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.