A CRITICAL GUIDE: STAYING IN / Long Runners: No 28: Blockbusters

Age: 12. It was piloted by ATV in December 1981 and the first series was transmitted by Central in August 1983.

Why the delay? It was originally planned as a five-days-a-week quiz for adults (like the American show on which it was based). Then, as producer Bob Cousins remembers, 'the fickle finger of fate intervened'. None of the ITV companies would give up half an hour of prime-time a day for a game- show, but they were prepared to surrender the 5.10pm slot. Thus, Blockbusters for schoolchildren was born.

Formula: host Bob Holness asks three buzzer-pushing youngsters (aged between 16 and 18) questions. The answers begin with one of 20 letters marked on a board. The winner of a round is the first to work his or her way across the board. Victory in two rounds leads to a 'gold run' - a minute in a Mastermind-style spotlight negotiating a more complicated board - and such prizes as trips to Africa. Defeat in two rounds leads to the ejector seat and such prizes as Blockbusters T-shirts. Each contestant is limited to five gold runs.

Has it always gone out regular as clockwork? No, in 1990 it went 'split network' (different starting times in different regions), the kiss of death for ratings, which had peaked at 9 million when the programme was fully networked. In its infinite wisdom, the ITV Network Centre last year decided to axe the show - a move which prompted the Daily Mail to initiate the Campaign for the Reinstatement of Blockbusters. The newspaper called for the lobbying of Parliament and the knighting of Holness.

It's a bit of a cult? You could say that.

So where can we still see it? It soldiers on in the Central and Anglia regions, but for the moment Blockbusters enjoys a daily slot only on BSkyB, where a brand-new series (the 11th, consisting of 180 programmes, shot at a rate of five a day) started last week. The Blockbusters team has now clocked up 1,206 shows, featuring 4,612 teenagers (from 17,500 auditionees) - who, according to Cousins, are the real stars. 'People of that age tend to be portrayed as reckless, nihilistic, drug-popping ne'er-do-wells. The ones I meet can be cheeky, yes, but they are also sparky, funny and intelligent.'

Little-known facts: to enhance Holness's cult status - he is the sort of figure students name halls of residence after - New Musical Express once printed a (false) story that he had performed the sax solo on Gerry Rafferty's 'Baker Street'. Just as impressive, and true, Holness was one of Radio 1's founding disc-jockeys in 1967. He also used to host the long- forgotten Criss-Cross Quiz, and the LBC breakfast show.

Anything that makes you want to kick the set in? Holness's schoolmasterly manner (the producer insists on a certain number of questions based on the GCSE syllabus).

Anything that makes you want to turn the set on? Holness's schoolmasterly manner. Cousins maintains that this is the root of his appeal: 'He will sit down and have lunch with the contestants - how many other quiz-show hosts will you find doing that? - but he can be firm with them, too.' But, more important, the host's primness is key to the programme's cult status. In a wicked spoof, ravers positioned Holness's face on a T-shirt proclaiming the joys of Ecstasy with the slogan: 'Can I have an E, please, Bob?' Holness was not amused and threatened to sue.

Theme tune: This plays a significant part in Blockbusters' cultishness. Audiences - consisting of students wielding the most formidable array of cuddly toys this side of University Challenge - have traditionally hand- jived along to the jaunty music (by Ed Welch, if you're going to a record store). The producer reveals, however, that such behaviour has recently become rather uncool: 'Now it is a bit bad for the street cred. You can't do the hand-jive and wear Doc Martens.'

How good is it? As a teen quiz-show, unrivalled; as anything else, unremarkable. It is perfect niche television: charming, cheap and unremittingly cheerful. What other show could get mileage year after year from such a feeble catchphrase as 'Can I have a P, please, Bob?'

(Photograph omitted)