TVNZ sports host to leave after Olympics; Radio producer announces redundancy on air; His TV ads are among favourites of the past 50 years - director Tony Williams reveals behind-the-scenes intel and why he doesn’t think they could be made today; Taxpayers help fund new TV series on Philip Polkinghorne-Pauline
Media Insider: Film and advertising genius Tony Williams on his famous Crunchie train robbery, Dear John and Bugger TV ads; Taxpayer funding for Philip Polkinghorne murder case documentary
Tony Williams created three of our most famous TV ads (Dear John, Bugger and Crunchie Train Robbery); Pauline Hanna and Philip Polkinghorne.
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“I realised at the end that I had gone over budget so much. It was my first produced commercial that I was financing myself and I hadn’t made a dime out of it. I said to [Colenso co-founder] Roger MacDonnell, ‘Oh well, look, it’s my fault. I just got carried away’.
“He said, ‘Well, the ad was so fantastic’. And he turned up one Saturday morning – I was trying to mow the lawn with a terrible old hand push-mower – and he opened the boot of his car, producing this motor mower. He said ‘Colenso would like to thank you for the enormous amount of work ...’.
“My fee for making the longest-running ad in New Zealand history was a Masport motor mower!”
The Crunchie ad – which ran for two decades and was even resurrected briefly in the 2000s – easily outlasted the mower, as did Williams’ other commercial work, with his portfolio of legendary advertisements.
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Among them, the Dear John BASF ad, the “Bugger” Toyota ad, and the Spot the Dog commercials for Telecom.
The Crunchie ad is among the top three finalists for a new Marketing Association campaign to find the best TV ad of the 1970s and the Dear John ad is in the top three finalists for the best TV ad of the 1980s. The association will open votes in the next few weeks for the 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s.
An informal Herald poll last week saw readers voting Bugger as the best ad of all time.
Now 82, and living in Australia, Williams recalls with fondness some of the behind-the-scenes stories of the advertisements which, he believes generally could not be made today.
“It was a far more relaxed atmosphere back in those days and I think that shows in the finished product,” he tells Media Insider.
“It wasn’t all about money, it wasn’t all about ego, either. The agency would come to you and say, ‘We’ve got this idea and your name’s on it, and it’d be great if you could get involved’. I’d end up often working on the script with the writers.
“There weren’t the egos around then that there are today, and everyone worked together. We saw it as a great deal of fun, and there weren’t so many rules and regulations related to how many hours you could work – you just got the job done. As a director, I was free to improvise and change the script and work towards whatever would be the most entertaining piece of filmmaking you could do on the day.”
Clients would never come on set.
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“They took the agency’s advice, and everyone respected your profession. The agency respected my profession as a filmmaker and I respected their expertise.
“Everyone respected each other, and there was none of this breathing over each other’s shoulder. When I came to Australia, I was horrified, because you had to produce a storyboard of every single frame you’re going to shoot, and you weren’t allowed to change or alter it. You had the client and agency there breathing over your neck, watching everything that was done.
“Everyone had an opinion, and there was no creativity left. Egos came in and people were nervous, and that’s when I lost interest in the industry in many ways.”
The storyteller
Williams, like many of his peers in the 1970s and 1980s, was a filmmaker and storyteller first and foremost – striving to build an emotional connection with audiences. As legendary ad man Howard Gossage famously said: “Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them; and sometimes it’s an ad.”
Williams says: “I was always a filmmaker more than an ad man and commercials back in those days were really storytelling, much more so than they tend to be today. I suppose I used my skills as a storyteller to make commercials.
“I really wanted to make feature films and serious films, but it seemed that the commercials ended up being where my success lay. But certainly, my heart was in all kinds of filmmaking, as it tended to be back then in New Zealand. Back in those days, people who made commercials were also people who loved to make films. We went across the gamut of all kinds of filmmaking.”
Other ad directors such as Lee Tamahori (Instant Kiwi bungy fishing) and Roger Donaldson (Pixie Caramel) both enjoyed Hollywood success – and Williams was on that path too. He directed nine documentaries for Pacific films and one of his feature movies, Solo, was part of a new wave of Kiwi films in the 1970s.
