Stan Walker just made Postie (nee Plus) cool again, but he’s not the first celeb brand ambassador to raise our collective eyebrows. Tara Ward takes a trip down New Zealand’s weird and wonderful celebrity endorsement highway. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, and Postie (nee Plus) wants to thank us for buying a … Read more
The memory of Sir Edmund Hillary is still fresh, but as the years roll by it may not stay that way. Josie Adams ranks the ways future generations could learn about our national hero. As we head into winter and ski season I’m reminded of our country’s biggest snowbunny, Sir Edmund Hillary. We know … Read more
Let’s Get Inventin’ was a late-noughties reality TV show that pitted children and scientists against common sense. Josie Adams looks back at what made it great. Our screens have played host to many questionable children’s television shows over the years: Bumble, Drew Neemia-era Sticky TV, and Worzel Gummidge Down Under are just three examples. But … Read more
Alex Casey goes down a YouTube rabbit hole to try and find the best New Zealand advertising jingle ever created. It happened without warning. Staring into my simmering bolognese last week, something came over me. I turned slowly, the harsh kitchen lights dimming to a single spotlight. I held the saucy wooden spoon up to … Read more
Alex Casey talks to the woman behind @trademebae, the Instagram account archiving the most bizarre items that Trade Me has to offer. Every detail is somehow funnier than the last. “Sex noveltys” the listing reads. $1 reserve. Condition: Used. Description: As is. Pick-up: Invercargill. Pictured: dildos, vibrators, a butt plug and various other “noveltys”, opaque … Read more
A lion escapes from the zoo and kills a Rotorua poodle. Weird story, but how did it actually happen? Jean Sergent watches Who Killed Lucy The Poodle?, a TVNZ documentary that attempts to get to the bottom of the legendary affair. For some reason, this story makes perfect sense to me. The premise of Who … Read more
Forget his problematic Instagram and his pet monkey, Justin Bieber made his most evocative piece of art during a whirlwind trip to New Zealand in 2010. Cast your mind back to 2010. Donald Trump was just a guy asking budding entrepreneurs to manage a doggy day care on his reality TV show. The Social Network … Read more
Hard to break, cheap as chips, filled with instant coffee or weak tea – it’s the mug of the marae, the staffroom, the factory canteen, the church hall. It’s our mug, says John Summers. Our son was born almost three months ago. He’s close by, fighting sleep in his bassinet as I write this. He … Read more
Madeleine Chapman goes through starchy hell to rank every flavour of chip available in New Zealand*. *Of course I will have missed some and of course you’ll let me know. Sorry and thanks in advance. This list is so long it really doesn’t need an intro. Hell-123) Any novelty flavour ever Get directly in the … Read more
Is it a bird, is it a plane? Online sleuth Elle Hunt fires up the search engines. What is “the Kiwi way of life”? The question has been troubling me ever since Simon Bridges defined it as definitely not a capital gains tax. OK then. Is that it? Bridges later elaborated that it was “planning reform … Read more
Nothing that happens in Friday’s big celebrity cricket game will ever be as good as Paul Vautin’s catch in the 1993 Allan Border testimonial, argues Calum Henderson. This Friday afternoon at Hagley Park in Christchurch, a team of famous cricketers are playing a team of famous rugby players in a game of celebrity T20 that … Read more
Alex Casey dives into the murky world of crispy-cuppa-companion nomenclature in New Zealand. Every now and then, a simple revelation knocks your entire world off its axis. You could be staring at your daily box of Shapes, when suddenly your gaze pulls focus like a Magic Eye and you realise that the white background on … Read more
Summer reissue: For a time in the late 2000s, youth of all backgrounds in this country began to dance. Don Rowe remembers the brief flash when techno became a unifying force in New Zealand. Originally published 7 July 2018 Since the beginning of time humanity has yearned to dance. From the cha cha to the … Read more
The strip club-set New Zealand TV series The Strip ran for two seasons in the early-2000s and is now largely forgotten. But Emily Writes remembers it… We heard about The Strip before we saw it on TV. The advertising had been hot. We knew Robbie Magasiva was involved and my god, we loved Robbie Magasiva … 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
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 first episode right now, for free. The first episode sees Hayden and José embark on a desperate quest to find the … Read more
For a brief moment in the late 20th century, New Zealand produced some of the dopest hand-painted clothing on Earth. Don Rowe talks to the founders of Kozmik Klothing. Most everyone in the 1980s dressed like shit. That’s just a fact. But for a brief moment in the late 80s, on Auckland’s North Shore, there … Read more
Every year an 18 metre tall Santa is pieced together and bolted to the front of the Farmers Building on Queen Street. Aucklanders seem to love him, outsiders not so much. José Barbosa argues from his heart why this Santa belongs in everyone else’s. I’m not an Auckland native. I grew up in the Bay … Read more
In episode six of Get It to Te Papa, a Lightbox Original made by The Spinoff, Hayden Donnell’s journey finally takes him to the national museum. Watch Get It to Te Papa on Lightbox here. If I had to pick one artefact from Get It to Te Papa to be enshrined in our national museum, it … Read more
In episode five of Get It to Te Papa, a Lightbox Original made by The Spinoff, Hayden Donnell’s odyssey takes him to the front door of New Zealand’s only true living legend: Suzanne Paul. Watch Get It to Te Papa on Lightbox here. On March 2, our TV crew pulled up to a big house on … Read more
In episode three of Get It to Te Papa, a Lightbox Original made by The Spinoff, Hayden Donnell starts a valiant campaign to move the country’s most famous sign to Te Papa: the Deka sign in Huntly. Watch Get It to Te Papa on Lightbox here. The first thing most people notice about Huntly is the … 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
Alex Casey spends an afternoon with Astar, morning television superstar turned Youtube extraordinaire. Astar is digging through her garden bin with a Scream mask in one hand and a vape wedged under her arm. She emerges, coiffed hair and red lipstick still perfect, clutching a bunch of old twigs. “Halloween,” she explains, holding the foliage … Read more
From the Big Save lady, to ASB’s Goldstein, to a very young Taika Waititi selling sweets – these are the TV ads that made James Mustapic the man he is today. Watch Friday’s episode of The Spinoff TV in full here. Thanks to NZ on Air
Rating your Kiwi Childhood is all about looking back on your formative experiences as a little kid in the 1980s and a bigger kid in the 1990s. This week, Adam Mamo tackles the joy of going to the local dairy with $2. Every suburban kiwi kid had a local dairy growing up. Much like European coffee … Read more
Remember being off sick from school and having nothing to watch once breakfast television ended? Angella Dravid does. From Tony Robbins to Suzanne Paul, she pays tribute to the stars of NZ’s most iconic infomercials. The Spinoff TV, Fridays at 10.45pm on THREE
For a time in the late 2000s, youth of all backgrounds in this country began to dance. Don Rowe remembers the brief flash when techno became a unifying force in New Zealand. Since the beginning of time humanity has yearned to dance. From the cha cha to the charleston, trap arms to the twerk, dance … Read more
The Peach Teats billboard is a legitimate cult classic. In the first of a new series uncovering the stories behind classic New Zealand illustrations, Toby Morris meets the artist responsible for State Highway 1’s favourite cheeky calf. If you’ve ever driven State Highway 1 through the central North Island, you’ll have seen it. And if … Read more
For a brief moment, New Zealand was home to Big Foot, a mythically potent RTD served in a giant bottle and apparently aimed squarely at teens. Don Rowe talks to the brain behind it. Gather round children, I’m going to speak to you of the days before the voluntary RTD code. A time when Billy … Read more