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?

Celebrate iconic Māori television, film and music with this collection, in time for Māori New Year. Watch everything from haka to hip hop, Billy T to the birth of Māori Television. Two backgrounders by former TVNZ Head of Māori Programming Whai Ngata (Koha, Marae) look at Matariki, and the history of Māori programming on New Zealand television.   

Sam Neill has acted in forgotten Kiwi TV dramas (The City of No) and classic Kiwi movies (Sleeping Dogs, The Piano, Hunt for the Wilderpeople). His career has taken him from the UK (Reilly: Ace of Spies) to Hawaii (Jurassic Park) to dodgy Melbourne nightclubs (Death in Brunswick). As Neill turns 70, this collection celebrates his range, modesty and style — and the fact he was directing films before winning acting fame. In these backgrounders, friends Ian Mune and Roger Donaldson raise a glass to a talented, self-deprecating actor and fan of good music and pinot noir.

This interview with Prime Minister John Key is taken from the January 2014 debut episode of Paul Henry’s late night TV3 show. Displaying the informal style that marked his tenure, Key banters with Henry about playing golf in Hawaii with US President Barack Obama, and responds to the hard questions, eg whether it would have been better in hindsight for John’s son Max to have not beaten the President. It’s election year and the pair discuss coalition options: the Māori Party, Peter Dunne and Winston Peters. Henry pulls out four photos, and asks which of them can be trusted.

The meteoric career of one of NZ’s greatest entertainers is examined in this documentary. John Rowles went from a Kawerau childhood to stardom in London at 21; but, after headlining in Hawaii and Las Vegas, he saw it all slip away. Those roofing ads and near bankruptcy followed, but Rowles has retained his self belief and that voice. A stellar cast of interviewees analyse his strengths and weaknesses, including Sir Cliff Richard, Tom Jones, Neil Finn and late promoter Phil Warren. Amongst the star cameos, John’s sister Cheryl Moana explains the downside of his best-known local hit.

This Artsville TV documentary plucks its way through a Kiwi-focused history of the ukulele, from Waikiki to Wellington, using the dream of “godfather of Polynesian music” Bill Sevesi as its starting point: namely “that the children would be playing the ukulele all over the country.” Presenter Gemma Gracewood (of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra) reveals the instrument’s Pacific adoption and burgeoning popularity, and meets acolytes of ‘the uke’: from Herman Pi’ikea Clark to Jennifer Ward-Lealand, to Sevesi strumming with onetime pupil Sione Aleki.

Young choreographer Parris Goebel features in the first episode from season four of Māori youth show I AM TV.  The series promoted te reo through interviews and music. Vince Harder performs "Say This With Me", Hawaiian reggae band Kolohe Kai hit Aotearoa, and a teen Parris Goebel heads to the United States to audition for TV's America's Best Dance Crew, with her award-winning hip hop group ReQuest Dance Crew. Plus new presenters Taupunakohe Tocker and Chey Milne are introduced by friends and family. I AM TV is the successor of Mai Time, which ran for 12 years. 

This 1988 film details a mission by 100 men to paddle a huge waka taua (war canoe) from Waitangi to Whangaroa, chronicling their spiritual and physical journey en route. The camera takes in training, the gruelling 10 hour, 70 kilometre passage, and the vessel's arrival in Whangaroa Harbour to mark Whangaroa County’s centennial. The waka, Ngātokimatawhaorua, was named after Kupe’s original ocean-voyaging canoe. Beached at Waitangi Treaty Grounds, it is the largest waka in existence. This was veteran filmmaker Tainui Stephens' first documentary as a director. 

According to Māori legend Aotearoa was found by the explorer Kupe, chasing a wheke (octopus) from Ra'iatea, Tahiti. This documentary follows Northland building contractor Hekenukumai 'Hector' Busby, as he leads the construction of a waka hourua (a double-hulled canoe), then retraces Kupe's course across the Pacific, back to Rarotonga. Before 'Te Aurere' and her crew depart, Busby heads to Taihiti to learn navigation methods used by the great Polynesian ocean voyagers, then returns home to fell a kauri and begin his contribution to his ancestors' legacy. 

Bros meets The Bachelor in this Māori Television reality show, billed as a "hunt for the ultimate Polynesian warrior". The contestants' muscles might look good, but do the personal trainers and dancers have their ancestors’ skills? This first episode tests the 12 usos in spear throwing, waka portage and hakamoa (Hawaiian wrestling). The show swapped po-faced reality TV conventions for Polynesian humour – dropped lavalavas and tattooed torsos are slathered with innuendo by hosts Pani and Pani (Goretti Chadwick and Anapela Polataivao) – and became a Māori TV hit.