Doctor Who spoofs
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The long running science fiction television series Doctor Who has over the years been the subject of many comedy sketches and especially made comedy programmes, from Spike Milligan's memorable Pakistani Dalek to the Comic Relief episode Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death. What follows below is a chronological listing of Doctor Who parody:
[edit] It's a Square World (1963)
Probably the first televised Doctor Who spoof was on the Michael Bentine sketch show It's a Square World in December 1963, only a few weeks after the series first aired. Bentine's season finale, broadcast on New Year's Eve, featured Clive Dunn playing a scientist called Doctor Fotheringown ("Doctor Who?" / "No, not Doctor Who, Doctor Fotheringown!"), for which Dunn wore William Hartnell's First Doctor costume and wig. The sketch, which was recorded on 16 December and 20 December 1963, also featured Wilfrid Brambell and Patrick Moore.[1]
[edit] "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek" (1964)
Perhaps one of the first parodies from Doctor Who was a song released the first Christmas after The Daleks was initially broadcast.[1] The British Go-Go's best-selling Christmas novelty single tried to turn the sinister Daleks into another version of The Chipmunks. It was originally released as one of the many products fueling Dalekmania. However, as that craze fizzled out the song became largely forgotten, with snippets occasionally appearing only in Doctor Who anthological products. It finally resurfaced in its entirety on the October 2000 album, Who is Doctor Who.[2].
[edit] I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (1965)
In the 8th episode of the first full series of I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, the main feature was a sketch called "Doctor Why and The Thing".
[edit] Carry On Screaming (1966)
In the spoof horror film Carry On Screaming, one of the Carry On... film series, Kenneth Williams plays a scientist named "Dr Watt". At one point in the film another character responds to this name with the question "Doctor who?", to which Watt replies "No, Watt. Who's my uncle." Carry On Screaming also features Jon Pertwee, who later played the Third Doctor, as a police scientist.
[edit] I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again (1969)
In the sixth season the series had a running sketch entitled Professor Prune and His Electric Time Trousers, which was a send-up of Doctor Who.
[edit] Dave Allen at Large (1970s)
The sketch/sitdown comedy series starring Irish comic Dave Allen featured several Who parodies throughout its long run. A prominent example originally aired in the early 1970s. An Irish country priest is tidying up his church. He becomes aware that the baptismal font (which is roughly cylindrical, with a wide base and a domed top) seems to be following him when he isn't looking directly at it. As the cleric quickens his pace down the nave, the font charges after him screaming in metallic tones, "Exterminate! Exterminate! Annihilate! Destroy!" The priest ducks into the confessional, which then dematerializes (accompanied by the familiar TARDIS sound effects).
[edit] Pakistani Dalek (1975)
Spike Milligan's television sketch show Q contained a memorable sketch in which a Dalek returns to its suburban home from a bad day at work and proceeds to exterminate things that irritate, including commuters on the tube, even demanding that his wife, in the trademark Dalek stacatto, to "Put [the family dog] in the curry!"
[edit] Doctor Poo (1979-1981)
"It's all cisterns go, with the amazing man who dares to go anywhere. Doctor Poooooooooo."
The brainchild of comedians Geoff Kelso, Lance Curtis, Steve Johnston and Ken Mathews, this Australian radio serial started airing on the Double Jay AM radio station in Sydney, migrating briefly to FM when the station became Triple J.
In the serial, a pompous and selfish alien called Doctor Poo, from the planet Galah-Free, travels through time and space in his TURDIS with his "beautiful, but stupid" assistant, Dana Sock (a parody of many useless female companions on Doctor Who) and Dennis the Denim Cat (a possible parody of K-9), the homicidal moggie of the cat planet, Felix Major.
The 2-minute radio show even had parodies of the Daleks (the Drecks and their creator Lavdros) as well as the Master (Doctor Wee, an "Asian stereotype"). The show also introduced us to Doctor Poo's wife, Constance.
Proceedings were narrated by Kevin the Announcer — who would continually talk to the characters and make disparaging comments about the show.
Lance Curtis played Doctor Poo, Geoff Kelso was Kevin the Announcer and Dennis the Denim Cat and Steve Matthews voiced Dana Sock (in falsetto). Minor characters in each two-minute episode were voiced by various members of the cast.
