Ant & Dec Push the Self Destruct Button on Their Careers

Last week I watched 'Ant & Dec's Push the Button' late at night while suffering from lack of sleep, and even in this state I could tell how utterly awful the show was. It is a show which is on Saturday Nights for next six weeks I believe, fronted obviously by Ant & Dec. From what I gathered, the general gist of the show is for two families to go head-to-head against each other to win some money; nothing really unusual there. However, the twist is that both families start on £100,000 and the longer they take to complete a task or the worst they do at the task, the more the money counts down. The money they have at the end, they try to win. The losers? Well they get salt and pepper shakers. The reason for it being called 'Push The Button' is because each task is ended by pressing a giant button.

The thing with Ant & Dec is that they are brilliant presenters. The chemistry they have with the audience and the nation, as well as with each other, is what makes them so good at presenting shows like 'I'm A Celebrity...' and 'Saturday Night Takeaway'. The problem is, they are too good. This new show of theirs is as bad as the show they done for Boxing Day last year. They are good at presenting the unusual shows, but when it comes to them actually hosting another knock-off show, they are just crap. I honestly used to love Ant & Dec, but now they just seem like a fantastic version of 'Jedward' - and that is no compliment!
The show to me seemed like a very bad format of Family Fortunes; and infact every other game show that has ever been on television. Two families competing against each other; it is not exactly an original format is it? The show seems to have average, normal day people from housing estates, who all either have bad hair, bad teeth or bad acne. In one case, one contestant had all three – the poor boy. The families however, are introduced in a montage of clips of Ant & Dec going to their houses and workplaces to tell them that they have been selected. This was not a good move in my opinion. The introductions were horrific and very mad. It is what I would imagine Jeremy Kyle to be like if happy gas was being pumped into the studio. Not a good combination.

The tasks themselves were totally stupid as well. I actually could not believe how awful and plain stupid each game was. One of the tasks had a giant Simon Cowell head, which came forward onto the stage in a fashion which was reminiscent of someone coming through the glittery doors of 'Stars In Their Eyes'. The idea of this game was to count how many teeth appeared in the giant head, and there were three rounds. Essentially, they may as well have sung '10 Green Bottles Sitting On A Wall...' This I thought to be not only boring, but idiotic, pointless and overall, yet another stupid task. 'Why a giant Simon Cowell head?' someone must have asked during the production, and I hope they had a bloody good reason for it. If humour was the reason, then they failed dramatically. This wasn't the only stupid task though; other ones consisted of putting shapes through corresponding holes, giant cake building and Yodelling.
Another annoying factor which I think helps to prove how bad the show was, is that Peter Dickson did not do the voice over. We now live in an age where if Peter Dickson is doing the voice over for a show, it must be good! Clearly he was either too expensive or he refused to be associated with this show, as his voice was nowhere to be heard. Instead the voice of Ronnie Corbett did the job instead. I am a fan of him, I think he is a good example of classic comedy from the days when it was funny, but I don't think this was really the right gig for him to put his name to. You almost felt sorry for him when you heard his voice being forced to read the script.

Then along came the Americanism. Something which is rather popular with American shows is that they do mini-sketches half way through a show. Unfortunately, this show also consisted of one performed by the duo. It wasn't even original; this is something that wasn't even that original when a similar thing happened in Mr Bean. It was a sketch in a Dentist's room with Dec playing the naive character and acting like a complete idiot for 'laughs'. It actually was not very unfunny. You couldn't even call it 'So Bad It Was Good'. It was that bad. Clearly, ITV have yet again lowered their comedy standards to BBC 3, to the level of shows such as 'Coming of Age': making very bad, stupid jokes which are more embarrassing than they are funny.

I find this a big shame as I was prepared to like the show. After hearing that this show could potentially be a permanent replacement for 'Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway', I wanted it to be good and worthy of taking over the Saturday Night Primetime reigns. Unfortunately, it was not, and I hope that ITV do not keep this as a replacement, and in fact bring back 'Saturday Night Takeaway'. The reason why that show worked and this didn't purely is because it was THEM competing. It was different to all these shows in which members of the public compete against each other. We liked the format of them competing. Also, the fact that it was the 'Only show on telly in which you could win the contents of the Ads' was brilliant. Three cars, a grand in the bank, and new television and toilet cleaner, this is what everyone dreamed of winning.

There is also a reason why they are good at hosting 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here' but absolutely rubbish at hosting their own show 'Ant & Dec's Christmas Show'. They are brilliant at hosting the former, purely because they are not the main feature of the show. When it comes to them being the main structure of the show, it begins to collapse. They are possibly the best presenters in modern television at hosting other people’s ideas, but when it comes to hosting their own ideas, they are as good as rubbish.

Now, I want to plea with Ant & Dec's agent to not let them make yet another mistake by putting their name to another awful show. I don't think they would be able to survive another piece of crap. They have come a long way from the days of acting in Grange Hill and presenting SM:TV Live with Cat Deeley, do not let them digress to such awful pieces of television again. Thank you.