If there is one word most people would not use to describe their early mornings, it is “zany”. Modern-day breakfast TV adheres to this rule: the output needs to be as dull as most viewers’ sun-up routines. BBC One Breakfast’s Charlie Stayt and Louise Minchin are only slightly more riveting than the sound of a boiling kettle. And it is easy to lose concentration on what Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan are gibbering on about on ITV when you are hopping on one foot in your underpants trying to pull on the other sock.
Back in 1990s, things were very different. TV presenters were so in-your-face at 7am you would think the producers must have sprinkled something on their 5am cornflakes. The Big Breakfast launched in 1992, broadcast from an over-stimulatedly decorated house in east London, with ex-part time-Radio 1 DJ Chris Evans and ex-Motormouth host Gabi Roslin coming through the TV screen at such a frantic rate it was like something in the TV studio was on fire. There were crazy alien puppets (Zig and Zag). Paula Yates interviewed blurry-eyed celebrities On the Bed. Actual bands from the Top 40 played out the show. If you were unlucky, The Word’s Mark Lamarr might actually walk Down Your Doorstep and ding-dong your front bell. The TV crew whooped and jeered. Even the newsreaders and weather people looked as if they had been out on an all-night bender.
The Big Breakfast was perfect catch-it-if-you-can-but-don’t-worry if-you-can’t-cos-it’s-on-again-tomorrow TV. But soon, presenter-wise, it went from “who’s who” to “‘who’s that?” Evans was replaced first by Joe Mangel from Neighbours (Mark Little); then by Jonathan Ross’s brother (Paul Ross); and then someone called Richard Orford, who’s such a nonentity he’s not even on Wikipedia. Mark Lamarr begat Keith Chegwin; Gabi Roslin begat Zoe Ball. In 1996, Channel 4 gave the house a £2m facelift and dragged in Amazon from Gladiators (Sharron Davies) and another Dick Nobody (Rick Adams), who were both rubbish. Then came the viewer-restoring Big Breakfast 2.0 duo of Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen. Memorable Vaughan/Van Outen mornings included Vaughan reviewing rubbish From Me Shed, Son, and the pair dressed as vicar and nun for the More Tea, Vicar phone-in competition, which had more catchphrases and false teeth than it did sense.
Van Outen was replaced by Kelly Brook and Liza Tarbuck prior to re-joining Vaughan for a last hurrah before the pair sailed away into the sunset in January 2001. The Big Breakfast was swiftly relaunched for a third, final, and shark-jumpingly unnecessary time, with features including Streaky Bacon, where Richard Bacon egged members of the public to come out of their house and run along their street wearing nothing but pants made out of bacon in hope of winning – that’s right – some bacon. But by now, The Big Breakfast had turned from morning glory to unwanted hangover, and in March 2002, it was finally canned for good.
