Blackadder from this series ranked number three in a list of the top 25 television "putdowns" of the last 40 years by the "Radio Times" magazine: "The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr. Brain has long since departed, hasn't he, Percy?" "Blackadder the Third" is set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a period known as the Regency. In the series, Edmund Blackadder Esquire is the butler to the Prince Regent, the Prince of Wales (the prince is played by Hugh Laurie as a complete fop and idiot). Despite Edmund's respected intelligence and abilities, he has no
Blackadder II electric guitar, and feature a black snake slithering about on a marble table. The snake, noncompliant to the wishes of its handler, is eventually removed and replaced with something related to the episode title, which in this series is always a single noun. The opening ominous string crescendo and imagery are a parody of the opening credits of the 1976 BBC television adaptation of Robert Graves' "I, Claudius". The closing titles use a different arrangement of the theme, sung by countertenor Jeremy Jackman, with lyrics (usually insulting Blackadder) that reflect the events of the preceding episode. The song is played