How it was done in the 1970s

Radio Times has some 'exclusive' photos from when Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor bumped into dinosaurs in 1970s (or 80s, depending where you place the UNIT timeline). View them here.

Shame they've published them in black and white - I'm sure I've seen colour versions of some of these.

And whilst we are at it, wasnt that story also a huge missed opportunity to have a group of Silurians bringing the dinosaurs back to the future? I guess maybe it was originally planned as such and for some reason or other they moved away from the idea. You know, sometimes I think I should be making Doctor Who.

And here's a short YouTube clip rom the UK DVD release:

Hippy Chic

Great interview with one of our fave Who girls of yesteryear, Katy Manning, in the Radio Times (complete with little Bellamy illustrations - although very poor scans!), online here. Don't forget to check the links at the end - the RT site now has a great section on classic Who stories (they are still updating with Colin Baker and haven't got to Sylvester McCoy yet).

Here's a snippet I never knew:

"She’s a bundle of insecurities, especially about her looks. As a teenager in the 60s, she was involved in a horrendous car crash. Dating Richard Eyre (long before he became a theatrical knight), she was driven up to see him at Oxford University by Bamber Gascoigne’s brother, Brian. On the way back, “We went over a roundabout and into a garage. There were no seatbelts in those days. I was thrown through the windscreen and a plate-glass window.”

Gascoigne sustained broken ribs, whereas Katy’s legs were smashed, her back was broken, her face disfigured. She spent almost two years in and out of hospital. “They weren’t entirely sure I’d walk again. I have more metal in my body than an airport can handle. I had a lot of reconstructive surgery. When you kiss this [left] side of my face, it’s skin grafted from my bottom. So it’s kiss my ass!"

And you can't interview Katy without talking about that Dalek photoshoot...

It’s heartbreaking because most of the nation – and her colleagues – thought she was incredibly sexy. “I’d never have done those shots with the Dalek if I thought I was sexy.” She notoriously posed nude with a Dalek in Girl Illustrated in 1978. “I did it for a laugh. It was a lot of fun and it was my idea. Derek Nimmo [co-star in the West End farce Why Not Stay for Breakfast?] was furious because he’d given me those boots for my opening night. Then I wrapped them round a Dalek.”

And the best bit:

Many former Doctor Who stars have published autobiographies. Katy never has and never will. “I am asked all the time. Daily! I’m exaggerating, but I’m a very private person. I’ve been secretive since childhood. It would be so goddamn boring tracking back over my life, which ain’t over yet. There are too many people involved I don’t really need to talk about. And I’ve been a naughty girl. Naughty girls don’t write books!” A throaty cackle. How naughty, Katy? “I think I’ve been about as naughty as you can get.” She gives one of those faraway but saucy, you-name-it/I’ve-done-it grins.

It's a great little interview, well written by someone with an appreciation of Who, and Katy. I actually got quite jealous of the interviewer.

There's also a good gallery of Katy promo pics on the RT site here.

Invasion of the Dinosaurs DVD update

Here's another story which needs doctoring... after the Day of the Daleks 'Special Edition', with new fancy-dancy CGI scenes, some fans have wondered if we would get an updated version of this story... sadly not. Or perhaps not so sadly.


The missing colour version of Episode 1 has been recreated, but not with great success, and the release will include the black and white print as well. But no CGI dinosaurs. Can't say I blame them realy... lot of work for a naff story. I'm hoping the guys are saving the money for more animated recons of missing episodes from classic stories rather than fiddling around with something which, let's be honest, is always going to look a bit poor. If only we could go back in time and swap these tapes for a story worth saving...

Due for release early 2012...

[Thanks Combom]

Day of the Daleks 'Special Edition' DVD release

It's here - 'with new special effects and sounds',the re-jigged SE version of Pertwee's first encounter with the Daleks... (original version is also an option on the DVD, as is standard practice, so you really can throw away your VHS collection...)

Does it do the job? Only you can tell...

Combom's got a great review of whats new here.

Day of the Daleks SE DVD preview

Combom's got a preview trailer for the forthcoming Day of the Daleks Special Edition DVD, with new special effects and all that... looking forward to this one!

Watch it here.

3rd, 6th and 7th Doctor Interviews

Here's a collection of audio interviews to download. This series of interviews with David Banks includes the late Jon Pertwee, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and use the URL links to download the files.

Chocolate Who

Here's a few images of wrappers from the Who Nestle chocolate bar promotion from 1971. There's not much info about these online - the images originally came from the Cuttings Archive, which has sadly vanished off the net.






