I don't remember the exact date, but I do remember the place. It was at my Grandmother's house - obviously some kind of holiday, since that was when we usually wound up over there. I'd hidden myself away in the den, since that was where the TV set was. The conversation in the living room had turned to boring adult stuff like recent news stories and whose car was in need of what repairs. It was the safest of times to slip away towards the only room in the house with an operating TV - unfortunately it was already on. My brother had beat me to to it, and he had the dumbest show on I'd ever seen.
It was only later - much later - that I would come to understand that what my pre-pubescent eyes were focused on was an episode of The Seeds Of Doom, starring Tom Baker. It was all a jumble, and I couldn't completely comprehend it. I suppose that was partially out of annoyance at having been beaten to the set, and partially out of the fact that I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on, but I found it really disjointed, and completely awful.
I wanted to watch my cartoons. What was this crap?
And then it was over. The end credits were rolling. FINALLY! I made my move to switch channels, only to be rebuffed.
It wasn't over. As I watched, the opening credits for a second episode started rolling.
As I left the room in disgust, my parting thought was "What a waste of a perfectly good opening title sequence."
It didn't end there, of course. But it wouldn't be until a warm summertime somewhere in the very early-1980's that Doctor Who would again enter my life, and in exactly the same manner. We had one TV set at that time. We'd just gotten our first color unit, when the 12-inch Black and White portable we'd been making due with finally decided to spit a shower of sparks out of it's top, and die a firey death in the middle of an episode of Marine Boy.
So we got the color unit, which still sits here among the various pieces of bric-a-brac in my collection, right between the theater-stage lamp I never wound up having the guts to hang from the ceiling, and a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit overflowing with my Dr. Who collection. (I haven't had the heart to get rid of the old set, even though the picture has become almost unwatchably bright, and the casing has become decidely battered over the course of the years. I think it's final resting place is somehow suitable, considering the change it made in my life.)
It was upon the glowing phosphor of that TV's screen, that I finally met The Doctor.
I was annoyed, and dismayed that warm afternoon, with the Air Conditioning out, and the backyard pool occupied by my parents, to discover that the dark and cool palce I considered my private lair was being occupied by my brother, who was again preparing to watch another episode of that horrid show. It was the same every weekend. After taking the set away from me, no matter what I was watching, he'd then go on to camp out down there, watching that program, completely tying up a television set that by all rights should have been mine for the watching. I had so much I had to see! Black and white monster movies on Channel 29! Badly dubbed Kung-Fu on channel 17! Creature Double Feature on channel 48! My weekends revolved around a pastiche of aged and ancient science fiction ranging from the original War of the Worlds, to Earh Versus The Flying Saucers. I watched along, reveling in the flickering images of Donovon's Brain, and It Came From Outer Space. The Saucer men Invaded, giant chickens ran amok, and radioactivity brought Godzilla to the surface to beat back another rubber-suited invader.
For a young kid who'd just moved into a new neighborhood which had quickly tunred out to be an incredibly unfriendly environment, this weekend lineup was a goldmine. I wouldn't realise it at the time, but this lineup was almost exactly the kind of afternoon that early moviegoers would partake of, watching film after film as they beat the heat.
And then, at 5:00, it all came to a screeching halt. Doctor Who was coming on.
Time to give up the TV.
It went like that for most of the summer, with my saturday being interrupted for this...program, that my only previous encounter with had assured me was completely unwatchable. And then the most horrible thing happened. Doctor Who was pushed back to 4:00, cutting halfway into the Kung-Fu feature, and there was no way to convince my brother to miss half his show so I wouldn't have to miss half of mine. We actually had fantastic, long fights over these kinds of situations. I still remember when Disney chose to launch a TV series based on Herbie, The Love Bug and then scheduled it exactly opposte my brother's weekly fix of The Greatest American Hero. It was oncassions such as those that I would be treated to a running commentary on what a piece of crap I was watching, and why didn't I have the sense to change the channel and watch something GOOD? Every event in the show was sneered at, every aspect ripped apart as "predictable, pathetic, dumb..." whatever word he found most interesting that day. Commercial breaks were another opportunity for him to whine that he should at least be able to see what was going on on his channel, since nobody actually watched commercials. It was his way of ensuring that even if I won, and managed to get my show on the TV screen, there was no way in hell I'd be able to watch it, let alone enjoy it. For someone who was my elder by age, he had a remarkable ability to be infantile.
On this occassion, the Kung-Fu movie I had been watching was thankfully not that great, and rather than put up with an hour of dealing with my brother's whining and carrying on like an emotional cripple, I gave in and let him take over the set. It was too damned hot to get into a screaming fight, and it was obvious that my parents were likely to simply send both of us to our rooms if I went out back to try and wring some kind of judgement out of them on the situation.
So we stood there in the kitchen, cooking Ellio's pizzas in the oven - Mom's idea of an easy way to feed us with no fuss on Saturdays. Not that we complained, mind you. Pizza is Pizza.
