D is for Kaleds...and Davros, Doctor...Dapol?

Pre-Scriptum...I love Daleks (from behind the sofa), but I increasingly hate the BBC. So, a bit later than I had hoped, here is the Dalek/Dr. Who round-up I mentioned in the autumn. There are a few thanks due on this one, thanks to the Philosophical Toad for A) sending me the earlier Dalek and Cyberman from the Doctor Who Adventures Magazine and B) telling me about the later ones and thanks also to Bill from Moonbase for sending me the white-metal Doctor and a lose Citadel Miniatures Dalek and Cyberman in sand plastic. These are about the same size as real life relative to each other, but there is a poorer quality line-up lower down for a definite scale/size comparison. From Left to right - top to bottom; 3 Marx 'Rolykins' Citadel Miniatures Kit 2 Character Options Daleks Doctor Who Adventures magazine Dalek, earlier version (maker unknown...Toad? Still got the card?) Premium World Dalek, later version (Doctor Who Adventures magazine) 2 Fisher Price/Strawberry Fayre board-game pieces 2 Product Enterprise Daleks Cherilea 'Swoppet' Dalek Premium World 'Dalek Slime' container (Doctor Who Adventures magazine) Henbrandt 'Build Your Own' Dalek (Doctor Who Adventures magazine)

Bottom shows a comparison shot between the two types of 'Rolykin'. When Product Enterprises first announced these in the...err...(quickly checks the boxes!)...late 1990's! I remember the collecting and Sci-fi press waxing lyrical about the return of Rolykins and other lapped-up bumpf from the toy companies PR department, but they were in fact quite different, first the base was rather too heavy (Boo!), but yet!...the detail was much better (RAY!!), although they were very pricey for such a small toy (Boo!), something to do with the amount of packaging I don't doubt! However the Entertainer chain of toy shops in the South-East would remainder each range for almost no money after it's 'run' and if that moment happened to occur as I visited the store I'd pick one up, so managed to get 4 from - I think - 2 series (RAY!) They are shown in the middle shot, left to right; 1st is a chrome plated 'movie' Dalek in silver, then the gold movie Dalek followed by the Dalek Invasion of Earth Limited Edition; Dalek with Sensor Dish Black / Classic Dalek and finally a Special Weapons Gunner Dalek. The convoy lights/horns are the main way of telling them apart, the first series had short ones, the second series had long ones. The full range would seem to be thus; 1999 Dr Who and the [TV] Dalek Rolykins (short lights on head) - Drone (Blue) - Imperial (White) - Supreme (Red) - Emperor (Gold) - Command (Black) - Battle (Pale Blue) - Darlek Invasion of Earth Limited Edition; Dalek with Sensor Dish Black / Classic Dalek 2000 Dr Who and the Movie Dalek Rolykins (long lights) - Blue/silver head - Black - Red - Silver/blue head - Gold Chrome-plated Limited Editions - Gold - Silver - Cherry Red 2000 - Others - Special Weapons Gunner - Incubating Dalek - Davros Rolykin The top photograph shows some of the other Marx Rolykins, Batman and Robin - having clearly eaten all the pies - are pretending not to see the Dalek threatening Earth... "What was that noise Robin, that noise that sounded like a Dalek threatening Earth?" "Farting-fireworks Batman! I think it was an auto-exhaust backfiring" "Yes, That'll be it, let's move over there a ways, I think I saw a Kebab-van go round the corner" Meanwhile - Lenny the Lion (I think he was called Lenny? Not having the web here as I write this, nor having time to look it up before I upload it later this week you'll have to Google it yourselves!) our 1966 Savior intends to give the Dalek a good old British drubbing with a Milbro orange-plastic World Cup football! "Exterminate That! You shriveled-prune in a colander! Three-nil, threeee-nilll threenil....." It must be said however, that despite the vast sum these change hands for, boxed, at shows or on FeeBay, the body is still the most accurate representation of a badminton shuttle-cock in the toy world. There may be others to find, gold, blue or yellow?

