Brain of Morbius

“The Name of the Brain”, “The Shame of Morbius”, “Solony in Space”

“The One with the Pagan-Americans” (The USA), “Brain Monster in Jar Attacks Tokyo” (Japan), “Karn Down! Karn Down!” (Liverpool)

Doctor Who and Sarah Jane discover a brain in a jar and take over an hour and a half to defeat it. Imagine if the brain hadn’t been in a jar – this could’ve been a six parter.

*** - It’s gothic so it must be good.

(Sarah) “I can’t see anything”

(Doctor) “I don’t suppose you want to go for a shower ? You know, alone. Obviously. No one watching or anything…”

"I was born in these pants"

The scene where the Doctor and Morbius battle mentally actually features pictures of people the Doctor met on holiday. Hence everyone grimacing. Boredom alone brought the contest to its conclusion.

To practice for her blind scenes, Lis Sladen took to spending Saturday nights with a blindfold on. Or at least that’s the story she’s stuck with for the last 25 years.

The sisterhood were based on Tom Baker’s real life neighbours.

Had Mr Baker had his way, this story would’ve seen the introduction of the talking cabbage (explained as an earlier experiment of Solon’s)

Ian Levine once ate the whole of part 2 as part of a bet with Terrance Dicks. He would’ve won five pounds but Dicks matched him by eating part 3. Dennis Brent choked on the opening titles of part 4 and had to buy small sherries for everyone.

Philip Madoc is the grandson of popular welsh woman Ruth Madoc but only sees her once a year on her birthday.

This story bears absolutely no resemblance to Frankenstein. Fact. Any similarities are purely coincidental. It is however a direct rip off of an episode of Dad’s Army.

The Tardis prop was stolen by an extra during shooting and had to be replaced by a real police box. The Met were not best pleased and Philip Hinchcliffe spent one night in custody before he was rescued after pretending he had stomach pains and clobbered the guard who came in to help him.

...is that determination is all well and good but when your brain is in a jar it is time to give up.

Si Hunt

"The theme of Story 4K is obviously appropriated from the briefly popular novel "Frankenstein", written by some woman or other. Its theme of building a being from the parts of other beings naturally lead myself and my then inner circle - Wicks, Grantham and Ian Devine - to spend the evening discussion which bits of ourselves we would use to build the ultimate telehistorian.

Wicks nominated Grantham's legs as he said they were "extremely muscular" which must be a technical expression I have not previously been made aware of. The moustache chosen was my own as it is both a splendid moustache and the only one featured within the group. Grantham's hair, my shoulders, Wicks's abdominals, Grantham's cheekbones, my nose, Wicks's ears, Grantham's upper arms, my wrists, Wicks's hands, Grantham's lips and my teeth were all decided on by majority vote.

After some three hours of debate Ian Devine lost his temper. "Colleagues" he said petulantly, "why is it that none of my parts have been chosen to be part of our super-telehistorian?" We gave this point some silent contemplation before replying with as much tact as we could muster. "Because you are a bulbous, flabby and overstuffed individual whose only physical attribute is the likelihood of buoyancy. You came third in the category of hair but that was only because Wicks trusted his head to a sixteen year old in 2001 and has been paying for it ever since." Ian Devine's lower lip wobbled. "But you will be using some of my mental faculties when you come to design the ultimate telehistorian's mind won't you?" We said that we would and added a tactful note that he might want to pop out for a pie and we would send him the minutes of our conversation by second class post."

The "Brain of Morbius" edition of the fanzine "Solon and Thanks for all the Fish" was what the editor called 'a concept zine' in that it was made up entirely of material which had previously been published in other magazines. The only three downsides of this clever and witty approach were (a) he didn't actually tell people the material wasn't new, (b) it made his job so easy that he carried on doing it in future issues and (c) he ran into the boys from The Frame in an alley way and spent an entire bank holiday weekend in hospital.