Hedz is a children's satirical show produced by BBC Scotland for CBBC which parodies various celebrities and politicians as large cardboard cut-outs over people's faces (sometimes with clothing that resembles the celebrity). Voices were provided by Tim Dann, Rupert Degas, Peter Dickson, Adam Longworth, and Kate O'Sullivan. It is filmed on the same set of BBC Scotland soap opera River City.
The first series aired during the second series of the children's Saturday morning show TMi on BBC Two in 2007. A second series was produced in 2010 and was aired as part of Sam & Mark's TMi Friday on the CBBC Channel.
Recurring gags
In Hedz, there are half-minute to a minute short gags, which are similar in one way or another for each character(s).
For Russell Brand, he says his catchphrase "... if I tell a lie, let me beautiful barnet sprout forth!" at the beginning of his sketch, and then tells a series of lies, causing his hair to grow abnormally large. After three lies, he trips on his hair and falls down, ending the gag with "Betrayed by my own barnet! The shame!". For Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp, they share a bath, where they play, argue and talk. By the end of the gag, Johnny Depp somehow causes Orlando Bloom to get out of the bathtub. However, at times Orlando gets his own back on Johnny (e.g. throwing Johnny's paper hat into the bath, causing it to go soggy and sink) For Simon Cowell, he first sneaks into his shed, where he tells Cat Deeley (who is in the form of a white cat) to "... bring me [Simon] the leaders of the free world!", causing Deeley to press a red button, bringing George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Queen Elizabeth II, Gordon Brown, Romano Prodi and Bob Geldof onto H.Q.-like screens. After which he explains his "brilliant" plan, usually on the effects of global warming, where the leaders go wild in its sheer flawlessness (at the middle of Cowell's speech, Deeley explains the crucial flaws). After the pitch of his idea Cowell raises up his hands and goes, "For I am a genius!" When he does this a button loosens from Simon's trousers, so they fall down (revealing his boxer shorts) and is sprayed down with something got to do with his idea (e.g. if the plan contained toilet paper, toilet paper will rain down onto him), making the leaders laugh. Another ironic touch is that Deeley speaks in meows, with her words displayed as subtitles, and Cowell cannot understand her, although guesses she is positive about the idea, e.g. "Are you ready for my brilliant plan, Cat?" "No!" "I knew you would be, Cat." On his shed is a sign which says, 'Simon's shed keep out'. Already we can see Simon is not very bright; he writes the 'p' backwards. For Ant & Dec, they spot another celebrity couple from their tree house "oh Ant, can you see out?" and decide to set a trap for them "there's only room for ONE celebrity duo in this forest!", which fails. Afterwards, Ant gets caught by the same trap. The celebrity duos have included David/Victoria Beckham, Davina McCall/Dermot O'Leary, Barry/Paul Chuckle, Mary-Kate/Ashley Olsen, Arlene Phillips/Bruno Tonioli and Kylie/Dannii Minogue For David Tennant, he is doing something that rhymes with Who (As in Doctor Who). E.g. – he is sitting on a snooker cue and says 'I'm doctor cue!', or appearing twice and saying 'I'm doctor two!'. Arnold Schwarzenegger owns a video shop and the sketch always features a celebrity requesting a DVD of a movie starring that celebrity. However, Schwarzenegger will only sell them movies starring himself. The celebrity will proceed to attack Arnold in some way, only to be defeated by Arnold. After the celebrity leaves, an Arnold Schwarzenegger 'Bobble Head' says, 'They'll be back'. The only time Arnold has lost to a celebrity is when Anne Hathaway kissed him, turning him into a robotic frog. For Daniel Craig on a Boot Camp, an army of Daniel Craigs march and sing a song with the lyrics "We're competing day by day, 'til there's just one Daniel Craig" when drill sergeant Graham Norton suddenly jumps in and yells "SHUT UP!" Sgt. Norton informs the Daniel Craig's that they are at the camp competing for the role of 007 and so he sets the Daniel Craigs a task to survive as secret agents and warns them that the one who doesn't perform well enough will be eliminated and then Graham yells "Do I make myself clear?!" One Daniel Craig who is ironically portrayed as the odd-one-out wears a Pink Bow Tie and keeps annoying Graham by asking stupid questions "oh, could your write it down for me sir?" and always leaves Norton yelling "What in the name of International Espionage do you think you're doing? You are the weakest Daniel Craig, good-bye!" Gordon Brown is portrayed as "Mr. Brown", who lives at 10 Downing Street in a "Brown, Brown House in a Brown, Brown Street". Brown "has a country to run and is a very serious man...but then Mr.Brown does naughty things in the Brown, Brown House" and eventually breaks something, which is always followed by the narrator calling Brown a "silly man" and telling him to go to his room. Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair has a cameo as the famous policeman who stands outside No.10 and usually gets covered in whatever Brown is messing about with. Formula 1 race driver Lewis Hamilton is portrayed as a man driving a Scalextric car around a track in a playroom. He then races against other celebrities such as Jackie Chan who try and cheat but fail, always resulting in Hamilton winning the race and spraying champagne everywhere. Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay refers to himself in the third person and tries his best to accomplish even the simplest of tasks and when he makes a mishap it makes him mad and his face glows red with anger but he manages to calm himself down a couple of times but on his third mishap he gets so angry his face blows up and he says "Doh!, worst (whatever he is doing) ever, done!". For Robbie Williams he is portrayed as a Guardian Angel for Queen Elizabeth II, who will often try and help her with work that she doesn't need help doing, and getting her messy or injured as a result. For Billie Piper she is portrayed as a "fair maiden in distress" though she always argues with the narrator when he describes the simple problem she is in. The Narrator then tells the audience who will save her? "Golfing legend, turned outlaw Tiger Hood!" (Tiger Woods) who suddenly jumps into the scene in a fanfare and proceeds to help Billie by firing his golf clubs at the obstacle although she argues that he can make it so much easier for both of them if he just solves the problem without using his clubs! This distraction causes Tiger to lose his concentration and when he fires his clubs they always miss hit their target and bounce off objects and usually end up hitting Tiger in the face and then he takes out his putter and fires it (over Billie's continuous protests) and that too misses its target, bounces off trees and hits Billie in the face! Tiger then says he has either had enough or goes off to find his clubs leaving Billie fuming over the narrator's annoying speech "and so once again, Tiger Hood has saved the day!" Then the book closes, and Billie protests until the book is closed and she is silenced. The only time when this is the opposite is when Billie's fire was put out, and she wanted the lid to be closed so she could keep warm. For Jackie Chan, he stars in a show called 'Jackie Can', which sees him performing incredibly simple acts such as opening a door or turning on a light, however he uses somersaults and Kung-fu moves to do so. At the end, after something goes wrong (e.g. tripping over his own shoelaces, opening a door with brooms propped against it, resulting in the brooms falling onto him) he usually says 'Remember kids, don't try this at home!' For McFly, their cue is four flies flying around along with a buzzing noise. Sometimes there is a 'One Two Three Four' before they burst into song. McFly are the only characters in Hedz who sing with squeaky voices. Apart from Cat Deeley, they are the other animal characters in the form of four flies in different colours; yellow (Danny), blue (Tom), green (Dougie), and red (Harry). All but Harry are seen holding guitars, but Harry holds a drum. At the end, one member of McFly hits their head on the camera and a ring of stars appear above their heads before they drop out of the frame. Sometimes an 'ouch' can be heard. For Beyoncé, she is first seen as an ordinary cleaner until her pink phone beeps. Once she hears the crisis, she instantly turns into a pop princess with a silver B on her bum. She normally says, "Me and my booty go save that cutie" before rushing off to the crisis. She uses her bum to shake things free (e.g. the ball from the basketball hoop, Cat Deely from the tree). After whoever she was helping says thank you she often replies with "I'm Beyoncé usin' my butt to save yours!" Then she rushes off. Beyoncé is always heard talking in rhymes. For 8 episodes, celebrities big in the pop world are squashed by the Phantom Flattener using a garden roller. Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne read the newspaper and find out about the flattened pop star. They visit the scene of the crime before spotting the Phantom Flattener. Then they chase the Flattener down the same route, stopping half way at a bus stop, where Kelly and Jack Osbourne are. The family chases the Flattener, who normally escapes. During the last episode, they change tactics and trick the Flattener before unmasking the fiend, who is really Charlotte Church. For Len Goodman, Arlene Phillips and Bruno Tonioli, they are sitting down as a family eating dinner. Len asks for an item, and Arlene and Bruno both put their hands on the item. This triggers them dancing to music and a disco ball. We can hear Len Goodman making comments and saying how awful their performance is. Once they've finished dancing they return to the table and hand Len his item. Len then gets disappointed as his food has gone cold and therefore he gives them "a big, fat, zero" (0 points) and then says "Join us next week when I'll be asking for [another thing on the table!]". For Girls Aloud, all the girls but Sarah create a beat using whatever they have at the location (e.g. library, exam hall). Sarah always destroys their beat by making a loud sound. Then she laughs as the other girls complain. For Paris Hilton, the camera is mostly on her while she brags on (e.g. about a party where everyone dresses as her, how beautiful she is). At times the camera changes to see Noodles. Near the end of the sketch, Hilton normally goes, "Tantrum time! Tantrum! Tantrum!" and wails loudly (e.g. "I want my big sunglasses!"). This normally results in Noodles going, "Woof!" angrily and punishing her (e.g. blowing the hair-dryer at her which messes up her hair, throwing her into the river, throwing her onto the ground and then urinating on her) For Jamie Oliver, he is portrayed as a chef with an exaggerated lisp, who jumps about and yells. He has a fridge which resembles a prison cell containing a few vegetables who angrily want him to let them out, but he refuses. For Wayne Rooney there are two Wayne twins and they like to do girly things such as ballet and watercolour painting. This usually ends in a mess such as tripping over while dancing.
Twists
For the last episode of Hedz, they created twists for some of the sketches.
For the Rooney Twins, they go head to head with their rivals The Clooney Twins. Their feud ends with them becoming friends and having a tea party. For Len Goodman, Arlene Phillips and Bruno Tonioli, instead of giving Phillips and Tonioli zero, Goodman gave them a ten. For Gordon Ramsay, he is seen looking after his 'son', who is really a mini version of Ramsay tucked in a buggy. After being mad three times, he explodes. Similarly, after crying three times, his 'son' explodes.