4. Count Duckula
Another product of Cosgrove Hall Films but dating from the late 1980s, Count Duckula was a loving send-up of the Dracula series of Hammer horror films from the sixties and seventies, spun off from the title characters' minor appearance in the evergreen Cosgrove Hall cult favourite Danger Mouse. The manservant of the dynasty of vampire ducks attempts to resurrect the bloodthirsty monster, but is given tomato ketchup rather than the blood needed for the ritual by the castle's incompetent but enthusiastic nanny. This results in the resurrection of a vegetarian pacifist who would rather be Hollywood-famous than torches-and-pitchforks-infamous, much to his manservant Igor's continual dismay. The content is an early example of a show pitched simultaneously high and low. At no stage does child-friendly content interfere with intelligent jokes designed to engage the parent in the room. Anyone fancy a running gag across an entire episode about everyone's favourite irrational number, pi? There was also a constant effort to contemporise old, almost vaudevillian, jokes with cutaways to a pair of wisecracking bats. This both informs and contrasts the dialogue style of the three main characters; Count Duckula himself is often using puns, Igor is a strong note of gallows humour in the conversation, and Nanny is the ever-wide-eyed ingenue, but inverted to a colossally strong middle-aged woman, and delivering straight man material directly in to the waiting sights of the other two. Crafted from old and new, Count Duckula was a series well worth the time to watch, and with care, would be again.