A perfectly preserved set of Big Fresh Animatronic Fruit and Veges went on sale this week. Hayden Donnell delivers an exclusive update on their fate. Everyone remembers their first encounter with Junk & Disorderly’s set of Big Fresh Animatronic Fruit & Veges. There’s something overpowering about the experience. The Butter looms overhead, deranged joy etched … Read more
Get It to Te Papa follows journalist Hayden Donnell on an ambitious quest to collect underappreciated Kiwi cultural artefacts and get them into New Zealand’s national museum, Te Papa. And you can watch the second episode right here – for free. But first, watch episode 1, in search of the Waitangi Dildo, here. In episode … Read more
After a harrowing experience in a Countdown, Hayden Donnell calls for a moratorium on all classic New Zealand snack mash-ups. For a long time, New Zealand has been suffering from a sickness. It started as a slow creep. A flare-up here and there, easily dismissed; nothing much to worry about. Over time the illness has spread … Read more
In episode two of Get It to Te Papa, a Lightbox Original made by The Spinoff, Hayden Donnell goes in search of the animatronic veges that instilled both delight and horror in ’90s kids across the nation. Watch Get It to Te Papa on Lightbox here. My memories of the Big Fresh Animatronic Fruit and Veges … Read more
Looking back on 1990s supermarket chain Big Fresh, it seems scarcely believable. A food shopping Disneyland with live country music, a TV room for the kids and giant animatronic vegetables swaying in the rafters? Did that actually happen? But for 15 glorious years the Big Fresh supermarket chain really did exist. Kristin Hall met the … Read more