Australians, please help me out (tv show question)

Cafe Society
1

Dear Australians,

I lived in Australia for two years (I’m a yank), from 1999-2001 (and loved it). While I was there, there was a TV show special that came on that basically updated everyone on the current lives of a family that had been followed for decades. IIRC, every seven or ten years, a family is re-interviewed about what they have been doing since the last show.

What is the show called, and who is the family? I really don’t remember the details, but I was fascinated for the week or two surrounding the show (in 2000, I think). Thanks for any information!

-Tofer

2

You mean the UK TV series, Seven Up that began in 1964?

3

That’s the one! However, I am almost certain that there was a copycat one in Australia that started around the same time. Then again, it may have just been that the U.K. one was broadcast in Australia. Thanks!

-Tofer

4

I grew up in Australia, and i don’t remember ever hearing about an Australian equivalent of Michael Apted’s 7 Up series.

A search on IMDb suggests that there is an American equivalent, a Russian one, and even a South African version, all started in the early 1990s.

5

Never heard of it either. Definitely the Apted show, I reckon. That was given several airings around the late 90s. Great show too.

I also remember a spoof of the show (also British, IIRC):

“So Michael, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I wanna be a chef.”

We returned to the children seven minutes later, to see how they’d changed…

“So, Michael, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Look, I JUST BLOODY TOLD YOU! I want to be a bloody chef!!!”

6

Thanks for the replies. I guess I was mistaken. Maybe it was Big Brother that was the take-off. :slight_smile:

-Tofer

7

I’m pretty sure that was on The Late Show - the Australian one done by the guys from The Panel, not David Letterman.

8

Lights! Camera! Cafe Society!!!!

Moved.

9

That was the D-gen. Very not-British.

10

Ah, I remember those evenings during the 1980’s, sitting down in front of the old Zenith every Thursday night to watch the highly entertaining Australians, Please Help Me Out! TV show:

*"Tonight’s letter comes to us from Hollywood, US of A. It reads: 'Dear **A,PHMO! *, I am an executive at a major motion picture studio. My industry is languishing due to the fact that the traditional cowboy hero of the American West is no longer considered plausible or entertaining. Our mainstream movies desperately need a convincingly tough, plain-spoken (yet charmingly quirky) national archetype to plot fast-moving action-comedies around. Australians… please help me out!’"

or:

‘I am a medical researcher who is investigating the potential curative effects of neurotoxic reptile venom on marine injuries. I therefore require a large sample population of people who have been bitten by both a poisonous snake and a great white shark within a 24-hour period. Australians… please help me out!’

or:

‘I work for the PSYOPS division of the CIA. We are currently engaged in preliminary fact-gathering for “Operation Carrot Top,” and I have been assigned the task of producing an experimental prototype model, to be readied for deployment in the entertainment industry by 1988 at the latest. Australians… please help me out!’

Sigh. They don’t make TV shows like that anymore.

11

Dammit! I’ve spent YEARS trying to bury all recollection of Yahoo Serious and you go and do this!

Well, let me tell ya, YOU can just rock me to sleep tonight now…

12

I seem to remember there being an Australian rip-off called Fourteens Good, Eighteen’s Better and it’s 1996 follow up Not Fourteen Again.