The Big Breakfast

The hall wasn't revamped by the time Kelly arrived,

This clip show Johnny and Kelly in the original 97 hall and Johnny mentions in the below clip that she's been there 6 weeks already.



Also isn't that the gunge tank from Noel's House Party?

However going by this clip from April 99, it was updated some time after.

Only took us 19 years to notice.

Yes it is, and in fact I think it was referred to at some point during that show, as the House Party had been axed that week.

The hall must have been revamped for The Bigger Breakfast - I don't think they were in there for long but they definately had a stint in there when they had egg cup chairs, but think they moved upstairs not long after.

Yes, didn't Ben & Josie present from in front of the front door? Bit odd. The following summer I believe they moved upstairs - I lived the decor in their upstairs set, and they used the upstairs outside area too.

Dermot & Josie were a magnificent partnership on The Bigger Breakfast for me, just a shame that they were never given the chance to do the main show as holiday cover.

I think Dermot covered for Johnny one summer but Josie never did the main show IIRC. Ben and Dermot must have done about a year each on The Bigger Breakfast, though I think Ben mainly hosted with Melanie Sykes - generally hosting from the opposite end of the living room to the main show.

P.S. Pretty sure it was summer 2000 Dermot did the main show which leads me to the question - did Liza Tarbuck get a send off show?

Yes she did! 4th August 2000 was her final show. It was the same day as the Queen Mum's 100th birthday so the majority of the show was about the Queen Mum. Liza had the final few minutes of the show and the final verse was dedicated to her on the Friday song(which my recording cuts off half way through because they ran over by two minutes)

Liza made an amazing impression in just the one year that she was there.

Strangely I remember that Queen Mum special for two things:
The 'I love the Queen Mum' jingle and the bouncing Queen Mum from behind the clock every minute or so.

Yes, that's the ONLY thing I remember that show for!

The over-run was pre-arranged without Liza's knowledge as she'd been adamant there would be no farewell.

I really enjoyed the Johnny & Liza era although unfortunately a lot of damage was done during that time. During Kelly Brook's tenure the show was still generating 5% of Channel 4's entire earnings (to put it into perspective, that was more than any other show, including Friends). During 2000 that dropped to 3%, largely due to an aging demographic.

I presume a certain new reality show arrived and took a pretty massive chunk too?

It certainly didn't help that Johnny would sneer at Big Brother rather than support it. The 2001 revamp of The Big Breakfast would have been ideally placed to work alongside the other BB, but by the summer they'd reverted to the Johnny Vaughan-lite format.

A reminder of how dreadful Denise was in the early days: