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.
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.
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