I've also seen images of a purple coloured wrapper. There's a sort of "missing" Who story on the back - 'Doctor Who Fights Masterplan Q' - each wrapper with an image and paragraph of text, with 15 'episodes' to collect (shown are numbers 8, 12 and 15). It even features the Master, as seen on the third wrapper above. I haven't seen the details of this story anywhere.

Here's the display card from the box (can't remember where this came from, sorry). Notice how the artwork is obviously taken from the same promotional photographs as the Sugar Smacks promotion badges, here. The artwork here is good, with Pertwee's likeness being better than the one used on the actual wrappers.


Combom, as always, found the advert below (here)


These are obviously highly collectable, and rarely found for sale. I guess there's a few serious collectors out there who may have a complete set, or near complete. Wouldn't it be great to have all these online, or at least the text and images from the story. I know there's a few collectors on the Richard Who site who have wrappers - come on guys, get it together!

Anyone got any more scans or info??

Tomorrow's World The Daemons recoloured

Back here we looked at the work of the Restoration Team. Here's Tomorrow's World from 1992 having a closer look at the work that was done to recreate the colour version of The Daemons:

The Green Team

More promo pics, this time from location shooting for Liz Sladen's first story as Sarah Jane Smith - The Time Warror.

Perwtee Promo Pics

Here's a couple of Pertwee promotion pics, pinched from the BBC Changing Face of Doctor Who site - here


Pertwee with a Yeti - although never seen onscreen together.


Introducing Sarah Jane Smith...

Sugar Smacks

Here's a Who promotion from 1971. Kellogg's 'Sugar Smacks' (sound nice and healthy hey) promoting third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, and the UNIT crew and "The timeless energy of Dr. Who" (which presumably comes from all the sugar). Free inside each pack of Sugar Smacks was one of six metal badges: the Third Doctor, The Master, Bessie, Joe Grant, the Brigadier & Unit Symbol.

The badges still pop up on ebay for reasonable prices, and the ceral box itself is highly sought after, although extremely rare. The image above shows the back, side and front of the box. The artwork is, what shall we say, dissapointing.

Pertwee was apparently very self-concious of the size of his nose, and you can imagine he must have been particularly happy with the artists rendition of him in the advert accompanying the promotion...


And the badge artwork is just as poor...


I'm missing a good pic of the Doctor and Unit logo badges.

Restoration Team

Following on from the colourisation of black and white images and clips, which we looked at here, there's the Doctor Who Restoration Team's project to restore colour to three Pertwee stories which only survived in the Beeb's archive as black and white episodes - The Daemons, Terror of the Autons and The Silurians. These were colourised using home recordings of the colour shows, which had been made in the States, before the colour masters were junked.


Read about it here. It's one of those annoying websites where you can only link to the main index page, so you'll have to select 'VHS Releases' and 'Colour Restoration' from the menus. There's a wealth of info on the restoration work undertaken for video and DVD releases, and it's a shame I can't link you directly them, but browse for interesting bits on the restoration of the Ice Warriors and the Invasion amongst others. [I've found a link direct to the info here, although you'll need the other link if you want to browse their site.]

Two episodes of the The Ambassadors of Death were colourised before problems with the colour recordings haulted the project. Perhaps technological advances will solve this problem.

Colour recordings are missing for `The Mind of Evil', `Planet of the Daleks' episode 3 and `Invasion of the Dinosaurs' episode 1, meaning that frame by frame colourisation is required. The video releases used the surviving black and white episodes.

Katy Manning Supporters Club

Just thought I should make an emphatic statement on this one. Yes, this blog is pro-Jo. In fact we love Jo. And Katy Manning, obviously, who played Jo - and, who is about to play Jo again, for the new Sarah Jane Adventures story, Death of the Doctor, written by good ol' Russel T Davies.

Katy Manning portrayed Jo (Josephine) Grant from the beginning of Terror of the Autons (1971) through the end of The Green Death (1973).

I really wanted a photo of Katy as Jo running around in a short mini-skirt and showing some leg. But I don't have such a shot to hand, so here's one of Jo looking intelligent and sophisticated. Well, as intelligent and sophisticated as Jo gets, anyway.


Now Katy Manning made a bit of a fuss a long time back, when she posed for some photos for a men's magazine... naughty girl. However I think the fuss was more due to the unofficial use of a Dalek... (Look away now if you don't wan't to see a naked Katy hugging a Dalek... too late? shame.)


Hat's off to you Katy, to date the only Who girl, to date anyway, with the balls to 'bare all'.

Katy Manning's newly launched 'official' website is here, complete with a nice photo gallery, allthough sadly lacking her intimate dalek shots.

However you can find them online... try CosmoBells (I know it's on there somewhere, but just can't find it! If you do find it, please post the link here!)