Wild Rumours

[Andrew Parker]

I got back into Dr Who at Uni where there was a privately run video shop with about a good 70-80 dr videos to rent, and a mate of mine who also liked it who had a couple of the videos that the shop didn't. Anyway, the three years went by I went through the catalouge and got back into dr who in quite a big way. I reminded me of the audio cassettes I had of Power, Macra Terror and Evil which I loved when I was very young, and then I found the audio cds and started collecting those and now I love the 60's dr who even if in times they're a little slow in place (but hey tv audiences were different then - they had an attention span.) Anyway in my last year at uni I knew a guy at the video shop who had also got into it and he was a film buff and he told me of two rumours about the missing episodes.

The first is that Bob Monkhouse made or stole copies from the BBC back in the day when he worked there which might account for the bad will between them until his death.

The second is their is a warehouse in TExas with loads od film cannistyers rumoured to have dr who amoung them which is a long running case of ownership dispute so can't be opened.

I guess they are probably just wild rumous but I'm interested to know if anyone knows anything about them and how they came to circulate? Cheers, Andy.

[Ash Stewart]

Was there bad will between the Beeb and Bob...? Anyway, Bob's collections of film and VT is now with the BFI, so should there be anything of interest in there it will come to light when it is fully catalogued. IIRC it was said that it was highly unlikely there would be any DW in the collection, though.

The warehouse in Texas rumour sounds like a variation on the warehouse in Canada rumour. How would missing DW episodes have got to Texas? None of the missing episodes were ever sold to the US, so chances are even if there is a warehouse in Texas, it is highly unlikely for there to be any DW in it.

[Daniel E]

"I reminded me of the audio cassettes I had of Power, Macra Terror and Evil which I loved when I was very young"

Were these homemade off air ? All 108 episodes exist as off-air audio recordings, however some are not the best of quality. If you made these yourself off-air and still have them, perhaps off them to the Dr. Who Restoration Team ?

It all helps.......

[Ash Stewart]

Chances are he means the BBC Audio releases of these stories from the early 90s, which were of a much lower quality than the versions released on CD more recently. There were four releases - these three plus Tomb.

[Andrew Parker]

Yeah they were the BBC releases back in 1990 or 91. I had Tomb of the Cybermen as well, but then it came out on video (Im was only 10 at the time so I didn't know about missing episodes) so I didn't listwen tot hat one much, more the others. I never got Fury of the Deep until I was at uni, and found it cheap online. Tom Baker's narration was great even if some of the detail was glossed over. I didn't think those rumours were true but I just wanted to know a bit of history about them that's all, thanks Ash for throwing some light on them.