Saturday Night Takeaway: Ant and Dec's funniest moments and pranks

Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway is back, which means more hilarious pranks from the kings of light entertainment.

The Geordie duo love to get celebrities in on their pranks, either by dressing up to fool them or by instructing them to make fools of themselves through a hidden earpiece.

We look back over some of the best gags involving their famous pals on the programme.

Gordon Ramsay

Known for being just about the angriest, sweariest man on the planet, chef Gordon Ramsay was a brave choice for the lads to play a prank on.

They followed him all the way out to Hollywood to pose as handymen Juan senior and Juan junior on the set of MasterChef USA, messing up his camera takes and trashing his dressing room.

Unsurprisingly, Gordon got incredibly angry very quickly and it looked as though Ant and Dec were lucky to escape with nothing worse than a bit of shouting.

Piers Morgan

Ant and Dec teamed up with their old friend Simon Cowell (who's been pranked by them himself) to target Piers Morgan.

As Piers is a good friend of Simon’s, he thought nothing of going over to Simon’s office for a visit and having a good giggle about an overpriced piece of art that the X Factor star had bought from some Russian dealers.

But the laughter soon dried up when the painting toppled over and was ruined, leading Simon to turn on Piers and accuse him of destroying it.

Richard Madeley

Taking part in the I’m A Celebrity, Get Out of Me Ear segment is a brave move for famous guests as they have to follow all of Ant and Dec’s instructions.

Daytime TV presenter Richard Madeley realised exactly how foolish it could make him look when he agreed to host a series of photographers at his home for a calendar he was apparently putting together.

Cringeworthy catchphrases, offers to pose bottomless, and an impromptu piano performance had the pair in stitches as they guided him through his embarrassment.

David Dickinson

Unsuspecting antiques expert David Dickinson thought that he was fronting a new show reuniting people with their long-lost treasures when a man in search of his old Ford Capri arrived on set.

The Duke introduced him to the man who had bought it and a big row kicked off when it emerged that the car had been massively undersold.

But worse was to come when the original owner (Dec) tried to drive it away and staged a dramatic crash that left David terrified his new programme had been responsible for a death.

Emma Bunton

Singer Emma Bunton showed that she was up for a laugh when she agreed to take Ant and Dec’s instructions on interviewing for a new assistant.

The star even poked fun at her Baby Spice image by referring to herself as a toddler and drinking milk from a baby bottle.

A series of terrified-looking candidates humoured her terrible joke-telling and early-morning boozing from a bottle of gin.

James Corden

The lads made another trip to America to prank a British export – this time it was James Corden’s turn as he tried to film an episode of The Late Late Show.

Ant and Dec gave him the worst morning of his life by making him late for work and uncharacteristically grouchy.

James's day was to take an even darker turn though when he believed that a stunt had gone wrong during filming for his show, killing a guest – which was Ant all along.

Holly Willoughby

Usually, Holly Willoughby’s Surprise Surprise shows are full of warm and fuzzy feel-good moments.

However, when she tried to arrange a special evening for a charity worker to meet her idols Blue and then be proposed to by her boyfriend, things went horribly wrong.

The guest turned down the marriage proposal and revealed a rather shocking love triangle with an unexpected older man.

Louis Walsh

Pop manager Louis Walsh proved himself to be a good sport when he took part in one of the duo’s pranks.

Following instructions from them through an earpiece, Louis welcomed a series of contractors to his house and painted himself as a completely self-absorbed celebrity who wore a crown and kept a tribute room to himself.

The high (or low) point was when he picked up a banana and pretended to be taking a phone call on it from Dannii Minogue.

Simon Cowell

The boys most famous and memorable prank was in the early years of Takeaway when they got their own back on their Britain's Got Talent boss Simon Cowell.

"The top one has got to be our Undercover on Simon Cowell," said Ant.

"It was the first one we ever did - we flew to LA and auditioned for American Idol, which was really nerve wracking. Also the prosthetic make-up didn't turn up so we had to do dodgy beards and stick-on earrings but it worked."

Watch Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway on ITV on Saturdays.

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