Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack of Scene 1: This scene is based on one in Gilbert's short story, "The Adventures of Wheeler J. Calamity", which he had written for the "Fun Christmas Number" in 1865, with the song following this speech, "If you intend to stay with us, before you've been a day with us", appearing in both. "Dulcamara" was not widely reviewed, but "Fun" magazine – to which Gilbert was a regular contributor – gave it a long and favourable notice, declaring that "Mr W. S. Gilbert at once takes rank for both neatness of construction and brilliancy of dialogue beside Mr. Byron. The
Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren our degenerate stage." Gilbert's early pantomimes, burlesques and farces, full of awful puns and broad humour, show signs of the satire that would later be a defining part of his work. These works gave way, after 1869, to plays containing original plots and fewer puns. These included his "fairy comedies", such as "The Palace of Truth" (1870) and "Pygmalion and Galatea" (1871), and his German Reed Entertainments, which led to the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Other Personalities by Legions of Useful Utilities and Superior Supernumeraries. Members of the Vokes family danced in the piece. "Note: the parenthetical descriptions of