Escape to Danger

Readers of Target Books in the 1970s will recognise that title as one used by Terrance Dicks in his novelizations of Doctor Who's tv adventures. The Scorchies, a  recent Big Finish release returned to the Barry Letts era. Here, Jo Grant is forced to perform as a guest on a tv puppet show- the twist ,of course, being that these puppets are alien invaders. It's a rather laboured tribute to pre-school ITV shows like Pipkins and Paperplay, as well as Oliver Postgate's gentle films for the BBC. But its strongest influence is the anarchic vaudeville of The Muppet Show. (anachronstically, a series whose popularity peaked in '76-77, long after Jo's departure).

I found the disc a little wearisome: Katy Manning plays plucky, loyal but dim Jo as a feeble, infantilised creature. However, her co-star, the legendary Melvyn Hayes, brings some charm to the Scorchies and their maddeningly memorable songs- especially "Jo is Making a Thing".

Last time, we looked at the dawning of Target Books and today, we'll mark the debut and the impact of Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. The novelization of his first adventure was published in March 1975, barely two months after it was originally screened. The new Doctor had made a simultaneous debut on tv and in TV Comic with the grim "Death Flower", a story which drew upon Quatermass and The Day of the Triffids.

At the same time that the Giant Robot appeared in "all good bookshops",  the Doctor was encountering the Daleks in TV Comic and Shazar, another renegadeTime Lord ; one who had inspired the legend of the Genie of the Lamp.

But the next of my "ur-texts" was neither a book nor a comic: it was a breakfast cereal promotion of press-out cardboard figures.

Of all the Who monsters, the triad of Quark, White Robot and Yeti were the ones I most desired.

The back of the Weetabix packet was given over to these trippy, prog-rock landscapes: proscenium arch theatre backdrops for cardboard time travelling. The thrill and disappointment of this promotion was eating  boxes of cereal to obtain the three figures inside and perhaps discovering the dreaded doublers. Finally getting my hands on the trio of nigh-mythical Troughton monsters is a vivid memory of my last spring term at primary school.

I selected cards from a similar promotion for Asterix the Gaul in 1976 and also a few of the Superman set in 1978- deathless DC characters of the late 70s including the Master Summoner and the Brain of the Resource Raiders.  We'll look at the second set of Who cards from 77 next time, however.

The final totemic text was a Xmas present in December 1975: the first Doctor Who Monster Book. This collection of Target artwork and b/w photos was written by the indispensible Terrance Dicks and chronicled the Doctor's travels up until Febuary '76. It marks a period when Doctor Who was not teetering on the brink of  permanent cancellation as it would in the mid-80s. Nor was it a relic, ripe for the mockery of critics (like Clive James in the late 90s) This was mainstream, mass entertainment, a couple of years away from being discussed as a cultural phenomenon on a  high-brow arts programme.

I particularly treasured  it because it contained a photograph from The Web of Fear and one of the original, rather frumpy Tardis crew. The possibility of actually seeing Sixties Who seemed so incredible, I just didn't imagine it. In any case, boggling Baker was taking us into all- new dimensions of teatime terror...

Coming soon: England's Dreaming

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