"The Mutinous Penguins"

AVAST YE SCURVY JIM-LAD! AH-HARR!

Season 1 Episode 6 (episode 6 overall)
Original broadcast date: 11th October 1988
Writer: Peter Richard Reeves
Story and additional dialogue: Chris Randall
Additional voices: Pirate Captain/crew member/Dmitri/Viking: Brian Trueman

                            Mr. Mate/ Sviatoslav/Viking  
                            Queen/
                            Dr. Von Goosewing: Jimmy 
                            Hibbert

                            Hook-handed pirate: Jack  
                            May

                            Boater-hatted pirate: David 
                            Jason

Travel location: Arctic seas (not via castle, but used to return)

Castle transport visual used.

An adventure on high seas aharrr! Somehow or other the castle seems to have gone missing. It’s never explained just how this happened, but that’s part of the fun. It is similar to what TV Tropes would refer to as ‘the noodle incident’ in that something has happened, we don’t know exactly how, but now it has to be dealt with. And deal with it they do, by searching the dark Arctic seas for the elusive castle. As usual Nanny has got the blame ‘It is very easy to blame Nanny’ Igor rightly points out, so right off the (vampire) bat we’ve got a bit of sympathy for her, whether it was her fault or not. Throughout the opening scene she tries vainly to inform Duckula that worrying about the castle is not necessary, but since she’s always interrupted, we never quite get to hear her reasoning.

The open also introduces us to a bunch of new characters for this outing, the titular Mutinous Penguins. The Captain and Mate are the most vocal and despite being passingly polite to our trio in the opening scene, you can still detect definite tension. Pretty soon the Captain rebuffs the Count for trying to take over and so they part company for a while. Brian uses a nastier, more rough sounding variation on his ‘Wordsworth’ voice (from "Jamie and the Magic Torch") for the Cap’n while Jimmy handles Mr. Mate in a similar, but higher and scratchier fashion. These characters are among my favourite bit-players on the series and they made two further appearances after this episode (‘Transylvanian Take-Away' and ‘Venice a Duck Not a Duck.’) 

As soon as the crew are left alone the sneaky Captain reveals his ‘revolting plan.’ He understandably doesn’t buy the lost castle story. He divines that Duckula must be after buried treasure. Typical pirate! The missing castle tale is hard to swallow, but then again, why would they make up something like that? He’s a fair pirate though, intending to split the treasure equally among his crew. Half  for them and half for him! He and the Mate get some good lines in this scene, notably 'sons of naughty penguins!' and bickering the logic of biting heads off. All the captain needs now is an excuse to capture and abandon the Transylvanian trio or to devise a way to capture them cleverly. Mr. Mate is keen to ‘bite their heads off!’ on the other hand and I like how the Captain is a bit disgusted at this. One gets the impression he just finds Mr. Mate’s bloodthirstiness to be rather annoying. Fortune plays right into his hands though as a panicked Duckula bursts back onto the bridge begging for help. Earlier, Nanny seems to have removed the ship’s wheel purely because it looks nice. The Captain very deftly turns this to his advantage and decides that nicking the wheel is a ‘tying up and chucking over the side offence.’ The line delivery’s great here. It’s said in such a way that you can almost hear the Captain inwardly thinking something along the lines of ‘Oh great, I needed a good excuse to get rid of them, how convenient!’

In the absence of a yardarm (Mr. Mate ate it last week) the Captain orders our heroes to be tied to a comfy sofa. He’s off to get the ‘treasure’ himself now!
 

After a joke from the clock bats (who are only 2 miles from land…straight down!) we resume the action on the seas, where the pirates shove our trio’s sofa off the plank and onto an iceberg. Nanny cheers everyone up by using the most classic of British panaceas – a nice cup of tea! GOOD NEWS: The tea has the bonus of thawing out some frozen Vikings but unfortunately BAD NEWS: the stove melts the iceberg. GOOD NEWS: A submarine shows up and they’re safe. BAD NEWS: It’s Von Goosewing’s sub and he rams it into an ice cavern hoping to destroy Duckula whom he sees in the periscope.

