Episode 300 - Mike Read's Pop Quiz
Jan 25, 2021
Mike Read has made many things he should be ashamed of. A racist UKIP Calypso song, a board game based on a rubbish TV quiz, and a TV quiz which would subsequently be made into a rubbish board game. We examine two of those things this week. Happy 300 episodes!
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Episode 301 - Dungeons & Dragons RE-RE-REVISITED
Feb 1, 2021
"Ranger... Barbarian... Magician... Thief... Cavalier... and Acrobat!"
100 more episodes have gone by, so Mark and Martyn re-re-revisit the first episode of W4B by re-re-rewatching the first episode of Dungeons and Dragons. Again. Because they said
they would. And they are stupid.
Re-re-reliving all the fun and adventure of a group of abandoned teenagers hampered in their quest to get home by a small mewling unicorn. For a fourth time. It's just as good as it sounded every other time before.
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Episode 302 - NOW... that's what I call the 80s-est 80s music videos 3
Feb 8, 2021
We decide to look at some more 80s music videos, and start off with three of Mark's picks. So roll up your jacket sleeves, grab a pair of legwarmers and get ready to dance to the sound of two men talking over all the music. Boooo!
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Episode 303 - NOW... that's what I call the 80s-est 80s music videos 4
Feb 15, 2021
Three more music videos get talked over this week, but luckily Martyn's picks are mostly boring so you're not missing anything.
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Episode 304 - Sylvanian Families
Feb 22, 2021
How do you make a cartoon out of woodland creatures living in doll houses? Add some unnecessary human kids, several layers of reality, a vampire villain and a rejected Wuzzle.
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Episode 305 - Super Mario World
Mar 1, 2021
Arguably the best video game series ever made has only ever received the worst cartoon spin-offs. Super Mario World is apparently a blast from the past. But what's your favourite kind of blast? Let us know.
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Mar 8, 2021
A cushion puppet competes with a man in tight trousers for the most inappropriate bulge on a kids' TV show, as we watch Hickory House before washing our eyes out with bleach.
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Mar 15, 2021
Time for a proper forgotten nightmare fuel treat this week as we watch Rocky Hollow, which definitely didn't exist but is also definitely going to crawl out of whatever screen you're watching it on and kill you.
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Mar 22, 2021
A polar bear and a girl try on some coats and nobody asks any questions. It would be perfectly reasonable to ask why she has a polar bear with her. Or even why the polar bear is trying on coats. But nobody does.
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Episode 309 - The Karate Kid: The Animated Series
Mar 29, 2021
The Karate Kid has had two TV spin-offs - one is about searching the globe for a magic shrine or something, and the other is just about middle-aged men remembering the 80s. Why would anyone watch or listen to the second one?
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Episode 310 - What-A-Mess At The Seaside
Apr 5, 2021
A pile of rubbish pretending to be a dog has adventures and there's rubbish everywhere and we're supposed to be ok with all the rubbish everywhere but it's awful and I hate it. What-A-Fucking-Mess indeed.
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Episode 311 - Under The Umbrella Tree
Apr 12, 2021
We learn all about Umbrella Trees using the internet and our own curiosity, with no thanks to this boring bunch of puppet bastards who nobody's ever heard of.
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Episode 312 - The Hot Rod Dogs & Cool Car Cats
Apr 19, 2021
We discover what it probably feels like to go mad as we watch a load of vehicle/animal hybrid abominations living in a weird post-apocalyptic landscape. This should have been called "Car-Pets" and I'm annoyed I only just thought of that.
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Apr 26, 2021
A big green space rabbit and a four-armed duck kidnap a human child to kill toads, and we all went along with it because the theme song was good. Shame on all of us.
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May 3, 2021
Haunted puppets of woodland creatures lurk in the darkness throughout Fox Tales, which may or may not be a manifestation of our nightmarish collective consciousness.
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May 10, 2021
Robotix was a cartoon designed to sell robot toys, and it succeeds... in making us want to buy toys from other robot cartoon toy adverts.
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May 24, 2021
The lighthearted adventures of some mistreated circus animals dealing with bereavement, train crashes and alligator attacks. Cartoons are fun.
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May 31, 2021
We're supposed to be watching Noggin the Nog, but anyone who's listened before knows there's "Norway" we'll stay on topic, especially when Viking Beadle's About...
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Jun 7, 2021
Leaves come to life and have terrifying felt tip faces in Windfalls, a horrible stop-motion TV show that probably didn't even exist.
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Jun 14, 2021
This week we're watching Home James, one of the worst things Jim Davidson ever committed to film, including his dressing gown-clad old lady rant in his kitchen. Part one of our tenuous sitcom gingology.
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Jun 21, 2021
Dennis Waterman is more than the "write-da-feem-choon-sing-da-feem-choon" caricature Little Britain made him out to be in On The Up, in which the theme tune was... Oh. Never mind.
