Not only did the Pet Shop Boys bring a touch of theatre to disco pop, they've had some really, er, ground-breaking TV programme ideas over the years. Don't believe us? Check out these howlers.

PET SHOP RESCUE BOYS
A blatant tug on the heartstrings of animal lovers everywhere, this show featured the synth-pop pardners performing all manner of daring do's in order to rescue people's pets. But the lads' insistence on doing things their way did much to scupper this project. Funnily enough, the sight of Chris Lowe jumping on a mini-trampoline wearing his famous dunce's hat, in order to scare a kitten out of overhead branches caused distress among some viewers, and the show was promptly axed before anyone could witness Neil's benevolent if unique method for removing a badger from a basketball hoop.

FAT PET SHOP BOYS SLIM
Kind of like a Celebrity Fit Club starring none other than our favourite disco dollies. Neil and Chris were to go on a three month trip around the eateries, cheese-tasting counters and pie-eating contests of South Yorkshire, in a bid to literally become the biggest purveyors of pop, with their arduous eating trainers Demis Roussos and Rik Waller egging them on (sometimes literally). Then Neil and Chris would return to London and try to lose all the weight by employing Geri Halliwell as their lifestyle guru. The combination of Halliwell and all those handheld close-ups proved too nauseating to watch.

LITTLE PET SHOP BOY OF HORRORS
A very grandiose experiment this turned out to be. Fastidious florist Neil grows a singing Bonsai bush which much to his chagrin, demands a daily dose of ever so cheesy soft metal tunes. The pushy bush slowly takes over Neil's shop eventually committing the cardinal sin of eating Neil's precious collection of hedge-based Liza Minelli lookalikes. Seeing the horticultural carnage, Neil flees leaving the bush free to learn the guitar, grow a mullet and form Bon Jovi. Look out for a shrub in the background with a baseball cap on, that's Chris. The boys learned a lot from this slice of self-indulgent pap and went on to make It Couldn't Happen Here.

THE MULTI-COLOURED SWAP SHOP BOYS
Jumping daintily on the nostalgia TV bandwagon, Neil and Chris thought it would be a corking idea to resurrect the famous Saturday morning TV show, if only a chance to give their Christmas sweaters an airing. Unfortunately, the swapping part of the show never took off. No one was in the slightest bit interested in swapping Noel Edmonds, not even for a slightly used Buckaroo. Nor could the lads find anyone interested in owning Chris's dazzling array of neon-lit toilet roll holders, or Neil's prized collection of celebrity-owned rubber gloves. Funny that.

PET SHOP BOYS WIN PRIZES
Much like the Pets' more recent albums, this was something of a self indulgent project. Touted as a game show hosted by Neil and Chris, who would take it in turn to be contestants and do all manner of "zany" things in order to win a load of prizes. Ask yourself, do you really want to see Neil Tennent moonwalking over 100 metres of honey-coated bubblewrap just in order to win a year's subscription to Hello! Magazine? No, neither did anyone else. Not deterred by the lack of interest, the Boys defiantly said they would make this show anyway, and you know what, left to their own devices, they probably would.