The Legend of Dick and Dom
BBC children's fantasy sitcom, three seasons broadcast 2008-11. Stars Dick and Dom as bumbling royal brothers who must collect ingredients for a magic potion to cure a plague that has struck their homeland, Fyredor, aided by Inept Mage Mannitol and thieving servant Lutin.
The group wander all over the Fantasy World Map of Bottom World- sometimes literally, as the Lemony Narrator, Terry Jones, explains that they couldn't afford to film the incredibly exciting action that's going on, so they show a dotted line on a map dashing away from pictures of dragons instead. Each episode they have to defeat a Monster of the Week, or meet some wacky countryfolk who hinder them in finding the next revolting or impossible ingredient. In the third season, the plot switches to their attempts to get home before the newly revealed Big Bad can stop them.
This was Dick and Dom's first major CBBC project after Dick and Dom in da Bungalow, and there are plenty of ShoutOuts to Bungalow games and jokes- DI Harry Batt turns up as a Sherriff, for example.
Fairly Troperiffic- see long list below- although many of the tropes are applicable to antagonists or settings from individual episodes (and are therefore slight spoilers.)
Tropes used in The Legend of Dick and Dom include:
- A Day in the Limelight: Mannitol and Lutin take centre stage in “Rock Hard”.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Large enough to escape through in “Escape”.
- Actor Allusion: Quite a few. Dave Chapman's Beastmaster character looks an awful lot like his Death from Dick and Dom in da Bungalow, for example.
- All Just a Dream: They come home in triumph to cheering crowds in “Home”. And then wake up.
- The Alleged Car: Jalopies that run on jam and have candelabras for headlamps, in “The Cabbage Ball Run” episode.
- Amusing Injuries: In “Cabbage Ball Secrets”, Dom ends up bandaged head to toe.
- Back to School: Back to Wizarding School... in an episode called “Back to School”.
- The Beast Master (type 2).
- BBC Quarry: All the kingdoms they travel through look very much like the same patch of woodland as used in Bugsy Malone and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.
- Big Bad: The Beast Master is a mysterious entity behind many of their setbacks in season two, and revealed as the antagonist for season three. Has a different wig each week.
- Brian Blessed: Plays the Princes' father (to the hilt) in season two and three.
- The Caper: They rob a bank in the episode “Heist”.
- British Coppers: Sheriff Harold Batt
- Cool Gate: The MacGuffin in “Valley of the Bigheads”- a gate that can send them straight home.
- Covered in Gunge: At any opportunity. How about a custard-and-jam fight as Initiation Ceremony?
- Crowd Song: "Land of the Luvvies" features a stagestruck tribe prone to bursting into song and dance at the least provocation- and making everyone near them join in.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lutin.
- Disguised in Drag: Prince Dom, as a baby's nanny. He is not happy about it.
- Damsel in Distress: Princess Gladys is imprisoned at the top of a tower in a castle filled with evil dolphins.
- Easy Amnesia: Caused by breathing in a gas, in “Forget Me Nuts”.
- Elseworld : In “Mists of Time”, the group are transported to a terrifying and mysterious place very much like modern-day England, except that this seems to be an alternate dimension where they pronouce Slough to rhyme with cuff rather than cow.
- EnthrallingSirens : Literal sirens who lure men in with their song and then devour them, in “Sirens”. The song doesn't work on women, though.
- EvilTwins: All of them, complete with goatees, even Lutin's; go round causing trouble that the real ones are blamed for in the episode “Dick's Brain”.
- Eye of Newt: Many of the potion ingredients. (A dragon's clack, for example.)
- Fantasy World Map: The gang's travels are shown as animations on it.
- Fictional Holiday: “Garlic Tuesday. “
- Fountain of Youth: Or Muddy Puddle of Youth, anyway. In “Hag Puss”.
- Girl in the Tower: “Princess Gladys.”
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Man driven crazy by the horrors of the Hairwolf. (“Don't go to the Dark Castle- nobody ever comes back! Don't talk to the Baroness- she's cursed! Don't stew your appples in March- they'll be tart! Woooooooo!!”)
- Got Volunteered: The King sent them off on their quest (granted, because it was their fault the original potion got spilt).
- Gotta Catch Em All (type B): A magic scroll reveals what ingredient is needed next for the potion.
