"The Lost Valley"

Season 2 episode 3 (episode 29 overall)

Meh, the sequel was better.

Original broadcast date: 26 September 1989

Writer: Jimmy Hibbert
Additional voices: Announcer/Fat lady/
                               Nigel: Jimmy Hibbert
                              1st dinosaur: David Jason(?)
                               Cinema-goer/caveman:
                               Brian Trueman
                     
Travel location: The Lost Valley!
Joke Credit: Colour by - Zebrachrome

Castle transport visual used.

Duckula tries to travel the castle to a ficticious lost valley to search for an equally ficticious diamond mountain. He partially succeeds.

This is a funny one. It starts of with more sitcom stuff, which this series always managed to pull of naturally, before making it's way into an unusual adventure and then outright absurdity. It opens with our trio in a massive queue waiting to get into a cinema somewhere in the village. They spend most of the time arguing about what film to watch or what TV show they could have been watching instead. Duckula has his heart set on "The Lost Valley" whereas Igor clearly wants to go and see a vampire flick in another cinema. I love scenes like this as they show the main characters acting like a family. I'm sure many viewers can relate to their disagreements. Duckula's a Count though, so of course he gets his way. There follows a really amusing sequence where Duckula struggles through the crowds to get to and from his seat with an ice cream he promised Nanny earlier. Actually getting the ice cream takes him about 2 seconds, but the trek to and from his seat, including a detour because he mistakes someone else for Nanny in the dark, takes him ages. The dialogue helps make this a really funny bit to me, both from the Count himself ("Is that your foot? Oh it's your handbag again!") and the booming announcer advertising another film fighting for audio space. Of course, the punchline is that Nanny's ice cream is all but melted by the time she finally gets it. She's still polite about it though! She even gets in a good line near the very start of the whole scene where she obviously crushes somebody's hat.

The film itself finally starts and is either stylisically black and white or is genuinely an oldie. I like to think that Transylvania is so out of touch that they're only just getting 1950s B movies. Either way, Igor looks less than impressed and soon falls asleep! As someone who has had to see at least a couple of films I have little to zero interest in I find this part extremely funny. I also find it funny how WILLIAM P. BEIDERBECK seems to do everything in his own films. He's either got a a big head or a small budget.

Pictured: Me watching "Mamma-Mia!" at the cinema with a bunch of female friends.

Leaving the cinema, Duckula has at least had a good time while Nanny's views remain unknown. Probably hadn't a clue what the film was all about! Igor's potted film review is brilliant:

"The Lost Valley and the Diamond Mountain, milord, are pure fiction. The ridiculous product of the overworked imagination of some tired, infantile Hollywood hack."

This doesn't dampen Duckula's spirits however, nor his intent to travel to the Lost Valley itself and look for the diamond mountain. After a fade out, he leaps into the magic coffin and transports the castle to what he believes is a real place, but is in actuality a film set. Or so it seems. Because everything they encounter seems to point to the fact that they have landed not in a real Lost Valley or on a film set, but in the actual film, if that makes any sense. Consequently, everyone they encounter is still in-character and behaves accordingly. In a really funny scene Nanny KOs a dinosaur that was chasing some natives and gives it a good telling off for being so naughty! Superb bit of acting by Brian Trueman here, channeling everyone in the world's mum as Nanny really loses her temper!

Duckula: You knocked it unconsious it could come to at any -
Nanny: Ooh nonsense! I only gave him a little smack to teach him a lesson and now he's having a sulk!

The natives are grateful however and the leader, Nigel(!), complete with reedy voice and Penfold glasses, decides that our trio must be gods. Mighty Yellownose - AKA Duckula - does the very foolish thing of agreeing with that idea and asks to be taken to the diamond mountain. Nigel is puzzled but agrees to lead the way anyway. The whole scene is interspersed with a running joke about two boys in the audience throwing sweets at each other. Duckula also convinces Nigel that, as a god, he knows how to make magic with the diamonds. Bad idea number two.

