Hello and thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment - this is Daniel's sister (aka Miss Pollick as-was). I indeed suspect that Mr. Robinson could not be bothered to remember our first names so it was easier to just refer to us as "young" (those were the days ...) It was a wonderful experience overall and we met lots of BBC "stars" in the canteen (Jimmy Hill, Richard Briers, Michael Gambon) who were very kind to us awestruck kids. Must agree that it's unimaginable to do something like this in 2014, but that's what progress is all about, right? Many thanks again to everyone who watched and commented. Now we just need to find the tapes of the other 3 ATF programmes we made!
Hi Daniel. I was the elder child opposite you (Buswell was my step-father's surname, not mine). Thank you for posting this - first chance I have had to watch it since our VHS copy was mislaid 25 years ago. I still remember us being told not to speak to 'Mr Robinson' unless he first spoke to us - a bit like royalty!
What do you do for a living now young Pollick or young Busswell if its not too personal? I wonder if Mr Robinson couldn't remember anyones names so he just called them Mrs Busswell and young Busswell. I guess it would have helped if their first names were on the front of the desk. Do you have any other memories of visiting BBC centre to film this? Did you have a tour of Television centre?
BarrieT I don't remember much of the day - only the extreme disappointment of having scored more points than any of the other 7 members of either team yet still being on the losing side!
Robert Robinson was a superb presenter and its quite apparent the standard of education then was far better than it is now, some tough questions and some equally good answers.
It was different priorities in education. Then it was about memorisation of facts, now it's more about how facts relate one to another. And I see that as a reasonable post-internet shift: it's easy to access facts now; the life-skill that's needed is making sense of them.
@@digitig I agree with all you 've said Tim, but things that are "easily available" are by that fact, less valued. The process of hunting down information at libraries (and my dad's OWN huge collection of books) before coming up with the knowledge you were seeking was a HUGELY rewarding exercise and I feel the knowledge so gained was more liable to stay in one's mind. Of course it might be early onset dementia in myself (hopefully not) that means that things I find off the internet nowadays tend to drift into oblivion within a week or two.
You don't think you could round up a family whose parents are company directors and consulting engineers (etc) and their privately educated children who could manage these questions?
Unfortunately the boy who was asked to name a vegetable as an answer to the music question said orange! That decries your comment about the standard of education being better in those days!
Blimey! I watched this but I had never realised how fast it was! No wasted time or clapping. I bet there are more questions than in a modern quiz show,
Great to see this again. Thanks for posting. A lot of people sneer at "Ask The Family" now thanks mainly to "Not The Nine O'clock News" I suppose but there are not enough intelligent quiz shows on television these days. The excellent "Only Connect" is descended from this.
I always liked the format of this show. Instead of being the obvious type of quiz show such as the Golden Shot or Blankety Blank where some gimmick accompanied the asking of the questions, this one was more puzzle oriented.
Thank you for sharing. My dad used to enjoy watching Ask the family, though our family was nowhere near posh enough to go on it! Even as a kid watching this, I always liked the quiet, thoughtful atmosphere, very much like the 'parlour games' that a lot of TV games and quizzes sprung from. And for those watching this who are under 25, yes, people really did dress like that in the 70s!
Thanks for putting this video up. I can remember sitting with my family throughout the 70s and early 80s and thoroughly enjoying this show, finding the questions challenging but not taxing (we also used to watch University Challenge) and when you compare the likes of the quiz shows we watched back then to the dumbed down dross we get now (Only Connect being the exception to the rule, as well as the old favourites Mastermind and the aforementioned University Challenge) you realise just how lowbrow family viewing has become.
Happy times!....this is so good to see after many years. It fills me with happy times as a 14 yr old...without a care in the world....thank you....Cheers
+Duc de Richleau I'm glad it's not just me who thinks this. There is definitely a "before and after" major to minor element to the theme. The minor key.... could this be reflective of the "before and after" of sending the kids to be entertained by Savile while the parents had a few at the BBC guests' bar?
Fantastic bit of game show history :) hink I had forgotten how the 70s fashions made the parents look far older then they most likely were. Thanks for the upload Daniel Pollick.
You are therefore the same age as my brother Anthony. I would have been not yet eight, as my birthday is in the summer. Takes me back to junior school!
Thanks so much for sharing tho Daniel - it brought back great memories. I definitely watched this episode at the time, as I remember the families' surnames. Aroundabout this time, I remember out headteacher at our school assembly asking for families who would like to audition for the show... & knowing that I'd never be able to, as I came from a one-parent family! Well done though to your family for doing so well, & for you to have the courage to post this! ;-)
Ah, that gilded era when being openly middle-class, educated, dedicated parents wasn't demonised! Even the music creates a frisson of golden-age thinking in me!
Whilst in my halcyon days I'd watch avidly every week and yearn, ohhh did i YEARN, to be on the show....were it not that my family were working class and thick.
