The Armadillo Fucker

One Hundred and Fifth Entry in the Charles Daniels Unauthorized
Programme Guide O' Chicken

Serial 5F - The Armadillo Fucker -
Special Thanks to Israel Brown for the title

   The final ingredient.  The time of fulfillment is coming, will
the day be won by Colonel Sanders, known also as the White Guardian?
Or will all we hold dear come to an end?  I don't know about you,
but I'm placing my money on apocalypse baby!

   Episode one begins with a propaganda soap opera, complete with a
hero and heroin. The hero is going off down the road in a desperate
attempt to buy and bring home Kentucky Fried Chicken for his wife.
The brave wife wishes him well as he is most likely to meet up with
the horrors of the infamous Armadillo Fucker on his trip.  This soap
opera plays on the TV screens of the planet Atrios, a planet whose
people have been forced to live underground due to the pervert running
free on the surface.

    In the TARDIS, The Doctor and Romana wonder about Atrios.  Why are
it's streets so desolate?  Why isn't anyone willing to talk to them?
Does it have something to do with Time Lords not bathing but once a
century?  And more importantly why are all of the planet's KFCs
nearly abandoned?

    The manager of KFC is desperate to win a war against the pervert
that is molesting all of his customers before they can reach his
establishment.  Life has been unbareable on Atrios since this sad
demented fiend arrived in the Helical Scan Galaxy. The Manager doesn't
seem to care that the hospital wards 7 through 10 are filled with
his employees who foolishly tried to make it to work.  Princess
Astra does and wants to go visit the hospital under the pretense of
of firing them for being molested and late, but really worrying for
the young man she loves, Dante Hicks. Astra concedes that she needs
the Manager's permission to leave as her shift doesn't end until 6pm.
The horrid conditions have made the royal family so poor that her work
at KFC is all that supports the monarchy.

  Astra argues that she wants this futile resistance to end via
peace and negiotiation with the secretive pervert who holds their world
hostage. The Manager reminds her it is his duty to impose blind
authority and her duty to clean the grease pit.

  The Doctor and Romana enter the KFC looking for help and in time
honored tradition they are blamed for random murders.  The Manager
blames them for the deadly molestations of the employees. In answer
to the Manager's question of what he does, the Doctor offers that he
squawks like a chicken while giving children history lectures. Romana
notes that it is not only very educational but delightfully beneficial
because they need the eggs. Before the Manager can chastise them for
telling such a ridiculous story, the Doctor leaps forward and whispers
to the Manager that he is looking for a lavatory.  Left in shock, all
the Manager can manage is to meekly point the way.

   As the Doctor strides boldly to the toilet, in another hallway, a
door behind Astra opens up and a featureless monster-man begins to
pull Astra into the mop-filled janitor closet he came from.

  Upon returning from the loo the Doctor and Romana start a battle
of wits against the Manager in an attempt to escape.  During this
psuedo-intellectual babble, which the two time lords are such masters
of, K-9 shows up and does something.  The scene is well scripted
and brilliant I'm sure..but I don't really remember what happens
and my video is in storage so....  The Doctor and Romana make a
daring escape.  It is really impressive and some of the best Who
moments ever happen.  If you want more detail, go out and buy a REAL
programme guide, instead of relying on the cheating memories of
ancient and sad fan boys.  Hell these days you don't even have to
GO OUT and buy. Just minimize this damn screen and log on to Amazon
for christsakes!  Luxury!

   Anyway, after taking my medication, I.m ready to continue
normally...well somewhat normally.  Where were we?  Oh yes...

   After the daring escape, not thoroughly detailed here, we see
the evil man-monster creature doing some rather nasty things to
Astra.  The man-monster pulls her clothes entirely off and puts them
into an ornate chinese cabinet.  They soon enter this cabinet
themselves and a door closes over the cabinet. From then on we
just hear wild grunting and yippee cowboy noises. Inside the
cabinet the monster-man has his way with the Princess.  See!!
No problem recalling that scene whatsoever!!!