The series spawned two record releases, Knees Ahoy which was a compilation of one of the radio storylines, and Dr Poo and the Psychic Koala's The Universe is Big, a musical LP recorded in 1981 but released in 1985, shortly after the death of Lance Curtis.
In late 1980, the Official Doctor Poo Fan Club numbered a membership over 10,000.
One storyline was replayed during the lunch breaks of a cricket test on 702 ABC in the mid eighties. This story, "The Dubbo and Western Plains French Revolution" included parodies of a number of cricket commentators.
[edit] DangerMouse
In the British comedic action cartoon, DangerMouse, there is an episode where Penfold tries to remember the Doctor's name and DangerMouse himself keeps telling him the answer, "Doctor Who". Penfold naturally mistakes DM's answer for a question and never remembers the Doctor's name, but does describe the Doctor as the one who travels in a phone booth.[citation needed]
Other references within DangerMouse are in the stories Custard, where the heroes return to Earth through "a time-traveller's potting shed" and The Hickory Dickory Dock Dilemma, where DangerMouse and Penfold first encounter a clock, within which they discover they can travel through time, "Oh, like that Doctor!" "Who?" "Can't remember."
[edit] The Two Ronnies
An episode of the long-running comedy show The Two Ronnies spoofed Doctor Who in a sketch called "The Adventures of Archie". Ronnie Corbett, as the eponymous character, becomes trapped in the past but is able to return to the twentieth century in the TARDIS after the Doctor turns up. Ronnie Barker played Jon Pertwee's Doctor as the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge, Pertwee's other famous television role. In another sketch, both Ronnies portray robots which claim that "we're good enough for Doctor Who"; they are then exterminated by two enormous cans of Dulux paint that have acquired the mien of Daleks.
[edit] Lenny Henry (1986)
A sketch on The Lenny Henry Show featured Lenny Henry as the (newly regenerated) Doctor and Paula Tilbrook as Peri. The two land on Earth in the year 2010 and encounter the Cybermen and their leader "Thatchos" (a Cyberleader with a Margaret Thatcher wig and handbag); the Doctor's response is to "run up and down lots of corridors". This sketch was included as an extra on the video release of Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death.
[edit] French & Saunders
A never-aired sketch filmed for French & Saunders featured Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders as bored extras in Silurian costumes during the filming of a Doctor Who serial that resembles The Trial of a Time Lord. George Layton played the Doctor. The segment was included as an extra on the video release of Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death.
[edit] Victoria Wood (1987)
Victoria Wood As Seen On TV featured a brief sketch in which Jim Broadbent (later to appear in The Curse of Fatal Death) appears as a Tom Baker-style Doctor and comes up against a villain called Crayola (Crayola is a type of crayon). The sketch parodies the technobabble of the show, and the amount of continuity references later episodes of the series had.
[edit] Chelsmford 123 (1988)
This UK sitcom, set during the Roman occupation of Britain in the second century AD, featured in its first episode a scene in which an arriving Roman dignitary and his retinue trudge wearily along a dirt track in the middle of the night, muttering about how boring Britain looks and how dull they expect their stay to be. Unnoticed, the TARDIS materialises by the side of the road (using the original sound effect), the Doctor (seen only in silhouette) steps out, looks around, shakes his head and goes back into the TARDIS which disappears again.
[edit] Fast Forward (1990)
The Australian Sketch Comedy Show Fast Forward featured a sketch which combined political satire with a spoof of Doctor Who.
The sketch featured "Doctor Whoson" (played by Steve Vizard), who was an amalgam of the Fourth Doctor and the then Australian Federal Opposition Leader, Dr John Hewson; Lylo (played by Marg Downey), based on Leela; a rubber alien, who after removing his rubber head was revealed to be the recurring character "Bruce Rump" (a spoof of Bruce Ruxton); a Dalek with the head of then opposition MP John Howard; and a disembodied voice called "Timelord Malcolm", who had lost his trousers (former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser famously appeared in an American hotel lobby sans trousers in 1986). The Dalek was also towing a crude imitation K-9.
