TARDIS-free time travel! Watch 1966 interview with Doctor Who's Canadian creator

Doctor Who is a cult classic and the longest-running sci-fi show in the world, lasting for five decades and counting. Hardly just a "silly little program," but that's exactly how its Toronto-born creator described it on this day in 1966. 

Sydney Newman is the man in the video. Forty-nine years ago, when CBC filmed him in London, Newman was the BBC's Head of Drama. Doctor Who had already been on the air for three years. Its main character, the TARDIS time machine, its overall philosophy —  these key elements of the program have all been credited to Newman. So this raw footage, captured for CBC program The Umbrella, naturally features a brief mention of the Time Lord off the top, with Newman even showing the camera his own Dalek action figure, a toy which, we can only suppose, "Exterminates!" any inferior pitches crossing his desk.

But CBC wasn't there to geek out over British sci-fi. The most pressing topic of conversation was the state of television, in Canada specifically, and though this chat was recorded in the mid-'60s, the ideas he shares about homegrown TV and Canadian identity are still echoed today.

Newman left Toronto for England eight and half years before this interview was captured. From the National Film Board, where he was film producer in the '40s, his career took him to CBC by the '50s, where he was part of Canada's entry into the television age.
 

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"It was terribly exciting," Newman says of CBC-TV's early days, "nearly anything could go." And though he was Supervisor of Drama Production before leaving the Mother Corp, Newman produced everything from half-hour TV plays to some of the first broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada. 

During the conversation, Newman tells CBC reporter William Ronald that he hears very little original writing is being produced back home compared to his day. 

"I think it's tragic," he says. "Drama provides a sense of self to the audience that is easy to take, can be exciting. And a country of Canada's size now not to have a really big and exciting drama I think is a tremendous loss to the sense of consciousness of the nation. 

"One always complains, from Canadians, we don't know who we are, where we're going or how we connect up with the USA. Well I would say the bloody simple way to find out is let the writers talk about themselves through the form of plays and Canadians will quickly find out who they are."
 

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Hearing those words, it's like Newman already knew he would return to Canada, which he did in 1970 to become an advisor for the CRTC. A controversial stint as Chairman of the National Film Board followed, and in the early '80s he was the Canadian Film Development Corporation's Chief Creative Consultant.

All of this, though, was years away when he was showing CBC his cool model Dalek. "I am eternally interested in going back to Canada. It's my country," he says in the footage. "I can't wait to see the Toronto city hall. I can't wait to see Georgian Bay. It's my country. It's corny and it's chamber of commerce stuff, but it's me."

Find more throwbacks like this one by visiting the CBC Digital Archives.