“When I came to Australia [in the early 1980s], I established a company. I’d only just set it up and got the bank finance for it and hired the staff, and I was asked to direct Crocodile Dundee. I had to turn it down because I enmeshed myself in setting up a company.”
He has no regrets – he did make a horror/thriller, Next of Kin, which was rediscovered and re-released 20 years later. Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino has described it as his favourite Australian film. He has called it “mesmerising” and, “it literally is a horror film quite unlike any other”.
As a storyteller, Williams certainly has some great tales about three of his own famous commercials.
Crunchie Great Train Robbery – Cadbury
The Crunchie ad was originally slated to have Kenny Rogers singing Murray Grindlay’s famous melody, “Have a Crunchie, hokey pokey bar...”
The legendary US country singer, who Williams had worked with on another project in America, was due to tour New Zealand but when those concert plans were delayed, Colenso had to come up with another plan.
“Roger [MacDonnell] said instead of Kenny Rogers, it could just be a train robbery,” says Williams.
“And so I said, all right, we’ll go for it. We cast it with a who’s who of New Zealand actors at the time with Bruno Lawrence, Geoff Murphy’s kids, Niccola Sanderson, Stuart Devenie and Ian Watkins.”
It was filmed in Lower Hutt, in an old disused train carriage, in just over a day.
“We shot day and night through to the early morning of the next day, and came out exhausted.
“It was a lot of fun. We lit the carriage to make it look like daylight. We actually had tracing paper over windows and lights all around the carriage. We didn’t realise – because we were so involved and carried away with filming – that the sun had set and the moon had come up and the stars were out. By the time we came out, it was after midnight.”
Originally the ad was supposed to focus on the gunfight inside the train. But the storyteller in Williams came out. “We wanted some cutaways, and I came up with the idea of German fighters attacking the train.”
Williams had a friend working for Martin Scorcese at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, from whom he was able to obtain footage from old Hollywood movies of German World War II fighters and cliffside explosions.
The exterior shots of the train are of the famous Kingston Flyer steam engine.
“I realised at the end of the entire production, I spent so much money.”
WATCH THE AD HERE:
Dear John – BASF recording tapes
Williams had been making a series of BNZ commercials for Colenso, when the agency asked him if he could keep the crew together one more day, to quickly produce an advertisement for BASF recording tapes.
“They said, ‘Look, we’ve got this little ad. Do you think we could just tack it on the end of the [BNZ] shoot? We don’t have much of a budget’.”
Dear John – the story of a serving US soldier losing the love of his life via a very public message – was cobbled together and filmed at a quarry on Wellington’s southern coast, near Island Bay.
“I said to Ron Highfield, the art director on it, we’ve got no money, mate. I could give you a good bag of dope. And he said, Look, don’t worry, you’ve given us all work. We’ll see you through. We’ll fix it somehow.”
To recreate a US Army war camp, they commandeered fishing nets from the Island Bay fishing community, and “borrowed” 40-gallon Wellington City Council drums, painting them army green.
“We came to the morning of the shoot and we saw that [the soldiers] should have army dog tags. Okay, we’ll fix that. He came back, ‘I’ve got new dog tags’. And I said, ‘Where the hell did you get them from?’ He saw all the neighbours had just put their milk bottles out. We just took the silver tops!
“The whole thing was done on a song and a prayer.”
The Dear John song, so eloquently sung by Jacqui Fitzgerald, was adapted by Grindlay again, based on an earlier country song – music that has lasted a generation.
WATCH THE AD HERE:
Bugger – Toyota
The Toyota Bugger ad was on a whole new level, having to pass through all manner of taste tests – not least of all at Toyota.
The word “bugger” - once considered almost as bad as the F-word in New Zealand - was the only word planned for the Toyota ad, featuring in a series of mishaps in a rural setting.
“The client was very nervous about it,” recalls Williams.
“The agency asked me to have a meeting with the client over it. He was sitting there with a sort of an amused smile on his face, but a nervous twinkle in his eye. He finally turned to me and said, ‘Right, do you think this is going to work?’ And I said, ‘I think it will work gangbusters. It’s very funny’.
“He said, ‘Yes, but are people going to be offended by it?’ I said, ‘I’m sure they will be, but not everybody. Sure, there’ll be some people offended but I think you’ve got to have the guts to do something that’s groundbreaking. In the end, the humour will override anyone who is put off by the use of foul language’.
