Your thoughts on '60s Who, and how you were introduced to it?

There's a lot of talk about '70s and '80s Who, but what are your overall thoughts on '60s Who?
What was your introduction to it, and how did you respond to it? Is it a favourite era for you, particularly?

Although my Who viewing began in 1970, I had a bit of an inkling of 60's Who through my Dad's youngest brother who was only about 10 years older than me. He gave me a couple of Hartnell annuals that he'd had, and also a copy of Terry Nation's 1964 Dalek Book, which was the beginning of my fascination with the pepperpots. (The Dalek Comic strips were not far behind.)
Also, as a younger child, Dalekmania was at its height, and I used to have one of those toy talking Daleks. I'd not even seen them on tv at this stage, but I do remember my mum taking me to the cinema to see the Cushing films during the school holidays, and it wasn't much longer before they appeared on tv pretty regularly. So I definitely had a conception of the Daleks in their own right, even though I didn't see them in the TV series until 1972 when Day of the Daleks was broadcast. Anyway, I digress....
Those two Hartnell annuals were like a window onto another world. And it's perhaps hard to appreciate how fascinating something like that was in the early '70s, but I was definitely intrigued by this 'other' Doctor.
Then in 1973 there was a mini-explosion in the form of the first Target books, the Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special, and of course the broadcast of The Three Doctors right at the beginning of the year.
This may be a slightly strange and highly personalised view of the story, but whilst Patrick Trougton's Doctor was there as large as life on screen; it was still William Hartnell's Doctor that fascinated me the most. And his limited on screen time only served to make the first doctor seem all the more enigmatic.
By contrast, I distinctly remember not being particularly impressed by the second Doctor, and found him a bit too comical even then.
On top of that, those first Target books were all Hartnell stories, and I remember loving the Daleks and Zarbi novelisations, but didn't like The Crusaders very much, due to its lack of sci-fi content. Not much has changed.  
Meanwhile in November that year, the family went on a day trip to London. I had spent all my pocket money, and was excited and yet mortified when we arrived at Paddington station to go home; there was the Dr Who 10th Anniversary Special on the newsagents stand. Naturally, I grovelled to my Dad because I had no money left, and reading that magazine on the train became the highlight of the whole day, with its intoxicating glimpse into both the past and the future of Dr Who.
But of course, all this is still not 'proper '60s Who. That wouldn't happen until the BBC videos started being released. I didn't become aware of these until 1987, at which time Seeds of Death was the only '60s story to've been released.
I did, and still do enjoy seeing The Seeds of Death, and finally being able to appreciate a proper Troughton story. Yet Troughton's performance was not key to my enjoyment of the overall story. I didn't dislike him in the role, but again it was those comedic elements that slightly took the edge off for me. Not massively so; I still rate him as my 4th favourite Doctor, but even so, the whimsical element is part of the reason why he's 4th and not 3rd.
Then of course came the big release of 1989, in the form of The Dead Planet/The Daleks double VHS. And this had a much bigger impact than Seeds of Death. I immediately loved Hartnell in the role, and the overall the mystery of the character and atmosphere of this story, makes it my favourite Hartnell story to this day. And although I was never that keen of Susan as a character, I took to Ian and Barbara straight away. More so than I ever really did with any of Troughton's companions.
It may all sound pretty one sided so far, but the eventual release of earlier Troughton stories like Tomb, Web of Fear, and The Moonbase have definitely gone some way towards fostering a greater appreciation of the second Doctor. Also, target adaptation: Dr Who and the Cybermen was always very high on my list of favourites. Infact, those Troughton Cybermen stories are a high point for '60s Who. A former contributor to the previous Hive, described their strange, cold menace very well by likening them to 'metal ghosts'. Something that would be completely lost by the '80s.
Another factor of course is the sheer amount of missing stories from the Troughton era, which adds to the difficulty in summing up his era fairly. One other thing in its favour for me is the phasing out of historical stories. Aside from The Aztecs, and to a lesser extent The Crusade, and The Massacre, I've never really liked them very much. They just don't fire my imagination, so that's definitely a minus point for the Hartnell era.
On balance though, If I really had to choose... The Hartnell era does it for me. a little bit more than the Troughton era. But the '60s as whole, is definitely a favourite decade of Who. Admittedly, It doesn't hold quite so highly in my affections as the '70s, in general; but most of it I'm happy to watch anytime.

