Hello. Now, we're celebrating 30 years in telly this year,
Downloaded from YTS.MX
and we'd like to tell you a story.
It's the story of Saturday morning telly in the late '90s,
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
a place of mayhem and chaos.
A place where hairstyles were bad and clothes were baggy.
It's a place where chums had fun and donkeys were wonky.
So, come with us for a very special peek behind the curtains.
If you're talking about my haircut,
centre partings were very fashionable in the '90s,
for your information. This is the story of SM:TV Live.
HONKS HORN
Welcome to SM:TV Live!
'It was joyous, it was magical.'
It was the best time of our lives, really. Yeah.
HE LAUGHS
It was the reason I got up on a Saturday morning.
I'd had a hard week at school,
but it was all made better as soon as I'd seen Ant, Dec and Cat's face.
SM:TV was the appointment, Saturday morning.
SM:TV was on, no doubt.
Ohhh!
What do you think?
It was a carefree...
Get out of here!
..no responsibilities...
It's got to rhyme! Come on.
..world is your oyster moment in your life.
SM:TV was this place where pop stars and celebrities
could go on and they could be silly.
It was us getting to be kids again.
There was no other show like SM:TV, and I was there and I loved it.
Come on!
Best TV ever.
Wow. Strange to be back, isn't it? Isn't it?
This is where we done the first ever link
for the first ever episode of SM:TV. I think I remember the link.
Do you? Go on. Well, it was kind of along the lines of,
"Wake up, get up, it's Saturday morning, and this..."
BOTH: This is SM:TV Live.
Yes, I'm the fifth Lord Anthony of McPartlin.
And I'm Viscount Donnelly of Declanshire.
But you, you can call us...
Ant... And Dec.
Yes, from now on, Saturday mornings will never be the same again.
That's right, baby. And you'd be absolutely loopy bonkers to miss it.
Crazy, because SM:TV offers you the best of everything.
The best cartoons, the best competitions,
and the best presenters. That's right.
Now, follow us, because this is the walk we'll be taking every week.
Well... It's a bit quieter.
It is a bit quieter. Hasn't changed much, though.
Hasn't changed a lot.
I think there was loads of people in my first link.
There were pop stars who were gonna appear on CD:UK.
Morning, Suggs. How are you? How are you?
Good to see you. Morning, everyone, you all right?
Morning. Good morning.
Morning. What a lively bunch we've got here.
This is where... Oh, hello.
This is where everybody will be playing,
these will all be playing on CD:UK later on.
And if you follow me, this is where you'll be able to see them.
Here it is. Studio 2. Studio 2.
Shall we have a look inside? Yeah.
Hello.
She is Miss Sutton Coldfield 1974,
please welcome our co-host, Ms Cat Deeley.
You're a cheeky monkey, '74? I'll have you know I wasn't born then.
Go on, then. Aw! Hello.
Hi. How are you?
Good. Are you OK? Aw.
Welcome back. It's a bit too echoey, isn't it?
It is, isn't it? It's not full of kids.
There's not enough small people in here. No.
Well, I'm trying my best!
It doesn't feel real to me at all, and it's very echoey.
Yeah. Like, it never used to have that feeling,
it was always... There was always so much going on. Yeah.
And hot. And you'd always be boiling hot.
Always boiling hot. And then you'd be running
from one thing to another.
Yeah, yeah. Chaos. Shouting, or...
Chaos. When you're here and you see bits,
like the wonky donkey, or you see the postbag,
or you see bits like that, it doesn't seem that long ago. Nah.
It doesn't seem like two decades ago. No.
That's what I mean. Shh!
Oh, sorry. Wash your mouth out.
And it feels kind of weird to be sat here, looking back over all these...
things, and things that we did.
And... We almost didn't even make the show in the first place. Mm.
Will you be watching the match tonight, ma'am?
Well, I think I should.
In 1998, I think we were just about to turn 23.
Erm... We'd already lived a life.
THEY LAUGH
# Byker Grove! #
# I'm Ant I'm Declan
# A duo A twosome
# So many lyrics, We're frightened to use them. #
We'd been offered a new record deal by the record company,
and it wasn't a great deal. It was a deal, but not a great deal.
And... That's exactly what our manager said to us.
Yeah, he did. "It's not a great deal, but it's a deal."
And we were like, oh... OK. We went, "OK."
So we went back in the studio and we...
We done one day recording, like, writing and recording,
which was torturous.
I just turned to him and said, "I'm not enjoying this any more.
"Are you?"
And he said, "Nah." And I said, "Shall we knock it on the head?"
And he went, "Yeah." So that was it. So we did.
We went home, we rang our manager and we said,
"We don't want the record deal, we're not gonna do it any more,
"we're gonna do something else." And he was like, "What?!"
"We don't know yet, but we're gonna do something else."
We knew it was gonna be in TV.
We set up a production company with the guys that made Byker Grove,
so we set up... Called...
..Ant & Dec Productions. Which took us ages to think of the name (!)
And we came up with various ideas for TV shows,
made a few enquiries,
and we thought we were gonna be able to pinch the chart from the BBC
and take it to ITV.
And the idea, essentially, was CD:UK.
It was an hour-long music show. Chart show.
Now what do we do? Do we just send this to ITV?
What if the idea gets out? We need to make sure that doesn't happen.
So, somebody came up with an ingenious idea
of getting a security guard to deliver the idea personally
to the director of programmes at ITV.
And to do that, we would put it in a briefcase
and handcuff the briefcase to the security guard
and tell him that he could only hand it over
to the director of programmes.
So, he came round to our office... We put it in.
We clasped it to him. Put it on his wrist.
And sent him off to ITV.
And we all sat by the phone, waiting to find out what happened.
He'd got to ITV, and they were like, "OK..."
So they directed him...
He eventually got to the director of programmes,
who took the idea,
and it was in, like, a brown manila envelope. Yeah.
It had "top secret" on it.
And he took it and he kind of chuckled.
CHUCKLES
And he turned it down. Yeah, he said no.
They didn't know I'd done a lot of work
preparing to do just such a show.
They basically pitched the idea back to us
and said, "Could you do this on Saturday mornings,
"but do it for three hours?"
The only way I could work out
that we could afford to do a live pop show
was to take all the money
that we were currently spending on Saturday morning
and put it in a big bag, and hand it over to one company
to cover three hours of airtime.
So, you're in your 20s, you're out of work,
right, you've got no prospects, and ITV say to you,
"How about doing three hours every Saturday morning,
"not just for 28 weeks a year, for..."
