{"id":41422,"date":"2023-12-09T19:37:23","date_gmt":"2023-12-09T18:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1941697"},"modified":"2023-12-09T19:53:58","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T18:53:58","slug":"doctor-who-the-giggle-true-story-was-stooky-bill-real","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/doctor-who-the-giggle-true-story-was-stooky-bill-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who: The Giggle true story \u2013 was Stooky Bill real?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toymaker’s scheme is (loosely) rooted in real events. <\/p>

By Morgan Jeffery\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Saturday, 09 December 2023 at 18:37 PM<\/p>

\n\n

Believe it or not, fantastical Doctor Who<\/a> episode The Giggle<\/a> actually has some basis in real history \u2013 well, up to a point\u2026<\/p>\n

The third and last of the show\u2019s 60th anniversary specials opens in Soho, 1925, where Charles Banerjee (played by Charlie de Melo) is unwittingly stepping inside the domain of the Toymaker<\/a> (Neil Patrick Harris).<\/p>\n

The visitor is looking for a test subject and selects Stooky Bill, a puppet, despite the Toymaker\u2019s protestations that he\u2019s separating Bill from his \u2018wife\u2019 Stooky Sue and their \u2018babies\u2019.<\/p>\n

Banerjee, we discover, is in the employ of one John Logie Baird (John Mackay, who played the same role in Russell T Davies\u2019 ITV drama Nolly<\/a>), who is on the cusp of inventing television. Using the head of the dummy, the Scottish engineer is successful in his efforts to<\/span>\u00a0transmit a televised\u00a0image between rooms in his laboratory at 22 Frith Street, London.<\/p>\n

Of course, little does Baird suspect that his work has been corrupted by the Toymaker \u2013 oblivious, Baird is hailed as a genius and pioneer, with the end results of the Toymaker\u2019s work only making themselves apparent almost a century later, in 2023.<\/p>\n

\"Stooky\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
Stooky Bill and John Logie Baird\u2019s television appartus<\/span><\/figcaption> Science & Society Picture Library\/SSPL\/Getty Images<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Though the real Baird didn\u2019t source his test subject from an omnipotent, extra-dimensional being \u2013 at least as far as we know \u2013 Stooky Bill did in fact exist\u2026<\/p>\n

Baird first devised a basic television system in 1924 \u2013 it used a spinning disk with 30 lenses to send moving pictures as electrical signals. The lenses picked up light from an object, and a device changed this into an electrical signal sent by radio waves. At the receiving end, a similar spinning disk with a light recreated the image of the object.<\/p>\n

Baird\u2019s system was not able to televise human faces, because they had inadequate contrast, so he used the head of a ventriloquist\u2019s dummy \u2013 nicknamed \u201cStooky Bill\u201d \u2013 whose brightly painted face had greater contrast. The lights illuminating the subject also generated so much heat that Baird couldn\u2019t use a human for testing \u2013 as seen in The Giggle, Stooky Bill\u2019s painted face eventually became cracked by the heat.<\/p>\n

The puppet\u2019s unusual nickname came from Scots vernacular, with \u201cstooky\u201d or \u201cstookie\u201d being another word for plaster-cast and also being used to refer to a foolish person.<\/p>\n

\"Scottish\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>
John Logie Baird demonstrating the television, to members of the Royal Institution and the technical press using ventriloquists\u2019 dolls.<\/span><\/figcaption> Hulton-Deutsch Collection\/Corbis via Getty Images<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Doctor Who portrays Bill as having a \u2018family\u2019, but there is no evidence that Stooky Sue and the babies ever existed in reality \u2013 although Baird did use another male dummy, named \u201cJames\u201d, in his experiments.<\/p>\n

John Logie Baird began giving public demonstrations of television in 1925 and 1926, even demonstrating the world\u2019s first colour transmission in 1928. A year later, in 1929, his company Baird Television Development Company Ltd. made the first television programmes officially transmitted by the BBC.<\/p>\n

Baird died, aged 57, on 14th June 1946 \u2013 a blue plaque marking his first demonstration of television sits at 22 Frith Street, Westminster, London.<\/p>

Doctor Who: The Giggle and p<\/strong>revious episodes are available on BBC iPlayer and\u00a0<\/strong>on BritBox \u2013 you can sign up for a\u00a07-day free trial here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Check out more of our\u00a0Sci-Fi<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to find out what\u2019s on.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only \u00a310 \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n

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