@@mattsawyer343 If that's an attempt at sarcasm, it's fallen flat. Being middle-class is indeed demonised nowadays, based on a warped understanding of what 'class' entails. (In case you didn't know, it's not purely income, it's outlook first and foremost.) You're either dismissed as being a class that 'doesn't exist' (usually by ostentatiously 'working-class' people who conveniently ignore their own middle-class traits - if any class truly 'doesn't exist' these days, it's the working - but sometimes also by the upper class); or else you're rounded on as 'part of the problem' of society. All poisonous nonsense.
@@WeaselKing1000 But you are as guilty of being a part of the problem that you complain about if you dismiss other forms of class (and you're probably right) but if you remove the working class and the upper class, then you don't have a class-system.
yes.. there was a lot of watching one programme, while waiting for the next.. even waiting for the test card to stop in the morning, for flash gorden or something.. 🙂
@@davidthomas9190 sorry i hope I haven't made you sad.. makes me smile with enjoyable memories, me and my sister watching some awful rubbish, but some great stuff too.. Why Don't You... ? 🙂 😉
Thanks for uploading Daniel. Watched tonight for a bit of nostalgia but also for a bit of a change from the usual twenty first century noisier telly!! A relaxing pleasant half hour. Very nice! One last thing....the production values always look older to me than the year in the credits. Look at the cramped, angular set. Looks like 1974 rather than 1978. To think Star Wars had already been out a year!!
For the avoidance of doubt, I've uploaded this as a bit of social/cultural history, for everyone's amusement. I am the Pollick kid and it makes me cringe. Green Onions, BTW, was not so well known in 1977 as you might think. It charted some years later, and that's why you might look back and wonder why no one knew it then.
And very nice start music too with it. It seems they altered it later on until the series ended in 1984 at the time. I preferred this music to that one of later on though too! Thank you anyway too.
Never missed this each week, I recall two theme tunes, this is the 2nd one, its predecessor was an 'indian bangra' style melody, which was also very nice. That said, watching this, the BBC did have a love of 'posh' educated families ! Very nice to watch a complete episode. Thank you for uploading it.
I came here for the theme music (and haven't found the full version yet) but I got engrossed by the quiz. You did exceptionally well, young Daniel! Brought back so many memories of my 70s childhood viewing. I'd have got the lightbulb question, though!
"theres always a black one..." i wondered where RR was going with that question, and then he called French people frogs. it was the 70s after all. wonderful bit of nostalgia there, i used to watch this all the time as a kid myself. thank you for uploading this Master Pollick. 40 years have gone in the blink of an eye, I'm guessing you're about 50 now. i hope your folks are still around to enjoy this, you look a wonderful family.
Loved watching “Ask the Family” in the 70’s. Was this on Sunday evenings? I’m 54 now, but after watching this I still had thoughts, have I done all my homework for school tomorrow. Thanks Daniel for sharing. Super memories.
You must be around the same age as I am, as it would be too I guess of course. I turned 55 in January. I remember the series too, and very nice it was then. Not the same much now then really on alas too. Ask The Family; Call My Bluff; and My Music; all shows of old that the BBC did at the time on either BBC1 or BBC2 at the time; although of course later on they ended anyway too. Thank you!
My old man was a Dustman who wore a Dustman hat. He wore core blimey trousers and we lived in a council flat in the rough part of Epsom in Surrey. We was not the typical family for this posh peoples quiz lol
The credit sequence was always striking with the combination of tabla and groovy "Sergeant Pepper" style Edwardiana. Like a lot of 1970s things it seems to walk a narrow line somewhere between cool and a bit creepy.
Ooh yes - definitely a spooky, gothic/horror feel to the opening theme tune. Could also be a John Le Carre type spy thriller theme. Must have been some weird stuff they were smoking that day!!!
ATF was not always 'automatic transmission fluid'. I took no notice at all of those who thought the show was 'too middle class'. It was of it's time and great early evening TV. Robert was a Master Broadcaster in every sense!
This tune was a mystery in my memory for about 3 decades. In fact, it became a bit of a goal to get to the bottom of it, till a guy on YT put me in the right place. It's one of the best British TV tunes. What was the instrument? Nice reverbs. I like the waltz, too.
The best thing about this show was Robert Robinsons hair which always entertains :) Also it's amazing that you could make a complete TV show for about a tenner. If it cost more than that then they were robbed :)
Wow, it was that spooky intro I remembered most of all from childhood, those Victorian faces turning around with their toothy grins fascinated and disturbed me in equal measures!
@@PastPresented ok here goes. In 1978 only primitive vcrS were available. We had a Phillips n1700 and we made a terrible recording off the tv. Those went obsolete very fast so we assumed we’d never get a recording. But then some time in the 80s/90s I wrote to the bbc to ask if they had a copy. They replied snootily that they didn’t and that only items of merit were preserved in the archive. A few years passed. Then I came to work one Monday and a colleague said ‘I saw you on tv on Saturday night’. Bbc2 had done a programme called tv hell, which was a full evening of clips from terrible old shows. The clip in which my sister and I featured (with a separate clip of parents who were not ours) was preceded by a screen banner saying ‘warning. Ugly middle class family approaching.’ We were especially amused by being chosen as the best example of kids to go with the chosen parents. Tv hell, incidentally, followed a c4 Saturday night special called tv heaven which was about good old shows rather than terrible ones. Anyway, I wrote to the BBC again and they admitted having one show in the archives and sold us a VHS copy for, I think, £170. This was the first round. I’ve never found the other three episodes in which we appeared. The video, and the story of getting it, has given us all enormous pleasure as well as helping us to realise how ugly and middle class we are.