BOTH: "52 weeks of the year."
"For the whole year." And we went, "No." No.
Ridiculous. Looking back now,
the arrogance, would you call it arrogance?
No, stupidity. Stupidity.
Just stupidity.
We were like, "We'll do the music show, but not the kid's stuff."
"Not doing that." "Cartoons and all that? Pfft!"
So, they were resistant. They wanted to do the music
and we wanted to do the whole package.
So we just had to keep pitching.
And he said to us, "Look, this is where learn your craft,
"this is where... There's nowhere else
"where you can learn live television,
"where you can learn how to be a presenter
"more than Saturday mornings." And again, we went, "Nah!"
And turned it down again. Again!
So, twice we said no,
which is lud... And it was our production company,
we were turning down a massive commission.
Three hours, 52 weeks of the year,
but the owners of Ant & Dec Productions went,
"Nah, I don't fancy that."
I mean, I think it kind of defines the boys, in many ways.
At this stage, we had decided,
I'd decided they were obviously the people we wanted to do it
because they... they didn't just...
They'd looked at things, they studied things,
they wanted to know what the downside and what the upside was.
They wanted it right for them.
And then we realised that we were looking
a gift horse in the mouth here,
and we just thought, "Yeah, OK, let's do it."
We got our people in the end.
We always wanted to be a three hander,
so we knew that we wanted a girl involved.
We just didn't know who it was gonna be.
It clearly had to be somebody that would bounce off their humour
and would not be eclipsed by them in any way,
so had to be able to stand up to them.
We did a lot of watching telly at the time,
keeping an eye out for who we liked
and who we thought had a good sense of humour,
and Cat was the first meeting that we took.
So, it was sold to me, firstly, as a music show,
because I wasn't really sure I wanted to do a kids' show,
in all honesty.
I loved doing the music show that I was doing.
And he said, "Listen, there'll be no puppets,
"there'll be no talking down to kids, there'll be none of that.
"It's gonna be cool, it's gonna be a music show,
"and it's gonna be great.
"There's these two lads called Ant and Dec who are hosting it."
I was like, "Oh, yeah, I know them. Yeah, I know them."
He was like, "The next thing I need you to do is come and meet them."
The meeting kind of went like this.
"Hello, I'm Ant." "Hello, I'm Dec." "Hello, I'm Cat."
And then she immediately launched into, "I've met you before."
The guy who looked after Ant and Dec when they were doing the music
said to me, "Oh, you know what you should do,
"you should tell this story."
"Dec was really embarrassing the other night,
"we were in a Chinese restaurant."
And he said, "You should tell the story."
We had been to a restaurant the other night, me and Dec,
and we'd been out to watch the football and we got a bit tipsy.
And you got particularly tipsy and fell off your chair.
Worse than that, I fell off my chair and there was a man and a woman,
clearly on a date, on the next table,
and they did a lot of looking over at me and tutting.
And I think I looked over and tutted back.
You think? You did!
You definitely did. I basically ruined somebody's date
at this restaurant.
Like, we had a chat. We had our kind of initial chat.
Yeah, I think we'd broken the ice and stuff. Yeah.
We had a chat and we were talking.
And you went... Actually...
"..we have met before, you know."
"Really?" "Yeah, I was in a restaurant
"when you were quite rude to my boyfriend."
"Yeah, you were really quite rude.
"We were in a Chinese restaurant in Chiswick."
Yeah, exactly how you done it. "You were really...
"Actually, you kind of ruined our dinner,
"you fell off your chair." That was it.
And, erm... I could feel myself...
See how convincing she is! I could feel myself going redder
and redder and redder, and I started to really sweat.
You did!
If you've got the brass neck to turn around and catch us out
within the first 30 seconds of meeting us,
then you've got the job, really. We loved it.
Literally, we cancelled all the other meetings.
We were like, "She's the girl, we'll have her, she's on."
And, yeah, it became the three of us from that day.
I want no trouble off either of you. What?!
Us? What you on about, like?
You know perfectly well what I mean,
any stupid jokes about cats, anything like that.
Oh, no, we wouldn't do that. In fact, we've bought you a present
to welcome you on the show. DEC LAUGHS
Some cat food! That's original.
Never heard that one before (!)
I remember going up to that first show and going,
"There's not really anything in the first two hours."
So what did we fill it with in the end?
Small domestic animal, "C" something "T".
Erm...
No, no, I can't get it.
It felt, like, empty, there wasn't enough going on,
we didn't seem to have enough... kind of content, really.
# Can you spare ten seconds
# As we show you ten seconds of... #
ALL: Dogs! # Ten seconds of dogs
# Ten seconds of dogs. #
Aw. I love that.
# Ten seconds of dogs! # Literally, ten seconds of dogs.
CAT LAUGHS
Ten seconds of dogs, guys.
And would you believe it, we sung the theme tune!
THEY LAUGH And you loved it!
Wrote the theme tune, sung the theme tune.
Yeah, it wasn't great, was it? No.
It wasn't great for the first couple of months. No.
There were no kids, there were no guests up there, really.
No atmosphere.
No atmosphere, it was just us talking rubbish. Yeah.
Declan. What?
Cat isn't really a cat.
Yeah, I know that, everybody knows that.
Move on. Didn't you know that?
NERVOUS LAUGH Aye, I'm just joking with you, man.
I mean, we got it wrong, initially,
because we still concentrated all our efforts on CD:UK,
the hour-long music show at the end. Yeah.
And the first two hours kind of slightly got in the way.
Anyway, coming up shortly, like, in under half an hour...
I haven't even got a watch on! THEY LAUGH
Coming up... How long?
Five past freckle, ten past freckle.
Anyway, we've got CountDown:UK, the biggest music show on television.
I think we knew from the outset,
this was not gonna be an instant win.
You know, you were against the juggernaut,
the BBC, I think it was Live & Kicking at the time,
it was huge. So we kind of knew it was gonna be a long haul.
Erm...
Probably took a little bit longer than we thought.
It had been going fairly badly
for a long enough time,
that people were starting to ask questions of,
should this show be on air?
Yeah, people were putting pressure on ITV,
other production companies, basically saying,
"Look, they're not doing it, ratings-wise,
"it's not a great show,
"you should replace it with one of our shows."
"If they pull this, I'm gonna lose my house..." Yeah.
"..we'll have nowhere to live,
"I'll have to go back to Newcastle, live with my parents again."
