Clarke Gayford spends a day with the All Blacks' star first five-eighth. A thoroughly modern rugby player, Dan Carter talks about his underwear commercials and is seen in his Italian clothing store and being made up with fake sweat for a photo shoot. The flip side is an unwavering commitment to his craft, and a training and fitness regime that leaves Gayford gasping. Carter recalls his father building him goalposts in the backyard when he was a boy — and demonstrates the goal kicking technique that has made him the All Blacks’ leading points scorer.

In this short report for a 1990 edition of Holmes, Dylan Taite rocks back the clock to talk to New Zealand music pioneer Johnny Cooper. John Dix’s recently published history of NZ rock’n’roll Stranded in Paradise had resurrected interest in Cooper, the Wairoa-spawned singer who gained notice with a Bill Haley cover, then gave NZ its first homegrown rock’n’roll song with his tale of a Whanganui pie cart, 'Pie Cart Rock'n'Roll'. Aptly, Taite interviews Cooper at a Queen St cart where Cooper unslings his guitar once more: “Let’s rock and roll around the old pie cart!”

This February 1994 interview sees Paul Holmes quiz legendary couple Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, ahead of their concert at the Auckland Town Hall. The duo talk prayer, drugs, scars (June memorably describes Johnny’s face), controversial US ice skater Tonya Harding, and shopping for antiques in New Zealand. The duo then perform their Grammy-winning 1967 version of 'Jackson'. The song was reprised by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, performing as Cash and Carter, in 2005 biopic Walk the Line: "We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout."

David Bellamy told Kiwis their old man’s beard had to go, Spike Milligan advised “Just put up a windmill Daddy!” … in 1977 the international celebrity counselling New Zealanders was Puerto Rican-born musician José Feliciano, telling Godzoners to “go easy” on power consumption. With the second oil shock looming, this was one of a series of 70s public service announcements produced to encourage energy conservation. The blind virtuoso — famous for songs like ‘Feliz Navidad’ and his cover of  ‘Light My Fire’ — was filmed on 3 October, a few days before his Auckland show.

This 1982 Radio with Pictures report surveys the Dunedin music scene, and the bands who are starting to be grouped together under the label ‘the Dunedin Sound’. Critic Roy Colbert discusses the influence of punk pioneers The Enemy and Toy Love, and the benefits of being outside fashion. A roster of future Flying Nun notables are interviewed, including David Kilgour, Shayne Carter, and Jeff Batts (The Stones). Martin Phillipps is psychedelic, and Chris Knox dissects the new bands’ guitar-playing style (without using the word "jangly"!). And then there’s Mother Goose.

Ken Bliss’s brief description of his father’s service in the Boer War is just one of the stories that make this interview essential viewing. Ken’s own military career began when he was called up at 18, in 1941. Too tall to be a pilot in the RNZAF, he became a radio mechanic and served in the war against the Japanese in the Pacific. Forming a surf lifesaving team on Bougainville to rescue American servicemen who couldn’t swim was an unexpected wartime duty. And having survived the war, a missed train in 1953 meant Ken also survived the Tangiwai disaster. 

Although The Tumbleweeds toured beyond Otago only occasionally, they provided many New Zealanders with their first exposure to country music. Almost 40 years into the band's career, Stephen Latty (Opera in the Outback) got some of their songs and memories down for this half-hour film. The band describe influences, costumes, and their own mid-tour double wedding. Country music expert Garth Gibson praises the "quite famous harmony sound" of sisters Myra and Nola Hewitt. Then The Tumbleweeds hit the road for Gore's Gold Guitar Awards, to perform 'Maple on the Hill'.

This homegrown Erin Brockovich story follows former Whakatāne sawmill worker Joe Harawira and his long battle to reveal the impact that workplace toxins have had on his community. In the 80s after being afflicted by health issues, Harawira noticed co-workers getting sick. In 1988 he helped found SWAP (Sawmill Workers Against Poisons) and began investigating the effects of exposure to dioxins, a by-product of timber treatment. The Joe versus the mills crusade screened on Māori Television, and won Best Popular Documentary at the 2012 NZ Television Awards.

This film documents the influential 1979 New Zealand tour of a black theatre group from London arts centre Keskidee. They visit marae, perform at The Gluepot, prisons and youth centres; meet gang members, Ratana ministers and a young Tame Iti; and korero about roots and fights for rights. The made-for-TV film was directed by Merata Mita and Martyn Sanderson. On the tour Sanderson met his future wife, Kenyan actor Wanjiku Kairie. Tour instigator Denis O’Reilly argued in 2009 that the doco is “full of insights at a time of huge social and cultural shifts in Aotearoa.”

This episode of arts show Mercury Lane features legendary musician Bill Sevesi, and poet Sonja Yelich (mother of musician Lorde). Sevesi takes centre stage: various musician friends join him to reminisce about packing Auckland dance halls in the 50s and 60s (at least until the arrival of 10 o'clock closing). After celebrating his 79th birthday, Sevesi is still as upbeat and music-obsessed as ever, especially when it comes to his beloved steel guitar and ukulele. In the final clip, Sonja Yelich performs her poem Teeth, with wry accompanying visuals from director Fiona Samuel.