The Doctor loves to name drop celebrities - and take credit for a lot of things that they are famous for, such as the invention of gravity!
They in particular keep coming back to Harry Houdini, not sure what is going on there 
What are your favourite celebrity name drops?
(I’m also going to use these to tag lots of quotes!)
Harry Houdini is all over a lot of EU material. Is there an incarnation that hasn’t met or even travelled with Houdini?
Oh, you know exactly what’s going on there.
One of the first name drop lines that comes to mind for me is always the one about the sunglasses in The Ghost Monument:
“Can’t remember who I borrowed them off now. It was either Audrey Hepburn or Pythagoras.”
To quote the Ninth Doctor: "I’ve been around a bit. I think you can assume at some point I’ve ‘danced’ "
I love this one from the Third Doctor in Day of the Daleks:
“Oh, quite right. Do you know, I remember saying to old Napoleon. Boney, I said, always remember an army marches on its stomach.”
Calling Napoleon “Boney” is such a Third Doctor thing to do
You can see some of the history of the Doctor with Harry Houdini here:
It is getting ridiculous how many Doctors met him.
Of course, with Isaac Newton, not only has the Doctor met him multiple times, he’s been involved in the discovery of gravity multiple times. Namely, one of the quotes I added for the fourth Doctor from the Pirate Planet was:
ROMANA: Newton? Who’s Newton?
DOCTOR: Old Isaac? Friend of mine on Earth. He discovered gravity. Well, I say he discovered gravity. I had to give him a bit of a prod.
ROMANA: What did you do?
DOCTOR: Climbed up a tree.
ROMANA: And?
DOCTOR: Dropped an apple on his head.
ROMANA: Ah, and so he discovered gravity.
DOCTOR: No, no, he told me to clear off out of his tree. I explained it to him afterwards at dinner.
I think that there is a lot of name-dropping to Da Vinci as well.
What are you on about? Never heard of gravity! Is that a typo? Surely, you meant to say mavity?
I really hope we get some sort of resolution to the whole mavity thing soon… That could get real old, real soon.
I’m not alone in thinking this right?
If it just gets used as a gag, it’ll get old. I have a feeling it might get tied into a season arc or some such, though. Like it was part of the damage to the fabric of reality causing things to get more supernatural and less sciency.
That could tie it all together a treat! I also think there is more to come as the Doctor did have a slip-up in Wild Blue Yonder where he said gravity
Yeah, unlike, say, first doctor era, if a slipup made it to the screen, it was probably deliberate.
Honestly I think the longer it goes on the funnier it gets
That’s fair. I probably just hate fun 
I love RTD but the whole mavity thing needs sorting soon. Its already out stayed its welcome.
You and Bill both hate fun 
We both love Delta and the Bannermen so that is clearly a lie!
An easy, widely familiar reference to make, I think. Especially in a show that involves lots of escaping traps (so you can run down corridors).
Same reason there are so many pets named Houdini, including my grandma’s lovebird when I was a kid.
