Host Peter Hawes would act on viewers requests, so if you wanted to see what happened if some one threw eggs at a giant fan or needed an answer to a homework question Peter was your man.
Viewers get what they want
Press, 15 March 1978
A look inside Vogel House, the official Wellington residence of the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon), will be among the varied offering of “Yours for the Asking,” a new Christchurch-produced TV2 series that will start soon.
Peter Hawes, host for the half-hour programme, said he had asked Mrs Muldoon when she was in Christchurch with her husband at the week-end if she would mind the interior of her house being filmed for the show.
“She is quite willing to let us pop in, and although no-one has asked to see the place yet, they are sure to come up with the request during the show’s 22-week run,” he said.
The producer, Kim Gabara, said “Yours for the Asking” was not out to show how things worked technically, but rather to demonstrate the interesting and the unusual. “For example, someone in Auckland might recall a visit to the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch 20 years ago, and wonder whether they have changed,” he said. After a week of promotional advertisements for the new series on television, the producer reports a satisfactory response from viewers, who have written in with requests.
“Most seem to have the right idea,” he said. Peter Hawes, who will\ leave the TV2 reporting staff in Christchurch to front the show, said requests included the wish to see a million dollars, how far an arrow would go, close inspection of one of the biggest freight trucks on the road, how stripes are put in toothpaste, what happens to a web when a spider climbs back up it, and the set of TV1’s “Close to Home.” Filming will begin in Auckland next week and in Christchurch the week after, and the series will begin on Sunday, April 16.
The producers have a stockpile of five-minute and six-minute items, but topicality will be aimed at by making provision for items generated by the series itself, and by events of the week, through compiling the programme two days before it goes to air. “Yours for the Asking” no doubt owes its inspiration to the American show, “You Asked For It,” but at least it will have a New Zealand flavour and some topicality.
Peter Hawes has been one of the writers for the satirical programme, “A Week Of It,” and will continue in this role, “when I can.” Aged 30, married, with a child, he is well travelled and speaks Spanish. He spent three years and a half in Spain, teaching English, and during that time wrote a historical novel based on the Inquisition. It was a best seller in Spain.
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