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Jun 28, 2021
This episode was going to be about Home To Roost, but as it's episode 321 we should have made it about 3-2-1. Instead we watched a cartoon about a baby with a ginger mohawk, a spaceship and a robot butler or something.
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Jul 5, 2021
Blue Peter was boring and if you liked it you were boring too. Mark Curry was a force for chaos, destroying Lego, wearing wacky suits and riding backwards bikes with reckless abandon. Be thankful for Mark Curry. Both of them. All the Mark Currys. Everywhere.
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Jul 12, 2021
Of all the cartoon dogs with names ending in "owser," Towser is definitely one of them.
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Jul 19, 2021
Ric is a blue bird who harrasses bearded men or something. Look it's five minutes long, what more do you want from this?
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Jul 26, 2021
Thanks to our Australian connections we are now aware of Mr Squiggles, a pencil-nosed monster puppet who draws things upside-down, just like all Australians. Fingers crossed, he might draw a willy with his nose.
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Aug 2, 2021
Did you ever wonder what inspired Bobby Ball to write Juniper Jungle? Of course not, nobody cares about Juniper Jungle!
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Aug 9, 2021
Jungle all the way with more jungle fun this week as we watch the Junglies, which is about the jungle and or things that may or may not be from the jungle. Read this out loud and let us know at which point the word jungle lost all meaning.
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Episode 328 - Budgie The Little Helicopter
Aug 16, 2021
Budgie is a helicopter with a face whose friends are a load of other vehicles with faces, and nobody wants you to make the comparison to all the other books and TV shows about vehicles with faces, but if you don't do that you have to talk about Sarah Ferguson instead.
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Aug 23, 2021
Alphabet Castle is under siege by the soldiers of Number Castle, and they're pouring boiling oil over the parapets to burn all the Number people whilst battering rams smash through the walls!
Or, someone done a painting of a letter whilst wearing a cardboard crown.
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Episode 330 - Words, Words, Words
Aug 30, 2021
What do you get when you cross the Pink Windmill kids with Let's Pretend? This shambles about a load of over-enthusiastic stage school adults jumping about and singing whilst using half a dressing-up box.
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Episode 331 - Simon In The Land Of Chalk Drawings
Sep 6, 2021
Simon brings his nightmarish doodles to life using magic chalk, or otherworldly sorcery on normal chalk, or mind-altering narcotics. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention.
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Sep 13, 2021
Tony Hart could probably kill you with his little finger, but instead he lives the peaceful life of some kind of monk in an extra-dimensional workshop where you're safe from the horrible real world, but modelling clay comes to life occasionally.
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Episode 333 - Sam On Boff's Island
Sep 20, 2021
We open a portal to hell via Youtube and watch some awful puppets summon Tony Robinson into their infernal domain.
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Episode 334 - The Hudson Brothers' Razzle Dazzle Show
Sep 27, 2021
The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show has it all - Dazzle, Razzle, the Hudson Brothers... and Rod Hull & Emu!
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Oct 4, 2021
Grotbags looks young and Croc looks diseased in the first episode of Emu's World. Rod Hull and Emu continue to look like an elderly woman using a ratty old toy from a car boot sale as an excuse to assault people.
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Episode 336 - Bananas In Pyjamas
Oct 11, 2021
Fruit in clothing is descending from a higher floor. Fruit in clothing is pursuing stuffed animals. This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill.
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Episode 337 - Further Tales Of The Riverbank
Oct 25, 2021
Some animals have escaped from a pet shop and are pretending that they always lived by a British riverbank, and also that they have human needs and desires. And post offices.
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Nov 1, 2021
Anything Channel 4 could do, Sky One could do later. Games World had a lot in common with GamesMaster - a scornful mocking host, characters pretending to be good at video games, and Dave Perry hanging around like a bad smell.
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Nov 8, 2021
We pay our respects to ever-so-sprightly twice-nightly Richard Whiteley by watching the first ever Countdown and reminiscing about our own Countdown fan fiction from back in the day.
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Episode 340 - Michael Bentine's Potty Time
Nov 15, 2021
A giant Michael Bentine looms over some pirate puppets as if it's normal in another kids' tv show that sounds like we made it up.
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Nov 22, 2021
Take a parody of Grange Hill, add some two-dimensional caricatures of the British Royal family, and you've got Palace Hill. Subversive? Yes. A bit rubbish? Apparently. Did we love it? Of course!
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Nov 29, 2021
The Blunders was a cartoon family sitcom that probably didn't exist and we don't remember it. Do you remember it? NO YOU DON'T YOU LIAR!
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Episode 343 - GamesMaster Christmas Special 1993
Dec 6, 2021
Who doesn't love obnoxious shouty presenters swallowing the camera and being nice to Dave Perry? Everyone? Oh well, sorry Dexter Fletcher, GamesMaster isn't for you. Better go and be an incredibly successful movie director instead.
