Count Duckula is a British children's animated comedy horror television series created by British studio Cosgrove Hall Productions and produced by Thames Television as a spin-off of Danger Mouse, a series in which an early version of the Count Duckula character was a recurring villain.
Count Duckula was created by British studio Cosgrove Hall Productions as a spin-off from Danger Mouse.
After being shown a number of ideas, the then head of Nickelodeon, Gerry Laybourne, spotted a picture of Count Duckula in Brian Cosgrove's office, and said, "That's the one I want".
The preceding generations included knights, sorcerers, scientists, artists, Egyptologists and even professional gamblers, all of whom are also secretly "vicious vampire ducks".
The successful conclusion of the ritual, which was to be performed "once a century, when the moon is in the 8th house of Aquarius", requires blood, the source of sustenance for any vampire, but Nanny accidentally substitutes ketchup.
The stories often revolve around Duckula's adventures in search of riches and fame, assisted by the castle's ability to teleport around the world.
Unlike traditional vampires, Duckula is a vegetarian, as an unintended consequence of his resurrection ritual being erroneously conducted with tomato ketchup in place of blood.
Duck", Count Duckula briefly turns into a "proper" vampire, desiring blood from the villagers outside the castle (much to Igor's great delight), due to a serum slipped to him by von Goosewing that he presumed would make Duckula harmless, but he turns away from the door when he discovers that the sun is still out and is returned to normal by night.
As a result of being perpetually broke, Count Duckula is prone to short-lived obsessions, usually in order to become rich and famous.
The previous version was an evil villain, willing to blackmail and force his way into stardom (as opposed to the current Count, who merely tries to get in the legitimate way) and was fixated on being a TV star, rather than settle for fame in some other branch of entertainment.
In the episode "Arctic Circles", he states that he has served for "seven-and-a-half centuries", indicating that Igor is himself either immortal, or extremely long-lived through some unknown means.
The episode "Dear Diary" implies that the Duckula dynasty is in excess of 2,000 years old, by stating that exposure to sunlight would fry the extant count into "a 2,000-year-old pile of dust."
She is an extremely large and clumsy hen with a very strong Bristolian accent and her right arm inexplicably always in a sling, possessing incredible strength and inevitably messing up whatever task she is set to do.
The episode "No Sax Please, We're Egyptian" reveals that Nanny's clumsiness actually resulted in the death of three former chambermaids and a footman of Castle Duckula, though this happenstance is quickly dismissed by the characters as they were only part-time employees.
Nanny may herself also be immortal, as—in the episode "Dear Diary"—she's seen alongside Igor, serving the Count's great-grandfather, in a flashback set more than a century prior to the show's present day.
She is supremely unintelligent, completely unreliable, but utterly devoted to her "Ducky-boos," as she calls Duckula, and has a deep maternal affection for him, although her clumsiness often inadvertently causes him harm.
Count Duckula's home is an archetypal Transylvanian castle with all the trimmings: dungeon, torture chamber, library of macabre texts, laboratory, and more.
He is a terrible scientist, often getting maimed by his own crackpot inventions, he is supremely unobservant, and often bumps into Duckula and converses with him for several minutes without realizing to whom he is speaking.
[citation needed] However, the comic book version of the characters by Marvel reveal that Heinrich is actually his former assistant who is always complaining about his paltry wages.
In an alternate universe depicted in the final issue of the comic, Goosewing is stated to have succeeded in destroying the counterpart Duckula of that reality, indicating it to be the reason why the 'regular' Duckula of the series had no reflection, and leaving Igor and Nanny without anyone to serve until the next time the resurrection ritual could be performed.
Gaston is a tall, thin, black stork, while Pierre is a short, stubby parakeet who sounds similar to Bluebottle from The Goon Show.
Episodes usually began with him describing Castle Duckula and its gloomy atmosphere, and close with him saying a phrase popularised in the 1950s and 1960s by American TV horror host John Zacherle, "Goodnight out there ... WHATever you are!"
[6] The town situated below Castle Duckula is home to many peasants who live in constant fear of the count, despite his harmless current incarnation.
In a move mirroring Duckula's adaptation from Danger Mouse, the characters of Gaston and Pierre were reinvented and given a spinoff series as the now-human Victor & Hugo: Bunglers in Crime.
During the show's original run, Count Duckula episodes were released on numerous VHS titles from Thames Video collection, often in a different sequence than what was shown in the TV.
were featured on two Cult Kids collection tapes, with episodes of Rainbow, Chorlton and the Wheelies, Button Moon, Jamie and the Magic Torch and The Sooty Show.
Duckula also gained a romantic interest in the Star Comics run; Vanna Von Goosewing, who turned out to be the niece of his long time adversary Dr.
The attraction was mutual, and the two continued their relationship through the majority of the series after their introduction, though Vanna didn't always appear in every issue of the book.
[12] In Germany, a separate adaptation was produced under license as Graf Duckula, with script by Peter Mennigen and artwork by Miroslava Pollmer and Rüdiger Pareike.
In the game, Igor, Nanny and Count Duckula have decided to search the tomb of the great Pharaoh Upanatem (a pun on "up and at 'em") to find the mystic saxophone.