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🎙️ Episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/b87c195b
đź““ Show Notes: https://midsomermaniacs.transistor.fm/bonus37
Mystery Maniacs SPOILER-FREE Mini-episode! In Mini-episode 37 where we ask about six bells and revisit another Christmas classic.
How To Watch Midsomer Murders s25 ep04 Like A Maniac
- How are there six bells twice?
- What’s special about the license plate?
- Who has a wee fence?
- Spot the donald.
- Who’s got the house of tricks?
Sarah’s Christmas Classics Revisited - A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
Mark & Sarah
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Music by Tunetank from Pixabay
Creators and Guests
What is Mystery Maniacs?
Mystery Maniacs Podcast is a comedy recap podcast dedicated to British Mystery Television. Formerly, Midsomer Maniacs podcast.
Hey, maniacs.
Mark:Hey. Midsummer maniacs.
Sarah:Yeah, baby. Ho ho ho.
Mark:Episode four of season twenty five spoiler free mini episode.
Sarah:Listen to this before you watch it. If you wanna watch it like a maniac. Top of the class is the name of this episode. Surprise, it's about a school.
Mark:Off the right off the bat, we get Mel.
Sarah:Mel Gedrich, former host of the Great British Bake Off.
Mark:Who's in like 60 episodes of the Great British Bake Off.
Sarah:And we also have Lorna Watson, aka sister Boniface. Yes. We get to see her hair and everything. Get to ears.
Mark:We see her ears and hair and I made some accusations about her.
Sarah:All you have to do is hear her voice and you're like, that's familiar. Who is that? She didn't have to be on camera. No. You're like, that's sister Boniface.
Mark:Absolutely.
Sarah:It's a fun one. Set at a school. High body count.
Mark:Oh, yes. Just like the good old days. Just like the good old days. And then we'll finish up with our last visit to Sarah's Christmas Classics Revisited.
Sarah:Oh, boy.
Mark:Good grief.
Sarah:I have all of you to blame by the way because you're the ones who voted for Charlie Brown.
Mark:But more on that after this Midsummer episode.
Sarah:We've got some questions for you so you can watch it like a maniac.
Mark:This this episode had tons of stuff. There was much pausing and looking at the screen very closely.
Sarah:Lots to look at. Lots of familiar faces. Interesting plot twists. Interesting Boards. We don't just look at set dressing though.
Mark:Oh, I know.
Sarah:There's interesting murder methods. I mean, it's no booby cookie cuckoo clock.
Mark:No. But it's a good one.
Sarah:It's a good one.
Mark:It's it's definitely
Sarah:So we have
Mark:I wonder how much I wonder how many times the writers get together because we know that the writers get together before the the filming and the season and everything. And are like, oh, let's do this killing method. And somebody has to go, no. We did that in season eleven episode three.
Sarah:You don't think they have a master list
Mark:Oh, of I'm sure they continually on to I'm sure they absolutely Google Doc that
Sarah:they just add things to, and they're like, oh, I like that one. Somebody write a plot around that one.
Mark:Because only freaks like us remember everything.
Sarah:I have a spreadsheet. Yes. I'm just saying. Okay. Are you ready for our watch like a maniac question?
Sarah:Yes. We have five this time.
Mark:Excellent.
Sarah:Yeah. You don't have to write them down. They'll be in the show notes. Here you go. If you wanna watch like a maniac, here are five things you can do while you watch.
Sarah:Yes. Number one, how are there six bells twice?
Mark:Yes. So not only are there six bells twice, not only is there a character named Belle
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:But they are of no relation to me.
Sarah:I'm surprised.
Mark:I know. I know it's complete surprise.
Sarah:That a fictional person isn't related to you. Shock. How are there six bells twice? Number two, what's special about the license plate?
Mark:Oh, yeah. That that's a good catch, and we are going to be paying close attention to license plates in these four episodes.
Sarah:Mhmm. Number three, who has a Wii fence? A Wii fence?
Mark:A Wii fence?
Sarah:Mhmm. Okay. You can interpret Wii however you'd like. Number four, Spot the Donald. Spot the Donald.
Sarah:Always a fun game to play. Yes. And number five, who's got the house of
Mark:tricks? So much interesting things and I we haven't even talked about the typewriters.
Sarah:I know.
Mark:I I purposely left off the typewriters because I know I'm gonna go on a bit of a rant about the typewriters.
