Calum Henderson 
Calum Henderson watches Common Sense, a reality show that asks real people for their real reckons on current events. Who hasn’t watched the vox pops on the news and thought: these random people on the street should have their own show? In Australia, that dream has become a new reality series called Common Sense. A spinoff … Read more
Every week Chartlander travels back through time, landing in a different year on the official New Zealand singles chart in the hopes of (re)discovering forgotten Top 40 gold. Today we continue our tour of classic general elections at the dawn of MMP. The date is the 12th of October, 1996, and today New Zealanders will … Read more
Just how hard is it to win an election and successfully lead a government? Seems easy enough, but there’s only one way to find out for sure: simulate it in a computer game. No actual politics game measures up to the ideal politics game for which I yearn. What I want is basically a straight … Read more
Every week Chartlander travels back through time, landing in a different year on the official New Zealand singles chart in the hopes of (re)discovering forgotten Top 40 gold. Today we continue our tour of classic general elections in 1990. The date is the 27th of October, 1990. Tonight the National Party will land a crushing … Read more
New Zealand’s search for a bona fide celebrity builder to carry the torch lit by Cocksy may finally be over with the arrival of TVNZ 1’s no nonsense new home reno show. It all seems so long ago now, but there once was a time when the only home renovations on New Zealand television were … Read more
Every week Chartlander travels back through time, landing in a different year on the official New Zealand singles chart in the hopes of (re)discovering forgotten Top 40 gold. Today we continue our tour of significant election moments. The date is Thursday the 14th of June, 1984. Tonight, New Zealand’s prime minister Robert Muldoon will get … Read more
Every week Chartlander travels back through time, landing in a different year on the official New Zealand singles chart in the hopes of (re)discovering forgotten Top 40 gold. Today we go back to the last time the Labour Party came into power. The day is November 27, 1999, and Helen Clark has just been elected … Read more
Is it possible to sense a rugby player’s future from their name and name alone? Watch these players closely this Mitre 10 Cup season to find out. There are 14 teams in the Mitre 10 Cup. This week, each of these teams released their squad list for the 2017 season. Each list included approximately 32 … Read more
I am an early-morning commuter trying to get to work on time. I am not interested in looking at your new logo. A-League soccer club Wellington Phoenix released their new logo at a waterfront ceremony this morning, unveiling it in the form of a large metal sculpture which was ignored by everyone who walked past … Read more
Welcome to Chartlander, where each week we travel back through time to land in a different year on the official New Zealand singles chart in the hopes of (re)discovering forgotten Top 40 gold. Today we go back 26 years to this day in 1991. Welcome to the 10th of August 1991 in Aotearoa. Jim Bolger is … Read more
The Revolution’s Lisa Coleman – also known as one half of Wendy & Lisa – tells Calum Henderson about getting the band back together and how they feel about the recent Purple Rain reissue. “It’s so strange,” Lisa Coleman says, thinking back on her time making music with Prince. “We blazed across the face of … Read more
As music director for this year’s Silver Scroll Awards, Shayne Carter’s job is to design song reinterpretations of the five finalists for the best New Zealand songwriting. He spoke to Calum Henderson about the skill of covering a song, writing his book, and not really liking awards shows. The midday temperature in Dunedin is 3 … Read more
Remember staying up extra late, one hand hovering nervously over the remote in case of footsteps, waiting to catch a tantalising glimpse of nudity on TV? You were not alone. An anonymous panel revisits the golden era of SKY 1 soft porn. In the years before broadband internet and personal devices, New Zealand teenagers had … Read more
From Beavis and Butt-head to Drew and Shannon, TeleTrader to the Champagne Lady, Calum Henderson looks back on the first 20 years of New Zealand’s fourth TV channel. In 1997, I spent a week of intermediate school metalwork classes carefully etching the TV4 logo onto a sheet of copper. That is how excited I was … Read more
It is a succinct, disquieting, apparently context-less tweet that has become a classic of the form. But why did Piers Morgan write it? Calum Henderson investigates. At 12:51pm EDT on Sunday the 2nd of September, 2012, Piers Morgan tweeted “I want to die.” Those four words typed by the divisive television personality and former newspaper … Read more
