10 Unbelievable Doctor Who Facts That Are Somehow True
7. K9 Was Almost A Man In A Dog Costume
Created by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, K9 would go on to become the Fourth Doctor's most loyal companion between Seasons 15 and 18.
The initial task of designing and building K9 for his debut story The Invisible Enemy lay with visual effects designer Ian Scoones, but rather than the sleek and simple design we eventually would get, Scoones envisioned K9 as a heavily-armed robotic rottweiler that could be operated by an actor, much like the Daleks are operated by a human inside the casing.
Fortunately though, producer Graham Williams quickly vetoed this idea, because he didn't want the Doctor's high-tech new companion to be seen as a man in a dog costume. And understandably so. Given how Doctor Who portrayed rats and dinosaurs in the 1970s, you can see how 'K9 as an actual dog' probably wasn't a concept they could've executed convincingly.
From here, K9's new designer Tony Harding came up with a smaller, radio-controlled version, which would be voiced by John Leeson – that is, from the studio floor, and not crammed inside the dog's chassis like Ace Ventura stuck inside that giant robot rhino.
Interestingly, many years later, K9 co-creator Bob Baker introduced a heavily-armoured robot dog in Wallace & Gromit's A Close Shave. All weird ideas get taken up eventually!