Doctor Whoson's mission was to find a new immigration policy, which he eventually took from some graffiti spray-painted on the TARDIS: "Two wongs don't make a white." (The implication is that Bruce Rump had put it there). However, Whoson says "two wogs" instead.
[edit] The Real McCoy
The Real McCoy, a BBC sketch show, featured a sketch using footage from the serial Earthshock. In a dubbed scene where the Fifth Doctor confronts the Cyberleader, the two characters speak in Jamaican Creole, with the Doctor telling the Cyberleader "You no look like no Dalek to me". This sketch was included as an "Easter Egg" on the DVD release of Earthshock.
[edit] ALF (1991)
The story "Timing Is Everything!", in issue 38 of Marvel Comics' ALF comic, featured ALF's encounter with a time traveller named "Doctor Whozonfirst", who resembled a Melmacian version of the Fourth Doctor.
[edit] The Corridor Sketch (1991)
The Corridor Sketch was made in 1991 by Reeltime Pictures. Its credits do not include a scriptwiter, but list "Cast & Crew" as gag writers and Kevin Davies as script editor. It was produced by Keith Barnfather.
It takes the form of a mockumentary, with Nicholas Briggs as a reporter visiting the set of Doctor Who on the first day of filming on 9 August 1963 (although the actual first day was on 20 August and what is being filmed appears to be the first episode of The Daleks).
The sketch includes several references to popular stories about the early days of the show. For example, "Sidney Newbaum" (Sydney Newman) assures the interviewer there will be no bug-eyed monsters, at which point a Dalek wrapped in brown paper gets wheeled across the corridor.
The sketch ends with the Director General of the BBC (played by Nicholas Courtney) predicting the series will last "twenty-six years, one week and six days". The credits then run over a reversed version of the theme tune.
It appears as an extra on the The Beginning DVD box set, alongside the three 1999 Doctor Who Night sketches.
[edit] Harry Hill's Fruit Corner (1993)
An episode of the radio series Harry Hill's Fruit Corner entitled "Lords and Ladies" featured Jon Pertwee playing a Time Lord and the character Nana Hill spoofing the role of Davros, creator of the Daleks.
[edit] "Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?" (1994)
"Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?" was a BBC Radio 4 comedy drama play, part of the series Whatever Happened to ..? The play followed a humorous account of Susan Foreman's life after she departed from the TARDIS, and featured Jane Asher in the role of Susan and Andrew Sachs as Temmosus Skyedron, a Thal.[2]
[edit] Viz magazine (1996)
- For more details on this topic, see Doctor Poo.
The British adult spoof comic magazine Viz featured a one page comic strip, "Doctor Poo", in 1995. It features the increasingly desperate attempts of Doctor Poo (looking like the Fourth Doctor, but with Jamie as a companion) to find a quiet place to defecate.
[edit] The Simpsons (1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2007)
The Simpsons has briefly referred to Doctor Who at least five times. The Fourth Doctor (or Tom Baker in costume) made cameo appearances in the episodes "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming" (as one of the "esteemed representatives of television"), "Mayored to the Mob" (at a science fiction convention), and "Treehouse of Horror X" (in which he is kidnapped by the Comic Book Guy, along with Lucy Lawless and Yasmine Bleeth). Tables resembling the TARDIS console appear briefly in "The Homer They Fall", and in "Bart the Fink" the Comic Book Guy is seen wheeling a wheelbarrow full of tacos and saying, "100 tacos should provide sufficient sustenance for the Doctor Who marathon." [3] In "Springfield Up", Homer calls the British narrator Declan Desmond (voiced by Eric Idle) "Doctor Who"; Idle was among a long list of actors considered for the role of the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie.[4]
Along with the Saturday Night Live and Robot Chicken sketches mentioned below, these brief references comprise virtually the whole of Doctor Who parody on American broadcast television, to date.
[edit] The Fourth Doctor sells New Zealand investments (1996)
In his autobiography, Tom Baker writes, "'Would you like to go to New Zealand to do a commercial?' That's the sort of question an actor likes to hear from his agent in freezing mid-January."
