Cracker: History Repeating
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I thought too the phrase from the Labour ad, "round the corner of the seventies" (or similar), was a curious coinage. Was it a common-place phrase from the time, or an attempt to describe the novelty of the new decade?
Certainly not a common-place, a puzzling one to me too. On reflection, I think it was saying: Here in the 1970s we're about to take off in a new direction. We're at a pivot point. A watershed, with the image of a ridge or dividing line (rather than the US version of catchment area). So indeed a curious coinage that didn't take.
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I clearly remember an episode of After School where Olly Olsen appeared wearing a bandage (in my memory it was bloodied, but that might just be a later embellishment by my brain) and talking about how he'd been in an accident.
Find it and you shall receive my sincerest thanks.
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Suggestion:
Prob 15+ years ago Ian Fraser did a series of NZ political history docos that I have always wanted to see again. For some reason the title "frontline" keeps popping into my head, but it just sounds wrong?
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I'm sure there was an earlier episode in which Thingy lost an eye. It was in the days when he first appeared. (It might even have been in the episode in which he got his name.) I can't remember the names of the two presenters on the show, but I remember them sort of cracking up as he fondled his eye. I think he removed it and put it back in.
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When you fly every week, you start to notice the little things. On the "ingredients" section of the little bags of lollies Air New Zealand gives out: "Contents: Jelly-Shaped People"
I noticed that the Anzac biscuits weren't vegetarian. They have beef fat in them.
Every recipe I've seen used butter, but maybe beef fat is the original, or just an industrial-processing-quantity substitute.
At least it's not palm oil, but if I were Hindu, Jewish or vegetarian for religious grounds I don't think I'd be expecting to need to read the biscuit label.
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Jelly-Shaped People.
Haven't we come a long way. Anyone remember Basil Brush? In an episode where the uppity puppet was captured by Fu Manchu, he refuses the Chinese dishes on offer and asks for jelly babies. To which Fu replies "We do not eat German Children." Tish boom!
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Prob 15+ years ago Ian Fraser did a series of NZ political history docos that I have always wanted to see again. For some reason the title "frontline" keeps popping into my head, but it just sounds wrong?
You might be referring to the Revolution series from 1996 - Although he also had a show called Fraser which ran 1994-1998.
If you're interested, the first episode of Revolution is on NZ On Screen here
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Ha ha... the water bottles to stop dogs doing their stuff...
I remember noticing the occasional water-bottled front yard as I walked home from the bus-stop after tech, and then all of a sudden, the day after that clip was shown, the sudden and wide-spread proliferation.
I couldnt imagine so many people could be so gullible... and then I got to our own house and discovered that my parents had followed everyone else.... I was mortified.
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Yeah, it'll be 'Revolution' for sure, which I actually got out to watch only a few weeks ago. It's 4 x 1 hour episodes, and as Brenda points out, you can watch the first one (and heaps of other good stuff) at NZ On Screen.
One of the interesting things I find going through the archives is how much stories were allowed to 'breathe' back then. In a news story, the reporter might make a comment, then you get 30 seconds of footage before they pipe up again. It's great, although sometimes you do find yourself reaching for the FF button - am I that much of a product of my generation?
And I should point out, when I say 'big chunks' and 'largely unmolested', I am cutting a number of these stories down so they fit into the package which I intend to be about 5-6 minutes each week. But I try and do this by taking out entire sections, rather than making the cutting between shots more pacey.
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Probably available elsewhere, but I'd love to see (because i'm really enjoying a series of graphic novels called The Walking Dead) how the post-apocalypse TV show Survivor has stood the test of time.
Likewise, the Tomorrow People.
And, because nobody else can seem to remember it but it must have scarred me for life, an incredibly cheap, lame, but hypnotic ad featuring a signing cowboy in front of a gold tinsel curtain singing a little ditty to advertise the merits of a company called Blundell & Brown. Whats my chances of tracking that down?
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Damian, was 1970s TV news or specific items thereof routinely archived, or was it haphazardly chancy?
Norm Kirk despatching the frigate HMNZS Otago to protest the French nuclear bomb tests at Moruroa was stirring, but I’ve no memory of his speech on the day being covered on TV news, although it is referenced as a particularly significant point in our developing nationhood. What I do remember is an interview with the commander of the frigate, perhaps on the eve of departure (25 June 1974) which stunned me at the time, but I’ve never seen/heard any reference to it since. Went something like this – I think on the wharf with the ship as back-drop –
Interviewer: “Commander Tyrrell, I understand you witnessed a number of nuclear bomb tests in the western Pacific in the 1950s, so you would have a better idea than most of us of the awesome power of these weapons. Tell me, what do you think of the possibility that nuclear weapons might be used in warfare?”
