The Failed Dalek Rivals: Mechonoid Designs Rejected and Deleted Robots from The Chase
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 พ.ย. 2024
- Become a Patron or support us on Ko-Fi
👉 / dalek6388
👉 ko-fi.com/dale...
Advertising enquiries: communicate@dalek6388.co.uk
-
Arne Niklas Jansson Designs
www.androidart...
Librarian-Bot
www.deviantart...
-
In this special episode, we look at another of Terry Nation's creations, which he hoped would catch on like the Daleks. The Mechonoids (often spelt Mechanoids) were introduced in The Chase and made several appearances in the comics, but they didn't look how Terry Nation wanted, and their concept had to be changed to avoid copyright problems. Here's the full story!
"The box-shaped robot advanced down the white, featureless hallway." It's like I'm there!
...and entered a white walled room with flashing lights LOL
Dr. Who - "Fascinating . . . . utterly fascinating. A robot cleaner."
The man who pilots and often repairs a dimensionally transcendental time machine is enthralled with a cleaning robot. I wonder how he'd react to a Roomba...
You could imagine the Doctor being fascinated by a roomba, they seem to take big machinery as read, but gets utterly encapsulated by the mundane
- "encapsulated by the mundane"... I like that, and it does fit the Doctor's personality. He's absorbed by things not necessarily "mundane", but elegantly simple. Unique iterations of otherwise ubiquitous objects...
The artwork in Dalekworld have cleaning robots
@@edwardcatt2399 "That is the dematerializing control, and that over yonder is the horizontal hold; up there is the scanner, those are the doors, and that is a chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry, dear boy!"
I think Hartnells Doctor would definitely just clutch his chest and keel over
I think an overlooked element of why the Mechonoids failed was the sound design choice they actually went with for the voices. They were almost impossible to understand, especially if there was any other noise!
It wasn’t the best choice no. But I quite like it somehow.
@@Dalek6388 It's somewhat irritating to listen to IMHO.
“Cusick then designed it with flat surfaces”
....and that’s revenge for the millions nation made off his design! Well played ray
HAHA! :)
"..and the Mechonoids were, ultimately, balls."
* chuckle *
@Roderick antifemnasty HUGE balls infact.
@@Crrrow Huge balls of steel
One Chumbley survived into 1968 when it was dissected and became the dome of the Emperor Dalek in Evil of the Daleks! Strange but true...
I saw the words "deep fried" In this and I'm determined to find it
"Nation wanted something elegant to offset the hard line panels of the daleks.....Ray Cusick then designed it with flat surfaces"
The research that goes into these shows is amazing.
Shame all the 4:3 clips are cropped & zoomed for widescreen.
Thank you Peter!
Not to mention, the execellent bone dry humour
The mechanoids original design looks so cool, id love to see them return and look similar to that, slick and silver design.
It was an interesting look for sure! ;)
Problem is they are kind of too reminiscent to the dalek design in this case, well the original design although I would love to see them like this
@@snakedaemonart676 It would complement the Dalek design - a bog standard pepperpot and a fancy pepper grinder.
@@zacmumblethunder7466 Salt Shaker and Pepperpot
@@highpath4776 I went to a restaurant yesterday and they had salt grinders in this shape.
I wonder if a Roomba can be programed to randomly scream, "Exterminaaaaaaaate!". My cats are starting to not fear it.
In the 1967 Bulldog Drummond film "Deadlier than the male", the lead character Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond has a robotic vacuum cleaner like a more angular Roomba.
Michael Reeves screaming roomba then just have it say exterminaaaaaaaaate
Omg I'm so happy this video exists, I love Mechanoids, lot more than most and really wanna see more of them, in the show, in the fan base and so on
The Mechanoids are a great concept and a good (if fiddley) design, but those voices, though…
Glad you like it!
Go and read Second Empire, by Mechmaster. They feature quite a bit in there.
@@samuelxavier2473 More so than Second Empire, they’re actually the main antagonists in the prequel comic ‘Trapped in Amber’ that was made a couple years after the main comic was finished.
@@TheNickofTime Yep, I read it over at PD. Damn good it was, too.
Such an impressive and fascinating series of documentaries. i was particularly amazed by the animation and CGI work in this one. So professional. Well done.
Thank you! Also looking forward to your own next work! :)
I'm surprised there's no mention of the big finish story juggernauts
The mechonoids are renamed and reengineered by davros
I enjoyed the Big Finish story. It really added depth to the mechanoids that wasn't present in The Chase, and explained why they were so effective at fighting Daleks.
Thanks for the kind words! I actually wrote that script. :-)
@@WildDieWoodard Congratulations. Great work. :-)
@@WildDieWoodard great work indeed!
