1986: Roland Rat: The Series / Neighbours

Our journey through the shiniest decade continues to thrive, and the custodians of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour find themselves in the mood for laughter, for song, and most pertinently for sunshine...

This week it's 1986, and it's said that you're never more than three channels away from Roland Rat. We test this urban myth, find it to be undoubtedly true, then take the precaution of distancing ourselves on the other side of the planet to tut through the net curtains while the Neighbours enjoy a buck's party that we weren't invited to.

Is the height of Summer really the time for expecting a Christmas Special compilation to be anything other than a mortifyingly lazy schedule filler? What evidence of career-ending impropriety did the BBC booking team have on the wealth of stars who agreed to show their faces next to Roland and shred all dignity in the process? And how many strippers and naked men and Stefan Dennis in a nappy is too many strippers and naked men and Stefan Dennis in a nappy when you're writing a daytime soap opera?

We know, and in three quarters of an hour you will as well...

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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

1985: No.73 / Cool It

In these sober times one can often get too hung up on heavyweight televisual analysis, and the episode has come for The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour to let its hair down. Right down, in fact. Oh yes, we are talking "shoulder length"...

This week it's 1985 and it's all going on! All the very coolest aspects (and pop music stars) of the decade as you remember it finally kick in right here, as we eschew the slightly cosy Saturday morning offerings of Auntie Beeb and head down Maidstone way to drop into No. 73, before hopping quietly back over the fence for some bitingly accessible social satire (do you remember cakes?) from flexuous-physiognomied funnyman Phil in Cool It!

Have TVS finally perfected the 'chaotic' TV format by having an eclectic running schedule combined with not a single person in front of the camera knowing what anyone else is supposed to be doing? Is the prestige of their guest-list really worth the hole in the ozone layer above Maidstone because of all the hairspray which has to be used? And is there a statute of limitations covering the amount of time Blackout is allowed to still be unashamedly snobby about observational standup routines?

The answer to at least one of those is a firm 'yes'...

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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

1984: The Tripods / Dear Ladies

One of the primary aims of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is exploring the cultural dichotomy between celebrating the past, and doing so in a way which embraces present and ever-evolving technology. One of the other aims is getting drunk while doing so of course, which makes this the most potentially on-brand episode to date...

This week it's 1984 (although some are calling it 2089), and we drop in on one village in England where benevolent evil has arrived with a stonking great middle-leg in The Tripods, before pootling over to Stackton Tressel where a greater level of quiet chaos reigns under the arch glares of Hinge and Bracket, who are most definitely our Dear Ladies.

What happens in the future that all clothes have to come from a rural jumble sale taking place shortly after the first World War? At what point in the past was the formula cracked with even-more-old-fashioned comedy that would go on to entrance Messrs Velvet and Blackout in the future? And how come these programmes were hugely successful in the mid-1980s when there's not a sniff of neon?

We went digging and this was what we unearthed...

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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

1983: Captain Zep / Manimal

Despite their oft-brash demeanour, it's not all about cold, hard analytical facts at The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour, and sometimes it does a brain well to relax with the more outré elements of vintage entertainment...

This week it's 1983, and Doctor Velvet and The Boy Blackout are joined once more by the stabilising (yet unerringly inebriating) presence of Ozzy Bognops, uncovering something rather arresting in the form of Captain Zep: Space Detective, before cycling through as many zoological transmutations as the handlers-budget will allow in the first episode of Manimal.

Have we really travelled to the far side of the galaxy only to find out that The French did it? Should Jonathan Chase be given Space Sentinel Astrea's phone number so he can get a few more actual ideas for animals to turn into? And mind, can these three not just enjoy anything?

Press the Play button and let's find out...

And mind, this is Roy Kinnear, isn't it..?



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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

1982: Screen Test / Tomorrow's World

If there are two things that The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour strives to champion at every turn, it's a) picking apart needless detail in things we've just watched, and b) The Future™. Their booze-fuelled discourse elevated once again by the magnificent Ozzy Bognops, our plucky protagonists wade bottle-opener-first into both...

This week it's 1982, where powers of observation, recall and generally giving a single cinematic fig are stretched to their very limits under the auspices of Brian Trueman and his Screen Test. Then, after tea, it's time to sit back down and be left utterly agog at the miraculous inventions and advancements which await our society in Tomorrow's World.

Is Trueman's fragile mortal shell about to be torn asunder by the God-like power he wields over his contestants? Are radio-telephones really going to become all of the rage outside of That London? And is there any greater tonic in these troubled times for the middle-aged man than Maggie Philbin in a pink jumpsuit?

These secrets lie herein...

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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