GOODY GOODY PROP PROP?

It’s been a bit of a break but I’m back to look at some more recycled Classic Doctor Who props. This post actually started life as something else but has turned into a line of enquiry that might keep me busy for a while. 

Before Xmas I posted an update confirming I’d found one of the Unearthly Statues in an episode of The Goodies. The Goodies is a show I watch for fun so it wasn’t long before I’d found another one! That got me thinking that I have probably missed lots of Doctor Who props hiding in this 1970s BBC comedy. So the original idea of this post was to check as many episodes of the Cricklewood three as I could to see what I could find. 

THE TIME MONSTER, 1972 / CUNNING STUNTS, 1975

A couple of quick ones to start. As I said I have found another of the statues from An Unearthly Child, The Time Monster and a whole bunch of other stories. You can read all about them here. This now makes 14 different shows or episodes that feature these statues. Cunning Stunts was an episode from The Goodies 5th season.

TERROR OF THE AUTONS, 1971 / THE GOODIES RULE - O.K.?, 1975

Another favourite of the Prop Hunt blog, the spiral staircase, can be found in The Goodies 1975 Xmas special - The Goodies Rule - O.K.? You can read all about the staircase here

THE HORNS OF NIMON, 1979 / U-FRIEND OR UFO?, 1980

The Nimon’s laboratory features this large black console desk that looks like a set of decks for some kind of space DJ. The prop in The Goodies is very very similar but features a thick red trim. The pop out box shapes in the middle are also slightly different. The Nimon prop is divided into two boxes and The Goodies only one. The Horns of Nimon also features a second black console. It’s very similar but has two semi circular controls rather than a full circle. So it’s possible the two props I’ve listed here are not the same. Instead they might be from a small group of similar props, possibly created for another show?

2001 & A BIT, 1976

I’m taking a leaf out of the brilliant Tim Dickinson’s book here. His fabulous website Pink For Your Actual Pterodactyl charts the use of commercially available furniture in Doctor Who. In the background of this screen grab from The Goodies you can see a futuristic looking Terrazza sofa from Ubald Klug. As you can see below this sofa has proper sci-fi pedigree. 

THE ROBOTS OF DEATH, 1977

THE WAY BACK, 1978

The Way Back is, of course, the opening episode of Blake’s 7. The Terrazza sofa also appears in the episodes Gambit and Stardrive.

INVASION OF THE MOON CREATURES, 1973

This episode from the 4th season sees Graeme create a space programme to send Rabbits to the Moon. To make The Goodies set a little more like Cape Canaveral they filled it full of random scientific equipment. Including the two large blue computers you can see here. As you can see below these have cropped up in a few Doctor Who stories.

THE GREEN DEATH, 1973

THE TIME WARRIOR, 1974

DESTINY OF THE DALEKS, 1979

As I was looking into these computers I suddenly found out they were not BBC props at all because….

UFO, 1970-71

UFO was created for ITV by Gerry Anderson’s Century 21 Television Productions. It’s about a secret organisation called SHADO who operate as Earth’s defence against UFOs. SHADO’s HQ features several of the blue computers amongst its array of exciting scientific gear. One thing to notice is that in UFO these computers are all numbered. The number appearing in a blue rectangle near the top left of its face. The numbers seemed to have been scrubbed for some of their Doctor Who appearances but are visible in The Green Death as well as The Goodies episode. UFO was to prove to be the final show produced by Century 21. When they closed their doors a significant number of props and models ended up at the BBC. So comes as no suprise that…

INVASION OF THE MOON CREATURES, 1973

… the same episode that featured the blue computers also features these two, long, white control panels with coloured buttons, lights, and switches.

UFO, 1970-71

These long white control panels are used throughout UFO. Here you can see a display of five of these units in SHADOs Moonbase. The units also appear in other locations, sometimes with same configuration, i.e one mounted above another, as in The Goodies. The sequence of lights on these units are always consistent but vary in colour. Unfortunately I have not been able to find an exact colour match to The Goodies examples. But in all other respects they are identical to the UFO props so can only have come from there.

THE GREEN DEATH, 1973

Here we have another pair of the UFO control panels. The top panel has a different sequence of switches to the ones we have so far seen but again this pattern is consistent with examples from UFO. However, like The Goodies, I have not yet located an exact colour match to ones used in UFO.

DESTINY OF THE DALEKS, 1979

These UFO units appear in the Movellan ship. 

So I started by looking for props in The Goodies and ended up finding lots of items from another show altogether. It’s very clear that Doctor Who made extensive use of the material they obtained from Century 21 throughout the seventies and beyond. And this feels like a good avenue of inquiry for future prop hunts. So stay tuned for updates on this topic and thanks for reading.