I too was surprised this was omitted.
Poor Steven, being held by the Mechonoids for so long.
Lol painful
Poor Steven having to deal with those dudes, from The Savages!
Peter Purvus always said he wanted The Doctor to return to that planet, and find-out he messed the whole thing-up!
When I was a nipper, a couple of the early Doctor Who Weeklies did The Chase as an archive and naturally pictures of the Mechonoids looking damn sexy in their Ealing appearance dominated the pages. I fell in love with those shapes there and then. Their debut was one of the first 'out of time' Doctor Who stories I ever did see - a slightly fuzzy pirate video back in the day - and my love increased. I think it was Dennis Spooner who in an interview for Fantasy Empire declared Terry Nation was disappointed that Cusick's designs were too big and thus they never returned to Doctor Who and he never made the big Dalek bucks a second time round. Well, I don't think Ray Cusick minded terribly much considering how much he made first time round.
Verity Lambert was a damn genius.
I'm so glad they brought the Mechanoids back in Daleks!
This video became unexpectedly circular for me too... I was obsessed with the Mechonoids after I saw a photo of one of them in an old Dr Who magazine as a young kid - the same magazine [including a "How To Build Your Own Dalek" feature] which was mentioned in one of the other recent 'Dalek 63-88' episodes!
The Big Finish production The Juggernauts, ft #6, Davros and the Mechonoids is one of my favourite audio stories ever. Thanks for the amazing video!
IMO it doesnt have to always be dalek related, these amazingly details history's you always pull out are what I love.. where the stuff was made, how they stored it, trouble they had on set, Brilliant stuff.
Thank you Kai!
I agree. All trivia from the production of that era of Dr Who is fascinating to me.
0:57 "This is a fake"... presumably in felt tip. Nice touch. :)
Incidentally the other design of mechonoid in the thumbnail I'm sure is in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy TV series where the mice are sitting in the holes. It might just be coincidence.
Legless Tom Baker "I've hardly touched a drop" LOL. Brilliant!
😂
Honestly, they should bring back the Mechonoids to encounter The Daleks again
It would be great especially with a new modern design!
@@Dalek6388 The Daleks had a war with them in the TV21 comic strips (which was cut short) plus the second (1960's) Dalek Annual depicted an alternate version of said war.
Happy Times and Places.
It’ll be nice to see the new series Daleks have an army of robots that can give them trouble. Doomsday would have been very different if they had joined the conflict.
Your wish is the BBC's desire....see the CGI daleks trailer....they are back!!!!
another brilliantly put together documentary!
when the time eventually comes for complete season 60's box sets, i will be genuinely shocked if you aren't approached to have these contracted for use officially, the detail research and production itself is flawless
Thank you! :)
When you mentioned cleaning robots with bad design capabilities, I then head-cannoned straight to Paradise Towers... Oh, the joys of being a Doctor Who fan. Love your channel!
To be honest, Nation pretty much got the design he wanted, just not the sales of merchandise!
I have the Big Finish CD of 'The Masters of Luxor' and I've always enjoyed and felt that it's a shame that it never got made for TV.
Don't get me wrong I am still a HUGE 1960's Dalek fan (not only from the TV show, but also the ones from the Movies, Books and Comics) and I wouldn't want to go back in time and arrange a 'swap' of sorts, but I think that it may have been nice for the BBC to dust off the scripts, update them a little (not for modern times but rather to incorporate other Doctor's and Companion teams into the existing story) and produce a TV version, let's say around the time that they were looking for the 'next Daleks'.
I know that this may be a somewhat strange idea for me to have, but it's my view anyways. As it stands there are quite a few unmade stories that I would like to have seen made into TV stories, or perhaps made into episodes for the BBC Wales series?
At least however we have Big Finish....
Happy Times and Places.
Soooo glad the Mechonoids R back for the Dalek animated series on the Dr Who YT channel! The Daleks vs Mechonoids fight was the best part of The Chase.
The Chase is one of my favourite Dr stories and I love the Mechonoids. I feel there potential was enormous. Imagine the Mechonoids expanded from their planet? Imagine there were many more planets they we sent to prepare for humanity before the war? Imagine they developed their own empire as a result? When Character Options released the Mechanoid set I bought six sets. Now I plan to produce a Dalek/Mechonoid war photo comic. Long live the Mechonoids.
Fantastic episode. I love i can share and watch these with my husband with 11 years between us he grew up with hartnell and i grew up with pertwee and baker just nice to have some time together thank you.
