MOMENTS TO TAKEAWAY
As Ant and Dec reach 100 episodes of their Saturday Night Takeaway, RHIAN LUBIN looks back at some of their best bits
THEY have brightened up Saturday night telly for more than 10 years, pulling wacky stunts, fooling celebrities and humiliating their audience members.
Tonight will be Ant & Dec’s 100th Saturday Night Takeaway and, with 7.6 million watching the start of a new series last week, viewers are clearly still hungry for more.
From taking 200 lucky people to Universal Studios in Orlando last year to pranking stars including Gordon Ramsay, One Direction and Cheryl, Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, both 42, know the recipe for a good night in.
Here the Geordie pair pick some of their favourite moments from the 99 episodes so far...
LOUIS WALSH – GET OUT OF ME EAR
ANT revealed his favourite Get Out of me Ears – where the duo feed celebrities hilarious lines through an earpiece – was with Louis Walsh in 2014.
In it, Louis is at home waiting for a decorator. Ant and Dec get the X Factor judge to greet the decorator, saying: “Congratulations, you’ve made it through to judges’ houses!”
Next they tell him to put on a crown and say: “I am the King of pop, so I am going to put this crown on.”
Louis then has to pretend to talk to Dannii Minogue – via a banana.
Ant says: “We didn’t know if the idea was going to work but we laughed so much.
“That’s still my favourite. Louis talking to Dannii on his banana phone. Brilliant.”
UNDERCOVER ON JEREMY KYLE
ONE memorable Undercover was fooling Mr No-nonsense himself, Jeremy Kyle.
Dec was in a 2014 segment entitled: “My husband’s weird plastic surgery is driving me away!” on Kyle’s US show – and was pretending to be a man who had plastic surgery to look like his dead cat.
Dec says: “It was definitely the most nerve-racking, appearing on Jeremy Kyle as a contributor. I had to be American as well and get the accent right. Just being grilled by Kyle is nerve-racking anyway. I have sympathy for his real guests.”
On the show, Janine confronts her husband Mike – Dec in disguise – until Ant comes on dressed as a health and safety inspector with a giant net. Kyle shouts: “This cat is a man, it’s not a real cat.”
When he is finally told he has been pranked, the chat show host throws a chair across the stage, humiliated.
RICHARD MADELEY – GET OUT OF ME EAR
THE duo were in fits of giggles when they made presenter Richard Madeley interview photographers for a fake celebrity calendar that would feature him. Both took great pleasure in instructing him through an earpiece during the 2014 skit.
Dec says it’s one of his favourite ever Get Out of Me Ears.
“We made him take a shine to a photographer’s shoes and try them on, then dip his toe into the swimming pool to see how warm it was, still wearing the shoes. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in my entire life. He is a genius.”
Ant made him say to the photographer: “I am Richard Madeley, congratulations! I’m doing a calendar. I am prepared to do topless. No really, I am.
“Would bottomless sell?”
UNDERCOVER ON AMERICAN IDOL
THE Undercover skits have tricked some of the biggest names in showbusiness and Ant’s favourite is when they fooled their Britain’s Got Talent boss Simon Cowell in 2014.
The pair donned bandanas, sunglasses and badly-groomed beards and had a go at auditioning for American Idol where Cowell was on the judging panel.
They pretended to be brothers and performed Paula Abdul’s Opposites Attract to the confused judges.
Ant says: “Top one has got to be our Undercover on Simon Cowell. It was the first one we did. We flew to LA and auditioned for American Idol, which was really nerve-racking.
“Also the prosthetic make-up didn’t turn up, so we had to do dodgy beards and stick-on earrings – but it worked.”
ROBBIE WILLIAMS DOING SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
VIEWERS might recall Ant and Dec recreating Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble in March 2013, but their favourite End of the Show Show was when they doused Robbie Williams in of water as he sang Singin’ In The Rain a month earlier.
Dec says: “We phoned Rob and he said ‘Yes, that’s one of my favourite ever musicals’. Ant adds: “We rehearsed and rehearsed. It was brilliant, exactly how you wanted.”
Dec says: “We slammed him in
the face with a bucket of water each at the end and I was like, ‘This works’. I’ll remember that so fondly.”
ABSEILING DOWN ITV IN ANT VERSUS DEC
ANT versus Dec has pushed the pair – and their friendship – to the limit and they’ve had to do some terrifying stunts. Dec says: “We’ve done scary stuff: abseiling the building, zip-lining. I broke my arm on a motorbike stunt. I don’t really like the scary stuff, Ant’s much better at those ones than me.” Though heights scare him, abseiling down ITV studios in 2013 was a highlight. He says: “You got to peer into windows and it was really interesting. I remember thinking how messy some people’s desks were!”
WHO SHOT SIMON COWELL?
THE duo had viewers gripped in 2016 with their weekly skits including Who Shot Simon Cowell? – where the music mogul is found dead at his own birthday party – and The Missing Crown Jewels, starring Joanna Lumley. The pair were inspired by other entertainment legends.
Ant says: “We are big fans of The Two Ronnies and they used to do a weekly serial.
“I remember fondly The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town.
“We wanted to do something like that. We chatted to the team about doing a whodunit and the idea of shooting someone was brought up, and who better for that than Simon Cowell?”
Dec says: “We took inspiration from Who Shot JR? and thought, who’s the most JR-like person around? We phoned Simon and told him about it and he asked if he’d get to be in it.
“We said, ‘Yes, and best of all, the whole thing is about you’, so he said, ‘I love it, it’s a great idea, I’m in’.”
RIVERDANCE FINALE
ONE of the most difficult routines they had to master for the End of the Show Shows was Riverdance in 2013 – and they only got it at the very last minute.
Ant says: “Riverdance was the hardest one to learn. It never went right until we went live.
“One of us put a step wrong every single time we rehearsed it. But thankfully when we went live, it all went well.”
Dec recalls: “We ended up taking those guys on tour when we took Takeaway around the country and we did Riverdance every night, so that’s one we’ll always remember fondly