Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway

Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
File:And&Dec Takeaway.jpg Current Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway Titles (Series 5 (2005) - present)
Created by	Denise Harrop
Starring	Ant & Dec
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	7 (including 1 Christmas special)
No. of episodes	52
Production
Producers	ITV Productions and Gallowgate
Running time	80 minutes (inc. commercials)
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	2002 – present

Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway is a variety show shown in the UK on Saturday evenings on ITV (and repeated on ITV2) presented by Ant & Dec. The show is in many ways a successor to the Saturday night television show Slap Bang with Ant & Dec, which aired a year before its successor began.

Each show ends with the main event in which a contestant from the audience attempts to win 20 items advertised during a randomly-chosen programme from the preceding week.

On 10 September 2005, ITV had a programme listing the best 50 shows in ITV's 50 years being on air. Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway came 2nd, being beaten by Coronation Street. Launched in 2002, the series was unbeaten in its timeslot for three years until scheduled against Doctor Who on BBC One in March 2005.

A new series of Saturday Night Takeaway began on ITV on Saturday, 8 September 2007.

Current Features

Jiggy Bank

Introduced in Series 6. A member of the public is surprised live on television then have ride a moving robotic pig like a rodeo. The harder they ride the more cash they will get. Maximum win: £5,000

Beat The Boys

Introduced in Series 6. 2 celebrities try to beat Ant and Dec's time around an assault course, using different vehicles every week. The vehicles have been specially modified to ensure that teamwork is vital in the game. Stuart Hall is the commentator.

Series 6 Leaderboard

Show	Date	Couple	Ant & Dec's Time	Challenger's Time	Winner
1	16th September 2006	Philip Schofield & Fearne Britton	3:23	3:25	Ant & Dec
2	23rd September 2006	No Race	No Race	No Race	No Race
3	30th Spetember 2006	Trinny & Susannah	3:16	3:15	Trinny & Sussanah
4	7th October 2006	Ben Shephard & Penny Smith	???	???	???
5	14th October 2006	Harry Hill & Al Murray	6:18	3:29	Harry Hill & Al Murray
6	21st October 2006	Wendy Peters & Jennie McAlpine	???	???	Ant & Dec

Series 7 Leaderboard

Show	Date	Couple	Ant & Dec's Time	Challenger's Time	Winner
1	8th September 2007	Tina O'Brien & Ryan Thomas	3:52	3:57	Ant & Dec
2	15th September 2007	Max Beesley & Jonathan Wilkes	4:02	4:00	Max & Jonathan
3	22nd September 2007	Alan Carr & Justin-Lee Collins	4:31	4:52	Ant & Dec
4	29th September 2007	Fearne Cotton & Holly Willoughby			TBA
5	6th October 2007	Eamon Holmes & Ruth Langsford			TBA
6	13th October 2007	TBA			TBA

Ant v Dec

Introduced in Series 5. The duo are given a certain task and they are given a week to learn a certain task and perform it live the next week. Kirsty Gallagher presents for this part of the show while David Goldstrom commentates on proceedings on certain weeks.

Series 5 Challenges in the first run of this event included tightrope walking, escapology and ventriloquism. The best remembered challenge is the motorbike stunt jump, which was called off after Dec had a bad accident during his jump, which resulted in a broken right thumb and his left arm in a sling for a few weeks afterwards, which became a source of much mirth on the show in subsequent weeks. Indeed, Ant's puppet of Dec in the ventriloquism challenge came with its own sling. The winner of the challenge earned 1 point on the scoreboard (except for the week the accident occurred, where both Ant & Dec got a point since it was called off that week). In the end, Dec triumphed over Ant 6-5, winning the last challenge, the penalty shoot-out competition, to become overall winner. As a forfeit, Ant had to perform a bush tucker trial from I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!, and sing a specially written 'loser's song', "I Am A Loser", to the tune of "We Are The Champions".

Series 6: The Rematch On the last show of this series, the contest was tied at three wins each. It came down to a Mini-golf putt-off which Dec won. After Dec putted the winning ball, Ant's forfeit was to be locked in the stocks and have paint thrown at him by all the show's celebrity guests. Dec celebrated his second successful win by singing the Tina Turner song Simply The Best, and wearing a mock king's outfit.

Series 7: This Time It's Personal So far in the third run. Dec leads the series 3-0, having won a speed-skating race , a Spelling Bee and a 110m Hurdle Race.

Celebrity Guest Announcers

The only new feature for Series 7. The continuity voice-overs have been done by a celebrity, mostly announcing Ant & Dec's arrival and what's next after the break.

The celebrities have been, in chronological order:

• September 8: Simon Pegg
• September 15: Daniel Radcliffe
• September 22: Quentin Tarantino
• September 29: TBA
• October 6: TBA
• October 13: TBA

Pre-Titles Clip

Before the titles a comedy clip is shown either near the dressing rooms or on the latest series in the London Studios Canteen.

Win The Ads

All series. The main part of the show, iniviting a lucky member of the audience to "Don't just watch the adverts, win 'em". An ITV show is selected at random and 20 prizes are taken from it. The contestant has 60 seconds (90 in the first series) to answer as much questions correctly.

After that, they have to decide to take the prizes and run or gamble it all on one final question. Get it right, and they win the lot. Get it wrong though and they lose everything and leave with just a roll of toilet paper.

In series 1, three contestants were chosen and whittled down to one in a short quiz. This was discontinued from series 2 and one was just selected at random.

Grab the Ads

All series. Viewers have to chance to win a prize from another ITV show via a phone-in competition. In the first series it took the form of them selecting a number at random. From series 2, mini-games have been inserted played by a different celebrity each week to determine which prize the viewer wins.

Previous Content (In Alphabetical Order)

Ant & Dec Undercover

Series 2-5. Ant & Dec, wearing heavy disguises, ambush fellow celebrities (Simon Cowell being a famous, and popular, victim). When this item first began, they also fooled members of the public.

Jim Didn't Fix It For Me

Series 1-3. A spoof of Jim'll Fix It, in which audience members who had written to Jimmy Saville in their youth, but never been lucky enough to fulfil their dreams, and having those dreams realised at last, 20+ years later.

Little Ant & Dec

Series 2-6. A pair of child "lookalikes" , Little Ant (James Pallister) and Little Dec (Dylan McKenna-Redshaw), to whom Ant & Dec delegate various interviews on the flimsy pretext of "we couldn't be bothered" and the pint-sized interviewers ask all sorts of blunt questions (some of which they obviously fail to understand totally) and bamboozle some surprisingly straight answers out of their victims. Victoria Beckham was asked what conceived meant and she told them it meant where her son got in her tummy. Such victims include Kevin Costner and Sarah Michelle Gellar. At one time, there was a "Little Little Ant & Dec" where two even younger Ant & Dec lookalikes were on the show because Little Ant and Dec 'couldn't be bothered'. Following the axing of this segment, the pair hosted Jiggy Bank for Series 6 but have since now been dropped altogether.

Opportunity Knocks: Again

Series 2-4. Based on the Saturday night television programme "Opportunity Knocks", enables members of the audience who previously starred on the expired programme, to act their performances again.

What's Next?

Series 2-4. An item where Ant & Dec are presented with a challenge, of which they have no prior knowledge, which is often embarrassing, but usually funny.

External links

• Saturday Night Takeaway at itv.com
• Unreality TV - Saturday Night Takeaway News And Gossip