History of Count Duckula
In 1982, an episode of the earlier Cosgrove Hall series Dangermouse, going by "The Four Tasks of Dangermouse", was aired, in which the albino secret agent had to go to Transylvania to find two feathers from a vampire duck in order to save his cohort Penfold. That duck was none other than Count Duckula, who appeared in the series as a recurring villain.
However, although he was also voiced by David Jason, the original Duckula was very different to the one he was later going to be - he had a strong lisp akin to Daffy Duck, much shorter hair, had a huge golden medallion on his shirt, and he could literally turn into cricket bats! This count did however share the same passion for showbusiness as his later counterpart - in fact he wanted his own TV show so badly he would actually trade his two feathers for one! Dangermouse's Duckula appeared in only four episodes of the series, and they would see him attempt to thwart Dangermouse and gain his place in showbusiness at the same time.
The episodes were:
- The Four Tasks of Dangermouse
- The Return of Count Duckula
- The Great Bone Idol
- Duckula Meets Frankenstoat
Duckula then faced many changes when Dangermouse was sold to and successful in the United States via Nickelodeon, who agreed to produce a co-production with Cosgrove Hall. This meant that the Count was getting his own TV show after all! Then came the idea of him being a vegetarian, which was in the name of appealing to youngsters, along with a butler more sinister than he is, his dim-witted Nanny and the teleporting castle...and so, THE Count Duckula was born.
The Count Duckula cartoon show first aired on Children's ITV on the 6th September 1988 in the United Kingdom, and ran in four series containing 65 episodes until 1993. Between and after then, the cartoon was repeated on a number of other channels such as Nickelodeon and Sky One, as well as being dubbed in more than ten different languages and shown in many other countries. It was popular enough to be accompanied by merchandise that included different types of comic series, toys, VHS cassettes and computer games.
For more about Count Duckula himself and all the other characters from the cartoon, see the Character Biographies section.
For more about merchandise, see the Merchandise section.