A Doctor Puppet Christmas: Two Joyful Tunes

Scott Ampleford: Two Joyful Tunes
(Sleepy Man Records, SMRV-006, UK, 2021)

When the British science fiction series Doctor Who was reintroduced to the world in 2005, none of the people involved in the new series could have imagined that it would become so popular again. Not only in its home country, the United Kingdom, but all over the world. The series also inspired many Doctor Who fans around the world to put their love for the Doctor into creating their own Doctor Who related art. One such fan was New Yorker Alisa Stern, who, with the help of several other Doctor Who fans, created Doctor Puppet, a stop-motion animated series featuring puppet versions of the Doctor and his companions. The first episode, the Christmas-themed How the Doctor Puppet Saved Christmas, in which the Doctor saves New York from a mysterious snowstorm, was first released on Youtube in December 2012.

The episode's score was composed by British composer and musician Scott Ampleford, using sample libraries and inspired by both the electronic soundtrack of the original series, as scored by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the more orchestral soundtracks of the revived series by Murray Gold. Ampleford remained on the team, not only composing for subsequent episodes of Doctor Who, but also acting as narrator. After five regular episodes in 2013 and a music video written and performed by Ampleford, The Doctor Puppet Dances, Ampleford wrote the song 'A Timelord Christmas' for the 2013 Christmas special of Doctor Puppet. The song featured a full orchestra and choir. In the video, the 9th, 10th and 11th Doctors set up a Christmas tree, and the 12th Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi in the series, was introduced by appearing out of a present.

Doctor Puppet returned to Christmas twice more: in December 2014, a new Christmas special, The Planet That Came For Christmas was released, and on December 12, the video for 'The 12 Doctors Of Christmas' was released on Youtube. 'The 12 Doctors Of Christmas' was an adaptation of the song 'Twelve Days Of Christmas'. The song, which came with original music, was composed by Ampleford and featured his sister Rebecca Ampleford on vocals, Craig Stephenson on guitar and saxophone, Zoey Cairns on bass guitar and Scott himself on backing vocals, piano, synthesizer and drums. In the song, Rebecca describes the fantastic gifts "her Time Lord" has given her. It begins with "12 guitars strumming" (the Twelfth Doctor liked to play the electric guitar, no doubt inspired by Capaldi's past as a singer and guitarist in Glasgow post-punk band Dreamboys in the early 1980s) and is followed by eleven other gifts relating to the eleven incarnations of the Doctor, ending with "a TARDIS in a junkyard". The video shows the Tardis (the Doctor's spaceship, which looks like a 1960s British police box) as an Advent calendar with 12 doors. One by one, each door opens to reveal a Doctor puppet with the gift mentioned in the song.

In 2020, 'Twelve Doctors Of Christmas' was released on a 7" entitled 'Two Joyful Tunes', named after the gift given to Rebecca by the flute-playing Second Doctor. The B-side included a new arrangement of 'A Timelord Christmas', retitled 'A Rockin' Timelord Christmas'. The song was changed from a big orchestral song to a glam rock Christmas song, clearly inspired by Slade. The single was pressed on Tardis blue vinyl, in a sleeve with a picture of the 12th Doctor's guitar leaning against the Tardis, standing in the snow, surrounded by Christmas trees. As the record was pressed and sold in Australia in 2020, the official release by UK label Sleepy Man Records took place in November 2021, as the singles did not arrive in the UK in time for the 2020 Christmas season.

You can still watch the ‘Twelve Doctor Of Christmas’ Doctor Puppet video on Youtube:

Also the original video for ‘A Timelord Christmas’ is on Youtube:

Both songs are also on Bandcamp:


Through Bandcamp you can also order the single