Consequently, in January 1996, Tom Baker did an advertisement for New Zealand television, spoofing his own portrayal of the Fourth Doctor and advising viewers to plan for their financial future. He points out how the audience does not "need a sonic screwdriver or a Gallifreyan time capsule" to figure out that New Zealand Superannuation Services are a reasonable way to make their future dreams realities.
The 30-second spot licensed not just the Fourth Doctor's appearance, but the console room and a version of the show's theme music similar to that of the Seventh Doctor's. It ended on a scene of the TARDIS amongst New Zealand sheep.
[edit] Harry Enfield and Chums (1997)
A one-off sketch in the second series of Harry Enfield and Chums parodied the then-recent casting of Liverpudlian actor Paul McGann as the Doctor in the 1996 TV movie. A workman stands next to a ladder in an otherwise abandoned TV studio, when suddenly the TARDIS appears, and out steps Gary Bleasdale's "Gary Scouser" character (one of Enfield's popular trio of stereotypical Scouser characters), dressed in the Fourth Doctor's coat, scarf and hat. The workman asks "Who are you?", to which Gary replies "I'm Doctor Who Are You Lookin' At?" He then headbutts the workman, and begins to rant "Come on then, where's all these friggin' Daleks, eh? I'll bleedin' exterminate yez!" as the Doctor Who music fades in.
Although he did not appear in this particular sketch, Paul's brother Joe McGann is a regular in the Scouser segments, playing Barry Scouser.
[edit] TV Offal (1997)
TV Offal, a creation of Victor Lewis Smith had the Gay Daleks as recurring characters. They came from the planet Maskaro and travelled in a flying portoloo known as the TURDIS. They also had pink livery and often sported handbags slung-over their plunger-arm, as well as distinctly un-Dalek-like phraseology such as "BITCH". Each episode ended with an aroused Dalek ejaculating (sometimes preceded by "I AM GOING TO EX-SPERMINATE!"), repeating in the metallic voice the phrase "WHITE WEE WEE!". In the pilot episode, dubbed clips from Destiny of the Daleks were used instead.
After the first (and only) series the estate of Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks, refused to renew the license. Later attempts at reviving the Gay Daleks as an animated series were also blocked.
[edit] Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death (1999)
- For more details on this topic, see Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death.
An episode made for Comic Relief with celebrity appearances from Rowan Atkinson, Joanna Lumley, Hugh Grant, Richard E. Grant (later to appear in the webcast Scream of the Shalka) and Jim Broadbent as various incarnations of the Doctor and Jonathan Pryce as the Master.
[edit] Doctor Who Night (1999)
On November 13, 1999, BBC Two showed various Doctor Who-related material interspersed with sketches and documentaries, under the title "Doctor Who Night". The night featured three sketches by writer Mark Gatiss, better known as a member of The League of Gentlemen, who went on to write the episodes The Unquiet Dead (2005) and The Idiot's Lantern (2006) for the revived series of Doctor Who. These sketches were co-written and performed with David Walliams, later to be better known for his work on Little Britain.
In "The Pitch of Fear", Walliams appears as Sydney Newman and Gatiss as fictional BBC executive "Mr Borusa" in a spoof about the early history of Doctor Who, which also features Little Britain's Paul Putner.
"The Web of Caves" sees Walliams and Putner as aliens (somewhat similar in appearance to Movellans) trying to persuade the Doctor (Gatiss) to defeat their schemes. The Walliams alien outlines a number of power-mad schemes, such as hollowing out the core of the Earth and replacing it with a motor (The Dalek Invasion of Earth) or draining the world's oceans into its core and boiling them away (The Underwater Menace). The Doctor dismisses these plans, in a rather bored fashion, as having been done.
In "The Kidnappers", Walliams abducts Peter Davison for Gatiss.
All three sketches were included as extras in the DVD box set Doctor Who: The Beginning (consisting of the first three serials of the programme). A reference in "The Pitch of Fear" to Doctors "towards the end" of the series being played by "any old f***er with an Equity card" had reportedly offended both Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy when it was first broadcast. Gatiss gave permission for the sketch to be included on the DVD only on condition that the lines be excised, saying that he knew it was a mistake as soon as he saw it broadcast.