I feel Nigel is one of Jimmy Hibbert's best roles in the series. He manages to pull off the character well, instilling an air of seriousness (and even some menace laterly) into such a silly voice and weedy appearance. He leads the way to the mountain, during which they encounter some more dinosaurs. Duckula panics at a harmless one and then mistakenly deduces the next one is also harmless. Not so! It gives a frankly terrifying roar and chases the trio off. The only thing that spoils this part somewhat is that Igor and Nanny's running is just their walking animation sped up, which frankly looks a bit silly. Nigel's doubts about them being gods increase, seemingly because Duckula appears to be "remarkably ignorant of the creatures (he has) created." Bit of theological food for thought there for you.

Finally at the diamond mountain, Duckula reacts pretty much as you'd expect, giving us his merged impression of fellow cartoon ducks Daffy and Scrooge. This is enough to convince Nigel that Duckula is not a god and threatens a sacrifice is in the offing unless he can prove himself. Duckula fails at some crummy magic tricks using the diamonds (will he ever learn how bad he is at these?) mainly thanks to Nanny hilariously pointing out how they are done.

Duckula: Hey presto it has disappeared!
Nanny: It's in your other 'and.
Duckula: Yes it's in my other - shush Nanny!
Nigel: It is in you other hand.

Thankfully Duckula gets saved by the bell, or rather the end credits. The film ends leaving the trio suspended in the grey void of a cinema screen in an empty cinema. I like how even Nigel himself is aware that the film is ending. This is where things really get silly because now they have to negotiate their way through a series of adverts! Just funny stuff all round and they'll have to wait anyway, because - as Igor surmises - the castle is still in The Lost Valley, so they'll have to wait until the next screening of the titular film to get back to it. I dread to think what would happen if the castle transported back without them! We leave our trio with the doubly annoying task of sitting through cinema adverts whilst actually being in them.

Not terribly keen on this 'getting real' milord.

Lots of comedic moments in this one as well as genre-spoofing. The voice acting is top notch too, making some of the more surreal jokes, like the advert segment, even funnier. I feel the voice actors recording together is what really helps shows like this. Lines are stepped on and interrupted, making conversation between characters sound very natural and (to me) funnier. Although I understand this could be a headache for editors. Even little lines like Igor's "The advertisements, milord." make me smile for some inexplicable reason. Animation by the British team, with some minimal stock usage of Igor and Nanny. Almost certain the 'eyes in the dark' part is by Ally Fell (whom I met at a comic con' once while my wife and I were cosplaying as Victor and Hugo!) mainly because the bouncey blinks are something I always associate with him.

Music 
"Captivity" (Tim Souster) - Title.

"Westward 1" - "I hate to miss the beginning!"
"Earthworks" (Tim Souster) - In the movie.
"Path of Destruction 1" (Tim Souster) - Stegosaurus encounter. Also heard briefly while Igor sleeps.
"Storm" (Tim Souster) -  Diamond mountain/It is "The End."

"Press Day B" (Graham Francis De Wilde) Adverts begin. 

They sure liked Mr. Souster's work for this episode!

Pans and backgrounds 
All the scenery (and naturally, characters) in The Lost Valley itself are portrayed in black and white (and grey) which may have been a time-saver production-wise as well as giving the feel of an old movie. This is also a theme in the final episode "The Zombie Awakes." The joke credit here is a reference to the moncohromatic style. Near the end, the advertisements are rendered in a very different (and certainly more commonplace at the time) art style and one of them is a photograph! (see above) The additional characters have a somewhat more stylistic design than usual, with lots of big heads, long necks and skinny limbs.

Crispy duck anyone?

