Funny / Doctor Who

Funny moments from the Doctor Who series.

• Classic series
• Revival series

Doctor Who Expanded Universe

• Big Finish Doctor Who
• Doctor Who Magazine
  • "Hunters of the Burning Stone"
• Eighth Doctor Adventures

Other Comics

• Issue 11 of IDW's Doctor Who Ongoing has a "Freaky Friday" Flip plot in which Amy and the Eleventh Doctor get swapped. Rory doesn't care what Amy looks like. At the end, not knowing that they've just switched back, he declares this and says they'll make it work just before passionately kissing the Doctor. Amy says they should do it again, but slower.
• One of Eleven's comics-only companions is Kevin. The ROBOT DINOSAUR. Need we say more?
• IDW has given us Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation², where the Eleventh Doctor interacts with another sci-fi long runner.
  • Hilarity Ensues when The Doctor meets Data.
    The Doctor: An android! A positively spendid android! What do you have in here, a positronic brain? Those can be tricky to untangle, need lots of artificial synapse jumping. Looks like you've got it running very smoothly.
    Data: Curious...
    Riker: Um...
    Amy: Doctor, you're being rude!
    The Doctor: Top-notch workmanship, I have to say. Did you build him yourself?
    Data: Please let go of my head.
  • Worf tires of the Doctor's nonstop Gibbering Genius tendencies:
    The Doctor: Very nice, very impressive. Roomy. I like roomy. I like the lines. Very nice use of space.
    Worf: Will you PLEASE stop talking!
  • Issue #3 has Spock giving a detailed analysis of the jellybaby that the 4th Doctor gives him.
• Titan's Ninth Doctor comic Weapons of Past Destruction has the Doctor doing an impression of Jackie Tyler. Rose is not amused.
  Rose: Oi, leave my mum out of this! And while you're at it, Dick Van Dyke wants his accent back.

Other Books

• In the Past Doctor Adventures novel Verdigris, the Master pulls off a dine-and-dash on the frustrated Big Bad of the book and steals his dinner in the process.
• The kid-oriented book How to Be a Time Lord is presented as the Eleventh Doctor's rewrite of a book on Time Lord history, meant to help his next incarnation get his bearings post-regeneration. In the section "Enemies of the Time Lords", Eleven lists several telltale signs of an enemy, accompanied by his own cartoony illustrations. The last sign has an illustration suspiciously similar-looking to a certain Wham Shot in "The Day of the Doctor": "Beady eyes! Totally creepy. And those mean, downward-pointing eyebrows. They mean trouble." Um, Eleven, you meant well, but...
• The Time Lord Letters has tons of funny bits:
  • Letters 31-33 chronicle the temporary tenure of one John "The Doctor" Smith as caretaker of Coal Hill School. His application letter for the post, noting that the regular caretaker has fallen ill, arrives at the school the day before that caretaker calls in sick, and via notes the Doctor dispenses unwanted advice about everything from the untidiness of Danny Pink's classroom to the poor quality of the chips in the cafeteria ("they need to be much crispier if you want children to enjoy eating them. And may I suggest a selection of dips and dressings?").
  • Letter 37, which comes in the wake of the Seventh Doctor's adventure in Paradise Towers, is a thank you note from the Acting Interim Chief Caretaker. It's titled "Thank You (in accordance with Rule 1781-B)", and the by-the-book speak just mounts from there.
  • Letter 97, "Naughty or Nice?", is the Twelfth Doctor's thank-you note to Santa Claus for his help in reuniting him and Clara. The P.S. reveals that he's sending it by sticking it up a chimney, and it sits around in one "for over a century", according to the book's compilers, before being discovered. Also, while the letter is largely friendly, the Doctor once again notes "But seriously — you should give up on the tangerines. No one likes them. No one at all. Signature gift or not, it's time to move on, Big Fellah."
  • Letter 99, "Not So Sorry", has the Fourth Doctor's draft of an apology for skipping out on lunch with the Prime Minister after defeating a giant robot… which the Brigadier heavily Quote Mines before sending it out to be typed up. Among the material lost in the process: "Can't you liven things up a bit [at cabinet meetings]? Maybe play musical chairs or something?" Letter 100, "Royal Excuses", has Four apologize for also missing dinner at Buckingham Palace, and it's even worse — partially because he discusses everything he did after defeating the robot, up through the beginning of his investigation of "trouble in the North Sea". The Brigadier doesn't even try to edit it, and forbids it to be sent!
• The Dangerous Book of Monsters is presented as the Twelfth Doctor's guide to children on how to avoid/deal with — if possible — the myriad of villains in the Whoniverse. He's a mighty prickly advice-giver:
  • "The actual, real Emperor Dalek Creature is inside this transparent tank. He can see out, so you could wave to him. No, don't actually wave to him. STOP THAT!"
  • On the Half-Face Man: "He shouldn't give you any trouble, as he fell out of a flying restaurant. That's my story, anyway."
  • On Missy: "If she doesn't kill you, she'll probably kiss you. Not sure which is worse."
  • With regards to the Futurekind, he captions a picture of one with "Good eyebrows though. They got that right."
  • On avoiding the Flood: "Well, I'm not going to say you shouldn't wash, so don't get your hopes up... But if you see anyone who's dripping wet, with cracked skin and a gargly voice — probably talking about world domination — then take a break from showers."
  • He notes among basic rules in the afterword: "If in doubt, hide. Not under the bed, because a monster might have beaten you to it. But behind the sofa is good."
• The Missy Chronicles:
  • While in the vault, one of Missy's requests is for sugar mice, because you can pretend you're eating live animals — which is what she always assumed the Doctor liked about jelly babies. The Doctor never actually denies this, much to Nardole's concern.
  • Missy's "Spacebook" profile includes a list of the various paper-thin "aliases" she's used over the years. She explains that if she didn't pick something obvious, the Doctor never even had the decency to be suspicious.
  • The revelation that Twelve and Missy watched Frozen together at some point during her stay in the vault. Saxon is appalled (and the fact that he even got the reference raises questions).

