Holly and Stephen's Saturday Showdown

I was a regular viewer of Ministry of Mayhem since it started in 2004, but that all changed when it became Saturday Showdown in 2006 - I still have the first few minutes of the first show and it's launch trailer on tape somewhere.

I think I got bored of the whole boys versus girls thing after a few weeks and for the first time, after several years of being a faithful CITV viewer on Saturday mornings, I defected to CBBC's offering - Dick and Dom in da Bungalow, and pretty much remained with the programme for the remainder of it's final series.

After looking back on Saturday Showdown more recently, it felt quite bland and not as brash as it's former Ministry self.

What are your thoughts or memories on said programme?

It was all budget cuts. The series was crap but every single week got better and better, but alas it was killed off in the summer. Strange thing was Toonatick and Dick and Dom did the same thing, lets get some kids in to do battle.

It should have never been axed and ITV replacement has been dire ever since.

Didn't really watch it much, only when D&D had a CBBC only Saturday or if they were showing a cartoon I wasn't interested in.

Really the only thing I remember is Ram Ray.

MOM as it was back in the day was great, ok it got off to a bad start but the kept tweaking it.

Highlights for me Ram Ray, Cakey Skate, Mr Lee and the Doc. I do agree that Saturday Showdown was poor compared to MOM.

Ministry of Mayhem came into its own in their second year. It gave me some easy viewing considering I was out of the age group for it but thats what Saturday mornings was all about. At the end of 2005, Ministry Of Mayhem ended and after a 2 week gap, Holly and Stephen's Saturday Showdown appeared which was a largely cut back version of MoM. Towards the end of its life, ITV decided to cut the show from the Saturday morning schedule and the last remaining few episodes would be on the CITV channel only.

The Doc on MoM was faultless and here he is in his Showreel

Full episodes of Ministry of Mayhem were being uploaded to the ADC Collection channel last year. They got up to May 2004 and the uploads suddenly stopped, not just for MOM but on the whole channel. Strange as he said he had every episode bar one or two.

One thing that got chopped to bits was the theme tune. If you find that channel above, it went from an American sounding voice singing Ministry Mayhem, then show two the verse was re-recorded to a clearer American voice. A few weeks later it was re-recorded completely adding the word 'of' to Ministry of Mayhem and the logo changed from pink to blue...

Here is the show one in full from 2004 on said channel:

MoM was discussed very recently, just a month ago here https://tvforum.uk/tvhome/smtv-postbag-ant-dec-cat-44203/page-7

The theme is from the band 'Noise next door', who performed in one of the early episodes.

They may have recorded it for the re-launch in 2004 but it's not them pre-relaunch.

Rewatching the start of that first show brought back memories. It was different but wasn’t bad for a first show but it definitely went on to refine itself. I loved the massive construction of that set, possibly more than the top shiny and dark set (in hindsight, though it was the trend for mid 00s) that followed.

Who'd have thought 15 years later that 2 of those 3 presenters would be all over ITV? Or at least that's how it feels.

Wait... 15 years... really?

Yeah, it's really interesting looking back at those old episodes. Episode 1, as you say, is an American voice and really muffled singing 'Ministry Mayhem'. You then get ep 2 with the clearer vocal. Then ep 5 is an English voice but still singing 'Ministry Mayhem' and Ep 6 is the 'Ministry OF Mayhem' edit. It certainly took them a while to get it right!