Sarah:And I'm gonna save, all the the viewers and listeners who I have much in common with one thing. No. We don't see winter knit.
Mark:No. Presents something that he is knitted. Yeah. Whatever.
Sarah:Whatever. I had high hopes for actually seeing him knit, and we don't see him knit. So I'm just saving you the disappointment.
Mark:There's been a ton of discussion on the Reddit board about Betty and her non speaking or non acting. And I think the and I mentioned this today on Reddit. So just going over it. I think that she talks and is in so few scenes not for any other reason than twofold. One, she's a child and there are very specific laws in England about how long children can be on on the screen.
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Like, she can only be on once on the set one day a week and
Sarah:So she can't be a key part in any plot because she just can't be that big part of
Mark:it. She can't be that big part of the episode. And she speaks has a named part. These are the important things. She speaks, she has a named part and does actions that are not just in the background so therefore she is paid as an actress.
Mark:Mhmm. Like she's a part of a union
Sarah:that she Why does that mean she can't be?
Mark:Well, no. So being part of that union also reinforces those child labor laws and things like that. Okay.
Sarah:If she was just in the background, they could just keep her on set all day long and keep her awake all night and never let her go to school or eat or whatever.
Mark:Extras are a different level.
Sarah:I think they're doing a good job integrating her into the episodes.
Mark:I think we'll see more and more of her as she gets older because she can age into the role.
Sarah:Yeah. And I think her part in this episode, specifically in the last one, makes me think you're right about that, and it makes me more hopeful that there will be a season twenty six. Yeah. Going into season twenty five, I I would have bet money that season twenty five was gonna be the last season that they would end on that nice rounded number, and that was gonna be the end of midsummer. I really was kinda prepared for that.
Sarah:Yes. But now I don't think so.
Mark:No. I think there will be
Sarah:more Midsummer.
Mark:I think there will be at least one more season in Midsummer.
Sarah:God, it has to mean they're going for some kind of record. I mean, I don't know what the longest running show is in The UK, but it's it's gotta be getting close.
Mark:And, like, you have to you have to figure it out based on time of episodes. Right? Because there's a lot of half hour shows that have hundreds of episodes.
Sarah:I mean, just seasons. Yeah. Just how many seasons there are.
Mark:It's it's gotta be going a long time.
Sarah:Well, I'm excited that there will be more. At least one one more season, I'm sure.
Mark:Yes. So just to reiterate, now that we're done the minis, we will be doing full episodes on these four episodes
Sarah:Mhmm.
Mark:Starting the January 5. Yes. With the episode we keep forgetting, which is Treasures of Darkness, which is the Mudlarkin'.
Sarah:It's the Mudlarkin'.
Mark:It was almost twenty days ago.
Sarah:It's a good one. We'll have fun with it. I'm looking forward to it. Are you ready?
Mark:And now, Sarah's Christmas Classics Revisited.
Sarah:You saved the worst for last.
Mark:Oh, wow. So we did a little poll to see if people would rather see Sarah talk about Charlie Brown Christmas or a Cosmic Christmas Carol, which is a Canadian animated short from the seventies.
Sarah:I hadn't seen either of them.
Mark:And it was close.
Sarah:Big shock that I hadn't seen the cosmic whatever.
Mark:Yes. It was close, but Charlie Brown won out.
Sarah:Just give me two reasons why you like this. Why you like Charlie Brown's Christmas?
Mark:First of all, it may have the best music for a for a children's show of all time. I'm willing to to entertain that.
Sarah:I agree with that except because Vince Guaraldi who did the music for it. I mean, that may be the most redeeming quality of all of Charlie Brown's animated shows is the music and he was great.
Mark:And almost cut several times by CBS executives. But He's too jazzy.
Sarah:But the Christmas time is here song, Christmas time is here. That is the musical version of seasonal affective disorder. Like, how can you say Christmas time is here in such a minor key, slow funeral dirge piano. Like, I give him credit for putting cheerful words to such woe filled music. They really should use it in commercials or something.
Mark:The reason why it works is because even though it's it's minor, I think it it may be a seventh or a ninth in there too.
Sarah:Oh, now you're getting technical.
Mark:The reason why it works in its minor is because it still resolves to the major key.
Sarah:It's it's be it's because that's the song that children living in a post apocalyptic world where there are no adults celebrate with. That's why.
