The Walkies

The Walkies was an early episode of The Rainbow Adventures, a fantasy animated series created by the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids' Department of Entertainment for internal broadcast in the Cupid Homeworld.

When it premiered at the Cupid Theatre, the previous episode, The Moonbeams ended with a post-credits stinger providing a cliffhanger into the then-upcoming The Walkies; it involved Mr Raymond, the Kids' schoolteacher, discovering that he had a fever using Little Billy's thermometer, promising an adventure which “would see the Kids face enemies far more dangerous than even the SavageMen inside [his] fever-dreams”. (PROSE: Plagiarism of the SavageMen)

Behind the scenes

Plagiarism of the SavageMen was created as a topical satire of a then-ongoing controversy in the Doctor Who surrounding the perceived resemblance between a piece of 2016 armchair concept art by artist Matthew Savage for a new design of Cybermen, and the design used for the helmet of Ashad as seen in the 2019 trailer for Series 12 of the TV series, which did not credit Savage. The dispute would eventually be settled amicably between the artist and the BBC along terms not disclosed to the public.

As such, despite obviously having a very different storyline and main characters, The Rainbow Adventures is presented as a sort of spoof of Doctor Who. Case in point, The Walkies appears to be a counterpart to the original 1963 The Daleks serial, with “Little Billy” being named in reference to William Hartnell who portraied the Doctor; the cliffhanger throwing a rising thermometre evoking the Who cliffhanger of a rising radiation counter on the control panel of the Doctor's ship at the end of the previous serial. Hence, “Mr Raymond” was ostensibly named in reference to Dalek designer Raymond Cusick.