Stu Dennison: giving the thumbs up to kids TV…

Interview – 2012

Stu Dennison was a beloved TV presenter in the 1970s who introduced his naughty schoolboy’character and thumbs-up to a generation of Kiwi kids, on show Nice One Stu. Sometimes he played sidekick to popular TV host Roger Gascoigne. After Dennison ended his on-air career, he reinvented himself as a sports producer at TVNZ.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Dennison talks about:

Being the everyman on Ready to Roll
Creating his outrageous persona for Nice One Stu
Getting away with being slightly controversial
How a spontaneous ‘thumbs up’ became his signature gesture
Winding up the prim and proper Roger Gascoigne on Top Town
Getting a pie in the face on Telethon
Enjoying the mix of live entertainment and skits on How’s That
Moving from presenting to editing and producing sports
Carrying the torch at the Beijing Olympics

This video was first uploaded on 27 November 2012, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

...I wasn't there to be a teacher, because they've had that all day. They were there to be entertained and want a bit of a laugh, and why not do that? That's what I wanted when I was a kid.
– Stu Dennison on entertaining instead of lecturing kids with his Nice One Stu persona

Stu's Full Profile