American network bosses are chasing them to take Saturday Night Takeaway show across the Atlantic.

The presenters are working with UK TV bosses to try to clear space in their diaries to allow them to host the programme.

Apparently the duo will have to tone down their accents for the American audience.

Suing Saturday Night Takeaway - 28/04/03
A contestant from Geordie duo Ant & Dec’s Saturday night show wants to sue the pair of them, as they didn’t help him win.

It seems that contestant Billy King had a bit of a bad run on the show Saturday Night Takeaway. He was all set to win trips abroad and a ?8,000 car when he fluffed a trick question and lost the lot - emerging with only a booby prize of a toilet roll. Even worse - he was later arrested on suspicion of drink driving for crashing his car into a bus outside the ITV studios.

So obviously feeling a bit sour about things Billy watched a girl contestant win on a recent show, and claimed that she only won due to Ant & Dec helping her. So now he wants to sue.

Billy said ’It is a case of them changing the rules and letting the girl win. Why was she allowed a second chance when no one else had been allowed one?" A spokesman for the TV programme said ’We are always sympathetic to our losers but it is a shame Billy is turning out to be such a bad one.’

Ant & Dec meanwhile are well out of this one - they are presenting ’I’m A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here!’ deep in the Australian jungle.

Ant and Dec buy their local - 27/02/03
Geordie duo Ant and Dec love their local boozer in Newcastle so much that they bought it.

The pair have paid ?175,000 for a half share in Jonny Ringo’s, just off the city’s famous Bigg Market. Renamed The Lodge, it re-opened this week with an extended licence to 1am.

Ant told the The Northern Echo: "It’s always been something we have dreamed of doing and to finally have our own bar, in our home town, is just fantastic. Dec’s so excited he might even get a round in.

"We used to come in here drinking whenever we were back home in Newcastle and have always loved it."

Ant and Dec have teamed up with nightclub operator Ultimate Leisure for the deal.

Ant and Dec dupe Emmerdale cast - 24/02/03
Ant and Dec have fooled the entire cast of Emmerdale by disguising themselves as middle-aged competition winners who had won walk-on parts in the Woolpack.

In the stunt for their show Saturday Night Takeaway they ruined a number of takes with phone calls and loud conversations as bemused cast members looked on.

Woolpack landladies Emily Symons and Liz Estensen, who play Louise and Diane, were in stitches as one of the undercover pair interrupted a scene by taking a tumble from a bar stool.

An Emmerdale spokesman said: "The cast were expecting competition winners and had no idea what was about to unfold in front of their eyes.

"They naturally wondered what on earth was happening, but they were fantastic sports when they realised that the joke was on them and they all found it very, very funny."

Viewers will see the results on this Saturday’s show and Dec said: "We’ve done a few of these now - but the Emmerdale one is the best one yet."

Watch out - Ant & Dec’s about! - 10/02/03
If you are a celebrity then keep your eyes peeled for this Geordie duo - as they are proving even more scary than eighties ’prankster’ Jeremy Beadle.