The rather fuzzy 'sizer' top left, construction of the Fisher Price board-game Dalek, the lump of metal in the base often comes loose and rattles around inside these - now - quite old models and similar break-down of the Chrilea Dalek. Finally the 30mm white metal Doctor sent to me as part of a swap by Bill at Moobase. I think it's John Pertwee in his foppish Victoriana, but Bill thinks it's [someone else I can't remember and can't find the email and I've got 3 minutes to finish editing this so maybe he'll tell us who it was!?] any other votes?. The Fisher Price Dalek is a classic example of the madness of collecting vis-a-vis dealers. This game, or the lose pieces always fetches a pretty penny at collectors auctions or toy shows, yet turns up at car-boot sales almost as often as Kadgagoogoo 12" singles, for pennies. it was issued by Strawberry Fayre for a while before the Fisher-Price re-branding and may have had a Mattel label as well, ran for a fair few years and sold by the bushel. The only problem is the automated Maginot Line cupolas in place of a Dalek head! As both companies also issued the Dad's Army board game with cardboard flats of the main characters, it may be that Strawberry Fayre were the licensing 'arm' of Fisher Price, until corporate image became all in the 1980's and it no longer served to have separate labels in-house?

The Citadel/Games Workshop bits, strangely for a company that has spent the last 34 years turning 22mm into 32mm by half-millimeter increments these were almost too small! and are the smallest on show here today. But perfectly formed! I hadn't the heart to take the sand ones off the sprue, as the grey ones had come freed from the card anyway at some other time, so it was brilliant when Bill sent me a couple. Next question; do I risk stripping the paint off the Cyberman or wait for an unpainted one to turn up? The excess stock of what seems to have been a unpopular line (as part of the GW oeuvre, yet now having quite a cult status) was cleared in the bag shown, and some were kicking around a dealers stall at Andy Harfields show a few years ago, where I got the loose one.

All the recent stuff from the BBC's Doctor Who Adventures off-shoot. Various companies supply the giveaways/premiums and you do have to be quick to get them, this - in an age of failing/short-lived kid's magazines - is usually sold out within a day or two, well it is round here! Known lines (all shown bar the orange one which is only in the group photo's above) Issue No. 98 - Cybermen (x5, approximately 25mm, grey) Issue No. 99 - Daleks (x5, approximately 20mm, original type, gold) Issue No. 170 - Dalek Soldiers (x5, approximately 30mm, new type, orange) Issue No. 183 - Dalek Slime [container] (approximately 45mm, new type, green) Issue No. 186 - Build-your-own Dalek kit (approximately 54mm, new type, black & white) Issue No. 203 - Dalek Army (as No.170, but 17 ‘Fat'lek’ Daleks in 5 colours) Issue No. 204 - 16 Mini Monsters/Monster battle Pack (8 Cybermen - as No.98; 8 Sontarians) Issue No. 205 - Dalek Pencil Set (4 ‘Fat'lek’ pencil-toppers) Issue No. 211 - Dalek Slime (reissue of 183) Issue No. 223? - Build-your-own Dalek kit (reissue of 186, red/black, Xcel Concepts) Issue No. 224? - Dalek Slime (reissue of 183/211) Issue No. 229 - Dalek (or other?) Micro-figure (from Character Options) + mini ‘Dr Who’ note pads Issue No. 237 - Weeping Angel Army (16 figures [8x2 poses] in PVC/vinyl; HMA + collector card pack) Issue No .238 - Monster Battle Pack (6x each; HMA Cybermen and Sontarans; 5 Daleks, each of a different colour) Issue No. 241 - 16 Glow-in-the-dark Who Shapes (Some items of use as approximately 60mm ‘Flats’) Issue No. 254 - Mini Monster Army (8 Judoon and 8 Ood) Issue No. 255 - Mini Monster Army (8 Silence and 8 Silurians)

When the Philosophical Toad first mentioned the new design, I thought she was just having a go at the crap modeling of the orange miniatures against the gold ones from the year before, but have since realised that - as part of their determined effort to dumb down the whole country and lose the license fee - the retards at the BBC have built a 'new' Dalek (I guess it was part of a story-line?) which has lost both the Battleship-prow of the original and the 'Soldiers-spine', and in so doing has lost its meanness, its menace, in favour of some PC fluffiness, all roundy-cornered and not so nasty?? If something's not broke...don't try to fix it! As Batman & Robin have eaten all the pies, I guess the Cyberman has been at the cakes?

