After volunteers answer call for help, the Burbank TARDIS gets much needed makeover

The Burbank TARDIS has been restored.

The frosted glass windows are scratchless. Fresh pine has replaced rotted wood. A small plaque sticks out of the double front doors of the vivid blue box.

For the uninitiated, this is a replica of the iconic invention from the long-running and beloved Doctor Who TV series. In the show, it’s a camouflaged ship that can travel through space time and dimensions, taking characters on strange adventures.

In March, LAist highlighted a call for handy Whovian volunteers to give the TARDIS a much-needed makeover. Now the refurbished box serves as a memorial to Grant Imahara, a roboticist best known for his work on Mythbusters and White Rabbit Project.

That plaque on the TARDIS’ door reads: “In Memory of Grant Imahara. October 23, 1970 - July 13, 2020. TARDIS Designer. Time Lord forever.”

Imahara helped build the TARDIS, which stands for “Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” for his friend Donna Ricci, owner of Geeky Teas and Games. Imahara died suddenly from a brain aneurysm at the age of 49.

Now his TARDIS is ready to welcome visitors and photoshoots again. Ricci credited a skilled stranger and a few friends who stepped in to help it stand the test of time. Her goal was to have the TARDIS fixed up in the front lobby of her store’s Alameda Avenue location for the fifth anniversary of her friend’s death.

“People are still out there who care about making magic happen for others,” Ricci told LAist. “There should still be a little bit of surprise in life.”

Regeneration

The TARDIS was in bad shape before the restoration in part because it took a beating sitting outside the store in the Southern California sun for years. Howy Parkins remembers the spark of excitement it brought his then-12 year old son when they discovered it on a neighborhood bike ride more than a decade ago.

“ We've had many, many Doctor Whos,” he told LAist. “But there's only one TARDIS.”

Owner Donna Ricci shared a keepsake from how Grant Imahara figured out the size of the Burbank TARDIS.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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Parkins, a long-time Burbank resident who recently retired from a 40-year animation career, grew up watching the series in the late 1960s and volunteered to join the repair team almost immediately after seeing Ricci’s request on social media.

He spent weeks taking apart and touching up the Burbank TARDIS piece by piece in his backyard, taking trips to and from the store to cut away weathered wood and replace it with freshly-painted blue panels. The double doors swing open once again, and Parkins said getting those right “were everything” to him.

Some of the weathered wood had to be replaced with fresh pine.

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Courtesy of Howy Parkins

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The volunteer repair team focused on restoring the pieces, not replacing them.

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Courtesy of Howy Parkins

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The care Imahara put into engineering the TARDIS, which was based on dimensions he got from the BBC, was still evident to Parkins all these years later. Parkins was “blown away” by the attention to detail in the design, he said, so he focused on trying to restore the pieces rather than replace them.

“ I was just thinking while I was carefully dismantling things that, ‘oh my God, this was probably the hands of Grant [who] put this on and built this,” he said.
"And so I wanted to be very mindful.”

The replica has a new lid and light from Ricci’s friends at The Labyrinth Masquerade Ball. Ricci said they’re now working on technology that’ll make the Burbank TARDIS have the same soft warping sound as when a character steps inside on the show.

So far, a few cosplayers have already stopped by Geeky Teas and Games to pose with the refurbished blue box. Ricci is hoping more will follow. The store also has a life-size Dalek (a villainous robot) named Harvey and several adoptable cat companions with Doctor Who-inspired names, including “Catt Smith,” “Clara Pawswald” and “Peter Catpaldi.”

The Burbank TARDIS at Geeky Teas and Games now includes a memorial plaque for Grant Imahara.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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The replica also got a new lid and light from The Labyrinth Masquerade Ball.

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Makenna Sievertson

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LAist

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