Calum Henderson 
Calum Henderson sat down to watch The Café, a morning show set in a café. “This is the perfect show,” Mike Puru raved halfway through Monday morning’s first episode of The Café. “We’ve got a barista on set, we’ve got a kitchen on set… I am in heaven right now.” After years serving as Jay Jay and Dom’s sidekick … Read more
In the beginning there was darkness. Then professional sports said: let there be garish uniforms, nonsensical team names and frightening, hallucinatory mascots. Calum Henderson looks at the real heroes of the NRL. Almost every professional sports team in the world has one now, but few leagues have embraced the humble mascot as enthusiastically and wholeheartedly … Read more
More than just a glimpse of what dating was like in bumbling, awkward, pre-internet New Zealand, this 1989 episode of Blind Date on NZ On Screen unwittingly introduced the nation to the woman who would go on to become our greatest ever TV saleswoman. Before she had dropped a single bowling ball onto a bamboo fiber … Read more
Brendan O’Carroll, aka Mrs Brown, tells Calum Henderson how a five-minute radio play he created 25 years ago slowly turned into one of the most popular shows on television. It was three days out from opening night in Liverpool when Brendan O’Carroll got a phone message at his hotel in New York: “John Urine’s gone.” … Read more
Is there a more depressing NRL team to support than the Warriors? A man who failed 6th form maths has developed a simple formula to find out. The New Zealand Warriors’ season was barely 20 minutes old when an all-too-familiar anguish began to ripple through their fanbase. Trailing Wests Tigers 16-0 in a game they … Read more
In 2016, to celebrate Country Calendar turning the big 5-0, Calum Henderson took a look at five of the show’s famous spoofs on NZ On Screen – and one which seemed like a spoof but was totally real. You don’t see a lot of spoofs these days. We’ve got parodies galore, we’re up to our … Read more
He’s back as the host of The Bachelor NZ, but are Mike Puru’s greatest TV performances hidden in plain sight over on shopping channel YesShop? Calum Henderson watches one of his hypnotic advertorial masterpieces. If you listened carefully you could hear it in the wind at around 7:30pm on Monday night: the sound of a … Read more
Calum Henderson watched the first episodes of Family Feud and was transported back to the glory days of New Zealand reality television. 2015 will go down in history as TV3’s year of reality, when big franchises like The Bachelor and X Factor and The Block formed an imposing fleet of multi-night battleships, destined to sail … Read more
The All Blacks great is more than just a Versatile home owner – he’s a surprisingly versatile actor. Richie McCaw was named New Zealander of the Year last night. Some people are angry. They say setting about every All Blacks record, winning two World Cups, and retiring the greatest rugby player of all time isn’t … Read more
Instagram celebrity Max Key made his radio debut last night. Somewhere in suburban Auckland, Calum Henderson was listening and judging. Without ever really trying, I seem to have spent a lot of time in the past year looking at Max Key’s abs, staring into his gormless photo face, admiring his impossibly precise haircut. He is, … Read more
A horrible goal celebration in Manchester, a horrible knee injury in London, and horrible weather in Stoke – all-in-all another great weekend of Premier League action. Yet another milestone in the unbelievable story of Leicester City – for the first time all season they are favourites to win the Premiership at the TAB. The Foxes … Read more
It was another ordinary Friday until a pink sex toy whistled through the air, hit Steven Joyce’s jowls, and changed our lives forever. This is our frame-by-frame analysis of the 2016 Waitangi Dildo Incident. Steven Joyce speaks to assembled media. His hands clasped at his waist, leaving him completely vulnerable to a dildo attack. The dildo … Read more
Leicester are the new Barcelona (at least until Pep Guardiola arrives in Manchester), Spurs are inching ever closer to the top of the table, and a rare start for Peter Crouch can’t help Stoke as Manchester United finally rediscover the joy of scoring goals. The January transfer window slammed shut with a hint of passive-aggression … Read more
While we enjoy the magic of the FA Cup’s fourth round and await confirmation of Chelsea’s transfer deadline-busting signing of Neymar this weekend, let’s have a long hard think about the reality that Tottenham might win the Premiership. This weekend’s round of Premier League games has been pushed back to midweek to accommodate the fourth … Read more
Could the NRL’s latest off-field scandal have been predicted with the help of a mathematical formula similar to cricket’s WASP? Probably the weirdest thing about the NRL’s latest boozy scandal, in which Mitchell Pearce was filmed simulating a sex act on a dog after an Australia Day booze cruise, is that it’s not even the … Read more
