Talk:Beep the Meep

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Interview appearance[[edit source]]

In the BTS section there is mention of an in-universe interview between Beep and another character. Does this deserve a page of its own rather like Timothy Bold Interviews Vince Cosmos? RadMatter ☎ 09:54, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

If it's fiction, sure. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 11:54, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
I just took a look, and it's a parodical interview with a fictional character. They mention Beep "appearing" in DWM kind of as if it was an acting job, but also as if it documented his encounters with the Doctor as truth. Doctor Who Magazine does exist in the DWU but it's not really clear (to me) if this interview is set in the DWU (Rule 4). Perhaps I could provide a screenshot somehow for others to see? Chubby Potato ☎ 22:22, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
No, that would not be proper. Copyright, you know. I'm sure interested parties can track down their own copy if you give them the issue number.
That being said, it being a parody still means it should have a page, just an {{invalid}} page — similar to Not Guilty, for example, a similar parody interview from DWM. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 22:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Mention of the fact that Beep appeared in the DWM does not necessarily mean that this is a parody. This could be an in-universe version of the magazine. RadMatter ☎ 22:34, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Alright, it's a single page, and I believe I've seen more around here for discussion purposes, but it doesn't matter much. If anyone wishes to read it, it's from DWM 419 and the title should be Who on Earth is... Beep the Meep (short story). Chubby Potato ☎ 22:38, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm unsure what precedents you have in mind, but it being a single page makes matters worse — it's much more excusable, in terms of fair use, to propose to show an extract of a long work, than the whole of a short work. At any rate the true problem here, beyond copyright concerns, is that "pictures of prose" simply aren't something we upload on this Wiki, and yet it is against policy to link to offsite images. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 22:43, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
Admin note: a talk page message from User:DrWHOCorrieFan has been temporarily redacted from this talk page due to policy concerns (through no fault of DrWHOCorrieFan's own). Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 02:28, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion was originally located at Talk:Meep (Party Animals):

Beep?[[edit source]]

I've been meaning to mention this for a while, but I remembered this now purely out of chance and for no specific reason, why else: I'm pretty sure this guy is just supposed to be Beep himself. I see no reason why, given all the specific DWM-related cameos, it would just be a random Meep, especially since I don't think any other Meep has even been seen. DWM's continuity also held that Beep was the only Meep to escape the Wrarth Warriors. But more to the point, while invalid, Who on Earth is... Beep the Meep's interviewer explicitly says that it was Beep in Party Animals. (Plus, even our own {{Beep the Meep sources}} has Party Animals.) Chubby Potato ☎ 12:25, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Seems pretty clear-cut to me! I've added a merge template. – n8 (☎) 15:23, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 16:42, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Also agreed. I've carried out the merge. Bongo50 ☎ 19:18, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

The Beep of the Meeps?[[edit source]]

More of a "to-do" than a discussion topic, but according to a tweet,

he's never once called "Beep The Meep" in The Star Beast comic and is only "The Meep"[;] the only time Beep is said is when he says he's "The Beep of The Meeps"

If this is true, it might be worth combing over Beep the Meep's appearances to see where the name "Beep the Meep" first appeared, and update our coverage to reflect the ambiguity in whether "the Beep" is a name or a title. – n8 (☎) 13:29, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's a contradiction; he could perfectly well be a Meep called Beep who later gained the title of Beep. (Much as a guy called Duke could theoretically become an actual Duke etc.) I fancy the joke is intended to be that he's "Beep the Meep, Beep of the Meeps", or "Beep Beep" for short, furthering the confusing, cartoony repetitiousness of his name. But yes, I approve of this research endeavour. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 15:01, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
I looked and: in Doctor Who and the Star Beast, he's usually "the Meep" by the Wrarth and the narration, referring to his species, and once "the 'Meep'" as it seems Sharon also called him that due to him saying that. Later when he is ordering he drones, he shouts, "Hear me, drones! Hear the supreme Beep of all the Meeps!" To which they respond, "Hail, Beep of all the Meeps!" (Though, the lettering being all-caps makes this unclear— is it that or "the Supreme Beep of All the Meeps"?) This cry is repeated but in the narration and even the letters page he's still "the Meep". So, it would seem correct that within the context of his first story, he is not given an actual name.
In Star Beast II, he's once again "the Meep" mostly, but the Doctor directly refers to him as "Beep" upon first seeing him. But was he referring to him by name or title? Finally in TV Action! the Doctor outright calls him "Beep the Meep".
It's easy for me to imagine the actual phrase "Beep the Meep" having grown from fan terminology until it became an in-universe fact that his given name was Beep. At this point in time, Scrooge's interpretation that he is "Beep (name) the Meep (species), Beep of all the Meeps (title)" would be correct, but I wonder just where Beep being his actual name came from… was it always intended, or did fan usage cause it to be used in the later comics and thus rendered official? I would think DWM articles and letters along the way might give clues, so I'll see what I can find… Chubby Potato ☎ 21:47, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
Beep the Meep gets 3000 years (1980) uses "Beep the Meep" and "the Meep" interchangeably.
And, while Who on Earth is... Beep the Meep (2010) is invalid, uses both "Beep the Meep" and "Beep". 20:24, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
I had overlooked that story. So, it does seem the Meep's name being Beep was either not too late a retcon, or not a retcon at all but merely unclear in his first appearance. Chubby Potato ☎ 21:04, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
Looking at it again it also uses "Beep" as well. I guess "the Meep" is like saying "the human" when referring to a human character? 21:08, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Pronouns[[edit source]]

