Weekend rewind: NZ's best PSA ads

Still image from the LTSA's anti drink-driving ad 'Ghost Chips'.

Opinion

From road safety chimps on bikes to Old Man’s Beard and Ghost Chips, NZ On Screen’s Nicky Harrop looks back at how public service announcements have been delivered on film and television through the years.

On screen public service announcements tackle the unenviable task of squeezing serious subject matter into bite size chunks, ideally while remaining both informative and memorable.

Our film and television history has seen this accomplished with varying degrees of success - in tones ranging from inappropriate cheeriness to unintentional cheesy comedy, to memorable catchphrase-creating humour.

Monkey Tale

In the anthropomorphic (and non-PC) tradition of the chimpanzee zoo tea party and PG tips ads comes Monkey Tale, a National Film Unit production from 1952, promoting cycle safety for children. Chaplin-esque scenes ensue as a bike-riding Charlie the Chimp runs amok, while a perky voiceover offers nuggets such as "if that young monkey gets to school in one piece he'll be lucky, he'll get killed sure as eggs."

Pedestrians or Jaywalkers

Also from 1952, and made by the NFU, Pedestrians or Jaywalkers takes a similarly jaunty approach to road safety - highlighting road-crossing dangers through a series of bad examples. Missteps include walking off the footpath carelessly, crossing the road at oblique angles, 'dithering,' and over-confidence. While the humour may be slapstick, and the narration pun-filled, many of the lessons remain relevant today.

Such a Stupid Way to Die

From 1971, Such a Stupid Way to Die was made for the National Mountain Safety Council to promote awareness of bush safety. A fictional trip into the bush turns into a Stubbies-clad 70s Kiwi version of the Blair Witch Project as we're told that one of the group will not survive the night, picked off by that fearsome killer: exposure. The message is serious, but the doom-laden tone induced titters in school classrooms and scout halls throughout New Zealand.

Spike Milligan's Nuclear Free TV ads

In these 1976 TV commercials, British comic Spike Milligan urges Kiwis to sign the Campaign Half Million petition against the introduction of nuclear power. Showing some keen foresight, he suggests harnessing Wellington's wind power as an alternative. The ads were never shown, though they did end up in a TV news story on the decision to ban them, thus gaining primetime exposure.

Old Man's Beard Must Go

His impassioned enthusiasm (and bushy facial hair) made TV botanist David Bellamy the perfect front-person for this 1989 Department of Conservation promo, raising awareness against invasive weed Old Man's Beard. With its catch-cry "a trim is not enough - Old Man's Beard must go!" - some have suggested the campaign be revived and modified to help fight the current epidemic of hipster beards.

Ghost Chips

In the 2000s, our public service announcements are a little more sophisticated, and 2011 anti-drink driving ad Ghost Chips became a Kiwi pop cultural phenomenon, spawning countless parodies, memes, t-shirts and well over a million YouTube views. Catchphrases from the award-winning ad still endure - "I've been internalising a really complicated situation in my head," and "you know I can't grab your ghost chips." Legend!

- nzherald.co.nz