Once a thriving center of commerce and industry, tourists have largely avoided Fallout 4‘s Commonwealth since it was decimated by a devastating nuclear holocaust 210 years ago. But with the rebuild effort well underway, there has never been a better time for adventurous travelers to visit this diverse and vibrant region. Eat: Street food aficionados … Read more
Nigella’s here in New Zealand promoting her latest book, simply titled Simply Nigella. She’s too busy to be interviewed by The Spinoff, sadly. Instead, Calum Henderson lined up in Newmarket and bought a $65 book – one our cheapskate organisation definitely could not afford – just to spend five seconds in the presence of the culinary legend. … Read more
Is Jonjo Shelvey the most important signing of the January transfer window? Has anybody seen Peter Crouch this week? And what happened to muscular rapping Dutchman Royston Drenthe? The January transfer window is wide open, and Premier League clubs are rushing in from every corner of England (and Wales) to partake in a bit of … Read more
Jenga, bumper boats, waka ama, go-karting, archery, ______? It would take some kind of pattern recognition genius to figure out what activity will herald the beginning of the next Super Rugby season in New Zealand. Calum Henderson looks back at the evolution of the season launch in pictures. It started with a game of off-brand … Read more
Everybody else is dabbin’ it so why can’t we? Calum Henderson surveys the field and offers a tempting range of odds on the first Kiwi to dab during a live TV sports event. Cam Newton wasn’t the first professional athlete to dab during a game, but he dabbed with such panache that it helped ignite … Read more
The Premier League schedule returns to some semblance of normality this weekend, after a typically hectic holiday period. Here’s how each side fared over the break, in the order they sit on the table. 1. Arsenal (43 points) Won v Man City 2-1 Lost v Southampton 0-4 Won v Bournemouth 2-0 Won v Newcastle 1-0 … Read more
Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, Barney and Adrian ‘Jackpot’ Lewis are household names thanks to their heroics at the much-loved PDC World Darts Championship. But the sport has another world champs, with a whole different cast of unlikely characters. Calum Henderson peers into the parallel universe of the BDO. One of the best summer holiday traditions … Read more
In the lead-up to this year’s Cricket World Cup, Calum Henderson revisited the 1992 World Cup through the garish lens of Sky’s incessant memorialising and found the coverage was as fine as the cricket. Was the 1992 Cricket World Cup really as good as everyone remembers it? Is it wrong to hold a flame for the … Read more
Jose Mourinho gets the sack, AFC Bournemouth continue their giant-killing run and Petr Cech’s wife bakes a wonderful cake in another week of wildly unpredictable Premier League action. Chelsea have finally sacked manager Jose Mourinho after a 2-1 loss to Leicester City on Tuesday morning left last season’s champions just one point clear of the … Read more
Good Morning has sung its last song, danced its last dance, and broadcast its last advertorial. Calum Henderson watched the lights go down on a New Zealand TV icon. “I don’t want this day to end…” These plaintive words from host Jeanette Thomas perhaps best summed up today’s final episode of Good Morning – a … Read more
A strange, wonderful, violent round of upsets in the Premier League – and at the end of it all Arsene Wenger was able to sit back and enjoy his reggae in peace. In a weekend in which you could have reasonably expected wins for Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United and even Chelsea – over Stoke … Read more
Calum Henderson watches Adele return to the stage, with help from Graham Norton, and gets a little misty. The first time I heard ‘Hello’, the lead single from Adele’s third studio album 25, I was sitting in Hollywood Bakery on my lunch break eating a tandoori chicken wrap. I knew straight away what song it was … Read more
After ten weeks of furious villa renovation and TV production, The Block NZ finished on Sunday night in a flurry of six-figure profits at the live auction finale. Calum Henderson went along to kick the tyres of New Zealand’s richest reality TV franchise. Five minutes before they assembled on the balcony of the Rendezvous Hotel … Read more
A goal-filled Premier League weekend saw Jamie Vardy break a record, Alexis Sanchez break his hamstring, and Bournemouth break their manager in an injury time frenzy. All eyes were on Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy on Sunday morning as he looked to break Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s consecutive game scoring record against Manchester United, and his … Read more