Animals, people and cameras can make for a wild unpredictable combination, as this set of bloopers demonstrates. First up is the legendary 1989 clip of rugby star Zinzan Brooke falling off a spooked Shetland pony in Wales. Back on Kiwi soil, Dexter the golden labrador refuses to listen to owner Mark Leishman. A hare and dog take over a trotting track and cricket pitch, while reporters doing their pieces to camera are harassed by a friendly horse and overzealous ostriches. Plus two pigs give Country Calendar reporter John Gordon the giggles.  

Faye Rogers claims to have a unique ability — to converse with animals. In this quirky short documentary Rogers shares her talent and introduces some of her favourite animals, including her donkey Thistle, who has a penchant for swearing and watching crime shows. It’s not just her own pets she can talk to either: while filming she takes a Skype call from an American client whose kitten Finn has gone missing. It's up to Faye to convince Finn to come out of hiding. The film was made as part of the 2015 series of Loading Docs, a collection of short films made for viewing online.

Chris Huriwai and Sam La Hood are both world champions in street unicycling. What they do takes courage and confidence — and not just the unicycling. As vegan animal rights activists, they regularly face those who disagree with them, as they form a “cube of truth” with other activists, standing in black, and playing video of animal rights abuses on laptop screens. The pair take the time to explain why they protest — Huriwai’s rural background and their connection to tikanga Māori are key factors — and note that while some take offence, the majority are welcoming.

Zoo Babies - Raising Baby Iwani was a spin-off from long-running Greenstone series The Zoo. Capitalising on the cute charisma of baby animals, it highlights the inherent dramas of animal breeding programmes at zoos. Filmed at Auckland Zoo, this documentary follows the story of surviving twin Baby Iwani, a Siamang gibbon, whose mother rejected him at six weeks of age. Senior primate keeper Christine Tintinger takes on the role of surrogate Mum, hand-raising Iwani for a year before giving him back to his mother. The documentary originally screened in two parts.

This morbidly funny short, made by students of Auckland's Media Design School, depicts the demise of 26 alphabetical and animated animals at the hands of nature’s greatest enemy — the human. Framed as a father possum (Phil Greeves) reading his children their favourite bedtime story, the alliterative animal deaths are undercut with cheerful giggling from the two young possums. The film won acclaim at festivals worldwide —screening at South by Southwest in 2016, and taking out Best Animated film in the Comic-Con Film Festival later that year.

Two decades before the animals of Black Sheep run amok, comes this Sunday night horror about a couple trapped in the countryside as the sheep start getting restless. In between encounters with a cheerful butcher and a man of God, we learn that New Zealand has undergone revolution: anyone who farms or harms animals is now branded a criminal. Directed by Costa Botes; scripted by poet and lawyer Piers Davies, who co-wrote Skin Deep (plus cult movie The Cars that Ate Paris, with acclaimed Australian director Peter Weir).   

Lion Man Craig Busch, and his unlikely colleagues — African lions and white Bengal tigers — were a ratings and international sales success across three TV seasons. The Lion Man went behind the scenes at his Zion Wildlife Gardens animal park. In this first episode of the Great Southern TV show, Busch talks about his introduction to working with the big cats — and the scars that are part of the job. There's also a peek at the making of an award-winning Sky TV promo that featured his lions. Busch, and the park, were later to be the centre of regular controversy.

This episode of Sticky Pictures' show "about creative people, made by creative people" is hosted by TrinityRoots singer Warren Maxwell. Dominic Hoey (aka MC Tourettes) charts his journey from drumming in "really shitty" punk bands as a teen, to being published in national poetry journal Landfall; artist Liyen Chong talks to Ross Liew about her Malaysian heritage, and its influence on her intricate, complex artwork (including miniature prints made from hair); and the show joins animal-rights activist turned stencil artist Pete Howard on a late night postering mission.

These clips offer up a selection of Kiwi news bloopers. First, Sacha McNeil presents a retrospective of unscripted moments from TV3’s first 25 years of news: newsreaders sneeze and laugh, and reporters face rogue weather, animals, dance routines, and lashings of champagne from Olympic champions. Then presenter Hilary Barry laughs at inappropriate moments on The Paul Henry Show: she starts an extended battle with the giggles while mentioning All Black Waisake Naholo’s broken leg (2015). In 2016 she succumbs to laughter over an emergency defecation situation.

In this episode of her TV3 series for pre-schoolers, Suzy Cato creates a farm in her garden and uses songs, stories and animations to introduce a variety of animals. Chickens cluck, a mother pig and her three piglets bathe in mud, frogs catch flies with their tongues — and one of the chickens strays into the family of frogs and has to be returned home. Meanwhile, a baby bird hatches but can't immediately find its mother, the sock puppet family is seen in all of its extended glory and Suzy keeps proceedings moving with her ebullient friendliness.