@@danielpollick339 That sounds extremely cheeky of the BBC. Apart from anything else they should probably have paid you residuals for the _TV Hell_ clip; when we were on ATF we got extra payments for the weekly repeats.
Thanks for sharing this portion of your youth. Of course the questions addressed to specific family members would be seen as promoting stereotypes now and the family unit is often so much more complex.
Robert Robinson now seems quite abrupt as a question master! A favourite show at ours. Comparing then with now, the introductions of the contestants are brief and the ending is wrapped up very quickly. These were days when it was really all about the quiz questions, and what good ones they were. Would that they were the same standard now! :-)
I remember being petrified of the opening titles, it didn't set me up for the rest of the programme very well. Good memories? "Aaaaah would that it were, would that it were" 😅
The surnames are fascinating. Buswell being a typical Romanichal surname, meaning a fiddle player. The Pollick name may be an Ashkenazic derivative of Polish. Funny thing is, yesterday I looked at a book abt Manchester Jewry and my eagle eye spotted a family of Pollicks standing outside a shop. I keep getting these little synchronicities and connections, it was just weird when I spotted the surname here. ☺️ I think there's a sizeable Jewish community in both Southport and St Anne's too. If you are related to the Pollick family in the book, that would blow my mind. Or maybe it wouldn't, it's actually not the first time I've had amazing coincidences concerning Jewish surnames. Oh well, you live and learn.....
Another scary "Ask The Family" intro when you were only a young kid in the 70's - not far off "Tales Of The Unexpected" this one. "Acka Raga" and the Happy Families theme (grumpy faces & big scissors!!) even scarier but nearly 50yrs on my favourite tune now.
So Mr Pollick was a market trader. He and Mrs Pollick were both third gen immigrants. Son Pollick (me) was first in family to go to university. I guess we were and are middle class but it’s not like we inherited that status or were silver spooned.
Used to watch it as a kid. Shocked how hard the questions are. Not like Pointless and other modern quiz shows. Maybe I'm just thick, or all the families were Mensa members.
+edwardszzz There are still 'cerebral' quizzes like this - most recently one starring the lady in my avatar - but they tend to get shunted onto BBC4 these days.
Thanks for this Dan. I used to watch this all the time. Brings back memories of other shows at the same time, classic Dr Who, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Tomorrow's World, The Holiday Programme. TV was so much better back then. How far did your family get on the show?
+thriddoctor sorry for massive satellite delay: we got to the final where we were slaughtered by the Coleby family from Doncaster (this was the first round; the final was the fourth round).
I was watching Britains brightest families and I thought, what was that show I used to watch as a child. My word these people are bright. After the first round of 5 point questions I was stumped for most of the rest. Just goes to show how education standards have slipped these days. I pretty much nailed many questions on Britains brightest families.
Thanks for this... I had the tune in my head ....took me ages to work out it was this programme. Lol i was 8 when this was broadcast... I hated it..soooo boring for a 8 year old :)
Hmmm. I quite dig the theme music. Great post, thanks a lot. Looking back, ATF contributed to a cultural standpoint for England - traditional education, family values, conventional roles in the workplace. It is now long since rescinded. I once met Robert Robinson. Arrogant snob. But I liked his tv style - all very personalised and unscripted, even if he was aloof and objectionable. If you think his hair style looks shite, you are correct... But those around him were warned never to raise the issue of his baldness as he would have been likely to breathe on you with malice from a raised height. Television today needs Robert Robinson - imagine how hosting Question Time would improve. And opine if you will about the value he would bring to Eggheads. All in all, his witty, pithy and charismatic quiz stewardship was second to none. Call My Bluff was a tour de force. He is missed And....Mrs Pollick. Sexy
A time before British TV was dumbed down by the likes of Keith Lemon, Ricky Gervais and Co where even Tiswas was more intellectual that what is spewed on to our telly today.
The bucket of water song? - Hmmm - The dying fly? - Hmmm - getting gunged? The nipple revealing wet T-shirt of that girl presenter? ... not a LOT different to today's TV... - You can't knock KIDS entertainment when you're not a kid any more and haven't a clue WHY kids like any of it - If it's the sexual aspect of modern TV shows like Keith Lemon (who I can;t stand either TBH - yes, he's a prick) that bother you, don't forget that half the reason we watched TISWAS was to see that female presenter's nipples whenever her shirt got wet - We wern'et THAT innocent in the 70's!
I remember impatiently waiting for Ask The Family to finish and for Blake's 7 to come on. It seems so charming and naive, and slightly severe now. Things have changed so much...
