# Australians, please help me out (tv show question) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2006, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059 "2006-03-12T18:58:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tofergregg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tofergregg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofergregg)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/1 "2006-03-12T18:58:09Z")
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 ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/2 "2006-03-12T19:05:04Z")
You mean the UK TV series, [Seven Up](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6275296/) that began in 1964? ---
**Author:** ![tofergregg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tofergregg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofergregg)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/3 "2006-03-12T19:17:11Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > You mean the UK TV series, [Seven Up](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6275296/) that began in 1964? 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 ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/4 "2006-03-12T19:50:26Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/5 "2006-03-12T20:04:21Z")
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!!!” ---
**Author:** ![tofergregg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tofergregg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tofergregg)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/6 "2006-03-12T20:10:35Z")
Thanks for the replies. I guess I was mistaken. Maybe it was Big Brother that was the take-off. 🙂 -Tofer ---
**Author:** ![Gerome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Gerome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gerome)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/7 "2006-03-12T22:54:29Z")
> [@TheLoadedDog](#): > > 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!!!” I’m pretty sure that was on _The Late Show_ - the Australian one done by the guys from _The Panel_, not David Letterman. ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/8 "2006-03-12T23:19:57Z")
Lights! Camera! _Cafe Society!_!!! Moved. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2006, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/9 "2006-03-12T23:39:36Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] I also remember a spoof of the show (also British, IIRC)… [/QUOTE] That was the D-gen. Very not-British. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/10 "2006-03-13T00:07:51Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/11 "2006-03-13T00:14:10Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel] _‘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!’_ [/QUOTE] 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… ---
**Author:** ![Leechboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc348/32.png) [@Leechboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leechboy)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/australians-please-help-me-out-tv-show-question/348059/12 "2006-03-13T00:20:24Z")
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.