Using the tea once again to thaw out a Brunhilde-esque Viking Queen (or Viqueen, if you will), our trio now have a small army to take on the pirates. So, off they head in a longboat to tackle them. Sadly the pirates have a cannon, whereas the Vikings don’t and Goosewing pops up again to get caught in the crossfire. Duckula and co now do a somewhat cowardly thing and abandon the longboat by jumping into the sub’, but after all they’ve been through so far, I can’t blame them. And we have to give Goosewing his due too. His vampire castle detector must work well because that’s exactly where they all end up, albeit in an uncomfortably crowded mode of transport. GOOD NEWS! They’re back home – almost.
 

Igor is known show Goosewing some respect on numerous occasions throughout the series and he’s downright grateful and polite to him here, even if it’s not appreciated. The Doctor leaves in the submarine, swearing revenge. His ‘vampirometer’ is broken and he doesn’t seem to have come equipped with anything else (other than a hand mirror to admire himself in) so off he goes.

BAD NEWS! The pirates and the Vikings now have the castle in a pincer movement. Angry at having their ships wrecked and/or being abandoned they’re all ready to lay siege to it but in a final bit of GOOD NEWS! the castle choses this moment to automatically return, leaving the 2 parties to fight among themselves. This marks one of the few times the auto-return actually works in Duckula's favour.

Closing up with some tea and chocky bickies, Nanny finally drops the punchline. Seems she had the right idea all along because, since the castle returns on its own, all they really had to do was just wait patiently for it. This is a nice way of throwing Nanny a bone. She’s most always portrayed as the silly scatty one who forgets everything, but she had the right idea from the start. Even Igor overlooked the obvious, his expression’s good as he hears Nanny’s reasoning. Sometimes what’s staring you in the face is the most easy to forget!

Still, the main thing is they’re all safe after an exciting journey and a rare victory of sorts makes this a feel-good ending. Duckula's sevants even concede that he's clever really despite his mistakes. It pays to keep him sweet now and then!

Peter Richard Reeves who wrote this episode visited my wife’s university at one stage. Unfortunately she was ill that day and didn't get the chance to meet him. He also wrote -appropriately enough - for 'Pingu.'

Music: 'Nauticalities' (Keith Papworth) - intro' of the pirates. 'What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor (b)' ( Brian Douglas Gulland & Richard Allen Harvey) Duckula chatting with Igor below deck. (‘Turkey Trot’ (John Longmire) plays during the afternoon tea set-up and ‘Battle at Sea’ (Johnny Pearson - track 6) during the … battle at sea!  'Agitato No. 1' by Derek Laren which plays during the thawing scene and 'Jailbreak' by Robert Gill plays as Goosewing goes 'full speed ahead!' The tune that play during the underwater castle parts is 'Fog Bound' by Ivor Slaney. 'Desperate Dilemma' (Dick Walter - track 37) is heard as Duckula decides to panic. That low onimous wind instrument music that gets a few uses throughout the series and plays under the Captain's crew meeting? It's 'Hide and Seek' by Richard Allen Harvey (track 37). I recall hearing it on 'Noel's House Party' once of all things. Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' plays during the lead-up to the sea battle. Bet Goosewing would've liked that! The little harpsichord theme that plays a few times throughout the series occurs at the end when they’re safe at home. I get the distinct impression that this was one for the few wholly original pieces of music composed specifically for the show. Someone on the Duckyboos message board made a version of this tune years ago and I have a copy if anyone needs it. We close up with the ever-popular ‘Finger of Fear’ (Frederic Bayco) once more. As ever, the clock bats theme 'Vamp Til Ready' (Wally Asp) can be heard here. (Track 88)

Given the rough and tumble nature of the story and the wealth of characters onscreen, there aren't a lot of steady or clear shots to get good pans and backgrounds out of and most are just ice and waves. The scenes on the ship's deck bounce up and down a lot to simulate the motion of sea travel and it works well, but makes screencapping difficult. Here are some backgrounds anyway though. Had to cheat a little on the top right one.

Trivia

*This episode was released on the first ever Count Duckula VHS sandwiched between the 1^st and 3^rd episodes. I got it for Christmas the year it was released.
*One time a bird other than a duck or a goose gets mentioned in an episode title. Duck is the most frequently used and Goosewing gets his name used in the title of two episodes.The Hunchbudgie would be another.
*Episode begins and ends, not with a scream, but with Duckula singing‘Hooray and up she rises!’ Given that this was released on VHS right after the 1^st episode it could have been an intentional choice. He also sang a corruption of that song in the 1^st episode. He also calls Igor 'Mr. Igor' when doing a pirate voice.
*The Captain breaks the 4th wall, addressing the viewer during the meeting.