[edit] Dead Ringers (2000–)
One of the most prolific sources of Doctor Who-related parody in recent years has been the radio and television programme Dead Ringers. This is primarily due to comedian and impressionist Jon Culshaw and writer Nev Fountain, both of whom are Doctor Who fans. Culshaw often impersonates Tom Baker in character as the Fourth Doctor. In the radio programme, Culshaw often made live phone calls as the Doctor to everyday locations such as a hotel or DIY store, or to Doctor Who celebrities, and taped the unscripted responses.
Culshaw's "Doctor" has telephoned four of the "real" Doctors — Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. This prompted the bemused (and apparently confused) McCoy to ask the classic question: "Have you been in the pub?" When Culshaw phoned Tom Baker himself and stated that he "was the Doctor", Baker replied, "But there must be some mistake...I'm the Doctor..." Baker had previously worked with Culshaw and was aware of his impression but not when the call would come, if at all, so his reaction was genuine. On the other hand, McCoy has said that his reaction was faked, as he had been warned immediately before the call took place.
Culshaw's impression of the Fourth Doctor is now one of Dead Ringers' most recognisable trademarks, with the title credits (for the radio series and the TV series) now with the words "Dead Ringers" spoken by Culshaw in the recognisable voice.
When the programme moved to television, a now-visible Culshaw (in costume) was placed into mundane situations, such as the Fourth Doctor visiting a tanning salon and travelling on the Eurostar. At one point on his journey to France, Culshaw's "Doctor" stated to bemused passengers, "I am the Doctor. I travel in space and time.... and trains."
Though the Fourth Doctor was overwhelmingly the Doctor most imitated in the programme from 2000–2004, other Doctors also received treatment by the cast. With the coming of the 2005 series of Doctor Who, Dead Ringers added the most recent incarnations of the Doctor to its repertoire (for example, suggesting that Christopher Eccleston's real reason for leaving the programme was because his parents are hardcore Star Trek fans). The 2005 series trailer also parodied the "Do You Want To Come With Me?" trailers used to advertise the series; Eccleston's dialogue being spoken by impersonators of Tony Blair, Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy (due to BBC impartiality in the run-up to the 2005 General Election, all three political parties were represented).
In the 2005 Dead Ringers Christmas special, broadcast shortly before The Christmas Invasion, Culshaw impersonated both the Fourth and Tenth Doctors, while the Second, Seventh and Ninth Doctors were impersonated by Mark Perry, Kevin Connelly and Phil Cornwell, respectively. The sketch also made reference to Christopher Eccleston's departure from the programme and displayed some antagonism between the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, with the former referring to himself as having depth and grit and the latter as "Jarvis Cocker in space".
In Dead Ringers' 2006 series, Culshaw's Tenth Doctor was joined by Rose Tyler (portrayed by Jan Ravens) in two sketches. In one, the pair complained about the increasingly loud and intrusive music in the programme, and the Doctor was forced to use his sonic screwdriver to "turn on the subtitles, like everyone at home is doing." In another, the Doctor remarked how easy his job had become since he could learn all about his adventures beforehand from the Radio Times, Doctor Who Confidential, Totally Doctor Who and the TARDISODEs; since everything was revealed ahead of time, the Doctor said he could "phone the rest of the show in" and watch the World Cup (imminent at the time of the sketch's broadcast).
In addition to parodying Doctor Who, Dead Ringers has also parodied Torchwood. The sketches comment on the level of sex in Torchwood, and characterise Owen, Ianto, Jack and Gwen as "annoying", "dull and annoying", "camp and annoying" and "Welsh" respectively.[5] The final episode of the seventh series also featured two spoofs of Torchwood, one of which featured Jack Harkness in a threesome with three Cybermen in a hotel.
In another sketch Tony Blair (Culshaw) is seen giving an interview. He then stands-up and collapses. A regeneration-like special effect is added, and the actor who is supposed to look like Tony Blair is replaced by David Tennant, who was playing the tenth doctor at the time. David Tennant stands up, licks sucks his teeth and says "Hmmm, New Labour, that's weird", a parody of one of David Tennant's first lines as the Doctor "Hmmm, new teeth, that's weird", and Tony Blair's rebranding of the Labour party, calling it "New Labour". David Tennant proceeds to make a speech in Tony Blair's early style.
