Kandyman
The Kandy Man, the spelling used in the credits of The Happiness Patrol and in the novelisation
Talk about it here.
The Kandy Man (also spelt Kandyman), formerly Seivad, was a scientist whose mind was placed into an android by Gilbert M to serve as Helen A's executioner.
Biology and personality
The Kandy Man was a pathological, psychopathic android, (AUDIO: Sweet Salvation [+]Loading...["Sweet Salvation (audio story)"]) employed as an executioner by the egocentric Helen A. It delighted in inflicting torture and destruction with confectionery. One of its favourite methods was drowning people in pipes filled with its "Fondant Surprise", a thick solution composed of boiling liquid candy.
Like most of the members of the Happiness Patrol, it was a sadistic executioner with a very warped sense of humour, speaking with a squeaky, almost child-like metallic voice and producing a variety of deadly sweets to suit its role of execution for sadness. These sweets were supposed to be so delicious humans were unable to cope with the pleasure, overloading their senses and killing them. The Kandyman claimed most of its victims in this manner — "with smiles on their faces" — but it was perfectly happy to throttle them if they refused to cooperate. The Kandyman would usually flip a coin to make decisions on how to best murder anyone who crossed his path, or otherwise annoyed and irritated him. The Kandyman was easily frustrated and annoyed.
Its external shell composed of recognisable sweets like toffee, liquorice, sherbet, marzipan and caramel. Kandyman was created by Gilbert M, with whom it shared an almost symbiotic relationship and no matter how much Gilbert M was threatened, the Kandyman never carried out his threats.
The Kandyman was a tasteful, yet ruthless killer. The Seventh Doctor discovered that he could be stuck to the floor with lemonade. (TV: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"])
By the time the Kandyman encountered the Eighth Doctor, he had a new, almost human-looking body. (AUDIO: World of Damnation [+]Loading...["World of Damnation (audio story)"])
Biography
Human life
Seivad, a human, lived on Vasilip where he worked as a scientist in the capital city. He was rivalled only by Gilbert, the chief state scientist, with whom he was in competition for years before they decided, for the advancement of science, to work together.
After Gilbert created accidentally created a germ which wiped out half of the planet, the king decreed that he and Seivad were to be killed on sight and they fled to the mountains. They made a hiding place which was discovered by a vigilante who attacked Seivad and left him for dead, but Gilbert, returning from foraging food, worked through the night to save his mind. (PROSE: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (novelisation)"])
As an android
Gilbert took a flight to Terra Alpha with Seivad's mind in a suitcase and was ordered by Helen A to create a monster from him. His only other choice being exile, he complied and imprisoned Seivad's mind inside of the Kandy Man, an android he built out of sweets as they were the only raw materials at his disposal.(PROSE: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (novelisation)"]) His mind remained his own, however, (TV: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"]) and, forced to serve as Helen A's henchman, the Kandy Man went mad with anger and injustice. (PROSE: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (novelisation)"])
Although most accounts agreed that the body that Gilbert built for the Kandy Man had the appearance of an android made of sweets, (TV: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"]; AUDIO: Sweet Salvation [+]Loading...["Sweet Salvation (audio story)"]) one claimed that the body was humanoid with sugar-based skin covered in a soft white powder (PROSE: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (novelisation)"]) just like the body that would later be created for him by the Eleven. (AUDIO: Sweet Salvation [+]Loading...["Sweet Salvation (audio story)"])
The Kandy Man was based in the Kandy Kitchen and was assisted by Gilbert. He made sweets (TV: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"]) which were given out by the Happiness Patrol as a reward for happiness, (PROSE: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (novelisation)"]) performed experiments on those designated Killjoys and did Helen A's "dirty work", namely executions. (TV: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"]) He refused to meet with Trevor Sigma when he arrived on Terra Alpha to complete a census. (PROSE: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (novelisation)"])