Glad to hear you are enjoying them Nicole! 😁
I really love the longer videos, I still find these so interesting. Tbh watching this makes me wanna make an animation closer to the Second Empire series on Dark Raven Productions
We enjoy making them and are glad you like them!
Only 4 minutes on the screen, yet I remember every detail. Can’t believe it was 1965. Great video.
Thank you!
If I ever had the opportunity to write a Doctor Who episode, I'd make it a Dalek vs. Mechonoid war story that a pacifistic planet gets caught in the middle of.
I feel like Mechanus would be the pacifist planet.
So, basically the TV21 story with Robot Agent 2-K?
If you want to look at an interesting use of the Mechanoids, I would suggest second empire: trapped in amber. I would also recommend the main comic in general, as it’s an interesting take on the Daleks in general
I really like the original design of the mechanoids. Hope we get to see these designs pop up somewhere in future Doctor Who productions.
Wait You worked on The DVD Files! I used to get them all the time when I was a kid! Seriously you're awesome great video.
Gav did yes. And loads of work on many official titles
I just don't know how these guys do it! Another brilliant fact filled documentary and a credit to you both. Brilliant job!!
Thank you again Tim! 🙂
An amazing video, unsurprisingly, The mechanoids were always one of my favourite, under used and under appreciated monsters.
Thank you! Glad you liked it!
You know what. I actually have one of those, I don't know if it's screen used or not, I never knew what it was until I saw this video.
during the 50th special in the shed on gallifrey, there are 2 odd bits of scaffolding that looks like two halves of a Mechonoid without any panels behind the war doctor as he chooses if he should push the red button.
These videos only seem to come up in my suggestions when I'm stoned as hell, but every time I watch one I keep coming to the conclusion that Terry Nation was maybe, perhaps, on some level, kind of a tit and absolutely frustrating to work with
I mean, just look at the terms he set Russell T about havid the Darleks show up at least once a season and how Russ, Moff and Gatisis gave up trying to give them a good reason to be in an episode (COUGH COUGH) The pilot in season 10.
Incredible amount of work went into making this film and those props, I remember 1965, but not those Mecinoids.
13:35 a bit ahead of their time?
I type as my roomba putters around the 2nd floor.
Absolutely excellent! You've done it again. Full of interesting detail and I loved it!
I love these documentaries, fantastic work. I was at that Dimensions convention at Stockton on Tees. It really was a beautiful prop they had there.
Thank you Brian! Toby did a great job on that replica for sure
I think a good story would be that The Daleks killed all of The Mechonoid's creators but enough of the bots survived and rebuilt best they could. Later, once they rebuilt enough & had the numbers them went to war with The Daleks. Problem is that the Daleks are the Daleks... so yeah.
Nation's idea for the Mechonoid voice sounds rather cool and a little creepy, but I doubt that it would have been very easy to listen to most TV sets in 1965.
Happy Times and Places
Brilliant! Let's hope Russell Minton is watching these and gets you to do some documentarys for the collection blurays. Ive been binge reading your website lately after getting a piece of dalek 7. The amount of detail and history you've found is truley amazing and a fascinating read.
Thank you! We also both own a bit of Dalek Seven too! :)
I hope the Mechonoids return to the series in the future
Would be great with a modern design!
@@Dalek6388 I wonder what what happened in this episode with the mechanoids and the Daleks, possibly another scuffle
Wow can't believe they only got four minutes of screen-time over the whole story.
Ah! I know Tony! A fantastic builder and restorer!
He is a very nice guy! He brought me my Dalek when I bought it.
@@Dalek6388 He built the eye, arm and gun for my Dalek when I was a kid. You can Identify them if you look at his builds in your footage with my Dalek on my Channel. I remember as a kid he had the antenna of the mechonoid on his work bench and told me it was a secret and I mustn't tell anyone, which I kept, haha!
You'll be cropping out the Big Finish ad when the offer expires?
It was made perfectly to crop out 😊
Yep!
That original mechonoid design is great!
My favourite thing about Shawcraft is it’s literally 3-4 minutes walk away from the building that was later to be the Junior Gazette in Press Gang and, later still, destroyed and turned into a car park.
I visited Lime Grove Studios just before it was demolished in the early 90s! It's now houses. I could hardly believe that this was where Dr. Who and the Shawcraft Daleks first appeared almost 30 years earlier! I heard that tge new Daleks were trundling around the car park!
I think I'm going to have to become a patron when I'm paid in a few weeks time, your content is so professionally produced and absolutely fascinating, I thought I had a near comprehensive understanding of classic Who props but I've never been happier to be wrong. Absolutely wonderful videos!
Thank you! We'd love to have you there!
Wow! Great stuff. Hartnell & Troughton would be impressed if they could see your work in 2020!
