100 Takeaways, so many
ANT AND DEC REVEAL THEIR FAVOURITE MOMENTS FROM DECADE
Content Editor GEORDIE duo Ant and Dec have brightened up Saturday night telly for more than 10 years, pulling wacky stunts, pranking celebrities and humiliating their audience members.
The weekend marked Ant and Dec’s 100th Saturday Night Takeaway and with 7.6 million watching the start of the new series last week, viewers are clearly still hungry for more.
From taking 200 lucky people to Universal Studios in Orlando to pranking stars including Gordon Ramsay, One Direction and Cheryl Tweedy, 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 so far... Ant revealed his favourite Get Out of Me Ear – 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 Louis 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.”
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-wracking, 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-wracking 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. Jeremy 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. Ant McPartlin
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 recalls: “One of my favourite ever Get Out of Me Ears was Richard Madeley, when he had photographers coming around to his house to talk about doing a calendar.
“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?” The duo had viewers gripped in 2016 with their weekly skits 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 inspired by entertainment Ant says: “We were a big fan 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 we 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.’” were other legends. One of the most difficult routines they ever had to master for the End of