Saturday, June 11, 2005

Saturday Night is Execution Night - say ITV.


Saturday night is execution night 1
If only those two cunts were contestants.

ITV has hit back against its Saturday night ratings slump with a new high concept game show.

Fronted by the UK’s most popular presenting duo, Ant and Dec (real names Anthony Leopold and Declan Loeb), Saturday Night is Execution Night will give viewers the chance to watch death row inmates as they compete for their own method of execution.

It is expected that lethal injection will be the execution method of preference with the condemn contestants; with death by stoning tying for last place with death by a thousand cuts.

As is now de rigueur for the game show format, a phone-in will provide the audience at home an opportunity to take part in the show. Saturday Night is Execution Night will encourage viewers to vote for their least favourite inmate to be shot from a canon at high speed into a brick wall, tiled with broken glass and nails.

Viewing figures for Channel 4’s smash Death Row Big Brother, and BBC1’s Celebrity Euthanasia Challenge, clearly demonstrate that the UK public have a taste for gruesome onscreen deaths combined with a quirky game show set-up.


However, the addition of Ant and Dec’s tired, cheeky chappie shtick, may prove to be a step too far for the Saturday night viewing public – comprised mainly of the sick, elderly and socially inept.

Critics have been extremely vocal in their condemnation of this latest ‘extreme’ game show, already dubbing it as ‘boringly familiar’, and ‘extreme-lite’.

Conversely, the show has attracted praise from an unusual source. The Home Secretary, Charles Clarke has already declared the show ‘very socially responsible’.

“Saturday Night is Execution Night, demonstrates to those that will break the laws of this land that such behaviour will not be tolerated, and justice will be served” Clarke said today, before adding “Plus, it’s genuinely entertaining, the wife and I wept tears of laughter when Douglas Simpson (sic) was beheaded whilst dragged up as dear old Maggie Thatcher.”

Daniel Simpson (16) was tried earlier this year for the first-degree murder of TV personality, Davina McCall (45). Simpson’s defence team unsuccessfully argued that the death of McCall was not murder, but a mercy killing. Simpson was providing mercy for UK viewing public by ‘doing in that irritating self-aggrandised harpy’ – as Simpson himself described his victim during his controversial pre-verdict interview on Channel 4’s light entertainment show Richard and Judy.

Saturday Night is Execution Night begins 19th June. In a bold move by ITV, it will go head to head with BBC1’s behemoth Saturday night TV spurious documentary series, ‘Female Circumcision: When rock beats scissors’.

3 comments:

Connie said...

...."In a bold move by ITV, it will go head to head with BBC1’s behemoth Saturday night TV spurious documentary series, ‘Female Circumcision: When rock beats scissors’."

You know Herge, It's always the last line of your compositions that keeps me coming back.... I'm a huge fan of a shocking-yet-enticing conclusion sentence.....It's an art and You are the master.

Sniffy said...

I hate it when I'm beaten to first comment by somebody else. Damn you Connie!!!

I like the names of the production companies and their spokespeople. I particularly liked the Chimp's reporting of a particularly nasty diplomatic incident involving, the then UK Prime Minister, Gordon Ramsey, and President Bush. It was beautiful.

Herge Smith said...

Hey Connie - thanks for noticing that, seriously - I do work toward a good conclusion.

Btw, this isn't the last you'll be hearing of Female Circumcision: When rock beats scissors.

Tina - I can delete Connies comment if you want, so you can retain your rightful position...

I'd forgotten all about that shock knock out by Ramsey - I should reprint that in light of Ramsey's new found fame in the US. In fact I will. Cheers Tina.