Getting a [brief] mention on Big Finish's podcast, guess I can cross that off my Doctor Who fandom bucket-list...

BLOT: (13 Jan 2011 - 08:51:57 PM)

Getting a [brief] mention on Big Finish's podcast, guess I can cross that off my Doctor Who fandom bucket-list...

Let me start by saying that I do not actually have a Doctor Who fandom bucket-list. That would be crazy. Plus, if I did, it would probably be only to build a time machine, go back to the 70s, and play one of the baddies who pushes Tom Baker off a fake cliff. It would be just like just like Primer, but rather than screwing around with time for small-time gains and to confuse the hell out of friends, I'd end up in a Liverpool pub, drinking a pint.

However, if I had a bucket-list involving Doctor Who in any way, I would probably say getting mentioned on Big Finish's podcast would be somewhere on the list. Which actually happened, albeit briefly. You can hear it on their January 11, 2011 podcast (download link is toward the bottom of the description blurb). Now, the description says "So if earnest, in-depth podcasting is what you're after, please avoid this [particular] podcast at all costs," and that's true. Big Finish's podcast is often anarchic and laid back at the best of times. In this case it is just 18 minutes of settling "the crisp debate".

The crisp debate came about because they do the podcasts at their lunch time, or at least at some sort of break, which means they are often eating something. No doubt, 90% of the foodstuffs is practically inaudible, but when Nick Briggs (the voice of the Daleks, Cybermen, and other assorted beasties in new-Who, by the way) would chew his crisps it would be noticable. Some fans complained, and somewhere in December he finally asked: crisps or no? I responded. Except when I went to send the e-mail, I realized that I had written "chips", not crisps. In the US, we call what they call crisps chips (as in potato), and what they call chips we call fries (as in french). Because I have an odd habit of tweaking my mistakes and then talking about the mistakes that could have been there (like if I say cock instead of clock, I make sure to point out that I originally said cock...it's a quirk), I pointed out that I would have caused confusion if I had said that I was perfectly fine with them eating chips.

For those only in it for me, and could not care less about crisps and what-have-you, I get my first mention at about 8:03 (m:s). Notice they get immediately distracted and it appears I am going to be left hanging in the void. The horror! Eventually, after my soul was crushed (actually, I was giggling because it seems to be appropriate considering the anarchy of the show), I was rewarded for not dashing off in tears because they return to me briefly at 10:24. And then they get to tsk at Americans eating fish with fries instead of fish and chips. How about that, the voice of Daleks tsking at fries with fish?* It is an odd world.

Oh, for those not in the know, Big Finish does a wide range of stuff, but is probably (most probably) best known for the Doctor Who line of audioplays and "spoken books" (whatever you call it when someone "reads" the book but you have another voice actor doing some dialogue). Their Eighth Doctor series are not only BB7 broadcast (which puts them into as close to being canon as the non-TV materials can be), but frankly some of my favorite Who adventures. I've been meaning to talk them up some more so I need to get to that.

* Mmm...delicious catfish and french fries...with hushpuppies.

LABEL(s): Doctor Who

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: January 2011