The Big Breakfast

I'm pretty sure I've seen it said by Ant and Dec that without their stint on The Big Breakfast they wouldn't have got SM:TV Live - and then you question whether everything that followed would have happened.

They did quite a bit over a few years - guesting on Down Your Doorstep I think was their first BB presenting gig pre-96 revamp, then they did a couple of weeks with Denise in 1997 and returned in 1998 to host The Bigger Breakfast over Easter I think, presumably with Mel.

I saw a .citv programme which claimed it was their start on "gimmie 5" which they did for free kick started them for tv hosting and got them smtv

Their first presenting gig on The Big Breakfast marked the first time that professional comedy writers were used on the show.

Watching the Ant & Dec clips is noticed similarities to Ant & Dec unzipped and early SMTV, I wonder if Dean Wilkinson wrote for the programme.

He did, and he was the first comedy writer on the show (the first of what would become many).

I think the only times Mark and Chris were both in the house at the same time were due to Chris not turning up for a show one Wednesday morning - Mark was drafted in at the last minute and ended up doing The Crunch pre-records for broadcast over the following 2 weeks. Thus he was also in the house just to "do" The Crunch (even though, in reality, it had already been done), with Chris presenting the rest of the show. It's referenced at the end of this clip, plus at the start, it's referenced that this is Mark's first Crunch.

For the Christmas pre-records, it was slightly different for the whole show between 8am and 10am. I think this is because it was being generated live by Channel 4 continuity, rather than by the show itself. (The show obviously couldn't provide a clock live as nobody was there to do it.)

I have a Chrismas pre-record from 2000 where Johnny says "Here's Gemma Woodman with the news and weather" and we cut to Jasmine Lowson who says the correct date and everything.

Could this be the first ever Bigger Breakfast from May 1997? I seem to recall they'd set up the presenter chairs on a beach and were playing Sunny Side Up at the time. (I don't think they used the presenter chairs after that - Richard and Denise always seemed to be sat behind a long rectangular table subsequently, with the pink sofas also used for interviews.)

Dean Wilkinson's website states:

That's wrong, then. It didn't happen until the May.

Well, 26th to 30th May is the Saturday till the Wednesday, so maybe it started on Monday 28th April. Seems odd he would have made a mistake as his 'TV & Radio Work' section is very detailed and precise as if taken from a diary.