It is debateable whether this is actually a spoof on Doctor Who, as David Tennant is not playing the Doctor, but Tony Blair (albeit very un-realisically). However it does present Tony Blair as a Time Lord (hence the regeneration), David Tennant talks in the accent he uses whilst playing the Doctor (rather than his natural Scottish accent), and it parodies a line from Doctor Who.
[edit] Kit Kat advertisement (2001)
A 2001 advertising campaign for Kit Kat chocolates showed British celebrities doing things which were contrary to their popular images (for example, football player Roy Keane doing needlepoint, and Motörhead lead singer Lemmy playing the violin). One of the first shots in the advertisement is of Daleks chasing people on the street saying, in the standard Dalek tones, "Give us a cuddle!" while the final shot had Daleks following a group of Hare Krishna devotees, chanting "Peace and love!" The advertisement concluded with the Kit Kat slogan "Have a break, have a Kit Kat," implying that the Daleks were having a break from their habitual killing.
The Daleks' use in this advert was brought to an end by the estate of Terry Nation, who had not been aware of the usage. The advertising agency had mistakenly believed that the creatures were in the public domain.
[edit] Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet? (2001)
This BBV production starred Sylvester McCoy as the Foot Doctor doing battle against the Krynoids, Sontarans, and Autons. It also parodied elements of the Seventh Doctor's tenure, including his incarnation's penchant for spoon-playing and his regeneration scene in Time and the Rani. The title was a reference to how BBV had never obtained a license from the BBC to produce official Doctor Who tie-in material and therefore had to create works that only narrowly avoided infringing the BBC's intellectual property rights.
[edit] Dalek Survival Guide (2002)
Dalek Survival Guide was a humorous book published by BBC Books and written by Justin Richards, Nicholas Briggs (who provides voice acting for the Daleks in the 2005 series), Stephen Cole, Jacqueline Rayner and Mike Tucker. Parodying the The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbooks, the Dalek Survival Guide gives wry hints such as how Daleks work, how to recognise different Dalek variants, "How to survive enforced captivity with a Dalek" and "What to do if you see a Dalek".
[edit] Saturday Night Live (2002, 2005)
The March 16, 2002 episode of Saturday Night Live featured Sir Ian McKellen — then famous for his roles in the X-Men and The Lord of the Rings movies — in a sketch about a public access television programme titled "Kevin and Richie's Comic Book Zone". In it, McKellen plays a pizza parlour manager with a knack for genre impersonations, who crashes Kevin and Richie's show dressed in costume as the Fourth Doctor. The hosts deride his choice of subject and quickly ask him to try his hand at other English-accented characters, leading to McKellen mimicking his own performances in the genre.
The February 5, 2005 episode featured Paris Hilton in a spoof advertisement for a phone sex line for science fiction and fantasy fans. At the sketch's conclusion, Hilton dons a Tom Baker-style scarf and floppy hat and mentions Doctor Who, the TARDIS, Daleks and "extermination".[3]
Both are notable for being rare inclusions of Doctor Who in American popular culture. The comparatively limited fashion in which Doctor Who has penetrated the American cultural consciousness (as opposed to Star Trek) may account for why SNL did not parody the series' specific concepts, but merely incorporated it as part of a parody of fandom in general.
[edit] Bottom Live: Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour (2003)
In the final stage show based on the comedy show Bottom written by Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, Richie is concerned about Eddie, whom he hasn't seen for weeks. As it turns out, Eddie has been busy with his latest invention: a time travelling toilet which he names the Turdis. The ship's dematerialisation noise consists of the original TARDIS sound effect with the noise of flatulence and flushing toilets mixed in, and it can only be recharged when someone masturbates inside it.
[edit] Dr. Loo and the Filthy Phaleks (2005)
A pornographic film featuring Alicia Rhodes as Dr. Loo, who travels through time and space in her Turdis, a time machine disguised as a public toilet. She and her trusty female shagbot get into numerous sexual adventures including run ins with the evil Empress Minge the Merciless and her army of ruthless robot killers, the Phaleks.
