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.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Human life[[edit] | [edit source]]
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 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)"])
On Terra Alpha[[edit] | [edit source]]
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 and executed Andrew X with a fondant surprise six months later. (PROSE: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (novelisation)"])
After the Seventh Doctor and Earl Sigma sneaked into the Kandy Kitchen, the Kandy Man captured them and prepared to kill them, but the Doctor tricked him into breaking open a bottle of lemonade and causing his feet to be stuck to the floor, a predicament which Gilbert would not free him from. The Doctor temporarily freed him in return for stopping Susan Q's execution and returned a second time with Ace, who helped him force the Kandy Man into fleeing into the pipes. Wences and Wulfric then destroyed him by redirecting the fondant surprise and his remains were found by Joseph C and Gilbert, who decided not to rebuild him. (TV: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"])
Rebuilt[[edit] | [edit source]]
Long after Terra Alpha, the Kandyman's spaceship crashed on Tara and he was once again destroyed, but Grendel of Gracht, Merrybone and Claypole found him and Claypole, using instructions the Kandyman had hidden inside himself, was able to remake him using southern Taran sugarbeet and stolen sweets. He volunteered his services as executioner to Grendel, who knighted him "Sir Kandyman", and supplied Grendel with advanced weapons to attack Castle Tara. He succeeded in kidnapping Queen Strella whilst she was with the Seventh Doctor, but was killed by Bernice Summerfield when she threw a bucket of red wine over him. (PROSE: The Trials of Tara [+]Loading...["The Trials of Tara (short story)"])
The Kandy Man attended Bonjaxx's birthday party at Bonjaxx's Bar on Maruthea. After a drunken Meep started a fight, the Kandy Man was attacked by Ace with a baseball bat. The Seventh Doctor and a future incarnation were also in attendance. (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[[edit] | [edit source]]
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[[edit] | [edit source]]
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)"])
Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]
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. (TV: The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"])
Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]
Info from the novelisation of The Happiness Patrol [+]Loading...["The Happiness Patrol (TV story)"] and World of Damnation [+]Loading...["World of Damnation (audio story)"] needs to be added
The Kandy Man's external shell composed of sweets like toffee, liquorice, sherbet, marzipan and caramel. 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)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- 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[[edit] | [edit source]]
- ↑ 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!)
