"Bombay Duck"

Or 1,001 Transylvanian Nights

Season 3 episode 4 (episode 49 overall)

Original broadcast date: 12 November 1990

Writer: Jimmy Hibbert
Additional voices: Master/Dmitri: Brian
                                                       Trueman
                Slave/Sviatoslav: Jimmy Hibbert
                                  Genie: Jack May
                            Princess Rana: Ruby Wax                      

Travel location: India

Castle (and Taj Mahal!) transport visual used
Joke Credit: Genie - Alan Laddin

Slave when I said to take me to a coffin seller...

A wicked Aladdin's uncle style villain wants to transport the Taj Mahal to the Princess, so decides to steal the magic coffin in order to do so.

We've had a few episodes centre on the magic clock, but this is the only time one revolves around the coffin, unless we count the ending to 'The Show Must Go On.' From what we learn in this episode we can assume the following metaphor.

Castle = car, clock = petrol tank, coffin = key

If we use this formula it makes sense, with a few modifyers. If the castle/car ever runs out of time/petrol, it immediately returns to the mountain, which we can think of as a garage. Such an occurance would be very handy for drivers who forget to top their tank up regularly! Of course Duckula himself wouldn't see it like that. The return to base situation applies if the coffin/key removed, whereas removing the clock/tank merely strands the castle/car. So we get a different crisis depending on which item is removed from the castle, but each with it's own problems. All three are needed for Duckula to travel effectively. The Count often uses rhymes to get the castle moving, so this can be seen as part of the ignition key process. Using this information, it would seem that it is possible to use the coffin to transport other structures, (in this instance the Taj Mahal) as well. Though how this works without also stealing the clock isn't explained. It's possible the Taj Mahal has it's own 'petrol tank'. Of course it's also possible that the reason the castle automatically returns after the coffin is stolen is because it's dawn in Transylvania (they could have been stuck in that cave for a long time) but I reckon stealing the coffin is connected since it's dawn at the the end of the episode.

Surreal little touch with the close-up of the villain's eyes.

Anyway, back to the actual episode itself, which starts, unusually enough with the trio returning from a failed treasure hunt. The structure of the episode is thus very odd, due to the castle's travelling and returning occurring at atypical points in the story. During lunch, the villain substitutes the gravy boat for the 'magic' lamp in which his slave is impossibly hiding. He even squeezes inside through the spout! The plan is for the slave to imitate a genie and lure the castle to India, and the trio into a cave. After some funny insult jokes about Nanny's cooking and some mild 'who's on first'ing, Nanny rubs the lamp and the 'genie' appears. There is never a subtle way to do the whole 'this lamp needs a clean' bit in these kind of stories, but at least it makes perfect sense that a housekeeper character like Nanny would be the one to give it a good clean. I also like how Duckula decides it's a magic lamp, whereas Igor scoffs it as 'ridiculous fairy tale nonsense' - totally unlike vampires of course! The way David reads the line is almost as if Duckula himself may or may not believe, but there's no denying it looks like a traditional fairy tale magic lamp.

Once the 'genie' emmerges he gives his rehearsed spiel about taking them all to Aladdin's cave. Jimmy's doing a slight variant of his Michael Crawford meets Kenneth Williams 'oh no stop messin' about' type voice for the slave (who visually reminds me of Matt Lucas), which contrasts well with Brian's slightly Skeletor-ish evil hamming as the master. They almost come across as a more comic, pantomimey version of their roles as The Phantom and Krool. With a bit of How Fat and Thing thrown in. Of course, like The Phantom, the villain here is keeping to the shadows and letting his slave do all the dirty work. Once the castle has made it's way to India the slave clumsily manages to persuade the trio to enter the cave to look for the treasure. Igor has rightfully had misgivings about this whole venture right from the minute the 'genie' showed up, but as usual, he gets ignored and just plods along anyway.

To his credit, not-Jafar now shows up to help his servant push the boulder in place and seal up the cave and they both rush back to the castle to steal the magic coffin. These guys are certainly more competent than Gaston and Pierre, I'll say that much. A brief joke from the clock bats and we cut back to the cave, which is not exactly the cave of wonders the Count was naively expecting.

