Doctor Who: 10 Things Everyone Always Gets Wrong About The Daleks
2. Their Look Was Based On A Pepper Pot
There's an old story that Raymond Cusick came up with the look of the Daleks while looking at a pepper pot in the BBC canteen. Well, as John Nathan-Turner was fond of saying, "The memory cheats".
Cusick did use a pepper pot to demonstrate how he envisioned the movement of the Daleks, but he'd already settled on his design by then. Going from Terry Nation's script, the designer realised that the Daleks would need an operator inside to move them around the studio floor. That's why he designed the Daleks based on a person sitting down, perhaps with pedals and a wheel to maneuver the prop.
The reason that the Daleks look the way they do is basically to do with increasing available legroom for the operators. In terms of how the Daleks moved, Cusick was inspired by the Georgian State dancers, whose long flowing skirts covered their legs and feet as they glided across the stage.
To later explain how this would work on set, Cusick picked up a pepper pot and began sliding it across the table. And thus, a legend was born.