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VH1 News The Sixties Pad Feeds The XChange / Published NewsWhen Doctor Who was created, the dramatic structure of the program’s cast was rather different from the hero-and-sidekick pattern that emerged later. Initially, the character of the Doctor was almost an antihero, with uncertain motives and abilities. The protagonists were schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who provided the audience’s point-of-view in stories set in Earth’s history and on alien worlds. Ian in particular served the role of the action hero. The fourth character was the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan, who was initially presented as an “unearthly child”; the program’s makers intended Susan as an identification figure for younger viewers.
<Rose Tyler played by Billie Piper
Carole Ann Ford, who played Susan, became unhappy with the lack of development for her character, and chose to leave the series early in its second series. The character of Susan was married off to a freedom fighter and left behind to rebuild a Dalek-ravaged Earth, establishing two scenarios to which the series would later return. Doctor Who’s producers replaced Susan with another young female character, Vicki. Similarly, when Ian and Barbara left, the “action hero” position was filled by astronaut Steven Taylor. This grouping of Doctor, young heroic male and attractive young female became the program’s pattern throughout the 1960s.
When the program changed to color in 1970, its format changed: the Doctor was now earth-bound, and acquired a supporting cast by his affiliation with the paramilitary organization United Nations Intelligence Task force. The Third Doctor, more active and physical than his predecessors, made the role of the “action hero” male companion redundant. In the 1970 season the Doctor was assisted by scientist Liz Shaw and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, along with other UNIT personnel. The intellectual Shaw was replaced by the ditzy Jo Grant in the 1971 season, and as the program returned to occasional adventures in outer space, the format shifted once more: while UNIT continued to provide a regular “home base” for Earth-bound stories, in stories on other planets the Doctor and Jo became a two-person team with a close, personal bond. This pattern, the Doctor with a single female companion, became a template from which Doctor Who rarely diverged. The “heroic male” type occasionally returned (for example, Harry Sullivan and Jack Harkness), but the single female companion was Doctor Who’s staple.
Companions have assumed a variety of roles in Doctor Who, as involuntary passengers, as assistants per se (particularly Liz Shaw), as someone to whom the Doctor is a mentor, as friends, and as fellow adventurers. Modern companions tend to be invaluable in helping the Doctor out of tight situations; for example, the Doctor credits both Rose Tyler and Martha Jones with saving his life in their initial adventures with him.
The Doctor regularly gains new companions and loses old ones; sometimes they return home, or find new causes - or loves - on worlds they have visited. Some companions (notably Katarina, Sara Kingdom and Adric) have died during the course of the series.
There are some disputes within Doctor Who fandom about the definition of a companion, but most fans agree that at least thirty (including K-9 Marks I and II) meet the criteria for “companion” status in the television series, with others being established in the various spin-offs. Most companions travel in the TARDIS with the Doctor for more than one adventure, although there are exceptions; see Disputed companions, below. Sometimes a guest character will take a role in the story similar to that of a companion: one recent example is Lynda in “Bad Wolf” and “The Parting of the Ways”.
Despite the fact that the majority of the Doctor’s companions are young, attractive females, the production team for the 1963-1989 series maintained a longstanding taboo against any overt romantic involvement in the TARDIS: for example, Peter Davison, as the Fifth Doctor, was not allowed to put his arm around either Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) or Janet Fielding (Tegan). However, that has not prevented fans from speculating about possible romantic involvements, most notably between the Fourth Doctor and the Time Lady Romana (whose actors, Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, shared a romance and brief marriage). The taboo was controversially broken in the 1996 television movie when the Eighth Doctor was shown kissing companion Grace Holloway. The 2005 series played with this idea by having various characters think that the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler were a couple, which they vehemently denied. Since the series revival, the Doctor has kissed companions Rose, Jack and Martha, although each instance not in a romantic context .
Previous companions have reappeared in the series, usually for anniversary specials. One former companion, Sarah Jane Smith (played by Elisabeth Sladen), together with the robotic dog K-9, appeared in one episode of the 2006 series more than twenty years after their last appearances in the 20th anniversary story The Five Doctors (1983). The character of Sarah Jane also heads up a Doctor Who spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures. Another companion, Captain Jack Harkness, appears in the spin-off program Torchwood.
