Bring back the satirical biff in the form of 7 Days, I reckon.
7 Days at 7 with the two pocket rockets of shoot-from-the-lip laughter, Dai Henwood and Michele A'Court anchoring the show, would be a winner, as it is these two television taonga who are knocking them dead up and down the land of the long laughing crowd.
In fact, before they got into the game it was called sit-down comedy, but given their diminutive stature, even if they sat on each other's shoulders, Michele and Dai still couldn't reach the microphone.
So they changed it to stand- up.
The often said, "You killed it," after a comedian finishes a performance is all a stand-up wants to hear. It's a bit like the boys after a footy game saying, "You wasted them, bro."
Married to the mob is one thing but married to a stand-up comedian can be equally full of fear and loathing as you take a hit every time the humour is directed at you. Many of their jokes can be piercing like a bullet to the head or the heart and after a while the bulletproof vest of "Funny Face, I love you," struggles to keep the jokes from hurting.
Hence you become a self-centred sooky bubba who self- medicates to hide the pain.
The hallmark of a great comedian is he or she can make you laugh at the expense of your own inadequacies and it is not until you see the reaction the jokes have on members of your own whanau does it kick in.
Sometimes, not all but sometimes, when the stars align, the dolphins have a special day off and the silver chords are stretched to their breaking point, love takes a back seat with all of the other vows and promises of "in sickness and in health" and the right people for the wrong circumstances get torn apart by the circumstances.
I guess 98 per cent for school cert English compared to my 32 per cent failure should have thrown up some intellectual red lights. However, the release this last weekend of Stuff I Forgot to Tell My Daughter by Michele A'Court has "bestseller" stamped all over it.
This will give the 98 per cent School Cert author her first bestseller and well on her way to catching the 32 per cent School Cert failure who has 31 publications under his belt, 12 of them bestsellers.
Like any lesson in life where two hearts are broken into pages of what will become a bestseller, it is hugely sobering to see yourself as others see you and how they see the "facts" as they are interpreted by the author, in this case my daughter's mother.
One day when my daughter and my moko are old enough to read the book they will also read the insert of this column that I will place as a reminder that the power of page 206 is the soul of this story in my opinion.
Given we have both found happiness and still look at life through a lens of laughter the stuff I Forgot to Tell Our Daughter for me can be said in a simple sentence from the guru of gags and lead actor in my all-time favorite movie, Dead Poets Society, the late and great Mr Robin Williams:
"You're only given a little spark of madness. You must not ever lose it." - Ko tahi aroha.
-broblack@xtra.co.nz
Tommy Wilson is a bestselling author and local writer.
