"THE WEB PLANET"
VICKI:
You know, Doctor, I'm getting quite fond of Zombo.
DOCTOR:
What?
VICKI:
Zombo, it's his name. I gave it to him.
DOCTOR:
Oh, yes, I see, I see.
VICKI:
He's quite cute, isn't he, when he's like this.
DOCTOR:
Well, I haven't noticed it before, my dear, but since you mention it, no I don't think so.
VICKI:
I've told you before not to judge by appearances.
It may not be apparent right now, but upon hearing that exchange, I was reminded of this TV show episode....
'AMAZING STORIES'
"FINE TUNING"
From the IMDb:
Three high-school kids build an antenna that can catch signals from outer space. They learn that the aliens are big fans of 1950s American television and are coming to Hollywood to meet some of their favorite Earth stars.
But before I get to the reason why I thought of it, let me set up the premise.....
From BBC News Magazine:
There is no widely accepted evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
And yet the idea of sending messages to whoever is out there has been a recurrent theme over the years, whether it has been the plaques on Pioneer 10 and 11, Blur's call-sign for Beagle 2, the Arecibo message of 1974 or the Soviet "Mir" message of 1962.
Ordinary television and radio broadcasts can also travel out of Earth's atmosphere and through space, albeit quickly becoming mind-bogglingly diffuse and hard to pick up.
Space scientist Dr Chris Davis, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, says it is possible that television and radio signals from Earth could be picked up on other planets, but it isn't easy.
Waves like FM radio or television signals can pierce it and travel through the vacuum of space at the speed of light.
"As you go into space that power would dissipate. They would need more and more sensitive equipment to pick it up."
Television and radio broadcasts are omni-directional - albeit focused as much as possible towards the horizon - and that means a lot of diffusion.
But if aliens can watch our television, there might be a problem. Astronomer Carl Sagan, in his book Contact, suggested the first high-powered television broadcast the aliens would have picked up would be Hitler's broadcasts at the Nuremburg rallies.
Of course, that's in the Real World. Let's assume that the events in that 'Amazing Stories' episode would be the norm for Toobworld, that the signals would eventually reach other worlds.
Okay, one last reference point and then I'll get back to Vicki's conversation with the Doctor....
'THE MUNSTERS'
"ZOMBO"
Herman is jealous when Eddie's new hero is Zombo, the host of a TV horror show.
According to the events related in the adventure "The Rescue", Vicki Pallister and her father joined a ship-full of colonists for Astra. But during the voyage, a crew member killed a colonist and in order to cover up his crime, he caused the ship to crash land on the planet Dido. There he killed the rest of the crew and the colonists, excluding Vicki, and many of the native Didonians. He convinced Vicki that the Didonians were responsible for the massacre.
It would be almost a year before the TARDIS landed on Dido and eventually rescue Vicki from the psychotic Bennett.
During that time, Vicki would need to find something to occupy her mind to keep from dwelling on the deaths of her father and others. So if the spaceship, the UK-201, was outfitted with view-screens, Vicki could have enjoyed long-forgotten TV signals emanating from Earth.
One of these would have been the horror show hosted by Zombo, in the tradition of Zacherley, Vampira, Selwin, and Ghoulardi. Even if Vicki didn't have access to the images, her radio equpment could have picked up the vocal tracks. I actually like that idea better in fact. Vicki would have employed her imagination to visualize Zombo in her mind. Perhaps he looked nothing like the TV portrayal; perhaps she imagined an intelligent insectoid.
At any rate, whether she could see what TV's Zombo looked like or not, I think that was the inspiration for Vicki to use that name on the giant ant-like Zarbi who had been subjugated to their will. Hey, I got two cats with TV-inspired names - Leela ('Doctor Who') and Nucky ('Boardwalk Empire') - neither one of them looks like the source of their names!
The aliens performing "I Love Lucy"
Three high-school kids build an antenna that can catch signals from outer space. They learn that the aliens are big fans of 1950s American television and are coming to Hollywood to meet some of their favorite Earth stars.
But before I get to the reason why I thought of it, let me set up the premise.....
From BBC News Magazine:
There is no widely accepted evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
And yet the idea of sending messages to whoever is out there has been a recurrent theme over the years, whether it has been the plaques on Pioneer 10 and 11, Blur's call-sign for Beagle 2, the Arecibo message of 1974 or the Soviet "Mir" message of 1962.
Ordinary television and radio broadcasts can also travel out of Earth's atmosphere and through space, albeit quickly becoming mind-bogglingly diffuse and hard to pick up.
Space scientist Dr Chris Davis, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, says it is possible that television and radio signals from Earth could be picked up on other planets, but it isn't easy.
Waves like FM radio or television signals can pierce it and travel through the vacuum of space at the speed of light.
"As you go into space that power would dissipate. They would need more and more sensitive equipment to pick it up."
Television and radio broadcasts are omni-directional - albeit focused as much as possible towards the horizon - and that means a lot of diffusion.
But if aliens can watch our television, there might be a problem. Astronomer Carl Sagan, in his book Contact, suggested the first high-powered television broadcast the aliens would have picked up would be Hitler's broadcasts at the Nuremburg rallies.
Of course, that's in the Real World. Let's assume that the events in that 'Amazing Stories' episode would be the norm for Toobworld, that the signals would eventually reach other worlds.
Okay, one last reference point and then I'll get back to Vicki's conversation with the Doctor....
'THE MUNSTERS'
"ZOMBO"
From the IMDb:
According to the events related in the adventure "The Rescue", Vicki Pallister and her father joined a ship-full of colonists for Astra. But during the voyage, a crew member killed a colonist and in order to cover up his crime, he caused the ship to crash land on the planet Dido. There he killed the rest of the crew and the colonists, excluding Vicki, and many of the native Didonians. He convinced Vicki that the Didonians were responsible for the massacre.
One of these would have been the horror show hosted by Zombo, in the tradition of Zacherley, Vampira, Selwin, and Ghoulardi. Even if Vicki didn't have access to the images, her radio equpment could have picked up the vocal tracks. I actually like that idea better in fact. Vicki would have employed her imagination to visualize Zombo in her mind. Perhaps he looked nothing like the TV portrayal; perhaps she imagined an intelligent insectoid.
That's my theory and I'm sticking to it....
BCnU!
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