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 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