"Dr. Von Goosewing's Invisible Ray"

I often have trouble seeing this episode.

Season 1 episode 7 (episode 7 overall)

Original broadcast date: 18 October 1988

Writer: Brian Trueman
Additional voices: Dr. Von Goosewing/
                               Sviatoslav:Jimmy Hibbert
                               Dmitri: Brian Trueman
                         

Castle transport visual not used.

Dr. Von Goosewing sneaks into Castle Duckula to use his new invisible ray on himself, thus making its easier for him to hunt down the Count and slay him.

Despite that crazy sounding description this is one of the more classically sitcommy of all the episodes and a good example of how a lot of fun stuff can be got out of a small cast. Brian Trueman had already honed his sitcom writing style with the more comic episodes of "Wind In The Willows", which was obviously far less markedly silly and surreal than "Danger Mouse" for example, but still funny in its own way. With "Count Duckula" the sitcom element is taken over plus there's still the element of the bizarre along with morbidity and wry humour. It's impressive how many different styles of comedy and/or drama he managed to write in. This is one of his best episodes of the series with some subtle running gags and very nicely timed mirroring events that the different characters are all unaware of, but we as the audience can appreciate.

It opens with business as usual at the castle dinner table: Duckula moans that Nanny's 'made him' spill the ketchup on the floor and then he and Igor moans that she's now allowed the doors to join it. This scene makes us settle into what will be an 'ordinary day' at the castle, so we now cut to Von Goosewing who is testing out his latest invention in his secret cave laboratory. This marks the first use of his elusive assistant Heinrich.What's interesting is that it's deliberately unclear as to whether he is ever there at all. See the trivia section below for my views on this. After a count-down and a zap, VG claims his invisible ray is a 'success' because he cannot see Heinrich anymore! This opens up the possibility that the good doctor may be marginally less potty than he seems to be in all his other appearances. He may genuinely believe that his assistant is now permanently invisible. Although this is arguably negated by his later assertion (that old cartoon standby reset button) that the effects wear off after a while. Have you ever noticed how that always happenes in cartoons, even after a first test? How would they know it isn't permanent? This assertion is later lampshaded by Igor who claims to have heard of this effect.

Back at the castle, domestic harmony is breaking down bit by bit along with the doors. Duckula is trying to take up yoga while Igor would rather he practised 'the black arts of the vampire.' Nanny of course misunderstands everything, leading to some oblique English language jokes. There's a particlar sequence I find really funny where Duckula and Igor discuss an offscreen noise.

Igor: It'll be Nanny. In the kitchen milord. Swatting flies.
Duckula: Swatting flies? How could swatting flies make so much noise?
Igor: She likes to swat the with the refridgerator milord!!
Duckula: She swats them with the refri -Well why can't she use the fly-swat?
Igor: Oh no sir, I use that.
Duckula: Ah, you swat the flies.
Igor: Oh no, no, sir I use it to stir the soup.
Duckula: To stir the s- You mean you stir my vegetarian soups with a fly-swat?
Igor: Oh sir, think! A bluebottle today, the underfootman tomorrow!

The noise of course can also be attributed to the invisible ray which has crash landed inside the castle, not long after Von Goosewing and his hot air balloon crashed into it. If Heinrich was ever there at all, he wasn't being very co-operative when unloading the ray. This is the final straw for Goosewing and in a very expressively animated and acted solo scene, the good doctor sacks his assistant then sets about surveying the damage.

At the same time, Duckula has also reached his own personal camel's back and sacks his (very real) staff, before deciding to become a magician instead. Initially shocked, it's interesting to see how Igor and Nanny don't seem to be in any real danger from their master's whims and they all carry on as normal anyway. Igor even find the idea of Duckula getting a 'proper job' amusing from the get-go. Setting up his magic act, Duckula tries out his first trick making a jug of custard vanish. Good. I hate that stuff. Try turning it into jelly or yogurt next. This coincides with the invisible ray going bonkers elsewhere in the castle, with a stray ray beam doing the magic for him. The way the ray tries to escape through a window before succeeding is a funny touch and the special effects used are pretty cool to see.

Nanny is the assistant, Igor is the reluctant audience. I like how petty Duckula is being to get one last dig at Igor before he presumably dismisses him.

Igor: Is it alright if I leave now sir?
Duckula: No Igor it is not. You finish at five - forever - until then you're the audience.

Although even Igor cannot help but be impressed when the magic trick appears to work. In an amusing visual twist, Nanny assumes she has forgotten the prop, drops it and although the jug is invisible, the custard becomes visible again when the jug breaks. Don't think about it too hard! This results in the second 'stain on the carpet' of the day.