   Now somehow the Doctor and Romana track down the monster-man
to the cabinet.  I'm sure it was brilliant logical detection that
lead them to him.  Upon arriving the man-monster tells the Doctor that
he is actually Terry Jones and therefore MUST be the last and final
ingredient to the Key of Chicken.  Terry Jones insists that he at
last has been allowed to have a vital role in the universe of Doctor
Who and demands to be made into an herb or spice immediately.
The Doctor stabs a hopeful Terry Jones with the locator, and nothing
happens.  Terry Jones is shocked and insists that the Doctor must
be doing something wrong or getting revenge by some form of trickery.
However against his highest hopes, Terry Jones does not become powder.

   Terry Jones hisses and orders the Doctor put into a cabinet where
the Doctor sits comfortably on the comfy chair until round about tea
time.  Trapped in the comfy chair, the Doctor starts lying to
questions from Terry Jones. With each lie, Terry hits him over the
head with a rubber chicken and the pain grows.  Eventually Terry
Jones tires however and retreats back to the comfort of Princess
Astra.

    Astra has been conveniently chained to a wall.  Terry
is curious about what final ingredient he MUST represent. He assumes
that Astra, being a princess who worked at KFC, must have had the
secret passed down to her.  Astra insists that she doesn't know or
else she would have blackmailed the hell of out KFC ages ago to keep
her mouth shut.  "Do you think I'd work at that place all those years
if I could have just threatened them for millions at any time?"

  The Doctor, incredibly bored and tied to a chair, begins to make
silly clucking noises and makes loud whirring noises as if in a car
race to pass the time.  The guards placed over him find this so
incredibly annoying that they flee from the room, abandoning him.
At first this seems like a master-stroke of a plan toward his escape
and freedom, however, the Doctor continues clucking and whirring
totally oblivious of his opportunity for freedom.  After several
more moments of strange noises the Doctor notices a man who has rushed
into the room and repeatedly started screaming "SHUT UP YOU ANNOYING
SON OF A BITCH!!!!!"  To which he calmly replies "Who, me?"

  This other man is no other than a Time Lord named Draxiuklodusvvhaa
(luckily they call him "Drax" at home).  Drax recognizes the Doctor at
once, calling him Tosser, Wanker, or Mother Fucker or You Heartless
Son Of A Bitch, or all four at various times. The Doctor takes some
time to recall Drax.  "Drax....Umm..Drax...I SAY!!!  Didn't I steal
your final exam paper in Temporal Theory to make sure that *I* past
while you failed?  Oh and there was that time I broke into your house
with my old room mate the Bastard and we ruined all the furniture, and
OF COURSE, HOW COULD I forget that I had sex with all of your sisters
in all of their regenerations and then uploaded it all to various
newsgroups without their permission!!"

  To which a stunned Drax replies "That was you?!!?  You asshole!"
and then proceeds to beat the Doctor senseless before untying him
from the chair.  As the discussion continues we discover that Drax is
from the Doctor's class of '92. They did in fact take temporal theory
together and Drax DID fail, and as a result of the Doctor's cheating
the Doctor got the doctorate that Drax deserved!  The Doctor smiles
and is happy to see an old friend.  Unsurprisingly, Drax isn't as
enthusiastic.  Due to the Doctor's dishonesty and cheating, Drax went
into prostitution -- anything, anywhere, anytime and has been all over
the galaxy.

   The Doctor informs Drax that Terry Jones has Astra and Romana
as his prisoners.  Before they set off to rescue them the Doctor
also mentions the enigma of The Key to Chicken.  All of the ingredients
so far have included at least one member of Monty Python.  With Terry
Jones being the last remaining Python logically he should be the last
ingredient.  While pondering this point any hope of mounting a rescue
attempt is lost as the Doctor and Drax discuss which Pythons are their
favorites and reciting the Parrot Sketch from a sketchy memory.  The
breakthrough however comes when Drax mentions that his favorite Python
has always been Carol Cleveland, the oft unsung female member of the
troop that was in a vast majority of the episodes and in all of the
films.  The Doctor had forgotten entirely about Carol Cleveland's
involvement with Monty Python and exclaims -
"My god!!!  I've been staring at the answer the ENTIRE TIME!!!!"
"What?"
"THE SCRIPT!!!  I've been staring at it drunkenly trying to remember
my lines, but...Carol Cleveland is playing Princess Astra!"

