Before he clammed up and created smarmy, silent Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson was the star of the BBC's Blackadder serials. The show followed the exploits of snearing, sarcastic n'er-do-well Edmund Blackadder and his trusty (idiot) sidekick, Baldrick. The twist? Each set of six episodes featured the depraved duo in a different historical era: 15th century, Elizabethan, Georgian, and World War I.

Harold Check