Outside the Universe

• Doctor Who Confidential
• Scream of the Shalka
• The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

The Curse of Fatal Death (charity spoof)

• Emma asks the Doctor about how the aliens who lived on this planet- who communicated entirely through flatulence- went extinct; Rowan Atkinson's perfectly deadpan delivery is what really sells it.

  The Doctor: They discovered fire.

  • Emma briefly refers to them as "the planet of the bottom burpers".
• The Master triggering his first trap:
  The Master: Say hello to the Spikes of Doom!
  [the Doctor and Emma are flipped into the wall and come back sitting on...]
  The Doctor: Say hello to the Sofa of Reasonable Comfort.
• Easily the funniest line came from the Master as he was about to dump the Doctor and his assistant into the vast sewers of Tersurus:
  The Master: Prepare for 500 miles of fear and feces!
  [Later on:]
  The Master: 624 years... in a sodding sewer!
  [Later still, after the Master's fallen in a third time:]
  The Doctor: [to the Daleks] Don't worry; I believe he knows the way out.
• Jonathan Pryce's gloriously OTT Master is a Crowning Villain of Funny. The Evil Laugh that causes thunder and lightning to strike while he's inside his TARDIS? The Dalek control "bumps"? His cybernetic upgrade (his hand's been replaced by a plunger)? And he is NOT CAMP!
  • The Master and Emma get a bit snide with each other over the matter of the 'bumps':
  The Master: They're not breasts, they're Dalek bumps. They can detect ion charged emissions and operate as atheric beam locators at a distance of up to 20,000 light years.
  [Emma snorts derisively]
  The Master: They're also extremely firm.
  Emma: What are you trying to say?!
  The Master: [Bitchy] Oh. Nothing.
• The female Doctor, inspecting her sonic screwdriver: "Ooh, look—it's got three settings!"
• After the Doctor explains how he'll tell the Master that the Daleks are planning to screw him over^note The aliens communicate by breaking wind:
  Emma: ...Can I be tied to a different chair?
  Dalek: Si-lence.
  Emma: ...Why do you have chairs on a Dalek spaceship anyway?
  Dalek: ...We will ex-plain la-ter.
  • Heck, every time they need to say "I/We will explain later".