And we were like, "Oh, boy, this is bad."
Coming up after the break, there's a little bit of this.
Mm!
Sol, it looks wicked, man.
Absolutely wicked. Go, quick, go!
# Wake up, Saturday. #
Oh, you're back, are you? You treat this place like a hotel.
You've got no respect. One minute, you're watching us,
the next, commercials. I don't believe it! It's ridiculous!
It's all right, they're back now, leave it. I don't like it.
We've had a good night, don't spoil it for the bride.
We did realise that there was not very much in that first two hours,
and we needed to start putting some content in.
And it was tough, you know, it was tough doing the show,
doing three hours of live telly, and then getting the figures in
and going, "Oh, no, we're getting hammered."
We were absolutely getting hammered.
And the shows weren't great.
And it was a struggle to get the big guests for CD:UK.
It was a struggle to get any guests,
cos they all went on the BBC cos that's where all the kids were.
So we needed to, not forget about the music show,
but that wasn't the be all and end all,
we needed to really put more effort into that first two hours.
You don't start to panic after the second or third week
when the figures aren't great.
You know? You hold your nerve.
And if you believe in something, you hold your nerve
and you keep tweaking. And with that talent,
I never really had any grave doubts that we weren't gonna make it work.
Do you remember, we went to do pantomime
at the Sunderland Empire, me and Dec. I do.
And we came face-to-face with the kids who were watching the show.
And that really was the penny dropping,
that was a Eureka moment, we went, "Oh, my God, this is our audience."
It took us a while to realise
that we didn't even have any kids in the studio.
So we started, then we invented the Saturday Morning Squad.
We've got our Saturday Morning Squad, who are this morning
the Armoury Saturday Club, full of fitness fanatics!
The disco freestylers of the ISTD. Let's hear you!
CHEERING
They are the primary school from Childeric!
CHEERING
The minute we brought kids into the studio, everything lifted
because, of course, the minute you can interact with real-life people,
it makes it so much better.
FART SOUND Oh!
Come on. We all do it.
There's no need for that at this time of the morning, is there?
The kids were there, and you'd come face-to-face
with the audience of your show.
You know, we'd realise what makes them laugh
and what they find funny,
and, you know, it's kind of toilet humour,
it's the same as it's always been,
it's puerile kind of toilet humour and slapstick.
This is serious stuff!
Robbie's made the first real move, and got away with a nose hold!
But what's this?
Liam's coming back with a Chinese burn!
HORN
Sometimes on the BBC,
they were a bit cosier and a bit nicer to the kids,
and a bit more...
Er, a bit more like a nice auntie or uncle.
We wanted to be their more mischievous
older brothers and sisters.
Hello and welcome to Fart Attack, with me, Neil Pumpcannon.
Now, last week, we had a few complaints
about the strange noises during the show.
FART SOUND Erm...
Those were due to atmospheric conditions, ie, very bad wind...
FART SOUND ..affecting your aerials at home.
Over the course of a few weeks, we started to realise that
if you engage with the acquired material,
with the cartoons or whatever...
And actually put some content in the show!
And where we did kind of peak in the ratings throughout the show,
we looked back and we were like,
"Sabrina The Teenage Witch is a real hit with the kids."
So we decided that on either side of Sabrina,
we would kind of engage with it more.
We came up with the idea that I would be in love with Sabrina,
that I really fancied Sabrina... He did.
DEC LAUGHS
Sabrina, Sabrina, your name is not Tina,
or Mary or Judith or Saul,
or Kevin or Sally or Mrs O'Malley,
or Michael or Stanley or Paul.
The kids were definitely, erm, connecting with that material,
and so it was to keep the interest of the kids going,
so that was kind of what...
And it was a smart move, actually.
They kind of were like, "The kids love this,
"let's hook in, give them more of this."
You're my bunny, my sunshine, my little pussycat.
But she'll never fall for you, Dec, you soppy little prat.
KIDS SHOUTING
That was all it was, to start with,
just to try and keep that spike in the ratings a little bit longer.
But then we had fun doing it.
I hate your poems! Cat hates your poems!
The crew hate your poems! We all hate your poems!
Don't beat about the bush, come out and tell me.
ANT GROANS
Kids found it funny, and so we were like, "We're onto something here."
I'd just love to get on a plane and knock on her door,
because her name is...
..Sabrina!
Ah! Ah! I knew it! There you are, you see, fantastic!
What were you doing? I don't care any more!
Sabrina was great, but Pokemon was the boyo.
Here it is, watch it, it is... ALL: Pokemon!
The producers said, "Look, we've just bought the rights to Pokemon,
"we're gonna play it every week,
"and those that love it are really obsessed by it,
"so we'd like you to do a sketch."
We were like, "Right, OK. What is this?"
"Well, you go round and they collect different monsters
"and they've got this ball thing."
We were like, "Right, OK." "So, how does...?
"What's the cartoon about?" We'd never seen it,
we'd never played the game,
and they said, "But it's starting this Saturday, here's the sketch."
So we read the script, it made no sense to us whatsoever.
Nothing. It was like reading Greek.
It was a foreign language, it was like a foreign language.
And we rehearsed it on the Friday, nobody laughed,
and then on the Saturday morning,
before the Saturday Morning Squad came in, we rehearsed it
in front of the crew,
not one single crew member laughed. We were coming back
off the commercial break, we were gonna launch into this sketch.
And we had a floor manager at the time.
He was like, "Do you understand this? Do you get it?"
We were like, "No." "None of us do, we don't understand.
"We're trying to help you." "We'd laugh if we could,
"but we don't know what it is. Coming back in five..."
We rehearsed it one last time in the commercial break. "..four..."
Still don't get it. "..three..."
He went, "It's gonna be fine."
Then he went, "You're gonna die!" "..one. You're back on air."
We were like, "What?"
As you know, I'm very easily swayed, and after watching Pokemon,
I have turned into a mighty Pokemon master trainer.
Ah, so you think so, do you?
But do you have the Poke Balls for it?
Think you're hard enough to take on this Pokemaster?
Don't be a fool, Dec, I've been building up my squad
and I'm itching for the duel. Brave words. Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Pokemon, for them, was a fantastic acquisition
to have on their show
at the time when Pokemon was taking over the world.
The fact that they then gave it life in sketches,
again, just brought it closer to home and closer to the kids.
They were doing on screen
what kids were doing in the playground. Genius.
Ah! Ah!
Ah! It's super effective, critical hit!
