Spoilers are hidden.
From the transcripts
A post on Reddit: "Forgotten bits"
I've been listening since around 100. I sort of fell off the past few years but come back every three months or so for a few episodes here and there. For those long time listeners, what are some bits they used to do that just don't come up anymore? I feel like they havnt called the listeners turkeys in a while and the "you sir. May fuck off!" Is not quite as enthusiastic as it once was. Also "the sales! Jimmy! The sales!" But that was more of a crime in sports bit if I remember correctly
So we checked. We counted every phrase in the phrasebook, year by year, across every main-feed episode.
Bars show the share of each year's episodes a bit is heard in, because the Express episodes roughly doubled the output from 2022. Counts are episodes, not uses. Speech recognition misses some, so treat small numbers as rough. Counted 2 November 2026.
Turkeys
Calling the listeners turkeys was a summer 2023 thing. "Turkeys" turns up 65 times in 2023 and no more than six in any other year. Nearly all of it comes between episodes 409 and 431: "small town murder turkeys", "got a murder for you turkeys", "until next week, you turkeys". The last "murder turkeys" was in June 2024.
The sales, Jimmy
It's a Crime in Sports bit, but it crossed over at least once. In episode 85 (2018) Jimmie says "but the sales" and James comes back with "but the sales, Jimmy". In episode 667 James name-checks it: "for Crime in Sports, it's the sales, Jimmy." We only have Small Town Murder transcripts, so we can't count it over there.
James's Twitter handle, read aloud as "I am at Jimmie P is funny" in the closing plugs; it sounds like a boast about Jimmie but is really the name of James's own account, spelled with a y to tell the two Jimmies apart.
20172026
Last heard: episode 623, 2025-08-21
James's mock-formal introduction of Jimmie as Andrew Jackson, brought out whenever Jimmie makes an accidental racist slip.
20172026
Last heard: episode 585, 2025-04-03
James's label for the stupid, reckless or trashy behaviour he associates with America's panhandles, the odd strips of states where he reckons the worst neighbours live.
20172026
Last heard: episode 611, 2025-07-10
James's mocking summary of how doctors and husbands were supposed to treat women's mental health in the 1950s and 60s: don't investigate, just tell her to cheer up.
20172026
Last heard: episode 707, 2026-06-11
James's name for the driest, most boring fact he can dig up about a town, delivered as "the Sahara Desert fart fact of the week".
20172026
Last heard: episode 672, 2026-02-07
Nickname for a man in the vampire pyramid scheme case, who who wandered his grandmother's house with a pyramid on his head, screaming about the robin in his pocket and eating it.
20172026
Last heard: episode 606, 2025-06-20
James's deadpan compliment for a killer: whenever a murderer is described as charming, polite, well dressed or otherwise likeable, he tags him as his (or Jimmie's) kind of guy, and the horrific thing the man did lands as the punchline.
20172026
Last heard: episode 540, 2024-10-26
James's imaginary drug-running bird of prey, a trained falcon that flies out, collects meth and brings it back to its owner.
20172026
Last heard: episode 364, 2023-02-18
James's mangled way of saying "plastic trash bags": he cannot get the words out in the right order and they arrive as "trastic plash bags" or one of a dozen other spoonerisms.
20172026
Last heard: episode 294, 2022-06-23
James's stock description of a Small Town Murder Express episode that holds far more crime than its running time can carry: ten pounds of murder crammed into a two-pound bag.
20172026
Last heard: episode 748, 2026-10-30
James's standing defence of the show's small-town mockery: everyone's home town is ridiculous, so nobody has the right to be offended on its behalf.
20172026
Last heard: episode 747, 2026-10-29
James's hand-off from the town talk into the case, announcing that he will open at the most dramatic moment, usually the discovery of the body or the crime itself, and then rewind to the background.
20172026
Last heard: episode 745, 2026-10-22
The opening catchphrase of Small Town Murder Express, the shorter Friday show: James usually calls everyone aboard an imaginary murder train and says it is pulling out of the station, after Jimmie's 'choo choo'.
20172026
Last heard: episode 746, 2026-10-23
The warning at the end of the show's disclaimer: having explained that the podcast mixes true crime with comedy, the hosts tell anyone who does not fancy that to leave now and not complain once they have heard it.
20172026
Last heard: episode 747, 2026-10-29
This is an unofficial fan site, not made by or connected to Small Town Murder. Go and listen: the official site, and the Patreon.