Live & Kicking is a British children's television series that originally aired on BBC1 from 2 October 1993 to 15 September 2001. It was the replacement for Going Live!, and took many of its features from it, such as phone-ins, games, comedy, competitions and the showing of cartoons. Once Live & Kicking had become established in series two, it reached its height in popularity during series four, when it was presented by Zoe Ball and Jamie Theakston; their final edition won a BAFTA award. After this the programme's ratings dropped with the launch of SMTV Live on ITV and the show ended in 2001. History Live & Kicking was conceived as a replacement for Going Live!. It was first broadcast on 2 October 1993 at 9 am on BBC1. The original hosts were Andi Peters, Emma Forbes who had presented a cookery segment in Going Live!, and John Barrowman. For the second series, Barrowman was relegated to hosting the showbiz Electric Circus segment, leaving Peters and Forbes to become the main hosts. He left after one series of Electric Circus to concentrate on acting. Comedy duo Trevor and Simon and Peter Simon, in the Run the Risk segment, were also regulars who had featured on Going Live!. While the first series was not as popular as its predecessor, the second series was more successful. It was broadcast during the winter months, from September to April, with Fully Booked replacing it during the summer. New episodes of the Rugrats were shown. The series went out opposite ITV's What's Up Doc? but during its third series issues were raised by the ITC, and a number of people left including Don Austen and John Eccleston (Bro and Bro's puppeteers) who defected to Live & Kicking to star as a couple of leprechaun brothers Sage and Onion. Andi Peters decided to leave the programme in 1996, after being offered an executive role at LWT, where he also presented Saturday mid-morning music programme The Noise. Emma Forbes initially planned to continue, but during the programme's summer break she also decided to leave, after finding out she was pregnant. They were replaced by Zoë Ball and Jamie Theakston, who presented it for three years. According to the BBC, the show's popularity was at its peak during the 1996/1997 series when the show regularly had 2.5 million viewers. Around this time Mr. Blobby, played by Barry Killerby,