History Recap / BlackadderS3E1DishAndDishonesty

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Rotten boroughs where there is only one voter or they are all controlled by one person? Actually existed in Britain up until 1832. And sending some useful idiot to parliament as a representative of the owner of said borough? If anything, Baldrick was probably an intellectual next to some of these people.
** British viewers would be largely familiar with the tradition of satirical candidates or single-issue campaigners contesting high-profile seats at British elections and "standing at the back dressed stupidly and looking stupid".

** The Standing At the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party's main policies are the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast, free corsets for the under 5s (meaning little girls) and the abolition of slavery (though they do note they only wrote the last one in for a joke).

** In real life, Pitt the Younger was a close ally of King George. Actually, he was thrown in just to make fun of his name. The episode's credits also imply that he was a member of the Whig Party, when in fact the real Pitt the Younger was a member of the Conservative Party (albeit his father had been a Whig).

** Pitt the Younger's real-life younger brother, James Pitt, also died before he came to power, meaning that there wouldn't have been a "Pitt the Even Younger" to run in the by-election. He did have an ''older'' brother, John Pitt, who was alive during the events of this episode, but he was a member of the House of Lords at the time.[[note]](well, that and having a "Pitt the Slightly Less Younger" competing against Baldrick probably wouldn't have been as funny)[[/note]]

* BrutalHonesty: Sir Talbot Buxomley is pretty blunt in telling Prince George he thinks he's a terrible prince regent.

* FictionalPoliticalParty: After the constituent of rotten borough Dunny-on-the-Wold (consisting of nothing more than a tiny plot of land, many farm animals and only one voter) suddenly died, Prince Regent and Blackadder decide to run Baldrick as their own candidate and tip Parliament in their favor. Baldrick runs on behalf of the "Adder Party", a name which becomes much more appropriate when it turns out that Blackadder was both the borough's Returning Officer and lone voter after both died in freak "accidents". Other fictitious parties on the ballot included "Keep Royalty White, Rat Catching and Safe Sewage Residents' Party" and the "Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party" (whose party line stands for "the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast, free corsets for the under-fives (girls, obviously) and [[TheTriple the abolition of slavery]]" -- though the last one was just put in as a joke).

-->'''Blackadder:''' "Sod off".

** British viewers would be largely familiar with the tradition of satirical candidates or single-issue campaigners contesting high-profile seats at British elections, and "standing at the back dressed stupidly and looking stupid"[[note]][[https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/johnson-takes-centre-stage-along-with-elmo-lord-buckethead/ here]] is a good example[[/note]] as the Prime Minister or whoever speaks to the country, but it may come across as an invented detail to foreign viewers.

** British viewers would be largely familiar with the tradition of satirical candidates or single-issue campaigners standing in high-profile seats at British elections, and "standing at the back dressed stupidly and looking stupid"[[note]][[https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/johnson-takes-centre-stage-along-with-elmo-lord-buckethead/ here]] is a good example[[/note]] as the Prime Minister or whoever speaks to the country, but it may come across as an invented detail to foreign viewers.

** British viewers would be largely familiar with the tradition of satirical candidates or single-issue campaigners standing in high-profile seats at British elections, and "standing at the back dressed stupidly and looking stupid" as the Prime Minister or whoever speaks to the country, but it may come across as an invented detail to foreign viewers.

** British viewers would be largely familiar with the tradition of parodic or single-issue candidates standing in high-profile seats at British elections, and "standing at the back dressed stupidly and looking stupid" as the Prime Minister or whoever speaks to the country, but it may come across as an invented detail to foreign viewers.

* OverlyPreparedGag: The show expounds at great length that Blackadder's robe is made of catskin, and since they've left the collars on, they can tell one belonged to the infamous Lady Hamilton. All for the build-up to the inevitable (but still funny) joke about "Lady Hamilton's pussy".

-->'''Prince George:''' It was as if someone was coming in here, stealing the damn things and selling them off!

-->'''Blackadder:''' That is ridiculous, sir. Only you and I have access to your socks.

'''Blackadder''': ... What?\\

* ComicallySmallBribe: Baldric would be perfectly content with a turnip, provided he didn't feel he was pricing himself out of the market.

* AsHimself: Vincent Hanna, who was at the time a political correspondent at the BBC, appears as a fictionalised version of himself, presenting the coverage of the Dunny-on-the-Wold by-election. He is credited "as his own great-great-great-grandfather".

* IdenticalGrandson: Vincent Hannah plays his own great-grandfather.

* NewscasterCameo: At the time the episode aired, Vincent Hanna was an actual newsreader, hence his credit in this episode as his own great, great, great grandfather.

** The Standing At the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party's main policies are the compulsory serving of asparagus at breakfast, free corsets for children under 5 and the abolition of slavery (though they do note they only wrote the last one in for a joke).

* ElectionDayEpisode: Parodies this for all its worth.
* FictionalPoliticalParty: "Keep Royalty White, Rat Catching and Safe Sewage Residents" and the "Standing at the Back, Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party".

-->'''Hanna:''' Fair enough, none of my business, really.

* AnachronismStew: Done blatantly for laughs with Vincent Hanna reading out the by-election results a la an actual election news special.

Edmund Blackadder, now a butler to the Prince Regent is not happy. Despite the usual problems of dealing with all the idiots around him, Prince George's extravagant sock habit is bankrupting the country, and Parliament is trying to cut him off. The only way to stop Prince George being utterly bankrupted is to tip the vote in their favour, which means getting one of their own elected to Parliament, but who? A man without a will of his own, a puppet, purely under their control. One might almost say, a man without a brain.

* LandslideElection: Baldrick wins the election, 16,472 to 0. ''In a constituency with one voter''. Vincent Hanna's ancestor questions this anomaly, to which the voter in question, Blackadder himself, explains that he cast so many votes because he believed in Baldrick so much.

* NewsreaderCameo: At the time the episode aired, Vincent Hanna was an actual newsreader, hence his credit in this episode as his own great, great, great grandfather.

* LaserGuidedKarma: Ultimately, Blackadder's dire situation at the end of the episode is entirely his own fault, for stealing George's socks.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: In real life, Pitt the Younger was a close ally of King George. Actually, he was thrown in just to make fun of his name. The episode also implies that he directly succeeded his father, Pitt the Elder, who died five years before his son came to power, and ten years after he himself left the position.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: In real life, Pitt the Younger was a close ally of King George. Actually, he was thrown in just to make fun of his name.

* LandslideElection: Baldrick wins the election, 16,472 to 0. ''In a constituency with one voter''.

-->'''Hanna:''' Perhaps he could answer one question.What does the "S" in his name stand for?

* ElectionNight: Parodies this for all its worth.