The Big Bang (TV series)

History

The Big Bang began in 1996 with presenters Gareth Jones and Kate Bellingham. After the second series, Bellingham left to care for her new child, and Violet Berlin, then Gareth Jones's long-time friend and partner, replaced her for the third series in 1998. The show remained largely unchanged until a new logo and set design were introduced for the fifth and sixth series in 2000 and 2001. Jones later revealed on his website that they left because many of the usual production staff would not be involved in the 2002 series and because of changes to the show they did not agree with. For the seventh series, the show underwent another rebrand with a new theme tune, a new logo, and new presenters Kate McIntyre and Michael Underwood. The old theme tune was brought back for the final two series. The set remained mostly unchanged, though the neon Big Bang sign in the kitchen was not replaced with the new logo until series 8. McIntyre and Underwood presented together for two series; Underwood then left to present Ministry of Mayhem, and Sam Pinkham replaced him for the ninth and final series. In 2003, a shorter five-minute version called The Little Bang was introduced at weekends, taking one section from a normal episode and displaying the needed materials at the start. After the show ended, it was repeated daily on Discovery Kids UK, starting with the first series through the sixth until that channel closed in 2007. Series 7, 8, and 9 were regularly repeated on the CITV channel, usually at weekends until the end of 2012. In Vietnam from 2003, all series originally aired on HTV7, later on HTV1 and HTV4.