Now, I knew that the Daleks would make a return visit to the blog.
After all, since their first appearance in 1963 on series one of Dr Who they have cropped up regularly, dispensing a mix of menace, destruction, but always culminating with their defeat, until the next time.
On one level, how could anyone take a voice in a tin box seriously, when their answer to almost everything was “Exterminate”?
But of course, that is to ignore that Derek the Dalek was part of a television programe for children and that voice was far more scary, if you were just seven and cowering behind an arm chair.
Moreover, they the result of a nuclear war and that was even scarier, given just how close the world had come to a nuclear confrontation in the October of 1962, when the superpowers had squared up to each other over Cuba.
Over the years that aspect has slipped away and instead they are just another group of villains, but ones which have reached deep into British culture.
And the BBC along with toy companies were quick to fasten on to the potential and so here from 1964 are two adverts for Daleks.
They belong to Chris who told me “I still have these…. I got the Plastic Dalek in The Isle of Wight in Carisbrooke Woolworths in 1964 on school journey with school”.
Chris was still in primary school and the Daleks who had burst on to our TV screens in the December, were seen off in the February of the following year.
All of which just left a few months for those toy companies to design, manufacture and start selling the models.
Pictures; Dalek adverts, 1964, courtesy of Chris Weeks
On one level, how could anyone take a voice in a tin box seriously, when their answer to almost everything was “Exterminate”?
But of course, that is to ignore that Derek the Dalek was part of a television programe for children and that voice was far more scary, if you were just seven and cowering behind an arm chair.
Moreover, they the result of a nuclear war and that was even scarier, given just how close the world had come to a nuclear confrontation in the October of 1962, when the superpowers had squared up to each other over Cuba.
They belong to Chris who told me “I still have these…. I got the Plastic Dalek in The Isle of Wight in Carisbrooke Woolworths in 1964 on school journey with school”.
Chris was still in primary school and the Daleks who had burst on to our TV screens in the December, were seen off in the February of the following year.
All of which just left a few months for those toy companies to design, manufacture and start selling the models.
Pictures; Dalek adverts, 1964, courtesy of Chris Weeks
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