After today’s announcement, hundreds of Ant and Dec fans are certainly remembering Saturday Night Takeaway with fondness, and reliving some of its whackiest, funniest and cringiest moments.
Ant McPartlin today announced he and Declan Donnelly will not be presenting their Saturday Night Takeaway series in 2019.
The troubled star was involved in a drink drive crash during the filming of this year’s SNT, which meant he headed into rehab and is now on a long recovery, which will continue throughout 2018.
The star announced on Ant and Dec.com: "My recovery is going very well and for that to continue having spoken to Dec and ITV, I have made the decision to take the rest of the year off.
"I’d like to thank both Dec and ITV for their continued support and I look forward to getting back to work in the new year."
Dec added: "Whilst I am obviously sad at the thought of being without my best friend in Australia this year, I am proud of the work Ant has been doing privately and I am fully supportive of his decision.
"I’m looking forward to us both being reunited on screen in 2019."
With the hilarious old-school series set to be left off our screens next year, what will we miss most about Saturday Night Takeaway?
The Undercover missions
One of the most iconic elements of SNT is when the boys go undercover to frighten their celebrity friends, with many of these having hilarious consequences for both the boys and their doomed mates.
A hilarious Undercover came to Amanda Holden, where the boys, rather than undergoing some hideous make up to fool their friend, instead controlled the elements of her presenting gig, where she showed off her interior design prowess.
Amanda was showing some items in a new interiors range but various problems – all caused by Ant and Dec – made the whole thing a pretty horrid ordeal.
She couldn’t open her cute bedside table, picture frames dotted around the set contained photos of her lookalike, and the mugs she designed had been mysteriously used by some nasty individuals.
But things went really badly when one of her lamps set on fire, but the Ant and Dec fire brigade came to help and reveal the whole thing was a prank.
Similarly, the lads messed with James Corden on his show The Late Late Show, getting the guard to forget his face and refuse him entry.
The boys then donned some of their best disguises and played boyfriends taking part in a game on the show, where one celebrated his win slightly too hard and ended up flipping into a glass table.
James was in major distress when he thought his guest had died on camera, but all was well when Ant and Dec were revealed.
Another version of these undercover antics are in the skit Get Out of Me Ear! when celebrities must do whatever Ant and Dec tell them for a week, which often leads to some hilarious consequences.
A Year In Your Ear
Another of their undercover-style missions involves the audience, where a normal person must do whatever the boys tell them to at various moments throughout a year, in order to win prizes for their friends.
They’ve forced their audience to ruin their friends’ weddings, to take over birthday parties and spoil family occasions all to win them incredible prizes.
So they usually get forgiven… usually.
Win the Ads
One of the best known elements of the show takes over the whole channel, where the adverts shown on one TV show are up for grabs for one lucky audience member.
The contestant is then given a bunch of questions to answer about the week’s news to bank as many prizes as they can, which can include everything from cat food to a new car.
Once they have some prizes in the kitty – though they don’t know what these are – they have the chance to take them home or gamble the whole lot for a chance at winning everything, with one question making or breaking their chance.
There have been occasions where poor chancers have gambled and lost, which is always an incredibly awkward moment for the hosts.
However, more often than not, the audience members get to bring home the bacon, and are always pretty stoked to be able to take their family or friends on holiday, or cruise in a new car with their bag of cat food in the boot.
Stephen Mulhern’s hilarious antics
While the duo are always running the show, they do have a couple of mates who help out – and did more than their fair share to support Dec when he had to go it alone earlier this year.
Scarlett Moffatt and Stephen Mulhern often lead games or general frivolities on the show, with Stephen’s segment In For a Penny getting its own show from ITV.
But the presenter does have to make himself look rather silly in the name of comedy, by doing everything from wearing some rather shocking outfits in the End of the Show Show, such as a Carmen Miranda headdress and bikini, or being the butt of Ant and Dec’s jokes, especially when he is made the referee in Ant vs. Dec.
But now the show is being postponed, perhaps Stephen’s In For a Penny will serve as a potential replacement in Spring 2019.
Little Ant and Dec
In one of the slightly stranger aspects of the show, Ant and Dec enlist the help of their own mini-mes to interview celebrities in their stead, with two sets of lads playing the parts over the years.
The original two, who are now in their 20s, had the pleasure of interviewing such stars as Jennifer Lopez, Tony Blair and Victoria Beckham, where they would always do their trademark false handshake, where they would stick their tongues out at the guests.
They also used to ask some very strange questions, asking Victoria whether she and David were "making babies" at the moment, and checking why Robbie Williams sometimes only wears his pants in music videos.
After these two got too big to be little, a new duo joined the cast, and continued in their role until the series this year, where the segment was dropped.
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For the last few seasons, the show has transported its audience, mainly full of people nominated by friends and family, to visit the Universal Studios or Disneyland.
The duo also take over the park by performing their huge final show of the series there, getting all the audience to be involved, as well as sending their presenting chums around the park to cause havoc.
This year, Dec presented the finale solo, but was supported by many famous faces such as Craig David, Denise Richards and Friends theme singers The Rembrandts, making the finale even more spectacular.
End of the Show Show
Every episode goes out with a bang, with a famous singer performing a medley of some of their best hits with the help of the duo.
When pop sensation Kylie Minogue took to the stage for this honour, the boys dressed as some of her favourite music videos to go along with her singing, helping to recreate the mood of her 80s bubbly pop debut Lucky, along with her hot-pants sizzler Spinning Around.
The boys danced and sang their hearts out, with them both trying to be her Jason Donovan when she sang Especially For You.
Hopefully, when the show returns in 2020, it will be bigger than ever with an even more spectacular bang to close.
Fingers crossed.
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