"The Incredible Shrinking Duck"

Spotlight on Goosewing.

Season 2 Episode 4 (episode 30 overall) 

Original broadcast date: 3 October 1989

Writer: Jimmy Hibbert

Additional voices: Dr. Von Goosewing: 

                              Jimmy Hibbert

                               Shopkeeper: David Jason

Joke credit: Costumes – Vera Small

Castle transport visual not used.

This is a good one to watch for Von Goosewing fans. He gets a lot of screentime in this episode and Hibbert does a great performance, even when acting against no-one. Though he’s a more ostensibly comedic character than the central three, VG can still be quite relatable. In fact, I kind of feel sorry for him. Not only do his experiments often backfire (though he is still successful in a lot of them, including this one) but he’s faced with a pointless life quest. It’s easy to feel sorry for Duckula, constantly being hounded by a crazy vampire hunter and threatened with ‘death’ but one has to look at it from Goosewing’s viewpoint too. He genuinely believes he’s doing the right thing, when in reality; since Duckula is harmless, he doesn’t need to do anything. So essentially he’s wasting his time. He also doesn’t appear to have any friends to speak of, which makes the ending to ‘Around the World in a Total Daze’ especially gutting despite the humour employed. He’s just bumbling his way through his declining years, accompanied by the very-possibly-imaginary Heinrich. It’s never explicitly stated whether Heinrich was ever real, whether he left and Goosewing just didn’t/wouldn't notice or whether he’s a figment of the daffy Doc’s imagination. I like how it’s never cleared up one way or the other. And if Goosewing just realised how wrong he is in his judgements, even he and the Count could conceivably become friends!

On with the plot – Goosewing gets the idea to use a shrink ray on Castle Duckula and make a snow globe decoration with it after seeing such things in a tourist shop in the village. He spends the first half of the episode trying to invent one that works while we cut back and forth to the castle for the inhabitants' day-to-day lives.

 At one point Duckula upsets Nanny by daring to try and cook something himself. This is actually quite a sweet scene and he tries to cheer her up while she bawls loudly! It’s funny too though, mainly due to Brian’s funny ‘Nanny crying’ noises. During these cut-aways, we also see Nanny has a castle-in-a-bubble, one of the same that gave Goosewing the idea. In fact, as we later discover, she’s the only customer that even bought one!

The Doctor gets to montage. He's a genetic engineer in that last frame!

Back in the lab. After first testing the ray on Heinrich’s (uneaten of course) ‘Bockwurst sandvich’ the Doctor makes for the castle and shrinks it and puts it in a glass globe ornament for added humiliation. His plan is to wrap it up and send it away, presumably via MyHermes so that he'll never see it again. Unfortunately, during his victory dance, he drops it and it rolls right down the hill, into the village finally coming to a stop right inside the tourist shop.

There now follows one of my favourite scenes from the whole series. It plays out like a sketch show vignette to my view. Goosewing enters the shop and tries to get his castle-in-a-bubble back from the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper’s quite willing to help, but he’s also put the real castle on the shelf with the dozens of other identical ones. ‘It don’t matter they’re all the same in’t they?’ Well, not quite! But Goosewing has common sense enough not to explain that he shrunk the castle – who’d believe him? Finally he admits defeat and asks a puzzled but happy shopkeeper how much it would be to buy all of them. Since the shopkeeper has had such trouble shifting them, he’s eager to assist! We close the scene with Goosewing leaving with a huge bag of the tatty ornaments and the shopkeeper leaving for his holidays! 

They manage to avoid potentially complicating the scene by not doing the old ‘nein=nine’ gag, though it could have been a fun addition. I like the voice David gives the shopkeeper, it’s almost like a more laid-back, older-sounding Del-boy Trotter.

 

Back in his lab Goosewing is smashing each ornament in turn trying to locate the real castle. He presumably has either lost more of his marbles or he wants to reserve a special fate for the castle. Either way, our trio remain unaware of what’s happened until they step outside and see a ‘huge’ Goosewing.

After surviving a fall off of the table (Nanny’s sling isn’t a very good parachute) the three discover a patent paper which clues them in on the existence of the shrink ray. At this point Goosewing discovers that they are missing and decides to shrink himself in order to find them. After doing this however he realises that he now no longer has the advantage over Duckula nor does even remember if there’s a reverse function on the ray! Even if there was, it’d be hard to make use of it, since he's now too small to reach. It’s at this point that ‘Heinrich’s bockwurst sandwich’ decides to revert to it usual size (flattening a hungry Goosewing) causing him to panic. He has the sense to work out that if the sandwich reverted, the castle will shortly follow. Panic time!

