In this month's DWM, Russell T Davies responded to criticism of the burping wheelie bin;

"The bin's burp was unscripted and added in post-production." DWM asked Russell about the controversial scene, "The burping bin is hilarious. Still makes me laugh. And it's important to point out, we wanted 5-year-olds to watch this brand new show. Little kids hooting at a burp. It was absolutely right."

Responding to criticism from fans: "Best of all, i know there are some people who are still cross about it, to this day. I have made them angry over a burping bin for ten years now. Oh, i win. I so win! I love it when people seethe. I enjoy warming my hands on them."

This comment is proof that the show was always and will always be aimed at young kids as well as adults. It's a family show even though a certain section of fandom wishes it wasn't. RTD started it and Moffat has continued the trend.

Slayer2012

Sums up RTD's humour. Farting and burps. Yeah, really funny.

I could have sworn there were stories at the time that he was as unhappy as the rest of us, and that director never worked on the show again?

Unscripted means the director did it without the approval of RTD. The sound effect may have been added post-production, but the bin opening its 'mouth' to burp wasn't. And that must have been done with the intention of adding a burp sound effect later, just like whenever David Tennant pointed his sonic screwdriver at something, he knew full well that a sound effect would be applied in post-production.

Well, since this comes from RTD himself, it looks like those stories were wrong, the showrunner himself added the burp and is pleased with the result, no matter what some fans think about it.

Slayer2012

But it can't have been like that. If it were unscripted, why did the bin open its lid to burp? Was RTD on location with the crew to ask them to set this up? The sound effect in post production is one thing, but there was a physical action created with string on location that wasn't in RTD's script - he wrote the episode!

Anyway, since he's in such an honest and revealing mood, perhaps he'd also like to explain why Christopher Eccleston wasn't in the second series or even came back to do a regeneration scene with Tennant? Or even why a BBC press release with actual quotes from Eccleston annoyed the man himself because he didn't make any of the supposed quotes!

I never knew something so small was even a big deal to anyone. I've seen the episode multiple times, but if i'm honest, i'd completely forgotten about the scene until I saw it mentioned, as it's not exactly one of the most important in the episode. I can perhaps understand at the time when it was series 1 episode 1 that maybe people were worried that the whole series would be too silly and not as serious as it should be/used to be, but it seems strange that it would still bother anyone now, especially given all the silly moments we've had since.

The episode is perfect, 'burp' included! I find it amusing that all those who have ever whined about the wheelie bin are absolutely fine with all the dodgy stuff in the classic series (e.g. giant rats...:P).

'Rose' actually contains some things that Moffat wouldn't include now because of the harshness, e.g. the Doctor pulling 'Mickey's head off and the headless auton proceeding to smash up the restaurant. If they did that now there'd probably be complaints...xD

Doctor Who is at its best when there is a mix of dark and light.

There were complaints for 12 pulling a hair off Clara's head, I'm surprised they dare to make episodes at all, these days

Genuinely?? The world is going to heck....

I don't even remember the burping wheelie bin.

Who on Earth told you that? You've honestly never heard fans 'whine' about the fight in Nightmare of Eden or the Punch & Judy dinosaurs in Jon Pertwee's time, or Adric or Colin Baker's coat or the Kandyman?!

Or being half human.

Seriously, I can't believe anyone could make a big deal out of a burp.

I, personally, thought it was it was a nice bit of humour in an opening episode that I watched mainly out of curiosity but which hooked me in to the Whoniverse.

To be fair that was episode 1. 10 years ago. The show was finding it's footing hence why after farting and the burping bin they were not done any more.

The main reason I didn't like the burping bin was because the story up to then had built some real tension.

Rose in a very creepy basement where mannequins come alive, then she's rescued by a manic stranger, her workplace blows up, manic stranger comes to her house, plastic comes alive, stranger rescues her (coffee table gets smashed - don't tell Jackie).
Stranger gives (incredibly brilliant) description of what he feels. But not who he is. He's an alien, but a good one? Mystery.
Rose gets in touch over the internet with a potential weirdo. Turn out he isn't, BUT!

At this point everything's feeling a bit tense, in a great way. Benton (Mark) shows her the Doctor over the centuries. "He has only one constant companion: Death".

Cut to a burping wheely bin. "Tension reduced 84%, master *whirr*"

Ok, typing all that makes me realise why they needed something like that. Must have been pretty scary for kids, and mums and dads who hadn't seen Doctor Who before. They could have done something a bit more subtle though, surely.

The burping wheelie bin was a bit naff, but it had to be there - the show was new and trying to win as much of an audience as it could. Kids needed to love the show too, and not just the old fans, else it wouldn't still be on telly, couldn't survive on just an older audience.

Firstly, there's every chance they have footage of the bin opening and closing, after all, it was having to open it's lid to eat. They always film a lot more than is used. Secondly, being in post-production doesn't preclude extra footage being filmed, although this seems unlikely. Thirdly, being unscripted doesn't mean it wasn't Russell's idea, or that it was done without his sign-off.

It was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen in Doctor Who. I knew a certain section of fans would hate it and would rather the show be more adult like the books that came out in the early 1990s. If that had been the case, then the targeted audience might not have stuck with it, i.e. the kids. As an example Goth Opera by Terrance Dicks is far too adult a storyline to be put on TV at 7:00pm.

The show needs it light as well as dark. In the classic series there were brilliant laugh out loud comedy moments - William Hartnell pretending to play the Lyre in The Romans, Patrick Troughton doing an air kick in Enemy Of The World etc. Only an idiot will still be fuming about a burping bin 10 years after it was shown.

It more bugs me that the streams of plastic stuck to mickey's hands don't cross over yet magically when turns round are stuck to the opposite hands. Not well explained but I hope you get what I mean

That's a reasonable point. However, the sound effect intended to be applied might not originally have been a burp: it could, for example, have been a scream from Mickey.

For what it's worth, I watched the episode on first transmission in company with a five-year-old and he did laugh at the burp, so RTD was spot-on with his target audience for it. On the other hand, that didn't stop him being scared of shop-window mannequins for a year or so afterwards (the five-year-old, not RTD). He is now fifteen (obviously), and has more or less given up on the programme, alleging the poor quality of the stories as a reason (the final straw was "Listen"), but is still happy to watch stories from the Third and Fourth Doctors' era.

I'm pretty sure I remember hearing him say on a documentary that he regretted doing it.

The worst part is the CGI is soo bad

It was very silly but didn't mind it, really. If you can survive the Goon Show-esque stupid noises that the TARDIS made in Horns of Nimon, you can survive anything, I guess!

Very strange to appear to revel in making people cross. Unless it was a poor choice of words - something like 'it makes me laugh in amazement that people are still annoyed about it' has a completely different intent.


No it only shows that it started off wanting to hook in youngsters as well to make it the biggest hit possible, (ones who have often largely subsequently grown up with the show as it's grown up).

I doubt there are many 5 year olds who would get hooked by many episodes recently though there are exceptions like (imo) The Eleventh Hour.


Exactly. Post-production also includes pick-up scenes doesn't it? No reason at all that one scene couldn't have been filmed/re-shot during another episode and inserted before episode one aired.





Interesting.

Any fans want to do an Episode One De-wheeliebinised a la The Phantom Edit?

Now, where's the thread about paving slabs and love lives?

Here!