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| “ | Who am I? I am the Pied Piper, who conjured away a whole town's infants, and has chilled the hearts of parents for more than seven centuries. And now, I am Odd Bob the Clown, who snatches children in the heartbeat their mother's back is turned. I am the thing that lives in the darkest corners. I am all these things and more. I am all that you fear the most. And you are mine to feed on! | „ |
| ~ Spellman reveals his true nature. |
Elijah Spellman, also known as the Pied Piper and Odd Bob, is a major antagonist in The Sarah Jane Adventures, serving as the main antagonist of the two-parter "The Day of the Clown". He is an alien entity from the Jeggorabax Cluster that feeds off of human fear, and is widely seen as one of the darkest villains in the series (which was generally more child-friendly than its parent show Doctor Who).
He was portrayed by Bradley Walsh.
Biography[]
The entity that became known as Elijah Spellman, which was created by and fed off of fear, arrived on Earth in 1283. It was contained in a meteorite that crashed in the Weserbergland Mountains in Germany. The people of the nearby town of Hamelin were afraid of a plague of rats, and this fear allowed the entity to manifest as the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The Piper required more fear to sustain itself and so it used its powers of mind control to brainwash the town's children and lead them away to a realm "between this world and another". The story of the Pied Piper terrified parents for centuries to follow.
Over the next seven hundred years, the Pied Piper continued to abduct children and trap them in its realm. Although he did not harm his victims, after a while the children would "fade away", never to be seen again. In the 1930s he appeared in the USA as Odd Bob the Clown and was connected to the disappearances of dozens of children. The fear of the parents for their children continued to sustain Odd Bob until 2009.
At some point in the twentieth century, he may have appeared to a young Sarah Jane Smith in the night to instil a fear of clowns in her.
Day of the Clown[]
After the Weserbergland meteorite is transferred to the Pharos Institute in London, the Pied Piper sets up a circus museum in the city, taking the form of ringmaster Elijah Spellman. Spellman mysteriously distributes tickets for the museum to local children. Anyone with a ticket will begin seeing visions of Spellman as Odd Bob until he kidnaps them.
At the beginning of part one, a boy named Tony Warner is playing football when he loses the ball in the bushes. Going to retrieve it, he encounters Odd Bob and is kidnapped. Later, Clyde Langer begins seeing Odd Bob at school, holding a red balloon. While in detention, Clyde sees Odd Bob reflected in a trophy cabinet. Another boy, Dave Finney, goes into the stationary cupboard and doesn't come out, having also been kidnapped. Spellman appears as Odd Bob and offers Clyde a balloon before trying to grab him, but the headmaster returns and scares him off.
Clyde and an adult Sarah Jane discover that the missing children were given tickets to the Spellman Museum by Odd Bob. Visiting the museum, they meet Spellman and are given a brief tour of the museum, noticing a picture of the Pied Piper which Spellman maintains is accurate. He disappears when Sarah Jane asks him about the missing children, using his telepathic powers to bring the clown mannequins to life and attack the heroes. Sarah Jane holds them off with her sonic lipstick, but the museum's doors are sealed. Spellman appears again and reveals himself to be both the Pied Piper and Odd Bob before attacking them. Luckily, one of the characters' phone rings, and the electromagnetic waves interfere with Spellman's powers, allowing them to escape.
Sarah Jane visits the Pharos Institute to take part of the meteorite that brought Spellman to Earth. Spellman appears again and taunts her about her fear of clowns, implying that he was responsible for traumatising her as a child. Sarah Jane deduces that he takes children because he wants to taste the fear of their parents, and Spellman reveals that he plans to chill the blood of the whole country by taking thousands of children.
At the same time, the children of Park Vale School all come under Spellman's influence when red balloons appear at the school. They all begin marching towards Spellman's museum apart from Clyde, Rani Chandra and Sarah Jane's son Luke, who realise that the balloons are sinister. They warn Sarah Jane of what is happening, and she rushes to the museum to confront Spellman. Spellman prepares to take the children, who are completely under his control, but Mr. Smith uses the school records to find all the children's phone numbers and call their mobiles, breaking the spell long enough for the children to let go of the balloons.
Spellman is angry at being thwarted and disappears, but not before kidnapping Luke and trapping him in a mirror at the museum. Sarah Jane gets into the museum and confronts Spellman (in the form of Odd Bob), who explains that if people stopped being afraid of him he would cease to exist. Sarah Jane realises that the children who have not yet faded away will be freed if she can destroy Spellman, but Spellman explains that you cannot destroy fear itself, and suggests that she could join Luke in the Piper's realm. Eventually, Clyde manages to defeat Spellman/Odd Bob by telling bad jokes, as this loosens the grip that fear has on Sarah Jane and weakens Spellman enough that he can be forced back into the meteorite he came from. The fragment containing Spellman is then placed in a box made of Halkonite Steel, ensuring that he will never be able to escape again.
Trivia[]
- Many fans of the series have compared Spellman to a child-friendly version of Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
- Due to the child-friendly nature of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Odd Bob is often regarded as one of the darkest and most terrifying villains in the show.
- Ironically enough, Bradley Walsh would later portray Graham O'Brien, one of the Thirteenth Doctor's companions in Doctor Who.
External Links[]
- Elijah Spellman on the Doctor Who Wiki