There is no treasure of any sort in the cave, however Nanny does manage to find a bottle containing a real genie - I suppose that makes a refreshing change from a magic lamp - and accidentally wishes them all back to the castle. This is another genie/three wishes/etc. trope that's hard to do subtly, so naturally Nanny is the one to do it! Jack May uses the same voice he gave to Hoomite for the Genie, while Brian gives some funny clucks to Nanny as she moans to herself.

Duckula is for once pleased to see the castle and starts kissing the wall. Love the way he sounds oddly suggestive when he tells Igor not to interrupt. Igor does so to point out that the villains are making off with the magic coffin, he can see them through one of the windows running away with it. The castle immediately returns to base. We can deduce that this is due to the coffin being removed from the equation as Igor makes no mention of the time. Overall though, Igor is pleased that the coffin is gone anyway. A small price to pay for permanent residence in Transylvania he feels.

Duckula of course is less than pleased, but he does get an actually decent idea on how to retreive the coffin. Unfortunately it involves asking Nanny to repeat his wish to the bottle genie, an undertaking fraud with potential hazard! All goes well though and soon the castle is transported to the coffin. Not such good news for the evil vizier fellow though as the coffin is inside the Taj Mahal. He is holding Princess Rana to her bargain and in fairness, it's hard to fault him. He's brought her theTaj Mahal as promised, so she ought to marry him. I'm guessing the Princess made a joke at some stage along the lines of "Me marry you? Only if you bring me that big building thingy as an engagement gift! Yeah that'll get rid of him." Ruby Wax hams it up as the Princess whilst bemoaning her fate, capped off with a mood-changing "Good grief" as the castle takes the place of the Mahal and the deal is off. Still more than a little unfair I feel. He brought her the TM, she didn't say it had to stay there! Still, he's 'the villain of the piece' and he decieved and stole so off he goes with the burly guards and their frightening scimitars. I hope cartoon Indian justice has improved since the 1930s otherwise the baddie may just lose hs head over the whole affair. Still it's preferable to a scolding from Nanny, who might have had a few choice things to say about taking things what don't belong to you. The slave's fate is unknown.

The Princess is naturally grateful to the Count and it just-so-happens that she is a collector of Transylvaniana too. She asks Duckula if he could give her an ornamental Transylvanian soup-strainer and he agrees. Wow she's a little greedy is this Princess, is she not? Still, she is very polite, even kissing him (offscreen, that's too sexy for you) it does seem like her and Duckula might get a happy and lovey dovey ending after all. But before Nanny can look out the item in question, Igor does a remarkably sneaky trick. He implies Duckula is unwell but 'nothing that a little cuddle wouldn't put right' which Nanny is more than happy to administer. Igor gets some marvelous expressions at this point too and I love how he's staged looking down on the 'unsavoury' action like an actual vulture might do.

Igor: (checking his watch) Right you can put him down now, Nanny.
Duckula: (gasping for breath) YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE!

True, but in fairness, Igor didn't want the castle to return without his master. Return is precisely what it now does, this time because of the automatic time reset mechanism. The Princess stares on in adumbfounded way. Can't blame her, first the Taj Mahal appears and disappears in her garden, now Castle Duckula does the same. Time to lay off the Transylvanian soup perhaps.

An interesting episode to watch if you want to bullstorm about how the castle's travelling mechanics hold together as I have done. Animation has some great drawing too, especially the genie scene, the cuddle segment and the guest villains' overall acting, though the slave's appearance from the lamp in the dining room is a bit shaky.

Pans and Backgrounds

Quite a few! The cave entrance as it appears here is edited a little to include more sky as in the actual episode, as it pans in a reverse L shape there. Since it was only sky that needed adding to complete it, it was easy. The up and down pan near the start can be seen above at the start of this entry.

An overlay is used here to show the Princess's reaction. Below is the same background without it.

 Music
"Desert Caravan (a)" (Graham DeWilde and Nigel Martinez) - Title/end

"After Dark" (Paddy Kingsland - track 31) - opening
"Basket of Snakes" (Keith Papworth) - approaching the cave
"Vamp Til Ready" (Wally Asp) - clock bats

Other than that it's mainly sitar music or drums I can't source. A cue from 'No Sax Please' also shows up in the cave.

