''25 Years'' was a three-and-a-half-hour television special that began at 7:30pm, June 1, 1985, on Television New Zealand's TV ONE channel. The special was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and was hosted by a variety of well known

celebrities, both past and present, particularly Dougal Stevenson. The special was memorable for the return to TV of three New Zealand television icons -

Ginette McDonald Ginette Denise McDonald (born 18 April 1952) is a New Zealand actor, and television producer and director, best known for her comedic alter ego, "Lyn of Tawa". Early life McDonald was born in Wellington on 18 April 1952, the daughter of Joan ...

(as her alter ego Lyn Of Tawa) and the return of the cast of South Pacific Television's highly successful comedy series '' A Week Of It'' starring lead comedians

David McPhail David Alexander McPhail (11 April 1945 – 14 May 2021) was a New Zealand comedic actor and writer whose television career spanned four decades. McPhail first won fame on sketch comedy show ''A Week of It'', partly thanks to his impressions of ...

and

Jon Gadsby Jonathan Ernest Gadsby (1 November 1953 – 12 December 2015) was a New Zealand television comedian and writer, most well known for his role in the comedy series ''McPhail and Gadsby'' co-starring alongside David McPhail. He died of cance ...

. At the time 25 Years was the first programme to be given a 3hr time slot, although eventually it ran overtime to three and a half hours.

DVD and Video

To date, Television New Zealand has not released the special on either video or

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

. Bootleg copies were sold through newspaper classifieds in the 80's, but are nowadays harder to find.

Book

Later in the year a highly successful book, ''New Zealand Television: The First 25 Years'' ( Reed Methuen, 1985, ) was released written by Robert Boyd-Bell and detailed the full history of television in the country. The book also contained many photos and featured the various network I.D.'s. The book can be found nowadays in second hand bookstores.

References

TVNZ 1 original programming 1980s in New Zealand television 1985 in New Zealand television 1985 television specials New Zealand television specials 1980s in New Zealand {{NewZealand-tv-prog-stub