“He looked at us and we waited. We said, ‘Come on, come on. It’ll be great’. And then he said, ‘All right, be it on your head.’
“So it was approved. And there was a bit of a stink at the beginning, but it didn’t last long. It was overridden by public appeal.”
WATCH THE AD HERE:
Williams’ own favourite ad
Williams now lives in the Kangaroo Valley, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. He was on a caravaning holiday to Queensland with his wife Anna Hewgill when Media Insider caught up with him this week.
Nowadays, with a choice of streaming channels and the likes of on-demand sport, he doesn’t watch much commercial television and so doesn’t see many ads any more.
He doesn’t think advertising tells the same stories of yesteryear.
“Nowadays, you’ve got to have the product all the way through... all that kind of nonsense. I don’t think you could make a Crunchie Train Robbery ad today, because you’d have to be seeing huge close-ups of the bars and people eating them slowly.”
Asked to select his own favourite ad, he cites one in particular.
“Dear John worked really well. It combined pathos, humour and empathy, which is very much part of who I am. I think that perhaps captured the ideal sort of qualities that you’d like in a story, something that makes you cry and something that makes you laugh. That would be one of my favourites.”
Taxpayer funding for murder case doco
More than $200,000 of taxpayer money is helping fund a three-part documentary on the alleged murder of Remuera businesswoman Pauline Hanna and the upcoming trial of her husband, retired eye surgeon Philip Polkinghorne.
The documentary, produced by Blonde Razor Ltd, is expected to feature private investigator Julia Hartley Moore, who is no stranger to the television screen.
Hartley Moore is one of two directors of Blonde Razor Ltd – the other is renowned screen producer and director Mark McNeill.
The pair are reluctant to comment on their project at this stage.
The trial of Philip Polkinghorne starts in just over a week, on Monday, July 29. He has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife in 2021.
In terms of media and audience engagement, it is likely to be in the same sphere as the murder trials following the deaths of Scott Guy and Olivia Smart and Ben Hope.
The Blonde Razor project does differ in one big respect from the work of media companies – it has taxpayer money behind it after NZ on Air agreed funding of $228,000 for the three-part series called P.I. Story for Three and ThreeNow.
Three, of course, is owned by Warner Bros Discovery, which closed its Newshub newsroom two weeks ago. It’s unclear if the producers have had any assistance from Newshub before it closed.
NZ on Air said in April: “A documentary mini-series for ThreeNow and Three, P.I Story tracks the course of an ongoing NZ trial.”
Pushed for more detail this week, an NZ on Air spokeswoman said: “P.I. Story tracks the course of an ongoing highly topical NZ criminal case. The series starts when charges have been laid and follows the case through court to the concluding verdict.
“It is rare to have such access and insight to the workings of the judicial system and an opportunity to examine issues of social justice. While the trial itself will no doubt attract media coverage, a documentary is a different proposition, and in this case has a strong business case for funding and was assessed as being likely to attract an engaged audience.”
The spokeswoman said NZ on Air had provided “last-in gap funding”.
That meant most funding was coming from other sources, “creating excellent return on investment in a cost-per-minute sense”.
Polkinghorne formerly worked as a doctor at Auckland Eye. He retired following his wife’s death on April 5, 2021.
Pauline Hanna had a variety of roles in public health during her career, including as an executive project director at the Counties Manukau District Health Board. She also helped with the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
“Pauline was larger than life,” her younger sister, Tracey, said at her funeral. “She had tenacity and determination, all that good stuff she deeply cared about. Not to disappoint was, I believe, her driving force.”
Polkinghorne released a statement shortly after his arrest.
“I am shocked that the police have charged me,” he said. “I have recorded that I am not guilty immediately. Now that the police have charged me the matter is before the courts and I am not permitted to comment further.
“The justice process must now run its course and I trust the truth will be shown. I thank my family and friends for their enduring love and support.”
Guy’s TVNZ farewell
The Paris Olympics will be the TVNZ swansong for sports broadcaster Guy Heveldt.
He heads to France on Sunday, part of the TVNZ team covering the Olympics – and will join Entain/TAB as a Trackside racing presenter and broadcaster on August 26.