Mark:Is Big Peyton's little cloud a cloud of radioactive fallout? Yes.
Sarah:Yes. He's a fallout magnet, not a dirt magnet. So So that's one reason. Give me that that's an easy one, though. Give me a second reason why you like this.
Mark:The second reason I like this.
Sarah:Not why it's a classic or why No. No. Why the world should like it, but why you like it.
Mark:The second
Sarah:I cannot find two reasons.
Mark:The second reason why I like this is even though it's all vignette based and it's kind of like daily comics, it is more realistic to the way children speak to each other than a lot. Like, you take the children in Frosty and compare them to Peanuts, the children in Peanuts are more rounded characters.
Sarah:I don't know if they're rounded, but they do better portray the cruelty of children, and I don't know that that's a good thing.
Mark:If you just remember the message of Christmas, it'll all
Sarah:be good. Find god. That's what you have to do to be able to tolerate the fact that your peers are mean.
Mark:Charlie Brown's hat, I had forgotten how bad it was.
Sarah:It doesn't cover his head. Again, we go back to there are no adults. None of them wear gloves. Nope. None of them wear appropriate winter gear.
Sarah:Nope. Charlie's bald and nobody cares. Like, that's a concern. There should be an adult. Hat doesn't even cover his ears.
Mark:The variety show has no adults attached to it.
Sarah:Pigpen dresses like a prisoner.
Mark:Yeah.
Sarah:I don't care that he's dirty. He dresses like a prisoner. And does he have a condition?
Mark:I I don't know.
Sarah:I know there are those kids who always seem to be dirty. I get it. I get the joke. I had one of those kids. You could
Mark:It's not really a joke. You don't feel like laughing at those kids. Could I
Sarah:feel sorry
Mark:for them.
Sarah:I don't know. You could have put Tegan in a padded empty room naked and clean after a bath, then when you came back in five minutes, she'd be covered in jelly. Yes. That's how she was as a toddler. Yep.
Sarah:I get it. I don't know where the jelly came from. She would find it somewhere. She'd be sticky and need another bath. I get it.
Sarah:I like that he owns it. I like that he jokes around about this is ancient dirt or whatever.
Mark:I do. I do like that he owns it.
Sarah:Why are the kids nice to each other but not to Charlie Brown?
Mark:I don't know what They're
Sarah:all kind to each other, and they hate him.
Mark:I do not know what Charlie Brown did. Well, he's annoying. But I know
Sarah:He needs an antidepressant.
Mark:I felt a great kinship to to Charles Brown when I was a child.
Sarah:I don't know.
Mark:I felt like everybody didn't like me and everything I tried didn't work and they always were like laughing at me and I had a giant head And I I and my mother called me Charlie Brown.
Sarah:You know what they didn't? Because of an eastern syndicate. That's why.
Mark:That was fantastic.
Sarah:Because Christmas is too commercial because of an eastern syndicate. Yes. What the heck does that even mean?
Mark:What does that even mean in 1964? I what what I don't get is okay.
Sarah:Now, you're on my side.
Mark:So, Charles no no. I love those two things still. Charles Scholz was born in near Minneapolis Saint Paul, think. But, at this point in time he was living in California. And, everyone says that the show was based on California.
Mark:It's not based in California. California never gets snow like that. No. No. No.
Mark:It's this kind of magical, imaginary, post apocalyptic place where there's no adults and it snows and all the pine trees are not growing. And dogs are smart. Yes.
Sarah:But even Snoopy's kind of mean to Charlie Brown.
Mark:And Snoopy is also mean to Charlie Brown.
Sarah:And the kid who plays the piano?
Mark:Yes. What's his name? Schroeder.
Sarah:He should leave. He has a talent. He should get the heck out of there.
Mark:He has an immense talent, and Lucy does nothing but lie on his piano and talk about herself.
Sarah:His back must hurt so much.
Mark:I dislike Lucy so much.
Sarah:I dislike all of them except the twin girls who dance. They're super cute. The dance scenes were the only redeemable thing about this.
Mark:They were super cute. I like the skating scenes too.
Sarah:No. It's because that has the seasonal affective disorder music. Are going to die.
Mark:Plus, I don't remember his children getting together to sing. No. But I do remember going
Sarah:It's all gaslighting at the end when they sing Hark the Herald or whatever.
