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SW
Steve Williams
From 1996, Wow, CITV's short lived answer to Live and Kicking. The Maidstone Studios suffer a power cut half an hour before the programme is due on air. Luckily it's a nice sunny day outside


YEEESS, delighted this is on YouTube, remember watching this vividly and thought it was brilliant. It just illustrates what a top presenter Simeon Courtie was, he really is fantastic in this, very quick-witted and likeable, and the whole show is great fun given it must have been a right seat-of-the-pants affair. There's a great bit when Simeon welcomes everyone who's just switched over because the cricket's started on the Beeb, which is a nice bit of fourth wall breaking.

A good series, Wow, and as it went on it became increasingly irreverent and anarchic, it became a bit Tiswas-esque and could be very amusing. I thought Simeon and Sophie were a great team. Though as mentioned, it was apparently doomed from the start when they decided it was too expensive and there wouldn't be another series.
DE88 and Steve in Pudsey gave kudos
WH
Whataday Founding member
Interesting to see (briefly) clips of what The Noise looked like too.

Yes, I suspect Andi Peters was cursing his luck that it was Simeon who was getting to prat about and wing it - he'd have been in his element


Didn't Andi Peters join LWT in some sort of executive role though? Head of Music or something.
SW
Steve Williams
Didn't Andi Peters join LWT in some sort of executive role though? Head of Music or something.


Yes, as well as presenting The Noise he was also producing it, I think he was hired as Executive Producer, Pop Music or something. He'd already been producing and directing episodes of The O Zone at the Beeb so it was a proper job, not some kind of vanity title. He produced a couple of other shows as well, including An Audience With The Spice Girls and Gladiators Train 2 Win, and after The Noise was axed as a regular series it continued as specials for another year or so.

The oddest thing about The Noise is that it was on before The Chart Show, which seemed to do more or less the same thing and rendered The Noise somewhat redundant. When they commissioned CDUK they did at least have the sense to axe The Chart Show.

Anyway, I don't want to claim credit for this but I did alert Simeon Courtie to its presence on Twitter...



Steve in Pudsey and DE88 gave kudos
LL
Larry the Loafer
Didn't The Noise differ from The Chart Show in that it was live performances rather than music videos?
SW
Steve Williams
Didn't The Noise differ from The Chart Show in that it was live performances rather than music videos?


Well, yes, but it was still pop music on the telly. And there was also lots of pop on Wow.
WH
Whataday Founding member
I seem to remember The Noise was like The O Zone but with live performances too. A bit like Popworld I guess.
JA
james-2001
In that Wow video you can see a teenage Kellie Bright- now playing Linda in EastEnders.
WH
Whataday Founding member
She'll always be the daughter from The Upper Hand to me.

Thought Wow was bland as anything at the time - haven't really changed my view now. It probably didn't help that they were up against the new and ultra trendy presenting duo of Zoe Ball & Jamie Theakston on Live & Kicking.

Still, kudos to them for the powercut thing.
VM
VMPhil
I remember catching bits of MoM and I think that was when I started to lose interest in Saturday morning shows - as did television by the looks of things. Now I'd love to find something other than cooking shows or BBC One's daytime weekday offerings when I turn on the TV on a Saturday morning.

MoM was okay but it was a bit of step back after five years of SMTV (well, except the bad first year nobody watched)
JA
james-2001
Hey, I watched the first year of SM:TV and quite enjoyed it!

MoM wasn't great when it began either, it was clearly pitched too young considering the audience of other Saturday morning shows, and I've always had the feeling the initial idea was to give it an "edutainment" approach, which isn't what kids wanted on a Saturday morning after a week of school. It improved when they revamped it a few months in though.
:-(
A former member
Same went for holly and Stephen Saturday showdown. First esp was a load of Crap but 6 months later by the time it was axed it alot better .
LL
Larry the Loafer
From what little I've seen of SMTV's original attempts, it was held back IMO by the lack of an audience and the fact that Ant and Dec didn't seem to be having a whole load of fun. Once the audience injected helped to boost the atmosphere, and in turn led to numerous games and sketches that gave the show a lot more energy, that's how it cemented itself as arguably the most fondly remembered Saturday morning show.

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