Influence Of The Doctor...

[MacNimon]

This simple question on another thread yesterday got me thinking...

...is that a Zygon on the 2000AD cover?

Although it's probably not meant to be for licensing reasons, given the cover date the Zygons would have been reasonably fresh in peoples minds and this character was probably designed with the idea of making people ask this very question. At the very least, it can't be denied that the Zygons were an influence on what the artist drew on this cover.

It got me thinking, though...everyone usually talks about things which have influenced Doctor Who, such as Gothic horror films, etc. But turning things round the other way, how much influence has Doctor Who had on the media and advertising over the past 50 years? How many things have you seen or heard in any media which have had no real connection to the series itself but which maybe make you laugh and think that a Doctor Who fan is involved behind the scenes with a little in-joke? TV/radio sketches which maybe poke fun at the series without mentioning it by name, just assuming that the audience knows the original subject matter? Comic strips/ newspaper cartoons which possibly lampoon the series? Adverts which may involve actors/characters/situations from the series but which obviously have no official connection to the series?

In a nutshell, anything Doctor Who-related which isn't officially connected to the series itself. So no Target novelisations, Virgin Books, BBC annuals, Dalek comic strips, Big Finish audios etc...these are simply licensed products. But what else has Doctor Who actually influenced (and advertised) over the years?

[MacNimon]

The first thing that springs to mind for me is the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, in which Bill & Ted go time-travelling with companions they pick up along the way in a phone box...which isn't bigger on the inside than the outside. That in itself is the real selling point of the movie, imo!

[MacNimon]

Sky Ray ice lollies...

[Stuart Wallis]

A friend and writing partner did note the irony of telling a Doctor Who fan he'd named his daughter Sophie Louise... And after writing a Quatermass sendup which contained the line "Haven't we run down this corridor before?", and a radio doctor called Sylvester Proctor, who spoke with a nasal Scottish accent, and had an Australian assistant called Nurse Janet. What was that adventure where they investigated a mine which contained a Welsh delicacy? Ah yes! the one with the faggotts! One day I'll get round to writing the one with the robot seabird - The Tenth Gannet.

Never mind me, there's the police box that appeared in Chelmsford 123; the Daleks in Gordon The Gopher; the Lenny Henry and French and Saunders sketches of course; a Grumbleweeds radio sketch called Dr. Nobbert Juste, in which our hero takes on killer dustbins yelling Spiff-li-cate!...

[Dirk Gently]

The obvious answer is that any thing (houses, cars etc) that appears to be roomier on the inside than it looks from the outside is said to be TARDIS like.

Homes under the Hammer uses this quite regularly & remember that VW Polo advert with Doctors 3,4 & 5?

[Alex]

In the American comedy series Community two of the characters are obsessed with a British show entitled Inspector Spacetime, we're even shown a few clips from it and it's a fairly ongoing joke which is a referenced a good few times in the series.

[Jon Masters]

DW as a programme has been referenced quite a few times in Big Bang Theory ( my favourite being Sheldon saying that he knows how to deal with someone's death because he'd already gone through 11 Doctors )

Anything in BBC light infotainment like local news or the One Show that involves looking back at the past will have the TARDIS dematerialisation noise and fade in- fade out effect, and sometimes even the prop.

[Stuart Wallis]

When David Troughton's son Jim made his England cricket debut, Channel 4's Saturday morning cricket show stood him in front of a police box and a telly showing Tomb of the Cybermen, put a long scarf round his neck and asked him if he got fed up with being asked about his granddad. For some reason which escapes me he said yes.

[Andrew Curnow]

Curiously, on the Beeb's Entertainment round-up page for 29th July, the day's live updates are signed off (at 16:29) with the tagline "It's the end... but the moment has been prepared for".