Mark:Yeah. I do remember going skating like that. Now, were parents involved. And I do remember Christmas concerts.
Sarah:Again, there's no no direction. Well There's no organization.
Mark:See, another reason why I relate to Charlie Brown is in the it would have been the fifth grade.
Sarah:All the adults disappeared and you had to organize your
Mark:Christmas play? Missus Arnoldi wanted to sing German Christmas carols for the Christmas pageant, and I said
Sarah:We all had to wear those little mustaches and it was so crazy.
Mark:I said her idea sucked. Literally? Yes. This poor woman. But nobody liked you.
Mark:This poor woman.
Sarah:Your ideas were bad. I wonder why.
Mark:This poor woman had to deal with me.
Sarah:You told a teacher her ideas sucked. When you were out?
Mark:I would have been so fifth grade, I would have been 10, 10, 11, somewhere in that area. And she said, well, you could try to do better or something like that.
Sarah:That's what I would have said too.
Mark:So I wrote a play.
Sarah:I'm sure it was awesome.
Mark:It was about Santa's reindeer getting sick, so he had to use snowmobiles to deliver presents. And then this
Sarah:Did you perform this play?
Mark:This poor woman. This poor woman. Because what we didn't know, because she kept it from us, was she got married over Christmas break. So she's dealing with getting married. Right?
Mark:You would not have cared. The wedding and everything.
Sarah:You would not have cared. And I like been no sympathy.
Mark:Your ideas suck.
Sarah:Yeah. You were just one more problem.
Mark:So I wrote a play and read it in front of the class, and they unanimously voted for my play
Sarah:over that her sucks. Sit down.
Mark:Over her German Christmas songs.
Sarah:You have no idea. There might have been some educational goals she was trying to finally accomplish before the end of the year, some multicultural things that she had to do. Yep. And you completely undermined her while she was all stressed out.
Mark:Yes.
Sarah:You are Charlie Brown.
Mark:I am Charlie Brown. So as the writer of this play, I was cast as the person who held up to sleigh in the background. Serves you right.
Sarah:Serves you right. Of the three shows that you made me watch, Frosty, Rudolph, and Charlie Brown, this is firmly endorsed. It's not even weird. No. Like, other two are weird.
Mark:I was stunned how episodic like, it's like a bunch of cartoon
Sarah:Comic strips.
Mark:Comic strips.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. You were surprised by that.
Mark:Yeah. Because it's it's not how cartoon it's not like Looney Tunes. Looney Tunes isn't
Sarah:Looney Tunes was not a comic strip first. No. So
Mark:And this was written by Scholz.
Sarah:So He wrote comic strips. So I'm not surprised that he couldn't maintain a plot for more than four frames. Yeah.
Mark:The psychiatry booth is always something that made me wonder, like, where did that come from?
Sarah:I don't
Mark:know. And it's there right in the very beginning. It's right in the very beginning. It's 5¢. It's Lucy loving money more than psychiatry.
Mark:Well, yeah.
Sarah:It's kids in a post apocalyptic universe where there are no adults they can turn to for advice, so they have to turn to psycho Lucy.
Mark:But he's got a nickel.
Sarah:Yeah. He took it off of a body.
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:Are we done with this now? Yes. My is over.
Mark:That brings an end to this year's Sarah's Christmas classics.
Sarah:Wait a minute.
Mark:You say
Sarah:that like we're doing this again next year.
Mark:I think we're probably doing this again next year.
Sarah:Oh, you get to spin
Mark:between now and then Christmas.
Sarah:Oh, jeez. Bumblebee in his Santa hat.
Mark:Yep.
Sarah:Great. Great.
Mark:Alright. Yes. Return with treasures of the darkness on the January 5. I cannot believe it.
Sarah:2026.
Mark:January 2026. And and then after those four episodes, we will return to the last two series of
Sarah:Broken Wood.
Mark:Broken Wood, which will probably have a new series early in April.
Sarah:Yeah. Alright. Until then. Bye, maniacs.
Mark:Bye, maniacs. Thanks for joining us on the mystery maniacs podcast. If you enjoyed our crazy podcast today, don't miss out on future episodes. Follow us on social media for updates, beyond the scenes content, and exclusive sneak peeks. Subscribe, like, and share to spread the word.
Mark:Bye, maniacs.