I am... wicked.
That week, we went out and kids loved it, absolutely loved it.
So, as soon as we knew that, we were like, "Let's do one every week."
Who's that Pokemon?
It's Cake-Azor. I choose Cake-Azor to teach this impudent pup a lesson.
Pokemon on SM:TV and doing all of that
set me up for having a boy when I eventually had kids.
Your Poke knowledge. I...
Charlie was like, "This is a Pikachu and a Bulbasaur,"
and I was like, "Yes, Charizard!" I knew it all from SM:TV!
It's like, oh, my God, they were educating me
for my future life, and I didn't even know.
Prepare to do a Pokemon battle again
because I am... Misty!
I was Gary, who was quite a well-known... G-G-G-Gary!
..quite a well-known character in Pokemon.
Misty, never heard of her. HIGH-PITCHED: Misty!
Never even seen her since. No.
Her character got quite well rounded by you, I'd say.
LAUGHS We found out a lot.
We found out a lot about her. She likes Brian from Westlife.
"Brian?" She was obsessed by him.
I will defend myself with the ultimate girly Pokemon.
I choose Brian.
Brian?!
We were just told, "The boys are gonna do their little Pokemon sketch
"and what we need you to do is
"the five of you guys need to come out behind the boys
"when they're doing it, and sing a little bit of Flying Without Wings."
That's all I was told.
Come on, guys! Come in.
Ha!
HIGH-PITCHED SCREAM
Next thing, Dec just rips off his top,
and he's got a picture of my face on his chest.
Brian, I love you! Brian!
BRIAN! BRIAN!
BRIAN!
And I just... I just lost it.
I literally could not hold it together, and I've never laughed...
I'm not gonna lie, a little pee came out,
just a little bit of pee came out, I laughed that hard.
Oh, Brian!
Yes!
CHEERING
Loads of the fans always retweet it and post it,
and it's still, to this day, 20 years later,
I'm still getting people sending videos of it,
going, "How funny is this?"
And it's one of the funniest moments I've ever been involved in on TV.
Another thing that we did to engage with Pokemon was the Poke-rap.
It's time we introduce Pokemon in true SM:TV fashion,
with the SM:TV gotta catch 'em all Pokemon rap.
I think Ant's just as keen as me this week, aren't you?
Yeah, why not? I've got no friends left to lose now, anyway.
Ha-ha! That's the spirit.
The Beastie Boys used to have Volkswagen badges on their chains.
We thought, for a laugh, let's do Skoda.
The next thing we knew, we started to get complaints
from people who owned Skodas,
saying that their badges had started going missing
off the front of their cars.
So kids had started nicking Skoda badges
and putting them on chains to do the Poke-rap.
# Ah, yeah. #
However, Skoda were so delighted with all this publicity,
that they gave us a brand-new Skoda car to give away as a prize.
It evolved to the point we'd get a celebrity involved in the Poke-rap.
And I remember looking round at one point,
and here was Sol Campbell, England defender...
CHEERING
Sol... Wicked!
I'm sorry about this. Wicked!
It's him, sorry. I'm so sorry.
Wicked! Look at him, he's a fool.
Sol, it looks wicked, man.
Absolutely wicked.
Like that, he's like, "What am I doing here?"
You and me both, Sol. We don't understand a word of it.
Nah. Just go with it, Sol.
I've not really felt that connection and that draw to a TV show
that I had to see it at a certain time since, really.
We could tell that this show had become a hit
when we would go back to Newcastle.
And when we used to go back to Newcastle
when we were doing the music, you used to get people who'd go,
"Ugh, it's you two." "Oh, God."
"PJ and Duncan, load of rubbish." Used to get a lot of that.
Things slowly changed, and we'd go back to Newcastle
and people would go, "Oh, I love that thing you're doing
"on Saturday mornings, that's a laugh, isn't it?"
And you're like, "Ooh, this is actually..." Yeah.
"This is actually hitting."
For us, it was the first time in a long time
we were doing something that people really, like, everybody was enjoying
and we were enjoying doing. It was wonderful.
Still to come on this morning's show, eh...
ALL: # You're thick!
# You're thick, You're thick, you're thick
# You are, you're thick... # Get off me!
What have we got here? Scottish gator.
Doesn't rhyme! Care Bear.
No! Care Bear.
No! KLAXON
No! No! No!
We'll be back after the break, keep it on three.
FUNKY DISCO BEAT # SM:TV Live! #
The backing from the director
of children's television, Nigel Pickard,
was amazing, because we wouldn't be on air if it wasn't for him.
As the show grew in success, its status improved as well,
and with that grew their confidence.
And the show got funnier. That's the critical thing.
It got funnier and funnier.
# We are live! #
Are you ready? Aye, aye, aye, aye!
Oh! CHEERING
I can't imagine anyone
not enjoying the sketches, cos it didn't matter how bad you were,
or how wrong things went, it was funny.
Brian McFadden, you have the weakest brain, goodbye.
WEAKEST LINK MUSIC STING
Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!
Goodbye! Goodbye!
Goodbyeeeee! Goodbye!
LAUGHTER
I remember, this one time, we were really, really busy
and we were told we wouldn't have time to do SM:TV in the morning,
that we were just going to come in and perform on CD:UK.
And we were raging. We were like,
"No! We're not going in just to do CD:UK, that's the boring bit.
"We want to go in and do Wonkey Donkey."
Wonkey Donkey.
SAMBA-STYLE BEAT # Wonkey Donkey! #
Wonkey Donkey! Doo-doo-doo!
# Wonkey Donkey! #
We talked about some ideas for the show
and we were talking to a couple of our writers at the time.
And one of them said, "What about a game called Wonkey Donkey,
"where you've got a three-legged donkey
"and he's a donkey and he's wonkey, he's a wonkey donkey?"
"So you have loads of animals and..." We were like,
"Yeah, sounds all right. Yeah, we'll go with that."
The only rule it has, it's got to rhyme.
'Er, fluffy bee.' Fluffy bee?!
KLAXON For goodness' sake, fluffy bee!
Did you stop and think about that before you came on the telephone?
I mean, Dec. He just took no prisoners, my goodness.
It's got to rhyme. That's the only rule.
See, you're getting a little angry about it now.
I'm not angry, I'm just...
I'm just emphatically... It's a bit... ..making the point.
'70s bee, tiny bee.'
KLAXON Shut up! Shut up!
LAUGHTER '70s bee?!
Does that rhyme? You stupid idiot.
