The Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis

What this video is

Released May/June 1988, 'Doctorin' The Tardis' reached number one on the UK Singles Chart and topped the New Zealand chart, while entering the top 10 in Australia, Ireland, Finland, and Norway. The single was credited not to its human creators Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty but to 'Ford Timelord' — Cauty's 1968 Ford Custom American police car — an elaborate promotional fiction in which the car was 'interviewed' in…

Why it matters

A foundational artefact of pre-internet mash-up culture and a landmark of UK Trash Art pop strategy. The video's low-budget ruralism and prop-based surrealism directly embody the 'lowest common denominator' philosophy Drummond and Cauty articulated publicly, while the car-as-artist concept…

The director

Bill Butt is a British filmmaker, artist, designer, television director, writer, and producer. He first worked with Bill Drummond as lighting engineer for Echo & the Bunnymen, then directed Bunnymen videos from 1982. He became the dedicated visual…