Clangers

"Clangers" is a title based upon conjecture.

Check the behind the scenes section, the revision history and discussion page for additional comments on this article's title.

You may be looking for the real world series or the titular species.

History[]

The Master watched an episode of the show while he was imprisoned on Fortress Island, and occasionally whistled along with their "dialogue".

When the prison governor George Trenchard asked him what he was watching, the Master offered the reply "It seems to be a rather interesting extraterrestrial lifeform." Trenchard responded "They're only puppets, you know. For children." The Master replied with an apparently disappointed "Oh". (TV: The Sea Devils (episode 1) ^[+]Malcolm Hulke, Doctor Who season 9 (BBC1, 1972).) He wrote in his diary about "a documentary on a rather interesting extra-terrestrial life-form known as ‘Clangers’". (PROSE: The Secret Diary of the Master ^[+]James Stoker, 2015.)

Main article: Clangers (series)

Contrary to popular belief, the Clangers scene in Episode One was not a last-minute addition to bulk up the running time; the Doctor Who Production Office sent a copy of the script to Monica Sims, Head of Children’s Programmes, Television around the time Malcolm Hulke was delivering the later episodes. Her thanks for the script and positive response to their “plan to use an extract from the ‘Clangers’ in this episode” was dated 25 August 1971—two months before location filming for the serial began. Given that studio recordings – when one might expect an episode to be found shorter than expected – didn’t take place until November 1971, it’s clear the “Clangers” clip had been scripted from early on as an in-joke.
The episode the Master watches is The Rock Collector which was first broadcast on 25 April 1971.
The Clangers scene would later be echoed by the Saxon Master enjoying Teletubbies (1997-2001, 2019-ongoing) in the television story The Sound of Drums ^[+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 3 (BBC One, 2007)..