  Luckily at that very second Terry Jones leaves Astra and Romana
in an easily accessible cavern completely unguarded, prompting Romana
to say, "Well the Doctor should be around any time to rescue us, now
that we have been left totally unguarded in an easily accessible
location."

   Astra doesn't seem to care about being rescued. She tells Romana
she is the 6th illegitmate child of the 6th lesbian princess of the
6th Royal House of Pancakes, the triple sixes thus meaning she must be
the anti-christ.  What she doesn't realise is that the final ingredient
to the key of chicken, is the delicious taste of pure evil.
Astra's time of becoming, of transcendence, and metamorphosis is at
hand.  The Doctor pokes her with the locator and she turns into a
salt shaker filled with deliciously pure evil.  The last ingredient
collected, the Doctor and Romana run like hell.

  In the safety of the TARDIS the Doctor starts to realize, "We have
the power to do anything we'd like -- absolute power over every
particle of poultry in the universe...all poultry that has ever
existed or ever will exist... As from this moment."

  The Doctor looks at Romana and moves toward her menacingly,
"Do you want chicken, Romana?!" Romana backs away terrified.
"CAUSE IF YOU WANT CHICKEN I CAN MAKE YOU CHICKEN!!!!!!!!"

 "Because I can cook anything! As of this moment there is no such
thing as free range..." his eyes roll up into the back
of his head and he talks in a demented voice, "...in the entire
universe there's only me and my poultry... because I POSSESS THE KEY
TO CHICKEN!"

 Romana asks if he's a total fucking loon or what. He answers in his
normal voice, "Well, of course I'm a total fucking loon...but I'm
feeling much better!"  The Doctor then quickly covers up his bout
of astounding egomania by saying he was just showing Romana what
would happen if he really went nuts -- like say every other Saturday
Night after drinking 32 cans of cider and playing baby oil twister
with K-9.

  Just then the White Guardian seems to appear but it is really
the Black Guardian with a dead duck on his head.  The disguise
would have been more convincing if the Black Guardian hadn't shown
up in his dark robe with the words "White Guardian" written in white
paint across the tummy.  Of course the dead duck was also a bit of
a giveaway.  Also the Black Guardian speaks in an evil overbearing
English accent whereas the White Guardian is a Southern Gentlemen.
In fact this makes no damn sense and it's sad that Romana was
apparently fooled and only the Doctor saw through this disguise.

  The Black Guardian yells, "Doctor, you shall die for this!"  But then
everyone in the universe threatens to destroy the Doctor. The Black
Guardian should recieve special mention however for going to the
extreme of threathening to disperse every part of his being to the
furtherest reaches of all eternity.  It's a death threat with some
poetic beauty which we don't usually see from the likes of Daleks
and Cybermen.  The Doctor actually seems incredibly keen on the
prospect as well but regrets his busy schedule, "...you know how it is,
places to get arrested in, people to beat, things to have sex with."

   The Doctor tells Romana to dematerialize just as he dumps the
ingredients out of the value bucket of time. The herbs and spices
disperse all over the floor, making a terrible mess. Scattered into
a nearby rug and all over the shiny TARDIS it seems.  What this
accomplishes, or what the Doctor had intended to happen, no one
can quite figure out.

   In TARDIS, The Doctor and Romana sneeze uncontrollably with the
spices in the air. "You see I think of everything." Quips the Doctor.
The Doctor then casually mentions to Romana he doesn't know where
they are going, and he hopes they just drift on for a few eons, run
out of fuel, and have to park for a long time, and get to know each
other a lot better.  Romana doesn't seem to like this invitation to
park and screams "You have no sense of responsibility whatsoever,
you're capricious, self opinionated, irrational, arrogant, and I mean
*YOU* Tom!"

    Through all of this abuse, Tom Baker remains in character and
explains that if he knew their destinations, the Black Guardian
would too. Hence the prop crew have designed a new device called a
randomizer which is fitted into the guidance system and operates on a
very scientific principal called "So Drunk You Can't See Straight To
Pilot The Damn Thing" or SDYCSSTPTDT for short.

  After explaining this the Doctor smiles, laughs a big toothy
grin, slips on the dirty floor and knocks himself out.