We review the entire country and culture of New Zealand, one thing at a time. Today: Calum Henderson takes down an awful bear. When I was five I had a nightmare that a wolf walked into my house on its hind legs and kicked me to death in the kitchen. You don’t forget a dream … Read more
Regardless of whether she is good or bad, there’s no denying that Julie Christie made a tonne of iconic New Zealand reality television. Calum Henderson breaks down her top five efforts. They don’t call Julie Christie the queen of reality TV for nothing. The recently-appointed Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit has … Read more
The new logo adorning the Blackcaps’ shirts belongs to an Indian dairy giant with a long-running advertising campaign based around spectacular puns. It looks like it could be a secret society which dabbles in the occult, or the name of Brendon McCullum’s latest racehorse. But the word ‘Amul’, printed in a heavy medieval font on … Read more
Births, deaths, fake deaths, reunions, vomit, sperm and a massive bloody volcano – there was a lot going on in Shortland Street’s 25th anniversary episode. Chris Warner found out he had leukaemia the day before his 50th birthday. Then, the day of his party, ever worse news: a volcano erupted, spewing rocks and ash and … Read more
Calum Henderson pays tribute to the most beautiful romance storyline of Shortland Street’s first 25 years. Two weeks after their daughter’s civil union, Yvonne Jeffries’ husband fell down a cliff and died. She must have thought that was it, she would never love again, there would never be another man like Ian, not at her … Read more
Calum Henderson reviews Gutsful, the new factual series from the brains behind Neighbours at War. When Neighbours at War wrapped up last year after eight seasons it left an unexpectedly big gap in the local television landscape. Where else on telly were we going to find the real, unfiltered version of New Zealand the show’s … Read more
There’s a perfect playlist out there for every scenario. Chances are the Spinoff staff playlists won’t be among them but we gave it a go anyway. Today: Calum Henderson details his very specific playlist for a rain delay at the cricket. Top 10 Rainy Day Songs I’ve always dreamed of being a DJ at the cricket. My … Read more
The unmistakable voice of Neighbours at War, Bill Kerton tells Calum Henderson about making his new show Gutsful and how he cut his TV teeth directing Havoc and Newsboy at the height of their infamy. “I’ve sort of only really got one setting,” Bill Kerton admits. He is talking about Gutsful, the new TV show … Read more
Before there was Survivor, there was New Zealand’s own reality juggernaut Treasure Island. Calum Henderson revisits the first episode of 2001’s Celebrity Treasure Island and finds out what the contestants are doing with themselves now. There were nine whole seasons of Treasure Island and all anyone remembers is the time Lana Coc-Kroft nearly died from … Read more
Calum Henderson talks to Yuko Inaba, the rugby-loving artist behind the delightful internet presence Nadegata Penguin. In the cutthroat world of art it is important for an artist to find their niche. Yuko Inaba’s niche is painting rugby players as cute penguins. The Tokyo watercolourist is prolific, sharing a new painting on Facebook, Twitter or … Read more
Calum Henderson watches TVNZ DUKE’s new fishing show Screaming Reels, Leigh Hart’s latest comedy venture to rival Outdoors With Geoff. Editor’s update: Screaming Reels premiered on Australia’s Channel 7 at 10.30am on Saturday 27 categorised under “sport” and “reality”, raising some questions as to whether or not our Trans-Tasman neighbours realised it was a parody. The network denies … Read more
Calum Henderson watches TVNZ’s Darryl: An Outward Bound Story, a warm Kiwi comedy about how one moustachioed man goes bush to find himself. Few New Zealanders who watched it unfold on television will ever forget the men’s 50km walk at the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Overcome by heat exhaustion, race leader Craig Barrett’s legs turned to … Read more
Bill English made pizza for tea last night, igniting widespread internet debate over the leader of the nation’s culinary abilities. We asked one of the world’s best pizza chefs for his thoughts. An award-winning chef from one of Auckland’s best Italian restaurants has slammed the prime minister’s attempts at making pizza. “You can’t even call … Read more
In celebration of Rent Week, Calum Henderson watches the hilariously bleak docu-series Renters and finds Kiwi comedy gold. On the face of it, the TVNZ 2’s Renters show seems to exist solely to reinforce every negative stereotype about tenants in the Evil Landlord Handbook. It cynically takes all the worst and most extreme examples of bad … Read more