[edit] Abducted by the Daloids (2005)
An unauthorized pornographic feature, Abducted by the Daloids (although the disc itself uses "Daleks"). In the film, the "Daloids" (portrayed by several Dalek models) abduct three scantily-clad models and watch lesbian scenes. The BBC took action to prevent sale of the DVD when learning of it in November 2005.
[edit] Chewin' the Fat (2005)
In a sketch from the 2005 Hogmanay edition of the BBC Scotland comedy series Chewin' the Fat, the character Ronald Villiers ("the world's worst actor") acts as an army soldier sent into a metal building to take on the Daleks. Villiers, however, keeps on messing up his lines and throwing in various ad-libs relating to Doctor Who. After repeatedly failing to understand that the production crew are going to superimpose a Dalek onto the scene in the post-production stage, Villiers is thrown off set, but not before telling them that "All the Doctor Whos after Sylvester McCoy were rubbish anyway".
[edit] Nebulous (2005, 2006)
The BBC Radio 4 comedy series Nebulous written by Graham Duff, directed by Nicholas Briggs and starring Mark Gatiss parodies many elements of Doctor Who. The eponymous Professor Nebulous is very Doctorish character, and the organisation K.E.N.T. echos Doctor Who's UNIT.
The first episode "The Night of the Vegetarians" has a Cactus villain reminiscent of Meglos, the second episode "The Lovely Invasion" is clearly based on The Claws of Axos with a race of beautiful aliens arriving on Earth and the recurring villain Doctor Klench brings to mind the Master, even going as far as carrying around his miniaturised victims (still living) with him.
The audio CD of the first series also includes in the liner notes a list of "missing episodes", a reference to the notorious missing Doctor Who episodes. Among the episodes listed are "Genesis of the Faceless Ambassadors of Fury", with a story which mimics Genesis of the Daleks and "The Farmers", which draws parallels between the episode and the less popular non-science fiction "historical" episodes of Who.
[edit] Robot Chicken (2006)
In the Adult Swim series Robot Chicken, the Fourth Doctor made an appearance, standing on the first base of a baseball diamond asking "Do you get it?", a reference to the Abbott and Costello sketch "Who's on First?". In another episode, entitled "Suck It", a student begins to give a presentation about the TARDIS before being berated for his perceived geekiness.
[edit] Chuckle Brothers (2006)
In 2006 the Chuckle Brothers, a British comedy duo, toured the UK with their show Doctor What and the Return of the Garlics. Russell T. Davies, the showrunner of the new Doctor Who series, wrote three episodes of the duo's long-running Children's BBC television series ChuckleVision in 1992.
[edit] The Beano (2006)
Beginning in their April 21 issue The Beano ran a three-part parody comic-within-a-comic by writer-artist Kev F Sutherland called Hot-Rod Cow, about a superhero time-travelling talking cow.[6] Hot-Rod Cow is the favourite comic of The Bash Street Kids character Plug.[6] The comic contained many in-jokes, for example Hot-Rod Cow wielded a "Sonic Moo-driver".[6] The phrase "Hot-Rod Cow" is, like Torchwood, an anagram of the phrase "Doctor Who". The comic also spoofed classic comic covers such as Amazing Fantasy #15 (Spider-Man's first appearance) as well as containing other superhero related jokes.
[edit] The Chaser's War on Everything (2006)
The July 21, 2006 episode of the Australian satirical comedy programme The Chaser's War On Everything contained a song making fun of Doctor Who fans, written and performed by Andrew Hansen, who is himself a Doctor Who fan.[7]
[edit] The Charlotte Church Show (2006)
The second episode of The Charlotte Church Show (broadcast on 8 September 2006) included a sketch in which Church played the Doctor's new companion. In the sketch, Church complained about travelling to Cardiff by TARDIS ("I can take the bloody bus!"). The sketch also noted the series' tendency to have "relationship-y episodes where somebody's gran's dying, that they use to pad out the middle of the series when they run out of money for special effects", referring to "that psychic girl with the crayons" as a "rubbish" example. The sketch also showed the Doctor examining a scantily clad female mannequin, claiming he thought it was an Auton. At the end of the sketch, the Doctor regenerated into Todd Carty.