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Episode 344 - Bullseye Christmas Special 1990
Dec 13, 2021
Bullseye Christmas specials make a mockery of the format of the game, as professional darts players get good scores, and celebrities answer all the questions correctly in the name of giving to charity. We'll never say no to watching an episode of Bullseye though. Apart from the one with Daphne from Eggheads on it.
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Episode 345 - Wheel of Fortune Christmas Special 1988
Dec 20, 2021
N_cky C_mpb_ll _nd s_m_ m_n_r c_l_br_t__s g__ss w_rds w_th__t v_w_ls _n th_ m_st f_st_v_ g_m_sh_w _v_r. S_rry.
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Episode 346 - Button Moon (Birthday Special)
Jan 3, 2022
We're off to Button Moon...again, to celebrate Mark's birthday with a bunch of fever dream characters made out of household utensils and kitchen waste. *party popper sound*
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Episode 347 - Vintage Sweets & Snack Adverts 1
Jan 10, 2022
Christmas is over, we've all had enough of chocolate and sweets, so we've decided to watch some adverts. For chocolate and sweets.
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Episode 348 - Vintage Sweets & Snack Adverts 2
Jan 17, 2022
What's more annoying - adverts that you can't skip, or podcasts about middle-aged men's opinions? Luckily, you don't have to choose.
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Episode 349 - Vintage Electronic Games & Toy Adverts
Jan 24, 2022
We watch more vintage adverts to give toys and games from the past some free publicity. If any of the toy companies involved want to go back in time and give our younger selves some free stuff in exchange, please consider using your time machine for something more useful.
Episode 350 - It's a Royal Knockout part 1
Jan 31, 2022
A special episode deserves a special subject, a royal subject, the subject of an investigation perhaps? It's A Royal Knockout is like a massive fever dream, minus breaking into a sweat of course.
Episode 351 - It's A Royal Knockout part 2
Feb 7, 2022
We're not saying George R R Martin was inspired by It's A Royal Knockout, but there's an evil prince and most of the main players are dead. SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
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Episode 352 - It's A Royal Knockout part 3
Feb 14, 2022
We finally get to the end of the worst thing the royal family has ever done. Forget all the other bad things. Especially that one you're still thinking about.
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Episode 353 - Junior Kickstart
Feb 28, 2022
Junior Kickstart is about men standing around in the woods watching kids fall off motorbikes. And our mums used to wish we'd spend more time outside for some reason.
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Mar 7, 2022
The best thing we can say about Shane Richie on Run The Risk is that at least he isn't Bobby Davro.
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Mar 14, 2022
Christopher Biggins hosts On Safari whilst looking like Timmy Mallett if he'd eaten Elton John. Also some kids and their parents play games to try and win a telescope or something.
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Episode 356 - The Tomorrow People
Mar 21, 2022
In the 1970s, teenagers were almost indistinguishable from middle-aged adults. Maybe it's because they were all time travellers, or whatever the Tomorrow People are, we don't know, it's confusing.
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Mar 28, 2022
Lassie's owners are constantly being shot at, set on fire, lost in the wilderness, trapped down wells and being caught in the current of fast-flowing rivers. Exactly the kind of people Battersea would probably deem unfit to care for an animal.
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Apr 4, 2022
With a title like this the jokes will write themselves, so I'm not going to bother. Also, Adam West is there, so something something Burt Ward.
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Apr 11, 2022
Bill and Ben are made of flower pots, or wear flower pots, or just resemble flower pots for some reason...? Anyway, they live in your garden and they come alive at night. Sleep well.
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Apr 18, 2022
Watch out, Beadle's About! this is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill!
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Apr 25, 2022
"What do kids like?"
"Cartoons?"
"Of course."
"Action and adventure?"
"Obviously."
"News and current affairs?"
"For the last time John, get out of this meeting."
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Episode 362 - The Magic Roundabout
May 2, 2022
A bunch of kids live in a wasteland where the only entertainment is the most boring of all fairground rides. I'd probably talk to snails as well.
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May 9, 2022
Every now and then, we watch something genuinely good like Paddington Bear, the incredibly labour-intensive stop-motion animation from Ivor Wood. Don't worry though, I'm sure there will be some willy jokes in here somewhere, and Mark definitely says "boobie."
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Episode 364 - Dr Zitbag's Transylvania Pet Shop
May 16, 2022
Where does a dracula buy a goldfish, or a frankingstein find a hamster? Would you sell a cat to a werewolf? Dr Zitbag's Transylvania Pet Shop is less interesting that all of these questions.
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Episode 365 - Rolf's Cartoon Club
May 23, 2022
After school clubs were always terrible. This one turned out to be especially bad.
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May 30, 2022
This episode is so good, it'll make you laugh your BLANK or BLANKS off.
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Jun 6, 2022
Pat Coombs and Keith Chegwin are a cat and a dog who live in a box. And play, presumably.
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Episode 368 - The New Adventures of He-Man
Jun 13, 2022
Remember He-Man? This is that. Only worse.
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Jun 20, 2022
Picture Pages might be the most boring thing Bill Cosby did, but we definitely don't want to fall asleep...
