The Terry and Gaby Show

Infobox Television
show_name = The Terry and Gaby Show


caption =
genre = Daytime chat
runtime =
creator = Chris Evans
starring = Terry Wogan,
Gaby Roslin
network = Five
first_aired = 2 June 2003
last_aired = 26 March 2004
num_episodes = 200
producer = UMTV
related =

"The Terry and Gaby Show" was a daytime television show broadcast on Five on weekday mornings between June 2003 and March 2004, produced by Chris Evans' company UMTV. It was hosted by Terry Wogan and Gaby Roslin.

The opening titles featured Gaby dressed up like a movie star driven to the studio in a limo and walking on red carpet to the door. Meanwhile Terry, carrying a briefcase, rode a rickety old bicycle across London and parked it outside the back door before quietly entering the building through said back door.

The show was not well-known for the guests who appeared on it, but rather for its many bloopers or double entendres (such as the instance when a number of various sized tennis balls were located around the studio to mark that year's Wimbledon tournament, and when introducing Pat Cash as a guest Gaby announced "And I'm sure you can guess from the size of those balls who's coming up next!")

History

Early episodes

Intended to compete head-to-head with ITV1's "This Morning", it was much hyped before its launch. The first show included Jonathan Ross as its main guest.

The early episodes tried to capture the atmosphere of Terry's BBC Radio 2 breakfast show. They even had a butler for Terry, named Bulstrode, who in reality was one of the show's producers, usually there to serve him drinks (of the alcoholic kind).

Roving reporter Danny McCall (a former "Brookside" actor) featured in a section called "Live Loot". From Monday to Thursday, he would go to a certain location in the UK and go to someone's house trying to get them to sell something to him. He had £100 each day to bribe them with. The first person he visited on the first show was future regular Danny Baker. On Friday, the four items collected over the week would be given away to viewers.

The show also featured a daily competition called "Kids in Headphones". A child of primary school age was shown with a pair of headphones on, singing along to a tune playing on those headphones. Viewers had to identify the tune to win a prize. Winners were drawn at the end of the show. In the later episodes, winners (including the Friday winners) were put into a draw to win a television and a selection of DVDs, which gave rise to a crude running gag from Gaby about the size of the television. ("42 inches! Oh boy!")

A regular on the show was Johnny Ball. At the beginning of each show from Monday to Thursday, he would take down three questions sent in by viewers and go off to research the answers. At the end of the show, he would come back and answer them. The third question always involved a rather more long-winded answer, explained using props.

Around about September or October 2003, Johnny took a holiday, and was replaced by Danny Baker. The following Monday, Johnny returned, but on Tuesday, he had inexplicably disappeared, and Danny Baker took his role permanently. Danny then proceeded to make the slot his own, even adding a catchphrase ("And now back to my friends!"). He would answer three or four questions, and try and perform a silly trick or something else instead of the prop answer that Johnny Ball did. In later episodes, if he ran out of time, he would put back questions to be answered on future shows. However, there was one question he kept putting back, but then forgot to answer the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and it never did get answered in the end — "What is the world's most potent aphrodisiac?"

One of the most memorable moments of the show's short history came when Danny revisited something Johnny Ball previously did — putting a piece of soap in a microwave oven. There was an oven glove there to protect his hand when he took the plate out of the microwave, but he didn't put it on. He writhed in pain, and swore, much to the amusement of the audience. "Stupid trick!", he yelled. Now with oven glove on, he looked to the hosts' sofa as he took the plate out. Now he's not even watching what he's doing. "Terry, never leave the radio!", he said, as the glass plate fell out from inside the microwave and shattered on the floor. The studio erupted with cheers and laughter. Red-faced, he finally admitted defeat, threw off the oven glove and stormed out of the studio.

Rating failings

The show's ratings, however, did not put any sort of a dent in the armour of "This Morning". Despite several tweaks to the format, things did not improve. The show was also criticized for seemingly having someone other than the two hosts of the title presenting the show every other week. Embarrassingly, the show's highest ratings of all came when Terry was not present, and Jimmy Tarbuck was hosting alongside Gaby. It was mainly Gaby who went away, and when that happened it was usually Jenny Powell who took her place. The show was called "Terry & Gaby", but because of this guest host situation, it also became:

* Les & Gaby (Les Dennis)
* Lionel & Gaby (Lionel Blair)
* Jimmy & Gaby (Jimmy Tarbuck)
* Terry & Jenny (Jenny Powell - several times)
* Terry & Linda (Linda Barker)
* Donny & Gaby (Donny Osmond - on Children in Need day)
* Danny & Gaby (Danny Baker - that week had no questions since Danny was too busy hosting to answer them)
* Richard & Gaby (Richard Whiteley - who kept getting the phone-in number wrong)

The low ratings finally led to the show being axed after 200 episodes. Another notable point, however, is that the only time the show ever made the news, was after its "199"th episode, on which Anne Robinson was a guest. This was supposedly her first television appearance since her much talked about alleged face lift. Many observers noticed how different she looked from more recent programmes, and suggested that she'd had cosmetic surgery, which she denied. The next day, on the morning of the final episode, the story was all over the newspapers, some of them displaying "before and after" pictures of Anne on the front page, ensuring that at least the show didn't go out with a total whimper.

The last episode of The Terry & Gaby Show was broadcast on 26 March 2004. Hailed as yet another television flop by Chris Evans' production company UMTV, Evans himself had the last word. The last program ended with a shot of him standing at a market stall (called "Chris's Fruit & Veg"), eating an apple, and then turning to the camera, saying "F*** it, we had a go, didn't we?". This is a joke on the fact that when the show launched, Chris said he would return to running a Fruit & Veg stall if the program failed.

External links

*