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TMi (Too Much Information) became the seventh programme to occupy the official Saturday
Morning slot when it began its run on 16 September 2006, just a couple of
weeks short of the 30th anniversary of the first ever Swap Shop.
TMi is broadcast from a studio at MTV which overlooks Leicester Square in London, and
is the first show to add a 'reality television' twist to the mix with the TMi
Flat full of cameras that two of the show's presenters - Sam and
Mark -
live in and prepare the show with the production team.
Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes, two CBBC favourites from TOTP
Reloaded and Level Up, are joined by Caroline Flack.
The start of TMi saw the return to Saturday mornings of a show more like Live
& Kicking than The Saturday Show. The mix of games, guests,
cartoons and music videos (with spookily familiar L&K style full
screen graphics!) was very familiar Saturday morning fare.
There were however some very nice twists to the fare, with an interactive
taste added...
The TMi Playlist is a list of music videos that viewers vote for on
the TMi website (or webspace as they like to call it...) and the highly
randomly selected Birthday Bingo month would be generated using a
different method each week - the more bizarre the better.
Loot Machine would see viewers send in their 'tat' to play the
human fruit machine, but the aptly named Surely They Can't Make a Game
Out of That? would almost always steal the show. Simply, a game had to
be created by Sam and Mark using a number of randomly selected items, then
once the game had been played the Bird of Decision had to be asked it's
opinion.
And of course, the Chinatown Challenge saw one of the boys being
sent off deep into Leicester Square for an exercise in humiliation as a
forfeit for losing to the other in a head-to-head challenge.
One of the nice touches was the return of interaction with the crew in the
studio - especially from Ed and Helen - a tradition that
first started back with Swap Shop, and took us back again to the
classic days of Live & Kicking.
TMi steered Saturday morning television right back to the golden
era enjoyed up to the end of L&K's sixth series, and what a
great job it did too.
There are so many comparisons that can be made between TMi and L&K,
Going Live!, SuperStore and Swap Shop - and that's
why it works!
It's simply Sam, Mark, Caroline and the crew making a great programme and
almost having too much fun doing it.
Marvellous!
The second series of TMi has been commissioned and is slated to start
on 8th September.
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