Bells (Blackadder) marks the first appearance of the Bob/Kate and Flashheart archetypes that appear again in "Blackadder Goes Forth". Rik Mayall, who played Lord Flashheart, allegedly designed the character's costume himself. John Lloyd has said that Mayall virtually rewrote his part to feature "loads of jokes", which annoyed the writers, Curtis and Elton. It was the only episode of the series to feature location filming, at Wilton House in Wiltshire. The music performed as Blackadder courts "Bob" is Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on Greensleeves". In 1993, in conjunction with Comic Relief, this episode was given away free on cassette tape with boxes of
Blackadder: Back & Forth them he will soon return. He informs Baldrick he has a "very, very, very cunning plan", and they set off again in the time machine. The guests watch the broadcast of the royals and the prime minister arriving at the Millennium Dome. Blackadder is shown to now be "King Edmund III", who is married to "Marian of Sherwood" (Kate Moss) and is joined by Prime Minister Baldrick. The cast reunited most of the regulars of series two to four of the television series, who each played a variety of different incarnations of themselves, in a similar fashion to "Blackadder's Christmas