Crackpot Theories

Back from hiatus with some more horror content!We all know the legacy of the famous 'cursed' films... The Omen, The Exorcist, Poltergeist etc. But could the bad vibes surrounding those films been deliberately attracted by another set of iconic films? Ones that involved notorious fan of the occult Christopher Lee? Why did they have to make evil look so goddamn sexy? Featuring special guest Ali Khamseh! 

This week featuring Eric Holden from The Goblin's Corner podcast sees us discussing Skyrim's creepy reality-shifting Dragonborn and deep diving into the psyche of Alduin the World-Eater.  Bonus theory: are all of Lady Gaga's biggest hits secretly referencing the Elder Scrolls? Is the Wobbajack a disco stick? 

Why do the struggling-for-survival fantasy creatures of the Dark Crystal look and sound so much like Muppets? Same production company or something more sinister? Can you really go from modern day television hijinks to magical dystopia simply by shooting Beaker into the sun? Featuring special guest Geoffrey Golden.

Could the expansive lore of Star Wars have its roots in the most down-to-earth musical of all time, Fiddler on the Roof? Are Leia's hairstyles a reflection of her East-European heritage? Are there six degrees of separation between Yoda and Yente?Discussion with guest star Shai Korman!

Do the residents of Summerisle really believe that burning one policeman to death in a big wicker effigy is going to help their crops, or is that just a cover for what they're REALLY up to? And how did it get burned? We never found out....

What could a super-popular genre-defining musical like Les Miserables have in common with the  uber-violent techo-horror Terminator franchise? One robotic stone-faced man-machine hunting his quarry, leaving bodies in his wake and fixated on one particular person: John Connor/Jean Valjean.Guests this week are Matt and Jack from the Mockbusters podcast! 

After a short hiatus we are back with more nonsense! Disney has been making some strange decisions lately that seem to be popular with absolutely no-one. What's behind these choices? And what has it got to do with Pokemon? Or Twitch? 

In a slightly unusual turn, this week sees us discussing the ins and outs of glass chemistry with BillieBBillie, an expert on the subject. Big Pharma is one thing, Big Glass is something else!

This episode sees us trying to make sense of the beautifully animated but uncomfortably subtexted Charmkins OVA, made to promote the short-lived Charmkins toy line. Did the people making this cartoon genuinely not realize how much innuendo made it into the finished product? Or was this a deliberate attempt to tank the franchise a la The Producers? Featuring special guest Scarlett Crypt!

This week tackles that monolith of blonde ambition, Barbie! How could one personality hold down such a vast array of jobs, contacts, fashion trends and phases of existence over the course of seven decades? Your mistake is in assuming that Barbie is just one person...Featuring special guest and avid Barbie fan Scarlett Crypt!

In our second episode of season 2, we discuss the notoriously nonsensical film Mulholland Drive and attempt to do the impossible...explain it in a way that makes total sense! Hobos behind diners, mysterious band-less clubs, terrible hitmen, amnesia and no-one likes the coffee, how do we turn this into a mundane everyday kind of film?Featuring special guest BillieBBillie and Ian!

Crackpot Theories is back for a second season with a slightly tweaked format and a whole new collection of silly fan theories!To kick things off, Sinead and special guest BillieBBillie discuss the possibility of family ties between blood-soaked scapegoat Carrie White and bookworm wunderkind Matilda Wormwood. Do you need to be related to cause psychic havoc at your local school? Let's find out!

Our second episode of Drag Race (because we are mildly obsessed) sees us wondering if Beyonce is some sort of blood-sacrifice demanding God, if certain drag queens are capable of astral projection and if the worlds of Pokemon and Drag Race are more closely related than we realize...Note: Due to health circumstances, we are taking a temporary hiatus. We hope to be back for season 2 asap.

In this episode, we manage to merge the happy-go-lucky world of Gravity Falls with the misery pit that is Bojack Horseman through two characters that share a voice actress: Mabel Pines and Sarah Lynn. Do the parallels between these two characters go further than just a common voice? Is it possible that perpetual ray-of-sunshine Mabel exists only in the imagination of a troubled young woman who wishes that was her life? Bring some tissues for this one, it gets pretty sad.

Is it possible to make the dark and gritty 'technology bad' series Black Mirror even more disturbing and depressing than it already is? Of course! In this episode we connect a few dots and we find a handy scapegoat to blame for all of humanity's misfortunes in the series; Capitalism! From rogue robot bees to super-prisons full of exercise bikes to what happens to your soul in San Junipero when the Google Drive housing it crashes and burns, we cover just about everything. Warning: You should probably be at least 30% dead inside for this episode.

In the fourth episode that sees us discussing cannibalism for some reason, we try to get to the bottom of Hannibal Lecter's amazing skillset and the multiple lifetimes' worth of obscure talents he's managed to build up in a relatively short space of time. Is Hannibal capable of skipping through alternate realities, reinforcing his DNA as he goes? Why does he never manage an actual Lithuanian accent? Is there a timeline where he worked as a Mall Santa? Probably not, but we're going to discuss it anyway.

