Day 1991: Ian Slitheen

Friday

Once upon a time, the BBC were being VERY stupid. They had lots and lots of recordings of old television stories but not very much space left in their basement. A bit like my Daddies, if my Daddies HAD a basement. And these recordings were on mouldy old CELLULOID FILM and not nice shiny DVDs.

So, the silly old BBC decided that the best place to keep all their old telly was IN A BONFIRE.

ARRRRGH!

As a result of this EXTREME DAFTITUDE, rather a lot of old television stories are not available for DVD release. Which is a shame and a nuisance.

My Daddies' favourite series, DOCTOR WHO, was one of the ones that was scheduled to be thrown on the fire – and indeed rather a lot of it actually was, which is why there are 108 missing episodes to this day.


But it was nearly very much worse.

Fortunately, on the VERY DAY that the BBC was stoking up the boiler in order to incinerate some of the Doctor's first series of adventures, including his very first encounter with the Daleks, Mr Ian Slitheen was in the basement and he said "Noooooooooooooooo!" and stopped them.

So it is important to remember that he did something very good and very important in saving a lot of Doctor Who adventures so that we can enjoy them on shiny disc today!


On the other fluffy foot…

He does have a teeny-tiny bit of a GIGANTIC EGO and tends to fall out with people.

In the later bit of the 1980s he spent a lot of his time being VERY HORRID about Mr John Tardis-Tuner who was the producer of Doctor Who back in those days, because they had fallen out. Mr Slitheen always tells everyone that he was very involved in making Doctor Who and helped Mr Tardis-Tuner with all the details of CONTINUITY. This was because Mr Slitheen had all of the old Doctor Who tapes from the BBC basement and NOT because he was the ultimate SAD FANBOY at all!

Mr Slitheen is also one of the people to take the credit (or BLAME) for writing ATTACK OF THE CYBERMEN. This story is supposed to sort out all the continuity errors in the history of the Cybermen but quite by accident is ACTUALLY the very most complicated to understand Doctor Who story of all time unless you have taken a DEGREE in CYBERMEN HISTORY from the University of SAD.

For a very long while, he kept himself out of the way of Doctor Who fandom, which was probably very good for his blood pressure as Doctor Who fans are some of the sanest and nicest people on the Internet – by which I mean they are ONLY dribblingly psychotic eight-and-a-half times out of ten.

But the advent of the return of the series to television tempted Mr Slitheen back into the world of fandom and since then he has been writing posts on the Outpost Gallifrey forums and even preparing EXTRA FEATURES for the Doctor Who DVDs!

Tragically, the CURSE of SLITHEEN has struck again, and he has FALLEN OUT with some people. Namely all the people who make Doctor Who DVDs and all the people on Outpost Gallifrey.

Still, never one to slink off head bowed when he can shout rude words from the sidelines, er, still make a contribution, he has set up HIS OWN forum so that he can still make known his views to his small bunch of sycophants friends and helpmates.

I have been reading it for a while today.



I now feel the need to climb into the washing machine for a while.

Please set me to the right wash speed, Daddy.