Quiz king Selwyn Toogood dies at 84

What'll it be New Zealand - the money or the bag?"

These words, ingrained in the memory of generations of New Zealanders, rolled with relish off the lips of veteran broadcaster Selwyn Toogood, who died yesterday in Auckland, aged 84.

Toogood, whose face became one of the most recognisable on television, hosted both the television and radio versions of the country's most famous quiz show, It's in the Bag, travelling up to 24,000km a year performing in small towns around the country.

His personality, full of beaming bonhomie, turned the simple show into a hit.

Critics said It's in the Bag used the nostalgic glow of 1950s provincial New Zealand to attract audiences in the 1970s.

But it was also driven by the hard work and gusto of a man who was compared with the greats of New Zealand broadcasting like Aunt Daisy and Uncle Scrim.

Former Television New Zealand news reader John Hawkesby took over as presenter of the show in 1985 and remembered Toogood as an astute communicator.

"He was the last of the broadcasting dinosaurs. He was part of an era that we'll never see again."

Born into a wealthy professional family, Toogood had an unhappy time at Wellington College, progressing, as he noted in his autobiography, from 3B to 4C to 5D, although he excelled at dramatic art.

At 15, he got a job as a warehouseman and spent the Depression in the Wellington Repertory Society and working part-time for radio drama.

He quit to join the Army in 1940 and served as an ammunition officer in most of the European theatres where New Zealanders were prominent - Greece, Crete, El Alamein, Monte Cassino and Trieste.

His first quiz was staged as entertainments officer on a homeward-bound troopship.

On radio he hosted game shows such as Posers, Penalties and Profits, Quiz Kids and the Lux Money Go-Round. But he was to hit it big with It's in the Bag, which debuted in 1954.

Writer and broadcaster Peter Harcourt once said of the radio show: "It was literally true that on the night Selwyn was doing It's in the Bag cinemas virtually closed their doors because it wasn't worth opening."

But as TV lured away radio audiences, the show was dropped in 1964 and Toogood had to hustle for nine long years before TVNZ picked it up.

Tall at 185cm and ample around the girth, he was once memorably described as looking like a Santa Claus in an XXOS safari suit.

He was modest about his talents. "It was never that the driver carried the vehicle. The programme was simple and easy to understand."

But Toogood was a professional, always on time, always prepared and never lost for a word, although he did get nervous before a performance.

After the show's 25th-anniversary special, when he decided to quit, he said: "I'm not quite sharp enough. There were one or two things I didn't pick up. I'd hate to see the show dwindle and die out."

In the 1970s, he introduced television's first community/advice "agony" show, Beauty and the Beast. It was going to screen for nine weeks. It ran for 12 years.

His nephew Chas Toogood said his death was a great loss for the country.

He is survived by his wife, Cynthia, and sons Phillip and Kit, all living in Auckland.