Book(s)/Other Related - Doctor Who Controls Us All - Eat More Chicken
                        Doctor Mysterio No Moleste Los Gatos!!!
                        Doctor Who Finger-Lickin' Dead (Canada Only)

Fluffs - Tom Baker's acting seemed to kick the value bucket for most
         of this story

Fashion Victims - Sadly the KFC employees on Atrios have to wear
                  exactly the same uniform as their brethen on
                  earth endure in shame

Goofs - For budgetary reasons the TARDIS' central column is
        replaced with a waste paper basket.
        K-9 is constantly running over the ends of Tom Baker's
        scarf, which might explain why the gentle pat the Doctor
        was suppose to affectionately give K-9 in episode 3, instead
        looks eeriely like the Doctor kicking K-9 so hard that one
        of his ears falls off.
        The Doctor says he's never seen K-9 whir about uncontrollably
        for five minutes before bursting into flames - so obviously
        he's forgotten about the time he taught the entire population
        of Ribald to do this as a bit of a fun party game.

Technobabble - "The randomizer will disorient the internal logic
                of the navigation system.  The quartz matrix will
                become distablised!"
                "And, what does that do?"
                "We'll get lost! YAY!"

Links and References -
The Doctor seems to be rambling on about his adventures in Troy...
distressingly it is later revealed that he was instead rambling
on about his adventures *WITH* Troy!  Troy being a submissive
homosexual youth that the Doctor met in Glasgow.  (While studying
under Lister prehaps?)

Untelevised Misadventures -
The Doctor mentions various misadventures when he took this
Troy fellow to Ancient Greece.  Apparently it was one hell of
a party!

Dialogue Disasters -

Hero: Men out there - young men - are dying for it.

Doctor: But you've killed all of those people!
Terry: Don't worry, those weren't people - those were KFC employees!

Dialogue Triumphs -

Dante Hicks being carted away after being molested: "I'm not supposed
to even be here today!"

Drax: Blimey Doctor!  It's a dog! Do you have sex with dogs, then?
K9: Your sodomy is noted.

How can I resist mentioning again, my favorite line:
"Do you want chicken, Romana?!  CAUSE IF YOU WANT CHICKEN I CAN MAKE
YOU CHICKEN!!!!!!!!"

Dialogue Oddities -

(ORIGINAL SCRIPT)
The Doctor: The Key To Chicken.  With it, comes great responsibility.

(ON SCREEN)
Tom Baker: The Key To Chicken...I wonder if I could sniff this and
           get high?

Viewers' Quotes -

"The Doctor defames the holy name of God by suggesting that a mere
trinket could give him power over the life and death of the creation
itself.  I am deeply disturbed.  I want a trinket like that...then
those petty bastards would be burning in hell as I set things the
way they ought to be!!"  - Father James O' Maley (1979)

"I cant believe it.  Ten years ago I was a member of most successful
comedic troop in British history..and these days I just molest cats
and armadillos!"  - Terry Jones (1979)

"Were there any armadillos in this story?  We never see any.  So how
do we know Terry Jones is REALLY molesting armadillos?  Is this some
subtle hint that Kentucky Fried Chicken is actually nothing more than
crispy fried armadillo chunks?"  - Sad Fanboy Magazine (March, 1983)

"The Armadillo Fucker?  No, I never saw that one."  - Ed Mannon (2001)

[Ed Note: Sorry, that last bit belonged in "Non-Viewer's Quotes".
Won't happen again!]

Psychotic Nostalgia -
"I am Armadillo Boy!!!  TOUCH ME SATAN!! TOUCH ME!!!! HAHAHAHAH!
Oh god, that was one damn good story!  Wanna see my scar?"

