Nutty Knights is the fourth part of the second episode of the series Heathcliff and Dingbat. This is based on Dingbat, rather than Heathcliff. It is followed by first part of the next episode: Great Cop 'n Cat Chase.
Synopsis[]
Dingbat and the Creeps are sent back to the year 1333 by a time machine and there are excorted by King Vlad to rescure his daughter from Sir Grimace-A-Lot the evil knight.
Plot[]
The Creeps are running a clock repair business. Their exhibition presents various and creepy-looking clocks, including a castle-shaped one. Nobody keeps urging Dingbat and Sparerib to work faster, while he is not doing anything useful. Dingbat admits he completed the clock and sets it up. It turns out this clock contains a vampire figurine instead of a cuckoo. The figurine tells that it is nine o'clock, then threatens to open the shop and retracts to its tiny coffin. At one moment, Sparerib notices an elderly customer, who delivers them a large clock resembling a turreted castle. This large clock is the man's family heirloom and the owner demands to have it fixed by four this afternoon.
The mechanism is showing the year 1980 on the shield. Dingbat checks his pocket watch and claims that they have plenty of time to fix it. Nobody orders Sparerib to examine the clock. The stetoscope proves that the clock has spring issues. The Creeps go inside the clock to fix the malfunction in the main spring. It turns out that the clock has larger inside space than it seems to have from outside. When Sparerib attempts to mend it, the spring coils and entangles the Creeps. The clock hands start to move backwards at quickened rate and the year displayed on the clock shield also changes rapidly. It stops on the year 1333, then magical energy surrounds the clock and makes it disappear in a lightning cloud.
Somewhere in medieval times, there is a castle built on a single mountain inside a larger mountain range. Inside the keep, an elderly king is ruminating about his knight named Sir Grimace-A-Lot, who betrayed him and kidnapped his daughter. After the monarch strikes the table with his fist, the time-travelling clock with Creeps inside materializes in the same room. Creeps debus shortly after landing, when Nobody is scolding Sparerib for breaking the main spring, which means they will never repair the clock by four o clock. Dingbat spots a worse problem - the clock's hands are gone and the year on the shield has changed. Sparerib admits they have extra time to fix the clock and laughs. The king interrupts them and looks at Sparerib's skull. The monarch believes he sees the White Knight and gets his royal spine stiffened, for he believes that Sparerib is the apparent savior of the crown princess. Sparerib expresses excitement for a new job they got, while Dingbat is more skeptical. Nobody supports Sparerib and orders his fellow undead companions heading to Sir Grimace-A-Lot's castle. The Creeps do so in their typical clumsy way.
The night falls when the Creeps reach Sir Grimace-A-Lot's stronghold. The renegade knight has built his castle on top of another mountain, just less grand one than his former seigneur's home. One of the towers protruding from the palace has lights visible. The king's daughter shows in the window and keeps yelling for help. After a moment, a villainish-looking man in plate armor appears behind the princess and grabs her away from the window. The Creeps are standing close to the draw bridge. Nobody spots the incident and declares, that "Sir Nobody will save her." Sparerib transforms himself into a bone catapult. Nobody takes place in the spoon, then orders Dingbat to be launched. The vampire Dachshund does as he is told and Nobody flies high. The evil knight, who is apparently Sir Grimace-A-Lot, pulls a lever and turns the tower under angle. Instead of landing inside the window, "Sir Nobody" hits the wall and falls down pressed flat. The evil knight laughs.
