As I understand it, the opening credits to "Blackadder II" were a spoof of those to "I, Claudius." The opening credits to "Blackadder the Third" are similarly distinctive, which leads me to believe they're also a spoof of another series'; however, I don't know what series that is, if any. Can someone help me with this?
shareI don't have a definitive answer for you but I would suggest that they are just ripping off (or maybe even just being influenced by) the huge amount of period drama's there were on TV at that time.
shareI wonder who painted the pictures for the little paperback books he looks at?
shareThe titles are spoofs of Jane Austen's novels, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. The covers of the books are meant to spoof the covers of tawdry, fluffy bodice-rippers.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bodice_ripper
Those covers were drawn by Stan Kaminski, here is his website, scroll down a bit and you should see them all (except for cover for Dish and Dishonesty, which was lost):
http://www.stankaminski.com/galleries/black-adder/
The illustration for Nob and Nobility was missing the old font, so they tried to fix it via Microsoft Word. At least that's what the page looked like before the redesign. Now, both the illustrations for Nob and Nobility and Dish and Dishonesty are missing from the site.