I actually quoted Baldrick's 'German Guns' in my A-level English literature exam, alongside Sassoon and Owen, and hey I got a good mark. Either the guy marking it was a Blackadder fan, or Baldrick was a poetic genius.
@@vespasian123456 I imagine that an examiner may appreciate the odd bit of humour when they're having to mark a thousand and one answers to the same question.
Eat your heart out Shakespeare. The German Guns is arguably the most memorable poem in the history of literature. Pure comedy genius all in one word. Boom.
youd think its silly because of Blackadder is constantly berating him and the background laughter.. but out of context, this is Balrick expressing that he is having a ptsd.. just another ww1 trench poetry
@@anothertemplarchuunibyoude3750 general, squeezing Baldrick's cheeks: are you excited for the big push? Baldrick, squeezing the general's cheeks back: no, sir, I'm actually terrified.
I remember watching this series the first time it was aired. Don’t think I’ve laughed so much in my whole life. The ending as no man’s land changes in to a field of poppies was spine tingling. Brilliant brilliant series. ❤
Baldrick: Shall I do another one then, sir? Blackadder: No, we wouldn’t want to exhaust you. Baldrick: No, don’t worry. I could go on all night. Blackadder: Not with a bayonet through your neck, you couldn’t. Easily one of the best back and forths from the series. 😂
Blackadder is probably the greates comedy series ever made. It's become a tradition at our house to go trough the whole series once a year during Ramadan.
You know, Baldric's poem "The German Guns" is childishly simple, stupendously stupid, irritatingly annoying, and horrifyingly deep. The sound "Boom" is clearly not referring to the _crack_ of rifle fire nor the _ratatat-tat_ of machine guns. He refers to something conspicuously absent in the Blackadder series: the roaring sound of German artillery. Artillery was one of the mainstays on the Western Front. A relentless rain of death that claimed hundrends, if not thousands, of lives each day. The trenches evolved as a form of defence specifically against such attacks. It was Artillery that proved that the age of the Fort had passed by, and all sides were employing this new age of range and power. If the sound of the Vietnam War was helicopters, then the sound of WWI was artillery. That is was Baldric is referring to. A never-ending rain of shells, a hail of doom. Day and night the echoed sounds of *Boom! Boom! Boom!*
Most of the comedy went over my head as a kid, but the "Boom boom boom boom boom[...]" thing amused me already back then and I would remember it for years. Good stuff :)
Your comment reminded me of this poem by the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl called Schtzngrmm (it's a play on Schützengraben the German word for trench - without the vowels and written down according to sound) which only consists of the letters in schtzngrmm and imitates the sounds. It starts like this Schtzngrmm Schtzngrmm T-t-t-t T-t-t-t Grrrmmmmm T-t-t-t it goes on like this. Quite brilliant.
So, at college, I had to learn about Sasson, Rosenberg, Owen and others, but why havent I ever been told about the best of them, the one and only Sodof Baldrick? I am sure I'd have gotten an A on my Modern English literature exam if I could analyze his German Guns poem. In reality I discovered Blackadder about 2-3 semesters later, near my finals, and it threatened my study schedule :D
I got shown this episode in a GCSE History class. It made me a Blackadder fan: this scene made me piss myself laughing. Nobody else in the room found it as funny as I did and I was trying so hard to not start cry-laughing.
The commentary when one of the directors of this serie went to see a school play and one of the children went up on stage and read the Boom boom poem. Fantastic.
we had to write war poems in english class and this one pair literally tried to copy the boom boom poem. their argument with the teacher was hilarious.
To be honest though, also recalling the ''Painting'' episode, if some historian discovered paintings like that and poems like ''The German Guns'' in some WW1 veterans' house, they might perhaps say that that the guy was an artist who was ahead of his time. It's all in the delivery. If ''The German Guns'' was some modern art performance and he could sell that to audience, he might've been seen as a great modern poet.
I think the third series was underrated. What helped the fourth series was many viewers had grandparents who would have served in WW1 and would be able to relate to the setting due to it being comparatively recent. They would also have studied some of the endless poetry at school.