Trivia

• Episode starts on no screams, but ends on Duckula screaming...though appreciating ice cream.
• Opens and closes in Transylvania.
• Apart from the coffin room, the interior of the castle is not seen in this episode.
• Oddly, none of the peasants seem to acknowledge Duckula as anything other than a normal guy in this episode. They pretty much just ignore him. Vampires move among the public. 
• The cinema is called The Roxy, a popular stock name for cinemas. The cinema in the Victor & Hugo/Duckula episode "Poultrygeist" features one of the same name as well as the Avenger Penguins episode "Disgusting Or What?"(Roxy is also a feminine form of Rocky, who is one of the Penguins!) The Regal is also a common one, which is mentioned by Igor.
• The "Happy Frog Chinese Take-Away" can be briefly seen in the village. (see above) It comes into greater focus in "Transylvania Take-Away." The adverts at the end of the film also extol the virtues of a Chinese restuarant closeby, though it's a different name.
• Among the other movies being advertised are "Space Duck", "There's an Alien in the Greenhouse", "Psy Duck"(?), "Little Big Duck", "Wrenbo", "The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Snoozin'" and "Super Grouse." An Indiana Jones spoof can be briefly seen too.
• Igor would much rather be watching "the Bela Lugosi film which is being screened at The Regal." Of course he would, Lugosi was most well-known for playing Count Dracula in the 1931 film. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot some layouts of Castle Duckula's interior are inspired directly from that film.
• Duckula mentions a TV show about rug-weaving Tibet. The trio would visit there in "No Yaks Please, We're Tibetan" in which the Crow Brothers start out trying to steal rugs.
• The announcer can be heard promoting an over-the-top sounding film version of "The Origin of the Species" by Charles Darwin. In this world, the book must explore how man evolved from birds! This is definitely a comment on sensationalised media of unlikely sources. "STARRING BRAD THRUST AS CHARLES DARWIN!"
• Rare episode where Nanny does not break any doors or walls, though she does destroy someone's hat offscreen.
• Duckula does the alliterative thing again here "Baloney Igor! Baloney, bunk, balderdash and by the time we get back we'll be knee-deep in diamonds!"
• Another appearance of the magic coffin. Unusually, when Duckula runs into the coffin, an additional crack of lightening and cloud appears. This also happens in "Beau Duckula."
• Verse to move the castle:
  "We're off to find the Lost Valley
  Where the Diamond Mountain be!
  Be it fiction, be it fact
  We're going there and that is that!"
• Duckula references Columbus, Galileo and Einstein, similar to how he did in "Duck and the Brocolli Stalk" with other historical figures. Must be a Hibbert writing motif! I think it works slightly better in that episode. Duckula gets the E=mc² bit wrong, though Igor corrects him. I do like how Duckula seems to think America would not exist had Columbus not 'discovered' it. Duckula also references rich people like the Gettys, the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, when he finds the diamonds.
• Second time the trio encounter dinosaurs. They meet one in "Transylvanian Homesick Blues" too, when time travelling. 
• Second time Jimmy Hibbert plays a character called Nigel. First was the bratty boy in "Castle Duckula: Open To The Public." Someone really finds that name funny! Duckula certainly does.
• Is one of the kids in the audience a fan of Tremendous Terence? He has a T on his t-shirt.
• Duckula breaks the 4th wall, reacting when the cinema screen gets hit by a sweetie.
• Duckula wears a circular groove in the ground running in a panic. He does something similar while pacing in "The Lost City of Atlantis." 
• Igor's scared pose (almost) appears in the first annual and the inlay art for the computer game. I suspect it's a model sheet pose.
  
  
  
• Duckula uses a top hat for his 'magic' tricks, but he doesn't wear it.
• The 'Hotel Miramar' is said to be on the 'sunny Transylvania Riviera.' Unlikely to be a real place as Transylvania is a land-locked country. Miramar is a city in Florida.
• Jimmy Hibbert mentions a "King's ransom" when advertising the hotel. One of his characters would say the same phase again in "Transylvania Take-Away" which, like one of the other adverts, is about Chinese food.
• The car in the advert is called a Sputnik GTE. Sputnik is a reference to the first satellite and GTE stands for Gas Turbine Engine.
• This episode was released on VHS in 1990 along with "Mysteries of the Wax Museum" and "The Return..." All three episodes have a kind of B-movie schlock feel to them.
  
  Goofs and nitpicks
• The film posters spell Biederbeck but the credits spell Beiderbeck. This could also be seen as hack work joke.
• Colour error on Nanny's outfit during the Stegosaurus scene. Which brings me to -
• Stegosaurs were not carnivorous! Can't blame Duckula for assuming otherwise. Mind you Jim Henson's/Disney's "Dinosaurs" did the same thing with B.P. Richfield, a Triceratops; who looks more like a Styracosaurus; but I digress.