Thank you Thomas!
That letter about getting rid of props at the Ealing Studios store is interesting - just imagine they'd said "Yeah, we won't be using the Daleks again"!!
The BBC have done some daft things but could they have been that daft?! Hmmm well.... ;)
Easiest to stack the mechanoids tops into bottoms etc 6 sections high !?
I used to have the TV 21 45 featuring an episode from that adventure. On one side you had the audio from the episode, and on the other the same but with one character's dialogue missing, and you had to say it. You'd hear the Mechonoid humm through a door and then -
It's honestly hilarious how much better your 2011 figure is than the original one. Old licensed toys really were a whole other world.
@2:54 That's an interesting take. As a small boy, I always imagined this living, breathing beast that had evolved out of metal... mercury for blood... this one having long been dead and immobile. That always stuck as it is such an alien and surreal concept... living, breathing metal things that weren't robots, but something that had actually evolved.
Well worth the wait for this new material about the Daleks and related material.
Thank you! They do take time to research and create but we are glad they are worth the wait!
An unexpected but welcomed subject. Excellent video, bravo
Thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed!
Little did you know season 13 has the mechanoids in it (The official doctor who page on twitter just introduced them)
Another brilliant video. How about a feature on the 'Looney Tunes back in action' Daleks. And where are they now...?
Possibly if we can find any details out. But so far none has cropped up!
@@Dalek6388 Technically, it is the 3rd big screen outing for them! 😉
Steve Martin apparently asked for them to appear, perhaps the Daleks biggest Hollywood fan?
As built looks something like Telstar Communications Satelite. Was Sparky's piano voice copyrighted, similar would be used for Metal Mickey in the future.
Not only were the Mechonoids expensive to produce, the actors inside the casings found them difficult to steer.
I have read reprints of the 1960s Dalek comic stories (in part), and I think they were better realised in that medium.
It's interesting to see the final design was based on the geodesic domes designed by Buckminster Fuller. Always wondered what the concept behind it was.
I think their impracticality was the reason they didn't come back really. That and how hard it was to store them.
The design reminds me of a icosahedral virus capsid.
Another fantastic and fascinating video, as always! Thank you for making it!
Thank you Paul!
Thanks to Terrance Dicks' Monster Book, for years in the seventies/early eighties - right up until I saw the Chase at a local group meeting, in fact - I thought that the Mechanoids (sic) were small, hovering robots around two feet high. This was thanks to the photo of them superimposed on one from the Sensorites which looked as though the Mechons were connected to them by a wire to a flat disc on their foreheads. Incidentally, I also thought that Sensorites was pronounced as Sens-O-rit-ees.
I appreciate all your hard work and research for these videos. Thank you!
Thank you! Glad you enjoy them!
When did the Mechanoid end up at the time machine museum? I remember seeing it in Blackpool, it would be awesome to see it again!
Sometime after 2013 when it appeated on ebay
I remember liking the mecanoids much more than the daleks, back then, when I was 10! 😀
Another fascinating episode. Thank you for all your hard work.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Breathless as always from the dizzying amount of research that goes into these props. I remember seeing the Mechanoid in Blackpool. Nice to know it has a new home .
You spelt Mechonoid incorrectly! When I was a kid in the 70s I had a pocket dictionary. Being Dr. Who mad I went through each section renaming them after monsters. "A" for Auton, etc. When I got to "M" I wrote "Mechanoid", and I spelt it incorrectly like you! I still have the dictionary! What do you think I called the "D" section? LOL
Thank you!
Do we know what this lost robot looked like
Well yes-
Pepsi add plays
SO PEPSI WERE THE REAL MECHANOIDS ALL ALONG
This sort of attention to detail needs to be ‘officially’ part of the Dalek themed dvd collections. These vids are just amazing!
Thank you!
Amazing work on this video keep up the good work
Thank you!
Just had this suggested by TH-cam.
Very interesting.
I'm wondering whether another reason for ignoring the original description was the spinning top base would be too narrow to make the prop stand stablely.
Just think what they could have achieved with modern techniques, materials and budgets.
- Looks at the Mirebeast, looks closer again..... looks away.. looks again, then suddenly shouts:"That's a Peni " before he's taken off the air - :P
Terry's early ideas probably dropped for simple budgetary reasons or the BBC hooked on to fact he was going to be the financial winner not them with anything that took off merchandise wise and he went back to the style of design with the Federation security robot in Blake's 7
That B7 robot was terrible...🤣
Marvellous stuff, as always. A vid about Shawcraft would be fab! Looking forward to it already!
Thank you Wayne!
