For The Beatles it must have been a hard day’s night, but such was Dalek-mania, the robot mutants helped Doctor Who exterminate the Fab Four in one of the first major TV ratings battles.

Beatlemania was just kicking in and the 1960s were in full swing, yet it was The Doctor and his nemesis the Daleks on top of the 1964 Christmas TV charts.

Now as The Doctor prepares for a 60th birthday, many feel those Daleks are behind his record-breaking longevity.

Some say they even saved the doctor.

“Doctor Who was in very strong danger of being cancelled just weeks after it started,” recalled cultural historian Alwyn Turner.

But one wannabe comedian conjured up a fictional extra-terrestrial race of xenophobic mutants who saved the show from early extermination – and within a year of the first episode in 1963, Doctor Who was big enough to take on The Beatles.

“Doctor Who was originally scheduled to run for 52 weeks but after the first storyline, viewing figures were lower than expected,” said Turner.

“Many had the knives out, thinking ‘this isn’t going to last the 52 weeks, let alone the 60 years’.”

What saved the show was comedy writer Terry Nation, who had worked with comic legends like Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes and Tony Hancock – and prescribed what the doctor ordered by accident.