{"id":1560,"date":"2016-03-29T21:20:08","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T21:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=1560"},"modified":"2016-04-02T23:27:57","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T23:27:57","slug":"dr-who-versus-the-solarnauts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/dr-who-versus-the-solarnauts\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr Who versus the Solarnauts"},"content":{"rendered":"

How many people remember hiding behind the furniture when Dr Who was on? For those folk, and for the brave young things of today,\u00a0 stay with us as we connect Dr Who, Star Trek, Hammer Horror, Basil Brush<\/em> and the worst space helmet ever. Yes, our mid-week post is aimed at people who like weird sixties TV and movies.<\/p>\n

The longdogs are busy disembowelling the living room. Django<\/strong> has one chair nearly down to the springs, and Chilli<\/strong> is pulling stuffing out of the sofa, so they won’t be joining us today.<\/p>\n

\"Doctor-Who\"<\/a>
the doctor of our childhood – but we still got measles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After interviewing Dan Starkey<\/strong> of Strax and Carnacki fame last time (the starkey stratagem<\/a>), we had a Dr Who<\/strong> moment, and went back to some of the scary stuff we watched during childhood. And as we’ve already mentioned sofas (fabulous link, eh?), we’ll start with the hiding thing.<\/p>\n

One particular moment of paralysing fear remains with me from the sixties \u2013 watching William Hartnell’s<\/strong> Dr Who. Even I was young back then. The curtains were drawn, and I was crouched at the back of the living room, peering over a cushion at the TV set, because an unseen creature had said something along the lines of \u201cWe are too hideous for you to gaze upon!\u201d<\/p>\n

My innocent little organs immediately supplied a surge of horror which I can still remember. And companion Vicki had screamed, because there were triangular partitions of cloudy glass surrounding her, and you could just see a pair of eyes through them\u2026<\/p>\n

At that age I tried to imagine what was “too hideous to gaze upon”, and did quite well. I was so scared that I didn’t even shout out that it should have been “too hideous upon which to gaze”. They weren’t that awful, of course, but it was a great build-up. In fact, they were Rills, like this fellow:<\/p>\n

\"Rill\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I survived, and in the intervening years, I’ve bought pints for people who looked worse than that. For the inner nerd, the story was Galaxy 4<\/em> (1965), a four parter in which the Doctor and his companions landed on an arid planet where they met the beautiful Drahvins and the hideous Rills. The Rills were friendly, compassionate explorers, and the Drahvins were clone warriors who got what was coming to them.<\/p>\n

\"12760\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Glad that’s been sorted out after all these years.<\/p>\n

And Dr Who leads us on to Peter Cushing<\/strong>. We tripped over an oddity at the weekend, and we love that sort of thing. You will, of course, know that Peter Cushing played Dr Who in the films Doctor Who and the Daleks<\/em> (1965) and Daleks- Invasion Earth<\/em> (1966).<\/p>\n

\"3132261e42c9fe0c4a0a69d2bb8560ad\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A year later, he was Baron Frankenstein in the Hammer Horror film, Frankenstein Created Women <\/em>(1967). A slight mood change in this version, as the film dwells more on psychology than surgery. Frankenstein re-models and re-animates the body of a disfigured young woman, Christina, with predictably unhappy results (Hammer fans may also want to check our recent feature spawn of the ripper: the true story<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Who else was in the film, you ask? Christina was played by Susan Denberg<\/strong>, who you may not know, as she did little acting. She was born Dietlinde Zechner<\/strong> in 1944, and was a Playboy Playmate the same year that Daleks \u2013 Invasion Earth<\/em> came out. But lo and behold, one of her only other roles was in the episode of the original Star Trek<\/em> series, Mudd’s Women<\/em>, in which she played Magda Kovacs.<\/p>\n

\"Frankenstein-Created-Woman-06\"<\/a>
“oh, baron, this is so sudden.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That’s not much of an oddity, you say? Then we unveil for you \u2013 Derek Fowlds<\/strong>. Every greydogtales<\/em> listener will immediately know him as the man who played second dandy in Frankenstein Created Women<\/em>. As Johann, a young blade, he taunts the disfigured Christina \u2013 and pays the ultimate price when Christina is brought back by the Baron.<\/p>\n

As Mr Derek in the Basil Brush<\/em> show on UK TV, Fowlds was beloved of millions, who laughed to his antics as a bemused secretary to a pompous, self-important boss. No, hang on, that was Yes Minister<\/em>. More importantly, in the same year as he starred in Frankenstein Created Woman<\/em>, he made the pilot show for Solarnauts<\/strong>, which is our real oddity (at last).<\/p>\n

\"solarnauts-e1395507806310\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a lovely piece of naff sixties TV which could only have been improved by the addition of some proper decimal places. For some reason Fowlds keeps saying things like \u201cThree over six\u201d<\/em> and \u201cFive over seven\u201d<\/em>, as if he’d been set some fractions to work out while he was reading the script. Nevertheless, it’s 25 minutes of pure sixties fun, including:<\/p>\n