SMTV Live
SMTV Live (an acronym of Saturday Morning Television Live) was a British Saturday morning childrens' television programme, first broadcast on ITV on August 29th 1998 and last broadcast on December 27th 2003. On the surface it did not seem to stray away from the format of other Saturday morning programmes, featuring an audience of children, competitions and cartoons, though it constantly won in ratings battles with the BBC version, Live & Kicking, and gave ITV their most watched childrens' programme since Tiswas.
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Presenters
The show went through a series of presenters, starting in 1998 with the most famous line-up of Ant McPartlin, Declan Donnelly, and Cat Deeley. In 2001, Ant and Dec left the show, followed the year after by Cat. 2002 brought a new line-up of presenters in the form of James Redmond (Hollyoaks actor), Tess Daly, and Big Brother winner, Brian Dowling. Redmond was later sacked due to alleged comments made about music on the show, leaving just Daly and Dowling. For a short period, Claire Richards and Ian 'H' Watkins from the now-defunct pop group Steps also regulary presented. During the final series, Des Clarke, Shavaughn Ruakere and Stephen Mulhern were the presenters (though Shavaughn mysteriously vanished at the end of August, with no explanation. She returned for the final episode in December, but no mention was made of why she left. Only one small comment regarding her absence was made by Shavaugn in that episode, but no explanation.).
Sketches
SMTV Live featured many sketches, some of which became staple to the show. Listed below are just some of them.
Chums
A parody of the American sitcom Friends. Many recurring themes and plot lines appeared in Chums, such as the romance between Dec and Cat, and their kiss that was interrupted every episode. When Ant & Dec left the show, their last episode featured Dec & Cat's "wedding", which never happened in the end, as Dec decided to leave and travel the world to find himself – and took Ant with him... The celebrity guests present always took part in Chums, usually appearing as new flatmates. Amongst the best remembered episodes were their parodies of Big Brother ("Big Idiot") and Band Aid. ("Ant Aid" – where the line "Feed the world, Let them know it's Christmas time" became "Blink for Ant, Close your eyes and open them, Blink for Ant, It's time we saw what he can see"")
Fartbeat
A parody of Heartbeat. Featured very little story, with celebrity guests joining in with the fart gags.
Fart Attack
A parody of Art Attack, presented by 'Neil Pumpcannon'. Similar to Fartbeat above, the gags were all based around passing wind.
SMTV 2099
A parody of Star Trek, and of the Sci-Fi genre in general.
The Vicar of Dribbley
A parody of The Vicar of Dibley. All the gags were based on dribbling water over the characters.
Captain Justice
A sketch based on consumer rights programmes. 'Presenter' Dec would often ask individual children in the audience what their question to Captain Justice (Ant in a super-hero costume) is. But before they had a chance to speak, he would rephrase the question. The sketch often had homoerotic overtones in it, playing up to the rumours of romance between the two male presenters. Captain Justice would try to impress Dec or ask him out on a date, and when Dec gave his confused reply, he said "Sorry, misread the signs! Goodbye!", and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. At the end of one sketch, Dec kept up the aforementioned homosexual pretence by saying "Captain Justice there, always disappears with a puff."
The Beautiful Corrs
In this sketch, Ant, Dec, and Cat all dressed up as the female members of the band The Corrs. There was little story, just them asserting how beautiful they are. Often, there was a man with a brown paper bag over his head, labeled 'Jim'. He was not considered beautiful enough by the three "female" members of the group, to show his face, a reference to the fact that the real Corrs' brother, Jim, appears very little in their videos, and never sings.
The last sketch receved mention as 13th in Channel 4's Best TV Moments of 2001. When the presenters were performing, the real Corrs appeared, reprimanding them for being so shallow and saying that they were not all about beauty. When Ant, Dec & Cat left the stage, deflated, the three girls turned to camera, and bragged about how beautiful they were. "Jim" then took the paper bag off his head to reveal the real Jim.
PokéRap and Pokémon sketches
Pokémon was very popular at the same time as SMTV, and as ITV had rights to broadcast the series, they featured it in SMTV. This gave inspiration to the writers, who dressed Ant and Dec up as Pokémon characters and had them 'battle' each other. Dec was frequently Ash and Misty, where Ant usually played Gary.
Another common Pokémon-based sketch was the PokéRap. Ant and Dec would dress up as rappers and perform a rap featuring the names of various Pokémon. They did this in knitted Pokémon jumpers, with Pikachu and their name on. This led to later sketches featuring a Pokémon-themed activity, which featured that week's guests in their own Pokémon wear, such as "Miss Poké-World". Later in the series, the sketches began with Dec refusing to do any more PokéRaps, because Ant & Cat were fed up with them and always teased him about them, and instead concentrate on another task, such as working in a mock fast food restaurant. It wasn't long before the urge to perform the rap got the better of him, egged on by further taunts from Ant & Cat, and he eventually let himself go, trashing the set, yelling angrily at them "Get out of my super-duper market!", "Get out of my Poké-shopping Channel studio", etc. When asked what he was going to do now, he said he was going to do another rap. Ant then yelled "Noooooo!", and another rap began. The last sketch featured Ant ranting to Dec and begging him to stop. Dec brushed it off, and prepared to begin. When he said "hit it!", Ant & Cat dropped a large "10-ton weight" on him, and the studio rejoiced, as did the producers, Richard & Judy in the This Morning studio and weather forecaster Sian Lloyd.
