When Andi Peters announced he was going to leave, Emma Forbes had every intention of carrying on, but she soon discovered she was pregnant. Since the baby would be born halfway into series four she decided to leave.

Zoe and Jamie's first show featured Emma in the Hot Seat.

Andi Peters departed to head the music department of ITV. One of his first shows was The Noise; a half-hour music magazine show that went out opposite Live and Kicking and was presented by the man himself.

Live and Kicking was such a success under Zoe Ball and Jamie Theakston that a Friday preview show was created, imaginatively titled L&K Friday, which played out during CBBC. Steve Wilson was one of the presenters. The early days of BBC Choice also featured a 90-minute edit of the show called L&K Replay.

Soon the private lives of Ball and Theakston were tabloid news. In November 1998 Theakston had to step away from an interview with All Saints, as he'd just split up with Natalie Appleton.

Ball began to present the Radio 1 breakfast show in 1997; a double that Saturday Superstore's Mike Read had achieved over a decade earlier. Zoe cited exhaustion from this 6-day week as the reason for leaving Live and Kicking.

From the second series two puppets joined the show. Leprechauns Mr Sage and Mr Onion (named in a viewer competition) were a mixture of hand puppetry and animatronics by Darryl Worbey, John Eccleston and Don Austen. John and Don had previously provided the hands and voices for the two wolves in the ITV Saturday offering What's Up Doc. They also worked on Little Shop of Horrors, Muppet Treasure Island and The Muppet Christmas Carol. The Darryl Worbey Studios recently built the new-look Basil Brush.

Towards the end of its run, production of Live and Kicking was moved to Glasgow, with Katie Hill being replaced by unknown Heather Suttie.