Charles Banerjee was the assistant of John Logie Baird during the invention of television.
Biography
Born in Cheltenham, Banerjee got the job as Baird's assistant in Soho by 1925.
When Baird asked him to get a dummy for the first test of television, as the lighting was too intense for a human, Banerjee went to Mr Emporium's toy shop, where he bought Stooky Bill from the Toymaker, and had to put up with his racial comments. The next day, Baird and Banerjee placed Bill's head before the camera and began to test the first ever television recording. Though a success, the bright lights caused Bill to catch fire while a giggle played. Afterwards, Banerjee began to suffer hallucinations of Bill, perpetually hearing the Giggle in his head. Disturbed, Banerjee returned to the shop the following day to confront the Toymaker, who challenged him to a game to remove the Giggle from his head. Banerjee lost, leading him to be turned into a life size dummy similar to Stooky Bill and stored in the Toymaker's domain.
The Fourteenth Doctor eventually found Banerjee in the Toymaker's domain, and he explained what happened to him until the Toymaker arrived and replaced Banerjee with a puppet of the Doctor. When the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors defeated the Toymaker in a game of catch and subsequently banished him from reality, the timeline changed and returned Banerjee to when he was watching the first television effect. (TV: The Giggle [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who 2023 specials (BBC One and Disney+, 2023).) Banerjee was unable to know why, but he had the feeling he had his life back. (PROSE: The Giggle [+]James Goss, adapted from The Giggle (Russell T Davies), 60th Anniversary Novels (_target Books, 2023).)