Blackadder/YMMV

The show as a whole:

• Ear Worm: The theme song, in all its incarnations.
• Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Blackadder's Christmas Carol offers the Aesop of Evil Is Cool.
• Fanfic Fuel: In every time period of British history, there's a Blackadder hatching his cunning plans and getting into misadventures.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Some fans like to pretend that the first series isn't part of the show.
  • The Stinger of the Series 2 finale. Mainly because of how contrived it is and turning all six episodes into a Shaggy Dog Story.
  • One of the most common ones is disregarding Blackadder Back & Forth and regarding Blackadder Goes Forth as the Grand Finale.
• Friendly Fandoms: With Doctor Who, especially after Back & Forth. It's common to find a fan's theory that Blackadder is a Time Lord. Doubly so since Rowan Atkinson did play the Doctor in the non-canonical The Curse of the Fatal Death.
• Growing the Beard: Many fans prefer the seasons after the Retool.
  • Incidentally, Blackadder gains a literal beard in the second season, the first one after said Retool.
• Memetic Badass: Most fans regard Edmund Blackadder as a Magnificent Bastard who could bring all of British society in a moment. And while most versions of Edmund are Magnificent Bastards, they're also Smug Snakes who are usually scrambling to play Xanatos Speed Chess with the series often hammering home that Edmund isn't as much smart as he thinks he is.
• Nausea Fuel: Occasionally. Usually provided by Baldrick.
• Seasonal Rot: Inverted. Every series is regarded by the fans as having gotten better.

The Black Adder:

• Alas, Poor Villain: Prince Edmund. No matter how unsympathetic he is, you can't not feel sorry for him at the end.
• Awesome Music: The ending theme.
• Memetic Mutation: The Black... VEGETABLE.
• What an Idiot!: Edmund, in the final episode, samples the wine even after seeing everyone else in court drop instantly dead from it.

Blackadder II:

• Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The scene in "Bells" where Blackadder falls in love with another man named Bob whose birth name is Kate, which suddenly turns into a love song album commercial, for no discernible reason.
• Evil Is Sexy: Blackadder II.
• Growing the Beard: According to popular opinion, this is the season where it happened.
  • Also this happens Edmund Blackadder.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Stinger to the "Chains" episode probably qualifies.
  • After the credits, we hear a tolling bell and eerie wind noises (from the intro to Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend") as the camera pans over the murdered bodies of Edmund, Percy, Queenie, Nursie, Baldrick, and Melchett. We then see Queenie there, alive and well, before she turns to the camera, gives a chuckle in a strange voice and says, in the master of disguise Prince Ludwig's voice, "Now this is a disguise I'm really going to enjoy. If I could just get the voice right." A CREEPY end to the season.
• What an Idiot!: The baby eating Bishop of Bath and Wells accepting Baldrick's wine.
• The Woobie: Lord Percy Percy. Despite being constantly insulted by Lord Blackadder, he would anything for him and sees his insults as nothing more than his friend being witty.

Blackadder the Third:

• Acceptable Targets:
  • Nothing like repeatedly insulting the French.
  • And the Welsh. Really, this season is quite merciless.
  • Ditto Germans.
  • Politicians too:

Blackadder: Criminal record? Baldrick: Absolutely not. Blackadder: Oh, come on, Baldrick, you're going to be an MP, for God's sake!

• • And actors:

Blackadder: You mean they actually rehearse? I thought they just got drunk, stuck on a silly hat and trusted to luck.

• • Judges too:

Blackadder: Well, you could appoint him a high court judge. George: Is he qualified? Blackadder: He's a violent, bigoted, mindless old fool. George: Sounds a bit overqualified!

• Cargo Ship: Lord Sod-off Baldrick has a relationship with his turnip.
• Funny Moments: Blackadder in "Dual and Duality": "A man may fight for many things: his country, his principles, his friends, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child... But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn!"
• Magnificent Bastard: This series's Blackadder is a prime example, certainly the most outright evil and manipulative of the dynasty. The only one who not only doesn't die at the end of his series, but actually achieves his goals. The one in Blackadder: Back & Forth does too, admittedly, but he had a time machine - Blackadder the Third's Blackadder did it with just his cunning and wit.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Baldrick's poem about Prince George is unusually witty for the Baldrick of the third season.
• What an Idiot!: As Blackadder lampshades, what's the point of being the Scarlet Pimpernel if you're going to fall for the old suicide pill routine?

Blackadder Goes Forth:

• An Aesop: The message isn't "war is bad", despite what some reviewers say, it's "war without purpose is a stupid thing."
• Anvilicious: Despite how much the fans love this series, it often hit them over the head with anti-war messages.
• Critical Dissonance: Pretty much every fan will regard this as the best series but some critics have criticized the overtly pacifist tone.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Lord Flashheart. His role is greatly expanded from his previous incarnation's, but he still only appears in one episode.
  • Given that nowadays there's a heightened awareness of hate crimes, Flash shooting the Red Baron in cold blood and then yelling a homophobic insult at his corpse is pretty awkward to watch. Not that it wasn't in character.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Blackadder flirting with Nurse Mary.

Blackadder: Yes, why not? When this madness is finished, perhaps we could go cycling together. Take a trip to the Old Swan at Henley and go for a walk in the woods.

• Ho Yay: "Baldrick, I love you. I want to kiss your cherry lips and nibble at your shell-like ears."
• Moral Event Horizon: Comedy or not, by the end you are not going to like General Melchett.
• Older Than They Think: Much of the anti-war themes, tropes, and character archetypes relating to World War I (or the Great War, if you prefer) are present in the British war comic series written by Pat Mills and drawn by Joe Colquhoun, "Charley's War."
• Tough Act to Follow: Why a fifth series was never made. Everyone realized that they could never top Goes Forth‍'‍s ending. Sure enough, one of the biggest complaints about Back & Forth is that it cheapens this series' powerful ending.