The Madame Tussauds TARDIS

[darren79]

I've been looking for a decent picture of it for ages and found this scan from an early 80's brochure.

It appears that they used a mold of one of the walls from the Yardley-Jones box and put  the door sign to make it look like the front. I really like the paint job on it.

I visited in the early 80's and seeing Tom and K9 by the TARDIS was a strong memory - I don't think I'd even seen Tom on TV but I still knew who he was.

[rustymetaldog]

I visited this too! Was amazing

I read somewhere that the Tardis on the wall was the original master-mold wall for the fibre glass boxes...anyone know if that's correct?

[Fardels Bear]

I went as well. 

  I wouldn't 'arf mind having the clothes as well.  In fact I'm in the throws of gathering yarn for a copy of the season 18 scarf!

[russellsuthern]

That photo brings back some memories....
Unfortunately, they are memories of the Five Doctors publicity shoot, where they used the Tom Baker dummy in various despicable ways.....

Russell

[type40]

Didn't Liz Sladen get quite upset about it? Bless her. I'd feel the same if someone was taking the mickey out of one of my dear friends! 

[DoctorWho8]

I've always been under the impression that the facade was custom built at 9/10ths the original TYJ dimensions as full size wouldn't fit the display area properly.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[nebula1253]

But Tom was about that size in relation to the real prop (like in the scene in Logopolis where he notices the Watcher for the first time. So unless Madame Tussauds scaled down the model of Tom too, I think it's the same size as the real prop.
Here's the photo for reference.

[tony farrell]

Hi Nebula, unfortunately, you're mixing up your Police Box props. The one in your picture from Logopolis is the Newbery version which debuted in "Masque of Mandragora" (albeit fitted with a stepped roof for Logopolis but there is still no stepped section above the doors). 

The one in the Tussauds picture is either drawn from the same mould as the later TYJ Police Box prop or, at least, is clearly based on this later design; the sign-boxes are shallower, it has the stepped section above the doors as well as the distinctive extra bit of panel dividing strip above the centre of the "Police Public Call Box" sign.

That doesn't mean that the heights of the door frames were different both seem to be 78". 

However, because the base of the Tussaud's prop is hidden by K9, its actual height can't be judged i.e., is it a 9/10th scale replica or it might simply have no base (rather like the original set of duplicate Police Box doors which were intermittently used throughout Hartnell's tenure in the Tardis). If the Tussaud's doors aren't on a base, then the comparison of the door frame height and the height of the dummy of Tom is fair because he (the dummy Tom) is stood on the floor whereas the real Tom is stood inside the Police Box prop in the Logopolis photo.

If, however, the Tassaud's doors have a base then the comparison of the doors to the height of the dummy Tom becomes invalid because the dummy Tom should be stood on something the same height as the base on the Police Box frontage (i.e., to mimic him being stood inside the Police Box doorway as per Logopolis).

So, if the Tussaud's doors have a base, it would appear that the prop is a scaled-down version of the TYJ Tardis. If the Tussaud's doors don't have a base, then they could indeed have been drawn from the same mould as the TYJ originals. 

T 

[expendable]

British standard door height is 78 inches. Tom Baker during the filming of Doctor Who was 75 inches tall.

[Volpone]

I was going to point out that he is inside the TARDIS in the screencap and in front of it at the museum before I realized the museum TARDIS is incomplete.  What Tony said.  If the museum TARDIS doesn't have a base, it is plausible that it is 1:1 scale.  If it has a base it is clearly scaled down.  (I'm too lazy to get out my calipers and start measuring head heights compared to door panels.  And I don't have calipers.)

[nebula1253]

Oops....That was stupid of me... Should've noticed the obvious differences...

[davidnagel]

No base

[tony farrell]

Thanks David!

We can see that Tom is stood more-or-less directly in front of the prop, we can also see he's stood more-or-less straight and we can judge the height of his shoes' soles. Excluding the bouffant hair-do, the top of Mr Baker's head is approximately level with the top of the prop's window frames. If Tom was/is 75" tall, this would support the height of the prop's doors/side panel as being 78" (floor to the underside of the lowest of the stepped sections).

This, in turn, means that the Tussaud's prop was full-size and - given the tiny details such as the extra centre-strip above the sign-box - in all probability was drawn from the original master 'plug'/mould. 

T

P.S., it would be nice to know where this prop is now!

[fivefingeredstyre]

Do we know if it was a full prop, or just a flat frontage?

[galacticprobe]

This is a great question. When you look at the image, especially at the "box's" Top Sign, you can see that it should be sitting at a bit of an angle to the camera. At that angle we should see some of the side wall panel, but if you look near the bottom where K-9 is, you can see plain brick from the building's wall. That indicates this could be just a flat frontage.

Dino.