"AutoDuck"

You auto know better!

Season 1 episode 13 (episode 13 overall)

Original broadcast date: 29 November 1988

Writer: Brian Trueman
Additional voices: Commentator/Ruffles/3rd Crow:
                              Jimmy Hibbert
                             Burt/Inkeeper: David Jason
                             4th Crow: Brian Trueman
                           
Castle transport visual not used.

This is one of a handful that my sketchy memory was less than kind too. I seem to recall it felt like being almost a repurposed "Wind in the Willows" script but with a different cast. However it's also one I enjoyed much more upon revisiting recently and there's sufficient difference between the characters and their motivations to prove my memory wrong. Sorry Brian, I should never have doubted you! His penchant for black-out gags and set pieces that advance the plot are in evidence here and in my defence, I always did think there were some great lines and outlandish visual jokes in this episode, which involves the Count trying to break the land speed record.

 

We start out with Duckula getting far too excited over some racing cars on the telly. I don't blame Nanny for coming to see if he's alright. I am going to blame her for breaking the wall and breaking the telly with the wall however as it's very easy to blame Nanny. Igor drops by too and after a brief bit of tension involving staff wages (this series is great for cynical money jokes) Duckula decides he's going to get rich by A) bringing the world land speed record to Transylvania and B) charging people to stay at his castle. He seems to be under the impression that so many people will crowd to see this event that all the hotels will be jam-packed and they'll have to stay at his castle. How wrong he is. 

Meanwhile in London (you can tell because Nelson's column is in view) Ruffles and the lads are up to no good as usual. Reading the article about Duckula's plan in the Transylvania Times (he gets it for the crossword) give the boss an idea to head to Transylvania and rip off some tourists. Ambitious! 

 

Meanwhile, Duckula is also being ambitious in his hen-powered Mk. 1 racing 'automobile.' Frankly he'd probably have been better off using the trailer - at least that actually moves! The 'car' here seems to be constructed out of an out-size coffin, a chest of drawers, a chair, a lawn press and some cart-wheels. A steering wheel is an optional extra it would seem. I absolutely love the joke about wind-tunnel testing.

Nanny: Is that when you stood it in the corridor and fanned it with your 'at?

Igor: Silence Nanny!
Nanny: Only bits fell off it then!

 

Nanny pushes the car to get it started and then Duckula crashes it some distance away to get it stopped. Ow. Take two and this time Igor remembers to provide the steering wheel ("Every luxury!") but Duckula doesn't get time to release the handbreak. This results in Nanny crushing the car up when she tries to push it. I guess there are some things that can even resist Nanny's brute force!

By now the Crows have arrived and are wondering where all the tourists are. The landlord informs them that all seven of them have left, havinggotten fed up waiting for Duckula to stop breaking his car and break the record instead. Another stupidly clever joke about Burt's forged airline tickets precedes Ruffles deciding that all is not lost. They can still (potentially) make some cash by selling the Count some advice and machinery. The "top-class racing  engineer and spare parts supplier" lines are perfectly spaced and timed, coming first from Ruffles, then from Igor and later from Duckula as a capper to his latest disaster - then back to Ruffles again. Said disaster involves Duckula attaching a massive flywheel to the back of the car, which runs him over after Nanny winds it up to 14 thousand RPM. Probably not her fault this time, it looks a dangerously daft idea anyway! There's also a pun about the word Jack from Nanny because of course there is.

Anyway, ("Alphonso") Ruffles shows up to sell whatever random stuff his colleagues have managed to pinch to Duckula, claiming it's a suitable engine for his...vehicle. Some clever lines from Ruffles here as he - like all good criminals - is very economical with the truth, whil still being totally correct. You can't touch him for it!

Ruffles: You will not find an engine like this at Indianapolis or on the great racing circuits of Europe.
Duckula: Good as that, Alf, eh?
Ruffles: Good, milord, isn't the word for it.
 

Duckula switches on the car, which by now looks like a wooden wheelbarrow with extra wheels, and is immediately spun round in a circle, bashing his head on the ground several times. Ow again. Nanny saves him by bashing the car to bits with one swift blow from the jack. See, it did come in useful! That's what we writers call "Chekov's Jack" - or is it "Jack's Gun?" Oh well. Back in the pub, Burt explains he got the engine from a cement mixer (hence the circular motion) on the proviso that Ruffles won't hit him. He hits him anyway. Ow once more.

Later, still at the 'starting line' Duckula now decides to propel the latest cobbled-together car off like a slingshot. There's a really subtle joke about the elastic which I suspect is meant to suggest Nanny got it out of her underwear. It has the expected effect, except that this time at least Duckula wasn't in the car. Though he seems to think this is a bad thing. He's right in a way, because the car returns and takes him along for the back and forward ride on the elastic. Igor and Nanny just buzz off for tea.

 

Next con trick's pretty funny as it involve Ruffles pretending to be a doctor with a German accent, but Jimmy Hibbert manages not to make him sound like Von Goosewing. Instead he sounds like Ruffles badly attempting a German accent. The set-up is pretty complex. Two Crows are operating (stolen) fairground carousels with paintings of trees on them to simulate some kind of crude 'virtual racetrack' while Burt hides under the (stationary) car and falsifies the speedometer by turnung the dial up. This reminds me of those home racing systems one of my online clients has, only a lot more rudimentary. It's true, man - the Crow Brothers invented sim racing! Ruffles has the foresight to get Duckula to use earphones so that he can logically hear him as he 'races' away. It sounds like David and Jimmy are cracking up at this point, which makes it funnier to me. The scam is on and Ruffles bursts a balloon to indicate breaking the sound barrier. Sadly, they also break the set-up. The fake archway falls over and the carousels take up skywards. The reamining lads quickly make themselves scarce, leaving Duckula humiliated but mercifully, no poorer.