[edit] Doctor What? (2006)
Doctor What? was a radio show on SYN 90.7, a youth community radio station in Melbourne, Australia. In this show the hosts (changed on a weekly basis), would pick a part of time and talk about it; at the end a 2-minute radio play would be performed based around the Doctor and the hosts in their chosen period of time.
[edit] Doctor Whom: E.T. Shoots and Leaves (2006)
Doctor Whom: E.T. Shoots and Leaves (ISBN 0575079282) is a book by A. R. R. R. Roberts, author of The Soddit. It parodies Doctor Who and Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. The book is subtitled "E. T. shoots and leaves: the zero tolerance approach to parodication."
[edit] Destroy All Humans! 2 (2006)
Part of the video game Destroy All Humans! 2 takes place in "Albion" (Britain). On this level, when the main character (Crypto) terrorizes humans in his true form, their screams include the cries "Someone call the Doctor!" and "Where the hell's the bleedin' TARDIS?"
[edit] Under Torch Wood (2006)
Satirical technology columnist Verity Stob wrote a parody of Torchwood in the style of Dylan Thomas's radio play Under Milk Wood. This parody described Captain Jack Harkness as "the insomniac bicon; snug as a hobbit, pretty as a choirboy, immortal as carbon dioxide, wooden as a horse", and included a café sign reading "Llanfairfach giant maggots, fresh in today! Organic? Of course!", a reference to the Doctor Who serial The Green Death.[8]
[edit] The Friday Night Project (2007)
Tenth Doctor actor David Tennant appeared as host on the 5th January 2007 edition of Channel 4 show The Friday Night Project. Tennant joined regulars Justin Lee Collins and Alan Carr in a number of jokes related to the show/role, including a short parody episode which saw Collins as the Tenth Doctor and Tennant in drag as his female assistant and a fake charity Doctor Who auction in which two fans were pranked (one being made to pay a large sum of money for an item he hadn't intended to bid on, the other being led to believe the auction had stolen his one of a kind prop of the Key to Time from the original series serial of the same name).
[edit] Comic Relief Catherine Tate Sketch (2007)
Tennant also appeared in a sketch alongside comedienne Catherine Tate, who played Donna Noble in The Runaway Bride, for Comic Relief on March 16 (Red Nose Day) 2007. In the sketch Tate played her character Lauren Cooper from The Catherine Tate Show and Tennant played her new English Teacher, Mr. Logan, who after being goaded by Lauren for his Scottish accent and resemblance to the Doctor is finally pushed over the edge when she insults Shakespeare. He threatens to fail her, and Lauren proceeds to do her "Am I bovvered?" routine in Shakespearean style followed by a recitation of Sonnet 130 off the top of her head only to have Mr. Logan produce the sonic screwdriver from inside his jacket and turn her into a 5" Rose Tyler action figure with it, misquoting Romeo and Juliet by saying "A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet". The figure proclaims that it "Still ain't bovvered".
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Pixley, Andrew (12 May 2004). "Do You Want To Know A Secret?". Doctor Who Magazine (DWM Special Edition #7, "The Complete First Doctor"): 17.
- ^ Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?. Retrieved on April 15, 2006.
- ^ Doctor Who on the Simpsons. The TARDIS Databanks..
- ^ Segal, Philip; Gary Russell (2000). Doctor Who:Regeneration. London: HarperCollins, p. 34. ISBN 0-00-710591-6.
- ^ "Dead Ringers". Principal writers Nev Fountain and Tom Jamieson, Director Ben Fuller, Producer Richard Webb. Dead Ringers. BBC. BBC Two, London. 2007-03-08. No. 3, season 7.
- ^ a b c Freeman, John (2006-04-21). Down the Tubes.net News Archive: April 2006. Down the Tubes.net. Retrieved on November 6, 2006.
- ^ The Chaser's War on Everything Doctor Who Tribute - Wollongong Doctor Who Fan Club. www.sylvestermccoy.com. Retrieved on December 17, 2006.
- ^ Stob, Verity (2006-11-06). Under Torch Wood. The Register. Retrieved on November 7, 2006.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- TV Ark page on Doctor Who spoof sketches
- Official Dead Ringers site, including some streaming clips of Doctor Who parody