"Boom boom boom?" "How did you guess sir?" "I say sir that is spooky" "I'm sorry I think I got to get out of here!" Lol just the delivery of Rowan Atkinson saying he got to get out of here was hilarious. You can tell Blackadder is about to go over the edge
1:05 that little moment where he stops to collect himself, almost like he gathers himself to say something profound and then burst into the loud BOOM, is one of my favourite comedic moment i know
Ahhhhh he's just so done with Baldrick at that point , I like to imagine there's a blackadder and Baldrick through so many more ages but this one in the trenches is where he finally broke Edmund once and for all
He had some childish but profound lines too, like: "I'm scared too, sir.." and "Why can't we just stop sir? Why can't we just say 'no more killing, let's all go home'? Why would it be stupid just to pack it in, sir? Why?"
I know it's late, but some day after you get to understand what you just said, maybe I'll get to understand why they get so many upvotes when they do it.
For my homework I had to write a war poem so my dad said “I’ll help you” so he said “ Boom Boom Boom, Boom Boom Boom” and I just hurt out laughing because I love black Adar goes fourth
Can you imagine if this was set in 2020 with the COVID 19 pandemic? Edmund: Most Likely to stay calm about the pandemic and tell everyone to go Into quarantine and keep calm. George: Most likely to freak out and go into hysterics about it. Baldrick: Has no idea what the whole situation about this deadly pandemic is and most likely not take it too seriously.
I should imagine they would have found it incomprehensibly dreadful. Don't forget that Sassoon was an enthusiastic supporter of the war, and won the MC on the Somme.
Head get mangled and dangled To the side just like I wear my Kangol Nowadays I'm on arms just like a bangle Try test me, you'll get manhandled I've got bullets that like to mingle On road, especially in the dancehall And if you try duck under table Fire my ting from a next angle Bullets are flying diagonal Turn your head into a semicircle Then gun-butt into a triangle Head from an angle look mangled Three-dimensional Reshape your head far from a circle Bullets in the back of your head tangle You better look into the mirror, it's a miracle
You think this is a joke, don't you? I did a Masters in (get this) Creative Writing. (The course controller asked if I wouldn't mind doing it, because I was getting commercially published, but nobody who'd done the degree had ever been.) So I rocked up, and I'm not joking, about half of those at the regular "peer review" sessions were poets, and one of them rivaled Baldrick. Another would have gone twelve rounds and lost on points to William Topaz Mcgonagall. The rest wrote word salad and gibberish. One of the prose artists was writing a novel in which all the characters were herself, and which opened with her suicide. Another was trying an amusing experiment in which the sentences of her short stories were rearranged in random order. What larks, what larks!
I actually quoted Baldrick's 'German Guns' in my A-level English literature exam, alongside Sassoon and Owen, and hey I got a good mark. Either the guy marking it was a Blackadder fan, or Baldrick was a poetic genius.
Maybe both
You must be fun at parties, Alex
@@vespasian123456 I imagine that an examiner may appreciate the odd bit of humour when they're having to mark a thousand and one answers to the same question.
"German guns" is considered to be a war poem.
@MichaelKingsfordGray That and jazz.
I love the malice in his voice when he says "not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn't" XD
me too :)
🤣😂🤣
Eat your heart out Shakespeare. The German Guns is arguably the most memorable poem in the history of literature. Pure comedy genius all in one word. Boom.
Very memorable, I heard it once and already remember all the words!
I keep it framed on my bedroom wall
Red Squirrel If You read Miron Białoszewski you’d know, that if he can be considered a poetic genius anyone can 😂
Yeah: better than that T.S. Eliot bloke!
The way Blackadder comes in with the "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!??" sounding so frantic and on the edge is just so brilliant :D
“I say, sir, that is SPOOKY!”
@@MarkusMaack I'm sorry I think I've got to get out of here.
The timing and delivery of the “ding-a-ling-a-ling” line is just incredible
I love Baldric's smile after he says "so would i sir" hilarious
maybe he thought he said ''skank'', not ''skunk''
👌👌✅✅😂😂
Well it started badly and it tailed off a little in the middle and the less said about the end the better, but apart from that Excellent
But he was so close to become famous artists - just look what can be done from this with a little music:
ua-cam.com/video/llyiQ4I-mcQ/v-deo.html
BlueBino I love this line.
So apart from the whole thing, it was excellent.
To be faire the first one was pritty good for something a Baldrick came up with,
He should become a judge for American idol
The real horrors of WW1
youd think its silly because of Blackadder is constantly berating him and the background laughter..
but out of context, this is Balrick expressing that he is having a ptsd..
just another ww1 trench poetry
@@anothertemplarchuunibyoude3750 general, squeezing Baldrick's cheeks: are you excited for the big push?
