Decades later, vintage comedies still provide laughs
By: Stephanie Spackey
Issue date: 4/30/09 Section: Entertainment
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If all you know of Rowan Atkinson are his hijinks as Mr. Bean, I would like to apologize. The man is capable of so much more, and to have missed out on that is an absolute tragedy. The series started in 1983; the original took place in England at the end of the War of the Roses, and, as with all of the seasons following, presents a bit of a revisionist history. Atkinson stars in each as an incarnation of the Lord BlackAdder, a different generational figure descended, presumably, from the same line. He is accompanied, always, by his faithful servant Baldrick (the village-idiot-sidekick played to perfection by Tony Robinson) and a host of other comic-also usually historical-figures.
Miranda Richardson and Stephen Fry joined on for the second series in 1986, set during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and Hugh Laurie became a series regular playing England's idiotic Prince George in "BlackAdder the Third." Yes, you read that correctly; it's a surprisingly little-known fact that everyone's favorite grumpy doctor, the great Gregory House, is played by a man who is: a) not American and b) absolutely hilarious (he spent years working with Fry on the aptly named A Bit of Fry and Laurie," which some will tell you is the greatest sketch comedy show ever. But I grew up on Monty Python, so that's another article altogether).
1989's BlackAdder Goes Forth gives us BlackAdder as a World War I army captain, and ten years later, BlackAdder Back & Forth aired as one single episode; it features all of the series' best regulars and, while not as spectacular, is a decent amount of fun. That might have something to do with the time machine and the tyrannosaurus rex, though.
Fawlty Towers, too, has a history that took some time to come about. The entire series ran for only twelve episodes: six in 1975 and six in 1979, and with the exception of one ("The Anniversary." It's awful, we don't talk about it), each episode is, well, perfect. John Cleese, of Monty Python, created the series with his then-wife Connie Booth, and the show follows the escapades of Cleese's Basil Fawlty-a remarkably disgruntled hotel owner plagued by frustrating guests, an unusual staff (turns out that "he's from Barcelona" are, in fact, the three funniest words in the English language), and his controlling, overbearing wife.