Tom Baker Speaks!
"The Key To Chicken complete - THE POWER WAS *MINE* All MINE!!
For I am THE DOCTOR!  BOW BEFORE ME!!! I *NEED* Your Energy to feed
my EVIL SOUL!......Did I frighten you listener?  Don't worry, the
good Doctor hasn't gone bad.  And why would I need your soul?  You
bought this record, so I already have your six pounds ninety-nine!"
         - Tom Baker from the record "The Key To Chicken" (1979)

"Yes, the Key to Chicken, quite an adventure.  You know what I
remember most about that story was that the BBC never paid me for it.
They had a habit of not paying actors in those days.  Once I stumbled
over to complain, but they said getting paid wasn't a necessity to my
contract. That's when I learned to read those contracts more carefully,
and even more importantly, that's when I learned how to forge them.
I took care of myself after this mess.  You should have seen the
contract I rewrote for those Prime Computer ads -- I had those
suckers by the balls!"
                                     - Tom Baker exclusive

Rumors & Facts -

   Fans demand a lot of The Armadillo Fucker (I just wanted to watch).
This production had to be a good story in its own right, but it also
needed to offer the ultimate chicken reciepe which was sought after in
a neverending quest (well neverending until now...umm..yeah).  The
Key To Chicken was at the time seen as a largely successful experiment
that had by this point created a high degree of expectation from
viewers and a high probability of legal action if Doctor Who actually
GAVE AWAY the true final ingredient to Colonel Sander's Fried Chicken!
Does this story rise up to the challenges placed upon it?
Well, no and no.

   The story is forgettable enough in itself, except for that scene
where Carol Cleveland is ravished graphically (a scene which has long
worn off my copy), and it totally fails to tie up any loose ends and
leaves the over-arching plot showing it's arse and strangely
unresolved. As with other six-parters of this era, the story can be
slept through in the middle without missing anything important.

  The story limps on, like a three-legged dog after a car accident,
until the appearance of the man-monster Terry Jones, agent of durex
condoms. As soon as he appears things start to look up.  Actor, Terry
Jones, was not originally slated to play Terry Jones.  Originally
Terry Gilliam was to play Terry Jones as all of Python's Terrys are
esstentially interchangable.  However the Powder of Droll was the
previous story and it already starred Gilliam and his strange animated
squid monster. Reluctantly the BBC chose Terry Jones to play the evil
Terry Jones. At first the plan was that Jones would not play himself
but the character which had secretly become the cast and crew's
favorite yet unseen on television villian - Cat Molester Jones.  The
script was specially written to show Terry Jones' character molesting
various types of Tabbies as he interrogated his victims.
Unfortunately the character belonged to Chris Butcher who believed
that the character had potential for his own television series.
Unable to use any scenes of cat molestation for fear of legal reprisal,
the script was hastily changed to the first animal that came to mind --
believe it or not, armadillos!  This caused new problems as no
armadillos could be secured in Wales.  Eventually the idea of
armadillo molestation on screen was dropped, but not before the
character name had stuck. Believe it or not, Terry Jones keeps the
character totally believable and convinces everyone that he WOULD in
fact molest armadillos if only there were a few handy.  The only let-
down is his use of rubber chickens to control others' minds. It is
never explained how this works and it's just silly, silly, silly!

   Unfortunately, the resolution to the story arch is a painful cop
out - the Doctor simply dumps the ingredients all over the floor.
Does this thwart the Guardian's plan? This all seems far too sadly
lame and makes a mockery of all the damn time and misspent Saturday
nights I had to endure to get to this conclusion!! I could have been
down at the disco doing strange drugs and even stranger women!  The
damn thoughtless opportunities of youth, flushed down the toilet!

   The last scenes could be interpreted as suggesting that Colonel
Sanders is really not only the pure and White Guardian but also
a total wanking sonofbitch known predictably as the BLACK Guardian.
Would that make Colonel Sanders the Monochrome Guardian?  So many
questions left unanswered.  Could it be that the Doctor has been
inadvertently working for the Black Guardian all along?  If so why
doesn't the Doctor just hand it over and plunge the whole universe
into eternal chaos -- the Doctor travelling around in a heartless
void of an eternity, horrid nightmares stalking his every action --
season 17 would have totally rocked!!!

 Oh well, this is the time for the Season 16 wrap up.  Where I reflect
on the good and try to gloss over the bad as much as possible.  Season
16 was a bold experiment for the time - an attempt to move Doctor Who
bravely into a new arena of story telling with complex plot-archs and
a definite focus.  What speaks to the success or failure of this
daring attempt?  That fact that at the end of it all - they ran away
with their tails between their legs and ran screaming toward the
drunken random time piloting that had guided the series all along.
I wouldn't say it was a total failure - but then, I lie sometimes.