Baldrick, squeezing the general's cheeks back: no, sir, I'm actually terrified.
English teachers disagree
solders being read poetry to pass the time, I'd rather go over the trench if it means a German bullet can free me from boredom.
@@marcosbravo9645 *absolutely terrified*
The expression of both Leftenant George and Blackadder during Baldrick's second poem is priceless.
@@PavelJagen You are most certainly correct, but in the series George is constantly referred to as a leftenant, so I figured I'd do so as well.
There is no such word as "leftenant." It is pronounced that way, but spelled "lieutenant."
The acting in this scene is incredible, but what do you expect from Hugh, Rowan and Tony!
I remember watching this series the first time it was aired. Don’t think I’ve laughed so much in my whole life. The ending as no man’s land changes in to a field of poppies was spine tingling. Brilliant brilliant series. ❤
Blackadder's reaction when Baldrick is doing his boom poem tho. Easy to miss but completely hilarious.
Baldrick: Shall I do another one then, sir?
Blackadder: No, we wouldn’t want to exhaust you.
Baldrick: No, don’t worry. I could go on all night.
Blackadder: Not with a bayonet through your neck, you couldn’t.
Easily one of the best back and forths from the series. 😂
0:16 Look how proud Baldrick is at that retort 😂😂✅✅
Blackadder is probably the greates comedy series ever made. It's become a tradition at our house to go trough the whole series once a year during Ramadan.
No comedy in the world beats british comedy. - Aussie fan of the motherland UK
DING ALING ALING ALING
Kiss my dingaling ling ling
You know, Baldric's poem "The German Guns" is childishly simple, stupendously stupid, irritatingly annoying, and horrifyingly deep. The sound "Boom" is clearly not referring to the _crack_ of rifle fire nor the _ratatat-tat_ of machine guns. He refers to something conspicuously absent in the Blackadder series: the roaring sound of German artillery.
Artillery was one of the mainstays on the Western Front. A relentless rain of death that claimed hundrends, if not thousands, of lives each day. The trenches evolved as a form of defence specifically against such attacks. It was Artillery that proved that the age of the Fort had passed by, and all sides were employing this new age of range and power. If the sound of the Vietnam War was helicopters, then the sound of WWI was artillery.
That is was Baldric is referring to. A never-ending rain of shells, a hail of doom. Day and night the echoed sounds of *Boom! Boom! Boom!*
.......and thus I present you with this Arts Major
get over yourself @wolfe dima . if he's not a woman, marry him anyway ;)
Bravo! Splendid!
Wouldn't the sound of British artillery be closer to them though?
Sire, you are a genius!
My history teacher put this on for us the other day. It had the whole class in stitches lol
@Johnny Wise It probably has something to do with History.
@Johnny Wise Oh wait, It has probably something to do with comedy and History.
Lt George's reactions are the best bit of this hilarious clip.
I agree, his facial expressions are masterful.
Most of the comedy went over my head as a kid, but the "Boom boom boom boom boom[...]" thing amused me already back then and I would remember it for years. Good stuff :)
@MichaelKingsfordGray What
boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom
😥😣😒 BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!!!!!!
very good sir well done
Your comment reminded me of this poem by the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl called Schtzngrmm (it's a play on Schützengraben the German word for trench - without the vowels and written down according to sound)
which only consists of the letters in schtzngrmm and imitates the sounds. It starts like this
Schtzngrmm
Schtzngrmm
T-t-t-t
T-t-t-t
Grrrmmmmm
T-t-t-t
it goes on like this.
Quite brilliant.
Marie-Claire Correau-Smith boom boom boom
I WANT YOU IN MY ROOM
Boom boom boom!?!?!
@@Malos_ vengaboys
The audience absolutely rocking with laughter at baldricks remark 'so would i Sir' and Baldricks smile afterwards 👌👌✅😂
That german guns poem nearly broke the plastic chair I was sitting on
Poor Blackadder. His predicament is very real.
Killer CD Hanging out with George and Baldrick for an extended period of time is enough to make you want to volunteer to go into No Man's Land.
I love that Hugh Laurie either plays a genius or an idiot and basically nothing in between.
So, at college, I had to learn about Sasson, Rosenberg, Owen and others, but why havent I ever been told about the best of them, the one and only Sodof Baldrick? I am sure I'd have gotten an A on my Modern English literature exam if I could analyze his German Guns poem.
