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 satire:

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.

\"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.[link] 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.[link].

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 cousin." Carry On Screaming also features Jon Pertwee, who later played the Third Doctor, as a police scientist.

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!" The priest ducks into the confessional, which then dematerializes (accompanied by the familiar TARDIS sound effects).

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 dog] in the curry!"

Doctor Poo (1979-1981)

In this Australian radio serial that aired on the Double Jay radio station in Sydney (now Triple J), a pompous and selfish alien called Doctor Poo, of 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 K9), the homicidal moggie of the cat planet, Felix Major. The 2-minute radio show even had a Dalek parody, a robot called Gastro.

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.#redirect

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."

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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; Lally (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.

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 have broad West Indian accents. The Doctor tells the Cyberleader "You no look like no Dalek to me". This sketch was included as an "Easter Egg" on the DVD release of Earthshock.

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 verson of the Fourth Doctor.

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.

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.

\"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.

Viz magazine (1995)

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.

The Simpsons (1995, 1996, 1998, 1999)

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." [link].

Along with the Saturday Night Live sketches mentioned below, these brief references comprise virtually the whole of Doctor Who parody on American broadcast television, to date.

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.

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.

Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death (1999)

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.

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 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.

Dead Ringers (2000–)

One of the most prolific sources of Doctor Who-related satire 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.

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 through space and time.... and trains." [link] [link]

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).

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).

• [Clips on the BBC website]
• [Clips on the Gallifrey Archives]

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). 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.

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 satirised 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.

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".

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 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".[link]

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 satirise the series' specific concepts, but merely incorporated it as part of a parody of fandom in general.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

Footnotes

See also

Doctor Who
History | The Doctor | Serials | Chronology | Missing episodes Dalek | Cyberman | TARDIS Theme music | Audio releases | DVD releases | In America
Supporting characters | Spin-off companions | Monsters and aliens Villains | Robots | Planets | Items | Producers Celebrity appearances | Doctor Who spoofs | Historical characters
Related programmes
K-9 and Company > Torchwood Doctor Who Confidential | Totally Doctor Who

External links

• [TV Ark page on Doctor Who spoof sketches]
• [Official Dead Ringers site], including some streaming clips of Doctor Who parody

 

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