Jonathan Ross

That Puppet Game Show is another attempt by BBC1 to create the next big weekend family entertainment programme and this time they've called in Jim Henson Productions for help. The company behind The Muppets have created a whole new set of puppet characters to front a game show which every week welcomes two celebrity guests who battle it out to win money for charity.

This first episode saw Jonathan Ross and Katherine Jenkins being the unwilling victims of host Dougie Colon and his team of experts. The challenges were all reminiscent of ones we've seen on The Generation Game or any of Ant & Dec's game shows. They included Ross and Jenkins attempting to squeeze hotdogs in the right order, punch themselves, give an awards acceptance speech and be observant while jumping up and down on a trampoline. The game show elements of the programme were counterbalanced by backstage skits involving the show's experts and producer Mancie O'Neil. The plot of this first episode saw the programme's boss Udders McGhee, who for some reason was a giant bull, forcing Mancie to fire one of the employees. Mancie's issue was that they were all as useless as each other and she had more than enough reasons to fire every single one of them.

It's easy to be cynical about a programme like That Puppet Game Show however I feel like it will appeal to families who want to watch TV together. I feel that the little kids will enjoy the games involving hotdogs, the teenagers will enjoy the jokes involving the weird creatures backstage and the adults will appreciate some of the ruder gags that fly over the heads of their children. As I'm not part of the target market for That Puppet Game Show, I found it hard to get into it but I rather enjoyed some of the games especially the awards acceptance speeches. Ross and Jenkins were both game guests who didn't seem to have an issue interacting with puppets and sort of had an attitude of 'we're both in this together'. Though the humour employed in the backstage skits was hit-and-miss, the gag ratio was high so if you didn't like one joke there was another one along in a minute. The programme was incredibly surreal at times, including a segment where a family at home was commenting on how they weren't being entertained by the show, but I felt it had its heart in the right place.

I thought that the programme never outstayed its welcome and the forty minute runtime suited it perfectly as it would definitely have run out of steam had it been given a full hour. Though it's not everybody's cup of tea, I do applaud BBC1 for at least trying something different and That Puppet Game Show is a thousand times more enjoyable than the horrendous I Love My Country. It will be interesting to see if the show will find an audience, early rating suggest that it didn't too well, but for now at least I would say that this was an entertaining piece of early-Saturday night programming that would more than appeal to its core audience.

Well, That Puppet Game Show (BBC1) was twice as good as the woeful I Love My Country. Which meant it was still pretty much pants, as the idea of having a bunch of crazy puppet characters hosting a quiz show made for an interminably long 40 minutes.

This was an uninspired retread of Sesame Street (I admit, I never really got why that was so popular) with a pretty bland host called Dougie Colon (Vernon Kay, only half as tall) tickling the egos of guests Jonathan Ross and Katherine Jenkins as they joshed and giggled their way through yawn-worthy challenges.

Backstage, the puppet types were caught up in some kind of showbiz drama that was equally lame.

It's all for charity, that great get-out card for throwing any old mud at the screen and hoping some of it will stick. The best character was a crabby crab called Clive, called upon to keep the scores, who looked as disgruntled at being there as I did watching this mess. When does Strictly start?

That Puppet Game Show (BBC1, Saturday) is yet another attempt to crack the Saturday evening family entertainment nut. That's Puppet, with a P, not with an M, though you could easily be mistaken; they share about 99% of their DNA with Kermit and co, and were made by the same company. But instead of a frog, this show is hosted by Dougie, a big-chinned fella with a hint of both Vernon Kay and Paddy McGuinness about him. And it's a game show. Two actual flesh'n'bone slebs (Jonathan Ross and Kathryn Jenkins, in the opener) compete against each other to win money for charidee.

Some of the games don't really work. Saucissong, for example - in which contestants have to remember which singing Scottish hotdog sang which bit of 500 Miles by the Proclaimers - quickly gets tedious. More about the name than the game, I'd say. Life's a Speech is better. It does all feel very 1987, but it's warm, funny at times, and the guests (so far) are game. It should become more interesting once you get to know the puppets' personalities a bit better. So far my favourite is an alcoholic armadillo called Ian.

Radio Times review

Cracking Saturday night family telly is tough, and bringing in puppets - even Jim Henson puppets - might seem like a last resort. But That Puppet Game Show, in which two celebrities vie for a £10,000 charity prize on a game show presented and staffed entirely by puppets, is no cheap'n'flimsy weekend whimsy. Each puppet, from host Dougie Colon (think Vernon Kay by way of Peter Kay) to softly spoken but ballsy show producer Mancie O'Neill, has a "personality" to go with their distinctively wide, smooth Henson mouths. The celebrities, this week Jonathan Ross and Katherine Jenkins, are game. And the challenges, which are facilitated by small, bendy frankfurters in clothes, are more than likely to raise a laugh from the average sofa.

The dread word 'madcap' fell out of fashion decades ago, but virtually defines BBC1's current Saturday night line-up: That Puppet Game Show plus I Love My Country equals primetime nadir. That Puppet Game Show is by no means as hateful as I Love My Country. It's just pitiable, which somehow makes it worse.

The gameshow element, in which celebs ('everybody's sweetheart' Katherine Jenkins and 'king of TV' Jonathan Ross) do silly things for charity under the watchful eye of wacky felt-skinned host Dougie Colon, is bad enough. But the sketches interspersed among the games, following events 'behind the scenes' as the producers decide to sack one of the team, are simply excruciating in their naked attempt - and abject failure - to recapture the subversion and anarchy of The Muppet Show. No surprise that Jim Henson's son is involved but, on this evidence, a chip off the old block he is not. This makes Don't Scare the Hare look like Isles of Wonder.

Jonathan Ross extends ITV chat show deal

Jonathan Ross has signed a new deal with ITV to extend his chat show on the channel until the end of next year.

Graham Norton may have been made more family-friendly of late, but the dildo-brandisher of the past still capers somewhere at the back of his consciousness; his chat show remains peppered with arch humour, and sycophancy is earned by guests rather than doled out to all, as with Jonathan Ross. Tonight's instalment is a best-bits clip show, in case you missed his sparring with Hollywood heavyweights Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas, Amy Adams and Will Smith, plus UK talent such as Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Jonathan Ross has eye on move to LA with wife

He has been entertaining us with his chat show for more than a decade but Jonathan Ross is planning to bid goodbye to the UK small-screen and move to Los Angeles with his producer wife Jane Goldman.

Channel 4's annual charity event returns with a troupe of performers large enough to make the Polyphonic Spree look on in envy. As ever, it's a mix of the established and the incipient, so Jo Brand and Jonathan Ross line up alongside men of the moment Adam Hills and Josh Widdicombe. Elsewhere, comedians dancing seems to be a thing just now, so Miranda Hart and Warwick Davis duly join up with Diversity to show off their moves, while Russell Brand absents himself from Hollywood to partake in some audience interaction.

Graham Norton gets prime cuts, Jonathan Ross get scrag end

It looks like the old Jonathan Ross has gone forever. Maybe the Sachsgate scandal beat it out of him. Maybe he's grown lazy in his old age.