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Jun 27, 2022
Apparently, fish commit crimes as well, and it'll take a pink shark and some kind of other fish to stop them. They'll solve any mystery, apart from why this cartoon was ever made.
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Episode 371 - Johnson and Friends
Jul 4, 2022
Johnson and friends are a bunch of puppets owned by an Australian who will haunt your nightmares. But enough about the Conservative government, we're watching a show about a fat pink mess who hangs around with a load of scary weirdos. Wait a second...
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Jul 11, 2022
Trollkins has been described as a combination of the Smurfs and the Dukes of Hazzard. If that doesn't put you off I don't know what will.
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Jul 25, 2022
There's a little man made out of acorns living in a tree with a load of squirrels. Presumably that means the squirrels are more scared of him than he is of them. Makes you think.
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Sep 5, 2022
We've had our summer holiday but that's over now, so time to go back to school. Urgh, Mum, I don't feel well, can I stay at home? First Class was a school gameshow for the weekend, which is the worst thing anyone has ever come up with. Don't try to think of anything worse, this is it.
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Episode 375 - The Gingerbread Man
Sep 12, 2022
A haunted biscuit comes alive after dark in a kitchen full of nightmares.
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Episode 376 - Dig & Dug with Daisy
Sep 19, 2022
Two incompetent construction workers do a thing while a little girl also exists.
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Sep 26, 2022
Spider in the bath, there's a spider in the bath. Burn the bath, sell the house, spider in the bath!
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Oct 3, 2022
What do you get if your garden is full of policemen, dragons and lions? A new house! Or a new prescription.
We watch some classic stop-motion shenanigans with mad old rubbish The Herbs.
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Episode 379 - The Adventures of Parsley
Oct 10, 2022
If Parsley was a lion made out of plant matter, could a vegetarian eat him? It's confusing, where is the line?
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Oct 17, 2022
You know what the world needed in the 1950s? Loads of comic strips about gangs of kids hanging out with dogs. This cartoon is based on one of those. Not the good one though.
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Episode 381 - Edward and Friends
Oct 24, 2022
Everyone remembers He-Man as a blatant toy commercial, but Edward and Friends are made of Lego and that's the most expensive material in the universe. Even more than Antimatter I imagine.
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Episode 382 - When Wagon Wheels Were Bigger Halloween Special
Oct 31, 2022
As a Halloween treat, Mark and Martyn talk about sweets and watch the scariest TV special ever made. So turn off the lights, Parky yourself somewhere comfortable, and pipes down...
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Episode 383 - Cannon and Ball's Casino
Nov 7, 2022
Cannon and Ball's Casino seems like a light-hearted gameshow full of variety acts, but it's also a real casino. Tommy is the eagle-eyed pit boss circulating your description to every other casino, and Bobby will break your legs if he thinks you're counting cards.
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Nov 14, 2022
This is about two gnomes. One is called Mr Fisher, and the other is called Mr Wheeler. Why is the show called "Chish 'n' Fips" then? You'll have to find out yourself, this only just occurred to me.
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Nov 21, 2022
Tony Slattery hosted a quiz based on possibly the most boring board game ever made. Hope it doesn't send you to sleep! Seriously, don't close your eyes, not around these contestants...
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Episode 386 - Pee-Wee's Playhouse
Nov 28, 2022
Pee-Wee had a lot of success with this playhouse, then had a rather unfortunate time with a different pee-wee in a very different kind of playhouse...
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Dec 5, 2022
The butcher in Wimpole Village is called Ted Dripping. If I'd looked this up before we recorded the episode I bet we'd have had a good laugh about that.
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Dec 12, 2022
When you were watching Minder in the past, I bet you couldn't help imagining what it would be like if all the characters were mice who lived in the London Underground, and also were completely different to their Minder characters. It's your fault they made this.
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Episode 389 - Battle of the Gladiators (Christmas Celebrity Special)
Dec 19, 2022
It's Christmas this week, the best time to watch some minor celebrities dress up in lycra and compete against people named after animals, weapons, vehicles and... uh, weather. AWOOGA!
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Episode 390 - Heckle and Jeckle - Sappy New Year
Dec 26, 2022
Let's say goodbye to 2022 with a couple of mischievous magpies trying to blow stuff up.
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Jan 2, 2023
A small town police officer is roped in to solve some high profile gruesome murders, and has to go up against a hard-bitten police chief and all the corrupt cops who are determined to stand in his way.
That's not true.
Made it up.
Shouldn't have done.
Sorry.
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Jan 9, 2023
"Ooh Betty, yes Miss Diane, my name is Michael Caine."
Now you've experienced every episode of Copy Cats.
You're welcome.
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Jan 16, 2023
Roger Ramjet loves "filling up" his jet, if you know what I mean. I mean he completely fills the entire vehicle with his body mass when he's piloting it.
