From Fanger to FANGARIUS

About the end of 1982, a realization came to me concerning the Toon anthropomorphical form of Fanger.  Despite coming up with background plots and essentially giving Fanger an in-depth background, one thing was true about what Jon had commented about the character:  no matter what I did with Fanger, he'd never be taken seriously as The Doctor, or his Companions. 


During the Peter Davison episodes, I had thought long and hard of having Fanger undergo a physical transformation.  One which the Fourth Fanger possessed a more humanesque Incarnation, while retaining his lupinesque (hence where the term Wolf-Being originated).

One might think this was an easy task.  Then again, so's, 'reversing the polarity of the neutron flow.'

One notable problem was, of course, not wanting Fanger appearing as a wolfman reject.  Mainly because he'd then be an anti-thesis to what Fanger was primarily all about.  Meaning it would've undermined the true reason behind his creation.  Another dilemma was the reason why I preferred the Toon realm from the realistic (?) superhero form.

Throughout the media, we've always stereotyped a standard for men and women.  And, regrettably, that was also proven in comics, since heroes seemed to be well-built, and shapely-figured.  When in truth, most people aren't like that, and the reason I liked characters like Bugs, Daffy, Woody and others were, they were heroes by just being themselves.  So the problem also was, I didn't really want Fanger being too muscular, nor looking too rugged.

Strangely enough, it was Chuck Jones who saved me out of this jam.  After all his style inspired how the Third Fanger had 'regenerated' from his first form, and I recall how he illustrated human figures.  Not to mention, one rule about keeping things simple when creating a character.

Armed with that knowledge, I began working on sketches, some loosely from Super Fanger until I had come up with a prototypical image for the Fourth Fanger.  Of course, the real challenge wasn't as so much transforming Fanger, as it was given him a new nom de plume.

As most people know, Doctor Who is simply the name of the programme, since the star is more commonly referred to as The Doctor.  Thus, I felt Fanger deserved a slightly better name than just 'Fanger.'

Naturally, there was one smart alec--who shall remain nameless--had suggested the peculiar title, Fanger What,  but I prefer not to get into it...

Seriously, though, I wanted a name which not only fit this new Incarnation, but also revealed an air of importance.  Stranger than fiction itself, I had happened on discovering the perfect name while conducting research for a Math project.  While studying Greek mathematicians, I had come across an obscure name, Fangkarius,who had performed the unthinkable of his time:  Fangkarius had disproved the Pythagorean Theorem. 

Nonetheless, the name had imprinted itself upon my brain, and by simply removing the k, I had ended up with Fanger's real name, Fangarius.

But despite all the trouble I had gone through with revamping, and renaming, Fanger, little did I suspect in 1983, Fangarius--The Role-Playing Series, would be spawned.  Not to mention a whole new set of episodes, characters, as well as Incarnations, would be set into motion.