Last night, Celebrity Juice made history by becoming the first ever UK panel show to air completely live on television, and I was lucky enough to have been invited along for the ride.
The hour-long live episode on ITV2 was to celebrate the start of the show's incredible 15th series, and the dream team (Keith Lemon, Holly Willoughby and Fearne Cotton) were reunited as neither team captain was off having a baby... a rarity on this show!
Gino D'Acampo who stood in for Holly Willoughby in series 12 and Fearne Cotton in series 14 was back, this time as a regular panelist on Fearne's team. Also on Fearne's team was current jungle champion and loose woman Vicky Pattison. On Holly's team, there was her TV husband and King of ITV, Phillip Schofield as well as reigning winning coach on The Voice UK, Ricky Wilson.
Filmed at Elstree, and broadcast live, I was invited along to see for myself how one of the funniest and filthiest shows on television is made. Before the show I was allowed to sit down at Mr Keith Lemon's desk, much to the envy of the audience sitting in front of me... Sorry!
Whenever I've interviewed Keith, he's always described Celebrity Juice as “a big party with his best mates", and Holly has always described it as her "night off" from looking after the kids.
It was clearly a night off for Phillip Schofield too, as the TV presenter looked like he was having THE best time. Probably the best time out of all of them... and swearing like a trooper!
There's something quite strange about watching Phillip Schofield swear, it's so wrong, yet so right.
The live show saw some of my favourite games return; Don't Show Keith Your Teeth and Shouting One Out, as well as Dude, This Movie Sounds Like my ****, where Gino was asked to list movies related to poo. For example he rather excitedly thought of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (or Shitty Shitty Bang Bang), Winnie the Pooh and many more.
Schofield on the other hand was asked to list movies related to his penis. Yep. That's right. His penis. Up and Gone In 60 Seconds were just two out of his NINE answers!
Throughout the show Rylan was stuck in a box outside the studio and the viewers at home were asked to tweet whether they wanted to let Rylan on the panel (he'd been begging to come on apparently), or keep him in the box.
Unfortunately they chose to keep him outside in a box, but it wasn't all bad news, as Keith did invite him back to be on next week's show!
Although will he make it? Is Rylan dead? At the end of the show, the tank Keith was going to drive down Borehamwood High Street, drove over the box Rylan was in leaving only a pair of teeth behind.
The atmosphere in the studio was electric. Everyone was there to have a good time and thankfully Keith and co. didn't disappoint.
The closest Keith got to a mistake, was calling Lionel Blair, Lionel Ritchie when a picture of the choreographer was shown on screen. But it was hardly a mistake in the league of the legendary "How's Adam?" on EastEnders.
Yes, the show was a little chaotic at times, and yes you didn't quite know what was coming next, but isn't that true of Celebrity Juice every week.
Out of all the TV shows to have gone live recently, Celebrity Juice is perhaps the most suited to going live and I hope that there'll be another live episode soon!
Most series after 176 episodes feel stale and not as good as it once was, but as a genuine fan of the show since day one back in 2008 the show keeps coming back bigger and better than before and just when you think it can't shock you anymore... it does!
Interestingly, the show hit its ratings peak on the 27th October 2011, when 3.1m people tuned in to see Ant & Dec receive the Celebrity Juice treatment - proof the show is as popular, if not more popular than it ever was!
It's also worth pointing out that Holly and Fearne, have remained on the show since day one (apart from when they were off having babies), s0 it's clear that they still enjoy recording the show, otherwise they would have left a long time ago, as neither of them need the gig!
For me, I believe the success of Celebrity Juice is down to the commitment of Keith Lemon (Leigh Francis to give him his real name), who I know works incredibly hard in making any of his shows, the best they can possibly be.