SMTV Live
SMTV Live (an acronym of Saturday Morning Television Live) was a British Saturday morning children's 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 children's programme since Tiswas.
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 regularly 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. Every episode when Cat and Dec went to kiss, Dec would say the phrase "Me and Cat, alone in the flat... I think I'm going to kiss her!" 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 episode ended with Dec finally kissing Cat, which they did again in the last SMTV.
Episodes nearly always ended with the "freeze-frame", where everyone would freeze exactly where they were, a joke taken straight out of Police Squad. 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"")
Chums continued for a few weeks after the depatrue of Ant & Dec, but finished quickly. However, during SM:TV Gold, no mention was made of this period and they treated Ant & Dec's departure episode as the last.
Fartbeat
A parody of Heartbeat. Featured very little story, with celebrity guests joining in with the fart gags.
F'art 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, is usually pushed to the background in the videos, and very rarely sings.
The last sketch received 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 Pokéfight 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 (in the traditional sense of the word rather than Pokémon's connotations) in a segment played out between the parts of pokemon called "Pokéfights". Dec was frequently Ash and Misty, where Ant usually played Gary. Whenever Dec played as Misty, and Ant, as Gary, hit him with a particularly 'bruising' attack, he would shout "I'll never have kids now!"
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 and Judy in the This Morning studio and weather forecaster Sian Lloyd.
Sabrina's Poem
Sabrina the Teenage Witch was airing on SM:TV, and was very popular with viewers. Dec had often proclaimed his love for Sabrina and would regularly read a dreadful poem he'd wrote just for her, often to the dismay of everyone in the studio. In the early days, Ant would attempt to block this by claiming that Sabrina's lawyers had banned Dec from reading out the poem on the air. This led to an early blooper when Ant was supposed to open a scroll of things Dec wasn't allowed to say in that week's poem. But while he made the sound of it dropping to the floor, he didn't actually open it, and the studio broke down with laughter. Ant's excuse was that he "thought it was still rehearsal".
On another occasion Dec was dared not to actually mention Sabrina's name in the poem, and he said names like Tina, Katrina, and names that rhymed with Sabrina, but right at the end he did say Sabrina, and got a pie in his face. Later sketches saw him write a story in which he would be the hero that saved Sabrina (played by a female guest from that week's show) from impending doom, but the 'cast' would always ruin it for him.
Dec Says/The Secret of My Success
Every week, Dec would present a skit where he read a problem from a viewer. Dec would then begin to describe how he was once in a similar situation but was able to get out of his because of his excellence. However Ant, who was always standing nearby, would remember things differently and then we would fade into a flashback of Dec's childhood. The flashback would always show Dec as an inconsiderate, cheeky schoolboy who would always get himself into trouble, usually involving the show's guests playing a teacher, the police, etc. The flashback would end, with Ant saying "If only they knew the truth... if only!", and then we'd hear the end of Dec's version, where he would be saying something along the lines of "And that's when I was awarded a medal for bravery and cunning. Of course I didn't accept the medal...", etc. Ant would then make a jibe, walk off set and reappear next to Dec a few seconds later wearing a ridiculous costume.
Later sketches, rather than a 'problems' show, were based around a book Dec was 'selling' called "The Secret of My Success", and which no-one was buying. The last sketch on the last ever show, 'explained' how Ant & Dec came to be a double-act, and showed Dec & Cat auditioning for Pop Idol, hosted by Ant and Dick (Richard Whiteley), who was the ladies' favourite, who Dec replaced after an unfortunate 'accident' during the sketch. A blooper in this sketch occured, when, as Ant was talking directly to the camera, the Pop Idol logo on the wall in the background suddenly fell off the wall and split cleanly in two when it hit the ground.
Ant also occasionally appeared as a schoolboy in these sketches, where he was an overweight boy who ate huge ammounts of food and was reffered to as Gi-Ant.
This section also introduced the character of 'Cat the Dog' which was Cat as a schoolgirl with very messy hair, huge teeth and a strong Birmingham accent. When asked where she was from she would say in a muffled voice "Burmingum!", the person replied "Where?", and she repeated "Burmingum!". She had an attractive best friend called Louise who appeared occasionally (played by Louise Nurding). Cat the Dog later got her own "series", The Further Adventures of Cat the Dog.
Casually
This sketch was a mix of popular medical drama series Casualty and American soap operas with overacting, villains & over dramatic music all featuring. James Redmond was in this sketch during his brief tenure on this show, then the following year he landed the role of "Abs" Denham on the real Casualty!
Eminemmerdale
As the name suggests, a combination of Eminem and Emmerdale. A final episode of this was meant to appear in the last episode, but it was dropped some point between recording & airing. Although most references were cut from the show's airing, clips appearing in the trailer and one of Brian Dowling's references was left in. Instead of this being shown, an episode of Spongebob Squarepants was abruptly cut to after an advert break.
Competitions
There were many competitions on SMTV. Unlike many other Saturday morning children's 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. (Ant famously gave away his own car in one of the earliest episodes) Some of the competitions were phone-ins, though a few were more notable, 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 with viewers blurting out anything, whether it rhymed or not. 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, filled with paint. 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 announced 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, you're thick you are, 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. In later episodes, the child would get a 'consolation prize' of a handkerchief reading "I lost on Challenge Ant".
There were also "celebrity editions", (called "Challenge Ant - Celebrity Style!") 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 played in the last-ever show, and 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 was 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.