The Weakest Link Special

• It starts with the Anne-Droid making a return, only for the real Anne Robinson to stride in and unplug it.
• The very fact that K-9 is a contestant. No, not his voice actor, K-9 himself.
• Then, at the end of the first round, everyone votes for K-9 as the Weakest Link. Even K-9 himself, who said "K-9" when the answer on his podium said "Andrew". This was actually a deliberate choice to eliminate the tin dog first because K-9 props just have the worst track record of breaking down out of nowhere and they didn't want to chance it in-game.
• David Tennant introducing himself.
  David: Hello, I'm David Tennant, I'm over 900 years old, and I'm from Gallifrey.
• John Barrowman vocally improvises the Doctor Who theme tune and hams up the "DOO-WEE-DOO! WEE-OOH-WOO!"
• The game was rigged from the start to carry the main cast members through to the final round. By that logic, David and John would have been the last two contestants as the most popular. That is, until Noel Clarke decided to play competitively. And even so, Camille Coduri won Sudden Death and clinched the whole game, even after struggling to get through some of the game's earlier rounds.

Other

• Tom Baker, famously, was working a tea cart on a construction site when he got hired to replace Jon Pertwee. Barry Letts asked very firmly that Baker keep a lid on it for two weeks until they made the proper press announcement. Despite his excitement, Baker was good to his word and kept it quiet. When the day finally came, as far as his co-workers knew, he was just knocking off early for another audition. Cut to that evening when the announcement was on TV and had made the evening edition of the papers, and Baker was treated to many celebratory drinks at the pub that night.
• This outtake from Survival, in which Sylvester McCoy gets so angry (in character) that he starts shedding parts of his costume and leaping into the dirt.
• When Jenna Coleman was having her first interview after it was announced that she'd be the next Companion, she was asked her favorite monster and she replied, "I'm pretty sure I'll run into the Daleks at some point." A bit of Hilarious in Hindsight deliberately invoked by Coleman, since she definitely already knew (and had possibly already filmed it) that in her first episode, she'd be playing a human turned into a Dalek, 5 episodes and 3 months before anyone was expecting to see her on the show.
• The entire cast and crew of the Davies/Tennant era performing The Proclaimers' "500 Miles" at the wrap party for "The End of Time". We dare you not to laugh at the sight of an Ood dancing.
  • There's also the two VFX artists who appeared in the video, who have have enlarged and shrunken their own heads and edited in dancing a group of dancing Adipose.
• After the word got out that a warehouse in America accidentally sent out the Series 7b DVD a little too early (as in, before the finale aired), the BBC and other assorted Powers That Be all politely asked that the fans who received them not spoil anything for the rest. Whovians responded in their own unique way, namely by spamming the post with so much insane nonsense that even if the truth were revealed (which it wasn't, by the way) they wouldn't believe it anyway.
  • It was only the Blu-Ray that was leaked, and Steven Moffat's comment about that is pretty hilarious as well:
    Moffat: We don't leak just any old junk. 1080p or nothing, that's us! It's like getting caught extra naked.
• When Peter Capaldi got cast as Matt Smith's replacement, many Whovians (notably those on Tumblr) jokingly theorized that the Twelfth Doctor would be much like another role of Capaldi's.
  • See this video and this video. Oh yes, and this.
    • It was even joked about during the actual announcement shortly after Capaldi came on stage.
• Also, after his casting, he was interviewed by Graham Norton on his show. And was mortified when Norton started reading letters written about him by officials of the Doctor Who Fan Club and the BBC in The '70s.
• Karen Gillan's tweet following the casting of the Twelfth Doctor:
  KarenGillan2: CAPALDI! Superb choice. Swear I've seen him in Pompeii...
• For the 50th anniversary of the show, the official Twitter put an image with the phrase "On this day [September 19] 50 years ago, filming began on a new BBC TV Series called Doctor Who…". The fans' response? "It will never catch on."
• The entirety of the Doctor Who Cast vs Nerdist Bowling Match. Some highlights include:
  • Karen Gillan being so accidentally good at bowling at one point she's doing even better than Chris Hardwick. Who is the son of a professional bowler. And usually gets several strikes a game.