The Daleks was the first 60s Who story I saw, swiftly followed by The Mind Robber, at the age of 13. I'd been a fan for around 18 months or so, and just joined my school's Sci-Fi Club, where I made friends with a Who fan a few years older who had a wealth of pirate copies. Needless to say I was soon knocking him up for copies of copies.
I don't think I was all that impressed by either then (though the very ropey copies - Daleks in particular with its magical bend at the top of the screen - didn't help).
I very quickly became a Troughton fan with the likes of The Invasion (pirate) and The War Games (the proper VHS which I got for Xmas or something). It took me a really long time to overly warm to Hartnell. In fact it didn't really happen until the mid-late 2000s, courtesy of both the much superior PQ and audio on the DVD, and watching them in order. For a while he overtook Troughton though Pat has fought back with the recovery of some stories and the animation of others, and they're about even again now.

As for 60s Who in general... I dunno, I more or less view all of classic Who the same, because I grew up sampling bits of all three decades all at the same time, even though the McCoy era was "my" televised era. I can pick out preferred seasons but all three decades seem more or less the same quality to me.

I first got into 60's Who as a kid when I read the novelisations of The Daleks, The Crusade and The Web Of Fear and it remains my favourite period of the show today.

My Dad was a fan and watched it from the dead planet onward - he had no recollection of Tribe of Gum. This meant we got plonked down in front of the TV every Saturday night.

I have no memories of Troughton from the original transmissions so my earliest memories are of Pertwee. At the time I loved that era - Jon , Katy, the Unit stories. So much so I had trouble accepting Tom when he took over. This wasn't helped by what I then perceived as the silly almost amateurish years of Graham Williams. Then JNT arrived, revamped the show and my view of Tom changed.

I bought many of the Target books in the 70s and 80s and managed to get hold of bootleg copies of old stories which led me to increase my preference for Tom over Jon. The books were important in that without them I might have lost interest during the Williams years. My love of the Daleks would have taken quite a battering if all I had from 1975 to 1979 was the wooden, dreary, lacklustre Destiny of the Daleks. You couldn't even turn to the Dicks novelisation for comfort as that was likewise a non-event. The Cushing films also helped keep my own personal dalekmania alive at this time.

These days I am quite appreciative of 60s Who but when the DVDs first started coming out I was disappointed how poor many of the performances were and the action seemed very stilted, actors appearing to be slow to pick up their cues, fight scenes looking very staged. These days I like it more. Not totally sure why tbh. I think it's NuWho. I am so frustrated with that crap, especially how its been used by show runners to peddle their own political ideologies sometimes at the expense of other elements. Then there's the soap style story lines that have been shoe horned in. Dicks once described soap story lines as filler. I couldn't agree more. Even more ridiculous when you consider most stories are now squeezed into a 42 minute format. If you need fillers for stories only 42 minutes long then you can't have had much of story idea in the first place. I think I have just learned to appreciate what has gone before. Plus I just tend to prefer old TV programmes. I have yet to see any modern TV programme achieve the dramatic standards of, among many others, I Claudius, Sandbaggers, Elizabeth R or Secret Army. A lot of modern TV drama just leaves me cold although there are exceptions.

Great to read these replies.

