Television’s favourite Geordie duo Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly reunited with fellow SMTV Live presenter Cat Deeley 24 years after the programme aired. The trio, who presented the Saturday morning children’s television show from 1998 to 2001, snapped a selfie during the “incredible evening” over the weekend.
Birmingham-born Cat Deeley, 45, gushed on her Instagram that the show “will bond them forever” as they met with the staff and crew behind the popular SMTV and its spin-off CDUK. She captioned the photos: “Couldn’t have asked for a more incredible evening reuniting with @AntAndDec and our entire #SMTV & #CDUK family this weekend.
“All our yesterday’s! It will bond us forever”
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SMTV Live consisted of parodies, sketches and games, such as Dec Says, Chums, PokéRap, Wonkey Donkey, Challenge Ant and Eat My Goal. Ant and Dec, both 46, left SMTV in 2001, and Cat left the following year in 2002.
The show ended on 27 December 2003. Its spin-off show CDUK (CountDown United Kingdom) continued until April 2006 and was hosted by now big names such as Holly Willoughby and Myleene Klass.
Cat, who now lives in the US, has also appeared on Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. The trio reunited in March 2021 to act out the much-loved SMTV sketch Chums on the show, which was a parody of the American sitcom Friends.
Fans of SMTV watching ITV's Saturday Night Takeaway were treated to the re-enactment which picked up on a cliff-hanger of an episode broadcast 20 years earlier. This episode was the Geordie duo’s final SMTV appearance on 1 December 2001.
Cat Deeley was also a victim of Ant and Dec’s famous ‘Undercover’ prank in the same show, where she was filmed by hidden cameras while ‘promoting her children’s book’. During the sketch, Dec gave instructions through an ear-piece to Ant, who was dressed up as a koala.
They fooled their former co-host, before Ant’s identity was dramatically revealed. In December 2020, the trio also featured on a much-anticipated one-off documentary called The Story of SM:TV Live, where they reminisced about their time hosting the show.