Daniel Pollick It 'was' on a Monday. My dear old Nan use to come round every Monday and we always watched Ask The Family before Blake's 7. Thanks for uploading this Daniel...I really enjoyed it! :)
@@danielpollick339 I think in those days that BBC1 would have different start times to now. For instance it was 6.50pm after Nationwide and that sort of thing. I think it was only when Michael Grade later became controller that he decided in 1985 or so to round the times to 7.00pm and that sort of time too. I know I read it was to tie in with ITV's start times also, but also too that he had seen that in the USA tv start times were rounded up too, or at least I guess so too I wonder of course?
There was at least two theme tunes with two very different open titles. This is the one I remember but there was also one version with those weirdly drawn family playing cards with "Mr Bun the Baker" etc. Here's a link to the other theme... Ask The Family - Acka Raga - Joe Harriott and John Mayer - Theme Song
![Take Hart [BBC Children's TV 70s] whole episode](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/P0i8g0n6qGo/mqdefault.jpg)
I’m 54 and parents both still going strong!
Glad to know you are all doing well.
You were clever
Any more recordings you wouldn't mind sharing with us?
Company director bet you had a very nice upbringing :D
Glad to hear it Daniel, thanks for the upload! Your mum was very good on the show
Hello and thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment - this is Daniel's sister (aka Miss Pollick as-was). I indeed suspect that Mr. Robinson could not be bothered to remember our first names so it was easier to just refer to us as "young" (those were the days ...) It was a wonderful experience overall and we met lots of BBC "stars" in the canteen (Jimmy Hill, Richard Briers, Michael Gambon) who were very kind to us awestruck kids. Must agree that it's unimaginable to do something like this in 2014, but that's what progress is all about, right? Many thanks again to everyone who watched and commented. Now we just need to find the tapes of the other 3 ATF programmes we made!
I fell a bit in love with you watching this!
Primitive Knot So I wasn't the only one then.... 😍
your mother was incedibly intelligent hats off to her
Carl Yelland Ironically and rather scarily it’s degenerated even more in the two months since you posted that.
@@kamandi1362 "The End is alas nigh".......
Hi Daniel. I was the elder child opposite you (Buswell was my step-father's surname, not mine). Thank you for posting this - first chance I have had to watch it since our VHS copy was mislaid 25 years ago. I still remember us being told not to speak to 'Mr Robinson' unless he first spoke to us - a bit like royalty!
apols if this is a duplicated reply andrew - send me your email address to denbyblade@gmail.com
What do you do for a living now young Pollick or young Busswell if its not too personal? I wonder if Mr Robinson couldn't remember anyones names so he just called them Mrs Busswell and young Busswell. I guess it would have helped if their first names were on the front of the desk. Do you have any other memories of visiting BBC centre to film this? Did you have a tour of Television centre?
Andrew Watson As a Wimbledon boy myself in the same era, what school produced such formidable general knowledge?
Marco Di Franco I attended Rokeby Prep School in Kingston and ended up at Rutlish School in Wimbledon to sit my O and A levels.
BarrieT I don't remember much of the day - only the extreme disappointment of having scored more points than any of the other 7 members of either team yet still being on the losing side!
That combover is a work of art, even my Dad couldn't have matched that back then!
The comb over was actually a toupee masquerading as a comb over.
Bobby Charlton had a good one but messed it up by getting into tackles , the best in the football league was definitely Chelsea’s John Dempsey!
I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one bitchy enough to think that! 😅 It became a total fixation!
@@mikewest1542 John Dempsey in his Chelsea era possessed a WORLD CLASS "comb over" that could give ANYONE'S a run for its money.
What about Ralph Coates...@@mikewest1542
Robert Robinson was a superb presenter and its quite apparent the standard of education then was far better than it is now, some tough questions and some equally good answers.
securityrobot Well said. Mr Robertson, as I am sure would have liked to have been addressed, was the definitive quizmaster.
It was different priorities in education. Then it was about memorisation of facts, now it's more about how facts relate one to another. And I see that as a reasonable post-internet shift: it's easy to access facts now; the life-skill that's needed is making sense of them.
@@digitig I agree with all you 've said Tim, but things that are "easily available" are by that fact, less valued. The process of hunting down information at libraries (and my dad's OWN huge collection of books) before coming up with the knowledge you were seeking was a HUGELY rewarding exercise and I feel the knowledge so gained was more liable to stay in one's mind. Of course it might be early onset dementia in myself (hopefully not) that means that things I find off the internet nowadays tend to drift into oblivion within a week or two.
You don't think you could round up a family whose parents are company directors and consulting engineers (etc) and their privately educated children who could manage these questions?
Unfortunately the boy who was asked to name a vegetable as an answer to the music question said orange! That decries your comment about the standard of education being better in those days!
Blimey! I watched this but I had never realised how fast it was! No wasted time or clapping. I bet there are more questions than in a modern quiz show,
Unforgettable show. Robinson was an excellent host.
"Would that it were, would that it were... but, alas, it us not"
Thanks for posting this Daniel - great to see this programme again! I loved watching Ask the Family when I was a youngster.
How wonderful, a real blast of nostalgia. we used to crowd around the Trinitron en mass to watch this every week. Many Thanks..