And I stood there, waiting for the pizza to cook and I got more and more annoyed about the whole situation - and it finally came to a boil. So I asked my brother WHY he was compelled to watch this show every single week? What was so great about it? What was so important that he had to interrupt my movie watching every single week for it!? Why should I be compelled to give up the TV, when I had it first and was well into watching something. What was this stupid show of his?
"You've never seen it, have you?"
I assured him that I had, that one time at Grandmom's and had found it barely watchable. It was junk.
"Watch an episode." He told me. "You'll see what it's all about."
At that time in history, the station that was broadcasting them was our own Channel 12, out of Philadelphia - and they spliced the half-hour episodes together into 2-hour "films" so you got an entire story in one sitting, with no gaps. And the story that was playing that weekend was The Robots Of Death, a story I have since purchased the commercial video of, since until recently nobody in our area has been showing the series.
I suppose it was a combination of things that kept me glued to the set as I crunched my way through an entire pizza - wanting to prove to my brother that he was wrong, and even if I payed attention, it was still crap - which gave way to an interest in wondering what the solution to the mystery was - and finally an understanding of the situation.
And it hit me, all at once what I was seeing. It wasn't so much a light going on as it was a soft tap on the shoulder and a hearty handshake. I guess that the stoy was edited into a 2-hour movie helped - but what I got was that this was exactly the same kind of si-fi I had been watching all day.
Only, it would never be over... next week, it would be on again, with a different story. The wasn't some one-shot where the aliens got barbecued at the end and never returned to wreak havoc. It was a contiuing series of sequel after sequel after sequel. A new movie every week! Not even Star Wars could claim that! They waited years to bring their sequel out!
And that was it, the addiction had taken hold.
I didn't complain when it was time to change over the next week. My brother shot me a "told ya so." I think I told him to stuff it.
Not for a good long time would I even begin to scratch the surface of all that Doctor Who had to offer. It wasn't until Tom Baker fell to his death from a radio antenna and changed into a weird young man named Peter Davison that the first flecks of the show's history would begin to enter my worldview. I never even knew about Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton or William Hartnell. That all came later when the new episodes ran out and channel 12 started into repeats - and it was like rediscovering the show each time. So great was my fandom that when my parents bought a new sectional sofa two months later, the boxes were quickly dragged down into the basement and assembled into a working (at least to my mind) TADIS console, with LED's, sound effects, and a central rotor (made out of a terreriam) with a central light that ACTUALLY blinked on and off.
So now, twenty years on, the addiction has more than taken hold, and I've found myself not only enjoying the show, but inspired by it. Everything I do carries the taint of the program - from my artwork to subtle mannerisms I picked up. It feels right somehow that the largest section of my website should be given over to a shrine of sorts to those memories, and also t feelsgood tohave a place to showcase my attempts to construct aspects of the show in a way that won't dissolve when the spring rains back up the drains and the basement floods with water.
And as for who I've become?
I'm a 30-ish, commercial artist. Professionally trained, with a broad ange of skills and abillities ranging from toy design, to package design, to advertising and web design. I've worked for celebrities, and small businesses - had great triumphs and great losses. Pitched TV shows, and written a book. I'm a wildly-creative, multitalented dynamo.
And of course, I'm also available for freelance jobs - especially freelance jobs with a Doctor Who theme. It's always been my aspiration to someday do something official, and with the guys who did The Restoration Of The Daleks recently being hired by Dr. Who Monthly to do a bit of art, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someday soon they'll come calling on me as well.
And if there's anyone out there with a more official interest in my work, I should note that my agent can be contacted at the following address:
Laurens R. Schwartz
Attorney and Literary, Film, and Art representitive
5 East 22nd St, Suite 15D New York, NY 10010-5315
Tel: (212) 228-2614
FAX: (212) 228-6093
These days, my brother hardly watches the show anymore. He's become addicted to Babylon Five, and although he still considers it a good piece of work, he hasn't delved into the depths of fannish behavior the way I have. The shelving unit next to the TV is running over with my Doctor Who collection, cobbled together one piece at a time over the years, as various pieces of merchandise fell into my path. The Technical Manual, the complete run of Marvel's comic book (including all four Marvel Premiere issues), videos in both pre-recorded, and home-recorded versions, Novels of Target, Pinnacle, Virgin and BBC publication - CD's, a casette of the theme played by MANKIND (wth hologram sleeve!) and even a TARDIS key on a chain. A TARDIS Mug shares space with a Dapol Dalek, while one shelf below, a plastic Sylvester McCoy watches over a toy Police Box, accompanied by companions K9 and Ace.
As shows go, this was one of a kind. A genre-inspiring romp across reality. And I'm indebted to my brother for introducing me to it, the lousy rat bastard. >:) (just kidding! don't tell mom!)
Cheers.