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Episode 394 - The Spooks of Bottle Bay
Jan 23, 2023
The Spooks of Bottle Bay look like the result of ten different art departments each working on one puppet design separately without talking to each other, whilst each art department involved is being terrorised by demons throughout their design process.
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Episode 395 - George of the Jungle
Jan 30, 2023
In the first part of a podcast trilogy, we watch George of the Jungle, a cartoon about a clumsy tarzan knock-off with one joke that's already lost its appeal by the end of the intro.
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Feb 6, 2023
Part two of a podcast trilogy, in which a chicken drinks a questionable substance, dresses up like a musketeer and teams up with a lion to fight crime. And it's still better than George of the Jungle.
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Feb 13, 2023
We complete our podcast trilogy with Tom Slick, a racing driver hero whose vehicle is genuinely called the "Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper." Write your own jokes about that, I can't be bothered.
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Feb 20, 2023
Nightmare marionette antics with Mumfie, a horrible puppet elephant who hangs around with other horrible puppets, including witches, scarecrows and sometimes TV and radio broadcasting legends.
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Feb 27, 2023
Maths was much more exciting in the 80s, when mental space wizards would magically appear and threaten kids with knives until they learned how to maths. Luckily there was a documentary film crew on hand making Maths-In-A-Box to prove I'm not a liar.
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Episode 400 - Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game
Mar 6, 2023
Nice to see 400 episodes, to see 400 episodes, NICE! We thought we'd celebrate with a GOOD GAME, GOOD GAME, but we ended up watching the Generation Game instead.
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Episode 401 - Dungeons & Dragons RE-RE-RE-REVISITED
Mar 13, 2023
"Ranger... Barbarian... Magician... Thief... Cavalier... and Acrobat!"
100 more episodes have gone by, so Mark and Martyn re-re-re-revisit the first episode of blah blah blah you know the drill.
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Mar 20, 2023
Remember Spatz? Well this is that, except with ice cream. If you don't remember Spatz, we envy you.
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Mar 27, 2023
After more than 400 episodes, we're getting nostalgic for our own nostalgia. So we decided to face the horror of our own mortality, as all the skin falls off our faces and our skulls disintegrate. We also watch Knightmare again. "Oh dear..."
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Episode 404 - Torchy the Battery Boy
Apr 3, 2023
Years before the disaster-based trauma of Thunderbirds, or the Zelda-based trauma of Terrahawks, Gerry Anderson set out to traumatise children with the sleepy-eyed hunchbacked puppets of Torchy the Battery Boy.
Episode 405 - The Daily Fable ("Fabeltjeskrant")
Apr 10, 2023
A Dutch owl puppet reads made up stories from a newspaper in the creepy-pasta-waiting-to-happen, The Daily Fable.
Apr 17, 2023
We love a good gameshow on this podcast, but we've done all those, so we watched Runway instead.
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Apr 24, 2023
The world's laziest animators film themselves waggling a Hairy Jeremy around. Willy joke, everyone laugh.
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Episode 408 - The Singing Kettle
May 1, 2023
Imagine Rod, Jane and Freddy, but Scottish, and with more kettles. That's this.
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May 8, 2023
Nerys Hughes is obsessed with alligators.
"See you later alligator," she would say when waving goodbye.
But if you replied with "in a while, crocodile," she would get angry.
She used to make people say "in a while, alligator" instead.
It doesn't even rhyme.
Episode 410 - Tottie: The Story of a Dolls' House
May 15, 2023
If you inherit a load of creepy old dolls, should you;
a) play with them,
b) display them proudly, or
c) never turn your back on them, don't even blink, burn them, burn them all and scatter the ashes as far apart as possible...?
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May 22, 2023
This probably isn't the Barney you're thinking of. But that's your problem.
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May 29, 2023
Tiny dolls have a tiny adventure in this tiny episode, where we watch yet another show about toys that come to life. If Toy Story had been set in the UK in the 1980s, there would have been a lot more haunted and/or racist dolls in it.
Jun 5, 2023
Des O'Connor forbids the explicit use of positive and negative replies then tries to buy keys from people to stop them opening boxes full of cucumbers. He also made Take Your Pick.
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Jun 12, 2023
Fourways Farm is a stop-motion animation about talking animals voiced by Martin Jarvis. Not that we can hear him in this version. Or see much of the episode. Or care.
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Episode 415 - The Castle of Adventure
Jun 19, 2023
Some nosey kids investigate a spy operation in a castle instead of just calling the appropriate authorities, in predictably boring Enid Blyton fashion.
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Jun 26, 2023
We're digging out our 50ps and stacking them up on the arcade cabinet, as we watch the Street Fighter animated series. It's not in our usual time frame, but when asked if we could do it we decided "SURE-YOU-CAN!"
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Jul 3, 2023
We continue our fighting game trilogy with the animated spin-off of a side-scrolling arcade beat-em-up. But why does this cartoon feel like it takes twice as long to watch? Because it's Double Drag-on!
This is the best I could come up with, leave me alone.