I'm sure this will come in greater detail after we settle how to cover the two incarnations of the all-mighty Meep. But basically, this is a note I want to make right now.

In the televised special, the Meep says they use the definite article pronouns at all times. This means that instead of writing a paragraph like:

The Meep visited a city in Europe with fine bread, which they quite enjoyed. They looked for a transport ship but could not find a sinal.

The correct form would actually be:

The Meep visited a city in Europe with fine bread, which the Meep quite enjoyed. The Meep looked for a transport ship but could not find a signal.

This does give the article the tone of something like a children's book (surely the Meep's intention). But if we go forward with this writing style, we must ask if this is retroactive as well? I figure an answer will come once we figure out how many pages we need on "The Meep." But it's worth noting for now. OS25🤙☎️ 23:49, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we can safely say it's not retroactive, no. The Meddling Monk precedent applies — whether in terms of pronouns or name (i.e. "Beep the Meep" vs. "The Meep"), we should stick to what a given source uses. What to do with paragraphs cited to Star Beast is more complicated. I do think it's fair to ask if that line is meant to be truthful: Davies has talked about his Meep as a "him" in BTS stuff, and the "definite article" line is when the Meep is still cronying up to Rose as part of a completely fake persona. Maybe once Rose asked, he/the Meep thought that having a whimsical pronoun preference would be better for ingratiation, and less suspicious, than just saying "nah he/him's good after all"? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:53, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
I feel there may lie an issue as I don't think the Meep was aware of Rose being transgender. 00:33, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
They don't really need to be, it was obviously important to Rose that the Doctor didn't misgender them so they could still have sensed an opportunity to lie. 90.214.184.35talk to me 01:30, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I think the comment Beep makes about Rose being weird is being taken as that. Najawin ☎ 00:42, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
In the episode, the Meep makes two conflicting statements:
  1. MEEP: My chosen pronoun is the definite article. I am always the Meep.
  2. MEEP: I don't need to pretend, for I am the Beep of all the Meeps!
While this doesn't give us clear pronouns to use, it contradicts the "I am always the Meep" statement. (Not to mention the soldiers calling the Meep "the Most High".) Should we believe the Meep was being truthful about chosen pronouns when the Meep was lying about everything else? LegoK9 ☎ 18:38, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

A renewed discussion on names and titles[[edit source]]

I know we've already had some form of discussion here and there on this, but I did want to finally run through this more thoroughly in terms of name for the purposes of potentially renaming this page.

Meep

  • [1980] the original Doctor Who and the Star Beast comic - very clearly sticks to referring to this individual as the Meep. We get this from:
The Wrarth in Parts 1, 2 & 4-5
Parts 2-4's recap text saying "A mysterious alien - known as 'the Meep' - has made an emergency landing"
description boxes in Parts 2 & 4-8.
Sharon in Parts 3-5 & 7.
In Part 4, the Fourth Doctor even says "Don't be a silly meep, Meep." He also refers to them as The Meep in Part 7, and then continues to say The Meep in Part 8.
Additional aside: in Parts 4-6, they think of themselves in internal thoughts as the "'Most-High'" - something they then say outright as part of remarks in Parts 7 & 8.
But for the matter of Beep-ery... it is in Part 6 that they say to the mind-controlled soldiers: "Hear the supreme Beep of all the Meeps", with the reply being "Hail, Beep of all the Meeps!". The drones say this again in Part 7 (alongside calling them "the Exalted One")
  • [2023] The Star Beast TV story abides solely the Meep as their name.
  • [2023] The Star Beast's novelisation maintains that of the TV story, but also includes a mock omniversal wiki page that denotes in its footnotes that "Beep was a title, a rank, not an individual's name" (You can find a full copy of this little item here: https://x.com/AMadmanNotABox/status/1732061399440912432?s=20)