- Haunted House: They visit the most haunted mansion in Bottom World, Aaargh Manor, in “Haunted”.
- Here We Go Again
- I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: Lutin has a gingerbread problem in “Haunted”.
- Inept Mage: Mannitol. At one point it turns out that non-mages are better at his own spells than him.
- Initiation Ceremony: To join the Loopy Tribe.
- It's a Small World After All: They visit every country on the map. It's not that many.
- Journey to The Centre of The Mind: They need to find a secret hidden in The Beastmaster's brain. It's a very odd place, with penguin security guards and giant red teddy-bears of wrath.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: They're imprisoned by a Wacky Wayside Tribe of children in “The Neehi Tribe”; “I thought kids still liked us!”
- Lemony Narrator: Terry Jones; prone to complaining about being shut up in a small booth and not paid enough.
- Loads and Loads of Roles: the casting falls between this and You Look Familiar - an awful lot of the inhabitants of Bottom World look like Dave Chapman and Ian Kirkby.
- Lovable Rogue: Lutin.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Ian Kirkby's excellent Eric Morecambe impression shows up again in “Dr Cheese”.
- Magical Land
- Magical Society: “The Magic Oblong”, which Mannitol hopelessly yearns to join. (Actor Allusion to Dom being thrown out of the Magic Circle for revealing secrets.)
- Magicians Are Wizards: The Magic Oblong- the wizards in it use their powers to do magic shows.
- Milking the Giant Cow: in a dance supposed to make it rain milk.
- Monster of the Week
- Musical Episode: "Land of the Luvvies"
- The Music Meister: The Luvvies in "The Land of the Luvvies". Supposedly.
- My Brain Is Big: “Valley of the Bigheads” (A tribe with enormous heads. Supposedly geniuses, although the only evidence we see is that they know lots of triva.)
- My Skull Runneth Over: The Bighead Tribe again.
- Mystical Plague: The plot driver.
- Never Mess with Granny: Mannitol's Gran is a lot more formidable at her speciality of apple crumble than she seems at first...
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Pretty much all the officials they meet, from traffic wardens to anthropomorphic personifications inside The Beast Master's mind.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Averted; Lutin has a simple false moustache that competely fools everyone- we eventually discover (in passing) that it is magic, when a total stranger takes off his moustache and turns into Lutin.
- People Puppets: A warlock does this in “Beastly”.
- Plot Coupons: The potion ingredients.
- Potty Emergency: In "Cabbage Ball Secrets". It's not helped when they go drive over a bumpy road, and then go into a shop where the shopkeeper is slowly trickling a yellow liquid from one bottle to another.
- Prison Episode: Called “Escape”. [1]
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampire babies, who drink milk as well as blood.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: “Hairwolf”; there's a cursed wig.
- Road Sign Reversal: In the Wacky Races parody episode, “The Cabbage Ball Run”.
- Secret Circle of Secrets: A couple of helpful monks who secretly work for the Big Bad in “Cabbage Ball Secrets”.
- Shout-Out: Lots. How about a whole episode, “Hairy Fizzogs”, named after a Bungalow game? (Any guesses how they disguise themselves?) The Prize Idiot cropping up as part of “The Loony Tribe”? There's also the odd one to other fantasy series, like a Constable Carrot turning up.
- Spell Book
- Take Over the World: The Beast Master has power over animals, so his cunning plan is to turn everyone into animals, and thus RULE THE WORLD!!!
- Taken for Granite: Dick and Dom in “Rock Hard”.
- Voodoo Doll: Used by a warlock in "Beastly" to control the Princes.
- Wacky Races: “The Cabbage Ball Run” episode.
- What Does This Button Do?: Oh, it electrocutes your brother.
- What Happened To The Frog: After Prince Dom's love interest turns into a frog, she is put into Dom's belt pouch to keep safe, and never spoken of again. Why, it's almost as if the writers forgot all about her.
- Wicked Witch: A whole tribe of them- Spanish, for some reason- in “Hag Puss”.
- Wizarding School: Hogwarts Affectionate Parody in “Back to School”.
- Who Even Needs a Brain?: The potion calls for the brain of a prince called Dick. They manage to get hold of one and the prince is not inconvenienced.
- Words Can Break My Bones: or reduce a person to simply a live head, for example.
- ↑ They do.