In reality I discovered Blackadder about 2-3 semesters later, near my finals, and it threatened my study schedule :D
oh sod off
*Sodoff
Apollinaire
People always remember the ostrich
This is made all the more funny by the fact that George sits there absolutely rapt as if Baldrick’s reciting the Complete Works of Shakespeare!
I got shown this episode in a GCSE History class. It made me a Blackadder fan: this scene made me piss myself laughing. Nobody else in the room found it as funny as I did and I was trying so hard to not start cry-laughing.
Both Robinson and Atkinson deserve an Oscar for this!
I felt like Black Adder here when watching the new Star Wars
Greatest war poet of all time. Sorry, Owen, Ungaretti and the whole lot.
Rule, Britannia, Britannia rule the airwaves! Britons never, never, never shall be bored!
The commentary when one of the directors of this serie went to see a school play and one of the children went up on stage and read the Boom boom poem. Fantastic.
First saw this in my history class this morning. Laughed so much
This is pure poetry , Baldrick is the best 😂
I really love his first poem it's very moving seriously!
I simply adore Baldrick! Blackadder rocks!!!
we had to write war poems in english class and this one pair literally tried to copy the boom boom poem. their argument with the teacher was hilarious.
"Not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn't!"
LMAO! My favorite part.
when he said “boom boom boom”
*I felt that*
To be honest though, also recalling the ''Painting'' episode, if some historian discovered paintings like that and poems like ''The German Guns'' in some WW1 veterans' house, they might perhaps say that that the guy was an artist who was ahead of his time. It's all in the delivery. If ''The German Guns'' was some modern art performance and he could sell that to audience, he might've been seen as a great modern poet.
0:32 I peed my pants, good heavens! 😂😂😂😂😂
this is my favourite thing in the world
Not me? Do better Marie
The "dingalingaling" sounds so sad :(
You know a finishing line is bad when even Baldrick can't bring himself to say it convincingly.
Personally...I think this was the best of the series....the final episode/scene put it all in to perspective in my opinion.x
I think the third series was underrated. What helped the fourth series was many viewers had grandparents who would have served in WW1 and would be able to relate to the setting due to it being comparatively recent. They would also have studied some of the endless poetry at school.
Well said, Nigel; check out Rowan Atkinson's interview where he refers to how difficult the final episode was to do for all of the staff.
Hear the words I sing
War’s a horrid thing
So I sing sing sing
*dingalingaling*
NEXT TATTOO PENDING
Blackadder's exasperated look with his head in his hands cracked me up! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
1:02 Me when listening to modern pop music.
Boom, boom into the room
Ok boomer
oh shut up you pretentious twat
SAME.
The ‘i say! That is spooky!’ line kills me
Gabe Thornes hahaha me too 😂
"Boom boom boom?"
"How did you guess sir?"
"I say sir that is spooky"
"I'm sorry I think I got to get out of here!"
Lol just the delivery of Rowan Atkinson saying he got to get out of here was hilarious. You can tell Blackadder is about to go over the edge
I nearly fell off my chair, I couldn’t stop laughing
Man, Baldrick's war poem was both hilarious and entertaining at the same time 🤣😂😉👍
My favorite Blackadder line ever 'not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn't.'
Studied War Literature as a student and did my dissertation on that... The poignancy of "German Guns" is the height of black comedy...
1:05 that little moment where he stops to collect himself, almost like he gathers himself to say something profound and then burst into the loud BOOM, is one of my favourite comedic moment i know
1:15 this is spot on when I'm in detention and it feels like ages but then I look at the clock and it has only been 1 minute
😂 Love this scene so much! 😂 😂 😂 😂
When i saw the word, Baldrick, i thought this was gonna be something about faceless..
The German Guns is a masterpiece.
Beat that for comedy, priceless
Ahhhhh he's just so done with Baldrick at that point , I like to imagine there's a blackadder and Baldrick through so many more ages but this one in the trenches is where he finally broke Edmund once and for all
One of my favourite Blackadder moments! Too good XDXD
"Fire away, Baldrick" probably should've preceded the second poem.
He had some childish but profound lines too, like:
"I'm scared too, sir.."
and
"Why can't we just stop sir? Why can't we just say 'no more killing, let's all go home'? Why would it be stupid just to pack it in, sir? Why?"
In my English Literature exam on Monday I’ll be sure to cite Baldrick as one of the quintessential war poets. Move over Wilfred Owen!
