I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!

Infobox Television
show_name = I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!
format = Reality television
picture_format = 16:9
runtime = 30 to 90 minutes
(usually 60 minutes)
creator =
currently starring = Christopher Biggens, Janice Dickinson, Rodney Marsh, John Burton-Race,
Gemma Atkinson, Anna Ryder-Richardson, J Brown and Cerys Matthews
evicted = Marc Bannerman, Lynne Franks, Jennifer Shearer and Katie Hopkins
country = UK
first_aired = August 25, 2002
last_aired = Present
num_episodes =
related =

"I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!" is a reality television show in which celebrities live in jungle conditions with few creature comforts and have to earn human essentials. It was originally created in Britain.

ABC aired one season of an American version in February and March 2003. In Germany, a third season of "Ich bin ein Star – Holt mich hier raus!" aired in January 2008 (incidentally the show was won by a British man). There are also French and Dutch versions of the show called respectively "Je suis une célébrité, sortez-moi de là!" and "Bobo's in de bush".

The main UK show is hosted by Ant & Dec, with a subsidiary behind-the-scenes show hosted by Mark Durden-Smith. In the U.S., John Lehr presented proceedings; the German hosts are Dirk Bach and Sonja Zietlow.

Format

In return for their appearance on the show the celebrities are asked to nominate a charity to which the producers, Granada Television, make donations. The celebrities themselves are also paid a fee (reported to be £25,000 for UK competitors) to compensate them for possible loss of earnings while they are in the jungle. The producers of the show keep the precise details of the celebrities' contracts very private, prompting much speculation from the tabloid media.Fact|date=October 2007 The money is raised by allowing viewers to vote by phone, text message, or the "red button" (a colloquialism popular in the UK for the major satellite TV platform's interactive service) for the celebrity they would like to complete a "Bushtucker Trial"ndash a physical task usually involving snakes, spiders, or other creepy-crawlies found in the junglendash and, later in each series, to vote for the celebrity they would like to see win the show. The last remaining celebrity, after all others have been evicted, is the winner of the show, and is branded King or Queen of the jungle.

Winners of the show include: Tony Blackburn in 2002, Phil Tufnell in 2003, Kerry Katona in 2004, Joe Pasquale also in 2004, Carol Thatcher in 2005, Matt Willis in 2006, and Christopher Biggins in 2007 (UK); Cris Judd (US); Costa Cordalis, Désirée Nick and Ross Antony (Germany); Richard Virenque (France); Walter Nudo, Sergio Muñiz, and Lory Del Santo (Italy); Balázs Sebestyén, János Vadon and Lilu (Hungary.

Popularity and criticism

The show is undoubtedly popular, at least within Europe.Fact|date=November 2007 The final of the second, third and fourth UK series were seen by 12.73, 14.99 and 11.43 million people respectively. The show also helped singer Peter Andre resurrect his music career in 2004. However, it has come under fire from some critics on two counts:

* The first complaint is that the show is trashy TV, consisting of has-been or never-were celebrities trying to revive their careers. The UK's Secretary of State for Culture at the time, Tessa Jowell, was the most high-profile person to criticise the show. In an interview with the "Financial Times" during the second British series, she said, "If they weren't mostlyndash save their blushesndash has-been celebrities, there might be more interest [...] I think that if we saw many more programming hours taken over by reality TV, I hope you'd begin to see a viewers' revolt." [cite news | title = I'm an MP ... get me into the newspapers | url = http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article883494.ece | publisher = The Times | date = 2003-05-09 | first = Adam | last = Sherwin]
* The second criticism of the show is that it pretends to be more wild than it actually is: Audiences are left with the impression that the celebrities are in the Australian Outback, far from any major settlement, whereas they are actually close to a luxury hotel and about 30 min drive to the Gold Coast, Queensland. Further, the camp site in which the celebrities stay appears to be open to the elements but is largely covered by sheets above the view of the cameras. In an episode of the British show, a celebrity had to swim in a swamp apparently infested with crocodilesndash marksmen were shown ready to shoot the animals if they attacked.

Controversy over voting arose during the sixth series of the show when Toby Anstis was eliminated. It was revealed that both he and EastEnders actor Dean Gaffney had polled the bottom two amount of votes and that viewers had to vote again to save their favourite of the two. However many fans argue that this was not made clear. In the following days, "The Sun" ran an article that revealed Toby's eviction had been the result of a mix-up which happened on the interactive "red button" votendash people normally use this to keep their favourites in the show, but it asked which one they wanted to vote out instead of in. When ITV bosses realised their mistake, they shut the service down, but Toby's eviction sparked fury amongst fans.

CBS, broadcaster of the popular American reality show Survivor, unsuccessfully sued ABC and Granada TV over the programme, alleging similarities. Given the poor ratings of the show in America, leading to only a single U.S. series being produced, the failure of the lawsuit proved moot. [cite news
title = Legal threat for US "Celebrity Survivor"
publisher = BBC News
date = October 1, 2002
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/2290199.stm
accessdate = 2007-11-11]

Filming location

The programme is filmed near Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia.

Entering the filming location, there is an open area allocated with temporary buildings for onsite medic etc. plus containers for storage of props etc. It is in this area that family and friends of the Celebrities bide their time each morning during evictions awaiting the fate of their loved ones. From this area you enter a restricted access road which climbs to where the temporary studios are situated. The road then heads down into a valley via fourwheel drive access to the set of the show.

Some of these areas are viewable from Google Earth however it is difficult to view the suspension bridges and open air studio that Ant & Dec broadcast from. While the roof of the main building is bright red, when filming is out of season this whole area is covered with hessian to minimise viewing from the sky.

The creeks and camp areas are situated directly below the main suspension bridges. With being so close to the celebrities, crew have to be careful during filming to keep voices and music down.

Many of the bush tucker trials are not done here. In fact, some are done well away from the area.

Once out of the jungle the Celebrities stay at the opulent 6 star Palazzo Versace hotel at Southport, situated on the northern end of the Gold Coast with a drive of approximaely 60-90 minutes from the jungle.

British series

American series

Key

:colorbox|red The Winner:colorbox|orange The Runner-up:colorbox|yellow Third place

eries 1

10 contestants, aired nightly February 19 2003 - March 5, 2003 on ABC. John Lehr was host.

Hungarian series

eries 1

Hungarian title is "Celeb vagyok... ments ki innen!" which means I'm a celebrity... Get me out of here! Premiered 6 October 2008 on RTL Klub. There are ten contestants:

References

See also

* I'm A Teacher, Get Me Out of Here

External links

*itv.com|id=celebrity|title="I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!"
*imdb title|id=0355096|title=I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!