Aust.—land of ingenuity

Press, 26 November 1980, Page 12

Aust. —land of ingenuity

ROSALEEN McCARROLL

reviews the eharig-

ing scene on “The Inventors.” The 1980 finals are being judged this week. She has a special interest. Now that the .McCarroll family has returned to Sydney, Hugh McCarroll has taken up his hobby of devising inventions.

For ten years ABC national (the Australian Broadcasting Commission) brought us .-“The Inventors,” a national television programme. Each week an expert panel — a marketing man to say if an item would sell, a technical expert to say how it worked, and a housewife to put the woman’s point of view—reviewed four inventions. - The show became so comfortable, so familiar and' the surprises so rare that eventually one invention seemed much like another.

, There were some successes, and some notable failures even by some of the-annual winners. A device to save petrol which won the grand prize one year only worked for its inventor and failed .to win a wider audience. - But “The Inventors” continued to win a big audience for the ABC, and it looked as if the show would go on forever. It offered inventors a pipeline to manufacturers, and modest fame. No money changed hands. Until that is, one of the commercial channels made

the production team an offer they could not refuse. Channel Nine got the package EXCEPT Diana Fisher formerly a housewife and now. thanks to ten years of bubbling inanities, a housewife superstar. And hey presto! The programme went commercial. Its name was changed to “What Will They Think of Next” and a jazzy musical introduction added along with a new housewife superstar exactly in the image of the daffy Mrs Fisher. But watching the programme it seemed nothing had changed. Except . now there is money! Each week the winning inventor gets $3OOO. But the ABC (affectionately known as Aunty because she is so staid) w r as not outdone. She gathered up the faithful housewife superstar, called in marketing and technical experts, found a compere,'and “The Inventors” was back in. business. The programme bounced back with so much razzmatazz. you could be excused for thinking that this

was the commercial channel’s presentation and the commercial channel’s show was really “Aunty’s.” There is an elaborate opening sequence, a studio audience, a very show biz compere, a grand entrance for the inventors, and handouts galore. "Aunty” gives the winning inventor $lOOO each week and nearly every invention is eligible for some other sort of award such as the rural award, the best metal invention . . . And at the conclusion of each series, the grand winner gets $25,000. Channel Nine’s big winner gets $25,000. Thick and fast they come at the rate of eight a week. “What Will They Think of Next” is delighted with its ratings on the commercial channel. “The Inventors,” riding high on the coat tails of its clone, is more popular than ever. ' But the real winners are the inventors themselves. Whatever else you might say about Australia—it’s a paradise for inventors.