The Billy T James Show
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The Billy T James Show
William James Te Wehi Taitoko (17 January 1948 – 7 August 1991) better known by his stage name Billy T. James, was a New Zealand entertainer, comedian, musician and actor. He became a key figure in the development of New Zealand comedy and a household name during his lifetime. Early life Taitoko was of Waikato Tainui and Clan Campbell descent, leading him to reflect humorously in one routine, "I'm half Maori and half Scots. Half of me wants to go to the pub and get pissed, and the other half doesn't want to pay for it.". Career Taitoko joined the Maori Volcanics Showband in the 1970s and performed around the world. Prince Tui Teka encouraged him to embark on a solo career which saw him in great demand for his skits and impressions and his cabaret singing. He adopted the stage name Billy T. James because "it was something the Australians could pronounce". In 1980 he appeared in the variety show ''Radio Times'', the success of which led to his own comedy sketch show in 1981, ...
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Cambridge, New Zealand
Cambridge (Māori: ''Kemureti'') is a town in the Waipa District of the Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand. Situated southeast of Hamilton, on the banks of the Waikato River, Cambridge is known as "The Town of Trees & Champions". The town has a population of , making it the largest town in the Waipa District, and the third largest urban area in the Waikato (after Hamilton and Taupo). Cambridge was a finalist in the 2017 and 2019 New Zealand's Most Beautiful Large Town awards, run by Keep New Zealand Beautiful. It was awarded the title New Zealand's Most Beautiful Large Town in October 2019. History Prior to the arrival of Europeans there were a number of Maori pā in the vicinity of what would become Cambridge. In the 1850s missionaries and farmers from Britain settled in the area and introduced modern farming practices to local Maori, helping them set up two flour mills and importing grinding wheels from England and France. During the 1850s, wheat was a profi ...
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Benny Award
The Benny Award is bestowed on a New Zealand variety entertainer. It is presented annually by the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand, a non-for-profit organisation and showbusiness club, founded in 1966 and awarded to a variety performer who has achieved "A lifetime of excellence in their field of the performing arts". Nominations Nominations for the Benny Award are accepted from VAC members and the recipient decided upon by past Benny recipients, making its presentation recognition of the highest degree by the New Zealand entertainment industry. Naming The Benny Award was named after its first recipient, New Zealand variety performer Edgar Benyon (1902–1978) in 1969. The Benny statuette was designed and sculptured by magician Jon Zealando and features Greek muses Melpomene and Thalia Thalia, Thalía, Thaleia or Thalian may refer to: People * Thalia (given name), including a list of people with the name * Thalía (born 1971), Mexican singer and actress Mythological and ...
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IMDb
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, plot summaries, trivia, ratings, and fan and critical reviews. IMDb began as a fan-operated movie database on the Usenet group "rec.arts.movies" in 1990, and moved to the Web in 1993. It is now owned and operated by IMDb.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon. the database contained some million titles (including television episodes) and million person records. Additionally, the site had 83 million registered users. The site's message boards were disabled in February 2017. Features The title and talent ''pages'' of IMDb are accessible to all users, but only registered and logged-in users can submit new material and suggest edits to existing entries. Most of the site's data has been provided by these volunteers. Registered users with a prov ...
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Howard Morrison
Sir Howard Leslie Morrison (18 August 1935 – 24 September 2009) was a New Zealand entertainer. From 1964 until his death in 2009, he was one of New Zealand's leading television and concert performers. Early life Of Māori (Te Arawa), Irish, and Scottish descent, Morrison was born to Temuera Leslie Morrison, a Māori All Black who worked for the Māori Affairs Department, and Kahurangi Morrison (née Gertrude Harete Davidson) who was known for her work in culture and entertainment. He grew up in Rotorua and in Ruatahuna near Waikaremoana. He attended a "native school" in the Urewera before going to Te Aute College and Rotorua Boys' High School. After leaving school he had a variety of manual jobs including survey chainman, electricity meter reader and storeman at the Whakatu freezing works. Family Morrison and his three surviving sisters, Judy Tapsell, Rene Mitchell and Linda Morrison, lost their oldest brother Laurie in 1974. Another brother, Charlie, died in infan ...
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Aotea Centre
The Aotea Centre is a performing arts and events centre in Auckland, New Zealand. Located at the western edge of Aotea Square, off Queen Street, the centre provides a cultural, entertainment and conventions venue space in the heart of the city, and is managed bAuckland Unlimited(which also operates the Auckland Town Hall and The Civic, both in the vicinity of the Square). The origin of its name is Motu Aotea, the Māori name for Great Barrier Island, which is the largest offshore island of New Zealand and approximately 90 km from downtown Auckland. The main construction of the centre was finished in 1989, having cost NZ$128.5 million. The centre officially opened the following year. Designed by the City architect Ewen Wainscott in 1974, the building was not actually built until more than a decade later. It won the NZIA Silver Medal award. Costs escalated greatly during construction resulting in several features being omitted. Due to poor acoustics, the main auditorium requi ...
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Mark Hadlow
Mark Selwyn Hadlow (born 1957) is an Australian-New Zealand actor and comedian. Hadlow is perhaps best known internationally for playing the roles of Harry in ''King Kong'' and Dori, a Dwarf, in ''The Hobbit'' series. Early life Hadlow was born in Australia, in the New South Wales town of Walgett, the son of a New Zealand-born vicar and an Australian mother. They moved to Perth, and then spent three years in Chennai, before moving to New Zealand when Hadlow was nine years old. They lived in Wellington and Christchurch, and Hadlow attended boarding school. Career Hadlow's early film appearances were in serious roles, such as in ''Beyond Reasonable Doubt'', but he is perhaps better known in New Zealand for his comedy roles, particularly in the television sitcom ''Willy Nilly'', and some of the voices for the 1989 Peter Jackson puppet film, ''Meet the Feebles'' (including Heidi the hippo and Robert the hedgehog). He also starred alongside New Zealand Maori comedian, Billy T Jam ...
