Don't Ask Me 

1 9 7 4 (UK)

Don't Ask Me was the first popular science series in Britain. Experts answered such crucial questions as 'why do jellies wobble?', 'why are fleas good jumpers?' and 'do crocodiles really shed tears?'. 

It launched the career of pretty young doctor, Miriam Stoppard; a botanist with a funny face and a worse voice, Dr David Bellamy; and an eccentric birdlike nutritionist who talked very fast, Dr Magnus Pike.

Magnus was keen on demonstrations. Ask him to mix four hundredweight of custard in a cement-mixer and you'd have a happy man. 

Some experiments went wrong, though. He worked out the speed truck-driver John England should use to 'fly' a minibus across the River Avon. It was too slow. The bus sank, trapping John for 40 seconds. "By Jove, you are wet," said Magnus.

Derek Griffiths was replaced as the host by Adrienne Posta, but she lasted only one show. "Don't ask me", she was told when she asked why she had been sacked. Her too-modern clothes seemed to have been her crime. 

Brian Glover took over, but it eventually became Miriam's job to ask the questions, with Dr Rob Buckman - also part of a cabaret comedy act and a future partner with Miriam on Where There's Life - joining in 1977 as one of the experts. The unstoppable Stoppard was halted only once when labour pains caused her to break off in mid-sentence.