Ministry of Mayhem
| Holly & Stephen's Saturday Showdown | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Children's game show |
| Starring |
Holly Willoughby Stephen Mulhern Peter Cocks Ray Griffiths Vincent Wong Don Austen John Eccleston |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | The Foundation co-production with: Carlton Television (2004) Granada Television (2004 - 2006) ITV Productions (2006) |
| Running time | 125 minutes (January 2004 - June 2006) 155 min (Jun - Jul 2006) 30 min Showdown Extra (Mar - Jun 2006) |
| Release | |
| Original network |
ITV Jan 2004 - December 2005 CITV January – July 2006 |
| Picture format | SDTV |
| Original release | 10 January 2004 – 1 July 2006 |
Holly & Stephen's Saturday Showdown (previously titled Ministry of Mayhem) is a CITV children's game show which was broadcast on the ITV Network from January 2004 to July 2006. As of January 2006, the onscreen name was Holly & Stephen's Saturday Showdown. It was the last regular studio-based Saturday morning show on ITV until 2014, when Scrambled! aired.
Ministry of Mayhem was first broadcast after SMTV Live, its predecessor, came to an end. The first episode was broadcast on 10 January 2004. It was usually shown every Saturday on terrestrial television and was popular with many pre-teens. It included some conventional television aspects, such as an in-studio audience who see all of the programmes shown on the show, yet has been noted for some of its more peculiar characteristics. These included seeing how far different celebrities can flip a cake into the air from a skateboard, a game known as "Cakey SK8" - and a Gunge Tank.
It was originally presented by Stephen Mulhern, Holly Willoughby & Michael Underwood, along with Ray Griffiths as "Ray, Head Of Security", Peter Cocks as "The Doctor", Karl Sedgwick, Robert Duncombe and Mark Dandridge as the "Agents Of Mayhem" and Laura Tilli & Jessica Tilli as "Tina and Gina" who supposedly answered phones. Dandridge and Duncombe were later replaced as Agents by Sean Douglas, Paul Litchfield and Colin Ash.
The theme tune was provided by little-known boyband The Noise Next Door and can be found as a b-side to their debut single "Lock Up Ya Daughters".
The show was produced at The Maidstone Studios by The Foundation, working initially in partnership with Carlton Television. After Carlton and Granada merged in 2004 to form ITV plc, all Carlton productions were switched to run under the Granada name, thus MOM became a Foundation-Granada production. From 2006, Granada programmes for ITV were branded ITV Productions, and so MOM became an ITV Productions-The Foundation production for the remainder of its run.
...
Wikipedia