Roland Rat: The Series/Neighbours

Explicit content warning

07/30/21 • 44 min

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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...
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 [email protected]

Previous Episode

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'...
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 [email protected]

Next Episode

Thundercats/Going For Gold

Things are heating up at The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour, as vintage televisual entertainment gets IntenseTM. And that's not to say there's no fun to be had, but brows are certainly furrowed as the temperature rises...
This week it's 1987, and there's utter hell on at the Thundera Feline Depository Centre when Mumm-Ra gets his burglar-on in Thundercats. Keeping things smoothly above board with an iron fist in a velvet glove however is Mr Henry Kelly; the smiling face of quizmastery and firm international diplomacy that the world needs more than ever, as he guides his coterie of contestants in their quest of Going For Gold.
Where does Snarf rank in the all-time leaderboard of patience-sapping animated sidekicks? Is Mumm-Ra the sort of ill-humoured old neighbour that would be better suited to bursting footballs on Ramsey Street? And was Henry 'Hey Hans do you wear clogs?' Kelly really the most socially tactful host the BBC could find to front a pan-European game show?
We're still not sure...

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 [email protected]