Episode 418 - Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm
Jul 10, 2023
Round 3... FIGHT! We finish our fighting game trilogy with the Mortal Kombat animated series, presumably made for all the kids who weren't allowed to play the gory games, but did anyway.
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Episode 419 - The Adventures of Sir Prancealot
Jul 17, 2023
If you Google Sir Prancealot you'll probably get a load of boring statistics about a racehorse, but that's still more entertaining than this cartoon.
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Jul 24, 2023
The Animal Kwackers look like a group of bank robbers who went to a fancy dress shop that was going out of business. Or a Banana Splits tribute act who hated the Banana Splits. Or the physical embodiment of some lost lyrics from "I am the Walrus."
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Episode 421 - Dodo, The Kid from Outer Space
Jul 31, 2023
Dodo likes to rhyme whilst speaking, if irritation's what you're seeking.
His alien race resembles pixies, like the ones on your Rice Krispies.
He also has a robot chicken, whose face and beak I'd like to kick in.
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Episode 422 - 80s & 90s Adverts; Discontinued British Snacks
Sep 4, 2023
We watch some old ads to reminisce about chocolate we used to eat and wish we were still eating. Why aren't we eating chocolate right now? To be honest, one of us probably is...
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Episode 423 - 80s & 90s Vintage Toy Commercials
Sep 11, 2023
We watch some more old ads to reminisce about how spoiled we were when we were kids, and look at loads of toys we probably ended up owning because we cried about them.
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Episode 424 - Rambo: The Force of Freedom
Sep 18, 2023
We start a trilogy of cartoons based on films that weren't made for children, by watching Rambo: The Force of Freedom, because nothing sells action figures like post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Episode 425 - Robocop: The Animated Series
Sep 25, 2023
We continue our trilogy of cartoons based on films that weren't made for children, by watching Robocop the Animated Series, because nothing sells action figures like the reanimated corpse of a mutilated police officer.
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Episode 426 - Police Academy: The Animated Series
Oct 2, 2023
We finish our trilogy of cartoons based on films that weren't made for children, by watching Police Academy the Animated Series, because nothing sells action figures like jokes about sexual harassment and homophobia.
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Episode 427 - Bump the Elephant
Oct 9, 2023
There were several elephant-based kids' shows in the 80s and 90s. This is one of them.
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Episode 428 - Noah and Nelly in the Skylark
Oct 16, 2023
Want to jazz up some bible stories a bit? Just give everything two heads, and make everything that isn't usually alive, alive. And keep them under 5 minutes, that'll help as well.
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Oct 23, 2023
Time for another cartoon we assumed we'd already talked about, as we watch Roobarb and discover that one of us has always been fundamentally incorrect about this scribbly cartoon dog.
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Oct 30, 2023
Spike Milligan ad libs the narration for a cartoon about rats that his daughter came up with. I bet if we'd listened to this instead of talking all over it we might have actually enjoyed this.
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Nov 13, 2023
The bloke who made Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley clearly wasn't satisfied with a legacy of beloved and timeless animations, so he made sure to create something horrifying and awful before the end of his career.
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Nov 20, 2023
Most people in the UK have heard of Viz, the naughty sweary comic for adults. In the early 90s, there were a lot of cheap knockoffs, and Zit the comic produced an even cheaper VHS full of badly animated versions of their comic strips.
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Episode 433 - Bob's Full House
Nov 27, 2023
Bob Monkhouse hosts a classic boring gameshow based on Bingo, without the massive marker pens and angry pensioners. Although it was the eighties, so there's no way to know how old these contestants are.
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Dec 4, 2023
Rod Hull made loads of live action tv shows about living with an emu and being chased around by a witch, and when he was given the chance to write and star in a cartoon, he also made that about living with an emu and being chased around by a witch. Say what you like, that man knew his target audience.
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Dec 11, 2023
Kid 'n' Play were also known as the Fresh Force Crew. That sounds like a better name for a cartoon. Or a line of action figures. Or cleaning products.
Dec 18, 2023
Clive Dunn had a number one hit single called Grandad in 1971, then made a TV show called Grandad without even using the song Grandad as the theme. And the show isn't even really about him being a Grandad.
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Episode 437 - Emu at Christmas
Dec 25, 2023
It's Christmas, so we're gonna party like it's 1984, by hanging around in a cardboard windmill while a witch tries to capture a puppet.
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Episode 438 - Dinner For One (again)
Jan 1, 2024
Is there a better way to welcome a new year than by watching a drunken butler trip over a tiger rug? Of course not, it's a tradition, so endure this one again and have a Happy New Year!
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Jan 8, 2024
"Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb!" The OG stop motion firefighters spring into action as we finally pay a visit to Trumpton, despite both assuming we'd already watched it.
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Jan 15, 2024
Back when TV screens were tiny, fuzzy and colourless, Andy Pandy was the king of horrible haunted wooden things on strings. Thankfully the toddlers of today would kick him to bits in a sugar-induced frenzy.
