Bob Baker 1939 - 2021

The film and television writer Bob Baker has died at the age of 82.

Bob Baker wrote some of the best-loved stories from the classic Doctor Who era, co-creating the Doctor's beloved robot dog K-9.  He was the screenwriter behind the acclaimed Wallace and Gromit series of films. 

Born in Bristol in the west of England in 1939, Bob Baker initially trained as a monumental stonemason, chiseling other peoples' words onto gravestones. 

In the early 1960's he teamed up with writing partner Dave Martin and together they wrote several stage plays before moving into television, working on popular series such as Z Cars.

In 1971, they were commissioned for their first story for Doctor Who. The Claws of Axos was the first of nine stories over eight seasons.

For the third Doctor, they wrote The Mutants and The Three Doctors, the story that marked the tenth series of Doctor Who and which introduced the character of Omega. 

In 1975 they were back writing for the fourth Doctor. Over the next four years, they would contribute The Sontaran Experiment; The Hand Of Fear; The Invisible Enemy; Underworld; The Armageddon Factor and Nightmare of Eden.

It was The Invisible Enemy which saw the arrival of K-9. The robot dog was originally intended for this story only, but the producer Graham Williams made a late decision to have him join the Doctor in the TARDIS where he stayed for the next four years. 

The character was written out of Doctor Who in 1981 but featured in a pilot for a new series K9 and Company, where he starred alongside Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith.  In 2006 K-9 met the Tenth Doctor in the story School Reunion. and would feature in the Doctor Who Spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures. In 2010 a new K-9 TV series was made in Brisbane, Australia.

Other TV work by Bob Baker included the Children's TV Hits Into the Labyrinth and King of the Castle. For adults he contributed scripts for Bergerac and Shoestring as well as Public Eye and Call me Mister

Baker was a very successful, screenwriter becoming closely associated with the productions of Ardman Animations, writing, with their creator Nick Park, award-winning shorts such as The wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, and A Matter of Loaf and Death. In 2006 he co-wrote the feature film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which won the British Acadamy Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film. 

In 2013 Baker wrote his autobiography entitled K9 Stole My Trousers with help from Laurie Booth.

Bob Baker is survived by Marie, his wife of thirty years, and his children and Grandchildren