h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

....you're missing a couple of installments. I refer to Blackadder's Christmas Carol, shown as a Christmas special around 1990 (between series 3 &4), and Blackadder - The Cavalier Years, recorded for Comic Relief around the same period and, as far as I'm aware, never shown again.

Hi, the author here.

Yes I know of the episodes in question there are also other bits such as some bits done at prince Charles' birthday show. The problem is as you highlighted they were only show once and not many people have kept them on video. I should soon have a copy of the Christmas episode which will then be added to the original article (see my home page for the link it has pictures as well.) and hopefully go through for approval.

If you know where I can get information and possibly the video of the extra bits I would be most grateful.

J.

The Christmas Carol is fairly easily available to buy in England, and there's a reasonable amount of information about it at http://www.xmission.com/~tchansen/blackadder/ , inluding the original transmission date, which is slightly earlier than I thought (1988). Sadly, this page is not much use on the Cavalier Years, although it does list the four principle characters and the actors who played them. As I recall this episode looked like it was knocked up in a fairly short space of time, and was filmed using the Blackadder III sets (mainly the kitchen). Probably the most memorable thing about it is the line (from Blackadder to Baldrick) ending "....but I've had a hard day and I can't be bothered to punch you. Here is my fist: kindly run into it as hard as you can". I can tell you pretty much categorically that this episode has never been released on video, and was only shown on television twice - once on the Comic Relief night itself, and again, in an abridged form, on a Comic Relief update about six months later. Unfortunately that's about all I can tell you - if I find anything else I'll let you know.

Where can you get the Christmas Carol episode as I have never seen it in an shops.

J.

It was released for sale as far back as October 1991. The catalogue number is BBCV4648. I'm not sure if they only release it at Christmas each year, but at the risk of sounding like an advert, I've just checked the HMV website www.hmv.co.uk , and they list it. Just go to videos and do a search by title for Blackadder. Be careful you don't order the CD version, though, as that pops up in the search as well. If you're not into internet shopping, I imagine if you went into any decent stockist and gave them the catalogue number above, they'd be able to order it for you. Happy shopping.

'the cavelier years' was released on the 1997 comic relief video , i think it was called 'the big red one' in a red fluffy cloth cover ,it can still be found in some small video shops

the cavalier years was released, at least in the U.S. on the BLack adder boxed set.