Saturday, 20 September 2025

Dungeons & Dragons / Mr & Mrs


There was much excitement earlier this week as the Antiques Roadshow film crew pulled into the grounds of Birtley Priory to be met by Pod Producer Ken eagerly clutching a battered C90 cassette, complete with an illegibly scrawled label and browned sellotape over the record-tab. The raw enthusiasm of Fiona Bruce, hoping this could be a secretly recorded rehearsal session of The Beatles, quickly turned to despondent anger when the assembled crowd was treated to a priceless raw cut of one of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour’s Lost Episodes™…

Yes, unearthed from the archives (Pod Producer Ken found it wedged down the back of the toilet), and meticulously digitally restored (he’s edited out the clunks of him hitting the Record and Stop buttons), this hitherto-unheard recording charts the time some years back that the boys from The ExtonMoss Experiment dropped round for a gin, a chinwag and a deep-dive into the Dungeons and Dragons and Mr and Mrs.

What are the odds of six separate roleplaying characters all rolling a Ø for personality? What are the chances of Derek Batey shelling that prize money out of what is clearly going to be his own bank account? And how likely is the podcast to get sued if the un-bleeped version of this is ever aired?

Clamber into the clapped-out rollercoaster, pull the Play lever and find out…



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
Dungeons & Dragons: The Night Of No Tomorrow
Broadcast: Monday 10 September 1984, 16:30
Production/Channel: Marvel Productions, Toei Animation / BBC One
Writer: Mark Evanier, Kevin Paul Coates, Dennis Marks
Music: Johnny Douglas
Producer/Director: Karl Geurs, Gary Gygax / John Gibbs, Bob Richardson
Starring: Willie Aames, Don Most, Adam Rich, Peter Cullen, Teddy Field III, Katie Leigh, Sidney Miller, Tonia Gayle Smith, Frank Welker

Programme:
Mr & Mrs
Broadcast: [unconfirmed Tx date] 1979, 17:15
Production/Channel: Border Television, ITV Network
Devised by: Roy Ward Dickson
Music: Jackie Trent, Tony Hatch
Producer/Director: Derek Batey / William Cartner
Starring: Derek Batey, Susan Cuff




Of note, this week:

The competition mentioned in this episode is NO LONGER RUNNING because it was recorded three years ago and someone WON. Yeah that's right, you had your chance then.


Also...











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

Saturday, 6 September 2025

The Paradise Club


Horror and hard rock have long gone hand in grimy hand, and this outing of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's After Dark strand harkens back to an historical moment where three chords and hairspray attempted to go mainstream. Because when the lead singer of the world's largest metal band stars in a Tuesday night BBC One drama, you know it's not long before he'll be recognised in Waitrose.

Yes, the volume is turned up to eleven as the doors of 1990's The Paradise Club are booted well and truly booted open, as the world's unlikeliest brothers play host to London's least stage-ready band, who perform to unfeasibly small audiences that have never before heard any music. As connoisseurs of loud tunes and questionable television, this is of course PeggyMountPod's perfect cultural fodder...

Has the BBC drama department only got one casting director for everything they make? Has the money that would normally spent on extras for the club scenes gone to PRS royalties for a soundtrack that the show's Sanatogen-necking audience might actually recognise? And how much does this podcast owe Bruce Dickinson for repeatedly howling ♫ 'TATTOO-OO-OOED MILLIONA-A-A-A-AIRE' throughout*?

Press Play on a shoddily-recorded bootleg that you bought for £2 off the market, and find out...


* Absolutely nothing. Blackout's already bought Tattooed Millionaire on at least five different releases, it's more than paid for**.




WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
The Paradise Club
Broadcast: Tuesday 06 November 1990, 21:30
Production/Channel: Zenith, BBC One
Writer: Murray Smith, Russell Murray
Music: Dave Lawson
Producer/Director: Selwyn Roberts / Renny Rye
Starring: Leslie Grantham, Don Henderson, John Altman, Bruce Dickinson, Janick Gers, Andy Carr, Dickie Fliszar







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

Saturday, 30 August 2025

Misty Holiday Special (1979)


Because is it even the holidays if you don't get a comic whose cover confirms that it is indeed The Holidays? The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour continues down its path of discordant nostalgia all the way to the paper-shop, and has convinced its mam to buy a cultural antidote to the relaxing positivity of the Summer months...

Yes, demonstrating that Goth Never Sleeps, our hosts are greeted by the magical Misty as she plays host to a literary coven of supernatural scripture in her 1979 Holiday Special. Not quite as garish as 1984's Scream, Misty proves that less can be more and that not every tale of terror needs to be a coded warning to curtail the moral compass of its readership.

What level of witchery should you employ if a supermarket threatens to move into your village? What happens if you live near an aviary and you're deaf in one ear? And what does it say about the era when the thematic inspirations for your children's comic are the benefits of a comprehensive insurance policy and moors murders?

