Knoila Anderson
  • Director / associate producer: Chris Randall
  • Producers: Brian Cosgrove, Mark Hall
  • Executive Producer: John Hambley
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Trivia

  • During episode nine, "All in a Fog," as Count Duckula is relating his reasons for wanting to become a detective and travel to London, the music being played under David Jason's lines is the same music that was used as the introduction to Jason's "Captain Fantastic" segments in the 1967-69 children's series Do Not Adjust Your Set.
  • In Australia when it aired on Network Ten it was the second British show on Cheez TV.
  • In a move mirroring Duckula's adaptation from Dangermouse, the characters of Gaston and Pierre were re-invented and given a spin-off series as the now-human Victor and Hugo.
  • Dr. Von Goosewing had different accents. On the British version, he speaks with a German accent. It was accidentally changed to a Cockney accent for the Network Ten distribution. Despite the Cockney accent, he still has the German one on the video and DVD releases, even though the Danger Mouse character Stiletto still has his Italian accent during its Network Ten run.
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External links

es:Conde Pátula it:Conte Dacula nl:Graaf Duckula sv:Greve Duckula zh:怪鸭历险记

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