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    Take Me Out

    How many of you hoodlums and ne'erdowells have succumbed to the guilty pleasure of Take Me Out on ITV on Saturday evenings? It's fiendishly addictive.

    If you haven't seen it, it's like a brutal cross between Blind Date and Fifteen To One, compered by some laddish Mancunian bloke called Paddy McGuinness, and it plays to the viewer's lowest "I would/I wouldn't/OK, maybe with the beer goggles on" instincts even more than Cilla's show ever did.

    What happens is, thirty women line up in a semi-circle behind lit-up lecterns. They're all aged 18-30, but they vary greatly in attractiveness. Some are stereotypical hotties, most are just normal high street girls dolled up for a night out, some are real horrors. (There's one on there at the moment who looks like Kim 'Hatchet Face' McGuire from the John Waters films. Have a look at Emma from Leicester on the official site and you'll see what I mean...)

    A pop song plays, and one bloke comes down a tubular lift shaft to stand and face their scrutiny. If he's a bit of a state or a minger, loads of the women knock off their lights immediately (catchphrase: "No likey, no lighty!") before he's even said anything. Then we see a little film about who he is and what his hobbies are, and more lights go off every time he reveals something the women find unattractive. Then, back on the podium, he has to reveal a skill (sing a song, do a dance, lift some weights, whatever.) McGuinness goes over and asks a few of the women why they turned off their lights, and the answers are often quite painful for the guy to hear.

    After he's been through all that humiliation, there are usually only about 5 women with their lights still on (if he's lucky). At which point the tables are turned, and the guy is allowed to go over and examine them and take his pick.

    They go on a date to 'Fernandos' (fake name), a bar nearby in Manchester. (This show clearly doesn't have the budget to fly people away on holiday.) Unlike Blind Date, which is by definition 'blind', the guy and the girl have already seen each other and have already signalled that they fancy each other, so one assumes 9 times of 10 they shag at the end of it, this being the 21st century and all that. The following week, they report back in very sanitised, teatime-friendly terms. Always the most boring bit of the show.

    When someone's been on a date, they're out of the show and replaced by a new girl. Which is why I strongly suspect that some girls are deliberately turning down every single bloke purely so they can stay on telly another week. I'm particularly thinking of the big-haired twins who look like they've stepped straight out of The Liver Birds. On the other hand, there are girls like chubby blonde Rian from Sheffield who always has her light on, bless her, but never gets to go on a date. It's heartbreaking.

    What I love about this show is its ruthlessness, and how accurately it mirrors the real-life mentality of cattlemarket nightclubs (and, I guess, the internet), everyone sizeing each other up on first impressions, and the guys invariably resigned to taking the pick of the small subset of women who'd even consider having anything to do with them.

    #2
    Take Me Out

    I got as far as "Paddy McGuinness".

    Comment


      #3
      Take Me Out

      Is he already famous, then? He's a bit irritating, I suppose. I'd never heard of him before.

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        #4
        Take Me Out

        He's Peter Kay's Spock-eared right-hand man.

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          #5
          Take Me Out

          First the Today programme, then Paddy McGuinness... what's next?

          "I was watching the news the other night when they showed an elderly woman wearing an enormous jewelled head-dress being pulled along in a large golden carriage!"

          etc.

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            #6
            Take Me Out

            Lucia Lanigan wrote:
            He's Peter Kay's Spock-eared right-hand man.
            What, in stand-up or on Phoenix Nights? I think I've only seen one episode of Phoenix Nights. Didn't really grab me.

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              #7
              Take Me Out

              McGuinness was on Phoenix Nights and then Max and, er Paddy.

              It is an incredible programme and both unbearable and utterly addictive at the same time. It's so amazingly tasteless and relentlessly down market, it's almost as if it were designed for people to scoff at on Twitter.

              The script is also extraordinary. McGuinness was introducing one of the girls and mentioned their showbiz background: she'd been out with someone from a Take That tribute group. He volunteered that he'd been in a couple of tribute groups himself, yes. The Small Faces and Dick Van Dkye. That is vaguely understandable as a self deprecating gag but is so weird and terrible in so many ways that I can only be about 80% sure that I didn't fall asleep or otherwise imagine the whole thing.

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                #8
                Take Me Out

                I've watched it. It's ace and Paddy McGuiness is a great host. It's Blind Date without, for some reason, the cringe factor.

                My wife and son, who are more regualr viewers, know all the girls.

                I think the key phrase, along with "Total Wipeout, is "Saturday teatime TV". This is an area where Harry Hill wins BAFTAs

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                  #9
                  Take Me Out

                  Harry Hill deserves every BAFTA he gets.

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                    #10
                    Take Me Out

                    Despite the deeply umpromising premise (Dating show, Saturday night, ITV), it's far from being the worst programme on telly right now. I like Paddy McGuinness as he comes across as not taking himself or the whole programme seriously. And when I say like, I mean not want to bludgeon to death.

                    Compared with the alternatives on at that time, it's the lesser of a multitude of evils by some distance.

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                      #11
                      Take Me Out

                      Harry Hill doesn't win BAFTAs because of his timeslot. It's because his show is consistently one of the best things on TV.

                      Paddy McGuinness, on the other hand, is a cunt's cunt. It's a source of continuing amazement that he has built a massively successful career simply off the back of saying "you barmpot!" at occasional intervals.