"It's stupid, man, it's not even rhyming, what are you doing?
"Why are you bothering ringing up? It's wrong!"
What have we got here? 'Scottish gator.'
Doesn't rhyme!
He was in the camera, you know, weurgh!
'Chuckling Collie.' KLAXON
Go away, go away, never darken my doorstep again!
'Care bear!'
No! 'Care bear!'
No!!! 'Care bear!' No!
You didn't want the kids to get it right,
because the entertainment factor was Dec losing the plot.
KLAXON No, no, no!
People didn't expect someone on the TV to talk like that.
Particularly when a kid sounded so cute and gorgeous on the phone
and was just trying their best to, like, muddle through on live TV.
'Brazen bee.' 'Brazen bee!'
Who is that in the background?
Who is it in the background? Who was it?
Mam. Mam? Your mam's rubbish as well!
LAUGHTER
What was she coming up with, brazen bee?
Do you not understand, woman?
Have you ever had a kid come up to you and go, "You shouted at me."
No. HE LAUGHS
And he's now 6'4". Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Boof!
"I'll take that horn and..."
No, I haven't ever bumped into anybody.
Please do. If anybody's out there...
He'd welcome it.
For every small child that has ever been berated on live TV.
If there are any kids out there who I shouted at on Wonkey Donkey,
I'd like to apologise. Ha-ha!
ANT: Ridiculous! LAUGHTER
Look, you've made us break my horn!
One of my favourite bits of the show was the postbag, because...
You made up the dance. You did make up the dance.
Is that because it was your favourite bit? No.
He chose to express his joy through the movement of dance.
We literally made it up in ten minutes flat in a rehearsal.
Do we still know it? What is it? So it's...
# Stop, whoa, yes Wait a minute, Mr Postman
# Way-ay-ay-ait... #
And then it's finger point to the right. OK, you got it.
# Please, Mr Postman... #
Me and my mam and dad used to get up and do the routine when it was on.
And then we did a little turn. That was it.
# Oh, yeah... # CHEERING
Everybody in the studio would just stop and do it.
Do you remember that Ant came onstage with us? Yes, I do.
# Stop, whoa, yes Wait a minute, Mr Postman
ANT: That's it!
# Way-ay-ay-ait, Mr Postman
Come on!
# Please, Mr Postman, look and see Whoo!
# Oh yeah... #
I actually found out, when I was older,
that that wasn't a song that they made up. It was already a song.
I thought that Ant and Dec and Cat had just made that whole song up.
And I think the great thing about the postbag was
it could become anything. Yeah.
Enclosed is a handcrafted Pokemon pouch
for you to wear while singing your Poke-rap.
It's the ultimate in MC fashion.
Here he is! CHEERING AND WHOOPING
MUSIC: 'I'm Too Sexy' by Right Said Fred
This is before we were texting into shows
or we were tweeting shows, or they had Instagrams and stories.
This was writing in, sending your letters,
and them actually bringing it out of their bag on TV.
A little bit of you, literally, could be on TV.
"Dear Ant, Dec and Cat,
"as long as I can remember, my dad has done eggy pumps.
DEC LAUGHS "He started...
"He's started to catch them in his hand
"and throw them in my face as a joke."
Eurgh! What a class dad!
Hold on. How can you catch...? Hold on.
"But just recently, he's..." ANT CREASES WITH LAUGHTER
THEY ALL LAUGH
"Just recently, he's started pumping in the biscuit tin."
LAUGHTER
As an adult, now, I'm completely grossed out
by the idea of farting in a biscuit in. It's awful.
But as a kid, crying.
Look at that. That's good. I like that one.
Baboon with SM:TV Live on his T-shirt there.
And a big red bum. And a big red bum.
You can see it just there, just poking out the back there,
that's his tail, ladies and gentlemen.
I think one of the important things about SM:TV's legacy
is it kept getting better.
They kept introducing more madness,
kept having more things that I think really played into their humour.
It really felt like their characters came out a lot more as well.
One of the wild things was when they did Challenge Ant.
CHEERING
MUSIC: 'Eye Of The Tiger' by Survivor
Oh, yes! Oh, yes!
Come on!
We were in the pub... Yes. ..and I remember saying to you,
"What about if I took kids on
"and if I beat them, like, I really beat them?"
Ant, you confident? Very confident, yes. Are you sure?
Catherine, you don't stand a chance. DEC LAUGHS
With Challenge Ant, we didn't want it to be one of those shows
where if they lost, they didn't really lose,
cos they took away this. It's like, no,
if they lose, they're gonna lose. That's the rules.
A bit like Wonkey Donkey where, like,
Dec had a go at the kids for being thick.
You know, we didn't ever want to kind of sugar-coat it,
we just wanted to tell them how it really is.
Who has just scored their first goal for my team, West Ham?
CLOCK TICKING Oh, erm...
The young 'un. Er, Joe Cole! TING
Yes! Yes, correct. Come on!
That's 1-0 there, to Ant. AUDIENCE BOOING
Ah, shut up!
There are winners in life and there are losers.
And that was the first lesson that kids learnt on Challenge Ant.
You're gonna take him on? Prepare to lose.
In The Simpsons, what is the name of Bart's schoolyard bully?
CLOCK TICKING Nelson.
TING Come on, yes!
Yes! Yes! AUDIENCE BOOING
I would always be on the kid's side. Always.
Cos also, they do so well, and then you'd get right to the very end,
and they'd say, "Right, do you want to do the killer question?"
And, undoubtedly, everybody in the studio would, like,
cheer them on and go, "Do it! Do it!"
AUDIENCE SHOUTING
I'm going to gamble.
He's gonna gamble! He's going for the killer question!
And so, the kid could lose everything.
Can we have the killer question, please?
DRUMROLL
Liam Gallagher's baby boy was born this week.
What was he called?
CLOCK TICKING Lennon!
TING
AUDIENCE BOOING Yes, yes!
MUSIC: 'Rockin' All Over The World' by Status Quo
Ant genuinely was over the moon that he won.
And the Status Quo dance. "And I like it!", you know.
He relished in it. Come on! Come on!
Ant would get right up in their faces, as well.
Like, if he did that to one of my boys now...
AUDIENCE BOOING
Oh! I like it!
Oh, I'd dance in front of them, yeah.
DEC LAUGHS
I'd stand up, I would dance in front of them, rub it in.
Yeah, well, like I say, it's a life lesson, isn't it?
They've got to learn. They've got to learn.
