174 Brainchild

First  watched : 5  July  1974

Another  brain-racker   this  one. It  appeared  on  Fridays  over  the   summer  in  1974  ( and  again  the  following  year ) . John  Craven  was  the  host  of  this  quiz  show  where  four  brainy  school  kids  answered  questions  apparently  generated  by  a  computer  called  B.E.R.Y.L.  ( aka  Brainchild  Electronic  Random  Year  and  Letter ) . They  either  got  a  question  based  on  an  event  in  a  particular  year  or  a  word  beginning  with  the  selected  letter.

The  computer  was  completely  fake, just  a  stage  prop,  and  the  programme  only  ran  for  two  short  series  but  it  was  a  clear  antecedent  to  ITV's  long-running  Blockbusters.