The Creeps elect to charge past the drawbridge above the moat. They prepared a ram from a coffin on wheels and a goat skull attached to the front. Dingbat calls their device "Blattering Ram" with batteries not included, then he laughs. When Dingbat's call to open the door in the name of King Vlad meets deaf ears, Sparerib declares that the time is up, so the Creeps attack the front gate. Grimace-A-Lot opens the door with a button, causing it to rise. Instead of breaking the door, the Creeps steal suits of plate armor located in the castle's yard, then they break the rear wall. Before Nobody managed to complete his "Why you" sentence, their adversary approaches them in full battle gear mounted on his war horse. The renegade knight challenges the Creeps for a duel. Dingbat attepts to bestow a curse on Grimace-A-Lot. After saying "Blah" for three consecutive times, Dingbat paralyzes himself and Sparerib has to catch him before the vampire Dachshund collapses. Nobody orders Sparerib to dress Dingbat in a suit of armor. The skeleton does as he is told - he grabs one of suits of armor and bolts its parts to Dingbat. When the uparmored vampire Dachshund receives a lance, Grimace-A-Lot charges from his mount. Dingbat is attacking from a dragon. After being told to say his last farewell, Dingbat recovers from paralysis and wakes up about to joust with Grimace-A-Lot. Before he gets hit by the lance, Dingbat polymorphs himself to a bat, so his opponent impales an empty suit of plate armor. Dingbat returns to his normal form and flees, while Grimace-A-Lot loses his horse, when he stucks himself on an apple tree. Uparmored Sparerib and Nobody approach the renegade knight. The pumpkin congratulates Dingbat on winning the first round. The villain attempts to remove his weapon from the tree. Sparerib helps him in recovering the lance. It turns out that the lance has cut the tree in half, therefore the tree collapses. Grimace-A-Lot and Nobody crash on Dingbat while fleeing and as a result, they get pinned down by the falling tree.
The only standing combatant is Sparerib. He cracks a joke about good knight and a bad knight, then he laughs with his bascinet's visor covering his face. The princess approaches Sparerib, then she declares him her hero and offers marriage. Sparerib agrees and lifts his visor, revealing his skull. The King Vlad's daughter gets justfully shocked and admits she'd rather marry the evil knight, then she flees. Sparerib complains about the princess not recognizing good things when she sees them, when fellow Creeps approach him. Nobody reminds his companions about a clock they have to fix. Back in the king's palace, the Creeps are occupying the clock from inside. It received new clock hands. Nobody orders Sparerib to spring the main spring and reset the clock. The clock hands start swinging rapidly and the clock with the Creeps inside teleports back to the year 1980. They return to their workshop without the clock. Dingbat exclaims that they are home again. The cuckoo vampire once again announces that it is nine o'clock and the sun is up, so it is time to open the shop and he goes to bed, then the figurine retracts. Sparerib discovers that they went back too far. Indeed, the same customer with the time-travelling clock once again comes to their workshop. This time the Creeps do not let the man and his clock in. The episode ends.
Characters[]
Trivia[]
- The Princess shares her facial features with the Farmer Girl from Creep Crop Crack-ups. Both characters have identical head shape, hair color, and eyes.
- The king uses the phrase "By Jove", which is supposed to indicate being himself an English king. Later on, Dingbat mentions him as "King Vlad". This would mean that the realm the action takes place in 1333 is completely fictional - England was ruled by Edward III of the Plantagenet Dynasty, who was born in 1312, therefore he was not an elderly man at all, while there are no historical records about a monarch called "King Vlad" living in such period.
- Sir Grimace-A-Lot's horse is shown wearing similar visored bascinet to his owner. While real-life knights' war horses did wear suits of armor called "barding", it differed significantly from suits of armor designed for humans and by no means it had liftable faceplates.
- Actual lance could only cut a very thin tree on the condition it hit the trunk directly. The apple tree in this episode has apparently too thick trunk to be cut by a lance.
- Knights seen in this episode are armed with lances as their only weapons. In reality, a medieval knight would also carry a long sword and a dagger, or another hand weapon (a mace, a flail, or an axe), for the lances tended to break after first successful use and a gauntlet itself was not as effective melee weapon as it may seem.
- Both Sir Grimace-A-Lot and the Creeps are seen wearing suits of full plate armor with bascinet helmets in the year 1333. In reality, actual suits of full plate armor ("the Gothic Armour") became to appear after the year 1400. Real-life knights active in the 14th century (including the year 1333) used "the half-plate armor" , which did contain plate cuirass, rerebraces, vambraces, greaves with cuisses, sabatons, and either a bascinet or a great helmet. The remaining parts of the warrior's body were covered by chainmail.