The Seventh Doctor and Earl Sigma ran into the Kandyman after escaping the Happiness Patrol. The Doctor outsmarted the Kandyman, making it break open a bottle of lemonade and stick itself to the floor — it was forced to keep moving on the spot to try to get away from the spilled lemonade lest its external candy shell dissolve or stick to the floor. The Doctor and Earl escaped, but later the Doctor returned to the Kandy Kitchen to confront the Kandyman, forcing it to retreat into the pipes. The Kandyman was killed shortly afterward when its external candy shell was dissolved in a pipe by a flow of its own strawberry fondant surprise, released by the oppressed Pipe People. (TV: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"])
Rebuilt
The Seventh Doctor encountered the Kandyman again on the planet Tara. Count Grendel rebuilt it after its charred remains crash landed on Tara. Grendel used him to kidnap Queen Strella. (PROSE: The Trials of Tara [+]Loading...["The Trials of Tara (short story)"])
It attended the Dæmon Bonjaxx's birthday in his bar on the space station Maruthea, as did the Doctor and Ace and a future incarnation of the Doctor and his companion Ria. (COMIC: Party Animals [+]Loading...["Party Animals (comic story)"])
The Kandyman became a mercenary who served as the enforcer of several regimes. While in a Third Zone labour camp, his body was torn apart and consumed by Androgums. (AUDIO: Sweet Salvation [+]Loading...["Sweet Salvation (audio story)"])
Humanoid body
The Eleven found the Kandyman, and constructed a new body from spun sugar, that gave him a new, almost human-looking body. (AUDIO: Sweet Salvation [+]Loading...["Sweet Salvation (audio story)"])
The Eighth Doctor encountered Kandyman in this new body in Rykerzon centuries after their first encounter. He assisted the Eleven in his scheme to gain control over the population of Colony 23 by incorporating silk from the Psychic Spider's into confectionery products distributed throughout the world, forming a direct psychic link from its consumers to the Eleven.
This body was eventually destroyed when he was pushed by Liv Chenka into a vat of additives, melting it immensely and becoming "more syrup than solid", before ultimately sticking to the Eleven and again being knocked from a ledge, this time landing in the nest of a large Psychic Spider. (AUDIO: World of Damnation [+]Loading...["World of Damnation (audio story)"], Sweet Salvation [+]Loading...["Sweet Salvation (audio story)"])
Legacy
On Erratoon, Ace described the Kandyman to Zara as a "bloke made of liquorice". (AUDIO: The Prisoner's Dilemma [+]Loading...["The Prisoner's Dilemma (audio story)"])
In the video game Happy Deathday, played by Izzy Sinclair on the Time-Space Visualiser, the Kandyman was among a host of "every single enemy" that the Doctor had ever defeated, who were assembled by the Beige Guardian and pitted against the Doctor's first eight incarnations. (COMIC: Happy Deathday [+]Loading...["Happy Deathday (comic story)"])
Other information
The Kandyman was skilled in both chemistry and as a cook (AUDIO: Sweet Salvation [+]Loading...["Sweet Salvation (audio story)"]) which he combined expertly when employed by various people and states.[source needed]
Behind the scenes
- The correct variation of the character's name is uncertain. For The Happiness Patrol, David John Pope is credited as "Kandy Man" (two-word version) on-screen and "Kandyman" (one-word version) in Radio Times.
- After part two of The Happiness Patrol aired, HB Stokes, CEO and chairman of Bassett's, wrote to complain of the resemblance of the Kandyman to their mascot Bertie Bassett. An internal investigation by the BBC determined that the resemblance was coincidental and no copyright infringement had been committed. However, Stokes was assured the character would not be appearing in the series again.[1][2][3]
- Thirty years later, the Kandyman was removed from the original cover of Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor #3. [4]
- Strax actor Dan Starkey commented that "the Kandy Man was like Doctor Who trying to do a Tim Burton movie, but being made in TV Centre and not quite getting it. The idea of it was quite nice, even if the execution wasn't quite as successful as it might have been." (DWM 475, p. 18)
Footnotes
- ↑ The History Of Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts & Bertie Bassett
- ↑ On This Day… In 1988 The Kandyman First Appeared
- ↑ Bertie Bassett
- ↑ My newest #DoctorWho print is based one of the covers from my #SeventhDoctor mini-series, but including the #Daleks and #Kandyman as originally intended! (Yes, I'll have these at Long Beach Comic Con #LBCC2018 and New York Comic Con #NYCC2018!)
