Friday 15 March 2024

The Undersea Aventures Of Captain Nemo


Not quite ready to surface from hibernation, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour ekes out the last of the dark nights by curling up at the fireside with a good book. Well, the hosts welcome a new guest, crack open a bottle or two and watch a version of that book on the telly. Obviously...

Coming under subaquatic scrutiny this week is 1975's Canadian animated odyssey, The Undersea Adventures Of Captain Nemo, in which everyone's favourite Victorian squid-puncher gets a nuclear-powered modern - if educational - twist.

What are the temporal implications of casually inventing Zoom-meetings and Wikipedia decades before the technology required to run them? What are the legal consequences of failing to control an accent in a built-up screenplay? And what are the ethical considerations around having two unpaid child dogsbodies in an enclosed space where someone's smoking 80 Capstan Full-Strength a day?

Get someone to push Play for you and find out...



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
The Undersea Aventures Of Captain Nemo
Broadcast: Monday 26 June 1978, 10:20
Production/Channel: Rainbow Animation, ITV
Writers/Producers/Directors: Jean Mathieson & Al Guest
Starring: Billie Mae Richards, Len Carlson



You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



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 live accompaniments by 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

Sunday 31 December 2023

Live Into '85 (the New Year show)


JINGS! They said it couldn't be done! Well, they said it shouldn't be done, and they turned out to be right. Yes, it's another edition of The Peggy Mount Hogmanay Hour, and drunken sassenachs Velvet, Blackout and Bognops have stormed the passport control booth at Hadrian's Wall on a haphazard hunt north of the border for some Caledonian culture...

Unfortunately that all sold out a week before Christmas, and all that's left in the gift shop is BBC One's near-legendary end of year debacle: Live Into '85. Laird Tom O'Connor joins with Marquess Maggie Moone and Marquee Moira Anderson to host a rousing night of comedy, dancing, music and fun! Or again, that's what Tom had been booked for until discovering it had sold out etc. More guests appear entirely at their own risk. As at least one of them found out.

Were the BBC cutting broadcast costs by pulling the plug on this while Big Ben was still chiming? Were Big Tom's Pipe Band cutting parking costs by keeping the minibus engine running outside? And what were the management of the Gleneagles Hotel hoping to achieve by combining their all-you-can-drink bar with the crèche?

Push Play to have the answers revealed and branded into your eardrums forever...



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
Live Into '85
Broadcast: Monday 31 December 1984, 23:40
Production/Channel: BBC Scotland, BBC One
Music: David Pringle
Director: Alasdair MacMillan, Anne Somers
Starring: Tom O'Connor, Moira Anderson, Maggie Moone, Bill Torrance, Chic Murray, John Grieve, Modern Romance, Buff Hardie, Steve Robinson, Pipe Major James Liddel, The Pipes and Drums of British Caledonian Airways, The Jim Johnstone Scottish Country Dance Band, The Tom McShane Dancers



You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



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 live accompaniments by 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

Sunday 24 December 2023

Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees-Up


Christmas comes but once a year, yet thrice it 'casts into your ear(s)! Yes, with the dinner eaten and the games over, the party is in full swing as The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's festive delving culminates its way to the yuletide jamboree! Approaching an advanced state of refreshment, Doctor Velvet, Blackout and Ozzy Bognops are in the mood for some salt-of-the-earth tinkling of The Old Joann-oh™, and so it's naturally to The Light Channel they turn.

And boogey-woogeying its way down to a studio-approximation of the East End is 1982's incomparable Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees-Up (YouTube edit / ITVx version), where the cockney duo rattle out a handful of their own hits while playing host to Jimmy Cricket, Lennie Peters, Cosmotheka, Albert Lee and Eric Clapton. Variety shows are bread and butter pudding to this podcast of course, and live musical acts come under particular scrutiny - so it's anyone's guess as to how far the goodwill of this particular season will stretch...

Are Chas and Dave starting to regret phoning up their most famous mates for a jam? Has Lennie Peters come down to sort out some right muppet who's bin bad-maafing his mannah? And is Alyn Ainsworth hiding in the Rancor pit?

Put your beer in the sideboard here, let mother press Play and find out...

[Bonus points and/or an extra jellied eel will be awarded to listeners who can sing along AND do The Thirds]



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees-Up
Broadcast: Sat 25 December 1982, 21:30
Production/Channel: London Weekend Television, ITV
Music: Alyn Ainsworth, Trevor Brown
Producer/Director: David Bell, Alasdair Macmillan
Starring: Chas Hodges, Dave Peacock, Mick Burt, Jimmy Cricket, Cosmotheka, Albert Lee, Eric Clapton



And for your attention, a story in three acts:






This drink-stability liability:



And of course these absolute legends:




So rub-a-dub-pub
and Merry Christmas
from
@PeggyMountPod!
x X x



You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



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 live accompaniments by 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

Friday 22 December 2023

Give Us A Clue at Christmas


No, you're not seeing double - this is the second of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour Christmas Specials! Although given that trouble co-ordinating and an inability to communicate clearly are the order of the day with this festive viewing, blurred vision just feels par for the course frankly.

