A short explanation of this podcast, which has changed rather a lot in its first six months of life. After listening to this short briefing, you'll know...

• ...how to find Chapter 1 of your favorite Dreadful...
• ...why it's nothing but all Sweeney Todd, all the time, until about Episode 12...
• ...how I recommend approaching a quest to "catch up"...

...and a few other notes.

The art for this episode is from Rose Mortimer; or, The Ballet-girl's Revenge (1866). That's Evil Moustache-Twirling Count Lerno attempting to abduct our brave, virtuous heroine, Rose, from the backstage door at Drury-lane Theatre. Ripe stuff!

Thanks a million for checking out my podcast! I hope you will love it.

IN WHICH Flora and Charles are interrupted in their canoodling by the sudden appearance of THE VAMPYRE ... the next-door neighbor, Sir Francis Varney, who dropped by to view the mysterious portrait and to try again to buy Bannerworth Hall.  (This is our first episode conducted remotely via Zoom, and a glitch in the audio forced us to use one of the monitor mixes, so the stereo effect isn't right ... we're working on it!) 

IN WHICH we get to meet Old Admiral Bell and his faithful sailor-servant, Jack Pringle ... and more vampirey things happen to poor, hard-swooning, sharp-shooting Flora Bannerworth, and Henry's mom's boyfriend goes just a little overboard in trying to get rid of Flora's inconveniently-appearing boyfriend, Charles Holland ... meanwhile, Kris and Jenn and Finn make some equally bad decisions about which phrases are going to trigger the drinking bell.

Chapter 15: THE OLD ADMIRAL AND HIS SERVANT ... THE COMMUNICATION FROM THE LANDLORD OF THE NELSON’S ARMS ...

Chapter 16: THE MEETING OF THE LOVERS IN THE GARDEN ... AN AFFECTING SCENE ... THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF SIR FRANCIS VARNEY ...

IN WHICH Jennifer, Kris and Finn carry on with their Amontillado-fueled impersonation of Joel, Tom and Crow through three more exquisitely Dreadful chapters of the second-most-famous Penny Dreadful of mid-Victorian England: James Malcolm Rymer's "Varney the Vampyre":

Chapter 12: CHARLES HOLLAND’S SAD FEELINGS ... THE PORTRAIT ...THE OCCURRENCE OF THE NIGHT AT THE HALL ....

Chapter 13: THE OFFER FOR THE HALL ... THE VISIT TO SIR FRANCIS VARNEY ... THE STRANGE RESEMBLANCE ... A DREADFUL SUGGESTION ....

Chapter 14: HENRY’S AGREEMENT WITH SIR FRANCIS VARNEY ... THE SUDDEN ARRIVAL AT THE HALL ... FLORA’S ALARM ....

IN WHICH your intrepid hosts give the full MST3K treatment to one of the most beloved of Lovecraft's early horror writings ... 

It's like of Mystery Science Theater 3000 only with 2 fewer robots, 2 more humans, 1 less movie and 4 more chapters of an audiobook narration of the campiest, cheesiest bit of Tales-from-the-Crypt melodrama the Penny Dreadful era had to offer! A stereo podcast, with the story in your right ear and your hosts' sarcastic remarks in your left. Pour yourself a great goblet of aged amontillado from the cask in the cellar, put your headphones on, and join us!

Chapter 8: THE COFFIN ... THE ABSENCE OF THE DEAD ... THE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE, AND THE CONSTERNATION OF GEORGE ...

Chapter 9: THE OCCURRENCES OF THE NIGHT AT THE HALL ... THE SECOND APPEARANCE OF THE VAMPYRE, AND THE PISTOL-SHOT ...

Chapter 10: THE RETURN FROM THE VAULT ... THE ALARM, AND THE SEARCH AROUND THE HALL ...

Chapter 11: THE COMMUNICATION TO THE LOVER ... THE HEART’S DESPAIR.

IN WHICH the single most overwrought, campy story associated with H.P. Lovecraft receives the MST3K treatment at the hands of your intrepid hosts. Sonia Haft Greene, the future wife of H.P. Lovecraft, wrote this story to poke friendly fun at her boyfriend, who was at the time going through a "high camp" phase in his artistic development (he had just finished "Herbert West, Reanimator"). You'll never hear the portentous chirp of a monstrous cricket the same way again!  #Lovecraft #talesFromTheCrypt #ghost #highCamp #spoof

IN WHICH your faithful hosts continue their "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" assault upon a campy, melodramatic audiobook reading of the next few chapters of this most famous of "Penny Dreadful" serial stories. 

Chapter 5: THE NIGHT WATCH ... THE PROPOSAL ... THE MOONLIGHT ... THE FEARFUL ADVENTURE ....

Chapter 6: A GLANCE AT THE BANNERWORTH FAMILY ... THE PROBABLE CONSEQUENCES OF THE MYSTERIOUS APPARITION'S APPEARANCE ....

Chapter 7: THE VISIT TO THE TOMB OF THE BANNERWORTHS, AND ITS UNPLEASANT RESULT ... THE MYSTERY.

If you liked Mignola and Augustyn's latter-day Batman comic-book classic, "Gotham by Gaslight," you'll LOVE Varney the Vam -- no you won't, you'll probably hate it, but you should listen to it anyway. 

IN WHICH your faithful hosts give the full MST3K treatment to one of the most delightfully campy bits of back-country horror-melodrama ever to flow from H.P. Lovecraft's pen. This was the last New England ghost story Lovecraft wrote for Hazel Heald, and it is, as Bertie Wooster would say, truly ripe stuff. We had fun with this one, and we hope you will too! #Lovecraft #talesFromTheCrypt #ghost #highCamp

IN WHICH your faithful hosts annotate an audiobook reading of the first four chapters of the O.G. vampire story with wisecracks, irreverent observations, and sarcastic remarks, in the style made infamous by Joel Hodgson's ever-awesome "Mystery Science Theatre 3000." Join us, do! 

"How graves give up their dead, /And how the night air hideous grows /With shrieks!" —unattributed quotation at beginning of Chapter 1

Chapter 1: MIDNIGHT ... THE HAIL-STORM ... THE DREADFUL VISITOR ... THE VAMPYRE ....

Chapter 2: THE ALARM ... THE PISTOL-SHOT ... THE PURSUIT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES ....

Chapter 3: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BODY ... FLORA'S RECOVERY AND MADNESS ... THE OFFER OF ASSISTANCE FROM SIR FRANCIS VARNEY ....

Chapter 4: THE MORNING ... THE CONSULTATION ... THE FEARFUL SUGGESTION ....