The original version of this site (available at http://www.millenniumeffect.co.uk/archive-poo/) includes several episode transcripts. These will be added here in due course.
Dr Poo aired in a series of daily episodes that each ran for around 2 minutes.
Episodes 1-3
Dr introduces himself, meets Dana
(3 episodes, beginning around May 1979)
Episodes 4-12
The Dreks on the planet Porcelain
(9 episodes, around May 1979)
Episode 13
The Woollen Chook
(1 episode, around June 1979)
Episodes 14-22
Genghis Khan & the Mongrels
(9 episodes, around June 1979)
Episodes 23-26
The Two Danas
(4 episodes, around June 1979)
It was during this storyline that the voice of Dana was passed from Geoff to Ken. You can hear them both performing the two different Danas in episodes 24-25.
Episodes 27-34
K-Tel Dorado, the planet of Plastic
(8 episodes, around July 1979)
Episodes 35-41
Alf, Elsie & The Maurice Chevalier Monster
(7 episodes, around July 1979)
Alf & Elsie, the cleaning staff are Earth’s only inhabitants except for a wild Maurice Chevalier Monster, which the Doctor domesticates. Alf gives the Doctor a new toilet seat for the TURDIS. All ends well. (Another bloody happy ending!!)
Footnote: The rest of the population left earth to be in ‘GOD-THE MOVIE’, Cecil B. de Millennium’s brick-busting epic based on the bubblegum card of the same name. Now showing at someone’s local drive-in.
Episodes 42-45
Superheroes Piss-up at the Suck & Whistle Bar
(4 episodes, around July 1979)
Episodes 46-49
The Industrial Dispute; Bob Hawke
(4 episodes, around July 1979)
Doctor very hung over after party, Kevin the announcer takes advantage & steps into middle of story. Demarcation dispute ensues. Enter… Bob Hawke + dispute settled. Everybody happy (for the time being)
Episodes 50-58
The Granny Planet
(9 episodes, around August 1979)
Planet populated entirely by grannies. Economy based on tea & bingo. Doctor forced to be bingo caller under threat of having his legs smacked, but he escapes. Dana king-hits defenceless granny in getaway.
Episodes 59-70
Victorian England
(12 episodes, around August 1979)
Episodes 71-81
The Space Pirates
(11 episodes, around September 1979)
The TURDIS crew meet a band of pirates who are masters of a group of pathetics. The pirates become interior decorators in the final episode and everyone is happy.
Episodes 82-85
Dept. of Time & Space cuts off power to the TURDIS
(4 episodes, around September 1979)
The Department of Time and Space cut off the water, gas and heating to the TURDIS due to an administrative error.
Episodes 86-96
The Huge Hairy Dog
(11 episodes, around September 1979)
Episodes 97-100
Party for the Doctor
(4 episodes, around October 1979)
Episodes 101-105
Old Dr fades away
(5 episodes, around October 1979)
New Dr appears, with a host of angels.
Episodes 106-120
The Dreks Invade Sydney
(15 episodes, around October 1979)
The Battle of Bondi Beach.
Episodes 121-132
Medi-World
(12 episodes, around November 1979)
Dr Poo’s Christmas Messages
(4 x 1-minute monologues, Christmas 1979)
Dr Poo, Kevin, Dana and Denis broadcast individual Christmas wishes to the listeners.
Episodes 190-195
The Very Old ABC
(6 episodes, around March 1980)
Episodes 196-212
Allen, the Alien Masseur Monster
(17 episodes, around March/April 1980)
Episodes 213-222
Trouble With Kevin
(10 episodes, around April 1980)
ep 217: Malcolm Fraser makes an announcement
Episodes 223-246
Knees Ahoy!
(24 episodes, around April/May 1980)
Knees Ahoy! was later cut-down into fewer but longer instalments for the infamous record release.
Episodes 247-250
The Dr clones a new TURDIS
(4 episodes, around May 1980)
Episodes 251-292
Dr Poo versus The Forces of Universal Law & Order
(42 episodes, around June/July 1980)
Intergalactic Police, The Trial, God’s Office, The Lost Property Man
The following transmission dates have been worked out by a process of deduction, working forwards from Phil’s family holiday, and backwards from an episode of Dr Wee (where Doug Mulray actually announces the date), using pointers from other Mulray comments about the weekend or the elections.
Episodes 316-330
Garry Sock’s Wedding
(15 episodes, September 1980)
Episodes 331-352
The Dubbo French Revolution
(22 episodes, Sep/Oct 1980)
Australian elections took place during the transmission of the Dubbo storyline, and we believe that a standalone episode of Dr Poo – a monologue for the Doctor, without the theme idents – aired on or around Mon 29 Sep, either in place of the on-going story, or as an additional bonus episode, or special outro.
Episodes 353-372
Felix Major
(20 episodes, Oct/Nov 1980)
Episodes 373-377
Dennis Takes Over
(5 episodes, November 1980)
In his link after the final episode of this storyline, Doug Mulray referred to the show as being “nearly 500 episodes” old – we think this was a slight exaggeration!
Episodes 378-385
Galah-Free
(8 episodes, November 1980)
Constance Poo was voiced by Lance’s girlfriend at the time.
Episodes 386-408
The Almost-Destruction of the Universe
(23 episodes, Dec 1980 – Jan 1981)
Poo vs. Wee & Lavdros
Episodes 409-440
The African Adventure
(32 episodes; only 8 broadcast during original run)
The radio presenter Cliff Baxter appeared in episode 414, but his appearance was edited out of a subsequent compilation – possibly as the team were unhappy with his performance.
