Blackadder meeting between Richard Curtis and comedian Ben Elton led to the decision to collaborate on a new series of Blackadder. Recognising the main faults of the first series, Curtis and Elton agreed that "Blackadder II" would be a studio-only production (along with the inclusion of a live audience during recording, instead of showing the episodes to an audience after taping). Besides adding a greater comedy focus, Elton suggested a major change in character emphasis: Baldrick would become the stupid sidekick, while Edmund Blackadder evolved into a cunning sycophant. This led to the familiar set-up that was maintained in the following
Baldrick chop his mother's head off to solve the problem of her low ceiling. As mentioned in the episode Sense and Senility, his uncle with the Baldrick surname once played as a "second codpiece" for the leading character of "Macbeth", but only in the fight scenes. Blackadder concludes that the uncle was a "stunt codpiece" and inquires if he ever had a "large part", to which Baldrick answers that it "depends who was playing Macbeth". Oddly enough, this Baldrick seems to have a bit of the idiot savant in him; Baldrick's explanation, although heard from someone else, of why George and