Trivia / Doctor Syn ("The Scarecrow")

• And You Thought It Was Real: Even though the books have only ever been marketed as works of historical fiction, there have been a few instances of people assuming that Doctor Syn was a real historical person.
  • Most famously, Walt Disney referred to him as a real person when introducing the miniseries.
  • In Dymchurch, the local museum contains a ship's figurehead which was vandalised in the 1970s by teenagers who thought it was the one from Doctor Syn Returns which had a secret compartment containing treasure.
  • Visitors to Dymchurch have occasionally been known to express frustration at not being able to find Doctor Syn's grave in the churchyard ^note  although in the original novel, he was buried at sea.
• California Doubling: Subverted; for both the 1937 movie and the Disney miniseries, location filming took place on Romney Marsh, the setting for the original novels. The church used in the miniseries is the one in Old Romney (a village just six miles from Dymchurch, the village in which the adventures are set), and Disney even paid for the church to be restored so that it could be used as a filming location.
• Recycled Script: The final (published) novel, The Shadow of Doctor Syn, has the following recycled plot elements:
  • Squire Cobtree's daughter, Cicely, falls in love with Doctor Syn — just like her older sister Charlotte did in Doctor Syn Returns; both figure out his Secret Identity, and both are killed while trying to save him from a trap set by those who wish to capture or kill him.
  • The dragoons who've been sent down to Romney Marsh to deal with the smugglers are commanded by a Major Faunce, who happens to be the brother of the officer who fulfilled the same role in Doctor Syn Returns, The Further Adventures of Doctor Syn and The Courageous Exploits of Doctor Syn.
  • Captain Foulkes is nicknamed "Bully" — just like the equally unpleasant Squire Tappitt who served as the initial antagonist in Doctor Syn on the High Seas.
• Referenced by...
  • Elements of the stories show up in Led Zeppelin's concert film The Song Remains the Same.
  • The basic premise of the stories — a mild-mannered vicar is secretly a criminal — was followed by Carry On Dick, although in that case the main character (played by Sid James in his last Carry On film) is a highwayman, not a pirate-turned-smuggler.
  • Doctor Syn is referred to in Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics as a member of the titular League in the eighteenth century, along with Lemuel Gulliver and Fanny Hill.
  • In Dymchurch itself, the character is celebrated in the "Day of Syn", an event which takes place over the August Bank Holiday weekend in even-numbered years and features locals processing through the village dressing up as characters from the books, re-enactments of battles between the smugglers and the soldiers, historical demonstrations, Morris dancing, music, etc.
  • The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, a light railway which runs across Romney Marsh, has a steam locomotive named after the title character.
  • In the Doctor Who episode "The Smugglers", Longfoot is (like Mipps) a church official and smuggler who'd previously been the associate of a notorious pirate.
• What Could Have Been: There have been reports over the years that Disney has considered remaking or reviving the 1960s miniseries. In the 1970s, when rumours of this abounded, such a project would have depended on the availability of Patrick McGoohan, who by then was well-known for being choosy about the roles he took on, so it could be that it foundered as it did not fit in with his own plans. Rumours resurfaced in the mid-to-late 2000s when, following the success of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, it was thought that a remake was being planned with Johnny Depp in the title role ^note  the fact that the Scarecrow and Mipps appeared in one of Jack Sparrow's adventures in the Pirates of the Caribbean comics is surely no coincidence. People claiming to be location scouts from Disney visited Dymchurch in the winter of 2008-09 to check out possible filming locations, but nothing came of it. Given that Disney has always been careful to maintain its exclusivity to Doctor Syn (as evidenced by Hammer having to change the name of the title character for its film), it is highly unlikely that any other company would pursue a new Syn film or TV series.