External links
- The Underdog Show at BBC Online
- The Underdog Show at BBC Online
- http://livingtv.co.uk/shows/underdog
| The Underdog Show | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Fenia Vardanis |
| Starring | Host: Julian Clary |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| Production | |
| Running time | Main show: 1 hour Results show :30 minutes CBBC show 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC Two |
| Release | 20 March 2007 – 4 December 2008 |
The Underdog Show was a six-week television series presented by Julian Clary and his dog, Valerie. The series was produced by the independent production company Splash Media.
The show on BBC2 featured celebrities Julia Sawalha, Anton du Beke, Clive Anderson, Huey Morgan, Mishal Husain, Selina Scott, Kirsty Gallacher and Theo Paphitis pairing up with untrained rescue dogs for a Crufts-style competition. Every week, one duo was eliminated by a panel of three professional judges Kay Lawrence, Annie Clayton and Peter Purves and the viewers via telephone voting. The outgoing dog being put up for adoption to find a new home with a viewer, although Theo, Kirsty, and Clive adopted the rescue dogs they were paired with.
Steve Mann of Alpha Dog training School was the successful trainer of eventual winners, Selina and Chump. Steve Mann, a full-time professional Dog Trainer is considered [ by whom? ] one of the best dog trainers in the UK.
A spin off show on CBBC replaced the celebrities with eight children paired up with eight rescue dogs and eight professional dog trainers.
| Celebrity | Dog's name | Status/(end result) |
|---|---|---|
| Theo Paphitis | Claudia | Eliminated (8th) |
| Kirsty Gallacher | Bruno | Eliminated (7th) |
| Anton du Beke | Ginger | Eliminated (6th) |
| Clive Anderson | Albert | Eliminated (5th) |
| Mishal Husain | Robson | Eliminated (4th) |
| Julia Sawalha | Cookie | Third |
| Huey Morgan | Casper | Runner Up |
| Selina Scott | Chump | Winner |
The numbers in brackets e.g. (8th) denote the final position the celebrity finished in, not the order they were eliminated.
A second series aired on Living instead of BBC Two. It was hosted by Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Mark Durden-Smith.
Raef, Jason, Brian and Kevin all adopted the dogs that they were paired with.
| Celebrity | Dog's Name | Status/(End Result) |
|---|---|---|
| Javine Hylton | Bouncer | Eliminated (10th) |
| MC Harvey | Gambler | Eliminated (9th) |
| Ninia Benjamin | Sushi | Eliminated (8th) |
| Lesley Joseph | Louise | Eliminated (7th) |
| Raef Bjayou | Suz | Eliminated (6th) |
| Elize du Toit | Gloria | Eliminated (5th) |
| Jason Wood | Jim | Eliminated (4th) |
| Camilla Dallerup | Chico | Third |
| Brian Blessed | Dougal | Runner Up |
| Kevin Sacre | Sven | Winner |
The numbers in brackets e.g. (10th) denote the final position the celebrity finished in, not the order they were eliminated.
Brendan Cole is a New Zealand ballroom dancer, specialising in Latin American dancing. He is most famous for appearing as a professional dancer on the BBC One show, Strictly Come Dancing from 2004 to 2017. From 2005 to 2009, he was a judge on the New Zealand version of the show, Dancing with the Stars.
Selina Mary Scott is an English television presenter who co-hosted the first dedicated breakfast television programme in the UK before crossing the Atlantic to join West 57th, a prime-time current-affairs show broadcast from New York. Scott continues to write, and run her lifestyle brand Naturally Selina Scott.
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Celebrity Dog School was a short-lived Australian reality series which aired on Network Ten. It was based on the original version aired in the UK. The show was hosted by Larry Emdur, who also hosted The Price is Right on the Nine Network, and Wheel of Fortune on the Seven Network. It was a Pett Productions format for BBC Worldwide, produced by Freehand Group Pty Limited.
Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) is a guide dog school located in the United States, with campuses in San Rafael, California, and Boring, Oregon. It was founded in 1942 by Lois Merrihew and Don Donaldson to help veterans who had been blinded in World War II. Guide Dogs for the Blind has about 2100 Guide Dog teams across the United States and Canada.
The Blue Peter pets are animals that regularly appear on the long-running BBC children's television series Blue Peter. For 27 years, when not on TV, these pets were often looked after by Blue Peter's long-standing pet keeper Edith Menezes, who died in 1994. The exceptions were the dogs Petra, Shep and Goldie, who lived with Peter Purves, John Noakes and Simon Groom, respectively, for which the three presenters were paid a stipend for their upkeep.
Pointless is a British television quiz show produced by Banijay subsidiary Remarkable Entertainment for the BBC hosted by Alexander Armstrong. In each episode, four teams of two contestants attempt to find correct but obscure answers to four rounds of general knowledge questions, with the winning team eligible to compete for the show's cash jackpot.
Over the Rainbow is a British television talent series that aired on BBC One from 26 March to 22 May 2010. It documented the search for a new, undiscovered musical theatre performer to play the role of Dorothy Gale in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 2011 stage production of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and a dog to play Toto for a one-off performance.
Who Let the Dogs Out? is a British children's Dog training Game show that aired on the CBBC Channel since 21 September 2011. The show's name is widely derived from the song of the same name by the Bahamian junkaroo band Baha Men.
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"Cameras follow the RSPCA as they rescue dogs from the worst of circumstances."
The ninth series of the British talent competition programme Britain's Got Talent was broadcast on ITV, from 11 April to 31 May 2015. The series saw the "Wildcard" format introduced in the sixth series being modified in this series to include a "Public Wildcard" – like the "Judges' Wildcard" any act eliminated in the semi-finals, primarily those that lost out in the Judges' vote, could be reinstated by the public, based on the one that received the most votes from them before the final. Although speculations and rumours began to emerge after the previous series ended, claiming that some of the judges would be leaving before the ninth series, these were later dismissed as being unfounded by ITV, on 16 January 2015.
Strictly Come Dancing returned for its thirteenth series on BBC One with a launch show on 5 September 2015, and the live shows beginning on 25 September 2015. Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman returned to present the launch show and the live shows while Zoe Ball returned to present Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two on BBC Two. Darcey Bussell, Len Goodman, Craig Revel Horwood, and Bruno Tonioli all returned as judges.
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