Why have I missed this till now!? Oh well better late than never, brilliant as always guys thanks very much!
Thank you!
I didn't get the notification... even though I have subscribed and ticked the notification bell! Oh well, this was great viewing with my morning coffee.
George Reid I’ve just checked my notifications and no I can’t see it neither. TH-cam! (Shakes fist!)
Very happy to see you branching out into non-Dalek stories. Hope you do more re other early DW props of all kinds. (Eg. TARDIS console, Zarbis, Quarks.) Also love the dry wit, and the emphasis on the personalities behind such designs and concepts.
Again- BRAVO!
Thank you! Glad you liked it. Our main emphasis will always be the Daleks but we will take little detours from time to time no doubt as this video has gone down so well! :)
@@Dalek6388 Sure hope you do. I'm a pro propbuilder meself, and so am fascinated. Even made 3 spoof Daleks once.
Great. Many thanks for your hard work on this documentary. I love Dr Who and this was enjoyable and informative. Many many thanks xxx.
Another superb piece. Worth the wait.
Thanks Mik!
Perhaps you could do a feature which includes a bit about the Servo Robot prop which, I believe, still resides up in Scotland with a collector? Great feature by the way.
It does yes! If we can find enough info for an interesting story then it’s possible
With those ramps in the city, I think it would’ve been great to have the TARDIS team bowl one of those Mechonoids into a group of Dalek “pins” accompanied by the proper bowling ball hitting pins sound effect. Then Ian could exclaim “Strike!”
Yes, it’s extremely goofy but right at home in “The Chase”.
😀😂
A hemispherical mould would lock even without those ridges! Not easy to laminate in there even if it didn't. The mould was probably made in three sections bolted together. Love the graphics of the pristine casting magically and gently levitating out of the perfect mould . Working with fibreglass is exactly like that.
Have a look at the follow up video where we correct ourselves re. the mould. 🙂
Thanks- I did! D'oh! However, I don't see a two piece mould being a safe bet .Three piece bolt together mould. laminate each section then bolt together and laminate the join. The divisions would follow the peaks of the ridges in a zigzag fashion from top to base eliminating as many undercuts as possible . Actually, having had another look, I'd be more comfortable with four sections rather than three!
Three or four sections is certainly possible yes. Although it was actually the fact that the entire hemisphere was one piece that Gav was trying to show to people as in the in the past its been suggested that they were made from several sections and put together. So the depiction on the actual moulding was somewhat simplified! 😁😉
When’s your friends doctor who game coming out it looks really interesting
Fascinating and well researched as always!
Thank you!
I actually emitted an involuntary noise when I'd seen you'd posted another video. ❤️❤️
A nice noise I hope! ;)
@@Dalek6388 With you, Always ; )
I would like them to focus more on Mechonoids in more recent Doctor Who episodes. Imagine a new design based off of the original idea.
Sounded like a servo robot from wheel in space
Thank you once again for a fascinating and entertaining video. I love your work.
Thank you Joe!
What a wonderfully detailed documentary!
Thank you. Happy to hear you enjoyed it!
@@Dalek6388 I have Asperger's and doctor who is one of my special interests. So in depth TH-cam documentaries like this are a special joy for me. Thankyou :)
Once I’m back working I’m going to join your patreon!
And that’s amazing you provided the sculpt!
Have you ever work with character options before too?
You guys should build a Dalek and record the process that would be awesome to see.
Thank you, we'd love to see you over on Patreon! :)
I really want the Mechonoids to return. They had so much potential as a non-Doctor nemesis for the Daleks. Perhaps an episode about The Doctor helping to save the last surviving Mechnoid from a party of Daleks hunting it down so it can rebuild its society would be a cool idea for a reintroduction?
That'd be great! Somebody get Steven Moffat on the horn about this, I mean that is if he is still writing Doctor Who episodes
Another very interesting mini-documentary! Great stuff. I've a feeling there may have been an inconsistency in the spelling of Mechonoid/Mechanoid in the closing credits of the fifth and sixth episodes of "The Chase", which was removed when the credits were recreated for the DVD release. Maybe I'm misremembering, though, and the inconsistency was just in the scripts. Oh, and given that you mention the Big Finish release of "The Masters of Luxor", I was surprised you didn't also reference their "The Juggernauts", in which the Mechanoids themselves featured. Hope those comments are of some help.
Thanks Stephen! We have something coming up about the spelling actually....
Another excellent video. I'm surprised that none of the original props are known to have survived but I guess that's the problem with the Mechanoids being so cumbersome and large. It would be interesting to see them in Doctor Who again, it might spark the interest again haha.
i like how the mekanoids fart-talked