During season 14s most Gothic, horrific period, Mary Whitehouse, self confessed "clean up tv" campaigner, decided that Dr. Who was too horrific for its teatime audience, particulary the scene of the Dr. drowning at the end of episode three of The Deadly Assassin.
Whitehouse had been campaigning since the early sixties about the state of British Television and led conferences and talks with BBC Director General Sir Hugh-Carlton Greene about cleaning up its screens. One of her particular gripes was Alf Garnett in hit comedy Til Death Us Do Part whose every other word was "bloody", something not heard on primetime tv at that period of the sixties.
She also turned her attention to music, in 1972 she picked up on Chuck Berry's My Ding A Ling, with its chorus "I want you to play with my ding a ling" implying (in her mind) mutual masturbation. Again in 1976 she wantd a ban on Donna Summer's Love To Love You Baby, in which she stated that Summer sounded as though she was having an orgasm in the studio. Needless to say, after her many complaints these records soared into the charts as did audience figures rocket once she drew attention to "the dirtiest programmes in the world"
So, what do we think of Mary Whitehouse? Was she justified in her complaints? or was she just a meddling, interfering battleaxe as she drew swords with the BBC and government alike?