The new series (2005-) has slightly altered the significance of the companion status, partly due to a strong focus on the character of Rose Tyler and characters connected to her. For example, although Adam Mitchell was a companion by the standard definition, he appeared in only two episodes and was arguably a less significant part of the 2005 series than Rose’s sometime boyfriend Mickey Smith, who was not technically a companion but appeared in five episodes (or six, including a brief appearance as a child in “Father’s Day”). Mickey later gained full-fledged companion status when he joined the TARDIS crew in the 2006 episode “School Reunion”. In that episode, Sarah Jane Smith referred to Rose as the Doctor’s “assistant”, a term to which the latter took offense. This exchange might be regarded as indicating a deliberate shift in approach for the new series.
The character of the Doctor was initially shrouded in mystery. All that was known about him in the programme’s early days was that he was an eccentric alien traveller of great intelligence who battled injustice while exploring time and space in an unreliable old time machine called the TARDIS. The TARDIS is much larger on the inside than on the outside and, due to a chronic malfunction, is stuck in the shape of a 1950s-style British police box.
However, not only did the initially irascible and slightly sinister Doctor quickly mellow into a more compassionate figure, it was eventually revealed that he had been “on the run” from his own people, the Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey.
As a Time Lord, the Doctor has the ability to “regenerate” his body when near death, allowing for the convenient recasting of the lead actor. A Time Lord can regenerate twelve times, for a total of thirteen incarnations. The Doctor has gone through this process and its resulting after-effects on nine occasions, with each of his incarnations having his own quirks and abilities:
For more on the history of Dr Who visit The Old Hippie
Since 1995 with the release of Toy Story, Pixar has been making excellent computer animated movies. I have seen and loved all of their movies. They somehow keep managing to top their previous movies with every new one. I’ve been looking forward to seeing Ratatouille for months and the movie lived up to my expectations.
Remy was an unusual rat because he was more discriminating about what he ate. He didn’t want to pick through garbage like the other rats. He actually wanted to be able to cook and looked up to the famous French chef Gusteau, something that his father and brother Emile didn’t understand or support. Remy ended up in Paris after things went wrong where he had been living. He still had his dream of cooking and he risked his life by being in the kitchen of a well-known restaurant.
Linguini was a young man working there who found himself in danger of losing his job because he couldn’t cook. He befriended Remy and the two came up with a way to work together to become a great chef. Emile and Remy had to be very careful so no one in the kitchen figured out what was going on. Chef Skinner, the head chef, was very suspicious of Linguini.
The animated short Lifted played before the movie began. It was very cute, funny, and entertaining. The animation was very well done and featured gorgeous visuals. There was some hand drawn type of animation shown during the closing credits.
The plot of Ratatouille was mostly concerned with following your dreams and not letting others deter you. Remy wanting to be a chef didn’t seem like a very attainable dream for a rat. Things seemed stacked against him, but he didn’t give up. It also touched on the importance of being true to yourself and not living a lie just to make others happy. Those messages were handled well and delivered in ways that weren’t heavy handed. I expected there to be some sort of message included in the movie since every other Pixar movie has done the same thing. They give the movies heart and make them so much more than just animated movies. That is what makes Pixar’s movies so wonderful.
Most of the movie dealt with Remy’s adventures once he arrived in Paris. It didn’t take him long to find the restaurant where he met Linguini. Remy only delayed his escape from the kitchen because he just couldn’t resist fixing a soup that was messed up. The rest of the movie was about Remy and Linguini figuring out how to work together and keep Skinner and the other cooks from discovering their secret. The plot was a bit more complicated than the plots of most other animated movies which might bother some people. There were a couple of subplots introduced that I thought blended in well with the main story. I do think this is a movie that adults and children both can enjoy. The movie was almost two hours long and did have a few slower scenes, so it could be too long for some viewers, especially younger children. I didn’t have a problem with the length and was never bored by what was going on.
Humor was used throughout the movie in ways that worked very well. Remy did a lot of things that made me laugh, like when he was trying to cook a mushroom with Emile looking on when a storm was fast approaching. The way that turned out was hilarious. The scenes when Remy and Linguini were figuring out how they would be able to work together were very funny. Chef Skinner became obsessed with figuring out what was going on which caused him to do all kinds of things that made me laugh. Some of the things that were done for humor were a little silly, but that didn’t bother me at all. I really liked that the movie didn’t resort to gross humor with burping or farting jokes like so many animated and family movies seem to do anymore.
