3. Let's See How Offensive We Can Be
Paramount PicturesAt the beginning of L!ve TV's life the shows were somewhat pretentious but harmless - chat shows, celeb insider info etc. fluff stuff but when Kelvin and Janet parted company, the seedier side of the Mirror crept in and we were encouraged to come up with cheap ideas along tabloid lines. A colleague of mine was involved with the creation of Britain's Bounciest Weather with Rusty Goffe. The concept was simple - get a little person to do the weather forecast and since he couldn't reach up to Scotland to tell us it was still raining let's have him bounce on a small trampoline as he delivers the days weather. Rusty Goffe was awesome and embraced the silly concept despite being a real actor with actual credentials - he was an Oompa Loompa in the original Chocolate Factory for a start. So the little man doing the weather idea got approved along with Lunchbox Volleyball (guys playing volleyball with cameras trained on their Speedos) and Topless Darts (self explanatory) and so on. But some of the ideas that were put forth as serious contenders were downright offensive. When I began writing this section I was going to list some of them but in retrospect I'll leave it to your imagination. Let me just say that anything you think of probably won't come close to reality. These ideas were made by fully grown professional adults who assumed people would want to watch them and more importantly that advertisers would want their product associated with them. Six million a year loss. I wonder why.