Publicity Shots From Hell No.128

"Please daddy, tell me again about how you came up with a sketchy idea for a monster for a kids' TV show and made a killing by retaining the copyright?"

 

 

"Please daddy, tell me again about how you came up with the iconic design for a sketchily described monster for a kids' TV show and made bugger all due to being a mere BBC staff member?"

Great Fan Myths of Who No.1

Glancing on amazon.co.uk these days, there is a bewildering amount of books available on the subject of Doctor Who.

 

Admittedly, a lot of them look a bit rubbish, but it's a sobering sight when I recall that when Peter Davison began his debut season, there were pretty much only three Who reference books to be had. ("The Making of Doctor Who" by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke and the two volumes of the "Doctor Who Programme Guide" by Jean-Marc Lofficer).

 

Thankfully Doctor Who Monthly (as it was then) provided a regular supply of behind-the-scenes facts for young fans such as myself who could not persuade their parents to fork out the cash for a Doctor Who Appreciation Society membership.

 

DWM has always been a bit of a labour of love for those concerned in its production, so we may can excuse the times that the accuracy of some of their information was sometimes left a bit wanting.

 

All of which is rather failing to lead up to outlining what this new thread is about, but I hope that the title alone is adequately self-explanatory. (There's some fun to be had with this. No, really).

 

So let's kick off with an old classic that still appears from time to time in lazy newspapers...

 

TRUE OR FALSE: Terry Nation thought up the name "Dalek" when he noticed an encyclopaedia on his bookshelf, the contents of which were DAL to LEK.

 

While Raymond Cusick and David Whitaker did all the meaningful graft on Serial B, Terry Nation swanned around plucking pound notes from the skies and coming up with the above bit of rubbish for what was probably the tenth time a journalist had asked him that question since breakfast.

 

It's a nice story to tell the papers, but it's quite probably nonsense on a stick.

 

While I admit that we cannot put this assertion to any meaningful test of veracity beyond breaking out the Security Kitchen ouija board, we can only scratch our heads and wonder just how large or (un)comprehensive Nation's encyclopaedia set actually was...

 

I'll leave you to do the maths, but meanwhile we can have endless fun with the Terry Nation Alien Name Generator (TM)... 

Publicity Shots from Hell No.49

I've often wondered how different my life would have turned out if something other than the Daleks had been the first monster to appear on Proper Doctor Who.

That famous cliffhanger where Jacqueline Hill is menaced by something as yet unknown to the viewer is rightly considered a high watermark in television history. But how much different things could have been if Terry Nation had been struggling with that first script...

No, it's not that surprising that Voord-mania never swept the country, is it?

Publicity Shots from Hell No.20

Holiday time again.

 

Although I haven't been particularly looking forward to Ms. Monoid's badly planned vacation in a shed in rural Wales, I am extremely pleased to stop working for a short while and maybe get the chance to update these pages again. (Unwritten entries don't write themselves, no matter how long you leave them). 

 

And speaking of Wales, here's an amusingly beshirted Welsh Terry Nation and an oblivious non-Welsh Tom Baker.

Maybe Tom wouldn't look so cheerful if he knew that a Welshman in a funny shirt was sneaking up behind him, intent on boxing him around the ears in an attempt to perforate his eardrums?