A Maori twist on a Kiwi quiz favourite has town halls rocking, says Megan Jones.
Host Pio Terei asks the stand-in contestant during a rehearsal of It's in the Bag what the name is for a cross between a horse and a donkey.
"A honky," she answers, deadpan. Terei, co-host Stacey Morrison and the production crew for the Maori Television show are doubled over laughing.
It seems scripted, but Terei later insists that it's spontaneous. Virtually the whole show is done off the cuff.
The Northern Wairoa War Memorial Hall in Dargaville is packed with a crowd of about 400 aunties, cuzzies and bros plus some blue-rinse nanas, the local mayor and other "honkies".
It's not surprising; this is a poor town and the admission is a gold-coin koha.
An old kuia sniffing around the crew's tea-and-snacks table at the back of the hall is told that the food is not for the public.
She waits until the reprimanding crew member is out of sight then tucks a large bag of chips under her arm and totters back to her chair.
Terei hears about it later and booms at the audience: "I hear someone's been stealing our chips".
The old lady puts her hand up, admonished but laughing. Any incident is fodder for on-stage banter.
There are jokes about "cheeky Maoris". The humour is good natured and self-deprecating.
It's in the Bag holds a special place in the hearts of New Zealanders. The quiz show began in the 1950s as a radio programme produced and hosted by broadcasting legend Selwyn Toogood.
By the 1970s it was a television series, travelling the country and putting "real" New Zealanders on screen. Toogood's catchphrases "by hokey", "what should she do, New Zealand?" and "the money or the bag?" entered the Kiwi vernacular.
After Toogood's retirement, John Hawkesby and later Nick Tansley hosted the show for TVNZ, but it was shelved in 1990. Both presenters had struggled to fit Toogood's very large boots.
Selwyn's son, prominent Auckland employment lawyer Kit Toogood QC, says the show had trouble attracting audiences because "he was always in the minds of the public. It was as if the show was him and he was the show."
Selwyn passed away in 2001 but the Maori Television crew are keenly aware they are dealing with the big man's legacy.
When producer Libby Hakaraia approached the Toogood family about acquiring the rights to the show, they weren't interested in the little money she had to offer them.
"They were interested in the show and who it would touch."
Kit Toogood says he and brother Phillip believe their father would have liked the Maori-flavoured format.
For although Selwyn Toogood looked as white as Santa Claus, Kit says he was very proud to have Ngai Tahu ancestry.
"It wasn't something that my father's family widely acknowledged, but my father and his brothers took a much bigger interest in it."
Selwyn was involved in Ngai Tahu hui about iwi land in which he was a stakeholder.
Although he never learned to speak Maori, Kit says the family used lots of Maori expressions - "taihoa" for slow down or wait, and "Haere ki te moe" for "Go to bed".
"He always enjoyed doing shows in areas where there were large Maori populations. He didn't make a fuss about [his whakapapa], but it was always something he felt good about ... We were encouraged to feel the same way."
Terei says Toogood's whakapapa means he is related to co-host Stacey Daniels.
"You can't be that talented and not have a bit of cuzzy in you," he laughs.
Terei says he's undaunted by performing in the big man's shadow.
"That was the Selwyn show, and this is the Pio and Stacey show," he says. "I'm not trying to be Selwyn ... these guys pass on and their legend gets bigger."
The Dargaville show, recorded on Wednesday, is the first in Maori TV's second series of It's in the Bag. The crew spent the rest of the week on a whirlwind of shows in Kawakawa, Whangaroa and Kaikohe. Next they head for the Bay of Plenty and Waikato.
Half a century after It's in the Bag was devised, Terei believes it still has the same fundamental appeal to small-town New Zealand.
"It's just the opportunity to get out and have a bit of fun and the chance to win something - it's that simple. We are on their turf. We haven't dragged them into some glass palace to make some TV show.
"We are in the community halls or school halls and I think when TV does that to small-town New Zealand, it's a bit of a salute to them. We get a real warmth from the audience."
