Comfort Blanket

THE THING! (1951)A preview of the limited run exclusive Comfort Blanket series on The Top Ten Sci Fi Movies (as chosen by 2000AD comic in 1980).A celebration of a fondly remembered series from my childhood, where the guys behind Judge Dredd listed the science fiction films that you simply must see, and a generation of kids - or maybe just me - followed their advice.Ten classic films that defined the genre, rewatched, enjoyed and reconsidered in the Comfort Blanket style. The journey from Metropolis to Star Wars, in ten (sometimes quirky) choices.This series is available in full on the Gralefrit Substack and the Comfort Blanket Patreon.https://joelmorris.substack.comhttps://patreon.com/comfortblanketpod

Writer, comedian and YouTube star Jay Foreman (Map Men) returns to talk about another vivid and unique cartoon world: Cosgrove Hall’s wild and crazy Dangermouse offshoot Count Duckula, and celebrates the subversive joys of children’s television on the (gasp) commercial channels… Goodness!

Writer and comedian Madeleine Brettingham (Harry Hill's TV Burp, Have I Got News For You) talks about the cyclical comforts of wicker-basket obsessed hedgehogs-and-pumpkins glossy Country Living Magazine, and becomes the first Comfort Blanket guest to bring on something that is actually mainly *about* blankets.

Writer and comedian Athena Kugblenu (Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, Horrible Histories) talks about the family-all-together-on-the-sofa comforts of 90s sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, the comedy of class, the thorny issue of fitting in, and recognition humour as high art.

Author Hattie Williams (Bitter Sweet) talks about Nick Park’s lovable Oscar-smashing plasticene cheesepunk technologists, the joy of vegetable puns, silent villains and doomed romances, and the comforts of slow, careful, human craft.

Writer Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch (Horrible Histories, Cursed Under London, Darkwood) talks about Hayao Miyazaki’s 2004 beautiful animated adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle, and how the Studio Ghibli masterpiece subverts fairytale tropes and flips hackneyed gender roles, while remembering to include sufficient wisecracking fireplaces and hot emo wizards.

Actor Geoffrey McGivern (Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Ghosts, Back) talks about the bittersweet Viennese comforts of Graham Greene and Carol Reed's blackly comic thriller 'The Third Man'.

Writer John Finnemore (Cabin Pressure, Souvenir Programme) talks about the comforts of Alexander Mackendrick's classic 1955 Ealing comedy 'The Ladykillers', and explains how the film cleverly subverts the audience's expectations, while satisfying them at the same time.

Comedian John-Luke Roberts picks the 1990 LP by They Might Be Giants (the one that contains their hit single Birdhouse In Your Soul, and 18 other wildly inventive songs) and talks about the idea of ‘too much’, of overwhelm, of an invigorating deluge of ideas, and how that connects the worlds of music and comedy.