Now things really start to get crazy. Igor gets zapped and joins the jug in invisible-dom. Unlike 'Heinrich' though he's still willing to talk, helping Nanny locate him. Painfully. Goosewing is talking too, as loud as ever, enabling Duckula to deduce that he must be behind the invisible business. I like how Igor shows Goosewing more respect in the 'do your job properly' department than he does towards Duckula, thematically echoing what he chuckled at earlier. Goosewing may be the antagonist, but he is at least working to the best of his ability as a vampire hunter. Although this is something which Igor is duty bound by his job description to stop, it does seem to be something he respects as worthy. If Duckula were a proper vampire 'there would be no problem', as he puts it. Deep stuff everyone.

After confronting Goosewing alone, Duckula gets zapped too, thus saving the animation budget a bit more money! Nanny brings them afternoon tea but has trouble locating them without crushing them leading to a stupidly funny logic fail joke.

Igor: His lordship and I are invisible, that's all.
Nanny: Oh in that case you'd better give us a wave so I knows where you are!
Duckula: Yeah, OK then Nanny. Coo-ee! I'm waving (realises) I'm...I'm doing it...

Now things get even more mad as the ray's power wears off somewhat. Because of the damage the ray suffered earlier, this is reflected in Duckula and Igor's jumbled appearances. They've swapped legs! Duckula is appalled by Igor's socks, while Igor wants his pocket change back. Duckula quickly changes the subject and they go looking for Goosewing. Goosewing loses his head (so to speak) due to a stray ray and Nanny gets invisible too, leading to another logic fail joke regarding the tea service she's carrying. The logic works as she already smashed the other one earlier, but fails when she smashes this one too due to somehow not knowing which arm she's using and drops it.

Nanny: Oh. I was carrying it with my good arm after all.
Duckula: Yeah well that's just as well...you might have dropped it.

Duckula's earlier crack about putting Goosewing's head on Nanny's body leads to exactly that happening as the ray goes crazy and zaps everyone's body parts around. Things just get worse from here on and it really would be counteractive for me to describe the action. You really just have to see it! Mad stuff.

The Island of Doctor Von Goosewing. This is some Lovecraftian nightmare fuel right here, only funny.

Off-colour joke as Goosewing (and ducklegs) pokes Nanny up (Duckula's) bum with a stake and she assumes this to be his way of flirting with her. She goes after him immediately, hell-bent on marriage while Igor and Duckula cheer her on and Goosewing runs away in a panic back to his invisible balloon! This upsets Nanny, but all soon cheer up as the ray explodes and everyone is returned to normal. Including the balloon. Turns out Goosewing isn't standing in the invisible basket after all and it's plummet time again.

A very strong episode for all the characters. A lot of really good jokes, verbal, visual and situational. Super drawings all the way through too. It's a testament to the strength of the characters that the stay-at-home episodes can be just as good, or better, than the travelling-the-world ones. It's also a pretty good starter for newcomers as it lets you know who everyone in the core cast is (even Heinrich) and focuses on their characters foremost, in spite of the crazy technology plot thread. I seem to recall this episode (the zapping frenzy near the end) showed up on a TV screen on "Eastenders." Seems appropriate: one is a dismally-lit, depressive show where everything always goes wrong and there's lots of crying and screaming...and the other is "Count Duckula." It could be a false memory though as Eastenders is BBC while Duckula was ITV. Maybe someone can prove me right/wrong?

Pans and Backgrounds

There are a couple of quick left-to-right-and-back-again pans used on rapid-fire exchanges bewteen characters that get used in a few C-H shows. "Sawdust Ring" (this series) and "Beauties and the Beasts" (Aveneger Penguins) spring to mind. It's quite typifying of the studio. The basement/workshop style area gets the most use, especially towards the end.

This appears to be a different background of the same scene's layout. The details are slightly different. Same applies to a couple of the window shots below.

IGOR: This wouldn't be half as embarrassing if you wore trousers milord. 
 DUCKULA: I am wearing trousers. Worse luck for me, they're yours.

 

Music
"Heavy Dramatic Link No. 2" (Ivor Slaney) - Title card.
"Finger of Fear" (Frederic Bayco) - intro and outro.
"Terror By Night" (Hubert John Clifford) - Goosewing's mountainside lab'.

"Prayer" (M. Kansara) - Yoga.
"Reeperbahn" (John Leach) - Flying to the castle.
"Stealth by Night" (Dick Walter - track 24) - "Have I got news for you!"
"Shadowed" (Peter Francklyn/Robert Gill) - Goosewing tests the ray again.
"March of the Ants" (Sydney Crooke) - magic show practise.
"Floating Down (a)" (Dick Walter - track 72) - "The Amazing Ducko and his Vanishing Custard!"
"Vamp Til Ready" (Wally Asp) - clock bats.
"Sinister Street 2" (Peter Francklyn) - Duckula confronts Goosewing.
"The Chase Continues" (Dick Walter) - Nanny chases Goosewing. This would later become the theme of Baskerville the naughty doggie in "Victor & Hugo."