Great to see this again. Thanks for posting. A lot of people sneer at "Ask The Family" now thanks mainly to "Not The Nine O'clock News" I suppose but there are not enough intelligent quiz shows on television these days. The excellent "Only Connect" is descended from this.
I always liked the format of this show. Instead of being the obvious type of quiz show such as the Golden Shot or Blankety Blank where some gimmick accompanied the asking of the questions, this one was more puzzle oriented.
Loved it ! We used to watch this every week. Forgot how sarcastic Robert Robinson was to the contestants !!! Thanks for uploading Daniel !
... CUT ROBBO SOME SLACK WILL YA.?..🤩.. LOOK AT THAT ' COMB-OVER ' ...🧐
Thank you for sharing. My dad used to enjoy watching Ask the family, though our family was nowhere near posh enough to go on it!
Even as a kid watching this, I always liked the quiet, thoughtful atmosphere, very much like the 'parlour games' that a lot of TV games and quizzes sprung from.
And for those watching this who are under 25, yes, people really did dress like that in the 70s!
I like Mr Buswell's safari jacket.
Thanks for putting this video up. I can remember sitting with my family throughout the 70s and early 80s and thoroughly enjoying this show, finding the questions challenging but not taxing (we also used to watch University Challenge) and when you compare the likes of the quiz shows we watched back then to the dumbed down dross we get now (Only Connect being the exception to the rule, as well as the old favourites Mastermind and the aforementioned University Challenge) you realise just how lowbrow family viewing has become.
Happy times!....this is so good to see after many years. It fills me with happy times as a 14 yr old...without a care in the world....thank you....Cheers
Sod Dr. Who or Tales of the Unexpected, that has to be the most haunting opening titles of any show ever.
+Duc de Richleau I'm glad it's not just me who thinks this. There is definitely a "before and after" major to minor element to the theme. The minor key.... could this be reflective of the "before and after" of sending the kids to be entertained by Savile while the parents had a few at the BBC guests' bar?
Picture box on ITV was pretty horrific.
@@holydiver73 Yes picture box, I found the opening theme to `the family`, early 70s pretty scary too
Sun Ride by John Leach on Chappell LPC1034.
Wow this takes me right back! Much maligned but a great quiz series, full of stimulating varied questions. Loved the dry, irreverent wit of Robinson
The theme tune to this programme was Sun Ride by John Leach on Chappell LPC 1034.
Fantastic piece of TV nostalgia, thanks for sharing. This programme was always on just before Blake's 7 on a Monday night :-)
Fantastic bit of game show history :) hink I had forgotten how the 70s fashions made the parents look far older then they most likely were. Thanks for the upload Daniel Pollick.
Oh my god. I was 10 at the time, and watched this. And yet, it looks positively prehistoric now!!!
Yep. Funny how at the time you do anything you just see it as neutral/modern. Only in hindsight do you realise you are (a tiny) part of history.
You are therefore the same age as my brother Anthony. I would have been not yet eight, as my birthday is in the summer. Takes me back to junior school!
@@angelacooper2661 I was ten at this time too, but I do not remember this one though alas.
When famillies had both a mother and a father.
When the kids questions are today's adult questions.
@@andrewscott1253 Have you watched Only Connect?
@@digitig I live in the USA now, so no. I know of it as it started around the time I left.
Really enjoyed watching this - what a nostalgia trip! Your mum was a star - I thought the questions were pretty difficult
That is one killer combover!
Thanks so much for sharing tho Daniel - it brought back great memories. I definitely watched this episode at the time, as I remember the families' surnames.
Aroundabout this time, I remember out headteacher at our school assembly asking for families who would like to audition for the show... & knowing that I'd never be able to, as I came from a one-parent family! Well done though to your family for doing so well, & for you to have the courage to post this! ;-)
+Steve Cann That's my only criticism of the show- far too prescriptive of what a "family" is. Nowadays it would be far boader- and rightly so.
Ah, that gilded era when being openly middle-class, educated, dedicated parents wasn't demonised! Even the music creates a frisson of golden-age thinking in me!
Whilst in my halcyon days I'd watch avidly every week and yearn, ohhh did i YEARN, to be on the show....were it not that my family were working class and thick.
yes OF COURSE they're demonised
@@mattsawyer343 If that's an attempt at sarcasm, it's fallen flat. Being middle-class is indeed demonised nowadays, based on a warped understanding of what 'class' entails. (In case you didn't know, it's not purely income, it's outlook first and foremost.) You're either dismissed as being a class that 'doesn't exist' (usually by ostentatiously 'working-class' people who conveniently ignore their own middle-class traits - if any class truly 'doesn't exist' these days, it's the working - but sometimes also by the upper class); or else you're rounded on as 'part of the problem' of society. All poisonous nonsense.
@@WeaselKing1000 hear, hear!
@@WeaselKing1000 But you are as guilty of being a part of the problem that you complain about if you dismiss other forms of class (and you're probably right) but if you remove the working class and the upper class, then you don't have a class-system.
Intro music brought back so many memories. Ha, the families were always posh with 'brainy' looking kids. Thanks for uploading.
I liked hearing a dulcimer in this (for the first time) but prefereed the old theme music ("Acka Raga").