    Chris Hardwick: From a scientific standpoint, everything she's doing should not work. And yet it is.
    —
    Matt Smith: Karen's got the highest score!
    Chris Hardwick: SHE DOES HAVE THE HIGHEST SCORE. *hangs head in shame*
    • Matt and Arthur poke fun at this, affectionately agreeing to call Karen "an idiot", to which Karen gets adorably defensive.
  • Chris Hardwick's TARDIS ball.
    Chris Hardwick: It came through a tear in the fabric of the universe. Or I just paid a hundred bucks and had this printed onto a ball. With a laser, so that's kinda sciencey.
  • Matt Smith being absolutely terrible, to the point where he has a counter for the number of pins he's hit (his final total seemed to be roughly 16, which a competent bowler can make in two turns.)
    Steven Moffat: What you need to do is try to hit some of the pins.
    —
    Matt Smith: I've got one pin! I'm the worst in the game!
    Karen Gillan: Hahahaha, one pin!
    Matt Smith: Shut up, Karen.
    • Steven Moffat wasn't much better; in several frames the ball would arc through the air and only land about halfway down the lane. One of the other guys said he throws the ball like a caveman and should probably switch to softball. Notice that Moffat's competitiveness still came through, lasering in on the fact that he was at least better than somebody, namely Matt, who he teased mercilessly about it.
  • Arthur Darvill is so "fluid" when swinging his bowling ball (using just about his whole body to throw it) that Karen jokes that he "has no bones".
    Karen Gillan: Come on, Arthur! Show them what you're made of!
    Arthur Darvill: I'm not really made of very much.
  • On Hardwick's team was Wil Wheaton, who, after a rather poor frame, gets Steven Moffat to unleash his inner snark.
    Moffat: And they said he was a boy genius. What happened? If Beverly Crusher could see this...
• David Tennant introduces "The Day of the Doctor".
• What the Official Twitter of Historical Royal Palaces says about the Black Archive shown in the 50th Anniversary special:
  We have no knowledge of the black archive at the Tower of London. Then again, we might have had our memories wiped
• During the 50th anniversary of the series, multiple live celebrations were going on. Ironically, Doctor Who Afterparty, the one with the main cast members of the special, executive producer of the special Steven Moffat, and many prominent classic series stars, went completely Off the Rails. They decided to do an interview with One Direction over their live feed, who had declared the same day as the anniversary "1DDAY" and were performing a 24-hour livestream. Someone got the crazy idea this was to rival the series, when OD was a band having next to nothing to do with the series, and it was merely an accidental coincidence. This livestream linkup could have worked in both the band's and DW's popularity favor... except that there was a delay between transmissions on either side. It promptly turned into a massive farce that will go down in Doctor Who infamy even more than Dimensions in Time.
  Steven Moffat: In the name of God, we can't do this!!
  • Matt Smith also appeared to flick the V at One Direction. In America, the gesture can be seen as inoffensive, but in Britain... it means "piss off".
  • Amusingly, the afterparty's list of companions includes Caitlin Blackwood (Young Amy) who stretches the definition of "companion" to breaking point and Andrew Hayden Smith (Jake Simmonds from Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel and Army of Ghosts / Doomsday) who completely and utterly shatters it.
• This Tonight's the Night skit introduced by John Barrowman.
  David Tennant: My TARDIS.
• During his photo shoot as Orson Pink, Samuel Anderson started randomly quoting Buzz Lightyear.
• Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and David Tennant all sat down to do the commentary for the episode Forest of the Dead. As you can guess, the three men tease each other and geek over Doctor Who lore more than they actually talk about the episode. It was also taped right when Moffat was announced as the next showrunner following RTD, so naturally there's some good natured ribbing on the situation.
  David Tennant: Who's Borusa and who's Flavia?
• Missy reading a book titled "World Domination - A Timelord's Guide" with a picture of Roger Degaldo's Master on the back.
• Dalek relaxation tape. Yes. That exists.
