The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour

Defenders Of The Earth

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is nothing if not a podcast of juxtapositions and contrasts, like mixing vintage TV shows with digital platforms, and necking Malibu and Quatro out of the antique sherry glasses. And it's this grating collision of 1980s futurism and sepia-toned yesteryear to which the hosts turn once again, because everyone knows it's not really a horror-season if you don't put A Dracula™ in it...

Yes, messrs Velvet, Blackout and Bognops break out the garlic and make sure the pooper-scoopers are within arm's reach, as Flash Gordon, The Phantom and a host of King Features chums (as well as a minibus full of their kids) find themselves knee-deep in Transylvanian doings when the Defenders Of The Earth (defenders...) wonder what exactly has gone into Dracula's Potion.

How many biological-photocopying superpowers does Dracula have that that even Bram Stoker didn't know about? How does the Grade-2-listed status of a 900yr old Eastern European castle affect a local authority application for an on-site massage parlour with neon-pink accent lighting? And how do the Defenders Of The Earth (defenders...) think that turning up unannounced in a remote woodland village dressed like the Aerobics-Wing of the Gladiators isn't going to lead to a little bit of adverse comment at the very least?

Nip round to Phaze for a quick change of clothes, press Play and find out...

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

You're Only Young Twice: The Gipsy's Curse

Fear of the unknown has always been a source of crippling anxiety for puny humans, and it pays to scry the future at any available moment. Whether you've got one eye on the 3:30 at Chepstow, on that recent headline about an escaped leopard, or on that pair of plimsolls in the window of Freeman Hardy & Willis for Saturday afternoon, you simply can't out-run destiny (and those plimsolls look great #BuyTheThings).

Yes, the mists are clearing at The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour as our hosts return once again to their beloved Paradise Lodge and find that You're Only Young Twice. A visiting clairvoyant brings dire forebodings to those who treat her less than reverently, and since that's Flora default-setting it's safe to predict trouble by tea-time...

How culturally insensitive is it to write A Locationally Undisclosed Foreign Character™ into your sitcom if the associated performer doesn't even attempt a remotely recognisable accent? How fast can you make an elderly woman ride a motorcycle down a cobbled street before the insurance overseer has a fit of the vapours? And how is Blackout supposed to plan a road-trip if Geography as we know it is a mere construct of Yorkshire Television?

Press Pause, consult Google Maps, press Play then find out...

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

 

 

Highway To Heaven

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's concerted foray into televisual horror continues apace, with Doctor Velvet, Blackout and Ozzy Bognops continuing to wade drinks-aloft through the darkness. But into every cobwebbed crypt an ecclesiastical sunbeam must fall, and salvation arrives in the form of The Finest Hair On Television™...

Yes, this week our trio of intrepid explorers brace their souls against all the netherworld has to offer by hitching a ride on the Highway To Heaven, where a Hallowe'en motel stop-over gives rise to interwoven suburban homilies on the spiritual dangers of practical jokes, emotional disengagement and sandwiches.

How many appearance, repeat and residual fees does Michael Landon® bank by penning in archive-footage of his own cinematic back catalogue? How many times do the hosts say the words Michael Landon® in this episode, and is that even close to the number of times the words Michael Landon® appear in the programme's credits? And how many Michael Landons Michael Landon® Landon's Michael Michael's Michael Landon® Michael Landon® Michael Landon® Landon Landon?

Press Michael Landon® and find out...

#MichaelLandon

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

Children Of The Stones

With the first stirrings of spring on the breeze, an archive-television reviewer's thoughts naturally turn to fresh air, greenery and neolithic menhirs. A quest for savage nature leads to this episode of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour being 33% outside broadcast, as well as seeing the return of a beloved special guest back in the studio!

Yes, ancient rituals, cutting-edge science and new age ephemera collide, as that rusty old chopper has been broken out of the shed and ridden into the depths of rural Wiltshire for sardonic scrutiny of the first episode of HTV's iconic Children Of The Stones! For once, our hosts aren't the weirdest people in the vicinity. Although that doesn't stop them trying...

When is it permissible to run over an old lady standing in the middle of the road? When is it okay to knock off your academic research for the day and knock back whisky in the pub instead? And when is someone - anyone - going to send a Going Metric: Tins Of Paint leaflet to Blackout?

The sooner you press Play, the sooner you'll find out...

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

Dead Of Night: The Exorcism

Ever keen to multi-task, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's After Dark season is at this point so blasé with unseasonally ticking off items from the Hallowe'en schedule that they've started on the Christmas telly as well. Naturally, ghosts have no real concept of earthly time and so tend to turn up impromptu and behave appallingly. Much like dinner guests...

Yes, this week the hoover gets pushed round and the best cutlery comes out for 1972's Dead Of Night: The Exorcism. And this cautionary tale of social entertaining is a nailed-on lesson as to a) why dinner parties are (and always have been) a thing to be avoided, and more notably b) why no one should invite Blackout and Doctor Velvet to them anyway.