Sassoon, Brooke, Owen, Graves...... mere nonentities when compared to the poetic genius of Baldrick.
When comedy was brilliant and people weren't afraid saying things 80s and 90 brilliant
Wonderful poem Darling.
George's face at 0:27 is priceless.
Your elocution teacher would be so proud! Truly - she'd love it!
The German Guns by Baldrick:
Boom Boom Boom Boom,
Boom Boom Boom.
Boom Boom, Boom Boom,
Boom Boom Boom.
Baldrick's a genius. His poem "German Guns" really rhymes well.
Dr S. Baldrick, poetic genius
That's it,...i'm going outside boys.
To stick my head out above the trench wearing a silly hat so a German sniper can't possibly miss his shot.
"No, I'd rather French-kiss a skunk."
''me too'' with a naughty smile :D
no one can match this level ever again
Some day I'll understand why people type lines of the video we're all just watched in the comments section.
Some day, but not today.
I know it's late, but some day after you get to understand what you just said, maybe I'll get to understand why they get so many upvotes when they do it.
For my homework I had to write a war poem so my dad said “I’ll help you” so he said “ Boom Boom Boom, Boom Boom Boom” and I just hurt out laughing because I love black Adar goes fourth
Can you imagine if this was set in 2020 with the COVID 19 pandemic?
Edmund: Most Likely to stay calm about the pandemic and tell everyone to go Into quarantine and keep calm.
George: Most likely to freak out and go into hysterics about it.
Baldrick: Has no idea what the whole situation about this deadly pandemic is and most likely not take it too seriously.
This should trigger PTSD today
I once put baldrick as my password
The system shut down
Seeing Abode in this is kinda surreal, almost like it vexes me...
0:11 😂😂✅👌
I think this show went of course when they started giving Blackadder clairvoyant abilities.
Boom Boom Boom Boom
Boom Boom Boom
Boom Boom Boom Boom
Boom Boom Boom
Priceless!
I'm curious as to what messrs Sassoon and Owen's would deem this. The final episode in this series had me in tears.
I should imagine they would have found it incomprehensibly dreadful. Don't forget that Sassoon was an enthusiastic supporter of the war, and won the MC on the Somme.
Fking brilliant, pure genius 👏
British comedy at it's best ....
German guns
Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom
Boom boom boom?
How did you guess
Oh bravo! YES!
Oscar Wilde is kicking himself right now
"Boom boom boom" how did you guess sir & dinga ling ling 😂
The German Guns. A literary masterpiece.
It is funny to see that one normal person in a sitcom, who realizes how ridiculous everyone is
1:03 is the most brilliant picture
The German Guns - pure comedy genius.
Head get mangled and dangled
To the side just like I wear my Kangol
Nowadays I'm on arms just like a bangle
Try test me, you'll get manhandled
I've got bullets that like to mingle
On road, especially in the dancehall
And if you try duck under table
Fire my ting from a next angle
Bullets are flying diagonal
Turn your head into a semicircle
Then gun-butt into a triangle
Head from an angle look mangled
Three-dimensional
Reshape your head far from a circle
Bullets in the back of your head tangle
You better look into the mirror, it's a miracle
“The German Guns” is better.
...leave that type of poetry to the Chinese, Baldrick.
轟 轟 轟 轟
轟 轟 轟 轟
轟 轟 轟 轟
轟 轟
It's hard to tell if George is just his usual dimwit self or just being britishlly polite :)
You think this is a joke, don't you? I did a Masters in (get this) Creative Writing. (The course controller asked if I wouldn't mind doing it, because I was getting commercially published, but nobody who'd done the degree had ever been.) So I rocked up, and I'm not joking, about half of those at the regular "peer review" sessions were poets, and one of them rivaled Baldrick. Another would have gone twelve rounds and lost on points to William Topaz Mcgonagall. The rest wrote word salad and gibberish. One of the prose artists was writing a novel in which all the characters were herself, and which opened with her suicide. Another was trying an amusing experiment in which the sentences of her short stories were rearranged in random order.
What larks, what larks!
poems are the hardest things to write ever, there is so much technique
Agreed, agreed. And you tell that to yoong fowk nowaday, and they woan't believe yer!
True poetry is hard, but what passes today as poetry is mostly cat vomit.
@@sobolanul96 How dare you?! That is an unwarranted aspersion on cats!