Jim Hopkins spent much of his youth around Saint Mary’s Anglican Church in Christchurch, as "the fruit of clerical loins" (his father was the vicar). At Christchurch Boys’ High, he recalls occasional "mad impromptu performances" from future television names David McPhail, Ken Ellis and Peter Sharp during Friday afternoon working bees in the library.

At high school Hopkins first discovered a lifelong love of debating. As a self-professed "owlish lad" with "glasses that looked like milk bottle bottoms" Hopkins joined the debating team, and never looked back. After leaving school a year early to attend Canterbury University ("there was no career path for the media then"), Hopkins joined the university debating team. He was later chosen to be a part of the New Zealand universities debating team which toured Australia.

As he explains in this extended Funny As interview, it was in Melbourne that Hopkins was first exposed to the looser, more comedic debating style then associated with England's Oxford Union. Hopkins found it a refreshing contrast to Kiwi traditions of "po-faced serious things in empty rooms". "It was like discovering a new world where you debated for laughs ... so we brought some comic debating here and it blossomed." Realising "it was the singer, not the song", he invited famous names to join debates at Canterbury University, which helped draw in crowds. With the debates growing in popularity, Hopkins organised a debate for the 1973 Christchurch Arts Festival — That New Zealand Needs an Arts Transplant — which filled the 2000+ seats of the town hall, and "brought the house down". Hopkins feels that the explosion of debating in this period "helped create the comic culture we have now", and was one of the parents of Kiwi stand-up comedy.

In 1972 he worked on his first TV show. Kids’ series It's a Weird World was built around radio personality Dick Weir. Hopkins co-wrote the show and operated a puppet called Grabble; he remembers one time when a storyline proved so terrifying that some of the young audience made a dash for the door. "It was some time before calm — and taping — resumed."

It was a busy few years for Hopkins. Alongside It's a Weird World, he was approached by TV producer Peter Muxlow to help develop a comedy show, which ultimately never got made. Hopkins recalls scripts travelling between Christchurch and Wellington, as executives asked inane questions like: "What is this reference to cabbage? ... Wouldn’t it be better if it was a pumpkin?". A year or more was spent "vetting scripts" and receiving feedback. The experience may have inspired a comment Hopkins made years later in The Listener, on the value of treating comedy writers with respect: "Otherwise you have a terrible feeling you're belting out endless scripts and dropping them down a bottomless well."

When Radio Avon started in Christchurch in 1973, Hopkins and some of his Canterbury University friends wrote a script for comedy show The Lumpy Pudding Show. Unfortunately it was shot down by the station's manager who, with a different format in mind, offered to lend the group "quite a few books on creativity". Over the next few years, Hopkins undertook regular TV work. He did time as a reporter in TV One's Christchurch newsroom and also reported for the channel's companion current affairs shows Dateline Monday and Prime Time, spending time as a presenter on the latter. Hopkins also did a short stint as a script editor on soap Close to Home, and had a small acting role in Feltex Award winner Richard Pearse.

Hopkins was also busy with public debates around the country. While debating in Dunedin in the 1980s, he was approached by Michael Laws to be a part of the televised BNZ Festival Debates. In his Funny As interview Hopkins recalls still getting recognised for them, and being asked when they will return. After the success of the BNZ debates, Hopkins was invited to do a half-hour debate show — The Auckland Chamber Debates, a series of six debates that screened in the Contact slot on Network Two (1980). Hopkins voiced concerns over the "impossible" length of the episodes — roughly 23 minutes — but ultimately agreed to join David Lange as his opposing team captain.

Hopkins also has a number of other television credits (alongside his extensive work in radio). He did a number of seasons as a reporter on 1980s show Fast Forward, which showcased how science was changing everyday New Zealand life. He filed reports for archival show Then Again and Weekend, and hosted 1983 TV series UDC Inventors — in which Kiwis competed for a prize — and occasionally presented media analysis show Media Matters.

After the launch of regional station Canterbury Television in 1991, Hopkins was front and centre on current affairs show Jim Hopkins Live, which aired five nights a week. A decade later he came up with the idea for CTV show The Knackered Chef. The show mixed cooking and interviews. Over two seasons the guests included The Topp Twins, Mike King, Don Brash and Michael Palin.

Hopkins is also an author. Two of his five books were later turned into documentaries which he presented. Blokes ‘n’ Sheds was based on his 1998 bestseller, with Hopkins playing tour guide through Kiwi sheds containing everything from old paddle boats to self-designed planes. Follow-up book Inventions from the Shed was turned into this documentary, with Hopkins looking at interesting inventions from backyard inventors. He has written sketches for Public Eye, a sketch-comedy show featuring outlandish puppets. He also turned up on children’s show What Now? as the grumpy Clive Grumble, and was one of the writers and presenters of 1987's Cancerline, a live show promoting early detection of cancer.

Hopkins presented extensively off screen as well, including hosting the Young Farmer of the Year Awards for 21 years, from 1991 to 2011. He was also a columnist for The NZ Herald, a popular after dinner speaker, and a district councillor in Waitaki.

Jim Hopkins passed away on 27 July 2026.

Profile written by Sarah Baker; published on 24 August 2026

Sources include

Jim Hopkins
Jim Hopkins - Funny As Interview (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director: Rupert Mackenzie. Loaded 17 October 2019
Debates series article from The Press, 1 September 1980, Papers Past, National Library
A question of survival article from The Press, 27 February 1973, Papers Past, National Library

JimHopkins

Biography

Screenography