It's not a widely known fact that ITV attempted to poach 'Doctor Who' from the BBC back in the early seventies.
The independent television channel had a long history of doing this with stars like Tony Hancock and Benny Hill and would famously drag Morecambe and Wise to the channel in the 80s with false promises of movie deals and bigger budgets.
The 'Doctor Who' poach was a mess from the start. Hastily done in the autumn of 1973, ITV quickly commissioned a variety special for Christmas which was recorded in front of a live canned laughter machine that November.
In the show, Jon Pertwee performed his hit single 'Who is the Doctor?' as a duet with Noele Gordon - there to plug her 'Crossroads Christmas Sing-a-Long' LP whilst comedian Bernard Manning played a somewhat coarse (and possibly drunk) Santa Claus.
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Benny Hill's Jackie Wright and Bob Todd were Santa's Time Elves who got into hilarious japes (sic) with some reindeer and a wrapping paper machine that worried the RSPCA whilst Katy Manning performed 'Age of Aquarius' with 'The Jo Jo's' who looked suspiciously like 'The Ladybirds' dressed in silver spandex.
'Doctor Who' hastily returned back to the BBC - its tail between its legs the following January and all was forgiven - just...
Like the later 'Star Wars Holiday Special', the show has never been re-screened and VHS copies of it have become much sought-after by the curious and the naive. It remains a forgotten sully on the world of TV's favourite Time Lord.
Doing my back in must've done something to my brain as I've ended up carrying on into David Tennant's first series for my Target Book designs.
Nothing really to add to what I said in my previous post, other than that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible....
....in the mean time here's the testcard and some music!
You can catch up with the first series covers featuring Christopher Eccleston here.
I went and did my back in the other week getting my Christmas tree down from the loft. This meant - following my doctor's instructions - that I could only stand up or sit bolt upright for the past week. No slouching over computers!!
This is the reason for the lack of updates recently so apologies to anyone who thinks I've let them down.
Also up in the loft is my complete collection of 'Doctor Who' Target novelisations - all of them bar 'The Two Doctors' are first editions. I even have 'The Wheel in Space'. Whoopee-doo!!!
I have to say I loved the earlier covers for the books - the ones by Chris Achilleos (after Frank Bellamy). Their overall design still displays a dynamism often lacking in the modern branding of the series.
Since next year marks the tenth anniversary of the return of 'Doctor Who' to British television (and in order to get back in the swing of things following my sabbatical!), I had a bash at adapting the old Target designs for the first series starring Christopher Eccleston.
They aren't meant to be wholly faithful to the 70s books - just taking the basic design tropes and updating them a bit into a modern version.
Hope you like...
The covers continue with David Tennant's first series here.
"This is the voice of the Mysterons!
"We know that you can hear us, Earthmen.
"Our revenge for your aggression on the planet Mars will continue with the complete disruption of the world shopping community for 24 hours. Innocent people will be turned into mindless zombies fighting their fellow man for control of the best deals!
"WE+WILL+BE-AVENGED!!!"
Back in the early eighties, ITC had a habit of joining episodes of its successful TV shows together and marketing them as movies to TV stations too stingy to fork out for the full series.
Titles like 'Journey Through the Black Sun', 'The Incredible Voyage of Stingray' and 'The Amazing Adventures of Joe 90' soon found their way onto the fledgling VHS rental market via the label 'Precision Home Video'.
I still have a copy of 'London Conspiracy' - two episodes of 'The Persuaders!' shamelessly bolted together and displaying a complete disregard for the title by not having any scenes set in the British capital! Uniquely, these tapes came in robust music-cassette style plastic boxes and like their audio counterparts, easily broke and became very scuffed and filthy looking as the years went on.
ITC attempted to create a movie from its popular soap opera 'Crossroads'. A selection of episodes chronicling the fire at the motel that resulted in the sad departure of Noele Gordon were edited together into an hour and half mini-epic. Additional scenes set at an inquiry into the fire at the Birmingham coroner's office were filmed with actors Geoffrey Keen, Shane Rimmer and Nina Baden-Semper were added to cover the joins and an additional scene which changed the storyline was filmed with Jane Rossington weeping at the graveside of her dead mum. (The latter had originally been passed off as a hoax by the press!) There we also some extra effects scenes spliced in from 'The Medusa Touch'. It was a bit of a mess really and very few broadcasters took up the option on it.
I hear that it was broadcast once in Singapore.
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