Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis developed the idea for Blackadder while working together on Not the Nine O'Clock News, deliberately choosing a historical setting to avoid comparisons with the critically acclaimed Fawlty Towers.

A pilot episode was shot in 1982 but was not broadcast until 15 June 2023, as part of a documentary called Blackadder: The Lost Pilot; in it Baldrick was played by Philip Fox rather than Tony Robinson, and Prince Edmund was portrayed as far more intelligent and conniving than the bumbling character seen in the broadcast first series.

The first series was extravagantly produced with extensive location shooting, notably at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland in February 1983, and cost around one million pounds for six episodes, prompting BBC1 controller Michael Grade to demand major cost-cutting before commissioning a second series, resulting in a three-year gap.

A chance meeting between Richard Curtis and comedian Ben Elton led to their collaboration on Blackadder II, for which they decided the show would be shot entirely in-studio with a live audience to cut costs, and Elton suggested reversing the Blackadder-Baldrick intelligence dynamic, creating the cunning Blackadder and dim-witted Baldrick format used from then on.

Political commentator Vincent Hanna appeared as himself, playing a character billed as 'his own great-great-great grandfather' in the Blackadder the Third episode 'Dish and Dishonesty', giving a mock live election commentary in the style of real modern television.

Howard Goodall's theme tune uses the same melody across all four series but is arranged in a different period style each time: trumpets and timpani for The Black Adder, recorder/string quartet/electric guitar for Blackadder II, oboe/cello/harpsichord minuet for Blackadder the Third, and a military band for Blackadder Goes Forth.

Several fifth-series concepts were floated over the years but never made, including 'Batadder' (a Batman parody with Baldrick as Robin), 'Star Adder' (set in space), a 1960s rock band series called 'Black Adder Five', a World War II Colditz prisoner-of-war setting, and 'Redadder', set during the 1917 Russian Revolution with Rik Mayall as Rasputin.

In the 2004 BBC poll for Britain's Best Sitcom, Blackadder was voted the second-best British sitcom of all time, beaten only by Only Fools and Horses, and Blackadder Goes Forth was ranked 16th in the British Film Institute's 2000 list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes.