The format is one that many have tried to get back on TV in the years since, but no network would go anywhere near it. It was too old-fashioned. It was too highbrow. It didn't have Marc Ellis in it. But in the post-Who Wants To Be A Millionaire world it doesn't seem so out of place, even if that place is tucked away at 11.30am on Saturday on Prime.
The set-up was famously parodied by The Young Ones, in a classic episode that made fun of the way the two teams of competing students appear on screen as if they are above each other, like that old set of Celebrity Squares. In reality they sit side by side. It's a simple enough show. Each week, teams from the country's top tertiary institutions compete with other for the glory of being the brainiest.
I've been checking in with the new series for a month now and can report that it's a bloody good watch.
Although some of the questions seemed to be from the old days, such as, "Who was the bully in Tom Brown's School Days,?", the same mix of general knowledge and university level quizzing take place.
Q: "What is the acronym for the quasi-stellar radio source of any of the blue star-like objects that are strong radio emitters?" A: "Quasar."
Though strangely, no one from either Canterbury or Massey could name three characters from the mega-hit TV series Lost.
Quizmaster Tom Conroy keeps things moving but he fumbles and mumbles his way through in a way that would have appalled original host Peter Sinclair. Although most of what's on TV today would appal Sinclair, who fronted the TVNZ version between 1976 and 1988.
He is, to be fair, an impossible act to follow, and had a precise way with words and a withering tone that few possess. In the UK, the show is fronted by the terrifying Jeremy Paxman.
Much however has stayed the same, although the opening bars of the theme, no doubt adjusted to avoid copyright issues, issue a warning that this is a facsimile made on a limited budget. Not that it really matters in the end. The simplicity of the format sees to that.
The trademark jumpy camera move that zooms in wildly as an unseen announcer shouts "Canterbury, Redmond" remains, as do the cutesy mascots that sit on the desks between the students. There was a teddy bear for Canterbury and some weird monkey for AUT, which wasn't even a university the last time round.
The students themselves look surprisingly similar to the ones on the old shows, and that mix of unfortunate looking nerds and over-eager head boys and girls remains. Fashion wise, I note there are now fewer scarfs, sweatshirts and bowler hats. Prizes are always a good way to carbon date a TV show.
Back in 1981 the winners got a calculator and some encyclopedias; in 1988 it was the newly released Apple Macintosh, while the students of 2014 simply get to be on TV. Not that they'll get famous on this show, but with a few tweaks and a little sharpening, it's hard to see why the class of 2014 couldn't graduate to an early evening slot by this time next year.
But the important thing is that University Challenge is back. Kudos to Conroy and his team at Southland's Cue TV for that. I hope someone is working on a 2015 version of A Dog's Show!
* University Challenge, Saturday, 11.30am, Prime.
