The Black Adder "The Black Adder" is the title that Edmund adopts during the first episode (after first considering "The Black Vegetable"). Presumably one of his descendants adopted it as a surname before "Blackadder II", in which the title character becomes "Edmund Blackadder". Furthermore, Baldrick is shown in more favourable and intelligent light here - his 'cunning plans' are typically superior and more workable than Edmund's own. Starting from the second series, the characters' relative intelligence and naivety clearly switch. Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis developed the idea for the sitcom while working on "Not the Nine O'Clock News". Eager to avoid comparisons
Baldrick or not he ever does so is another matter, as he is never again referred to by his title after episode 1. Baldrick also succeeds where no Baldrick has succeeded before or since, in calling Blackadder "a lazy, big nosed, rubber-faced bastard". Baldrick spends the £400,000 he received as a Lord on an enormous turnip ("Well, I had to haggle.") which he refers to as "dream turnip". However, Blackadder later destroys it by crushing it on Baldrick's head. Baldrick is not given any sort of first name until this third series, when he speculates that it might be "Sodoff", since