Cooking played a very big part in Ratatouille. Remy was trying to figure out how to eat better when he was still living in the country with his pack who were perfectly content to eat from the garbage. Remy managed to see cooking shows about Gusteau and even read his cook book. Once he was in Paris and working with Linguini, the two of them did a lot of cooking. Several scenes were shown in the kitchen of the restaurant. Those scenes did seem accurate to me - except for a rat cooking of course. Some of the terms associated with cooking and the different positions in the kitchen were briefly explained in a way that didn’t detract from what was going on.
Pixar has a history of featuring unique characters in their movies. Their movies have featured talking toys, bugs, monsters, fish, and cars. Humans have been minor characters in most of the movies and not even seen at all in a few of them. The Incredibles was the only Pixar movie to have people as main characters though they weren’t normal since they were superheroes. In Ratatouille, there was a mix of human and rat characters. The rats were able to talk to each other and even understand humans. The humans couldn’t understand the rats and only heard squeaks if a rat was talking. Remy and Linguini came up with a unique way to work together that I really liked. Many people think of rats as disgusting animals and wouldn’t want one anywhere near them, let alone actually cooking their meal in a fancy restaurant in Paris. I’ve heard that some people had concerns about how well the movie would do since Remy is a rat. That never bothered me and I wanted to see the movie from the first time I saw the preview in the summer of 2006 when I saw Cars.
Ratatouille continued the fabulous animation that Pixar has become known for. The countryside that was shown at the beginning of the movie looked very realistic and beautiful. The way hair looked throughout the movie, either on the different rat or human characters, was great. Individual hairs could be seen moving on the rats and people’s heads. There were a few sequences that involved water or rain in some way. The rushing water looked amazingly realistic. In one scene, Remy was in a sewer and the reflection from the water was visible ripping across the wall in a very believable way. The movie also included several gorgeous visuals of the skyline of Paris. Those looked so real that I almost forgot I was watching an animated movie.
Remy and Linguini were the main characters, with Remy being a bit more developed. He loved his family, but wasn’t content with a life picking food from garbage and sniffing out rat poison. He loved good food and had a talent for cooking which led to him working with Linguini. The voice of Patton Oswalt really fit the character. Linguini was a young man who was very unsure of himself when he arrived at the restaurant. He was sweet and kind but he did let his new found success after he was working with Remy go to his head. Lou Romano’s voice worked very well for the character.
Gusteau was the well-liked chef that Remy looked up to. Gusteau believed that anyone could cook, something that earned him the scorn of some critics. I really liked the voice that Brad Garrett did for the character. Even though Skinner was the chef in charge of the kitchen, he never seemed to actually cook anything. He tended to run around yelling orders. He became very suspicious of Linguini. I didn’t recognize that Ian Holm was providing his voice when I saw the movie.
Janeane Garofalo’s character of Colette had a soft spot for Linguini though she was also tough as the only woman working in the kitchen. Anton Ego was a very stuffy, arrogant, food critic who had once skewered the restaurant in a review. He wasn’t pleased that the restaurant was receiving praise. Peter O’Toole’s voice was absolutely perfect and matched the appearance of the character. None of the other chefs working at the restaurant were featured that much. They were mainly just shown in the backgrounds of scenes. Several rats, including Remy’s father Django and brother Emile were also around without being very developed. John Ratzenburger once again provided a voice for a character like he has done in every Pixar movie. Director Brad Bird also provided a voice for a character.
Voice Talent
Will Arnett - Horst
Brad Bird - Ambrister Minion
Julius Callahan - Lao/Francois
Brain Dennehy - Django
Janeane Garofalo - Colette
Brad Garrett - Gusteau
Ian Holm - Skinner
Peter Oswalt - Remy
Peter O’Toole - Anton Ego
John Ratzenburger - Mustafa
James Remar - Larousse
Lou Romano - Linguini
Peter Sohn - Emile
Reviewed By: Kari Croop
Visit the Fight Girl Fans Website 
You’d think that squeezing a group of well-formed women who love to fight into the same living space would be a recipe for Jerry Springer-style brawls. But it’s exactly the opposite in FIGHT GIRLS, Oxygen’s reality show about 10 women competing for the chance to take on the best female Muay Thai fighters in the world.
The contenders have a wide variety of backgrounds, from an aspiring psychic to a Hooters waitress with a black belt in karate. They’re aided in their training by a world-renowned Muay Thai sensei and a pair of female mentors: mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano and Muay Thai fighter Lisa King.
