hazzers

This fantastic show creates such a refreshing and welcome change to Saturday morning children's television. Although it's popularity has recently started to wane, when it was first launched it was immensely popular for nearly three years.

When it was first shown, it was fronted by comedy duo Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. These two talented, young men are now much in demand following their success on this show. They are naturally witty and extremely likable, and yet still hold a slightly mischievous quality within their personalities, allowing them to identify with and appeal to children. Cat Deely who completed the trio, added a spark as the girl who was sometimes bullied by the boys, and other times she was there to outsmart them.

'SM:tv Live' took a different approach to entertaining children. The main reason behind it was that Ant and Dec used to dislike kid's TV presenters for being too patronising. They felt children did not like being talked down to. Although it may please the younger children to hear reassuring voices, the slightly older children would become bored of it. Such sections of the show demonstrated this, for example 'Challenge Ant' was battle between Ant and a child to see whether he could answer the child's questions correctly, or not. If Ant won, the child went home with nothing as well as a gloating victory dance from McPartlin himself, as was the slightly cruel, yet humorous twist.

However, it was not the first time Ant and Dec had presented a children's show. Similar ideas were used before on 'The Ant and Dec Show', yet came into a great deal of controversy. A section known as 'Beat The Barber' involved children either answering the questions right and getting rewarded, but if they lost, they also lost their hair. Complaints and pressure from the BBC meant that another series of 'The Ant and Dec Show' was never made, and also marked their parting with the BBC.

'SM:tv Live', three years after 'The Ant and Dec Show', is far more accepted by everybody, which, perhaps, represents a sign of the times in the post-politically correct British media.

Loved by children and adults alike, 'SM:tv Live' completely demolished the BBC's rivals of 'Live and Kicking' and, later, 'The Saturday Show'. While ITV on a Saturday morning was regularly pulling in 3 million viewers, the BBC struggled to get 1 million. This is an incredible achievement considering that 'Swap Shop', 'The Saturday Super Store', 'Going Live' and the early days of 'Live and Kicking' were far more popular than anything shown on ITV.

Since the departure of Ant, Dec and Cat, 'SM:tv Live' has lost some of its magic. Although Tess Daly, Brian Dowling et al do a reasonable job, there are some things that only the original three could pull off. For example, the days of Ant and Dec comically shouting at children for giving ludicrous answers on 'Wonkey Donkey' are no longer there. The children particularly enjoyed this section, as the presenters became more like cheeky older brothers, making them infinitely more accessible.

Nevertheless, this show represents a stimulating transformation from the subservient, children's television, which was long overdue for a face-lift.

I think this was a truly fantastic idea for a show, and I was looking forward to this a lot. However, the outcome was a bit of a disappointment.

This may have been about Kids' TV Shows, but it was certainly not one for the kids. The big kids perhaps. Channel4 are aimed at a predominantly youth audience of the 16-24 age bracket, and the premise of the show fits in with its quirky, alternative style.

This had a lot of potential - definitely a worthy addition to Channel4's top 100 series. There were a lot of major problems here, though - with so many people expecting it to be a success like the ones before, it should really have been better quality than this.

My first criticism comes from choosing Jamie Theakston to host the show. Normally, someone with a slight connection to the subject is chosen to host such a show, yet Theakston has little connection to the Kids' TV genre, other than hosting 'Live & Kicking' (which was not mentioned, and no one really associates with him anymore). He did not do very well taking on this job, either. A better recommendation may have been to choose Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish for the role, as they already hosted a similar kids' nostalgia previously in the year.

My next criticism comes into conflict with all these shows in general, and it is how the votes are cast. When casting your vote, you are only given 100 nominations to choose from. This suggests to me that Channel4 have already picked the top 100, and just want you to re-arrange them. Although you can add other votes below, not many people would do this, meaning classic shows like 'Button Moon' only came in the top-70 region, when it should have been a lot higher. If 150 shows were given to choose from, it would be a lot more fair and interesting.

There was also a lack of research on some shows, which is understandable if you want to fit 100 shows into the programme. However, to merely skip over shows like 'The Sooty Show', which is one of the longest running kids' shows ever, it seems a little poor quality. Especially considering images of Sooty and Sweep were all over the official website where you casted the vote, not to mention in the ad break scenes as well. To only get 15 seconds of Theakston commentating over a montage of a few clips seems very un-just for a show with so much history and such a large fanbase.

And finally, my main dispute comes over the winner of the show. Although 'The Simpsons' is a very good show, it is not a kids' show. It was created for an adult audience, broadcast to an adult audience, and has never really been intended to inform, entertain or educate children. It should not have been included in the nominations as it is not strictly a kids' show. Because it is such a popular show, people were bound to vote for it if they saw they could, but the fact remains that it is not a show meant for children, and should have never made it into this show, let alone won it.

Despite its obvious problems, this was still a good show. It was a fantastic nostalgia trip, and a chance to see what happened to all the people who brought us our favourite shows as children. Unfortunately, certain aspects of the show were not done well, and it left a bit of a nasty taste in the mouth.

This was, indeed, a good idea, and most of the content was very interesting, but I have to say, I was disappointed with it after what I had come to expect.