Departing from the established news-and-magazine-based format of other breakfast TV shows, The Big Breakfast placed emphasis on fun from the start and was broadcast live every weekday between 7.00 and 9.00 AM.
The all-action combination of competitions, interviews, film reviews and music videos was designed to appeal to the younger audience, with news items restrained to brief headlines every 20 minutes (supplied by ITN and read by Peter Smith, Angela Rippon or Phil Gayle).
A real house (three converted lock-keeper’s cottages in Bow, East London) – not a typical TV studio – was used for production, adding to the cramped, chaotic atmosphere.
The kitchen of the house was handy for interviewing large groups like the ‘Family of the Week’, while the stairs provided a grand entrance for the day’s Fantastically Good-looking Man – a builder or fireman who would be ogled and wolf whistled by female crew members.
Upstairs was the bedroom where Paula Yates set the trend for intimate and often saucy chats with international stars. (It was here that Paula Yates first connected with the rock star Michael Hutchence of INXS – an interview that infamously led to the break-up of her marriage to Bob Geldof, the director of the show’s production company, Planet 24.
The bathroom was inhabited by childlike, but very witty, alien puppets, Zig and Zag, who had already been stars of Irish TV station RTE and were later to star in their own series.
The garden, dominated by a gigantic gnome, would be used for energetic games like ‘Court with your Pants Down’ (where celebs would try to whack a tennis ball over a net with an increasing amount of underpants pulled over their ankles) or ‘Get your Knobbly Nuts Out’ (which involved a blindfolded player being guided across a swimming pool by a phone-in contestant to locate oversized nut clusters with a giant spoon).
Keith Chegwin or Richard Orford spent many mornings interviewing motorists in traffic jams and knocking up families in ‘Down Your Doorstep’.
Other features included ‘Cupid’s Arrow’ (real-life tales of romance), American imports like The Banana Splits, and ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’ (entertainment news).
The show became a big hit, and soon it was fetching in over 1.5 million viewers. For a time, it even overshadowed its rivals on ITV and BBC One.
Its informal approach to the rules of broadcasting saw the crew becoming almost as famous as the presenters themselves.
Chats with Dave the floor manager, ‘Cable Basher’, ‘Carpet Monster’, ‘Sexy Linton’, ‘Sturdy Girl’ and the rest became a regular part of the production, aping the trend for Zoo TV that was on the rise.
The first real success story of the anarchic programme was host Chris Evans, who became television’s hottest property in the mid-1990s. Chris was tempted away to develop his own shows (including the groundbreaking Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday).
After being replaced by former Neighboursstar Mark Little, the show continued with its addictive mix of light-hearted banter and games. When Gaby Roslin eventually chose to move on, Zöe Ball was brought in, again with the intention of providing continuity with what had gone before.
But Zöe and Mark reportedly did not get on, and Little quit in August 1996 after eight months. The show launched Zöe Ball’s career. She switched to the BBC and presented Live and Kicking as well as Radio 1’s Breakfast Show, where she proved a massive hit, attracting a record-breaking audience of 7 million listeners.
Four years into a successful run, the Big Breakfast fortunes began to change. A restyling of the house into an open-plan villa and a completely new presenting crew left viewers with a rather sleepy Sharron Davies (a former Olympic swimmer), geeky Rick Adams and unenthusiastic Richard Orford.
The change proved disastrous, and the show began haemorrhaging viewers.
Two things saved the show from cancellation back in 1997. First, Denise Van Outen – a bubbly blonde Essex girl who’d been hired as an eye-in-the-sky traffic reporter – was brought into the house to work alongside Richard Orford, who himself had been moved into the house after Rick Adams’ sudden departure.
Second, to cover for Orford’s holiday for one week, the producers hired chat-show host and presenter of Channel 4’s Movie Watch , Johnny Vaughan, who was soon brought in full-time as Denise’s co-presenter, and the Golden Era of The Big Breakfast began.
The arrival of Vaughan saw a shift in focus for the show, with features designed to pander to Vaughan’s often ranty style, his fascination with trivia (‘Vital Statistics’) and his jingoistic love of bulldogs and British pride.
Vaughan and Van Outen managed to eclipse even Evans and Roslin as morning TV’s perfect couple. Denise Van Outen and Johnny Vaughan shared a crackling chemistry and a talent for spontaneity. Sadly, Outen’s replacement, 19-year-old underwear model Kelly Brook, lacked everything Denise had boasted, except looks.
Inexperienced in the art of TV presentation (she couldn’t read some of the longer words on the autocue) and clearly lacking the support she needed, Brook left after just six months to be replaced by Vaughan’s old friend Liza Tarbuck, before Van Outen was eventually wooed back again to see out Johnny Vaughan’s final months on the show.
The Big Breakfast never recovered from the loss of Vaughan and Van Outen. Presenters came and went, few of them displaying the ability to wake up a nation when they themselves appeared half asleep, and by the time Mike ‘Squeaky’ McClean inherited the poisoned chalice, the viewing figures had slumped once again – a shame as McClean was clearly perfectly suited to the format.
Fearing the worst, Channel 4 decided to cut its losses and give The Big Breakfast notice.
As execs viewed pilots for a replacement, BB became predominantly a clips show of its former glories. Still, BB got the last word. On their last live show, they erected their huge garden gnome in front of Channel 4’s offices, with a hand forming an insolent V-sign where its fishing rod had been.
The Big Breakfast replacement was RI:SE, a magazine show created by Sky. Quickly dubbed ‘RI:Sible’ by critics,
Channel 4 was astounded when it failed to reach even the lows of BB’s final years. It desperately tried to save itself by becoming more ‘Big Breakfasty’, ditching all the original presenters and bringing on Channel 4 spare lain Lee and Big Brother winner Kate Lawler, but this pale imitation quickly nose dived and was eventually scrapped, mourned by no one.
Presenters
Chris Evans
Gaby Roslin
Paula Yates
Bob Geldof
Mark Lamarr
Keith Chegwin
Mark Little
Paul Ross
Richard Orford
Lily Savage
Zoe Ball
Danni Minogue
Sharron Davies
Rick Adams
Vanessa Feltz
Denise Van Outen
Johnny Vaughan
Melanie Sykes
Kelly Brook
Sara Cox
Liza Tarbuck
Richard Bacon
Gail Porter
The all-action combination of competitions, interviews, film reviews and music videos was designed to appeal to the younger audience, with news items restrained to brief headlines every 20 minutes (supplied by ITN and read by Peter Smith, Angela Rippon or Phil Gayle).
The arrival of Vaughan saw a shift in focus for the show, with features designed to pander to Vaughan’s often ranty style, his fascination with trivia (‘Vital Statistics’) and his jingoistic love of bulldogs and British pride.