And also, he had such pleasure in taking the prizes over.
Well, congratulations, Ant.
HE WHISTLES, DEC LAUGHS
Here. AUDIENCE GROANS
Take all those away. Thanks, thanks very much.
And it was great, and it was working really well,
until the producer said,
"There's this new book all the kids are reading.
"You should probably get a copy of it. It's about a wizard boy."
I was like, "No chance, no, I'm not reading that."
What is the name of Harry Potter's worst enemy?
CLOCK TICKING
What? A kid wizard?
Wizard school? Nah, I'm not into that.
Who is playing Hagrid in the film version of Harry Potter?
CLOCK TICKING Erm, erm...
Oh, erm, erm, he's a big bloke...
KLAXON, AUDIENCE CHEERING
Every time it came to the killer question, it was Harry Potter.
I lost, they won all the prizes.
PlayStation, gone. Nearly bankrupted the show.
And Ant thought both of the chapters of Harry Potter that he'd read
would stand him in good stead. LAUGHTER
I always wanted the kids to win in Challenge Ant.
I just wanted to shout, "You're thick!" at the screen.
AUDIENCE CHANTING "YOU'RE THICK"
You are, you're thick! You're thick!
Obviously, the kid, "You're thick! You're thick, you're thick!"
ALL CHANTING: You're thick, you're thick!
You're thick, you're thick you're thick,
you are, you're thick! Yeah, OK.
You're thick! OK.
You're thick! Yeah, OK, OK.
DEC LAUGHS
Let's find out what else is coming up on today's S, H, O...
CAT AND DEC VOCALISE: W!!!
Look at that, Cat The Dog! Look at her, what a dog!
I've been such a naughty little kitty today.
Get out. Get out.
FART NOISE Right, that's it, I'm going home.
LAUGHTER Time for a break.
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to SM:TV Live. I'm Cat Deeley.
My name's Declan Donnelly.
And I'm Ant McPartlin, but, Catherine...
Yes?
Don't you mean the award-winning SM:TV?
CHEERING
At its height, and when it was flying,
it was just the greatest show to work on.
And I think, to watch, as well, as a kid.
ALL: Yay! Woo-hoo!
I definitely remember the distinct switch
in my school from everyone talking about Live & Kicking to,
"Oh, that's old! We've been talking about SM:TV live.
Woo-hoo!
It was fantastic.
That is the joy if you're a producer
or presenter, talent, or a commissioner,
you just want to see those numbers growing.
And they literally grew a point every week,
every week, every week, and that was a good feeling.
There's more where that came from.
The winner of tonight's Lego BAFTA Kids' Vote Award...
And it goes to SM:TV live.
I don't think there's any surprise that the show started to win awards.
To suddenly have something on ITV,
that wasn't well-known for children's programming,
beat the BBC, it was huge.
It became an event, and all of my friends,
no matter what time you got in on a Friday night,
used to set their alarm
for SM:TV.
Hungover or not, they'd be there watching it.
Oh, Prozac!
GIGGLING
We were a hit with students
and kind of young adults and parents,
and we would push things a little.
That was always in the back of our minds
when we were coming up with ideas and working on scripts and stuff,
that there's a bit for everybody.
I nearly forgot. I've got to take all my clothes off.
NERVOUS LAUGH Kylie, Kylie, what are you doing?
You know what I'm talking about.
He said it's English TV law.
All female presenters have to get in the nuddy
and hula hoop at the 10:45 commercial break. So...
Hula hoop for Miss Minogue. Yes, it's right, it's right!
When I watch some of the clips back,
there's the nostalgia, for sure,
and there's a bit of -
wow, you can't do that now.
I've been told off so many times for the slightest innuendo
that I've said on TV or radio,
and I almost think, well, the kids get it. They say these things.
They want to hear these things, and it's funny.
There was one bit where Cat used to do this...
Now I think it was a sex line, the Cat Chat.
PHONE RINGS Oh!
For goodness sakes, Cat. Sorry, sorry. Sorry!
Hi, Cat Chat.
I used to copy it. I used to be, like, "Hello!"
And then now I look back, and I'm like, "Oh, that's what it was."
That's sick. Sick. That's sick.
Sick. Sicko.
It's spoofing a sex chatline. Yeah.
Essentially. On Saturday mornings.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, and you're cool with that, yeah?
Let your kids watch that, would you?
Let your boys watch that now, would you?
What kind of sad weirdo rings a cat's chatline?
This is absolutely ludicrous.
Ah-ha-ha-ha, you are a naughty little kitty, aren't you, eh?
Anything that we did sketch-wise I just learned on the show,
and I learnt from two really brilliant expert entertainers.
New girl starts here today.
She's from a very poor country called Birmingham.
LAUGHTER Birmingham? Huh?
No, I'd never heard of it either.
I want you to welcome - be very nice, now, children - Cat Deeley.
GIGGLING
FART NOISE
Um...
All right?
Ho-ho! What a dog!
We loved working with her.
It was just proper chemistry, on-screen and off-screen.
We got on really well.
She threw herself into everything. She was up for anything.
Wasn't afraid of looking daft or looking silly.
She was like, "Nah, I'm up for anything.
ANT AND DEC LAUGH
I can't talk with them in my mouth. What I saying? I'm from Birmingham.
Yay! Price check, Sandra.
They still fly out. That's... It's impossible to say.
I wasn't even trying!
Price check...
LAUGHTER
CHEERING
..Sandra.
It's... It's impossible to...
I can't. Price check, Sandra.
I can't. Did you try it?
Price ch... Yeah, you can't.
You can't. CAT LAUGHS
I need a man to love and respect me...
..for what I am.
AUDIENCE: Eurgh.
She didn't do that in rehearsals!
You have all these different characters.
Some come, some go, some work, some don't. Some really surprise you.
Some you think, "Oh, this is just a filler"
that was how The Corrs started, The Beautiful Corrs.
That was just a... That was really a throwaway sketch
just about how beautiful The Corrs are.
You know, a lot of people say to us, "Hey, you, you're beautiful."
Beautiful. Beautiful.
And then it developed and developed and developed,
until we actually got the Corrs on.
Do you mind telling us what you think you are doing?
We... Just get out.
Take those silly wigs off and go and think about what you have done.
S... Sorry, Andrea. Sorry.
Sorry, sorry. Sorry, Caroline. Sorry, Sharon.
Sorry, Corrs. AUDIENCE: Aw.
God, that's so offensive. I know. How rude.
