In the days before 24-hour television, there was Goodnight Kiwi, a short animation from Sam Harvey that bade viewers goodnight once the day's broadcasting ended. Each night the plucky Kiwi shut up shop at the TV station, put out the milk, and caught the lift up to sleep in a satellite dish with The Cat. For a generation of kids, Goodnight Kiwi became a much-loved symbol of staying up well past your bedtime. Viewers never questioned why our nocturnal national icon was going to bed at night, or sharing a bed with a cat. The tune is an arrangement of Māori lullaby 'Hine e Hine'.

New Zealand's beloved Goodnight Kiwi has been through a number of incarnations since debuting on South Pacific Television (later TV2), in the mid-70s. TVNZ, aware that many Kiwis still held "a tremendous affection" for the kiwi and his cat, commissioned three animated spots to mark the 2008 Christmas holiday season. Auckland animator Tim Hunt was given the job of updating the originals, while still retaining the hand-drawn, 2D look. Of the three clips, the one above most closely follows the original Goodnight Kiwi sign-off which ran for over a decade. 

With more than three million song plays on their MySpace page, pop-punk rockers Goodnight Nurse led the way in Kiwi cyberspace popularity; the Auckland quartet also produced a string of Top 40 singles. The band's first album Always and Never was released in 2006 and Keep Me On Your Side followed it in 2008, which peaked at number five in the charts. Frontman Joel Little went on to produce Lorde’s smash hit album Pure Heroine, winner of a pile of Tui, Grammy and Brit awards; while guitarist Sam McCarthy went on to co-found synth pop duo Kids of 88.

The decade of fondue and flares also cooked up colour television. Our black and white living room icons — from Selwyn Toogood to Space Waltz — melted into a Kiwi kaleidoscope of Top Town, Grunt Machine, and Close to Home. And 'our stories' and rights fights — boks, hikoi, nukes and 'nam — echoed onscreen (Sleeping Dogs, Tangata Whenua). Ready to roll?

This collection celebrates the legendary moments that New Zealanders — huddled around the telly — gawked at, chortled with, and choked on our Choysa over as they played out on our screens. "There's a generation who remember where they were when JFK was shot", but as Paul Casserly asks in his collection primer, "where were you when Thingee's eye popped out?"

Actor Kevin Smith could do it all; from brooding like Brando in a Tennessee Williams play, through Xena, to the gentle romantic lead of Double Booking, and self-parody in Love Mussel. Collected here are selections from a career cut short (he died in a 2002 film-set accident). Plus tributes from James Griffin, Michael Hurst, Geoffrey Dolan and Simon Prast. 

This collection gathers classic screen moments for the pavlova and pohutukawa season: from broadcasting icons (Goodnight Kiwi, Thingee), to barbies, bickering and beer. Families come together to eat and drink (Alison Holst, Peta Mathias, Graham Kerr), and fall apart (in full-length dramas from Niki Caro and Gregory King). Plus the Ghost Chips guy, and a Santa with tattoos.

The first, online-only single from Goodnight Nurse’s second album Keep Me By Your Side was its biggest selling track. As the band plays on stage, the camera focuses on the wild and wasted audience (including future Shortland Street stars Bonnie Soper and Chris Tempest) as they drink, dance, throw up and make out. Joel Little, frontman of this partytastic Auckland punk-pop outfit, produced Lorde’s album Pure Heroine, winner of a pile of Tui, Grammy and Brit awards, while guitarist Sam McCarthy went on to co-found Kids of 88.

For this stylishly shot video, the ghosts of Goodnight Nurse rise from their coffins to perform a song about obsession, and dancing with the Devil. Reflecting the band's own obsession with horror imagery, the setting is a moon-lit hillside, surrounded by gravestones. The video won Best Rock Video at the 2005 Juice TV Awards, and was a finalist for Video of the Year. After the group's passing, each player stayed involved in music; lead vocalist Joel Little would rise up again to co-write Lorde's Grammy award-winning hit Royals. Director Jonathan Gerrard remembers making the video here.

After turning “Jeez Wayne” into a national catchphrase with their hit series A Week of It, comedy duo David McPhail and Jon Gadsby continued their TV dream run with the sketch comedy show McPhail and Gadsby. This 'Best of' from the Feltex Award-winning fifth season includes these highlights: 'pronouncing things proper with Jim Knox'; 'This Is Your Life with Robert Muldoon' (featuring McPhail’s infamous caricature of the then Prime Minister); Lynn Waldegrave’s popular impersonation of music show host Karyn Hay; and a Goodnight Kiwi take-off in 'Goodnight from the Beehive'.