• Before the BBC decided to revive Doctor Who and before Christopher Eccleston was announced as the official Ninth Doctor, the official Ninth Doctor was the "Shalka Doctor" from the webisode "Scream of the Shalka". This incarnation of the Ninth Doctor was played by Richard E. Grant, and the preceding incarnation, the Eighth Doctor, was played by Paul McGann. In other words, "& I" regenerated into "Withnail" in this continuity.
  • What makes it even funnier is that Richard Griffiths, who plays Withnail's Uncle Monty in Withnail and I, was considered for the part of the Eighth Doctor once Sylvester McCoy left the role in the unmade Season 27 had the series not been canceled.
• The working title for "The Eleventh Hour" was "The Doctor Returns". Until some smartarse pointed out that the Doctor never actually "left".
• Matt Lucas, in an end-of-season-10 "Behind The Scenes" interview clip, proclaims that he'll sorely miss everyone he's worked with on Doctor Who ... except the "Behind The Scenes" crew, who really got on his nerves.
• Alex Kingston missed the official announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, and found out from the crowd at a panel. She promptly got an expression of "I wonder how good a snogger she is?" and made kissing noises into the microphone before lamenting that:
  Alex: God, I'm always the damn cradlesnatcher!
• Matt Lucas' response regarding the casting of the Thirteenth Doctor: "Can't believe they cast a human to play the Doctor."
• An article from Russian spies on Jodie Whittaker's casting:
  People are joking that the new Doctor will pack TARDIS full with dresses or won't be able to park her. As if the previous men-Doctors had their socks strewn all over the consoles!
• Matt Smith literally called as many higher-ups at the BBC that he could and begged them to tell him who the Thirteenth Doctor was. When he found out it was Jodie Whittaker, he was so excited that he left a voicemail on her phone of him singing the theme song.
• The July 15 teaser for Series 11: The Doctor is essentially trolling her soon-to-be companions by appearing to stop time and mess with them, while no one else notices. In particular:
  • The look on Yasmin's face after she discovers the pizza box she's holding has gone from empty to holding a whole new pizza, a mixture of confusion and happiness at there being more food.
  • Graham's facial expression when he discovers that his newspaper has been swapped out for a copy of The Beano (the 1981 Summer Special, no less) is hilariously confused. Then he looks up as if trying to see if there was anyone around who could have done the swap.
• In an August 2018 interview with Doctor Who Magazine, Joy Wilkinson described the episode she'd written for Series 11 as "dark, funny and squelchy".
• The September 7 teaser for Series 11: The Doctor stands in the middle of a church, the glass windows and ceiling shattering around her... and goes "Whoops". It's just the sort of thing you could see the Second Doctor doing.
  • Also, the fact the Doctor shatters a glass ceiling.
• Sacha Dhawan trying to keep the fact that he was playing the new Master away from Moffat, saying it's great except for the complicated dialogue where he has to say things like "Tissue Compression Eliminator". Being a lifelong Who superfan (and, you know, Moffat), he spotted the thread immediately.
• All and any of the behind the scenes competitions between Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole (later John Bishop for Series 13) as Whittaker and Gill are in absolute competition with each other and get rather annoyed if they lose to the other.
  • Also Jodie Whittaker being so determined to win a barrel knocking over game that she hits a ball too hard and literally smashes a frying pan.
• Jodie Whittaker claims that Jo Martin's Doctor - who she was portraying at the time - is "Much more direct, so my posture was taller, stronger and much more in a straight line than my huh huh hehehe huh" with a strangle gesticulation with her hand and a silly voice.
• Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond: Doctor Who:
  • The decks have reprints of some of the "Talisman of X" mana rocks, each of which, within the decks, represents an Iconic Item for a character - usually a version of the Doctor. As funny as it is having Talisman of Progress represent Four's scarf or Talisman of Unity Five's celery, the best has to be Talisman of Conviction...which represents Eleven's undying conviction that bowties are cool.
  • The card for Osgood has the Human Alien Shapeshifter typeline, meaning that not even the game rules can tell which Osgood is which.

---

"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes ding when there's stuff."