How long can a guest be expected to tolerate a power cut before just retiring to the airing-cupboard with a bottle of wine? How long can a ghost be expected to play the clavichord in the next room before you take a mell hammer to the windows? And how long can a fresh crime-scene be left before Kenneth Kendall starts talking about it on national television?

Light a trail of candles to the Play button, and find out...

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

40 Minutes: Ghost Train

Creepy cartoons and high-ectoplasm action series are all well and good to satisfy a 21st century lust for arcane entertainment, but sooner or later what's required is actual, verified, hard evidence of the afterlife. And with that in mind, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour turns - once more - to Auntie Beeb for some documentary fact.

 This comes packaged in the form of 40 Minutes' Ghost Train: Haunted Britain, during which Messrs Velvet and Blackout rise to the seriousness of the occasion in practiced form: by discussing Doctor Who easter-eggs and mocking members of the public foolish enough to have appeared on television one time several decades ago. Because it's what the hosts are here for and let's face it, that's what you're here for too...

Did NHS funding in the 1980s get reduced to the number of sponsored EMF-meter clicks recorded in a haunted house? Can you really complain about paranormal disturbances when you've got a shotgun blast in the ceiling and a mausoleum at the bottom of your garden? And did Blackout buy the book?

 Get John Bruce to gently caress the Play button for you, and find out...


The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

The Fall Guy

This entire series of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour focuses on the more macabre facets of the magic lantern partly in a bid to help clear the supernatural backlog, and because sometimes a Halloween-themed programme crops up that's just too good to leave until Spooky-Season! (or is just too awful to take that coveted slot in the review-schedule, but let's try to be optimistic)

Worlds collide at Mountpeg Towers this week when Ozzy Bognops drops round, and explosions meet ectoplasm for The Fall Guy on 'October The 31st', the textbook snapshot of a celebrated 1980s TV show having a mid-life crisis. Yes, whether you're raising a cold beer to The Unknown Stuntman or a smouldering absinthe to The Mistress Of The Dark, the level of For-The-Dads™ televisual entertainment here is positively off the scale...

How many litres of water does it take to extinguish Sally Field? How many litres of whiskey does it take to incapacitate Colt Seavers? And how many members of the incidental cast are changing their surname to Carradine to ensure they get a screen-credit?

Grab the coroner, unearth the casket, press the Play button, and find out...

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

Count Duckula

The hosts of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour are well known for chasing the boundaries of terror and for crossing the streams, and tonight's lecture illustrates that just because something appears brightly coloured, that doesn't mean it can't also be steeped in darkness.

Yes, the new series' exploratory jaunt into televisual devilry begins in earnest, and what better way to brush aside abandoned cobwebs and read ancient inscriptions aloud than in the company of Count Duckula? With vampires, zombies, tomb-looting and light jazz, there's something for fans of all horror...

What was the deal with 1980s variety club acts blagging the contracts for kids' TV theme tunes? What was the deal with Brian Trueman hoovering up any jobs that were left over? And how many gags can you pack into a script before the plot is left sitting in the studio next door?

Press Play, blow on the enchanted horn, and find out...


The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

New series trailer: Fangface/So Haunt Me

Spring may be round the corner, but it's always winter in our souls! Yes, as most normal people dare to celebrate the evenings getting ever so slowly lighter, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour draws the heavy brocade curtains, lights a candle or two and reclines further into the misanthropic gloom. It certainly beats going outside, where the real horror lies.

In this extended trailer for their NEW SUPERNATURAL SERIES, Messrs Velvet, Blackout and Bognops move the glass of nostalgic criticism over the animated lycanthropic-farce Fangface, and try to make contact with BBC1's 1992 sitcom So Haunt Me. If there really *is* somebody there, all will be revealed After Dark...

How many stars of Capcom had a Before-They-Were-Famous career at Ruby-Spears? How many online auctions of original animation-cells would you have to win before you become the rights-holder of a cartoon? And how many sitcom-dads does it take sitting round the table until they can see the ghost?

Watch agog as an unseen spectral hand presses the Play button, and find out...


The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional accompaniments from Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com

Bruce Forsyth And The Generation Game

As the annual festive battle wears on to decide whether the family will spend this evening watching new spangly Content™ from a surfeit of modern entertainment platforms or the much-loved VHS tape of yuletide specials from yesteryear instead, it is a time of high resolution - it is a time of low resolution - and it is of course time to try and forget about making New Year resolutions altogether...

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is no exception to this televisual knife-edge, and has opted this Hogmanay to watch Bruce Forsyth and The Generation Game's New Year's Day episode from 1973. It's business as usual at Television Centre with a seasonal twist, which means the side-eyes, barbed comments, bickering and general failure to understand any of the rules means the programme should match the mood of your living room, perfectly.

How arbitrary is the scoring system for vast swathes of this game? How axiomatic are Forsyth's helpful hints during its climactic round? And how apoplectic is Ernie going to be when he remembers in three days' time it was the headphones he wanted?

Resolve to press Play every day (or until you forget, around January 4th) and find out...

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com