On Halloween in the USA (November 1 in Japan), Phil and Dean recorded this week’s show via zoom for a far out and far east installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour. In it, you will hear accounts of Dean’s adventures in the Land of the Rising Sun. You will also hear the sad tale of Phil’s sister, and Phil’s full report on the big live show he hosted, and the show he was performing in that night. There will be deep dive discussions of several films, including two by director Brian G. Hutton and two somewhat overlooked horror films. The importance of Halloween as a time to discover, or re-discover unfairly maligned or outright ignored genre films gets celebrated as well. Finally, great stars Kris Kristofferson and Teri Garr, and legendary “Star Trek” writer, producer and show-runner Jeri Taylor get remembered in “Celebrity Deaths”.

This show runs the gamut geographically from the U.K. to Detroit, and from Los Angeles to Laguna Beach. And it features a wide array from topics, including the supposed demise of radio in general, the new hopes for one station’s programming in particular, the death of a great actress, the acquisition of a legendary Hollywood company, and the latest (and final?) news in the prosecution of Alec Baldwin. There are also a slew of TV and movie reviews, including “Tulsa King”, MaXXXine, Remembering Gene Wilder, I Used to Be Funny and Janet Planet. Join Dean Haglund, Phil Leirness and special guests Alex Lewczuk and Lily Holleman as they bring you the insightful, the irreverent, the inspiring and the deeply felt. And if you are so moved, please visit https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/witham-radio/. Donate if you can and share if you will.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, from the heartfelt to the hilarious, prepare to point the compass of your brain to a journey on the map of the entire infinite during this week’s installment of YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour! Phil shares heartfelt thoughts about “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: Discovery” and then, he and Dean have a ball unpacking the desire on the part of an Oklahoma Lawmaker to declare a “Bigfoot hunting season” in his state! Two of the greatest actresses of all time get celebrated, as Phil shares touching remembrances of Cicely Tyson and hilarious first-hand accounts of Cloris Leachman. Dean has championed filmmaker Christopher Nolan for conveying different perceptions of time before, and longtime listeners of this show will remember that the very first time Dean and Phil welcomed a guest, it was the late, great Philip Newby who wanted to discuss how time gets depicted in movies. So be warned, as Dean and Phil discuss 2020’s Tenet, it gets mind-blowing! And when they get into celebrating one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most underrated masterpieces, the show becomes a master class on the subjects of suspense and tension!

It’s all classic comedy, classic television and classic movies on this week’s show! The truly legendary Carl Reiner gets celebrated. Then, Dean and Phil compare the years in film 1982 and 1974 with 1962 to see which year they think was the best year ever for movies!

After a cold open in which Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness celebrate the fact that YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour becomes a teen-ager this week, they launch into what they do best, trying to make sense of a (Covid-19) world gone wild with humor, insight, irreverence and inspiration. In the return of “Wingnut of the Week”, Dean and Phil offer a wag of the finger at Covid-19 conspiracy theorists and a doff of the cap to UFO “truthers”. In “Celebrity Deaths”, they pay tribute to a true titan of comedy publishing and filmmaking, an international star who broke big in both Bollywood and Hollywood, a character actor-turned-casting director, an influential folk singer, and the musician who turned Hugh Grant into a pop star! Then, your friends in podcasting tackle how Covid-19 will affect the up-coming television season, and how it will affect the Oscars, before turning their attention to what years in cinema might rival 1962 as the best year ever for movies! 

From the inner space of quiet, self-quarantine lockdowns, to the outer space of “Star Trek: Picard”, Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness take you on quite the journey this week! It starts with their latest observations about themselves and others in the wake of another week of isolation. Sadness, quiet and dehumanization are on the thematic menu! They then compare notes on their respective Easter celebrations, which leads to a discussion of a couple of classic musicals: 1934’s Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle The Gay Divorcee and 1948’s seasonal staple Easter Parade, starring Astaire and Judy Garland. The recent, modern classic, Uncut Gems gets championed by Phil, who tries to get Dean to overcome his trepidation surrounding Adam Sandler performances (and yet, Dean once championed You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, so go figure!). The second half of the show consists of Dean and Phil comparing the years in cinema 1973 and 1974, discussing all the notable films from those two halcyon years, in hopes of determining which year might challenge 1962 as the greatest year in cinema. Finally, your friends in podcasting beam up to the La Sirena to discuss and debate what went right and what went wrong in season one of “Star Trek: Picard”, a show so successful that a big-screen movie version is already in the planning stages.

After a special 2-part “Top Ten” show counting down the all-time great comedy movies, your friends in podcasting are back with a wide array of topics to discuss. Dean recounts his New Zealand adventures and previews his forthcoming trip to the USA. He and Phil celebrate the lives of the cat-loving gorilla with the huge vocabulary, the original Bond girl, and the celebrity chef who finds himself the subject of a conspiracy theory. Two emails from a loyal listener concerning the aforementioned “Top Ten” shows lead to a couple of great filmmaking stories and the discussion of another all-time great comedy film. Dean and Phil’s former collaborator, Chris Hardwick, has found himself in #MeToo hot water, and because they have been asked about it, Dean and Phil discuss it. There is a lot of “Star Trek” news to discuss, a slew of Netflix Marvel shows to review, as well as a popular HBO drama series based on an Australian-set novel to analyze. All that AND several recent cinematic releases get reviewed, including SoloThe Incredibles 2 and Isle of Dogs.

A long-promised “Top Ten” show proved to be so fascinating to your friends in podcasting that they turned it into a 2-part epic! Boasting films from (almost?) every decade of feature filmmaking, this week’s installment will begin the countdown of Dean and Phil’s All-Time Top Ten Comedy Films! There are bound to be crowd-pleasing favorites, silent classics, independent gems and studio blockbusters. So, keep those Netflix queues handy!