Commander Tyrell: “Wa- aaall, I don’t think it’s very goood, really. I mean, one doesn’t have a sporting charnce if they start lobbing one of those things at you!” This in manner and accent finely caricaturing an English officer-class twit, but in keeping with the era and attitude that I had thought ended in the middle stages of World War I. Clearly not.
I’d dearly like to see this again, test my memory – and bracketed with an extract from Norm Kirk’s speech “We are a small nation, but in the interests of justice we claim the attention of the world ...”, it would be good TV in your tight format. But perhaps you’d have to find an excuse to bring it forward, if not waiting till the end of June?
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Those anti-poo bottles have come up three times in conversations over the last couple of weeks and now this. Spooky.
I remember that Dylan Tate segment like it were yesterday. Thank you Damian, for making me feel old, you young upstart. -
Damian, was 1970s TV news or specific items thereof routinely archived, or was it haphazardly chancy?
Unfortunately the latter Chris. I just did a bit of a search, and that interview seems lost to the mists of time. It can be quite frustrating, I was trying to find a news item of the day Norm Kirk actually died and couldn't locate anything, only some stuff on his funeral a few days later.
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I searched and only found this Gallery item from 1973 - Norman Kirk the first 250 Days.
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Most of today's news offerings wouldn't be worth keeping, surely?
They would be so easy to recreate.
Get a reporter to stand in front of a building, vaguely related to the story, and paraphrase a press statement.
And back to you, Damian.
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Ah well, thanks for trying Damian (and Brenda). Now I'll just have to insist my memory was accurate, but guess you had to be there.
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In a news story, the reporter might make a comment, then you get 30 seconds of footage before they pipe up again.
Much of that style was a result of the available technology. Digital editing didn't exist. It was all tape and non-linear, so longer chunks of story were quicker and easier to create.
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I'd love to see the early 80s "Fell off" ad. Think it was paint, not sure
It was for paint - the "fell off" guy was dressed in (if I remember correctly) classic 70s fashion of towelling hat, tight t shirt and probably stubbies.
"Yeah, fell off. Still has"
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The "fell off" paint ad I remember was an ACC Home Safety ad for "Solar Shield"
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This one was actually a paint ad - goofy-looking guy in said towelling hat asks cool-looking guy (who obviously knows how to choose his paint) what paint he used on his house, because they're painting the local clubrooms again because last year's paint "fell off"
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3410,
The ad I'd like to see rescued is a double-length epic rap for Sparkles (1983).
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On about 25 June 1970 a demonstration at parliament about the education system featuring an Onslow College student, Catherine Delahunty, was shown on the NZBC news. She was also interviewed by Brian Edwards on his Gallery current affairs programme. I would love to see those again.
I came across several index references to Onslow College in the TVNZ archives when researching a history of Onslow College for its 50th in 2006, but was unable to access them then. I'm sure Simon Wilson, Jamie Belich and other student activists over the years are hidden away there.
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The ad I'd like to see rescued is a double-length epic rap for Sparkles (1983).
Was that "put a sparkle in your smile (smile)" or an earlier version?
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3410,
Was that "put a sparkle in your smile (smile)" or an earlier version?
I think that one was later.
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Third Labour Govt Amazing!
The third New Zealand Labour Government (1972-75) under Prime Minster Norman Kirk was known for its strong social conscience in both international and domestic affairs. (Govt Whips Office 1974, Bassett1978, Hayward 1981). On the international front,it had confronted the global nuclear arms race by strong opposition to French testing in the Pacific, and by the sponsoring of non-proliferation measures such as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (later embodied in the Rarotonga Treaty of 1986) and South Pacific Environmental programme. It had also ended national conscription and New Zealand’s contribution to the Vietnam War upon coming to power in 1972, and had cancelled the visas of a visiting South African rugby team in early 1974 because of its abhorrence to the regime of apartheid in that country.On the domestic front, it demonstrated its commitment to environmental protection by setting up a Royal Commission on Nuclear Power which reported in 1974, and the establishment of the Guardians of the Rotorua Lakes and Lake Manapouri (both 1973).
In October1974, the Labour Government announced the establishment of the ohu scheme for groups of New Zealand citizens willing to set up alternative communities or settlements in rural areas. Prime Minister Kirk said that the reasons for it were mainly spiritual and social- to reconnect people to the land and to give them a chance to develop alternative social models to everyday New Zealand society.
* Apparently a Country Calender from April, 1998 detailed the AhuAhu Ohu on the Whanganui river. I can't imagiine any PM since being so broad-minded.
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