Explore every episode of the podcast Bunkum and Ballyhoo

Bunkum & Ballyhoo returns for Series 2 and Episode 1 takes a look at a legend of comic book ad pages - this is the story of the wild claims and even wilder life of the self-proclaimed Deadliest Man Alive, the Master Of The Dim Mak and the Dance Of Death, Count Dante, and his Black Dragon Fighting Society.

Selected Sources:
The Deadliest Man Alive: Count Dante, the Mob, and the War for American Martial Arts by Benji Feldheim
Selected issues of Black Belt Magazine
Count Dante: The World's Deadliest Myth by Eric Nusbaum
Audio Sources:
CBS Interview with John "Count Dante" Keehan - CBS, 1967
"Kung Fu Fighting" by Dread Zeppelin

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Episode 6 of Bunkum & Ballyhoo rounds up a season on World War 2-related bullshit by looking at when lies and propaganda can be used for good, exploring the lives and times of the revolutionary queer surrealist artists Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore, and how they stood up to Nazi oppression in occupied Jersey.

Selected Sources:
Disavowals by Claude CahunPaper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives To Defy The Nazis by Jeffrey H. JacksonClaude Cahun by Francois LeperlierLiberated: The Radical Art and Life of Claude Cahun by Kaz Rowe
Claude Cahun: A Sensual Politics of Photography by Gen Doy

Episode 5 is a spooktacular Halloween special looking at Orson Welles' infamous Halloween 1938 radio production of War Of The Worlds, and the stories of mass panic and chaos when the American public believed that the Martians really were coming - or did they?
Audio Sources:
War Of The Worlds by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre On The Air
Charles C. Shaw interviews Orson Welles and H.G. Wells, 1940

Selected Sources:
The Invasion From Mars by Hadley Cantril
Orson Welles: The Road To Xanadu by Simon Callow

Episode 4 of Bunkum & Ballyhoo looks at one of the most notorious hoaxes of the 20th century - the Hitler Diaries; how a clumsy forgery fooled the world's press and one of England's most respected historians, why sometimes a lie only needs a particularly enthusiastic believer to take flight, and how these phony diaries connect to a notorious Holocaust denier, and to a broader world of conspiracy theory.
Audio Sources:
Witness History: The Hitler Diaries Hoax - BBC World Service

Selected Sources:
Selling Hitler by Robert Harris
Telling Lies About Hitler by Richard J. Evans
The Last Days Of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper

Episode 3 of Bunkum & Ballyhoo is a look at the magician Jasper Maskelyne, the claims that his magical prowess was employed in the fields of camouflage and espionage in World War 2, and why looking critically at the mythmaking around a dead old magician is still important in 2024.
Audio Sources:
Jasper Maskelyne for Pathétone - British Pathé
The Mind Of David Berglas - Channel 4
Selected Sources
The War Magician: The True Story of Jasper Maskelyne by David Fisher
Magic: Top Secret by Jasper Maskelyne
White Magic by Jasper Maskelyne
Genii Magazine

Episode 2 of Bunkum and Ballyhoo once again looks at an intersection between professional wrestling and dubious politics, with the stranger than fiction story of how Norfolk professional wrestler Eric "Panther" Pleasants went from wrestling in Jersey to fighting for Hitler.

Audio Sources:
The Brits Who Fought For Hitler - History Channel
Harwich Newsreel: Britons Freed From Russia (1954) - British Pathé

Selected Sources:
The Traitors: A True Story Of Blood, Betrayal and Deceit by Josh Ireland
I Killed To Live: The Story Of Eric Pleasants, Professional Strongman by Eric Pleasants & Eddie Chapman
Hitler's Bastard: Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia by Eric Pleasants
Agent Zizag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman by Ben Macintyre
The Frank Falla Archive

In the very first episode of Bunkum & Ballyhoo, professional wrestling historian Patrick W. Reed looks at The Masked Marvel, a South African wrestling superstar whose legacy outside the ring was far grizzlier than any punishment he inflicted inside it.