* First time Igor refers to 'Dawn, Eastern Transylvanian standard time.'

*Igor claims he was doing ‘something dastardly with sulphur in the cellar’ when the castle went missing. He’s either lying (not unlikely) or the castle got really screwed up to take off without them.

*1^st appearance of the Mutinous Penguins.
*Two of Brian's characters have a damaged limb. Nanny's arm in her sling of course, and the Cap'n's wooden leg. Mr. Mate wears an eyepatch on his left eye, like Danger Mouse.

*Real life penguins only live in Antarctica, but since these are sailors it’s understandable.

VG's sub' as it appears in the annual.

*If Duckula wants to go to the South Sea, it’s going to take him a while since the episode opens on the Arctic seas. Although it’s never made clear how far south these seas are in relation to them. The Cap’n points more south-east on the map.

*Brian also uses the AHAARRR! voice briefly for a sea captain in the Danger Mouse episode ‘The Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God.’

*Nautical(sounding) jargon time: Whimbrel sheets! (a whimbrel is a migratory shorebird or a curlew) Bind the after-pussocks! (gibberish!) Splice amidships! (splice meaning to join rope into a continuous line and amidships being the middle section of a vessel. Splice the mainbrace is a euphemism for ‘let’s all have a drink.’) ‘Batten the foredecks!’ (batten: thin strip of wood, decks: the top of a boat) Prepare to fire another salvo! (discharge of artillery) Wax your spiggots! (a small plug, peg or a tap used in a barrel) Lengthen your fergling irons! (fergling has various meanings including to vomit or fumble around looking for something. Possibly more gibberish!) Grapeshot (small lead balls in cannonfire) ‘Why don’t we use pineapples, they’d hurt more than grapes!’

*The ‘tie ‘em to the comfy sofa!’ may or may not be a reference to Monty Python’s Spanish inquisition gag with the comfy chair.

*Nanny does the ‘Harpo Marx’ style hammer space bit with her sling. She doesn’t actually do this a great deal in the series but it gets remembered well. Here it carries a folding table, chair, stove, food and drink and a trumpet. Igor does a Stan Laurel thumb lighter bit to light the stove.

*The Viking’s speech is reminiscent of the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show. All very ‘hurdy-gurdy!’ style gibberish. Brian would also voice some Vikings in "Alias the Jester" using Geordie accents.

*Only appearance of Von Goosewing’s submarine. It appears in a feature in the first Count Duckula annual.
*Goosewing is one of 3 Jimmy's characters to admire themselves in a hand mirror. Victor does so in 'Hyp-Not-Isn't' and Black Jake does to in 'Cowboys and Indiscipline.'

Mr. Mate is not pictured in the annual feature however.

*

*The Pirate Penguins themselves also featured in the same annual as well as on some glitter stickers. The scans here do not do the stickers justice. They still glitter well after 30 years! Some of the same art seems to have been used in both examples, reaffirming my belief that they were referenced from production art. Only the Captain is different in each instance.

  *  UK Duckula comic used a Cap’n expy at least once called Captain Bloodnguts. They often did this – coming up with characters that were deliberately similar to ones on the show. Not entirely sure why. In the TV show, the Cap’n is never identified by name. Unless we assume Captain Vermin is his actual name when he gives Duckula a rejoinder. I also can't think of an Earthly reason why I trimmed off so much of the artwork of the not-TV Captain when I collected the comics. I was a child at the time! 

* Ben Turner is credited as storyboad artist. He would later produce (appropriately enough) 'Avenger Penguins.'

Captain Bloodnguts as he appeared in the UK comics.

From the 'Count Duckula Joke Book.' Compare to Igor in the 1st image set.

Goofs and Nitpicks

*Duckula's sailor hat disappears for a shot after Nanny breaks the kitchen.

*Mr. Mate’s left eye (which shouldn’t be visible as he wears an eyepatch) flickers on for a frame or two in the first scene.

*The Viking Queen is singing in the longboat but for a brief shot we see her and she’s not, though the singing continues. If we assume the music and singing is just to convey the general mood then it’s fine.

*If the castle returns home at dawn Eastern Transylvanian standard time, why does the narrator close with ‘as night settles on Castle Duckula?’Open for debate – I’d still count half three in the morning as night-time.

 

Abandon ship with a bit of fan-art, you land-lubbers!