New Series Doctor Who Target Books Without Cover Text

Despite my preference for doing humourous stuff, it seems that my efforts on creating faux Doctor Who Target book covers for the new series - from Rose to Last Christmas - have gone down quite well with folk. 

Thanks to some mentions on various sites and podcasts, they still remain the most popular posts on this blog. 

Also had some very nice comments about them. 

I'm hoping to produce some proper prints of selected ones shortly and I'll keep you posted as to their availability.

I've had a few requests to post some of the original Target designs without text. 

So here's a selection of my favourites...

Love and Monsters

End of the World

Day of the Moon

Rose

The Girl Who Waited

A Good Man Goes To War

The Day of the Doctor (1)

The Day of the Doctor (2)

Dark Water

The Bells of Saint John

The Last Cyberman

Voyage of the Damned

The Official Doctor Who Garden Fete is Go!

Seems that BBC cutbacks have affected the forthcoming official Doctor Who Festival planned for this November....


Oh..... and NO autographs!!!

The Original Dalek Death Ray Ice Lolly!

When Wall's launched the Dalek Death Ray ice lolly in 1975, their manufacturing department took the name a little too literally resulting in it being hastily withdrawn and replaced by the now familiar 'mint and chocolate flavour' ice cream. 



















In the absence of an effective death ray, I give you the official Sapphire and Steel ice lolly from Lyons Maid....

09.04.2017 - IMPORTANT UPDATE: The above Sapphire and Steel ice lolly is (like all of the TV merchandise on this blog) a fake created by me. It's silly isn't it? Even in the 1970s, who'd have produced an ice lolly with what is effectively a stainless steel knife at its centre. And what kind of company would use "I don't trust it!" as a by-line on its advertising. No. It's a completely made up piece of merchandise. But it hasn't stopped folk from being fooled by it over the years. When I originally posted it, some enterprising ebayer decided they'd produce fridge magnets using the image believing it to be a genuine ad. Comments on Twitter have also come from people who genuinely think they remember it. I will say it again. The Sapphire and Steel does not exist. It is a figment of my and hopefully, your imagination. Goodnight. x

Great Unreleased Doctor Who Merchandise of the 20th Century - part twelve

The Sara Kingdom Action Doll - 
circa 1965

I had one of these as a kid - unfortunately it didn't aged well! 

BBC Worldwide's Plans for Doctor Who on DVD in 2015

If you want to own the complete series of Classic Doctor Who on DVD then you're pretty much living in cloud cuckoo land. At least, that's the opinion of BBC Worldwide. They have confirmed that the DVD of The Underwater Menace has been officially cancelled. Citing the reasons for this, they stated that it was due to the fact that the company producing the animated versions of the two missing episodes has ceased trading and they do not want to release orphan episodes on their own. 

However, a recent tweet from BBC Worldwide suggested that they still planned to release more Classic Doctor Who in the future. 

???

What is happening? Has the work experience guy who handles their Twitter account noticed that there are still many Hartnell and Troughton stories that remain unreleased little realising that a quick check of the archives will confirm they are currently missing (or at least in the hands of a madman with a box of magnets)?

Anyhow, closer examination suggests that the new 'Classic' Doctor Who DVDs may be a little desperate to say the least. 

Terry Nation's 'Blakes 7' Guide to Election '79

If there's one thing that comes across in the works of Terry Nation, it's his capacity for research. 

You only have to hear the legend of his finding of those curious artefacts in his garden and his tireless attempts to translate what eventually became the so-called 'Dalek Chronicles' from them to realise this. 

The BBC obviously understood his skill. In 1979, spurred on by the success of his sci-fi political thriller Blakes 7, they commissioned Terry to write a book that would explain the forthcoming British General Election to its listeners and viewers in words that even a sci-fi fan could understand.

Terry set to work. Using the same talent for coming up with startling facts about Daleks, he put together a short tome. 

The BBC decided not to publish it. 

Vintage Captain Jack Pulped Novels!

Here's some old Captain Jack pulp novels that defy the space time continuum a bit. 

Amazing Charity Shop Finds From The World Of Cult TV!

Went to my local charity shop yesterday and found some interesting books in amongst the old Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels and Jane Goldman's X Files Books of the Unexplained. 

Can't think why I missed these gems first time round... 

More Doctor Who VHS Branding - full covers!

Prompted by the recent articles in TV's Doctor Who Magazine which chronicle the history of the series on VHS, I've returned to some old favourites and done some 'scans' of the full covers in all of their BBC Video branding glory...

Tom Baker versus Frank Bough - the movie!

I watched that strange interview that Tom Baker did with Frank Bough on an old 70s edition of Nationwide the other day. He obviously was in a bit of mood. 

The peculiar shots of Tom used in the run-up to the feature suggest a man completely befuddled by the situation and his terse answers to Bough's 'Sunday colour magazine' questioning cement his reputation as someone who doesn't suffer fools. 

It's a strange beast to be sure. And one that begs the question what happened off-screen to lead Tom to be so off hand and flippant. 

We will probably never know...

(with acknowledgement to Gareth Roberts Twittery suggestion!)