Doctor Who fandom
[2] In the 1980s, some US fans staged "Save Doctor Who" publicity campaigns, trying to urge their local television stations to keep airing the show.
The North American Doctor Who Appreciation Society was founded in the 1980s and served as an umbrella organisation for dozens of local fan groups throughout the continent.
Many events have been organised at short notice during any visits by a star, or other person linked to the show, such as Jon Pertwee (1980), Peter Davison and Janet Fielding (both 1983).
As of 2015, Gallifrey One and the Chicago TARDIS convention continue, with the addition of Georgia's WHOlanta in Atlanta, Florida's Hurricane Who, Alabama's Con Kasterborous, New York's L. I.
Startup events exist in the form of CONsole Room in Minnesota, (Re)Generation Who in Maryland, Time Eddy in Kansas, and WhoFest in Texas.
Much of the content of the first fanzines was devoted to documenting plots and characters, interviews, news, book reviews, letters, fan fiction and art.
One of the first was hand-produced and published by Keith Miller in Edinburgh, but by the mid-1970s fanzine-creators switched to photocopying; however, output faded in the following years.
[citation needed] Initially the reference materials were largely reissues of the work done by Jeremy Bentham for DWAS (itself usually reliant on BBC plot outlines).
Initially it was considered poor quality compared to the DWAS due to it being dominated by American-style comics, which did not fit with the style of the series.
Over time, fanzine editors began to concentrate more on opinion than reference, for example by featuring fan reviews of stories and the letters page, which was the main conduit for debate pre-internet.
The need to find new, original content meant that fanzines began to look closer at the series, subjecting stories and characters to ever-deeper analysis, providing detail and discussion unavailable through more "official" channels.
Although the enthusiasm of some editors could not be matched by their resources and many fanzines failed to see a second issue, some of the most popular zines appeared then, including Queen Bat, Chronicle, Star Begotten,[5] Paradise Lost, Spectrox, Black and White Guardian, Cygnus Alpha, Five Hundred Eyes,[6] Eye Of Horus[7] (in print between 1983 and 1985 and online since 2004) and Purple Haze (edited by Steve O'Brien, later of SFX Magazine).
Many professional Doctor Who writers, for both the current TV series and the books, began their careers writing for fanzines, including Paul Cornell, Rob Shearman, Matt Jones, Marc Platt, Gareth Roberts, Clayton Hickman, David Howe and Stephen James Walker.
Many involved in this group would later form the commercial company Big Finish Productions and be licensed by the BBC to produce official Doctor Who stories for a retail market on audio CD.
For example, the Panini publication The Complete Seventh Doctor (p47) lists singer Bob Dylan as a "great fan", such that he permitted his music to be used in the opening moments of season twenty-five without royalty.
William Rees-Mogg, editor of The Times newspaper from 1967 until 1981, publicly declared his enjoyment of Doctor Who on an edition of the BBC's current affairs series Panorama in 1980.
[12] In 2013, King Charles III and Queen Camilla (the then Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, respectively) visited the Doctor Who set in Cardiff.
The first known example was the song "I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With a Dalek", the first and only single released by British band The Go-Go's.
The track was based on the Doctor Who theme music in a disco style and was Mankind's first and only charting single(follow up 'Chain Reaction'was a flop).
The single was released in aid of Cancer Research, and featured various Doctor Who cast members (such as Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Anthony Ainley), as well as contemporary musicians (Bucks Fizz, The Moody Blues and Ultravox).
[50] The most famous example of Doctor Who-inspired music is "Doctorin' the Tardis" by The Timelords (a pseudonym for the ambient house and situationist act The KLF), which reached Number One on the UK Singles Chart in 1988.
British rock band Pink Floyd briefly used the theme during their 1971 single "One of These Days", which featured a Doctor Who-related music video.
Comedian and singer Mitch Benn's 2002 album Radio Face features a song entitled "Doctor Who Girl".
