CiTV Presentation

Dont forgot this help post: http://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/post959164#post-959164

Mashed was the one with the monkey, yes:

I think this may be the last ever show they did as well.

Tyne Tees' last Saturday production as well, being pretty much veterans of Saturday mornings for the previous decade being responsible for Ghost Train and Gimme 5 as well as co-ordinating Get Fresh (which was produced by whatever region it was in that week).

You really wouldn't have enjoyed it, it was bloody awful. However, I did record it every week (while watching Live and Kicking), but mostly because a) I'd just got a video recorder in my bedroom so I was recording loads of stuff for the sake of it and b) I'd just bought a book about Warner Bros cartoons so I was watching a lot of them, and they showed lots of Warner Bros cartoons on it. One thing I do remember was that after about a month, they had a massive revamp, introducing a whooping crew and making it a bit more informal, and the "storyline" about it being an actual studio where everything was made went for a burton, and it all became rather more generic. Beforehand they even used to pretend they'd "made" the cartoons. But there were no interesting behind the scenes bits, it was either a kids show telling you how they made the gunge or a electronic press kit from a film.



Yeah, I vividly remember that, I have no idea what happened there. It was also the morning after the Canary Wharf bomb and GMTV had replaced most of its kids shows with news, so Live and Kicking's competition that morning was news, Telegantic Megavision and SeaQuest DSV which must be the most pathetic ITV line-up ever. As mentioned, it was initially an hour but from mid-February was cut to half an hour with repeats of Spatz in their place.

The two shows were totally incompatible, it was too jarring a jump between the two, and there was no link between the two either, Telegantic Megavision didn't say It's Not Just Saturday was on next and the regular ITV announcers linked them all. Whereas, when Wow and The Noise were paired up in the autumn, they used to link up with Andi Peters on Wow to say what was coming up next (I remember one week where Simeon Courtie poked fun at how long Peters had gone on for - "I thought you'd already started your show!"). It's Not Just Saturday was never going to work, though, teenagers were happy enough watching Live and Kicking who had all the big teen-terrific raves anyway.

But Wow was really good, I used to record that every week too (because losing the cartoons you could watch it in about an hour). Funnily enough that was a Media Merchants production as well, but a hundred times better. I thought Courtie and Aldred were a good team, I think Courtie is a great presenter, and it was all very informal and amusing. I've mentioned this before but on the second show there was a power cut at Maidstone so they had to do the first hour in the car park, and it was pretty shambolic but hugely entertaining. They were able to show all the cartoons and videos, presumably they just couldn't light the studio. Courtie was great that day, he was clearly in his element, and it was brilliant fun. I remember him welcoming everyone turning over from the BBC because the cricket had just started. They were back inside by the end of the show, though.*

Of course, as the Broom Cupboard website points out, Simeon Courtie went up for both Live and Kicking and Wow that summer, and only decided to go to Wow when he was told Rick Adams was definitely going to do Live and Kicking so he wouldn't get it. And the second he left, he found out Rick Adams now wasn't going to do it.

* I never watched What's Up Doc but I do remember in Look In at the time they had a feature at the end of one series with Andy Crane talking about the highlights, and he talked about one episode they had to do outside Maidstone Studios because Finders Keepers was in the usual studio that day - though I wonder how much truth there is behind that, it was the same company booking them - and it turned out to be the coldest day of the year and everyone almost got hypothermia.

I remember one day with Whats up Doc ( I remember always watching that, I can even remember TVAM jingle - CITV 89 jingle and then WUD") There was a massive power cuts and there had to do everything from the car park.

IF you look over some of the other TVS Saturday morning shows Whats up doc is complete departure, I do actually think STV had its fingers in the pie and were the ones connect to WB. Sandy Ross knows alot people.

Back in the days of CITV at Gas street. I lived in nearby Smethwick at the time and one night I went with my parents to watch a talent night at a nearby social club. They'd only gone and booked Stephen Mulhern and Tom Darvill to be the judges! Seeing as I was a regular CITV viewer at that point, I was a little bit starstruck...I remember speaking to Stephen and he performed a magic trick for me and gave me his autograph on a beermat! Which I still have. Didn't speak to Tom as he was fairly new to CITV at this point but according to my mother, he got very drunk as the night went on!

Two years later, I was on holiday in Minehead and visited a magic shop which was run by Stephen's dad! Talk about small world...

Does anyone remember that for the second and final series of 'Mad for it'. All 4 CITV presenters at the time (Stephen, Danielle, Andrea, Tom) were gunged at various points in the series?

It's also worth noting that, Tom appeared in an episode of Sooty around 2001 before disappearing for about a decade and then of course popping up in Doctor Who and Andrea was in 'Doctors' for a good while.

Speaking of Scratchy and Co...does anyone remember the opening titles to the final series...if I remember right, it was a reversed video where Scratchy and Reg chucked paint at a wall (So it looked as if it was magically flying off and back in to the buckets) slowly revealing the Scratchy and co titles. Sadly no footage of that has surfaced yet...

I've often wondered about this sequence of events, they must have all happened very quickly. According to Simeon, Rick & Zoe were in the frame for L&K series 4, but then R&Z didn't work well together on the trial show, so Rick was out of the frame and ended up on The Big Breakfast's relaunch instead. Yet wasn't Zoe supposed to be staying on for the autumn 1996 relaunch of The Big Breakfast and made a fairly late decision to jump ship as she wasn't enjoying it, leading to Sharon Davies being drafted in? Which logically must have happened before the trial show. So The Big Breakfast lost Zoe and gained Rick, no wonder the show itself was a bit of a mess when it relaunched.

I'm not sure Simeon would have got it had he hung around anyway, althugh having said that Steve Wilson was at a similar point in his career when he got Jamie's job three years later. I like SC's style a lot more now I'm older, he came across as a little smug when I was in the target audience. Certainly I didn't see him again for yonks after WOW was axed, although from that interview it sounds like he was bored with CBBC anyway.

Probably one of the first ever times he got drunk since you mention it was in his early days at CiTV- he was only 18ish then!

I think Danielle was in a episode of Sooty as well around that point too. Danielle was gunged in Mad For It as you mentioned, but I'm sure she was the host as well in the second series.

Don't remember those titles at all. Then again about that time I was only watching L&K.

Andrea was in It's Not Fair for it's only series almost 2 years before she joined CiTV- having a gameshow on Saturday Mornings is quite possibly the worst idea ever!

That certainly happened to Wow!, did it WUD also have the same issue?

http://www.paulmorris.co.uk/satkids/wow.htm

im sure of it I even remember Pat sitting in strange bright office reading stuff out.

Yep, Double Dare, Run the Risk, Mousetrap, all terrible ideas.

Double Dare was my favourite! All time best! The questions, the physical challenges, the obstacle course and of course Peter Simon and the gunge! Classic!