Tara Ward takes a trip back in time with this classic 1980s New Zealand tourism video. Be warned, it contains bare buttocks. Covid-19 has made us tourists in our own country, so there’s no better time to wrap your optic nerves around the classic tourism film Come On to New Zealand. It was a 34-minute … Read more
If you’re a movie-lover but don’t feel like funnelling more money to a giant global corporation right now, good news: there are plenty of free – and legal – streaming options out there. You just have to know where to look. The number of people with access to linear television is growing smaller and smaller … Read more
Back in 2007, TV2 aired The Amazing Extraordinary Friends – a charming superhero show and potential cult hit. Twelve years later, it’s nowhere to be found. Felix Walton looks at the changing landscape of archiving our local TV. The Amazing Extraordinary Friends tells the story of Ben Wilson, an unassuming Kiwi teen who finds an … Read more
Long-lost siblings? A high-stakes and seemingly pointless quest? A fake death? Sounds like a good time. Sam Brooks celebrates the forgotten Kiwi drama Seekers. Before Filthy Rich was even a glimmer in Gavin Strawhan’s eye, Seekers brought the unpredictable and improbable drama to New Zealand primetime television. Straight off the bat, Seekers is an extremely weird high-concept premise for … Read more
Buck House was an edgy sitcom from the 70s that manages to still be edgy and different now, though not for the right reasons. Sam Brooks muses upon the distinct pleasures of Buck House. When I think of the 70s, I think of Yakety Sax, Mary Tyler Moore and a show where a guy had to pretend … Read more
Wikipedia has it on its list of the worst sitcoms of all time. But how bad is it? Sam Brooks watched the first episode of Melody Rules to find out if the notorious Kiwi comedy has been unfairly maligned. The answer is yes, but also no. For those of you who are not in the know about … Read more
Sam Brooks continues his dig through the NZ on Screen archives and the history of New Zealand drama with 1978’s Radio Waves, a half-hour maybe-comedy about the travails of an Auckland radio station. After watching Close to Home, I was struck by three things. One, how indebted New Zealand drama (and this also extends to … Read more
Before there was Shortland Street, there was Close to Home. Sam Brooks dug through the NZ on Screen archives and found the first episode of New Zealand’s first soap opera. It’s 1975 in New Zealand. Imagine the climate. Robert Muldoon is about to become prime minister, the population has just cracked three million and television … Read more
What is the greatest New Zealand TV theme song ever written? Our search continues with a long forgotten Dave Dobbyn masterpiece from 1989. Previously in our search for New Zealand’s greatest TV theme song: Country Calendar Any major boomer will tell you: 1980s New Zealand was a different world. A world where you could smoke … 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
It’s the eye-pop has been talked about more than just about any other TV segment in New Zealand history. But one crucial voice has stayed silent about it, until now. Hayden Donnell talks to Thingee about the on-screen medical nightmare that changed his life forever. It started out like any other Son of a Gunn segment. Jason was prattling … Read more
With Police Ten 7 celebrating 500 episodes tonight, Professor Allan Blackman applies rigorous scientific analysis to the show’s most iconic moment. Can it really be seven years since the world was first introduced to the hilariously deadpan Sgt Guy Baldwin on Police Ten 7? His advice to Glen – a surly teen who supposedly had the 3am … Read more
Curious to see what life was like for young New Zealand women of a different era, Alex Casey turns to a 1969 special about beauty queens for a historical wake-up call. It’s hard yakka being a woman sometimes, with everyone screaming at us to hide our bra straps, contour our faces and clap for all … Read more
Tara Ward revisits the high fashion of the 1986 Benson & Hedges Fashion Design Awards, complete with wool, leather, and bold shoulders. The Benson & Hedges Fashion Design Awards was to fashion what The Dog Show was to farmers: the premier showcase of what made our country great. Which was mostly leather and wool, apparently. … Read more
Sarah Robson reminisces with National MP Nikki Kaye about her time on Fish Out of Water, the reality show that was dumping people on an island years before Survivor. In 1996, before the term “reality TV” entered our everyday lexicon, TV3 decided to strand six Auckland teenagers on Rakitu Island in the Hauraki Gulf. They were … Read more
Before there was Flying Nun, there was the NZ punk scene. To celebrate NZ Music Month, Gareth Shute looks back at a 1978 snapshot of the birth of our local indie scene. It was June 1978 when promoter Derek King made a plan for half-a-dozen bands from Auckland to drive south for a Punk Spectacular … Read more
Mark Thomas was just 30 when, on the cusp of becoming a National MP, he was publicly knifed by his own Prime Minister and made history. He was our first sacrificial lamb under the MMP electoral system, ruthlessly cut by Jim Bolger two days before general election day in 1996, when National decided Act’s Richard … Read more
For Throwback Thursday this week, Claire Adamson arms herself with a bottle of wine and revisits the worst comedy series that New Zealand has ever made. In the early ’90s, a young and misguided television station called TV3 made a show so terrible that its name has become a byword for bad TV in this … Read more
Hayden Donnell looks back on one of New Zealand’s most iconic interviews. In December 1997, two teenage girls gave Paul Holmes the sternest test of his storied interviewing career. The Ingham twins, both 18, had gone to extraordinary lengths for love. Sarah had fallen for a sailor. Her sister Joanna decided to help her pursue … Read more
Katie Parker reopens the locker of her adolescence in Being Eve, the local teen series brimming with asymmetrical tank tops, IRL dating and fourth wall-breaking. Like all naive pre-teens, at the age of 10 all I wanted in the world was to hit adolescence. Whether I was trimming my non-existent leg hair with scissors or studying … Read more
Once Were Warriors, released in 1994, shocked the world with brutal scenes of domestic violence, suicide and rape. As director Lee Tamahori prepares for the release of his first New Zealand film since that break-out hit, Elizabeth Beattie looks back at the New Zealand it depicted and asks, how much has really changed? Trigger Warning: … Read more
The history of New Zealand television features plenty of lowlights, but few as low as the drunken and chaotic 1987 Listener Gofta Awards. Comedian Michele A’Court was there. It is possible that I am one of the few people who has fond memories of the 1987 Gofta Awards. It’s also possible that I am one … Read more
Earlier this year Alex Casey watched Putting Our Town on the Map, a 1995 documentary on NZ On Screen that unearthed the bizarre origins and rituals around Paeroa’s L&P bottle and Ohakune’s giant carrot. Our host Miranda Harcourt is taking us around New Zealand, looking at what different small towns have done to put themselves on … Read more
With a bit of spare time on your hands this summer, you might want to revisit some old family-friendly classics. José Barbosa suggests the legendary Kiwi canine caper A Dog’s Show on NZ On Screen, arguing a strong case for why it is the best television show New Zealand has ever seen. It’s become part of … Read more