The quiz show format is similar but it's been "Maorified". As well as having two Maori presenters, the show is a mix of te reo and English, the bags are flax kete and there is a new audience-participation segment called "Face the Waiata", in which Terei strums a popular tune on his guitar and sings in Maori and the audience has to guess the English song name.
They've also changed "By hokey" to "Pai hoki" (everything is good).
The prizes are the same - fridges, cookers, television sets and the occasional holiday, alongside the "booby prizes", tonight, a potato peeler and a local kumara signed by Terei. There is also a "Hairy Mussels" gift pack.
But what is surprisingly similar is the "money" the hosts have to barter with their contestants.
In the 1970s, Toogood was tempting punters with "$100 - the money or the bag?" In Dargaville, 30 years later Terei appears to be on the same budget. He's teasing the contestants by waving $150 under their noses. What is amazing is that a $20 increase can tip the scales between the money and the bag. These are tight times.
THE SHOW is made on the smell of an oily rag. The entrance to the hall is decorated with polystyrene carvings, the set is simple and there are no autocues or flying jib cameras.
With only 10 minutes until the show starts recording, the contestants are whittled down to 11.
Schoolteacher Marcel Bormans is in, as is a 24-year-old pregnant Tiopira Erueti, semi-retired builder Richard "Dicky" John Sydney, also known as Reremoana Hirini, Dutch immigrant Betty Kerssens, and the stately Richard Turner.
Tonight's charity is a joint venture of local Rotary and Lions Clubs to build a "spray park" for the kids at the new swimming pool complex.
"How are you, Dargaville?" ask Terei and Morrison. "Kei te pai," the audience shouts back.
First on stage is Richard Turner who starts holding court in Maori. "Hey bro, get your own show," says Terei.
Turner answers his three local knowledge questions and is offered $150. "That buys a lot of mince," teases Terei.His final offer is $265. "What do you think Dargaville?"
"Te peke [the bag]," is the response.
Turner is delighted to go home with the Hairy Mussel seafood package.
Marcel Borman is offered $150. "That will only feed me, what about the wife and kids?" he implores. He picks the bag and wins a mousetrap.
Betty crumbles and takes the money at a whopping $400 and is relieved to find she has only missed out on a potato peeler. Mum-to-be Erueti is asked why the local Wairoa River is brown. "Because it's upside down," she deadpans. The locals whoop.
She goes on to take the money at $240 and doesn't look worried that she has missed out on a $3000 Outward Bound challenge.
"She can't do that anyway cos she's hapu [pregnant]," says a woman in the audience.
Hakaraia says the show is the perfect "recession-buster ... an antidote for all the things we hear about recession and small towns losing employment".
Throughout, the audience is involved. "Good on you, Dicky", "Kia ora, bro" and "You go, girl". The questions are made up by local high school students and involve local knowledge. There are mutterings: "Oh, you should know that, you old dog." Morrison says people in small towns have a good idea of who they are.
"They laugh if they want to laugh and think it's hilarious to win a booby prize. They love to see their own local people being made stars on stage."
Young pregnant Erueti wins the night after a final quick-fire quiz shoot-out with Richard "Dicky" John Sydney, before the audience participation round, "Face the Waiata".
Pio's only into the first few chords of his song before a large woman missing her two front teeth leaps to her feet with the answer, Eagle Rock.
She turns down $100, picks "te peke" and wins some shoes, then bursts into an impromptu version of These Boots Are Made For Walking. You can't script this stuff, and it's what makes this new version of It's in the Bag so priceless.
The Toogood family are convinced Selwyn would have been happy. Selwyn's niece, Anna Hardy, who occasionally toured with her uncle when she was a child and "put the prize numbers in the Rinso boxes", says in those days "the whole of New Zealand was made of small communities.
Even the cities were built with small communities and it's not really like that now."
Hardy attended the final of the last series and became quite emotional when she was called on stage by the presenters.
"It was lovely to see they did the show with integrity and a lot of respect to Sel," she says.
"He was so special to our family. He was so generous and so loving." She says her uncle would have approved of the latest incarnation of his show. "It felt as if he was present," she says.
