Animal Magic (TV story)

The 1 May 1979 episode of the educational BBC series Animal Magic, later released on the Doctor Who: The Collection — Season 17 Blu-ray boxset as simply Animal Magic, was a crossover with Doctor Who, featuring the Fourth Doctor played by Tom Baker.

Baker was explicitly playing the Doctor rather than appearing as himself (with the script going as far as to establish that the Doctor was hosting from the alien setting of the then-upcoming TV serial The Creature from the Pit. However, the story freely broke the fourth wall, with the Doctor addressing the viewers and ending on the note of telling them to watch out "next time I'm on".

The aim of the mini-episode was to educate an audience on various species the Doctor has met both from the real world and the monsters from series. The fourth wall breaking however was framed through the narrative device of the Doctor making a broadcast.

Publisher's summary
Tom Baker appears in character during the 01/05/79 episode of the BBC children's wildlife programme, filmed on the planet Chloris.

Plot
The Doctor is walking through a jungle and notices a live broadcast. He then states that he’s on Chloris and has escaped some bandits that think they’ve got the upper hand. Then he goes onto elaborate that that’s a story for another time.

The Doctor states that he happened to be on Earth and was talking to a friend of his who said that Earth had some ferocious animals. The friend started getting a little competitive about the animals on Earth saying which are the largest and the deadliest citing the elephant as the largest and the puff adder as the deadliest.

Naturally, the Doctor countered with a list of "some of the things I ' d bumped into during my travels", such as the voracious Shrivenzale, the tree-sized Krynoid, or the deadly Wirrn or Fendahl. He sees that the audience isn't taking his claims seriously, but ends his spiel by telling them to watch out "next time I'm on" before walking off.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Tom Baker

Crew

 * Director - Robin Hellier
 * Producer - Jeffery Boswall

Worldbuilding

 * The Doctor mentions the elephant as the largest animal on Earth.
 * The Doctor mentions the puff adder as the deadliest animal.
 * The Doctor describes the Krynoid as "tall as a Douglas fir and three times its circumference"

Story notes

 * This story was evidently filmed during production of The Creature from the Pit, using the Chloris set. As a result, it was released on DVD with The Creature from the Pit, and later on the Season 17 The Collection Bluray box set.
 * The Doctor mentions his encounter with the Shrivenzale during "the Ribos Operation", (TV: The Ribos Operation) the evil plans of the Krynoid, (TV: The Seeds of Doom) his encounter with the Wirrn in the Ark in Space, (TV: The Ark in Space) and the Fendahl. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

Home video releases

 * The mini-episode was released on DVD with The Creature from the Pit.
 * The mini-episode was released on blu-ray with The Collection - Season 17.