Drink three bottles of green fjzz, press Play and find out...



WE HAVE BEEN READING:


Title:
The Misty 1979 Holiday Special
Cover Date: July 1979
Publisher: IPC Fleetway
Contributors: Pat Mills, Barry Clements, Malcolm Shaw




Of note, this week:











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

Saturday, 23 August 2025

Doctor Who and The Dogs Of Doom (1980)


Basking in the heat of the long-awaited Summer Holidays is one thing, but boredom and agitation are always round the corner for The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour. Luckily, this can be easily (if temporarily) averted with a visit to the newsagent for a ten pence mix-up and a crisp new comic...

And so an unprecedented horror-turn from a childhood favourite serves to provide the perfect chills for the hot weather, and prompts the need for a restorative tipple! Yes, our hosts have whiled away the hours reading 1980's Doctor Who opus The Dogs Of Doom, and now manage to invest a little more time dissecting it, as well.

Who decided that virus-warfare as an aid to pan-galactic expansionist colonialism would make a fitting subject for a childrens' comic? Who knew the CB-radio boom of the late 1970s would have cultural ripples for the next five centuries? And who's picking up the tab for the dry-cleaning of Sharon's A-line frock?

Materialise a Play button about two feet lower down than it should be, and find out...



WE HAVE BEEN READING:


Title:
Doctor Who And The Dogs Of Doom
Cover Date: April 1980
Publisher: Marvel UK
Contributors: Pat Mills, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Steve Whitaker, Charlie Kirchoff



Of note, this week:




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

Saturday, 19 April 2025

I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle


As noted several moons ago, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour knows that the language of cinema is a little different to that of the small screen, but it’s a lesson they love to revisit nonetheless. This week’s study is of personal pronouns; as in ‘She'll probably regret wearing that’, ‘He made an egg sandwich that should be on trial’, and ‘I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle’…

Yes, Doctor Velvet and Blackout round out the podcast's After Dark series by shining a flickering torch into the dimmest days of the British Film Industry, to find the Boon reunion-party in full swing and drenched in red-dyed corn syrup. Still, there’s a vicar on-hand so it’s all good* clean** fun***.

Why did Anthony Daniels agree to a part in this? Why did Burt Kwouk agree to a part as long as he didn't have to speak? And why did Pod Producer Ken leave the room mid-way through and lock himself in the toilet, crying?

Put 20p in the pub jukebox, press Play, swing off a cast iron chandelier and find out…

* delete
** as
*** appropriate



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle
Released: Friday 06 July 1990 (UK cinemas)
Broadcast: Tuesday 15 February 1994, 00:10 (Sky Movies)
Production/Channel: Dirk Productions Ltd.
Writer: Mycal Miller & John Wolskel
Music: Dean Friedman
Producer/Director: Mycal Miller & John Wolskel / Dirk Campbell
Starring: Neil Morrissey, Amanda Noar, Michael Elphick, Anthony Daniels, Andrew Powell, Daniel Peacock, David Daker, Burt Kwouk, Paula Ann Bland




Of note this week...










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

Saturday, 12 April 2025

Knight Rider


The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour continues to explore the weekly cultural abyss of what really goes on After Dark. But as so often with the analysis of horror, the story of what scares us isn't quite as intriguing as what in turn reassures. And for a formative mind in the harsh striplights of the 1980s, there are few things so reassuring as the jet slacks, tousled demi-wave and leatherette blouson of the world's most mysterious techno-vigilante...

Yes, Doctor Velvet and Blackout are joined once again by the loveably irascible Ozzy Bognops, as their attention turns to that doyenne of Saturday teatime adventure, the Knight Rider. Because when things take a theatrically sinister turn on a Hollywood backlot and Michael Knight is sent to investigate, absolutely no nit will be left unpicked back at Mountpeg Towers...

How much money can you save by writing a screenplay set literally in the studio where it's going to be made, so that you don't have to do any set-dressing? How convenient is it to get your star's stuntman to play the star in a thing where your star plays his stuntman? And how many hints does a man have to drop that he just wants a job where he can go to the beach?

Tell your car to press Play, and find out...



WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:


Programme:
Knight Rider: Fright Knight
Broadcast: Friday 07 March 1986 (U.S.)
Production/Channel: Glen A. Larson Productions, NBC Television / ITV Network
Writer: Glen A. Larson, James Byrnes, Samm Smith, Leonard Kaufman
Music: Glen A. Larson, Stu Phillips, Don Peake
Producer/Director: Gino Grimaldi, Gilbert Shilton
Starring: David Hasselhoff, Edward Mulhare, Patricia McPherson, Peter Parros, Robert Englund, Michael Callan, Antony Ponzini




Of note, this week...















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

Dungeons & Dragons / Mr & Mrs

There was much excitement earlier this week as the Antiques Roadshow film crew pulled into the grounds of Birtley Priory to be met by Po...