But we are incredibly beautiful.
Beautiful. Beautiful.
They were brilliant, and, for me,
that was one of those moments where you turned round and you went,
this is so good.
LAUGHTER AND CHEERING
We got to the point where it was not difficult to book the show,
because everybody wanted to come down.
Ant and Decky, dancey-wancey.
MUSIC: "Louie Louie" by The Three Amigos
Really? Mm-hm.
I'm gonna call you Princey Boots.
No, you don't wanna say that to me. Get off!
Um, flowers. Just for you. Wow.
Nasty, nasty, nasty.
FART NOISE
Follow this route, we'll avoid the asteroids,
here and here.
What do you think?
SM:TV live was, without question, the last...
I'm gonna really put this out there now.
..I think it's the last kids' TV show that will ever happen
that wasn't safe.
What did you do before this madness broke out?
Before those bally paint bags
threatened to ruin our idyllic existence?
Well, I was in ladies' underwear. What?
You worked in a ladies' underwear shop? No.
Splattoon was actually one of my favourites.
I remember the one that you did which was...
There were near-naked lads sweating. Yeah.
So there I was, number two, in this unbearable heat.
I was so hot and sweaty I had to strip to my waist.
Yes, my war paint was literally running off me.
There was men attacking me from all sides.
At one point, I had to fight them off with my bare hands.
Oh! And where is this club, do you say?
Soho. Ah.
Were they in love? No, I think they were...
in love with people that they worked with.
Fourth word.
Snog?
Kiss! Kiss.
I want to kiss.
Fifth word.
Prayer. Ooh!
Prayer. Song. Ooh!
Song. Ooh!
Song.
I always have a rule, which is that you don't...
You never put something there that's just for adults on a kid's show.
Which is tough to pull off, but when it works, it sings.
Hymn!
I want to kiss him!
Is that a book or a film?
Oh. Does it have to be a book or a film? I...
I...
I don't think we're ever gonna have a show for kids
on a Saturday morning as good as SM:TV.
And not just for kids. For everybody.
For adults, grandparents, young kids, old kids.
Everybody loved SM:TV,
and that's the only Saturday morning show that's ever done that.
Here's what's coming up on the rest of the show.
Come on, Yorick. Let's go down the garage for a kebab.
CHEERING
Ooh, ooh.
Freeze-frame, everyone. DRAMATIC MUSIC
Fabulous. Well!
Says who?
Hello, there, and welcome back to SM:TV Live.
Now, here in the studio, we're all very excited, aren't we?
AUDIENCE: Yes!
We certainly are, because it's time for...
We've got a brand-new series for you now.
The Americans have got the sitcom Friends.
Here at SM:TV, we've got our very own sitcom. It's even better.
It's called Chums.
I really loved Chums.
Chums was brilliant, because I loved Friends.
If you were on SM:TV, everybody wanted to be in that sketch,
and if you weren't, you wanted to know why you weren't in it.
I think I'd watch it every week thinking,
Friends are gonna get this shut down. The fact it was on every week.
Oh, they've made it through another week
without the Warner Brothers lawyers coming after them.
Right, so, confession.
So, obviously, I was eight when the show started,
so I watched Chums before I watched Friends.
And, for quite a while, I thought that Friends had copied off Chums.
I actually thought, "They've stole that off Ant, Dec and Cat.
"How dare they?"
Chums was kind of like the jewel in our crown, so to speak.
GASPS It's Tom Jones!
CHEERING
I remember Tom Jones coming on, and he couldn't read the boards.
Do you remember? So we gave him cards instead. With specs on.
He was like, "That's no good to me. I haven't got my glasses!"
Here, have a little drink.
There you are. Let me see. Wait a minute.
Oh, yeah. OK. You're not reading that, are you, Tom?
No, no, it's just... No.
Oh, thanks. Nice glass. It's good, isn't it?
Feel the texture. It's nice, isn't it? Oh, very good.
You know why that is? Why is that?
It's good to touch the green, green glass of home.
He was our first ever real big guest on Chums.
Tom Jones? And then Sting. Then Sting did it.
Isn't it you? Yes, it is.
I know you. You work in the paper shop.
No, I don't work in the paper shop.
It quickly became the highlight of the show.
I used to be in The Police. Oh, right. You look like a copper.
Some of the guests that they got were amazing,
like Kylie Minogue. Lorraine Kelly was always on there.
CHEERING
You keep your hands off the designer jacket, pal, OK?
What?! How's Lorraine on the show?
What's going on right now?
DOORBELL Oh, that'll be our real blind date.
I'll get it. Oh-ho, the plot thickens.
It doesn't really, does it?
The beautiful thing with Chums was the doorbell.
Ring the door. Who's it gonna be?
It's Billie Piper!
CHEERING
Look! It's some blonde bird, everybody.
It's S Club 7! CHEERING
It's a man dressed as Chris Evans!
It's the rest of our five-a-side team.
It's Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, everybody!
The lovely Graham Norton! CHEERING
OK! Woo! Yeah!
I did Chums with Kylie Minogue once. Yeah.
It's Kylie and Claire, everyone! CHEERING
If you were to compare
SM:TV to Hollywood, getting a little part in Chums
was like getting that part in a movie
that's like an Oscar-nominated movie.
What are you thinking on brass handles?
What?
Get out! Get out, the lot of you.
ALL SHOUT
You jerk!
I loved it when Jerry Springer came on. Yes.
Yes! And did Chums, and finished it off
in a Jerry Springer way. Yeah.
Freeze-frame, everyone.
DRAMATIC MUSIC
You know... LAUGHTER
Everybody needs Chums.
Everybody needs love.
Whether it's the topsy-turvy romance between a man and a woman,
like Dec and Cat, or just the unnatural love
between a man and his secret ladies' shoe collection,
until next time,
take care of yourself.
And each other.
CHEERING
It got to the point where we did a Chums Christmas special one year,
and that part of the show got bigger ratings than Friends did,
the show it was the parody of on Channel 4.
Right, I'm just gonna sort this stuff out,
because it's very busy here.
We're gonna get... To get on and sort all this out. We've got this...
Me and Cat, in the flat.
Alone.
The big thing about Chums was the would they, wouldn't they kiss
between Cat and Dec.
Me and Cat, all alone, in the flat.
I feel as though today could be the day.
I've got a chunky burger inside me. I'm gonna kiss her.
KNOCKING I'll get it!
KNOCKING Oh, it's a guest!
DOORBELL For goodness sakes, man!
