Ant n' Dec are back with a brand new Saturday night show on ITV, which is rather regrettably a "big deal" in this day and age. I'm not against them as a light entertainment double-act, actually. I think they're good fun, down-to-earth, have good chemistry, and interact with people very naturally. As presenters, they're by far the best reason to watch I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and they're perfect as hosts of Britain's Got Talent. But I've never managed to sit through more than 15-minutes of their popular Saturday Night Takeaway series because it's just so rambling and the advert breaks too regular for me. Anyway, now they're back with family gameshow Push The Button, which is obviously going to be dismissed as The Generation Game with a "stop the clock" element attached...
Two competing families take the roles of contestants, each given an initial prize fund of £100,000 to try and hang onto. Individual members of each family go head-to-head in various madcap games, during which their £100k fortune falls until they push the titular button. In this opener, we had a conveyor belt of strangely-shaped parcels that had to be pushed through identical holes in a wall (like that game toddlers play), a round where people had to count the teeth in a giant bobblehead of Simon Cowell (I'm serious), a competitive yodelling round (stay with me...), and a finale where the families had to assemble a tiered wedding cake.
It was hilarious fun for all the family... or so ITV hope everyone thinks. For me, there's just something distancing about watching adults fool around like children, and it's especially tiresome as a spectator. There needs to be a certain level of embarassment for me to enjoy watching strangers play silly games (see the aforementioned Generation Game, which was enjoyably cringe-making), and there wasn't much of that here. Still, a part of me's glad Push The Button has chosen to focus on regular people -- perhaps a sign, along with Total Wipeout, that the vogue for celebrity-based gameshows is coming to an end. Did you hear me, All-Star Family Fortunes? The downside is that it's tougher to spin a physical gameshow with "real" people into gold, and Push The Button didn't manage it, despite the valiant efforts of Ant n' Dec.
Also, I'm not sure if it's a good idea to select families that aren't exactly shy and retiring. For me, it's funnier to see mild-mannered people taken out of their comfort zones and asked to do ridiculous things for cash, whereas both families on Push The Button were outrageous extroverts who couldn't believe their luck to be on primetime TV. I'm sure they all had a great time (it looked like they did), but watching overzealous people try and assemble cakes doesn't strike me as a worthwhile way to spend an hour.
Push the button, I want to get off.
27 FEBRUARY 2010: ITV1, 8PM
