Saturday 18 April 2015

The Failed History of Doctor Who on VHS and DVD

There's a rather wonderful publication out now from those nice people at Panini's official Doctor Who magazine that celebrates 'The Art of Doctor Who'. In amongst sundry interviews and features is a piece or two chronicling the many cover designs of licenced merchandise over the years.

Sadly there are no illustrations featuring the rare unreleased items that I have uncovered* in the Doctor Who back catalogue over the past year.

Here, for your convenience and possible pleasure, is a complete (ish) list of the VHS and DVD releases that never were.

The BBC's Early Attempts at Doctor Who DVDs - a selection of complete covers including blurb for the earliest DVD range.



















Doctor Who - The Original VHS Branding - Full covers from the mid-eighties of three specially edited titles from the fledgling BBC Video.


















More Early Doctor Who VHS Branding - A selection of designs that blended in other successful best sellers for BBC Video.

























Doctor Who Video Nasties - Three Tom Baker tales are released into the early eighties video-nasty market with serious consequences for the credibility of their content.



















Great Unreleased Doctor Who Merchandise of the 20th Century - part six - The earliest attempts by by BBC Enterprises to release Doctor Who episodes to the (very rich) general public in the early seventies.





















The Devolution of Doctor Who on VHS - How the design of Doctor Who video sleeves changed over the years making an example out of Peter Capaldi's first adventure 'Deep Breath' 























* By which I mean 'invented'.