

10. Douglas Adams wrote for Doctor Who in the Seventies

Douglas Adams, the person who wrote one of the funniest books ever written, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, wrote a serial called The Pirate Planet. He also helped write a lot of the script for Destiny of the Daleks (1979). He is one of the reasons Tom Baker’s Doctor is kinda demented.

9. Matt Smith played the Doctor Who theme song

Just before he became announced to the world as the 11th Doctor Matt Smith met the band Orbital before the closed the Glastonbury festival. They started talking and they thought it would be a good idea if he joined them playing the theme song.

8. The Doctor really is a doctor

In The Moonbase (1967), the Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton) spent some time in a sick bay. When his companion (Anneke Wills) asked him, ‘Listen, are you really a medical doctor?’ he replied, ‘Yes, I think I was once, Polly. I think I took a degree once in Glasgow. 1888 I think’.

7. Michael Jackson almost played the Doctor

In the eighties Paramount Pictures considered making a Doctor Who film starring Michael Jackson as the Doctor. It gets worse: Bill Cosby was the second choice.

6. You can theoretically see all of Doctor Who in a month

It would take you about 22 712 minutes to see all the episodes that were ever televised. That’s 15 days and 18 hours of non-stop watching. Since the show is very old there are 97 episodes missing which would add 39 hours more.

5. Delia Derbyshire gets no royalties for writing the Doctor Who score

The BBC corporation refused to pay Delia Derbyshire, the woman who pretty much wrote all of the theme song, a cut of the royalties. So if you’re thinking someone got rich by writing some weird electronic music, you’re wrong.

4. Peter Capaldi was a huge Doctor Who fan

Peter Capaldi, the 12’th Doctor, was a huge fan of the Doctor when he was 14. So huge in fact that he wrote angry letters to BBC, when they didn’t let him be president of the fan club. The secretary of the producer became kinda mad at him too, since she wrote a letter to the president of the fan club at the time, saying: ‘I think he’s the end and I wish the Daleks or someone would exterminate him.’

3. Tom Baker’s long scarf was an accident

James Acheson, the series costume designer brought several balls of yarn to a knitter. She was supposed to select one and make a normal scarf, but instead she took all of the balls and knit one giant scarf. Acheson decided to keep it and it became iconic.

2. Ridley Scott almost designed the Daleks

Ridley Scott, the director of Alien, Gladiator and Blade Runner used to work at the BBC in the sixties. He was assigned the episode that introduced the Daleks, but before he could do it, he left for Grenada to train as a director. Raymond Cusick did the job instead and got a whopping £100 and a Blue Peter badge for his effort.

1. The Doctor voice doesn’t always regenerate

When Christopher Eccleston regenerated into David Tennant, they kept the same voice actor, David Manet, to play them both in France, where the show is dubbed.

Bonus The fifth doctor’s (Peter Davison) daughter starred as the 10th doctor’s (David Tennant) daughter and married him

Bear with me, this is a little complicated. Remember when the tenth doctor got some of his DNA stolen and received a daughter called Genny? After the episode ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ David Tennant and Georgia Moffett got married. Which means that she was the Doctor’s daughter in the series, his wife in real life and…since her real life father is Peter Davison, the fifth Doctor, she is also the Doctor’s daughter in real life. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff.

Disclaimer: Since we’re a T-shirt blog we also included a Doctor Who related tee after each thing you might’ve not know about the TV show.