Baldrick with utter contempt, he remains intensely loyal. This Baldrick is considerably less intelligent than his medieval ancestor, although not as dim as future Baldricks. A kindly soul, Baldrick's lack of formal education is compensated for by his basic streetwise cunning. While his "cunning plans" do sometimes have a strange, twisted and often perverse logic and cunning to them, he is nevertheless incredibly stupid. For example, in the episode "Head", Blackadder attempts to teach Baldrick how to add, asking if he had "two beans, and I add two more beans, what does that make?" Baldrick replies, "Some beans", "Three beans... and
Blackadder essentially to play himself. Political commentator Vincent Hanna played a character billed as "his own great-great-great grandfather" in the episode "Dish and Dishonesty" of "Blackadder the Third". Hanna was asked to take part because the scene was of a by-election in which Baldrick was a candidate and, in the style of modern television, Hanna gave a long-running "live" commentary of events at the count (and interviewed candidates and election agents) to a crowd through the town hall window. Howard Goodall's theme tune has the same melody throughout all the series, but is played in roughly the style of the period