Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway was reduced to chaos in a moment that could have only happened on live TV.
This series introduced a segment that saw doorbells belonging to audience members ring out in the studio. When an audience member identifies their bell ringing, they must shout “Ding dong, that’s my doorbell.”
Then, a neighbour watching at home, recognising the audience member, must run to their door with a household item specified by hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.
However, in the final episode of the ITV entertainment series, the segment was plunged into chaos when an elderly lady named Cynthia was coincidentally already stood at her neighbour’s house, seemingly popping round for a catch up without realising she had wandered into a live TV situation.
Making matters even more hilarious was the fact that several neighbours, who were watching at home, were arriving behind Cynthia, hoping to scoop up the prize money.
As Ant tried to ask the participating neighbours what their names were, a confused Cynthia, thinking he was talking to her, kept repeating her name.
Through laughter, Ant said: “OK, Cynthia, if you could just move out the way, darling. Cynthia! Cynthia, darling.”
Cynthia remained in place, though, and the presenters never found out what the name of the other neighbours were – but did confirm that the audience member and the first neighbour to have arrived with the correct selected item would receive their prize money.
Sadly, Cynthia won nothing, but has embedded herself in the annals of live TV history.
“That’s the funniest TV moment of the year’, one person wrote, with many viewers saying they were left in “tears” over the hilarity of the situation. “Live TV is just brilliant,” another viewer wrote.
Meanwhile, one viewer tweeted: “Well, it just goes to show that anything really can happen when TV is live!”
