The Spam Museum

Fifteenth Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Meat
Extra special thanks to me for ripping off even MORE of my old material

Serial Q - The Spam Museum -

Episodes:
1. The Spam Museum          3. The Sick
2. The Dimensions of Meat   4. The Final Glaze

The Doctor, Barbara, Ian, and Vicki arrive on a wobbly set that the
inhabitants call Xerox. The inhabitants have long become bored and
having nothing better to do taken to carving their gods, favourite
Australian Television Soap Opera Stars, and anything else they could
think of, including cartoon dogs, out of the spam that seems abundant
and laying around in half open tins everywhere. No one will eat the spam,
and in fact the natives, who call themselves the Morons, consider any
such suggestion highly offensive, if not throughly disgusting. From this
one example, the Doctor judges that the Morons are, in fact, vastly more
intelligent than the people who buy Store Own Brands at Safeway.

The confused regulars walk about the Spam Museum that the Morons have
constructed, and have a fun romp around. The Doctor climbs inside a
Dustbin made of some particularly crusty spam, and hobbles around it in
swearing in Welsh much to the annoyance of everyone.

Meanwhile Ian, Barbara, and Vicki discover perfect spam replicas of
themselves on display in some glass cases. All of them are very upset,
not only because of the spam sculptures' mysterious origins, but also
because they are completely goofy looking - Ian has a nose that
would make the Sphinx jealous, Barbara has gigantic cartoonesque
hands, while Vicki is indistinguishable from her Spammy self and
therefore throughly annoyed.

After dragging the Doctor away from the grips of three spotty
teenage rebels they consult the Doctor who decides not to give any
advice until they sculpt a Spam statue of him. Once it is completed he
tells them that his initial ideas were wrong, the Morons are, in fact,
Morons and they would be better off going to the next planet and
forgetting this whole sordid ordeal.

Before leaving the Doctor hands over the secrets of the universe to
the spotty teens and watches gleefully as they kill the Morons for
making them pose for questionable Spam sculptures over the years. Safe
in the knowledge that the Morons have been defeated he encourages the
teens to help him loot their homes. After much searching he finally
discovers something INTERESTING - A Transdimensional Sony Trinatron
Total Image Screen. A super science invention designed to help voyuers
look in on half-naked women from across the universe in the comfort of
their own home. It also gets free HBO and PlayBoy! The last scene has
the Doctor reflecting that `The future doesn't look too bad after all,
does it?' as he tunes in a female mud wrestling competition from 1986.

Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who & The Spam Museum
                        My Meat, My Friend
                        Meat Sculpting For Beginners

Fluffs - Hartnell seemed confused for most of this story
         While explaining where the spam comes from Hartnell
         has three tries before he gets his line "f*(k all if I know"

         "So, fried are we?  Like so much spam I imagine..mmm
          who's frying baloney my child?"

         "You my dear fellow are a Moron and you aren't very
          bright for one either and more over...where am I anyway?"

Fashion Victims - The Morons all wear huge bell bottoms and ridiculous
                  shoulder pads, quite in keeping with their character.

Goofs -  In episode one Ian says he is still wearing 15th century
         silk panties, where did THIS come from?  When they leave
         the TARDIS the Doctor slams the door so hard the entire
         world wobbles!  How does the Doctor get a subscription
         to "Naughty Space Vixen Monthly" delivered directly to
         the TARDIS?

Technobabble -  "Time, like space, is really big and has an infinite
                 bigness dimension with an infinite amount of spam
                 occupying spam-space" according to Vicki.
                 The Morons are armed with 'Crisco Guns'

Dialogue Disasters -
On the all time dumb lines in Doctor Who history, as said by a Moron:
"How many arms have fallen into Xerox hands?"

DOCTOR: You, the little spotty boy...NO!  Not you!  The OTHER little
        spotty boy!  Yes, you my child...get some Clearasil GOD DAMN!

In the famous scene when the Doctor is strapped down to a chair by
an evil Moron and forced to watch a video about buying real estate -
DOCTOR: Development area?  Hmm??  Looks more like a walrus campsite.

Dialogue Triumphs -

Vicki: We MUST have changed the future..we must have done?
Barbara: Must we, Vicki?  Oh, shut up and eat more spam.

Xerox: But I DON'T LIKE SPAM!
Ian: Well I'll have your spam then!  I love it!  I'm having Spam,
     Spam, Baked Beans, and SPAM!
Moron: We're all out of baked beans.
Ian: Can I have spam instead?
Moron: Ughhhh!

Rumors & Facts -

This story started out as a dream and ended as a nightmare.
It was a story that was destined to be made however, not because
the story was good, or inventive, or insightful but just because
by the time Doctor Who accepted it it had been whored around
in more countries for more television shows than any other in
human history.  The first episode of this story was taken
from a rather promising, but still very awful, script that had
been rejected by such science fiction shows as  The Twilight Zone,
The Outer Limits, One Step Beyond, Science Fiction Theatre,
The Time Travellers, Puppet Theatre, 3rd Rate Kiddies Pantomimes R Us,
and probably most crushingly public access television itself.
The other three episodes were taken from a series of discussions
about going to the lavatory and writing up something as fast as
possible so they could go out to the pub for some more drinks before
lunch time. This was the first story written by Terry Jones, the
famous Monty Python cast member.
It is rumored that drab, wobbly, cheaply painted, low maintained,
incomplete sets can be explained away by the BBC giving this serial
an understandably low budget.  However this serial went over budget!
After research it seems that the majority of the budget did not
go to sets, costuming, actors, or editing, but instead the vast
majority went towards paying Terry Jones' telephone bill, bar tab,
outstanding debts of various natures, and to his lawyer in a court
case charging abuse of funds.