Trivia

• Another episode with 'duck' in the title. Also one of two with an alternative title, the other being 'The Count and The Pauper.' This one makes it a little more obvious by having the word 'or' between titles. This marks 3 uses of Transylvania in an episode's title, the other two being 'Transylvanian Homesick Blues' and 'Transylvania Take Away'. 
• Bombay was renamed Mumbai in 1995 and Bombay Duck is actually a type of fish!
• Episode starts on the villain's screams, ends on Duckula's. Opens and closes in Transylvania.
• The Princess's full name is Princess Rana of Shakoor. Shakoor is a lake between Gujarat and the Sindh province on the southern edge of Pakistan.
• The villain does Duckula's traditional alliterative bit instead in this episode. He calls his slave an "incapable, inept, incompetent, ineffectual...incredible!" Igor does the same with "fame, fortune and...hmm..fun."
• The villain and his slave are never named onscreen.
• When the castle returns it does not crush the villains, they merely end up inside the cellar/coffin room. They are among the few guest characters to be seen in this room in the whole series, the others being the cast of  'Vampire Vacation' and Fluffykins from 'Blood Sucking Fruit Bats of the Lower Amazon.'
• Another appearance of the magic coffin. In fact, the episode revolves around it!
• Duckula mis-spells rich (W R I T C H)  as his did in 'Unreal Estate' the 'previous' episode.
• The villain mocks Nanny's name for Duckula. "Duckyboos! Heheheh!" 
• Duckula accuses the slave of leading them on a wild goose chase. Appropriate since Jimmy Hibbert also plays Von Goosewing in the series.
• Why didn't Duckula just teleport out of the cave? Magic of the cave preventing him, concern for leaving his staff, or just plain forgetfulness? I'm going with that last one. Come to that why didn't Nanny just walk through a wall? Probably if she was asked to she'd have some mad logic about how she never does that and that there's no doors anyway. Igor really should have thought of something though, but maybe he was enjoying the gloom too much!
• The coffin is still in it's jazzy form when it gets stolen and placed in the Taj Mahal along with the steps. It's also the only time we see the coffin from an opposite angle and the light colours are in a different order than usual. Does placing a vampiric coffin in this place count as blasphemy? Well, the Taj Mahal is a mausoleum.
• The Taj Mahal gets do to the old transport visual effect! It also gets destroyed when the castle takes it's place! Now that is blasphemous! This is the third time a structure gets apparently wrecked beyond repair. It happens to Castle Duckula itself, along with the mountain, in 'Ghostly Gold' and Von Goosewing's house in "The Incredible Shrinking Duck." By this logic, the Taj Mahal will be just fine soon enough.
• Duckula uses his teleport ability to get to Rana's balcony. She doesn't react. I guess it's nothing compared to what she's already seen.
• Duckula does the 'Hello (respectful name) or may I call you (first name)?/ No' bit again with Princess Rana.
• Igor makes reference to "Dawn, Eastern Transylvanian standard time" once again.
• Storyboard by tie-in comic artist Vin James.
  
• The joke credit is a reference to actor Alan Ladd.
• This episode was released on VHS along with 'Mississippi Duck' and 'Mystery Cruise.' The cover is not very inventive. It's just a slight reworking of the very first VHS  tape. This is also the only compilation VHS that does not feature Von Goosewing in any of the episodes. They also spell cave as cove, which still kind of makes sense.
  
  
  

Goofs and nitpicks 

• Duckula's cape collar disappears for one frame near the start. Barely noticeable since the BG art is the same colour.
• Igor's eyelid colours are reversed when the villain is sneaking under the table, when the genie appears and briefly when the castle returns home. His shirt collar turns flesh coloured for a few frames.
• The villain's mouth doesn't move for a couple of words when Duckula enters his coffin. It's covered up by a cut-away and camera judders though. In the close-up, his collar rim is miscoloured.
• Duckula's bill is misaligned for one frame when he moans in the cave. I remember thinking it was my Sky box's fault as it coincided with a bit of glitching there when I taped it!
  

And since this an episode focusing on the coffin, here's a wee model I made of it in its 'jazzy' form! The base was attained from Hobbycraft and painted, while the lights and stanchion heads were made from Fimo. The lights were then glued onto the sides. The stanchion poles are nails painted gold with the heads baked on and string tied between them for the ropes. The base and steps were made from the coffin lid and a matchbox. The chain is from my pocket-watch. Duckyboos himself of course dates back to the 80s!