Bing-Bang-a-Bong-Woooo-Hooooo

There’s no new Doctor Who on BBC1 this week, because the Eurovision Song Contest is on, and to make room for it the BBC would rather postpone Doctor Who than their musical talent contest show Any Dream Will Do.

Doctor Who’s relationship with popular music has not always been so unhappy. In the TV Comic Annual 1969 (published, in the manner of British comic annuals, in 1968), the Doctor became the manager of a pop group called the Electrodes. After using his trusty rocket pack to save them from an assassination attempt by their former manager, the Doctor and his grand-children, John and Gillian, accompanied the Electrodes on their world tour. Yes, really.

(Art by John Canning)

I’m not sure which was stranger: the stories TV Comic told about the Doctor, or the fact that every single one of them was approved by the Doctor Who production office at the BBC.