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Tomorrow's World was created by Glyn Jones, who conceived the show's name when the Radio Times rang him up wanting to know how to bill the programme in their next edition.[citation needed] In its early days the show was edited by Max Morgan-Witts and hosted by veteran broadcaster and one-time Spitfire pilot Raymond Baxter. For some years it had an instrumental theme tune which was composed by John Dankworth, and became a classic of the genre. During the 1970s, the programme attracted 10 million viewers per week.

The programme was usually broadcast live, and as a result known for the occasional failure of its technology demonstrations to work as expected. For example, during a demonstration of a new kind of car jack that required much less effort to operate, the jack disintegrated when actually trying to lift a car. Pressing on in the face of such adversity became a rite of passage, both for new presenters on the show and for the young assistant producers whose job it was to find the stories and make sure this kind of setback didn't happen.

Sometimes, however, the "liveness" gave an added dimension of immediacy to the technology, such as inventors personally demonstrating flame-proof clothing and bullet-proof vests while the presenters looked on. Sometimes it was the presenter who acted as test dummy.

Tomorrow's World also frequently ran exhibitions, called "Tomorrow's World Live", often based in Earls Court, London. These offered the general public the chance to see first hand a variety of brand new, pioneering inventions, as well as a selection from that year's show. The presenters, by this time Peter Snow and Philippa Forrester, also ran an hour-long interactive presentation within.

The show was also occasionally parodied, for example by Not The Nine O'Clock News, which featured TW-style demonstrations of such inventions as a telephone ring notification device for the deaf - powered by a microprocessor looking suspiciously like a "Shreddie", and later by the second series ofLook Around You.