Smith was genuinely pleased with the gift and tried to create a character for the programme with it but Moffat (remembering the whole "Tom Baker and his talking cabbage" thing) fortunately didn't listen to his mile-a-minute coked-out rantings. It was later revealed that Smith had in fact received a real badger, not a puppet, when he lost three fingers, part of his right nostril and required extensive stitches and a later course of plastic surgery. Smith's health reacted badly to the surgeries which caused his hair to fall out over the next couple of seasons. This amused a number of the production cast except for Karen Gillan who shaved her own head in support.