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Ilona Rodgers
Ilona Jeannette Rodgers (born 28 April 1942) is an actress of stage, television and film. Born in Harrogate, West Riding of Yorkshire, where she started her career, she later went on to appear in New Zealand and Australian productions. Rodgers has also worked in American including in ''Hercules: The Legendary Journeys'' and ''Power Rangers'' Biography Early life and career in the United Kingdom Rodgers, a native of Yorkshire, trained in both Bristol and Surrey, starting her career on the stage. Breakthrough roles came in British television, including Carol in ''The Sensorites'', a six-episode adventure in the BBC science-fiction series ''Doctor Who''. She also acted in an adaptation of ''Martin Chuzzlewit'', and made guest appearances in '' The Avengers'' and ''Adam Adamant Lives!''. She had a guest role in America in ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' and ''The Saint''. Her final British screen credit was an episode of ''Paul Temple'' in 1970, before she emigrated to New Zealand. ...
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TV3 (New Zealand)
Three ( mi, Toru), stylized as +HR=E, is a New Zealand nationwide television channel. Launched on 26 November 1989 as TV3, it was New Zealand's first private broadcasting, privately owned television channel. The channel currently broadcasts nationally (with regional advertising targeting four markets) in digital free-to-air form via the state-owned Kordia on terrestrial and satellite. Vodafone also carries the channel for their cable subscribers in Wellington and Christchurch. It previously broadcast nationally on analogue television until that was switched off on 1 December 2013. Three is a general entertainment channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery New Zealand, Warner Bros. Discovery, with a significant news and current affairs element under the banner of Newshub. Three carries a significant amount of local content, most of which airs at prime-time. History Establishment Applications to apply for a warrant to operate New Zealand's third national television network opened ...
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Play School (New Zealand TV Series)
''Play School'' was a New Zealand educational television show for children. It was based on the British '' Play School'' show. The series first aired in 1972, and ended in 1990. Synopsis ''Play School'' was first broadcast in New Zealand on Tuesday 22 March 1972 for a 26-week trial period, with a group of six hosts chosen, one pair for each week. Series one and two continued to be broadcast twice weekly, Tuesday and Thursday at approx. 4.30pm. Its first producer was David Istance, an ex-BBC TV Floor Manager, who had worked on Play School, as well as comedies Gas and Gaiters and Hugh and I during the 1960s. He later returned to the UK and worked as a Production Assistant on Juliet Bravo (1980) and then as a Production Manager on Bergerac, Juliet Bravo, All Creatures Great and Small (1983), Malestrom and Tenko Reunion (1985) and in the mid-80s worked at BBC TV Training at Elstree Studios. It was originally filmed at AKTV2's Shortland Street studios in Auckland, and in January 1975 ...
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Miami Vice
''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann (director), Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, two Miami-Dade Police Department, Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. The series ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The USA Network began airing reruns in 1988 and broadcast an originally unaired episode during its syndication run of the series on January 25, 1990. Unlike standard police procedurals, the show drew heavily upon 1980s New wave music, New Wave culture and is noted for its integration of contemporary pop and rock music and stylish or stylized visuals. ''People (magazine), People'' magazine states that ''Miami Vice'' was the "first show to look really new and different since color TV was invented". Michael Mann directed a Miami Vice (film), film adaptati ...
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Peter Rowley
Peter Rowley (sometimes credited as Harrison Rowley during his early career) (born April 29, 1952) is a New Zealand comic actor and writer. He is best known for his television roles, where he has played in numerous popular television series as comic foil and straight man to comedians such as Billy T. James, David McPhail and Jon Gadsby. Rowley started his comedy career in New Zealand. He made his New Zealand television debut as an actor and writer in the satirical sketch show ''A Week of It'', following which he continued to work with that show's stars David McPhail and Jon Gadsby in ''McPhail and Gadsby'' and '' Letter to Blanchy''. He also worked with Billy T. James in '' The Billy T James Show'', for which he also wrote material. He received title billing in the series '' Pete and Pio'' (1994) alongside fellow comedian Pio Terei. In 2010, Rowley wrote and presented a tribute to the late Billy T. James, entitled '' Billy T. and Me''.
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Te Karere
''Te Karere'' is a news and current affairs show that was New Zealand's first Māori language television programme. ''Te Karere'' is broadcast on Television New Zealand's TVNZ 1 at 3:55 pm on weekdays and repeated 1:05 am and 5:35 am the following day. The focus of the programme is content which is of national significance to the targeted Māori audience. The programme is funded in its entirety by Te Māngai Pāho. History ''Te Karere'' first went to air during Māori Language Week, with a two minute bulletin celebrating the week in 1982. The original presenters and producers were Derek Fox and Whai Ngata Tanara Whairiri Kitawhiti "Whai" Ngata (c. 1942 – 3 April 2016) was a Māori broadcaster, journalist, and lexicographer. Ngata worked for Radio New Zealand from 1975 to 1983, before moving to Television New Zealand. He led the Māori de .... The following year, ''Te Karere'' got a regular slot of four minutes. With a modest, shoestring budget, Fox and N ...
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