Tomorrow's World Christmas Quiz

Technology-based yuletide shenanigans from the Stableford/Hann/MacCann-era Tomorrow's World. There may have been variations over the years, but the main game involved guessing what an invention was for, with three options demonstrated by the Tomorrow's World presenters and various guests. The studio audience (voting on keypads) and a guest panel tried to pick out the truths from the bluffs. There were also questions based on archive clips: guess the year, what happened next, and so on.

The regular Tomorrow's World themes of the period: Paul Hart's theme from 1986 to 1990, and Chris Blackwell's theme in 1991 and 1992.

One thing we do dimly recall was the team being asked to work out what a metalled umbrella was for. How dimly we recall this can be seen from the fact that for years we said that it turned out to be a solar mulled wine heater - in fact that was one of the "bluffs" (along with being a cheap radar reflector for small boats) and it was actually a needle catcher for a Christmas tree, as demonstrated by - because it's Christmas! - Eartha Kitt.

Santa Baby, slip a folding needle catcher under the tree for me...

Award yourself five points if you can guess what Sylvester McCoy is holding here. You won't, though...
(answer at end of this section)

Frequent TW contributor Bob Symes shows off a piece of flexible plastic on the 1988 edition. At the time nobody could work out what it was for...

...but for once it was something genuinely useful and later commonplace: a pull handle for electric plugs.

Howard Stableford in front of the Crystal Dome.

Paul Daniels doing physics.

Spike Milligan (played here by guest star Santa Claus) demonstrates the object that baffled Sylvester McCoy and friends: it's an electronic coat hanger counter. You run it along the rail and it counts the hangers. As never seen on Dragons' Den.