SM:TV Live to return for one off special?

If you can call the original show a "format", it was more like "we've been given a show, what the hell do we do with it now?"

Haha yeah, I think the issue was that they only pitched CD:UK to ITV but Nigel Pickard wanted them to do a kids show before it, hence SM:TV. So originally it a bit of an afterthought and all about being a warm up to CD:UK and talking about the guests on that, going in dressing rooms etc. Ironically SM:TV was the one that became the big show and really got Ant and Dec's presenting career off to a glittering start. I wonder how things would have turned out for them if they'd just done a TOTP style show called CD:UK.

Oh I really really hope this turns out well, loved this show at the time and loved rewatching it and finding the jokes that went over your head!

I admit I always prefered The Chart Show to CD:UK personally.

I remember the last episode of whatever came before it (Mashed perhaps?) and they did a link up with Ant & Dec at the studios. As has already been said, the focus then was CD:UK, with the selling point being the 'Saturday Chart'.

I have to say the promo link did nothing to lure me over from Zoe & Jamie.

Wonderful news that they're even considering it; I was watching old clips at the end of last year and thought about the idea myself. I presumed then that if it did come back it would be as a Saturday night programme or SN:TV Live, although placing it on a Saturday morning could be a nice nostalgia trip, I'd find it odd that for one week we'd get the joys of a live Saturday morning programme for it to return to repeats of murder she wrote the following week. With nothing of the sorts being offered by either side (or their respective channels) these days it would be odd for the kids. CITV still airs Pokémon so the rights are still held if they wanted to include it.

Yes Whataday it was 'Mashed!' With Jez Edwards and Jarvis.
I remember that, didn't they do it from outside the studio doors saying that they couldn't see in? They may have mentioned in that link up that for the next year they'd be on every Saturday morning, with mashed ending with a goodbye rather than a see you next summer.

Ultimately with SM:tv they played around with ideas for that first year and found things that worked (it's not flaming good enough with the two Anne Robinson's), Wonkey Donkey (brilliant from day one) and Challenge Ant to name a few. Thank goodness they were commissioned for 52 weeks, it gave them time to slowly morph the show in response to the viewers and through new writers and producers and Saturday Aardvark as summer competition it found its feet and became a much loved Saturday morning institute. From that new look show in September 1999 it was obvious that they meant business; it had come a long way from playing 'Smitten Kitten' with the Honeyz on the Delta stage!

Although the "Saturday Chart" was hadly new, as The Chart Show had been using it for years, though CD:UK did push how you could og out that day and buy records to influence the final chart the following day. The first few shows had OBs from a record store finding out what people were buying, though it didn't last long.

Someone uploaded the first SM:TV/CD:UK to YouTube a few years ago (though annoyingly cropped to 16:9) and one notable thing was as it was Michael Jackson's 40th birthday they had an MJ themed competition. The question was "what was Michael Jackson's most recent number one", with three options- Black or White, Earth Song and You Are Not Alone. A shame the actual answer was Blood on the Dancefloor.

Funnily enough the first "all new Top Of The Pops" 5 years later made a very similar mistake with Robbie Williams, only the question was about his first number one rather than his most recent- but again the correct answer wasn't one of the choices!

CD:UK did distinguish itself from TOTP with all the features and stuff though TOTP did start to try and copy them a few years later (at first towards the end of Cowey's era, then the dreadful Andi Peters revamp), only it really didn't work there at all. The shorter running time of TOTP didn't help as it ate away into performance time, but it was done badly regardless.

From what I remember, that was actually a trailer shown several times in the run up to the launch, rather than a link on Mashed.

No I'm pretty sure it was a live link (may have been pre-recorded, but they definitely threw over to them).

Well, I don't mean there wasn't a live link- just that I think what's recalled there was a separate trailer. Unless they re-used that link as a trailer as I definately remember seeing it more than once.

Oh, ok.

Here's the trailer for the first CD:UK trailer:

A 10:40 start time due to the Grand Prix, in later years it was CD:UK that was pushed back to a 30 minute edition to allow for more SM:TV time. For what it's worth I did enjoy the early CD:UK as it felt wonderful, live and as though the chart was changing there and then, something that nowadays would work a lot better with the chart based on streams and downloads (the UK Big Top 40 make a point of this).

As pointed out clearly SM:TV was an afterthought, though some of the early ideas were a bit bizarre. At the start of episode 3 the studio was filled with farm animals for the opening link, there was a quick joke included but it seemed like such a random idea for that one link before they went up to the control centre.

Speaking of control centre, to jog memories or as a comparison for those that haven't seen it here is the opening from the first programme.

There is something that I liked about the set and that area looking out onto it with the bed playing, it was energetic at least.