Episodes 441-445
Dr, Dana & Dennis get old
(5 episodes)
includes the African Shouting Spider
Much of the information above comes directly from the writers’ own Catalogue of Episodes (below), dug out especially for this website in May 2011. Some of the early synposis are from the Fan Club episode guide, kept and scanned for us by Warren in 2010. And the episode transcripts come from a variety of off-air recordings, lovingly typed up during 2009-11 by Phil and Andrew.
Phil remembers that the original series was taken off-air in the middle of the African Adventure plot, and that later in 1981 DJs on Triple J played “previously unaired” episodes – perhaps from the end of African Adventure and the beginning of The Dr, Dana & Dennis Get Old.
You can read more about the the collections of Dr Poo recordings that we have found (or that found us) below…
Recordings
Collection #1
Perhaps the most widely distributed recordings of Dr Poo are a run of 44 continuous episodes that were taped off-air by an unknown 2JJJ listener. His/her cassette, which survived in great condition, captured 90 minutes worth of mono material – from the ninth episode of the Dubbo French Revolution right up to the introduction of Dr Wee on Galah-Free – with the occasional comment from Doug Mulray at the end of episodes.
This tape (or a copy of it) ultimately found its way into the hands of Bruce Robinson, a Dr Who fan with many contacts around the world. His English friend Alan Hayes then digitised the recordings, restoring the opening and closing titles to their full lengths.
Collection #2
Shortly after this website was launched in 2008, Dr Poo fan Phil Coy got in touch to share his memories of the series – and mentioned that he used to regularly record the episodes off-air himself. He knew that he had had three cassettes of recordings, some of which had been lent to family over the years, and he was quickly successful in locating two of them – a C60 and a C90 that between them captured 109 episodes from 1980 (including all of the 44 episodes from Collection #1).
His recordings, which varied in quality from good quality stereo to nearly inaudible mono, began with Universal Administration, followed by a short break – where he had taken a family holiday in July 1980, allowing us to date the episodes that followed – and continued right up the Dr Wee story, several episodes beyond the point where the first collection had cut off. Most episodes included some banter from Doug Mulray at the end.
His third cassette (still missing) contained the end of Dr Wee and the start of the next storyline, Dr Poo’s African Adventure, during which the series was pulled from the air – Phil vividly remembers that the series ended mid-story in January 1981.
Collection #3
In 2009 Andrew Hodson – who, like the writers of this site, was too young to have listened to Dr Poo at the time – quizzed his local sci-fi dealers about bootleg copies of further Dr Poo episodes, and miraculously found a shop-owner who had once stocked (and quietly copied for himself) a 3-CD collection of Dr Poo recordings, called “the complete collection”.
Disc 1 contained a digitised version of Knee’s Ahoy! (taken from the vinyl LP) and 11 episodes from the very beginning of the radio serial; Disc 2 continued with episodes 12-31; and Disc 3 contained two (seemingly professionally-produced) omnibus episodes: a 30-minute compilation of the Dubbo French Revolution and a 20-minute compilation of Dr Poo’s African Adventure and The Time Tap. The recordings were in immaculate condition, all in top-quality stereo, and the first 31 episodes even included verbal introductions (known as idents) and the odd bit of studio noise in-between episodes.
Quite what the omnibuses were prepared for is anyone’s guess – perhaps Triple J did some repeats during the 80s/90s, or perhaps further LPs had been planned? This set must have been distributed fairly widely, and sounds to us like it was copied directly from the ABC master tapes.
Funnily enough, after Andrew obtained copies of the other 2 collections, he shared them with the shopkeeper… and shortly afterwards, the website listing changed to a six CD collection!
Collection #4
In 2010 Warren contacted us with his own off-air recordings. These covered episodes 134 – 172 (Nov 1979 to Feb 1980), including a break in the series where Dr Poo turned into The Khan Ages, and 311 – 416 (25 Aug 1980 to 19 Jan 2011), many in better quality than Phil or Alan’s tapes, and with precise broadcast dates written onto the tapes. Warren had also recorded numerous trailers and introductions that no-one else had caught. A magnificent collection!
Collection #5
Wayne Sole and his friend Jeff, who had both been huge Poo fans back in the day, got in touch in early 2011 to reveal that they had their own off-air recordings of Cackronalds through to the African Adventure. Their recordings cut short the closing theme and bunch the episodes together quite tightly, but everything is there! Their tapes acted as an invaluable double-check for the other collections – we have been able to verify (against up to 4 concurrent sources) that nothing is missing!
Collection #6
Not an off-air collection this time, but a selection of representative Dr Poo episodes retained by the ABC, which is now held in the NAA archive. It included a verbal introduction by Lance Curtis, suggesting that the tape was recorded and compiled to send to other radio stations, or as an audition reel. Phil gained access the NAA in 2010 and was able to make transcripts of these recordings during a day-long visit, allowing us an insight into episodes 13, 18, 30, 60, 62, 63, 121, 134, 172, 175, 228, 229, 244, 255 and 273.
We are aware that the NAA also hold several other reels of Poo material, including all the recordings that Andrew had found on CD-R (the first 31 episodes, and the 2 x 30min compilations); Dr Poo’s Christmas Messages; episodes 81-85; episodes 411-430; and The Khan Ages episodes 3-7.
