Contemporary S18 Doctor Who merchandise

[SiHart]

My Doctor Who collection began in earnest at Christmas 1981 when I received the following items:





But what did you get Doctor Who wise at the time?

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I remember the talking K-9 that I absolutely loved - "Analysing atmosphere on planet surface - acceptable, to humanoids!".

I seem to remember a pull-back version of him, and also Doctor Who Weekly/Mag used to have adverts for a Doctor Who radio ...

[SiHart]

The Talking K9 was the very best Doctor Who toy ever. I loved mine. I used to pull him along on a piece of string behind me. I got mine at Christmas and I played with him until his voice box broke. That was a sad day.

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

It had a voice on a kind of mini record didn't it, and as the battery wore out there was a slider to speed up the record to compensate?

When the battery was really knackered it'd be very slllllloooooooooooow!

[SiHart]

Oh yes! I loved the flipping record. That was really cool. The Talking Dalek couldn't do that!

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

1980 was the Christmas I got my Millenium Falcon - all very exciting, but not anything to do with Doctor Who!!!

However, in 1980 in general I would have been in top Target collecting mode, courtesy of WH Smiths in Carlisle. In fact, thinking about it, until 1982 when I stumbled upon John Fitton I don't think I got my books from anywhere other than that one branch of Smiths... so it's very fortunate they had a good stock of Who in there!!!

[SiHart]

I was thinking of some other stuff this morning when I was lying in bed not sleeping and remembered how much I loved some specific Season 18 merchandise- firstly the Viewmaster reels of Full Circle. I used to look at them while playing the tape I had recorded off the telly of the story. Maybe that's why I loved it so much? The spiders looked quite creepy in 3D, and I loved the pic of the Doctor, Romana and K9 in the control room.

And of course, there was the talking book of State of Decay, which I've waxed lyrical about many times before, but is one of the DW things I like best in all the world. "The Doctor was forced to agree..."

Si xx

[Lissa]

I had a Viewmaster. I know I had one of the big sci fi movies of the time - the Black Hole, Flash Gordon or something similar - and one or two cartoons but I can't remember if I had any Doctor Who. The memory of seeing Doctor Who through those red plastic eye pieces is there but it doesn't feel real.

[SiHart]

I had the Buck Rogers one too.

Si xx

[Lissa]

Again, that rings bells. I'm going to have to do some research about Viewmasters.

[Lissa]

They still make them. It wasn't just an early 80s fad - they've been constantly in production since the 1940s. And there were two Doctor Whos - Full Circle and a Peter Davison story which sounds more likely to be the one I had.

But why Full Circle? It's good and all that but pretty much any other season 18 story would've been better for a purely visual medium.

[Logo Polish]

They still make them. It wasn't just an early 80s fad - they've been constantly in production since the 1940s. And there were two Doctor Whos - Full Circle and a Peter Davison story which sounds more likely to be the one I had.

The latter story was Castrovalva.

[SiHart]

I never got the Castrovalva one. I didn't know about it until a friend revealed he owned it many years later.

Si xx

[Jonno]

I never had the Talking K9, but the Annual was an annual tradition at Christmas, or had been up to and including Christmas 1977 (the surreal 1978 annual) and I didn't get the next two while we were out of the country (I've subsequently gained copies). So the 1981 one was particularly welcome and I was still relatively too young to realise its quite poor quality (just look at the Brilliant Book or the DWM Yearbooks of the 90s in comparison).

Did the Games Workshop boardgame come out while S18 was on, or in the gap prior to S19? I'm fairly sure I got mine in 1981 but can't remember exactly when.

Other than that, it was just the usual Targets and DWM.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

I never got the Castrovalva one. I didn't know about it until a friend revealed he owned it many years later.

Si xx

I had both Full Circle and Castrovalva. They were both very good but there's 2 pics on the Castrovalva one that were excellent. The Doc and in the console room and a really good one in the forest with a couple of the tribes folk - it was VERY 3D.

Both sets of reels are long since gone though!!!

[Simon R]

Matthew Waterhouse mentions the viewmaster guy coming to the location/studios in his book and says Tom was a bastard to the poor man!

I remember one of my friends having a viewmaster possibly with He-Man or Star Wars slides in it.

[Simon R]

It's nice that there's sort of Season 18 t-shirts, mugs, and bags available now albeit a Season 18 where Tom wore his Season 17 outfit and battled the Daleks and Robots of Death...