Great! Thanks for posting. Enjoyable in many ways!
Loved this show as kid, then after it Blake 7 great days,thank you for downloadng.
Well played young Pollick! I tell you what, you don't see comb-overs like that sported by Mr Robinson any more do you?
A strong wind blowing towards Robinson's head would have produced some interesting results.
Yes you just don't see a proper comb over like that anymore.
@@andynixon2820
Would that we could Mr Nixon, would that we could! I love the "I'm not bald" haircuts!
Araldite doesn't give way that easily.
Tie balloons to his comb over fringe when he has fallen asleep in his deck chair then let the balloons go revealing Robo slap bonce.
Loved this so much. Thank you x
I loved the theme music as a boy, it meant Blakes 7 was about to start 😏
yes..
there was a lot of watching one programme, while waiting for the next..
even waiting for the test card to stop in the morning, for flash gorden or something.. 🙂
@@davidevans3227 watching the test card waiting for tv to start. Haven't thought about that in many years ☺️
@@davidthomas9190 sorry i hope I haven't made you sad..
makes me smile with enjoyable memories,
me and my sister watching some awful rubbish, but some great stuff too..
Why Don't You... ? 🙂 😉
@@davidevans3227 go outside and do something less boring instead 🤣
Thanks for uploading Daniel. Watched tonight for a bit of nostalgia but also for a bit of a change from the usual twenty first century noisier telly!!
A relaxing pleasant half hour. Very nice!
One last thing....the production values always look older to me than the year in the credits. Look at the cramped, angular set. Looks like 1974 rather than 1978. To think Star Wars had already been out a year!!
For the avoidance of doubt, I've uploaded this as a bit of social/cultural history, for everyone's amusement. I am the Pollick kid and it makes me cringe. Green Onions, BTW, was not so well known in 1977 as you might think. It charted some years later, and that's why you might look back and wonder why no one knew it then.
I really want to know what you look like now.
John Smith unchanged
Thanks for uploading! Loved this show when I was a kid.
+Daniel Pollick Was there any parental "Sophie's Choice" agonising because of un-chosen siblings? ;-)
+Daniel Pollick I want to see what you look like now.
That's a proper comb over.
Thank you for this of course-I remember the series, if not perhaps this edition though.
And very nice start music too with it. It seems they altered it later on until the series ended in 1984 at the time. I preferred this music to that one of later on though too! Thank you anyway too.
Never missed this each week, I recall two theme tunes, this is the 2nd one, its predecessor was an 'indian bangra' style melody, which was also very nice. That said, watching this, the BBC did have a love of 'posh' educated families ! Very nice to watch a complete episode. Thank you for uploading it.
The original theme was called, 'Acka Raga', by The John Harriott-John Mayer Double Quartet.
ua-cam.com/video/DCYtEa9yDXs/v-deo.html
Mull of Kintyre was still number 1 when this went out. Different world.
I came here for the theme music (and haven't found the full version yet) but I got engrossed by the quiz. You did exceptionally well, young Daniel! Brought back so many memories of my 70s childhood viewing. I'd have got the lightbulb question, though!
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Thanks for posting this Daniel. I miss real tv with real people. Gold.
When Comb over hair ruled ! :D
Robert Robertson had the best combover on television, & was a thoroughly nice presenter.
"What vegetable?" "ORANGE" - doh!
"theres always a black one..." i wondered where RR was going with that question, and then he called French people frogs. it was the 70s after all.
wonderful bit of nostalgia there, i used to watch this all the time as a kid myself. thank you for uploading this Master Pollick. 40 years have gone in the blink of an eye, I'm guessing you're about 50 now. i hope your folks are still around to enjoy this, you look a wonderful family.
Thanks for posting, Dan.
Loved watching “Ask the Family” in the 70’s. Was this on Sunday evenings? I’m 54 now, but after watching this I still had thoughts, have I done all my homework for school tomorrow. Thanks Daniel for sharing. Super memories.
Monday evenings, before Blakes Seven I think! Used to get about 9m viewers.
You must be around the same age as I am, as it would be too I guess of course. I turned 55 in January. I remember the series too, and very nice it was then. Not the same much now then really on alas too. Ask The Family; Call My Bluff; and My Music; all shows of old that the BBC did at the time on either BBC1 or BBC2 at the time; although of course later on they ended anyway too. Thank you!
If 'best combover' was an Olympic event, they would just post the gold medal to Robert Robinson every four years.
thankyou for sharing this 🙂 x
Bobby Charlton's stunt wig earned its keep..
I'm guessing this is BBC lol
Lovely bit of dulcimer playing.
BaddaBigBoom ua-cam.com/video/oVVWHdm3qt0/v-deo.html
@@rebeccahayes1007 Damn! Missed it! Was it Toni Arpad?
My old man was a Dustman who wore a Dustman hat.
He wore core blimey trousers and we lived in a council flat in the rough part of Epsom in Surrey.
We was not the typical family for this posh peoples quiz lol
Amazing comb-over
The credit sequence was always striking with the combination of tabla and groovy "Sergeant Pepper" style Edwardiana. Like a lot of 1970s things it seems to walk a narrow line somewhere between cool and a bit creepy.