Duckula, Igor and Nanny are relieved  though as it means all will be back to normal soon, though Igor points out that if they’re not inside the castle, they could be crushed by it. Thankfully for them, Goosewing dropped the real castle earlier so in they rush and in no time at all it’s growing back and breaking out of Goosewing’s house.

We’re left with a pretty weird ending. Goosewing is now in his balloon and, angry that his house has been destroyed, starts shooting at the castle with a blunderbuss. Then it starts snowing ‘In the middle of July?’ – somehow the Doctor, who is logically still tiny, is now in a castle-in-a-bubble ornament on a shelf…back in the real castle! ‘Don’t look at me, I don’t understand it either!’ I don’t blame him for once, it’s pretty confusing, but it’s done deliberately for the sake of absurdist humour and makes a fitting ending for an episode mainly focussing on such a scatter-brained character.

I taped this one off the TV back on its original broadcast, but it got wiped over accidentally with another episode and all that survived was the brief shot of tiny Goosewing beside the now-giant stool. Thank heaven for DVD! Now if they could release the rest of the Cosgrove-Hall pantheon before I die of old age, that’d be nice.

Lots of familiar friends in the music track. 'Jingle Bells (D)' (track 4) (Simon Richard Benson) plays during the opening scene.  'Premonitions' (Richard Allen Harvey - track 20) is heard when Nanny shows Duckula the snowglobe. It also crops up in ‘Danger Mouse’ at least once or twice - the title card of ‘By George, It’s a Dragon’ springs to mind. ‘Drama’ by Van Phillips plays during Von Goosewing’s inventing montage (and can be heard on the EMI website here) while 'Drama Sting No. 3' (Peter Knight) plays after Goosewing's 1st machine explodes. 'Shadowed' (Peter Francklyn) is heard when he takes aim at the castle. The tail-end of ‘Spindlelegs’ (King Palmer) is heard as Goosewing leaves the shop. ‘Lumbering Giant’ (Paddy Kingsland) plays while Goosewing smashes the ornaments. ‘Stealth By Night’ (Jack Coles) plays when Duckula recovers and steps out for fresh air.  ‘March of the Ants’ (Sidney Crooke) is heard as the trio contemplate jumping off the table. It often accompanies Meredith's lab' on "Alias the Jester." 'Uneasy Feeling' (Jack Trombey) plays when VG spots the trio have escaped. 'Weeping Heart' (Dick Walter) plays briefly when he shrinks himself. An intense chase type music that also features in a couple of other episodes plays as the trio rush back to the castle. I audio taped this same tune when I heard it crop up in (appropriately enough) a Vincent Price film. If anyone can identify it, please do. A line from the film that also got taped is Price saying ‘The priest, I have changed my mind’ of that's of any help. The same film also uses another tune that gets a lot of airtime in this series, especially in ‘There Are Werewolves at the Bottom of Our Garden.’ The title card uses 'Magical Effect (A)' (Paddy Kingsland again) and can be heard on the Storytellers album. Ever-reliable 'Finger of Fear' (Fredric Bayco) plays us out.

Almost no pans in this one, but several zooms, which fits with the size-changing theme. Here are some backgrounds.

Some great shots of Goosewing's laboratory.

There aren't many clear shots of the shop, but it's worth looking at.

Here's one!

Trivia

*Another title with the word ‘duck’ in it. It is a reference to ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’, a sci-fi film from 1957 directed by Jack Arnold.

Recent birthday gift from mein vife! T-shirt as well actually.

*One of the few episodes that (technically) does not open with the castle, just a model of it. One of a handful of episodes that does not have Duckula, Igor or Nanny in the opening. Goosewing gets the first scene.

*There’s another pub in the village called the ‘Red O Lion.’ The Red Lion is a popular pub name and the O is a blood group reference.

*Goosewing exclamations aplenty! “Schinken und Käse!” which is German for ham and cheese.  A Schinken Kaiser is also a type of ham sandwich. If you listen closely to the closing theme song of every episode, you can hear him shout this about halfway through the song. He also references the Bockwurst in Heinrich’s sandwich, which is a pork and veal sausage. Your making me hungry Goosewing.

“Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen!” – which was a small county in southwestern Germany. He says this when the sandwich shrinks and later bookends this gag by saying it again when the sandwich grows.