“It’s too good an opportunity to turn down,” Heveldt told Media Insider. “I love racing. I’ve also loved it at TVNZ; we have a fantastic team doing great things.”
With Entain now running the TAB, he sees racing going from strength to strength.
“I feel terrible about being the guy who gets to go to the Olympics and then says goodbye but TVNZ have been awesome, saying that I deserve it and letting me go to Paris.”
He went to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but Covid prevented any New Zealanders, outside of the team, from travelling. It was surreal, he said being one of the few Kiwis witnessing first-hand the likes of Dame Lisa Carrington, Emma Twigg and the men’s rowing eight win gold.
This time around, he’s looking forward to being amongst the international fans and high-energy atmosphere – although he suspects New Zealand won’t win as many gold medals as the seven it secured in Japan.
NZ Herald becomes NZ’s No 1 news website
The NZ Herald has overtaken Stuff to become New Zealand’s number-one news website.
New monthly Nielsen numbers released this week show nzherald.co.nz had a monthly unique audience of 1.99 million in June – 30,000 ahead of Stuff’s unique audience of 1.96m.
The Herald has been gaining on Stuff in recent months; it will be interesting to see where Stuff’s website audience eventually settles now that it has taken on the responsibility of producing ThreeNews, with more video content, additional staff and cross-promotional opportunities from the 6pm TV bulletin.
In terms of the other major news websites in June, Newshub finished life in third spot, with an audience of 1.276 million – 2000 ahead of RNZ in fourth spot. The 1News website had a monthly unique audience of 864,000.
Radio producer announces redundancy on air
Mai FM Drive producer Brooke McAlavey (Tylie) announced her own redundancy on air this week, in a very upfront message to her hosts and audience.
“It’s no secret that media as a whole is changing, and there’s been a lot of roles that... they’re getting rid of them, right?” she said.
“[It] happened in TV; radio is no different, and the drive producer role is going be no longer, which means I’m no longer.
“So this Friday will be my final day at Mai FM but I don’t want this to be seen as a negative thing. I want this to be a really fun week. Just lots of bad bitch songs, lots of laughs, lots of reminiscing... It’s kind of a shocking situation, it’s not an easy one, but I want it to be fun so I can look back and be like damn, it was a fun last week and I did nothing; I just had fun, you know?
“So, yeah, Friday will be my last day.”
A MediaWorks spokeswoman said: “We don’t generally comment on individual employment matters.”
TVNZ’s legal bill
TVNZ has spent just under $300,000 on external lawyers as a result of a messy employment dispute arising from its plans to cut newsroom staff and several high-profile shows.
According to an Official Information Act response to Herald reporter Katie Harris, $293,173.69 in external legal fees had been invoiced, as of Tuesday this week.
TVNZ was found by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) to have breached its E tū union collective contract by failing to properly consult with staff on restructuring plans.
The broadcaster appealed to the Employment Court – in a case involving renowned and highly respected lawyer Paul Wicks KC – but the court upheld the earlier ERA decision.
One Good Text
This week, we chat with Marketing Association chief executive John Miles. His organisation has been running a public campaign and public vote, looking for the best NZ TV ad for each of the past five and a half decades. The six winners - and an overall best ad - will be announced in October.
Broadcasting apologies
Several apologies in the broadcasting world this week.
- TVNZ apologised – again – for an 18-month-old segment in which Breakfast hosts took aim, literally, at a Trump doll with bug spray shaped as a gun;
- The ACC commentary team apologised for a live comment – and subsequent social media post – making a sexualised and condemned remark about an injured England rugby player receiving a “magic hand job” from the team’s female physio;
- And according to a new Broadcasting Standards Authority decision, Warner Bros Discovery apologised to a viewer for screening three promos for adult-themed TV shows during an animated children’s movie Scoob! on Good Friday evening.
In that latter case, the BSA upheld the viewer’s complaint that the promos for Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, Paper Dolls and The Playboy Murders breached the offensive and disturbing content and children’s interests standards. It said that action taken by the broadcaster in response to the complaint was insufficient.
In a synopsis this week, the authority said: “The authority did not make any orders, however, finding publication of the decision was sufficient to publicly notify and remedy the breach and to provide guidance to the broadcaster and broadcasters generally.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