Ooh yes - definitely a spooky, gothic/horror feel to the opening theme tune. Could also be a John Le Carre type spy thriller theme. Must have been some weird stuff they were smoking that day!!!
Spectacular comb-over.
11:22 The battery and the bulbs is so Look Around You.
I loved this show growing up and couldn't wait to watch it.... Never understood his hair thou
ATF was not always 'automatic transmission fluid'.
I took no notice at all of those who thought the show was 'too middle class'.
It was of it's time and great early evening TV. Robert was a Master Broadcaster in every sense!
Ampex196 yeah like university challenge but with families.
I remember the programme well and the tune. Here I would have been at junior school. The tune was in C minor changing to C major!
This tune was a mystery in my memory for about 3 decades. In fact, it became a bit of a goal to get to the bottom of it, till a guy on YT put me in the right place. It's one of the best British TV tunes. What was the instrument? Nice reverbs. I like the waltz, too.
Apparently the instrument is a dulcimer. I am an amateur musician so recall tunes and their respective keys.
@@angelacooper2661 Ta. Think it's used in a mash up sex scene in Performance.
I remember this on weeknights in the 70's on BBC-1
My music teacher and his son, who was in my year were on this, the Edwards family, must have been about 1973 or 74.
The best thing about this show was Robert Robinsons hair which always entertains :) Also it's amazing that you could make a complete TV show for about a tenner. If it cost more than that then they were robbed :)
Wow, it was that spooky intro I remembered most of all from childhood, those Victorian faces turning around with their toothy grins fascinated and disturbed me in equal measures!
This brings back memories and it's not just the count Arthur strong sketch
God this takes me right back! Tues night I think ?!
Close! It was actually Monday. 7pm I think, before Blake’s 7.
Awesome quality recording. You appear to have obtained a BBC master tape of the episode!
Yes that’s correct. I may post the story of how that happened.
@@danielpollick339 Ooh, yes please!
@@PastPresented ok here goes. In 1978 only primitive vcrS were available. We had a Phillips n1700 and we made a terrible recording off the tv. Those went obsolete very fast so we assumed we’d never get a recording. But then some time in the 80s/90s I wrote to the bbc to ask if they had a copy. They replied snootily that they didn’t and that only items of merit were preserved in the archive. A few years passed. Then I came to work one Monday and a colleague said ‘I saw you on tv on Saturday night’. Bbc2 had done a programme called tv hell, which was a full evening of clips from terrible old shows. The clip in which my sister and I featured (with a separate clip of parents who were not ours) was preceded by a screen banner saying ‘warning. Ugly middle class family approaching.’ We were especially amused by being chosen as the best example of kids to go with the chosen parents. Tv hell, incidentally, followed a c4 Saturday night special called tv heaven which was about good old shows rather than terrible ones.
Anyway, I wrote to the BBC again and they admitted having one show in the archives and sold us a VHS copy for, I think, £170.
This was the first round. I’ve never found the other three episodes in which we appeared.
The video, and the story of getting it, has given us all enormous pleasure as well as helping us to realise how ugly and middle class we are.
@@danielpollick339 That sounds extremely cheeky of the BBC. Apart from anything else they should probably have paid you residuals for the _TV Hell_ clip; when we were on ATF we got extra payments for the weekly repeats.
Thanks for sharing this portion of your youth. Of course the questions addressed to specific family members would be seen as promoting stereotypes now and the family unit is often so much more complex.
Unfortunately it's not 1978 anymore. Would that it were, would that it were.
Comb-over extraordinaire.
Robert Robinson now seems quite abrupt as a question master! A favourite show at ours. Comparing then with now, the introductions of the contestants are brief and the ending is wrapped up very quickly. These were days when it was really all about the quiz questions, and what good ones they were. Would that they were the same standard now! :-)
Pppòp
The Quizmasters CombOver and the intro had me hysterical
I want a comb-over like that fellows when I grow up!
Classic theme tune, but those graphics still give me freakin' nightmares, 40 years on....
The Brain-Boxes vs the Clever-Cloggses presided by Mr Comb-Over. Wonderful entertainment. Thank you
I remember being petrified of the opening titles, it didn't set me up for the rest of the programme very well. Good memories?
"Aaaaah would that it were, would that it were" 😅
The surnames are fascinating.
Buswell being a typical Romanichal surname, meaning a fiddle player.
The Pollick name may be an Ashkenazic derivative of Polish. Funny thing is, yesterday I looked at a book abt Manchester Jewry and my eagle eye spotted a family of Pollicks standing outside a shop. I keep getting these little synchronicities and connections, it was just weird when I spotted the surname here. ☺️ I think there's a sizeable Jewish community in both Southport and St Anne's too.
If you are related to the Pollick family in the book, that would blow my mind.
Or maybe it wouldn't, it's actually not the first time I've had amazing coincidences concerning Jewish surnames. Oh well, you live and learn.....
Yes that photo is of julius And Esther Pollick who came here in the 1860s and had a joinery shop in Manchester. They are my great great grandparents.