Episode Thirty sees us recovering from the fish-related trauma of last week by shooting wildly into the wind with some short, barely there theories. Theory One: Is there a reason beyond putting together the leftover scraps of chocolate that goes into creating Cadbury's flakes?Theory Two: Do all cleaning experts from Kim and Aggie to Marie Kondo to the brave souls on Hoarders have the same basic idea?Theory Three: Is there a chance that Legolas is a shambolic drunk by elf standards and didn't realize what he was getting into when he signed up for the mission in Lord of the Rings?

This week's episode finds Sorika bravely confronting her fish phobia to talk about the link between happy colourful Pixar classic Finding Nemo and grim as hell sushi-bound Korean film Padak. Whereas one is a sweet ocean adventure where natural predators coexist peacefully beside their prey, the other is a gauntlet of captive fish suffering with the added bonus of fish cannibalism. What could they possibly have in common?You'd be surprised. Please light a candle for Sorika's sanity.

Are the shenanigans of Winnie the Pooh and his woodland friends as sweet and wholesome as they appear to be? Or is the entirety of Hundred Acre Wood just a very complex honey trap to tempt a small child into abandoning the human world for the realm of the fairies? Where are Christopher Robin's parents?

This episode is a deep dive into one of Sinead's favourite childhood films, horror classic The Omen. Is Damien truly the literal spawn of Satan, or is he a relatively normal kid who just happens to have terrible adoptive parents? Is there a doomsday cult manipulating circumstances around this poor child because they took an ancient arcane text far too seriously? Just how hairy does a child have to be for you to miss a great big 666 birthmark on their scalp, and why does it look like it was drawn there in biro?

This week sees us connecting the dots between gritty meth drama bomb Breaking Bad and super-shiny tweenage bait High School Musical. Does High School Musical make more sense when you put it in the context of a burnout's fever dream? Does crystal meth make you have intense recollections of your former schoolmates bursting randomly into song? And why does this episode have more donkey noises and technical difficulties classical music than normal? We blame Disney.

Natural disasters are well-known for not being especially cinematic, so Hollywood has had to ignore scientific fact in order to create a spectacle. But what if in the world of disaster movies, from Dante's Peak to 2012 and beyond, kaiju were responsible for each and every eruption, tremor and landslide? Is Rodan secretly huffing pyroclastic flow for recreational purposes? Did Godzilla cause the Poseidon Adventure just by swimming under the boat? Is Ghidorah creating tornadoes full of sharks to get an exciting snack? The answer is, as usual, no. But we're going to speculate on it anyway!

Episode Twenty-Four sees us musing over the inspirational tale of Fa Mulan (specifically the Disney version) and wondering if this is possibly the origin story of one of China's most formidable Empresses? Both Wu Zetian and Empress Cixi have mysterious pasts, is it possible one of them (or both of them) took up their father's armor and fought against one of China's many, many enemies? Prepare for a lot of history (and complaining about anachronisms) in this one!

Episode Twenty-Three sees us discussing the Mad Max quadrilogy; is this a surface-level apocalypse or is there something more biblical going on under all that leather, sand and screaming? And on another note, what did Sorika do that was so bad that it made someone make a film featuring all of her incredibly specific phobias?

Sweet Valley High is much more than a series of mildly tawdry romance-and-high-school-drama books; it's a rite of passage for many a young girl before she moves on to VC Andrews and Stephen King. But something is rotten at the heart of Sweet Valley...why does one of the twins have so many dead boyfriends? Why is the supposed good twin an amoral shrew who cheats on her boyfriend every time she leaves town for more than a few minutes? And what's up with the bar on the edge of town that can't be accessed by normal means?

Episode Twenty-One sees us talking about The Witcher, about whether it truly takes place in an alternate fantasy universe or are we really seeing our earth after apocalyptic disaster? Is there truly magic going on or is it a combination of science and nuclear physics that just look like magic? Was that really an eel they dumped in the magic battery pool? Warm up for this one, it's going to require some serious stretching.

Episode Twenty is a surprisingly wholesome theory, thanks to our special guest and his vast knowledge of world mythology and cultural symbols. Is Animal Crossing more than a superficially adorable plot-free time sink? Is the game perhaps the story of numerous animal spirits banding together to make a pleasant afterlife for an unfortunate child? It's more convincing than you might think!

This week's episode sees us tackling AMC's The Terror, a show about an Arctic expedition that goes wrong in all the most glorious ways. But could this version of events be just one of many possibilities? Is the cruel god toying with the lives of these men just a person doing a murder run on a video game, trying to get the worst ending possible? Is this in fact a dating simulator, and the ending less grim depending on which character you choose to romance? Join us as we spiral completely out of control! Note: This episode is rated PG-13 for discussions of cannibalism and things of a shipping nature.