Unnamed

  • [1991] Party Animals does not name them when they drunkenly approach the Doctor and then is attacked. (though, strictly speaking, we are not told this isn't a different Meep - we've tended to assume so given Seven's lack of surprise at its presence.)
  • [2022] We Are Family

Beep the Meep

  • [1980] Beep the Meep gets 3000 years - the infamous start to this term in fandom... though there is a potential contextual note to be had on this in that this piece does get Zreeg's name wrong and says Greeg, and misspells Wrarth Warriors as Wrath Warriors.
  • [1997] A Matter of Life and Death has the court "Call Beep the Meep!" (Though, naming on mind, it is still perhaps worth noting for context that this entire court experience is a fakery inside a dreamscape of sorts. The Eighth Doctor and Izzy featured are memories conjured up by the TARDIS to stop a parasite. As this conjured Eighth Doctor says to the parasite: "All this is a simulcrum, a acorporeal manifestation created by the TARDIS".)
  • [2002] The Ratings War - named as such, to an extent that the show is called "Beep & Friends".

Complicated!

  • [1995] Star Beast II - To keep a long tangent of my childhood short as possible - I always referred to this character growing up as "Beep the Meep" because the contents list of the Yearbook marked them as such in its synopsis. BUT the story itself is actually slightly more complicated. Though, the Fourth Doctor initially says: "What do you want, Beep?" - Fudge Higgins remarks that "It's the Meep, Jones..." and then in the projector room, the Fourth Doctor says: "The Meep's device emits black light, robbing people of their will."

This character, themselves, doesn't name themselves at all. There's two mentions of being "a Meep", but that's it. So: the story uses both, but "the Meep" is 2:1 against "Beep".

  • [1999] TV Action!' - the Wrarth authorities at the start refer to them as an "unnamed fugitive", and the description boxes at this stage follow this. The Doctor calls them "Beep the Meep", Izzy calls them "Meep", but they only self-refer as "the Most-High".

And, as far as I understand it, Who on Earth is... Beep the Meep and the Lost in Time dating profile do not readily apply to this conversation as invalid sources.

Which only leaves the audio adaptation of the original comic for someone to examine... but at the moment, it seems rather likely to me that in terms of occurrences and usages that this page should in-fact be at The Meep with a redirect on "Beep the Meep". Interested to hear the thoughts of others on this.
JDPManjoume Regular Editor ☎ ✍ 18:02, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Good scholarship! But what I always want to bring up to conversations on this topic is that we're not, I think, trivially dealing with conflicting names here. We might very well be dealing with a character who simultaneously:
  • Is a Meep, such that characters might refer to them as "the Meep" without that really being a proper name;
  • Has the personal name of "Beep" (and is sometimes called "Beep the Meep" as a result);
  • Sometimes actively goes by "the Meep" as a personal title;
  • Holds the rank of Beep Of All The Meeps.
(Yes, "Beep" could very well be both a title and a name — why not? A woman called Princess could certainly marry a prince and become Princess Princess. We can quite easily read the sources we have as simply documenting "Beep the Meep, Beep of All The Meeps".)
Hence I don't think "Beep the Meep" is necessarily inappropriate even if a majority of sources go with simply "the Meep", any more than Petronella Osgood is made inappropriate by most sources going with simply "Osgood".
(I do separately want to stress the first bullet point: I think there is a difference between people referring to "the Meep" because this particular member of Meepkind happens to be the only one to hand, and instances of the character self-identifying as the Meep properly speaking. I don't think the "Meep vs. Beep" tally entirely reflects this subtlety.) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 18:53, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
I do agree with Scrooge here. Even though "Beep" is relatively less frequent as the character's name, it still is given as such, and also commonly understood as such. "The Meep" is too ambiguous for this character and I think it just makes things more confusing on the wiki. (Also, if the initial comic was his only appearance, I think despite being referred to as "the Meep" the page would be at "Meep (The Star Beast)".
So, I don't think there's a good enough reason to change the page title. That said, I would agree that when covering this character, we should stick to how the relevant sources refer to him, e.g. don't call him "Beep" when describing The Star Beast comic or TV episode. Chubby Potato ☎ 19:10, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
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