@HistoryAndUFOs thank you sweetheart. 💜
love the music
Another scary "Ask The Family" intro when you were only a young kid in the 70's - not far off "Tales Of The Unexpected" this one.
"Acka Raga" and the Happy Families theme (grumpy faces & big scissors!!) even scarier but nearly 50yrs on my favourite tune now.
So Mr Pollick was a market trader. He and Mrs Pollick were both third gen immigrants. Son Pollick (me) was first in family to go to university. I guess we were and are middle class but it’s not like we inherited that status or were silver spooned.
Used to watch it as a kid. Shocked how hard the questions are. Not like Pointless and other modern quiz shows. Maybe I'm just thick, or all the families were Mensa members.
+edwardszzz There are still 'cerebral' quizzes like this - most recently one starring the lady in my avatar - but they tend to get shunted onto BBC4 these days.
No, we have become stupider.
Used to watch this regularly
Love the music 🎶
Worth watching for the fashions and hairstyles alone!
HAS NOBODY MENTIONED MARCEL PROUST YET? THERE YOU GO, I JUST HAVE...
Thanks for this Dan. I used to watch this all the time. Brings back memories of other shows at the same time, classic Dr Who, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Tomorrow's World, The Holiday Programme. TV was so much better back then. How far did your family get on the show?
+thriddoctor sorry for massive satellite delay: we got to the final where we were slaughtered by the Coleby family from Doncaster (this was the first round; the final was the fourth round).
"An opportunity to parade their wits in public"! Naughty naughty Mr. Robinson!
I'm far too thick to watch this but you all had fun
I was watching Britains brightest families and I thought, what was that show I used to watch as a child. My word these people are bright. After the first round of 5 point questions I was stumped for most of the rest. Just goes to show how education standards have slipped these days. I pretty much nailed many questions on Britains brightest families.
love the comb over lol
This was great to watch!!! I guess thats you then? 👏👏👏👏👏👏
Yes!
Thanks for this... I had the tune in my head ....took me ages to work out it was this programme. Lol i was 8 when this was broadcast... I hated it..soooo boring for a 8 year old :)
Hmmm. I quite dig the theme music.
Great post, thanks a lot. Looking back, ATF contributed to a cultural standpoint for England - traditional education, family values, conventional roles in the workplace. It is now long since rescinded.
I once met Robert Robinson. Arrogant snob. But I liked his tv style - all very personalised and unscripted, even if he was aloof and objectionable. If you think his hair style looks shite, you are correct... But those around him were warned never to raise the issue of his baldness as he would have been likely to breathe on you with malice from a raised height. Television today needs Robert Robinson - imagine how hosting Question Time would improve. And opine if you will about the value he would bring to Eggheads. All in all, his witty, pithy and charismatic quiz stewardship was second to none. Call My Bluff was a tour de force. He is missed
And....Mrs Pollick. Sexy
When Robert Robinson went on holidays, the BBC changed the name of the show to ‘Ask The Combover’.
A time before British TV was dumbed down by the likes of Keith Lemon, Ricky Gervais and Co where even Tiswas was more intellectual that what is spewed on to our telly today.
The bucket of water song? - Hmmm - The dying fly? - Hmmm - getting gunged? The nipple revealing wet T-shirt of that girl presenter? ... not a LOT different to today's TV...
- You can't knock KIDS entertainment when you're not a kid any more and haven't a clue WHY kids like any of it - If it's the sexual aspect of modern TV shows like Keith Lemon (who I can;t stand either TBH - yes, he's a prick) that bother you, don't forget that half the reason we watched TISWAS was to see that female presenter's nipples whenever her shirt got wet - We wern'et THAT innocent in the 70's!
so right peter
Aren't the faces on the opening title just creepy?
Would that it were, would that it were
I remember impatiently waiting for Ask The Family to finish and for Blake's 7 to come on. It seems so charming and naive, and slightly severe now. Things have changed so much...
Duc de Richleau I think it was on at 7 pm on Monday but I'm happy to be corrected?
Daniel Pollick It 'was' on a Monday. My dear old Nan use to come round every Monday and we always watched Ask The Family before Blake's 7.
Thanks for uploading this Daniel...I really enjoyed it! :)
@@danielpollick339 I think in those days that BBC1 would have different start times to now. For instance it was 6.50pm after Nationwide and that sort of thing. I think it was only when Michael Grade later became controller that he decided in 1985 or so to round the times to 7.00pm and that sort of time too. I know I read it was to tie in with ITV's start times also, but also too that he had seen that in the USA tv start times were rounded up too, or at least I guess so too I wonder of course?
Mrs Pollick is a quiz wizard.
The Buswells didn't really buzz that well, did they?
There was at least two theme tunes with two very different open titles. This is the one I remember but there was also one version with those weirdly drawn family playing cards with "Mr Bun the Baker" etc. Here's a link to the other theme...
Ask The Family - Acka Raga - Joe Harriott and John Mayer - Theme Song
www.televisiontunes.com/Ask_The_Family__-Acka_Raga-__Joe_Harriott_and_John_Mayer.html