...[Wane Slob at his babies Christening] "It's not a Buy'bee it's a cayke, Jewanna'piece Vicka'...aw'riot if we cum back next wayke?"

A selection of the Character Options micro-figures, like most of this new production, it starts life hideously over-priced (for what it is), and after a set shelf-life gets cleared for a few pence. Sainsbury's were selling-off the 3-figure sets when we moved here (autumn 2008) for 99p and Toys-r-Us shipped-out the 5-figure sets and ships for a similar mark-down. Way-way-back in the Dark Times, when Dr. Who fans kept their little magazines going with monthly calls for Dr. Who to be resurrected, and the Bloody Bastard Corporation kept saying "No, no plans, no demand, kids/times have changed, ran its course" etc...etc...ect...ad. nauseum, there was a little company in South Wales called Dapol, who fed the fans with a small range of Dr. Who merchandise, and paid the Big Bad Cretins an annual fee for the 'privilege' of keeping alive this dead concept. Now it came to pass that the Boringly Bland Cripples at Broadcasting house, suddenly, and a year or two before they announced the 're-birth' of their dead-baby, ended all licenses with Dapol and yeay, verily, did they give no good reason. Then, Supprrrise! Supprrrise! chooks! a couple of years later...they're issuing all sorts of licenses left, right and centre to global corporate toy giants and faceless marketing concerns, with 99% of all production in China to meet the demand for the bright, new, "worlds ready for the return, can't think why we ever ended it" Doctor. Now...Dapol operate in one of this Unions unemployment black-spots...what the BBC did was against everything it was set-up to represent, everything it should aspire to be and everything that is morally or ethically decent about and within a civilised society, and for that alone they should have lost the License Fee. So that's my Daleks but there are dozens of others, in the larger sizes for instance Marx alone made several in tin-plate and plastic, Poplar (was it?) did a 12-inch blow-moulded one, Cherilea did a bigger one, various plastic money-box Daleks have been produced with or without a license, and talking of no license, Hong Kong and Japan were the source for lots of battery-operated machines. Even now there's a board game with a bunch of small scale gold Daleks I keep seeing but never quite bring myself to pay for!

Such are the mysteries of synergy, that while I was preparing this article the other day I had no idea there was an upcoming issue of compatible figures! Therefore 'Bod' Paul's comments were a bit of a mystery, and I sort of thought "Ah, she (his sister) must have gone to one of those excellent comic markets (like the one I once got the 1st and 2nd issues of Heavy Metal from under Hanover station) and bought a couple of copies of one of the back issues mentioned in this article"!...

...however, I then popped over to Moonbase before my aloted time was up here at the Library, and found a whole bunch of Daleks in new colours and found WOTAN talking about a Dalek 'Army', so over to the newsagents in the main square, where I managed to get the last one! The 'last one' being a pattern that has followed my attempts to obtain these issues from the start! Not only did I now have a Dalek Army of my own, but the 'next issue' feature told me I'd be able to get Cyberman and Sontarian units as well (pencil toppers this week!), so was busy this weekend tracking down two of them.

My Sontarians have been taken out of the mould early and two of them are going to sleep, hot water should provide a cure, while a couple of the Cybermen seem a bit shaky...probably the weight of their body-armour or all those pies?

More updates below - in her own words - courtesy of Philotoadia meandering over from the Moonbase... The badly painted ones are 6 mm metal "Attack Robots" (NOT Daleks, in a bid to avoid paying a licence I am guessing). These are from Irregular Miniatures, and I think there might be rules for playing games with them in the later "Tusk" rule books.

The black Dalek is the one which came from an Advent calendar some years ago. Cannot recall the exact year, but definitely during David Tennant's time. [Well jellous of the last one!]

Absolutely the last update...for now! This was last week's effort, 2D pencil-topping Fat'leks, I love that title Toad...we should go on to Dr. Who forums commando-stylie and use it until they can't help but use it too!

These are currently to be found in Sainsbury's and Toy'R'Us among others, the trick with them if you are a Dalek Fan is; (whispers...) Squeeze the bag, the Daleks are obvious!