Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway

Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway is a television programme shown in the UK on Saturday evenings. It is presented by Ant and Dec.

Related Topics:
Television - UK - Ant and Dec

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On September 10 2005, ITV had a programme listing the best 50 shows in ITV's 50 years being on air. Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway came 2nd, being beaten by Coronation Street.

Related Topics:
September 10 - 2005 - ITV - Coronation Street

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The rest of the show includes items such as:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• 'Jim Didn't Fix It' in which audience members who had written to Jim'll Fix It in their youth, but never been lucky enough to fulfil their dreams, and having those dreams realised at last, 20+ years later.
• An item where Ant and Dec are presented with a challenge known as What's Next?, of which they have no prior knowledge, which is often embarrassing, but usually funny.
• 'Undercover', where Ant and 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.
• "Little Ant and Dec": a pair of small child "lookalikes" to whom Ant and 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. Such victims include Kevin Costner and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
• 'Ant v Dec', featured in the last series, in which they are given a week to learn a certain task and perform it live the next week. Challenges have 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, Dec's dummy in the ventriloquism challenge came with it's own sling. The winner of the challenge earnt 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 shootout competition, to become overall winner. As a forefeit, Ant had to perform a bushtucker 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".