Episode 6 of Bunkum & Ballyhoo rounds up a season on World War 2-related b******t 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:...

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...

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...

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 PathéThe Mind Of David Berglas - Channel 4Selected SourcesThe War Magician: The True Story of Jasper Maskelyne by David FisherMagic: Top Secret by Jasper...

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 ChannelHarwich Newsreel: Britons Freed From Russia (1954) - British Pathé Selected Sources:The Traitors: A True Story Of Blood, Betrayal and Deceit by Josh...

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.