Just stay here. Leave it.
I've gotta get it. It's in the script.
We'll lie on the floor and turn the lights off. I've gotta get it.
So we never got to kiss until the day of our wedding,
which was our last show.
We always knew that there would be a kiss eventually.
We didn't think it'd take that long to get there.
It's my wedding day.
The biggest day of my life, and I know, in typical Chums style,
everything is gonna go completely wrong.
I'll have a complete nervous breakdown,
unless I get Cat Deeley's ring on my finger.
No, Mark Lamar. No.
I was really sad that Ant and Dec were leaving,
but you could tell everyone was.
Because they were crying on the final episode,
and they pulled out all the stops.
Give it up for the blushing bride, Cat Deeley,
and her maid of honour, Mariah Carey.
CHEERING
WEDDING MARCH PLAYS
They had so many amazing guests on Chums.
To get Mariah Carey -
that's like next level. I remember just going, "What?"
You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
Oh, Declan. I've got all your records, pet.
Declan!
It was unbelievable, and it's still quite unbelievable.
I still can't believe she did it,
that she turned up and became the bridesmaid.
But the thing that is more unbelievable, probably,
is that she rang the production office the week before,
wanting to know what colour the set was,
because she was in Virgin Brides in Manchester,
and she was supplying her own bridesmaid dress for the wedding,
and she wanted to know what colour the walls were,
so that the bridesmaid dress would clash with the walls,
because that would make it funnier.
So the series producer took this phone call
from Mariah Carey and her people in Virgin Brides in Manchester,
and went... Purple?
So she went with lilac satin, which, as far as I'm concerned,
I don't think suits anybody. I don't know.
I've yet to be convinced that that suits anybody.
And she fully went for it, and she fully committed.
And we were standing behind the door,
and I was waiting to go in, and she...
I mean, she did, she dropped to her knees and fluffed up my dress,
and said, "Sweetie, it's your wedding day.
"You've got to look beautiful on your wedding day."
And I was like, "Mariah..."
There's another British tradition,
where the maid of honour gets off with the best man.
I hope you're going to adhere to our merry old wedding customs.
Well, actually, Ant,
I have been studying up on British wedding traditions, and...
Ow! Ooh, ooh.
No, Mariah, the fights happen at the reception.
Oh. Sorry. Close.
We've reached the pinnacle here. It was the perfect way to end it.
So this is it.
After all this time, me and Cat are all alone at the altar.
I feel as though I'm gonna kiss her.
Here goes.
Right, nobody stop them. Nobody stop them. Ant! Shh!
Sorry. Shh, now.
We talked about leaving for a little while, and then ITV came to us
and said, "We've got this new show called Pop Idol."
We knew that the plans were to make this show huge,
and we knew we couldn't do both.
It was gut-wrenching to leave. Yeah.
Because we loved the show, and it was part of our lives.
We'd spent three years on it,
but also, we'd worked on it from the conception of the show
up until the very last day when it was that fantastic show, and then...
Yeah. Even now, I'm like, oh, God.
I hate the thought of us having left.
We definitely formed a relationship on screen,
but we formed a relationship off screen, too, and so it was...
It was definitely a sad moment, because it was like,
"Oh, I'm not gonna see my mates every week."
When you think about us being on top of mission control
with no content in the show, no guests,
just the three of us talking rubbish.
No audience. Isn't that kind of like this?
Oh, yeah. It felt a bit like this. Have we come full circle?
Strange thing.
And then, where it got to, with that star-studded wedding on Chums,
just how far it had come in those three years.
You could never have imagined it would turn into
what it turned into, though. No. Never.
There was nothing on the TV that was like that, I don't think.
Yeah, I agree, and you don't see it any more, which is a real shame.
No. You miss it.
Yeah, definitely. I miss it. I do.
Yeah. No, she had to think about it.
No! We miss it, she doesn't.
She's gone to America. Not so much.
She lives in California now. She doesn't miss it.
# Nobody said it was easy... # CHEERING
What made that era of SM:TV Live so special? Simple.
Ant, Dec and Catherine Noddy Slade Deeley.
Come here.
Even though you've never met them, as a kid,
you felt like you were part of their group, and then it was like,
"Whose group am I going to be part of now when I watch Saturday TV?"
So it was really sad when they left.
It just felt like the end of an era.
Even though we were young watching it,
and you don't really know how these things work,
you could really tell this was a big moment.
And it was, because I've not forgotten it.
We just gonna miss this place so much. I'm not gonna cry, yet.
He is. Keep him going, keep him going. He'll do it!
What if I do a Pop Idol-style hug? Aw!
I followed them on Saturday mornings,
but it wasn't as good as SM:TV. It wasn't.
We tried, but the reality is, you will never...
This is a fact.
..you will never get another Saturday morning kids TV show
as good as SM:TV.
SCREAMING: Oh, Brian!
I think it would be fair to say
that SM:TV is the best Saturday morning kid's TV show ever made.
Oh, yes! Yes!
At one of the parties, one of the execs got them to stop all the music
and got everyone to gather round.
He said, "Most of you don't realise this, but this isn't normal.
"Take a moment, look around,
"remember this."
It was quite a moving moment.
Do us a favour, Chris. Pan around, and take a bow, everybody.
Everybody, back here, have made the best...
Everyone loved being there on a Saturday morning.
There wouldn't be one single one of us that didn't say
it was the best time of our lives.
It was funny, it was enjoyable, it was a car crash sometimes,
and for those reasons and more, we can't forget it.
For three years, it was phenomenal.
Well, apart from the first six months.
It's got to rhyme!
Well.
We became the presenters we are today because of that show.
Nigel was right.
We learnt how to do it, and there's no better breeding ground
than Saturday morning television.
Ant, I love you, Ant. I love you, Dec!
I think what we were all aiming to do with SM:TV
is become the friends to the people watching at home.
It was that thing where no matter what was happening in their lives,
your mates were coming to hang out with you.
Right, well. That's it then. Yeah, that's it.
We are out of here.
By the end of it,
it was the show that we wanted to make at the very beginning.
We just didn't know how to,
and it took us a while to warm up and get there.
And know the audience.
But once we got there,
it was an anarchic, fun Saturday morning show for kids and adults
that everybody could enjoy.
It's everything we wanted it to be.
Come on, guys.
We're out of here. Bye-bye!
SCATTERED APPLAUSE
CHEERING
ECHOING: Hello, good morning, and welcome to SM:TV Live!
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