Competitions
There were many competitions on SMTV. Unlike many other Saturday morning childrens programmes, SMTV did give away impressive prizes, such as holidays to America for the family, as well as the usual televisions, games consoles and CDs. Some of the competitions were phone-ins, though a few were more noteable, and had a slot on the show every week.
Wonkey Donkey
The premise of the game was very similar to that of Catchphrase. The example the presenters always gave to explain the game was 'Wonkey Donkey'. It was a small toy donkey with one leg missing. Thus, it was a wonkey donkey. Every week, something similar was shown to the viewers who rang in to guess what it was. The golden rule was it had to rhyme. Some weeks it was very easy, and the first caller got the answer right straight away. Other weeks it was not as straight-forward. Dec found it very frustrating when the callers could not get the answer right, and he sometimes threw the toy and the stand it was placed on in anger, or ranting into the camera, which became a staple of the game. Once in the show's opening 'menu', when Ant & Cat mentioned that the game was coming up later, they said "And remember, for the sake of Dec's blood pressure, IT'S GOTTA RHYME!"
Splattoon
Based on the title of Oliver Stone's film Platoon, the aim of the game was for a caller to direct a blindfolded celebrity to use a gun to 'splat' small model hot air balloons. For this game, Ant and Dec always dressed up as WWI fighter jet pilots, complete with fake moustaches and spoke with old-fashioned accents.
Challenge Ant
Each week, a child would challenge Ant by asking him ten questions they had prepared. For every one Ant did not answer correctly, the child won a prize, such as a DVD or video game. One memorable live blooper came in this game when the child asked Ant the question "Who appeared naked on Channel 5 last week?", to which the answer was Keith Chegwin, referring to the show he hosted, Naked Jungle. Ant answered correctly, and that got a laugh, but then Dec, red-faced, nervously annouced that the next prize up for grabs was a DVD of Free Willy, which reduced the studio to hysterics.
At the end of the ten questions, the child would have the chance to gamble the prizes they had won for the 'star prize', which was usually a DVD player or games console. They then asked Ant a further question, called the "Killer Question", with an accompanying dramatic sound effect. If Ant answered incorrectly, the child and audience would chant, "you're thick, you're thick, you're thick" and so on, and put a dunce cap on Ant's head. If, however, Ant answered the question correctly, the child would lose all their prizes, and Ant would be crowned "King of Common Knowledge", to the tune of Rockin' All Over The World, revelling in taunting the child, as he was crowned. There were also "celebrity editions", played by stars such as Robbie Williams. When Ant & Dec left the show, Brian Dowling took over the game, being the one asked the questions, with Cat and later Tess Daly taking over Dec's role as host, and it was renamed Brian's Brain. This game was also played in Ant & Dec's first prime-time Saturday night show Slap Bang with Ant & Dec, (the forerunner to Saturday Night Takeaway) only this time played by elderly contestants.
Eat My Goal
Celebrity guests would take it in turns to shoot penalties, with Ant in goals. Callers would back the celebrities they thought would win against Ant. The name comes from a song by Collapsed Lung, which they played when a goal was scored.
cd:uk
After each programme, cd:uk (an acronym of CountDown United Kingdom) was broadcast, with the same presenters as SMTV Live. This was also presented live, and featured bands in the charts, music videos, and interviews with famous music stars. cd:uk also often beat Top of the Pops in ratings, which in recent years has had a declining number of viewers.
SMTV Gold
The death knell for SMTV came in 2003, when falling viewing figures led to the show being axed. In the run-up to the last ever edition in December of that year, which brought back all the old presenters (except James Redmond, interestingly), SMTV Gold began. Basically, a show comprising of clips from what is considered the 'golden age' of SMTV; 2000 – 2001. The current presenters delivered fillers and links to the clips, as well as show the usual selection of cartoons. cd:uk, meanwhile, continues to be broadcast.
Video releases
Two videos from SMTV Live have been released:
Writers and producers
The first six months of the show were produced by Ric Blaxhill, a former producer for Top of the Pops. He was replaced in late 1998 by Steve Pinhay and Phil Mount. In September 1999, two writers from Men In Trousers were brought in from rival BBC show, Live and Kicking and soon overtook it in ratings.
Multi award-winning writer Dean Wilkinson has been with the show for many years.
Awards
SMTV has won a number of awards
- British Academy Children's Film and Television Award (2002) Entertainment
- British Academy Children's Film and Television Award (2002) LEGO/BAFTA Kids' Vote
- British Academy Children's Film and Television Award (2001) Presenter – Cat Deeley
- British Academy Children's Film and Television Award (2000) Entertainment
- British Comedy Award (2000) People's Choice Award
- RTS Programme Award (2001) Presenter – Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly
- TV Hits Award (2000) Best Teen Show
In 2001 it came 27th in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows.
External links
- Dean Wilkinson's official website
- SMTV Live on SAT KIDS
- Unofficial Ant and Dec fan website
- Official cd:uk website
Categories: ITV television programmes