To get them in the mood for games, our hosts revisit ITV's 1979 Christmas-edition of Give Us A Clue, a show whose very title suggests that things are supposed to get clearer as they progress. In actuality the exact reverse seems to have been true that day in Thames Television, but with an assemblage of light entertainment royalty such as this, who's keeping score? Certainly not Michael Aspel, that's for sure...

Who proposed stripping the catering budget down to Netto egg sandwiches for the preceding eleven months to allow the off-licence run for this show to take place? Who was responsible for retooling the on-screen countdown clock, but then decided to blow that money on another bottle of port instead? And who's going to break it to the orphans that Dickie Davies has opened all their presents?

Rely on a production-runner to press Play thirty seconds sooner than they usually would, and find out...

[Bonus points and/or an extra Cadbury's Rose (just the one) will be awarded to listeners who know what a Spelk™ is]



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
Give Us A Clue
Broadcast: Mon 24 December 1979, 19:00
Production/Channel: Thames Television, ITV
Writer: Vince Powell, Juliet Grimm
Music: Alan Hawkshaw
Producer/Director: Juliet Grimm, Ian Bolt
Starring: Michael Aspel, Una Stubbs, Lionel Blair, Paula Wilcox, Nyree Dawn Porter, Clodagh Rogers, Beryl Reid, Kenneth Williams, Spike Milligan, Russ Abbot, Dickie Davies




You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



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 live accompaniments by 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

Wednesday 20 December 2023

Christmas With The Larkins


"And hark", proclaimed Producer Ken, "before the clock strikes Christmas Day, you will be visited by three podcasts!". 'Oh here we go' thought Scrooge, just wanting to get on. "You must learn from the pod of telly past, the pod of telly past and then the pod of telly past." Well, he'd expected repeats at this time of year, but Scrooge didn't argue because he'd looked through the Radio Times and hadn't even taken the top off his red marker...

Yes it's the first of the festive specials from The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour, and to set the scene the boys need to go right back to ITV's Christmas With The Larkins. Blazing a trail through the fledgling sitcom-market, Dame Peggy herself berates and bellows her way to a yuletide family gathering with all the farcical trimmings and mishaps we've come to expect over the intervening decades. What can go wrong? Oh, everything.

How many trombone wah-s are acceptable as the comedown to a punchline? How many household appliances can be used to defrost a turkey? And how many instances of imminent or actual violence need to be in a script before Peggs will greenlight it?

Look, you're not pressing Play right - let Peggy take over and find out...

[Bonus points and/or an extra Quality Street will be awarded to listeners who pick up on the Stewart Lee reference secreted in this episode]



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
Christmas With The Larkins
Broadcast: Fri 26 December 1958, 22:15
Production/Channel: Associated Television, ITV
Writer: Fred Robinson
Music: Jackie Brown
Producer/Director: Bill Ward
Starring: Peggy Mount, David Kossoff, Ronan O'Casey, Ruth Trouncer, Hilary Bamberger, Shaun O'Riordan, Barbara Mitchell John Barrard, Charles Lloyd Pack, Norman Mitchell




You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



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 live accompaniments by 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

Friday 27 October 2023

Ghostwatch


Darkness falls across the land, the drinking hour is close at hand; to tear apart your very soul, and delve into The Glory Hole! Yes, as dusk strikes on the year The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour turns its attention to a truly seminal piece of vintage television that's sure to put the willies up anybody...

Under the spooktroscope this Samhain is BBC1's legendary Ghostwatch, the 1992 pseudo-documentary fronted by Sir Michael Parkinson, which exceeded its remit in terms of terrifying viewers and ultimately bequeathed a televisual legacy far greater than anyone had really intended. But cynicism is the enemy of awe as aeons pass, and there's no greater battle for emotional sincerity than the one playing in the viewing suite of MountPeg Towers this stormy evening.

How big is the cupboard under the stairs in a two-bedroom semi in suburban west-London? How come that person looks like them out of that thing that you can't quite place? And how come the Beeb got around Equity stipulations by employing people who clearly weren't actors?

Move the glass over PLAY and find out...



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
Ghostwatch
Broadcast: Sat 31 October 1992, 21:25
Production/Channel: BBC One
Writer: Stephen Volk
Music: Philip Appleby
Producer/Director: Ruth Baumgarten, Lesley Manning
Starring: Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith, Craig Charles, PIPES, Keith Ferrari, Brid Brennan, Michelle Wesson, Cherise Wesson, Gillian Bevan, Colin Stinton, Mark Lewis







You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



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 live accompaniments by 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 Undersea Aventures Of Captain Nemo

Not quite ready to surface from hibernation, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour ekes out the last of the dark nights by curling up at the fi...