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                        #12
                        Take Me Out

                        Compared with the alternatives on at that time, it's the lesser of a multitude of evils by some distance.
                        The BBC had an RSC Hamlet on at the same time on Saturday. You barmpot.

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                          #13
                          Take Me Out

                          I was referring to the usual Saturday fayre, unless the Beeb are finally going to dispense with Arsehole in the Wall, Total Wipeout and Casualty and bring Shakespeare to the glory of primetime.

                          Anyway I'm more into Jacobean Tragedy myself...

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Take Me Out

                            Does anyone remember Chris Tarrant's 'Man O Man' from the 1990's?

                            'Take Me Out' is built on similarly shallow priciples. But less sophisticated.

                            Now I love a bit of mindless tosh - 'Total Wipeout' springs to mind - and I have no problem with guilty pleasures (I don't feel guilty) but I really can't stand 'Take Me Out'.

                            I think it's to do with Paddy NcGuinness, and I suppose I do have a bit of a problem with people being effectively told "you're ugly so you're no good to me" on primetime.

                            I like what SR wrote...

                            "What I love about this show is its ruthlessness, and how accurately it mirrors the real-life mentality of cattlemarket nightclubs (and, I guess, the internet), everyone sizeing each other up on first impressions, and the guys invariably resigned to taking the pick of the small subset of women who'd even consider having anything to do with themWhat I love about this show is its ruthlessness, and how accurately it mirrors the real-life mentality of cattlemarket nightclubs (and, I guess, the internet), everyone sizeing each other up on first impressions, and the guys invariably resigned to taking the pick of the small subset of women who'd even consider having anything to do with them

                            ...but such a spot-on analysis is a million miles away from the producer's criteria for getting it aired.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Take Me Out

                              Spearmint Rhino wrote:
                              Harry Hill deserves every BAFTA he gets.
                              SR has terribly misspelt "a bullet in the head" there.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Take Me Out

                                but such a spot-on analysis is a million miles away from the producer's criteria for getting it aired.
                                I'm not sure. Cattlemarket nightclubs are very successful on Saturday nights. It doesn't take a genius to see the possibilities.

                                QUOTE:
                                Compared with the alternatives on at that time, it's the lesser of a multitude of evils by some distance.

                                The BBC had an RSC Hamlet on at the same time on Saturday. You barmpot.
                                Did it? Fuck. I missed the Christmas Dr Who one as well. I would have seen it if it wasn't for the pesky kid (and wife)

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Take Me Out

                                  Spearmint Rhino wrote:

                                  QUOTE:
                                  Harry Hill deserves every BAFTA he gets.

                                  SR has terribly misspelt "a bullet in the head" there.
                                  I assumed he meant a la Berlosconi

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Take Me Out

                                    Harry Truscott wrote:
                                    Spearmint Rhino wrote:
                                    Harry Hill deserves every BAFTA he gets.
                                    SR has terribly misspelt "a bullet in the head" there.
                                    Come on, how is Harry Hill not brilliant? What is wrong with you, man?

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Take Me Out

                                      By confusing jerks, ticks and a "funny voice" with actual humour.

                                      Watching him is like suffering full body eczema.

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                                        #20
                                        Take Me Out

                                        "By confusing jerks, ticks and a "funny voice" with actual humour."

                                        Are you sure you know who Harry Hill is?

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                                          #21
                                          Take Me Out

                                          Satan

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                                            #22
                                            Take Me Out

                                            My opinion of Harry Hill resides somewhere between SR's and HT's. His show is ok, but it stands out like a brilliant beacon of unbridled televisual success amongst the rest of ITV's output. Apart from Take Me Out, which I rather enjoy.

                                            I particularly like when they film the mother of a given contestant talking about her son, who gasps in helpless horror as she describes how he still sucks his thumb and wet the bed til he was 15.

                                            It feels like rubbernecking at certain other moments, such as when 25 of them turn their lights off before the guy has barely opened his mouth; or the close-up of the aforementioned Emma's disappointment as she gets her light turned off again.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Take Me Out

                                              Spearmint Rhino or Harry Truscott? There is only one way to find out...

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Take Me Out

                                                I enjoy Take Me Out. I tend to catch it when it's repeated at something past midnight on Monday night though (God knows why they put it out again at such a time, but they do, so there).

                                                It is utterly terrible, but in a very unashamed way, and being as I'm seldom paying full attention to anything on TV that isn't football or a documentary I've made a point of sitting down for, it's good enough for me.

                                                But who called Paddy a cunt? Whether you like his stuff or not (I liked Phoenix Nights but can't bear anything he's been in since, until this) that seems needlessly harsh. Though we've had discussions on correct use of that word on OTF before so maybe I should apologise right now for bringing it up again...

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                                                  #25
                                                  Take Me Out

                                                  Paddy McGuinness is a cunt. He's a symbol of everything that's progressively more shit about British TV and British comedy, and he always looks delighted about it.

                                                  Also, he steals material from other comics and then cuts it out of his DVD to avoid being sued, then tells the audience its because said cut material is "too offensive" to be included.

                                                  I imagine him sitting at home listening to Sting's album of lute-led bullshit and reading Harry Redknapp's controversial Sun column, agreeing with every word ("Goalkeepers? They're mad, aren't they? but you've got to have them.")

                                                  Comment

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