Europe trip, KJB daughter update, and Dr. Who

Above: Some of the books that Jeff and I have borrowed or bought in preparation for our trip to Europe. And yes, I'm trying to learn French and Italian at the same time. Right now I'm alternating days: one day French, next day Italian, next day back to French. I'm remembering more of my high school French than I expected, but then again my expectations were pretty low. I'm also finding that the German I've learned keeps popping into my head at inopportune moments.

"Sono stanca," I recite in Italian, which means I am tired. But then "Je suis fatiguée" pops in my head, which is the French translation. And, completely uninvited, "Ich bin müde" jumps right in there as well, confusing things immensely. I'm sure I'm spelling some of those phrases incorrectly, but right now I'm trying to focus on pronunication.

I post things in my Livejournal from time to time that I don't post here in my Blatherings, usually if they're very short or I'm hoping for a quick answer. Recently an entertainment writer asked if I knew the words to "Wreck of the Imperial Death Star", which I didn't...but I suspected someone in my LJ readership would. Many thanks to those who responded, including Tom Smith (who volunteered to write the song if we couldn't find the real lyrics :-D ), hvideo (who had a hardcopy of the lyrics) and tigertoy (who kindly typed the lyrics out from his copy of Kantele #7).

In my post, I mentioned that the lyrics-seeker was the first American writer to contribute material to the BBC series "Doctor Who," which immediately sparked speculation about his identity and the nature of his contribution in the LJ comments section and in my private e-mail. For the record, I know nothing about Dr. Who, sorry. As I posted in Allison's survey about what fandoms people didn't entirely understand, I never got into this series, though I did see one episode of the new series and was intrigued. And after reading KJB's story below, I am sorely tempted to rent the series from the first season and watch the Whole Thing.

Anyway, Ken Bussanmas has responded in that LJ with a clarification of his involvement. I found his story so interesting and well-written that I felt compelled to post it below.

KJB also wants to thank those who posted supportive comments in my LJ re: his missing 15-year-old daughter. He writes:

"Thank you all so much for the nice comments. They are very much appreciated. Still nothing as far as getting her back but a very good lead has cropped up in just the past few hours, so keep your fingers crossed! - KJB"

UPDATE: Ken's daughter is back safely! He thanks everyone for their support.

Anyway, for the interest of Dr. Who fans out there (and heck, non-Dr. Who fans...I loved this story as well :-D ), here is an excerpt of what KJB added to the comments section of my original LJ post. Please see the comments for his full post.

...As for my involvement with "Doctor Who" - I was the first American to submit story materials for the actual series, starting back in 1978 (IMDB has it as 79, which is a year off). When I say that I submitted story materials, that means I didn't write any full scripts which also meant that BBC never had to actually pay me but *did* mean that I was the first American to actually write something for WHO and have some version of it make it to the screen. Here's how it came about: In 1978, I was 14 years old and had managed to sell a few pieces of short fiction. I had been a huge fan of a series that ran on PBS in the early 70s called "Doctor Who", which seemed to be about this white haired bloke that worked for a secret agency and defended the Earth from all sorts of nasty aliens. Oh, and he always seemed to have a cute "assistant" in tow wherever he went. The series was on every day and I loved it. One day, the series just stopped. A few years went by but I was still thrilled to see "Doctor Who" back in the television schedules. I eagerly tuned in at 10:30 PM on the specified night to watch my dearly missed series, only find that some curly haired whack job with a 12 mile long scarf was now calling himself "The Doctor". Needless to say, I was underwhelmed but I continued to watch. Having become a "professional" writer in the years between local broadcasts of "Doctor Who", I decided that I could probably write for the series. One afternoon after school, I found the phone number for the local PBS network and rang them up. After about an hour of being passed from one person to another, I finally wound up someone in Programming. The poor guy was perplexed by someone calling to write for one of their programs. As far as he could remember this was the first time it had happened. He was polite and sent me all the material they had for "Doctor Who". A week later, the material arrived in the post. Inside were a number of 8X10 black and white photos from the series and a large, color slide of a very cartoony piece of artwork that featured a caricature of Tom Baker as The Doctor and most of the villains from that era of the series. In addition to all of that, the package had printed folder that included episode titles and synopses from every story in the package. Flipping the folder to the back, I discovered that the series was being distributed in the US by Time-Life. The back cover also had a list of names and telephone numbers to contact about the series. Since I had no idea where to start, I decided to start with the name at the top of the list. That name was Wynn Nathan and he was the President of Time-Life Television in New York. Mr. Nathan and I had a wonderful chat about the series, how it was doing in the US, his recent lunch with Tom Baker and how the fans truly despised the Howard DaSilva voice-overs at the start of nearly every episode. I mentioned that I'd heard about "Doctor Who" books being available in the UK. "I've got a few of those," he told me in a very matter-of-fact voice. "I can mail them to you if you like." Still not realizing that this man ran the bloody company, I offered to reimburse him for the books and postage but he wouldn't hear of it. A couple of weeks later, I was the proud owner of paperback versions of "Horror at Fang Rock", "Face of Evil" and "The Second Doctor Who Monster Book". The most important thing Mr. Nathan gave me from that confirmation was the direct phone line to the BBC's "Doctor Who" production office. Now this posed a little bit of a problem. Calling Time-Life or PBS after school wasn't a problem but England was on a 6 or 7 hour time difference, which meant that the earliest I could phone the office was at 9PM, UK time. Fortunately, I had an early morning study hall and the teacher for those study halls had no problem writing passes to use the pay phones in the hall. Getting one of those passes, I gathered my notes and proceeded to make my parent's phone bill skyrocket. By charging the call to the home phone, I wouldn't have to carry 3 tons of change in my pocket and anyone I talked to at BBC would just assume I was calling from my desk. Trying to explain myself to the various people at BBC was a lot like the circus I found at the PBS station. Finally, I got forwarded to the "Doctor Who" production office. The man I was connected with was genuinely surprised that a writer in the States had any interest in working on their series. We talked about various ideas and it wasn't unlike a standard pitch session. The man I spoke with seemed genuinely impressed with some of the ideas. "I'd probably be able to refine some of the ideas a little more if you could send me a copy of the writer's guide," I explained. The man hemmed & hawed a bit before admitting that "Doctor Who" had never used a writer's guide and probably never would. He promised to get something out to me that covered any changes in the series from the episodes that were running in the US and those that had only run in the UK. As we were signing off (he had an appointment and I had English class), I realized that I had never gotten his name. He laughed a bit and said, "Doug. Doug Adams." Over the next several weeks, Doug and I would have regular phone meetings. At one point his "writer's guide" finally arrived. It was two pages, typewritten and weighing about a pound thanks to the amount of liquid paper on them. It wasn't so much a writer's guide as an explanation as to why they *didn't* have a writer's guide. Years later, producer John-Nathan Turner would send me the "official" writer's guide, which turned out to be Doug's writer's guide with a few errors corrected and JNT's signature at the end instead of Doug's. Anyway, citing the difficulties of having the kinds of meetings that would be required for me to pen a script from start-to-finish, none of my full scripts were ever produced but a fair number of plot elements from my work made it to air. Some of the more significant ideas were the Key To Time (mine was a 6 part episode that involved the Master) and, later, Kamelion (which I try not to claim too loudly as that damned robot was a complete piece of crap). If anybody has any other questions, feel free to ask." KJB

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