This excerpt from mid 90s show Newsnight features the extraordinary story of Max Corkill and his motorcycle-riding cat Rastus. After having Rastus dumped on him as a kitten while he was motorcycling around Canada, Max took him along on the road. Quickly becoming comfortable on the bike, Rastus would stand on the handlebars as they drove along. Back in New Zealand, the pair became community favourites, and regularly raised money for the local SPCA. They passed away on 20 January 1998, after being involved in a head-on collision with a drunk driver.

Aged 50, Jean Watson sold her Wellington house to buy land for a children’s home in southern India. In 2013 filmmaker Gerard Smyth (director of acclaimed quake chronicle When a City Falls) spent two months in India, chronicling Watson and some of the many lives she has changed. Smyth’s documentary also harks back to the 60s, when Watson wrote novel Stand in the Rain, and hunted crocodiles with Barry Crump. The result won solid audiences at the 2014 NZ Film Festival. The Listener gave it four stars; “Unpretentious but unashamedly enjoyable” said The Dominion Post.

The highlight of this instalment of the NFU’s weekly newsreels is a report on a motorcycle grand prix, held at Cust in Canterbury, where speeds in excess of 100mph were reached in the 152 mile race — with 1,000 gallons of sump oil sprayed on roads to prepare the racing surface. From the Wellington waterfront, there is coverage of the arrival of a delegation of Australian ex-servicemen to meet their NZ counterparts; and an emotional United Nations appeal asks viewers to donate one day’s pay, profits, work or produce to help the world’s needy children.

Open Door is a community-based television series that allows groups or individuals to apply to make a documentary about an issue that concerns them. This programme is about the charitable trust Sweet Louise, established in 2005 to provide practical and psychological support to New Zealand women with secondary breast cancer. Sweet Louise was set up by the family of Auckland woman Louise Perkins, who died at the age of 39 after battling breast cancer for 10 years.   

In this 2011 Jam TV series, reporter Hadyn Jones motors around Aotearoa in a 1966 Ford Falcon and caravan to meet the locals. He starts his engine in Dargaville, where he meets mechanic Ken, who gets the 'blue beast' going; Ange, a mother of three who got a burnout car for her wedding anniversary; he chats with axe-man Jason Wynyard at the Arapohue A&P Show; plus a heap of Dalmatian Kiwis. Critic Karl du Fresne rated the series appointment viewing, with Jones possessing a "rare knack of being able to make them [interviewees] relax and reveal themselves on camera."

Former Prime Minister John Key made regular appearances in the media, and was game for taking on more than political questions: from reading out the top ten list on America's Late Show with David Letterman, to participating in pranks on The Rock radio station. In July 2015 Key faced up to the '9-in-10' challenge on Paul Henry’s MediaWorks breakfast show — trying to provide nine correct answers to a general knowledge question, in ten seconds. The subject for the ex-stock market trader? International currencies. The prize was a Jeep Cherokee for Ronald McDonald House.

Meng Foon — longtime Gisborne mayor turned Race Relations Commissioner — plays tour guide to his hometown in this episode of local celebration show Neighbourhood. He introduces those that make up the diverse community he leads as mayor. Telling their stories are Samoan crop pickers temporarily in New Zealand, and a young Filipino woman making pancit on her birthday — before a local Indian couple share their stories of life following arranged marriage, and a Brazilian/American couple perform their music at a barbecue with their Kiwi kids.

In this Nepal-filmed interview for the 70s current affairs show Sir Ed discusses his aid missions in the country and his friendship with its people. The famed explorer talks about the pros and cons of Western influence on Nepal, and visits schools and hospitals he helped to establish. While local Sherpas struggle with iodine deficiencies, western tourists and mountaineers battle altitude sickness. Produced by Mike Gill, the interview includes material on the creation of Sagarmatha National Park, established in 1976 with help from the New Zealand Government. 

Telethon was a 24-hour live television spectacular aimed at securing donations from viewers for a charitable cause. The first, in 1975, launched the second channel (TV2) and raised over half a million dollars for St John's Ambulance. By 1981 Telethon had hit the $5 million mark. Along with willing local celebrities, volunteers and a receptive public, it attracted overseas stars: Basil Brush, Entertainment Tonight's Leeza Gibbons and Coronation Street's Christopher Quinton (who famously got together after the 1988 show). "Thank you very much for your kind donation!" 

The final Asia Downunder for 2006 is a special about the Friends of Fiji Heart Foundation, a team of Kiwi doctors who each year spend two weeks providing life-saving heart operations in Fiji. A number of the team grew up there. The inadequacies of the Fijian health system are touched on, and the effects of poverty on health are examined. A man in the street gives his assessment of how the poor are treated in Fiji, and the Health Minister provides a surprising response.