In episode eighteen we discuss whether noted kook and patron saint of this podcast Luna Lovegood has a history in another media franchise, a franchise that is a haven for fellow noted kooks. Are the owls what they seem? Is the Quibbler full of secret codes disguised as crackpot theories? Who would win in a fair fight, Voldemort or Killer Bob? Join us as we answer none of those questions.

Hello Kitty is the very definition of cutesy-pie aesthetic, but somewhere in between socially anxious bunnies, lazy eggs, death metal red pandas and a really weird connection to Yoshiyuki 'Kill 'Em All' Tomino, the Sanrio company splits off in very strange directions. Could there be something alien going on behind the scenes? Probably not, but we're going to discuss it anyway.

So the prince just happened to come across the heir to the throne in a forest with seven friendly little men just after the reigning monarch of the country 'fell to her death?' A likely story! In this episode, we deduce that the romantic lead in the Disney film is telling us all a big pack of lies.

Episode Fifteen sees us take an extra-deep dive into the world of the Xenomorphs! Chest-bursting, egg-laying, acid-for-blood space bugs, could they be closer than you think? As in, could they have been inside you all this time? Is this extended space opera just a microscopic power play being fought between red blood cells and hostile bacteria? Note: Due to the current circumstances, we could not consult an actual doctor to verify any of the claims we are making.

Make sure to get good and limber for these epic stretches in logic! What possible theories could you make from a series that (arguably) takes place in reality? More than you think!Hunger Games-style sacrifices for the sake of drama, non-demonic possession by poltergeists and the surprising link between Drag Race and that other cult reality TV hit, the Great British Bake Off.

Episode Thirteen finds an odd correlation between the mech franchises Mobile Suit Gundam and Transformers. Was there some accidental raising of the dead involved?

Our second remotely-recorded episode once again tackles the frightening world of TV made for the pre-school demographic. Is Captain Hook in the magical equivalent of a nursing home in Jake and the Neverland Pirates? Where did all the humans go in Blaze and the Monster Machines? And why does Lazytown make eating right and exercising seem so sinister?

Episode Eleven is brought to you from two hosts in separate parts of the country, trying to puzzle out who really keeps leading the children to their doom in ghost story The Woman in Black.Note: The audio quality in this episode is not up to our usual standard because countrywide lockdowns have led to us recording with whatever we had at home.

This week's episode sees us making the bold claim that Batman's dealings with his rogues gallery may be shadier than expected...controversial, we know! Featuring banter about prison riots, extremely dedicated method actors, people who write to serial killers and Wonder Woman getting a job. Content warning: This episode contains discussion of true life murder and assault cases and serial killers, along with some other unpleasant things too. None of it is graphic, but the warning stands to those who are of a squeamish disposition.

Episode Nine sees Sorika tackle her first solo theory on popular whodunnit series Murder She Wrote. Jessica Fletcher, that nice old dear who seems suspiciously chill about being surrounded by murder, may have something else going on...

The archetypal Disney Princess is the ultimate example of the happy ending at play, but what little details are being left out of the stories? In this episode we examine the secret lives of two Disney icons, Belle and Cinderella. One a possible victim of political turmoil, the other a devil with an innocent smile...

For this week's episode we dive into the sparkly wonderland of magical girls, from Sailormoon to Pretty Cure to Steven Universe. Could the secret behind the might of these frilly powerhouses be contained in the fabric of their gigantic skirts? Let's find out!

In the Night Garden and Fireman Sam are supposedly squeaky clean, colourful fun for the pre-school age bracket, but what dark secrets are lurking beneath those cheerful facades? Are the residents of the Night Garden being punished for their earthly sins? Is Derek Jacobi being held at gunpoint? Is the arsonist of Pontypandy just a lonely boy looking for some attention from his deadbeat dad, or are there demonic forces at work?

Thomas the Tank Engine lives on an island that seems suspiciously small and underpopulated to support so many trains...so what if the trains are innocent victims in some criminal mastermind's empire of evil? I always thought that Fat Controller was a shady character...

With the debut of the new CATS film musical, we attempt to explain first of all what CATS is about (spoiler: it's very, very difficult...) and then we talk about our theory regarding Cat Mastervillain Macavity's true identity. Warning: This episode is very silly, even by our standards. Intro music provided by Audio Hero

A two-for-one episode, our first theory is the confusing tale of what Gandalf did once he left for the Gray Havens and what it has to do with Christmas......and what do The Santa Clause, Venom and The Exorcist have in common? More than you think!

When JAWS was released it made people afraid to get into the water...but was it really the shark that scared them, or was it something else? Who's really behind the shenanigans in Amity Island's waters?

To date there are four distinct versions of cartoons in the My Little Pony franchise, but what if they were all connected on a single timeline that involves race wars, nuclear winter and pony-human hybrids? Welcome to Crackpot Theories, where everything is plausible until proven otherwise!