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Jan 22, 2024
"Wait a minute," we hear you say, "you've already done Rainbow!" And we did, in episode 67. But that was the REAL Rainbow, whereas this is some horrible Wish.com-style reboot. Do people still talk about Wish.com? Or is this the Temu Rainbow?
Jan 29, 2024
Imagine if a Smurf and a Poddington Pea were able to breed. Go on, really imagine it with your imagination.
Urgh. That's disgusting.
Feb 5, 2024
Dappledown Farm straddles two different realities - one resembles the real world, the other is made up of painted sets and puppet animals. Brian Cant doesn't notice, because he's an omnipresent interdimensional being.
Episode 444 - Sebastian The Incredible Drawing Dog
Feb 12, 2024
Michael Barrymore reads words from a book whilst a puppet dogs attempts to draw the images conveyed by the words, in Sebastian the Incredible Drawing Dog. You could say they're pooling their resources, but I don't know why you would...
Feb 19, 2024
Doris is a cat made from cut-out paper whose world is brought to horrifying life with the nightmarish screeching of 80s synthesizer music.
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Episode 446 - Teetime and Claudia
Feb 26, 2024
Ren and Stimpy were famously never drawn the same way twice. Teetime and Claudia also share this quality, but for a very different reason.
Episode 447 - Tarby's Frame Game
Mar 4, 2024
Just so you're not disappointed, this isn't about Jimmy Tarbuck playing snooker, or installing doors and windows, or adding wooden structures around the edges of paintings, or setting up innocent people so they appear to have committed crimes.
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Episode 448 - Virtually Impossible
Mar 11, 2024
Remember when everyone thought Virtual Reality was brilliant, but it actually turned out to be a load of rubbish? Of course you do, it's still happening. Satire. Virtually Impossible is like Knightmare, but probably cost a lot more and looks a lot worse.
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Episode 449 - Blue, the Earth Child
Mar 18, 2024
We haven't heard of this, you probably haven't heard of this. All we know is there are Rock Lords in it. Let's all just get through it together as best we can.
Mar 25, 2024
Jeremy Beadle teaches kids about inventions and discoveries, while we think of some better things he could have been doing with his time, instead of making Eureka, which is what we're watching.
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Episode 451 - Gordon The Gopher
Apr 1, 2024
We grew up in a time when someone could sew a squeaker into a sock and make a fortune from pretending it was entertaining. No wonder our generation hates everything now.
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Episode 452 - The Bunbury Tails
Apr 8, 2024
If you like the idea of cricketers being reimagined as rabbits, you should probably seek professional help. But oh boy, do we have the one extremely niche cartoon for you!
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Episode 453 - Heggerty Haggerty
Apr 15, 2024
We sit down for a spell to listen to George Cole reading a story about a kindly old magic-user. Wand-er if it'll be magic? That's witch-ful thinking! You try writing these...
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Apr 22, 2024
Clock Man is a Czech cartoon long considered to be lost media, which may or may not be haunted and/or cursed. The only way to decide is to track it down and watch it yourself. All hail Clock Man.
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Episode 455 - The Witches and the Grinnygog
Apr 29, 2024
A Grinnygog is a cheap-looking magic statue, and the centrepiece of this slow-moving story about 80s kids, vicars, and witches (eventually, probably, maybe).
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Episode 456 - The Buttercup Buskers
May 6, 2024
Some animals keep a man as a pet and make him sing and dance in the street for pennies, in this grim post-apocalyptic tale about the horrors of slavery or something.
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May 13, 2024
In the 1980s, everyone had puppets living next door. Borrowing your sugar, commenting when you wash your car, and confusing the human toddlers in the neighbourhood.
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May 20, 2024
Chips Comic was a show about a comic called Chips Comic, not to be confused with Chips, the comic in Whizzer and Chips comic. Also there's a bloke in a dog costume for some reason.
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Episode 459 - The Get Along Gang
May 27, 2024
Animals dress up as humans and assume human-like lives in The Get Along Gang, which teaches lessons about friendship and teamwork and how to kill off all the humans probably.
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Episode 460 - Albert the Fifth Musketeer
Jun 3, 2024
Historically, there were loads of musketeers, but only four of them were noteworthy, and only three get any credit. The fifth one is rubbish.
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Episode 461 - Mike, Mop and the Moke
Jun 10, 2024
Mike Amatt had a dog and a cat, and apparently that was enough to get TV shows commissioned in the eighties.
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Episode 462 - Forget Me Not Farm
Jun 17, 2024
The scarecrow is alive, the farm animals are stop-motion, and the local bird population are mostly hand puppets. Forget Me Not Farm might not be growing "normal" crops if you know what I mean...
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Episode 463 - Godzilla (1978 TV series)
Jun 24, 2024
A boatful of research scientists routinely harrass a kaiju and befriend its ridiculous cowardly nephew, in the bizarre first part of our latest trilogy of cartoons for kids based on movies for grown ups, Godzilla (and Godzoooooooky).
