EXCLUSIVE: Dick and Dom reveal what they’ve been up to since leaving children’s television in 2018 after a 20-year career on CBBC, and what they’ve accomplished together.
Everyone say “Bogies!” – Dick and Dom are back and determined to be a “force for good” for those who “grew up” seeing the pair on their TV screens.
Richard ‘Dick’ McCourt and Dominic ‘Dom’ Wood have always been a “force for good” by making people laugh, they told the Mirror. For years, the double act presented children’s TV shows like the BAFTA-winning Dick & Dom in da Bungalow and Splatalot, becoming icons for the late millennials and early Gen-Zers that watched them on a Saturday morning.
Now, the pair want to help that same generation of children turned young adults, but helping them make sure they have the DIY skills to get their deposits back from landlords when moving flat. Partnering with Google’s AI Gemini, Dick & Dom are encouraging young renters to use AI to help them learn how to plaster over holes they drilled to hang up a picture or polish a scratch out of a table to make sure landlords don’t take all of their deposit.
Why move to an older audience if the pair are so well-known for children’s television? The children who were raised with us, you may know, are currently between 18 and 35. It kind of feels like we’ve all grown up together, Dick said. And, as you know from our previous experiences renting properties, we are aware of how it feels when a landlord or estate agent is taking money from you for trivial things you could have fixed yourself.
“I like to think we’re still guiding our audience, you see. We’ve been with them since the beginning. We’re going to carry on being together. We’re a force for good now. We are teaching them the ways of the world.”
“And Gardener’s World will be taking place as well, before you know it!” “Dom jokes. He and Dick shared a flat almost 25 years ago when they first rented it together. Overall, “Dom added, we were a good landlord.”
Dick recalled how times have changed since they first met as flatmates. In terms of, you know, the bits and pieces that had been done to the house back then, landlords were a little more lenient. And we’re not talking about serious damage; rather, we’re talking about simple things like putting nails into walls to hang pictures and other things.
Dom continued, “In today’s world, inventory companies are assigned to make sure the location is exactly the same as it was when the tenant moved in. But the issue is that if you move in and put up six or seven pictures on the wall, that would be “six or seven holes.”
But we don’t always think about it what might affect our deposits, they continued to say. “You’re trying to make a place your own home,” Dom pointed out. “Let’s say if you’re there over Christmas time, you think, ‘Oh, I’m going to nail up a bit of tinsel, or I’m going to do a bit of this, put some decorations up.’ You never really think about, ‘Oh, hang on a minute, what happens if I need to move out? Am I going to get charged for all this?’ It’s crazy!
The landlord can say, “Right, well, I need to hire a professional decorator to fill all the holes in the walls, sand them all down, and then repaint the entire wall so that it all looks good together.” And then, just before you know it, your deposit was taken, allegedly, by £350.
Gemini enters in this regard. The pair discussed how they could use AI to teach them how to fix a coffee table that has scratches for much less than the cost of replacing it. The best feature of this AI tool is that you can literally point the camera at the problem. We pointed it at a scratched coffee table while we tested it out in a London apartment. A landlord could now say, “We need a whole new table because it’s scratched,” Dom said. However, AI gave them directions on how to make a DIY patch up and where to find the materials.
“It was unbelievable. And so all those little details that can keep your deposit, he continued. Both he and Dick both acknowledged how intimidating it can be to start a DIY project.
“Putting up a book shelf like this still requires a lot of patience and understanding. However, I sincerely believe that if you can do that, you can help with the following step.
As Dick & Dom both recognize, that also applies to careers. The two have performed on radio, DJ sets, and the West End since they first presented kids’ television. The legacy they’ve left for the children they made laughs is what “means the world” to them, though.
“Students are coming up to us right now or just in the street families say thanks so much,” Dick said. They actually mean it, they say. Thank you so much for “making our household laugh and bringing joy to our home every Saturday morning,” which is a really nice thing to hear.
They thanked me for making me laugh when I was a child, Dom added. To me, it meant the world. And we didn’t realize how significant it was. And that was lovely. It was a lot of fun. You’ll remember your favorite teacher forever, like when you have them, won’t you? “
Dick & Dom’s partnership with Google Gemini AI, ‘Dick & Dom in Da Rented Flat’, launched on Instagram @DickandDomofficial on 1st October 2025.