The most compelling aspect of Fight Girls isn’t really the fighting itself, although that does prove pretty riveting. It’s the fact that so much of the typical reality show hoo-hah — the casual sex, the catfights, the serial binge drinking — is noticeably absent. Instead, the focus seems to be on the individual journeys of 10 remarkably complex and downright interesting women who support each other more often than they attack each other. Well, outside the ring, anyway.
If you take away the estrogen, Fight Girls is a lot like Spike TV’s Ultimate Fighter, which follows the experiences of 16 male martial artists living under the same roof. But no serious study of fighting would be complete without the now-classic Fight Club (for mature teens and adults, anyway) … just remember not to talk about it afterward.
This short story was published in the December 1961 issue of Rogue magazine, that also featured the breasts of the woman on the cover. The editorial calls this story it’s “lead fiction”.
“When do we leave?”
“Monday at dawn. Bring your gear aboard tomorrow and we’ll get it stowed away.”
Laurenson stood up. “Good. We’d better get back to the hotel and pack.” He picked up his camera and started toward the hatch, stooping low to keep from banging his head.
His wife was already on the ladder. Halfway up, she turned and looked back. “It’s nice of you to take us along, Mr. Maier. I hope we won’t be any trouble.”
The skipper stood up. “Not at all - and don’t call me Mr. Maier. My name’s Chick.”
Laurenson smiled and helped his wife up the ladder to the deck, where a small fellow with a new growth of beard was patching a sail. He looked up: “You decided to make the trip?”
“Yes,” Laurenson replied. “Should be quite an adventure.”
The skipper lifted himself through the hatch and stood beside them in the hot Caribbean sun. “You may change your mind before we get there,” he said. “Two weeks at sea is a long time.”
“I think well love it,” said Anne.
Maier shrugged and lit a cigarette.
Laurenson watched him curiously. The skipper was a full head shorter than he was, but probably weighted about the same. He was somewhere in his early thirties, with heavy shoulders and short muscular legs. He wore nothing but a pair of ragged khaki shorts, and the hair on his body was three different colors: a crisp blond on his legs and head, dark brown on his chest and shoulders, and dull red in his beard.
Laurenson was about to step over to the dock when Maier called him back: “Why don’t you give me the money now, so I can get the groceries.”
Laurenson handed him the checks and Maier counted them. “Okay,” he said. “Get here about noon tomorrow. We have some work to do.”
Anne smiled impishly. “You want me to work, too?”
Maier looked at her. “I’ll put you to work,” he said quietly. “You look like you might be good for something.”
Laurenson felt his stomach tighten. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He followed Anne along the rickety pier. At the end they stopped to look back at Maiers boat. It was an old, fifty-foot sloop with a black hull and the name “Sebastian” painted in gold letters on the stern. It was a little different from the others in the harbor. They were charter-boats, everything from tiny sloops to huge, three-masted schooners, and their naked spars swayed lazily against a background of green hills and bright blue sky.
The Laurensons were taking an island-hopping vacation. They had started in Trinidad and worked their way north to St. Cyr. Now, instead of flying back to Cleveland, where he was in hi last year of medical school, they were going back to the States on the Sebastian.
After breakfast the next day they took their gear aboard the Sebastians and stowed it in lockers below their bunks on either side of the main cabin. Maier and the other crewman, Bill Eble, would sleep in the skippers cabin in the stern.
Maier had gone ashore and Eble told them what had to be done. He was young, slightly pudgy, and obviously working very hard to grow a beard. He told them he’d met Maier through a mutual friend in New York and had flown down several weeks ago to “give Chick a hand” on the trip back to Long Island, where the boat would stay for the summer.
Maier appeared late in the afternoon, still wearing nothing but the khaki shorts. he carried a can of beer and a thick piece of rope that he slapped on the mast, and occasionally on the palm of his hand.
Laurenson suspected he was drunk. Christ, he thought, the little ape carries this skipper act right to the limit - strutting around the deck with a goddamn whip!
Maier tossed the empty beer can into the harbor. “Anne,” he said, “go down and fix us a little grub. Theres some ground beef in the icebox. Might as well eat it before it goes bad.”
Laurenson looked up from the rope he was splicing. “We’ll eat in town tonight,” he said. “We want to try the lobster at Gianinni’s.”
Maier shook his head. “It’s rotten - take my word for it.” He lit a cigarette. “No sense in not eating here. Like I said, you’re my guests for the next two weeks.” He pointed the rope at Eble. “Bill, go below and show Anne how to work the stove.”
No one moved for a moment, then Eble got up and started down the ladder. Anne followed obediently.