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Episode 464 - Highlander: The Animated Series
Jul 1, 2024
We debate the pros and cons of being a Highlander as we watch another cartoon based on a film that wasn't for children. It's a kind of magic that it even got made, but thankfully, there can be only one.
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Episode 465 - Conan The Adventurer
Jul 8, 2024
He-Man was essentially just a child-friendly Conan the Barbarian rip-off, so it's a shame that when they eventually made a Conan cartoon for children it was forgettable boring rubbish.
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Episode 466 - The Rimini Riddle
Jul 15, 2024
We've watched a lot of terrifying puppets during the course of this podcast, but the puppets in the Rimini Riddle wouldn't look out of place in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes
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Jul 22, 2024
Look, we've got a cool podcast. An ALF podcast! Remember ALF? He's back!
In podcast form.
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Jul 29, 2024
Ring Raiders is a lesson for marketing departments everywhere - let at least one thirteen year old do a ten second innuendo check before spending any money on branding.
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Aug 5, 2024
If a cartoon called The Bots Master was made today, the main character would probably just be a social media manager. Good joke.
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Aug 12, 2024
A ventriloquist lives in a hotel, and unfortunately he brought his puppets with him.
Episode 471 - Stop Look Listen
Aug 19, 2024
Wheel in a big telly and let's all sit around and watch something educational to give the teacher a five minute break from their thankless overworked existence.
Aug 26, 2024
Making cartoons in the 80s was easy. Just find a book series that's full of illustrations, and film those while someone reads out all the words.
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Episode 473 - The Krazy Kitchen
Sep 2, 2024
Stu Francis tries some DIY while Carole Ann Rice wastes some food in the Krazy Kitchen, and we debate how much crazier something is when you spell it incorrectly.
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Sep 9, 2024
Graham Thornton teaches children how to look after animals, but it was the early 80s so all the advice is terrible and has since been proven to be bad and wrong.
Sep 16, 2024
In a world of fuzzy felt and imagination, an awful grinning puppet brings paintings to life and the paintings exact their horrifying revenge in the woods.
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Sep 23, 2024
90s kids answer questions about films they probably shouldn't have seen, and take part in mini-games about films they probably shouldn't have seen.
Sep 30, 2024
People with obscure jobs perform unhelpful mimes to demonstrate what they do to bored celebrities who get paid the same fee whether they guess correctly or not.
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Oct 7, 2024
A teenager is saddled with looking after younger kids, in the least exciting premise for a cartoon since that one about a weird blue thing that lives under a sink.
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Episode 479 - Incredible Games
Oct 14, 2024
David Walliams wears a rubber wig and plays a rubbish AI elevator forcing young contestants to play Incredible Games, but there's only one good game, and it's been stolen from the Adventure Game.
Episode 480 - Ghostwatch (part 1)
Oct 21, 2024
It's October, so we've finally decided to face our fears and watch the infamous mockumentary about a ghost named after plumbing supplies. It's too scary for just one episode...
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Episode 481 - Ghostwatch (part 2)
Oct 28, 2024
We return to Mr Pipes' house to finish Ghostwatch, and to find out whether Craig Charles actually gets to do anything interesting.
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Episode 482 - Public Information Films: Fireworks
Nov 4, 2024
It's that special time of year again, when irresponsible parents need a hand teaching their unruly kids not to enjoy fireworks. Don't hold them, don't approach them, don't even look at them!
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Episode 483 - Public Information Films: The Scary 1970s
Nov 11, 2024
Despite how often stupid people like to tell us life was better in "the good old days," we apparently still needed terrifying mini horror movies to teach kids not to drown or get electrocuted for the sake of a cheap plastic frisbee.
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Episode 484 - Public Information Films: Charley Says...
Nov 18, 2024
In the 1970s, parents relied on domestic animals to relay important safety messages to their children. Basically if you didn't have a cat you were doomed to set yourself on fire, drown or be abducted.
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Episode 485 - Public Information Films: Superman vs Nick O'Teen
Nov 25, 2024
In the 1980s, Superman was massively into stopping kids from smoking. Not by going after the big tobacco companies, but by punching creepy weirdos into the Sun!
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Episode 486 - Public Information Films: Joe and Petunia
Dec 2, 2024
A stereotypical british couple go on holiday to watch people drown just so we can learn that coastguards exist, while we celebrate the unique musical stylings of the B-52s.
Episode 487 - Public Information Films: Road Safety
Dec 9, 2024
We finish our journey through the land of public information films with some reminders about how scary roads are, and why we should probably just stay indoors all the time.
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Episode 488 - Christmas Adverts from the 1980s
Dec 16, 2024
Time for some commercial nostalgia as we delve into a collection of adverts for products you can't buy any more in shops that no longer exist from a time that you can never get back. Happy Christmas.
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Episode 489 - The Box of Delights
Dec 23, 2024
What's more Christmassy than a Punch and Judy Man and a Magician fighting over a box? Nothing, that's what.
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