I still can't trace Goosewing's theme music. Any ideas? It's a fun, Teutonic oompah piece that's often heard when he appears.


Trivia

• One of two times Goosewing gets his name in a title. The other is "Dr. Goosewing and Mr. Duck."
• The title card uses the same cue as "The Vampire Strikes Back."
• Episode starts on Duckula screaming, ends on Goosewing's screaming. Opens and closes in Transylvania.
• There is a Universal Horror film called "The Invisible Ray" starring Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi. As we know, the artists drew heavily from Universal Horror for inspiration among other sources. The film has nothing in common with this episode other than that though.
• First 'appearance' of Heinrich. It's speculated that Heinrich was Von Goosewing's assistant who left due to poor wages and Goosewing just never noticed or that he may just be a figment of the Doctor's muddled imagination the whole time. Either way Heinrich is definitely never around in the real sense. This episode throws a further spanner into the works by having Goosewing attempting to try the invisible ray on him. In the brief long shot we see of the lab', there doesn't appear to be anyone there to start with and VG is wearing goggles, which may further obscure his vision. The overall ambiguity is definitely intentional.
• Igor mentions a bluebottle. Bluebottle (Peter Sellers) is of course the inspiration for Pierre's (and Hugo's) voices.
  
• Von Goosewing inventions: Invisible Ray (the clue's in the title!), anti-radiation goggles, high quality stake.
• Von Goosewing gratuitous German: Where to start?! There's a lot this week and they're mainly funny sounding 'curses'. If you can scream anything in an aggressive German accent, it can sound sweary! He counts down 'drei, zwei, ein' (three, two, one) when first firing the ray and counts up 'ein, zwei, drei' when using it the second time. He says it in English a third time. 'Wunderbar und glockenspiel!' (wonderful and percussion instrument), 'nacht' (night), 'Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen!' (twice, almost thrice) (principality in southwestern Germany from 1576–1850), 'Einzutreten ist verboten!' (to enter is forbidden), 'kaputt' (broken),  'Hansel und Gretel!' (Grimm's Fairy Tale), 'Rumpelstiltskin!' (twice) (another Grimm's Fairy Tale), 'Veroopti'(?) (not sure on this one) 'Donner und Blitzen!' (thunder and lightening, also two of Santa's reindeer), 'Dummkopf' (fool, idiot), 'Nein' (no), 'Ja' (yes) and 'Achtung!' (attention). Phew!
• Von Goosewing has similar underwear to Victor from "Victor & Hugo." Both are played by Jimmy Hibbert. 
• First appearance of Goosewing's mountainside cave laboratory and another appearance of his hot air balloon. 
• Duckula practises yoga in this episode. A yogi also appears in "No Yaks Please, We're Tibetan."
• Igor seems to imply the existence of other servants with his mention of an underfootman.
• Both the Count and the Doctor use the phrase 'Have I got news for you!' before they sack their staff. This is also the name of a topical news quiz that started only two years after this episode was first broadcast. Funnily enough, host Angus Deayton was sacked from that show too.
• Duckula apparently has an Uncle Bloodbath, who gave him a magic set for his 7th birthday.
• Duckula wears a top hat in this episode, during the magic routine.
• The 'magic words' Betws-y-Coed and Llandrindod Wells are places in Wales. Nanny assumes these to be names of Duckula's school chums, Betsy Coid and Vandrindog Wells.
• We get a very rare shot of what the clock looks like with the coffin doors open, but no bats visible, when Dmitri and Sviatoslav disappear too.

  

  Kindly leave the stage.
• The ray looks in better condition when Duckula first confronts Goosewing, then goes back to being battered thereafter.
• Duckula mentions Dresden China, which is made in Germany.
• Only time the narrator mentions Dr. Von Goosewing by name. Igor omits the Von at one point.
• Jimmy Hibbert is credited as script editor.
• The Victor & Hugo episode "Pie In The Sky" has a segment where Victor, Hugo and Interpol's bodies and heads get all mixed up 3 ways. It may be a nod to this episode. Both are certainly very trippy.
  
  Goofs and Nitpicks
• The stain on the carpet disappears between shots and reappears later.
• Duckula's shirt collar disappears briefly in the shot after Goosewing crashes into the castle.
• Igor claims the custard is all over the best carpet, but most of it appears to have fallen on wooden boards.
• Colour error: The top of Igor's trousers can be seen during mid-shots when he is meant to still have Duckula's legs when confronting Goosewing.