Kevin Jon Davies

I remember seeing the nuclear war film "Threads" when it first aired in 1984. Harrowing. But I've been to Sheffield in more recent times. Why did they never rebuild? 😎

Elsie and Anita (Elisabeth Sladen) have a heart to heart conversation.

Two of my favourite films. Mary S is part of the reason.

Lovely. Reminds me of the end of the film "Midsommar". 🔥🔥

Needs a laughter track. I laughed my socks off on first broadcast.

“He’s never cruel, he’s never unkind,” said Terrance in "More Than 30 Years in the Tardis". Amusingly, that bit wasn't actually in vision. It was over a clip of Colin Baker looking angry from "Trial of a Time Lord".

Very good. Yes, this book fed my obsession too, but not until I was given it by a school chum in about 1975. It was the Television Club film covering the making of the Sea Devils broadcast twice the week before the serial began (I was off school, luckily and saw it twice) which really got me stoked.

Sea Devil gets the chop from Jon Pertwee.

#DoctorWho / #SeaDevilsRedux (BBC tonight). Shame BBC destroyed a great "Television Club" film about the making of that story, which I saw *twice* the week before the first episode aired in Feb 1972. Ironically, I was off sick from school, so I got lucky. Made me (aged 10) want to work in telly.

(Guess what I can't stand listening to?)

Thanks Roy. I can talk til the cows come home. Luckily Kenny kept me from going off course.

Got mine in a vintage shop in Camden Market about ten years ago. Closest to the TV one I have been able to find, but not accurate. They are very heavy!

Big Audio Dynamite / Hitch Hikers Reunited A 2004 report (for TV Zone) on the recording of "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - The Tertiary Phase" (based upon the third Hitchhiker novel, “Life, the Universe & Everything.”)

My latest (fourth) Substack post is from 2004, about the Hitchhiker's Guide "Tertiary Phase" radio show...

open.substack.com/pub/kevinjon...

My wife Elaine once RAN UP the Post Office Tower (as it was known) way back, in 1979. Took her about 11 and a half minutes!
Hard to imagine.

Does any of it make any sense? Even they aren't sure...

Had fun remembering my so-called “student film” with Kenny in this podcast. SHAKEDOWN (1994)
#DoctorWho

Drawing on the Past Creating "The Illustrated Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (1994)

Another Substack archive article…

open.substack.com/pub/kevinjon...

I'd never heard (or read) Terrance Dicks' 2013 foreward to the re-published "Shakedown" novel. An affectionate, plausible impersonation of his voice by Nev Fountain. One cannot quote Terrance without doing the voice! (This also applies to Gary Leigh and Ken Campbell.) ...Thanks, guys.

Don't Panic - for at least 12 years! An article about 'The Making of Hitchhiker's Guide', a retrospective documentary I wrote and directed for BBC Video in 1992.

My second substack post is another archive article, written in 1992 about the retrospective "Making of Hitchhiker's Guide" documentary, then in production.

#DouglasAdams #thehitchhikersguidetothegalaxy
#BBCTV #television #behindthescenes

substack.com/@kevinjondav...

Under the table with Peter Jones A behind the scenes story from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" TV series

My first post on Substack is a behind-the-scenes story from the making of the TV pilot of #HitchhikersGuidetotheGalaxy.

open.substack.com/pub/kevinjon...

I imagine this was one of the smaller class of Frogstar Scouts, not the bigger, heavy-duty battle machine which Marvin faced off against. That would be more like a tank. (There's a fan animation of that scene online somewhere.)

#OTD 45 years ago... (31 Oct 1980) BBC graphics designer Doug Burd visited Pearce Studios and asked me to do some of his work for him - drawing a line of robots for the Encyclopedia Galactica. I sneaked in a few in-jokes to the animation for ep 2 of Hitchhiker's Guide (TV series).

Marvin the Paranoid Android, in a scene from "The Making of The Hitchhiker's Guide...", a retrospective BBC Video documentary filmed in 1992.

If you see this, quote with a robot that isn’t from “Star Wars,” “Star Trek,” “Doctor Who,” or “Transformers".

Thanks, I wondered if that was it. (Don’t want to be that guy correcting people online all the time, but a I have my own chronology of archive telly which I try to update with new info - like yours about the Q story.) As I remember it, ITV had just come back after the long strike.

Your w/c date query... Quatermass ("The Conclusion") started on ITV on Weds 24 Oct 1979, so the 25th was a Thursday. Did TV Times begin their week's listings on Thursdays?

Reminder about Tomorrow evening's illustrated talk about Douglas Adams at the Faversham Fringe. Still a few tickets available... www.ticketsource.co.uk/handofdoompr...
Sunday 19/10/2025
17:30-18:30pm 

The Alexander Centre (in the Mayor's Parlour)
15-17 Preston St,
Faversham, Kent, UK
ME13 8NZ

Blurry picture of a TV set in the corner of a room from 1964. (c) KJ Davies' family.

From my family's collection - our Ferguson TV set, in around April 1964. I remember the sound the channel changer dial (on the right side) made as it clunked around. Sadly, an unsteady hand meant a blurred exposure. I wonder what was on at the time? Dig the very 50s wallpaper though!

(Rod got his second BAFTA for some of the background animation and graphics in the Max H pilot film. He did use a computer for most of that.)

Davies family at Leavesden with Buckbeak the Hippogriff in 2003.

Just been reminded of the time my family and I were kindly invited by a friend to look around #Leavesden Studios whilst #HarryPotter and The Prisoner of Azkaban was in production. Here we are with Buckbeak, the Hippogriff. This was long before the official tour was built.

The style was set by my boss Rod Lord, who won the BAFTA for his work. He got another later on for his contributions to graphics in Max Headroom.