Slap Bang

Revision as of 12:35, 1 November 2011

Host

Broadcast

Blaze Productions/Zenith for ITV, 12 May to 16 June 2001 (6 episodes in 1 series)

Synopsis

The missing link between their famous Saturday morning show SMTV:Live and their current ruler of Saturday night television Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. This in feel has more in common with the former than the latter.

It didn't really light up the schedules in the way they currently do (in fact, for many it was a bit of a disappointment in comparison to their Saturday morning work) but that's not to say it wasn't without its moments such as gently ripping the urine from ITV's lamentable Formula One coverage.

In F6½, the contestants were in pedal go karts and were all around six-and-a-half years old. Dec played Grim Rosenthal and Ant played a different variation on Murray Walker every week: Murray Babywalker, Murray Sleepwalker, Murray Skywalker (complete with lightsabre), Murray Tightropewalker, Murray Speedwalker ("And look at me go!") etc. The four 'drivers' were called Michael Pre-school-macher, Teddy Irvine, Johnny Sherbet and Jenson Chocolate Button. They all got to go to the British Grand Prix and meet their real-life counterparts, while Ant & Dec were guests on ITV's coverage, where Jim Rosenthal had a go at them about the Grim Rosenthal character ("I'm deeply upset. You got my hairstyle wrong!")

Other games included Loose Change Lottery, in which everyone in the audience as they walked into the studio had to empty their pockets of loose change and put in in one great big bucket, and then they were each assigned a number. At the end of the show whoever had the number picked out of the hat won the lot. And also Cher and Cher Alike, where one person was plucked out of the audience and asked to identify which of three hairstyles on the big screen was sported by Cher at some point during her career. After five out of the series' six episodes, they ran out of hair styles but, rather than make up a new game, they simply re-titled it The Which Blair? Project, and asked the contestant to guess which hairstyle belonged to a young Tony Blair.

And Challenge Ant always went down well, especially as it was now played by the elderly instead of kids.

Trivia

The show was called Slap Bang because it was on "slap bang in the middle of your weekend".

Feedback

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 == Host ==
-[[Ant McPartlin]] and [[Declan Donnelly]]
+[[Ant McPartlin|Ant]] & [[Declan Donnelly|Dec]]
 == Broadcast ==
-Blaze Productions/Zenith for ITV1, 2001
+Blaze Productions/Zenith for ITV, 12 May to 16 June 2001 (6 episodes in 1 series)
 </div>
@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 == Synopsis ==
-The missing link between their famous Saturday morning show SMTV:Live and their current ruler of Saturday night television Ant and Dec's [[Saturday Night Takeaway]]. This in feel has more in common with the former than the latter.
+The missing link between their famous Saturday morning show SMTV:Live and their current ruler of Saturday night television Ant & Dec's [[Saturday Night Takeaway]]. This in feel has more in common with the former than the latter.
 It didn't really light up the schedules in the way they currently do (in fact, for many it was a bit of a disappointment in comparison to their Saturday morning work) but that's not to say it wasn't without its moments such as gently ripping the urine from ITV's lamentable Formula One coverage.
@@ Line 31: / Line 31: @@
 [[Category:Family Game]]
 [[Category:Flops]]
+<!--- Putting here for reference
+SLAP BANG
+ITV, 2001
+THE CONCEPT: At a time when it looks like it's all going wrong for Ant and Dec, let's cheer them up a bit by remembering that they've come through bigger adversity before now. Slap Bang wasn't the pair's first venture into prime time telly, as they'd previously hosted Friends Like These, but this was the first that traded so heavily on their personalities. The format was basically SMTV only on a Saturday night, and they took six weeks off Saturday mornings in May and June 2001 to do it.
+THE HYPE: Everyone knew that Ant and Dec were the new Morecambe and Wise, with SMTV being watched and enjoyed by everyone to six to ninety-six. It was the new Tiswas and everything, like all the other ones were. Both the Beeb and ITV were offering them golden handcuffs deals, and they decided to opt for the light channel, where they were going to bring all the fun and excitement from Saturday morning onto teatimes, with regular favourites like Challenge Ant and Chums brought across. The plan was for this to be a series that could run for six months of the year, replacing the ailing Blind Date, and pull the audiences in for the newly acquired Premiership highlights.
+THE FIRST SHOW: Helen Mirren was the big star guest on show one, joining the pair in one of their daft sketches, where Dec tried to interview her while Ant pissed around. As promised, Challenge Ant came along with them, this time with old people as contestants, while silly flat-set sitcom Chums became silly pub-set sitcom Beers.
+There were also lots of games with the studio audience and a climax where loads of people – like fifty chefs or something – would all come on stage to dance about.
+THE FIRST CRACKS: Sadly the first show coincided with the hottest day of the year and didn't do all that well in the ratings. Still, hopes were high for show two, only for it to be an even bigger flop –  not helped by the fact it was exactly the same, with the boys playing the exact same games and doing the exact same jokes. Worse still, compared to SMTV, it all fell a bit flat. It didn't help that it was an hour, instead of SMTV's two hours, so Challenge Ant was darted through in two minutes, while Beers seemed a bit hopeless, because while on Chums the crap puns and obvious gags were all just messing around, here there was an actual studio audience laughing at the jokes, as if it was proper comedy. Even the proper sketches with Ant and Dec were pointless because it was all sub-Eric and Ern stuff that could have been written for every double act ever. Oh, and that sodding loud-mouthed audience from Saturday Night Takeaway were still about, screaming and shouting at nothing in particular.
+THE RESCHEDULING: Three weeks in the show was shifted from seven o'clock to half six, just coincidentally of course opposite a new series of Friends Like These, now under the auspices of Ian Wright.
+Embarrassingly, though, Friends Like These managed to thrash it in the ratings, and so it was shunted again, ending up at the hallowed hour of half past five, before even a repeat of Catchphrase. You can't have a party at teatime.
+THE END: After six boring shows, Slap Bang came to an end. The last show featured a guest appearance by Robbie Williams performing live, the only time the promised live music actually appeared, but at half five nobody gave a toss, and the pair sheepishly slunk back to Saturday mornings. Although if they'd waited about three weeks it would probably have been shoved to the morning anyway.
+THE POST-MORTEM: The basic problem with Slap Bang was that, in the end, nothing much happened. Very much like OTT, once you'd got over the novelty of a kids show in primetime, you had to keep the innovation going, and just playing some daft games with the audience wasn't going to keep the nation spellbound. Also, while SMTV was a big hit by Saturday morning standards, the ratings were tiny in comparison to prime time, so loads of viewers weren't that bothered about Challenge Ant.
+THE AFTERMATH: Ant and Dec carried on with SMTV for another six months or so, and managed to find a prime time hit with Pop Idol.
+But great though that show was, they were after a vehicle that was all about them, and eventually came up with Saturday Night Takeaway, which kept the games, sketches and – grr – the screaming audience from Slap Bang but wrapped it all in a proper quiz with proper prizes that meant there was at last a point to the thing, even if it was instantly the most boring item in the whole show. Ratings went up and eventually it became a really big hit.
+THE VERDICT: Everyone's forgotten about Slap Bang now – and SMTV, come to that – but it was a huge embarrassment at the time because Ant and Dec were supposed to be the stars of the future. Perhaps if they'd brought Wonkey Donkey or Dec Says with them it would have been a bit better. At least it didn't have the Jiggy Bank on it, though.
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