Almost an hour went by before she re-appeared. Her hair was mussed and her face was damp with sweat. “Ready,” she said meekly.
“Hot damn!” Maier exclaimed. “Let’s eat. Come on Laurenson. You look like you need it.”
The table in the main cabin was neatly set with four plates of ground beef and string beans. Maier and Laurenson sat on one side of the table, with Anne and Eble on the other.
Nothing was said until the meal was over. “We’ll take turns cleaning up the galley,” Maier said. “Tonight the job falls to seaman Laurenson.”
Eble went up on deck and Laurenson joined his wife in the kitchen. “Jesus,” he muttered, “this may not be as much of a lark as I thought.”
It was still dark when Maier woke them the next morning. “Let’s get going,” he snapped. “I want to clear this harbor before the sun comes up.”
Maier announced the watches while Eble hoisted the jib. “You and Bill will be together,” he said to Laurenson, “and me and Anne will take the other one. That way we’ll have one experienced hand on deck all the time.”
Laurenson was instantly awake. “How does this watch business work?” he said quickly.
Maier smiled, swacking the rope-whip against his palm. “I thought you were the big sailor, Laurenson. One watch handles the boat while the other sleeps. We’ll be four on, four off. That means you’ll work four hours, then sleep.” He paused for an instant. “And you’d better damn well get your sleep, because you’ll need it.”
Laurenson felt a flutter of panic. He tried to catch Anne’s eye, but she was looking down at the deck.
By the time the sun came up the Sebastian was in open water with the bow pointed north to Bermuda. The sea was smooth. Maier and Eble took turns at the helm. Anne made lunch and Laurenson did his best to grasp the basic elements of sailing.
At noon, Maier took a sun-sight with the sextant. “Get a good look at that land,” he shouted, pointing to St. Cyr. on the horizon. “It’s the last you’ll see for a week.”
In the afternoon Eble showed Laurenson how to steer a compass course. The day passed slowly and he was tired when Maier called him for the eight-to-midnight watch. “Come on Laurenson, hit the deck. Me and Anne have to get some sleep.”
Laurenson steered for an hour, but found it difficult to concentrate. The cockpit was above Maier’s cabin and he listened carefully for any sounds.
Maier appeared exactly at midnight and Laurenson went below to wake Anne. She was already up.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Fine. Is anything wrong.”
His next words were out of his mouth before he realized it. “Don’t let him bother you,” he whispered. %
‘Fear and Loathing’ is an account of its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze. The novel first appeared as a two-part series in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971 and is based upon Hunter S. Thompson and attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta’s trip to Las Vegas around the same time period.
Thompson had been writing an expose for Rolling Stone on the 1970 killing of the Mexican-American television journalist Ruben Salazar, who had been shot in the head at close range with a tear gas canister fired by officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War. One of Thompson’s sources for the story was Oscar Zeta Acosta, a prominent Mexican-American activist and attorney. Thompson told Acosta Sports Illustrated magazine had offered him a job writing photo captions for the Mint 400 motocross race held annually in Las Vegas. Finding it difficult for a Hispanic to talk openly to a white reporter in L.A.’s tense atmosphere, Thompson and Acosta decided that Las Vegas would be a more comfortable place to discuss the story.
Thompson later wrote that he wrapped up the Vegas trip by spending about 36 hours alone in a Las Vegas hotel room “feverishly writing in my notebook” about his experiences. Those notes were the genesis of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. Thompson then started the Fear and Loathing manuscript in a hotel room in Arcadia, California during his spare time while he finished the Salazar story for Rolling Stone (which was published as Strange Rumblings in Aztlan on April 29, 1971).What was intended as a 250-word photo-captioning job/road trip snowballed into a novel-length feature for Rolling Stone magazine. Thompson later wrote that Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner “[liked] the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication — which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it.” He had first submitted a 2,500 word manuscript to Sports Illustrated, which was, as he later wrote, “aggressively rejected.”
The text was eventually published as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Rolling Stone as a two-part series in November 1971. The article was printed with illustrations by British illustrator, Ralph Steadman. Steadman and Thompson first began working together in 1970 on Thompson’s article, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved” for the short-lived magazine, Scanlan’s Monthly.[4] The novelization of “Fear and Loathing” (with additional Ralph Steadman illustrations) was quickly published by Random House the next year and was heralded as “by far the best book yet on the decade of dope” by the New York Times[5] and a “scorching epochal sensation” by author Tom Wolfe.
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