“Götterdämmerung  und  Nibelungen!” and “Rheingold und Tannhäuser!” The Doc’ really likes Richard Wagner! 

He also says “Where is the verdammt - ”  Sneaking stuff past the censors, eh Jimmy? Well done! Verdammt is German for damned.

All these expressions, coupled with his love of Wagner supports the theory that Goosewing is German. There’s some debate among fans that he may be Austrian, since it’s never stated outright.

*Duckula bathes with a rubber duck while Igor showers in his suit!

*If Goosewing’s calendar is to be believed, several months pass while he invents the shrinking ray. Yet Duckula asks Nanny about the castle in the bubble she had ‘the other day’. Then again, there’s no evidence to suggest that she wouldn’t have had it the other day. Or that Goosewing has a cheap calendar.

*Duckula references Auguste Escoffier while baking. Goosewing makes reference to Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and Sir Isaac Newton. 2nd time he wears a chef's outfit, the first being 'Hardluck Hotel' and the next being 'Prime Time Duck'.

* Only time Von Goosewing enters the village. 4th time Igor enters the village and the 3rd time Duckula and Nanny do, albeit in an unusual way!

*The design of the shopkeeper would be reused in the Victor & Hugo episode ‘Cowboys & Indiscipline’ where he’s voiced by Brian. 

*The shopkeeper sings ‘How Much is That Doggy in the Window’ only reworked to be about vampires. Not werewolves?

*Some of the prices on the shelves use the drachma symbol of d.

*The shopkeeper says he has 5 gross of the castle ornaments. That equals 720 units.

*The shopkeeper asks for 17,583 drachmas (plus tax!) for the lot. That equates to roughly 24 and a half drachmas a piece. Using Grecian drachmas as a starting point, since I’m sure the Transylvanian drachma was fictionalised for this series (it sounds like Dracula!) that would make Goosewing’s bill (plus tax!) just shy of about £100, which would be about £260 in today’s terms! I’m sure some money expert can put me right here though.

* Despite Igor's mistake about the storm, it's a generally clear day throughout this episode. No snow - not even in the middle of July!

*2^nd time Brian’s character says ‘Oh hasn’t he grown!’ Auntie Lucretia said it in ‘A Family Reunion’ about the Count. Here Nanny says it about the Doctor.

*For the only time in the series, Von Goosewing appears to live in a regular house. It seems to be on lease but gets destroyed near the end. That may explain why he usually lives in a cave or on his airship.

*The ending is similar to the ending of the Victor & Hugo episode ‘Water Boobies’ in that the character(s) are inexplicably small and don’t understand how.

 

*Another appearance of Von Goosewing’s hot air balloon, although brief.

*Episode ends, but does not begin, with a scream. In this case Goosewing’s scream.

*This episode was released on the Thames Count Duckula Bumper Special VHS in 1989 along with 'Ghostly Gold', 'Prime Time Duck', 'Ducknapped' and 'Blood Sucking Fruit Bats of the Lower Amazon'.

Goofs and nitpicks

*Igor makes a slight error when giving Duckula another lecture. He says ‘your great great grandfather will be ROTATING in his grave!’ – funny line, but if Duckula is his own father (and his father’s father etc), then logically, all his grandfathers’ graves would be empty. Although it has been highlighted on occasion that even Igor is not infallible and does make mistakes, albeit not often.

*Colour error on Goosewing’s waistcoat when he takes aim at the castle.

*The shop’s door hinges change side from interior and exterior shots.

*Goosewing’s name is spelt wrongly on the patent paper as 1^st Gosswing, then Gooswing, then Goosswing! It’s spelled correctly on the 4^th shot. I would say this could be a result of overseas artwork, but since it happens 3 different ways and then gets it right, it seems like it could be a joke, especially since everything else in the episode is spelt correctly.

*The final shot of the castle just as it’s about to regrow, the glass at the front appears to be intact. I’ll let that slide as its glass. It also cracks a 2^nd time when Goosewing drops it, but that's not really a goof just an observation.

Thanks to a fellow fan, I can now share copies of a few storyboard pages for this episode. Most are from the montage sequence, similar to the screencap I posted above. It's a shame the Dali gag was left out, but nonetheless we have some great drawings on display here which really capture the inventor spirit of Von Goosewing. The latter images in particular look like Vin James to me. I got a chuckle out of some of the artists' notes.

 
And since this is a Goosewing-centric episode, 
here's a bit of fan-art of the crazy wampire-wanquisher.

Bye for now!