In terms of Who decades, the 70s is my top favourite with the 60s fairly close behind and then the 80s a little further behind. Some stuff from all three decades I still consider superior by any standard whereas, in comparison, I can't rate any New Who (c.2005 to the present) to be in the same league at all.
I briefly remember fleeting bits of Troughton episodes during the 60s - for instance Cybermen lurking in the sewers from The Invasion and definitely the final War Games episode. The series quickly gripped my imagination but I was too young really to appreciate 60s Who at the time. Clear recollection only kicks in for me from the start of the Pertwee era - I was bloody terrified when the Autons appeared!
I was lucky enough as a kid, and aspiring Who fan(atic), to be given all sorts of second hand stuff, including even a 60s Dalek toy costume, kind of a full size pvc suit with plastic helmet, oo-er missus!   There were also tiny Dalek rolykin toys to collect and I avidly devoured an old Hartnell annual and Dalek Outer Space Book before getting Target paperbacks featuring the likes of the Daleks and Zarbi. So 60s Who, and especially its associated Dalekmania manifestations, certainly influenced my early childhood.
Back in the early 70s, something of a hangover from 60s Dalekmania seemed somehow to be lingering in the culture. Dalek amusement rides for were still around at resorts like Blackpool and any television screenings of the (colour!) Peter Cushing Dalek movies were always a thrilling way to actually watch some 60s Who. The Making of Doctor Who paperback and then the show reaching its tenth anniversary only progressed my fascination and awareness. Not only previous Doctor incarnations but also previous era monsters like the Cybermen, Ice Warriors and Yeti seemed mysterious and exciting. That Radio Times anniversary special became a treasured source of information and lore too. Occasionally there might even be clips from 60s episodes on television shows like Nationwide and Blue Peter, all offering tantalising glimpses of a seemingly lost era.
This then was the backgound to my appreciation so already there was plenty to build upon by the time of the 80s as videos of the old stories began to be released. At last I could actually watch something I'd previously only been able to speculate or read about. Amidst this thrilling development, I discovered plenty of stories did indeed live up to years of expectation even if some others didn't quite turn out as I'd imagined. Of course some of that old mysterious quality of the 60s era will always persist as long as there remain any lost episodes.  However, I think what we can now enjoy only reinforces the idea of 60s Who as very much a crucial era, graced by one of the most creative and exciting periods in the show's history.

I forgot all about the old Dr Who exhibitions.
I went to the one at Blackpool when I was a kid. Can’t remember exactly when, but I reckon it must’ve been about 1974.
I still remember the thrill of hearing the theme music coming out of the entrance onto the street.
It was a great time to be a kid.

It was indeed a great time!  
Yeah I should have mentioned going to the Blackpool Doctor Who exhibition. I think I went there first in 1974 too. It became something of an annual pilgrimage for me thereafter. I was sad when it closed in the mid 80s (although a different one opened again for a while in the New Poo years). Blackpool always had Who associations for me as a kid.
Also loved collecting stuff like the Jon's Doctor Who single and the Tom Pescatons LP.
And I recall carefully audio recording the Whose Doctor Who documentary in the 70s, which contained loads of 60s clips to savour, because I didn't have a video recorder back then!

I think very highly of '60s Who. The atmosphere and imagination of those years have rarely been matched.

I started watching Who on a PBS station that showed one episode a weeknight, and then a whole story every weekend (along with Blakes 7 and Space 1999). They showed them in order, but the weekend story was on a separate track from the weekday episodes. From about 85-89, both time slots would cycle through Jon>Tom>Peter and back again. I didn't see any 6th or 7th Doctor stories until around 89/90. But they never showed any 60s Who at all.

I quit watching Doctor Who around '92, but then I discovered all of Doctor Who online around 2008, and watched all the 60s stories for the first time then. Then, as it was all new to me, the 60s was my favorite era for a few years. Then I slowed down my Who intake again around 2012 (now having watched all of it many, many times).

Then in 2015 I bought all the VHS, and started watching it regularly again, and have been ever since. This time around I have returned to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Doctor eras as being my favorite, and I only occasionally put on a newer (6-7th) or older (1st-2nd) Doctor story.