Count Duckula



Duckula (actual title: Count Duckula the 17th - As stated in the episode "The count and the pauper"), is a short green duck with black parted hair and the traditional vampire evening wear complete with cape. He has no fangs, although his more old-fashioned relatives do (two of which are an uncle named Vlad, and an auntie named Lucrecia). His favourite food is broccoli sandwiches. He has occasionally been seen wearing pyjamas with a Danger Mouse logo, a reference to the character's origin.Count Duckula himself is a deliberate send-up of many traditional vampire traits. As his name would suggest, he is an anthropomorphic duck. Besides his vegetarianism and aspirations of fame, he is very squeamish and often cowardly. The Duckula family motto is Per ardua ad sanguina, which means "Work hard for blood".He has a very modern outlook, and often despairs over the traditional vampire image he is expected to embody. He hates living in a dark, gloomy castle, and finds the behaviour of his servants to be depressing. Although, he retains some vampiric powers and qualities such as teleportation and not being able to appear in front of a mirror, and a lesser power, seen only once is the ability to create a lightning flash when angry, which he asks Igor about but gets no answer. Duckula's most used power is teleportation, which consists of him plunging up into a small storm cloud and reappearing in a flash of lightning elsewhere (as opposed to his predecessor on Danger Mouse, who appeared in a vertical explosion of flames).He often goes outside in the daytime without suffering any ill effects, but this is likely because of not being a full traditional vampire. In the episode "Doctor Goosewing and Mr. Duck", Count Duckula briefly turns into a "proper" vampire, desiring blood from the villagers outside the castle, but turns away from the door when he discovers that the sun is still out.While often egotistical and selfish, Duckula is good natured. He often tries to help people, although, he'll usually succeed only in making them hate him. He is prone to short lived obsessions, which often form the plots for episodes, such as attempting to become a blues musician in New Orleans, prospecting for gold, becoming a cowboy, or performer etcetera.The character differs considerably from his predecessor on the DangerMouse show. In fact, the only similarities the two share are that they are vampire ducks with ambitions in show business, little actual talent in that area, and both are named Count Duckula. The previous version was an outright evil villain, willing to blackmail and force his way into stardom (as opposed to the current Count, who merely tries to get in the legitimate way) and was fixated on being a TV star, rather than settle for fame in some other branch of entertainment. He had far greater magical powers and made much more use of them, as well as having a thick accent consisting of lisping, stuttering and occasional squawks. Most notably, he was not a vegetarian. In his very first appearance, he threatened to drink DangerMouse's blood, only to be chased away by the sun. The DangerMouse Duckula was destroyed and fell to ashes and is resurrected during the 8th astronomical house of Aquarius. Instead of blood, the nanny puts tomato ketchup into the offering, creating the current 17th Count Duckula.