There's worse to come though. Igor later reads the sleepy Count an article about how two of the Crow Brothers managed to set a new record for man-powered flight. I guess Norris McWhirter just happened to be watching those flying carousels go by! Make your own jokes about 'as the crow flies' here.

Memorable shot of Igor welcoming the night.

There's several things that suggest to me that this may have been an early episode that made it's way into the exact halfway point of season one. The use of a courtyard implies the structure of the castle may not have been finalised (although it's big enough to have one anywhere to be fair) and the fact that the Crow Brothers are the main antagonists. Brian Trueman may have written this one off the back of "No Sax Please" where they were also the main baddies. It's also the first one to have a UK animation team and the final one to have a 1987 copyright date after the credits.

 

The ending is slightly odd too, in that Igor comes to wake Duckula up as night falls. It could be that after all his exertions, the Count is having an early night, but it's unusual for sure. The characters even show vestiges of their initial (uglier) designs in one long shot, but it is quite brief. The castle at the end shot looks a little different in style, closer to how it appeared in "Victor & Hugo" to my eyes. (see below.)

 

Music

"Barrage" (Jack Trombey) - Opening

"Up the Stairs" (Dick Walter - track 7) - First car.

"The Unexpected" (Tim Souster) In the inn.

"Unknown Waltz" (Walter Warren) - Fairground scene.

"Watch Out" (Dick Walter - track 4 ) - Crows pepare final scheme.

"Scream and Scream Again" (Tim Souster) - end.

The music is an odd selection this time. Lots of small band corny comedy cues are used. I'm sure I'll be bombarded with comments telling me where they all came from along with loads of others that were not used at all. I remember the tune used in the first pub scene being one I heard in Harry Hill's Fruit Fancies. We used it in a home movie. My brother spotted that one in this episode when we watched it on a holiday in Memphis (shortly after acquiring the DVD set) and we had some in-joke chuckles. It's used in the Danger Mouse episode "The Statue of Liberty Caper" too.

Pans and Backgrounds

Not many pans, but a few zooms and overhead shots of the courtyard are used. I don't know whether clicking will enlarge them in the usual way as Blogger has updated itself and I find it hard to adjust to.
 

 

 

 

Trivia

• Another episode with the word duck in the title.
• Episode opens with Duckula screaming in excitement, ends in him screaming in frustration.
  Opens and closes in Transylvania.
• Jimmy Hibbert is doing a Murray Walker voice briefly on the TV. 
  
• An appearance of  the Transylvanian Times. Upmarket competitor to the Transylvania Morning Sun obviously. The bros. are seen reading the same paper in "Mobile Home" while again, in the inn. There's a photo of a hot air balloon on the back page. A Von Goosewing reference? Sibelius Smogg perhaps? We see a photo of one of the flying carousels on the back page of the next edition.
  
• It's maybe the sketchy art style on this episode, but the Nelson on the Column looks less beaky than we'd expect from this show.
• 2nd appearance of the Crow Brothers. They don't do their thump, thump, thump...thump thing here though.
• Burt mistakenly refers to Stan Laurel as Victor Laurel. A character called Victor would soon have a show of his own, with Hugo, a few years later. Burt also references singer Bruce Springsteen and Ruffles uses the Cockney rhyming slang for stairs (apples and pears)
  
• When Ruffles tells Burt to get going he doesn't move, but another Crow does.
  
• Only appearance of the courtyard. Whereabouts is this? In the main area of the castle? Bottom of the mountain? I suspect the latter. We'll never see it again anyway!
  
• Another appearance of the village inn. The landlord mentions red corpuscles - the most common type of blood cell.
• The beer barrels have the expected XXX on them, but see if you can spot the random Y!
• First of two times the Crow Bros. are seen in the pub. The next time will be in "Mobile Home."
• Burt can somehow spell Vladivostok, but not Rome.
• The Crow Brothers do their model sheet walk during the fairground scene.
• Ruffles dons a false moustache as part of his doctor disguise. Von Goosewing (an actual Doctor!) uses one as part of his disguise a few episodes later. Both are played by Jimmy Hibbert.
• One of the portraits is smoking a cigarette.
  
• The current holder of the land speed record for a car is the ThrustSSC which attained approximately 763mph in 1997 and broke the sound barrier, so Duckula does come very close, a decade earlier at a blisteringly fictitious 750mph. Of course that's all only in his mind. Briefly.
• Igor mentions RH negative, a blood type. Thoughtful of Igor to suggest a blood with less protein than usual considering his master is vegetarian!
  
• First episode with a full British animation team.
  
• Last episode to have the 1987 credit at the end.
• This episode was released on VHS along with "Rent a Butler" and "Mobile Home" under Thames 'Lollipop' label in 1989.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Goofs and Nitpicks
• Brian and Jimmy's other Crows seem to have their voices the wrong way round. The littlest brother only gets in a chuckle anyway. What sounds more like Burt's scream is heard when the two take off skywards.
  
• Igor's head turns the colour of his hair for one shot as Duckula is catapulted away. Nanny's upper  back is uncoloured for a brief bit when she pushes the 'car'.