These clips collect together excerpts from kid's TV icon Thingee's appearances on After School. Thingee, alongside hosts Jason Gunn and Annie Roache, engages in much loopy fun factual madness: he gets into the Christmas spirit with carol singing, discusses his ambitions to be a jet pilot so he can time travel to meet his Mum (courtesy of trans-Atlantic time difference); plans to take over Video Dispatch (as Thingee Dispatch); talks like a pirate, eats worms, burps and wets himself. Check out Gunn's over-sized sunglasses and trademark loud 80s shirts.

Play School (1972 - 1990) was an iconic educational show for pre-school children. The opening sequence — "Here's a house ..." — and the toys (Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Humpty, Manu) were the stars. This compilation reel of various presenters features two excerpts from 1980: Barry Dorking and Jacqui Hay (future National MP), and Dorking solo; one from 1982: actor Rawiri (Whale Rider) Paratene with Winsome Dacker; and two from 1987: Eilish Wahren with Kerry McCammon, and Russell (Count Homgenized) Smith and actress Theresa (Shortland St) Healey.

Host of weekday kids' programme After School, Olly Ohlson, was the first Māori presenter to anchor his own children's show, and his catchphrase (with accompanying sign language) "Keep cool till after school" is remembered by a generation of Kiwi kids. The show also broke ground in its use of te reo Māori on screen. This episode sees a game of Maorimind (a te reo test based on Mastermind) and the building of a road-sign for the longest place name in New Zealand - a 85-letter te reo gobstopper that Olly rolls out with aplomb: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateatu... etc. 

Before you could call her Queen Bee and ‘Royals’ became a Grammy-winning smash hit, Ella Yelich-O’Connor was a singer in Extreme and competing in the covers category of the 2009 Intermediate Schools Battle of the Bands finals. The 12-year-old Belmont Intermediate student and her band belt out covers of ‘Man on the Silver Mountain’, by British rockers Rainbow, and ‘Edie (Ciao Baby)’, The Cult’s tribute to Andy Warhol heroine Edie Sedgwick. “The gods lay at your fee-e-eet …” Ella. Post-performance Ella bemoans a “sore voice”, but Extreme still manage to take third place.

Made at Auckland's Media Design School, these CGI short films combine the expertise of lecturer James Cunningham (director of award-winners Poppy and Infection) with the raw smarts and hard work of his 3D animation students. With established industry talents (e.g. writer Nick Ward and cameraman Simon Riera) helping guide the students, the results have won awards and selection to impressive international festivals, including SIGGRAPH. 2011's effort saw the screen debut of alien hunter Dr. Grordbort, originally created by Weta Workshop's Greg Broadmore.

In this episode of her TV3 series for pre-schoolers, Suzy Cato uses songs, stories, animations and puppets to focus on a topic that will soon loom large for her audience — going to school. Suzy explores the mysteries of the schoolbag with its lunchbox and pencil case; and she tells a story about her own first day at school. A blackboard is used to name parts of the human body in English and Māori; and there are field inserts that take a bilingual look at different colours, and join a family preparing a picnic which they then take to the beach.   

Play School was an iconic educational programme for pre-school children, which was first produced in Auckland from 1972, then Dunedin from 1975. The format included songs, a story, craft, a calendar, a clock and a look outside Play School via the shaped windows. But the toys, Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Humpty and Manu, were the real stars of the show. The title sequence ("Here's a house ...") and music were a call to action recognised by generations of Kiwis. Presenters included actors Rawiri Paratene and Theresa Healey, Russell Smith and future MP Jacqui Hay.

After School was a hosted links format that screened on weekday afternoons. Its initial host was Olly Ohlson, who was the first Māori presenter to anchor his own children's show. After School also broke ground in its use of te reo Māori on screen, as well as sign language. The show and Ohlson are remembered by a generation of New Zealanders for the catchphrase (with accompanying sign language) "Keep cool till after school". After School was later hosted by Jason Gunn and Annie Roache, and was where puppet Thingee achieved small screen fame.

Future film producer Fiona Copland (The Price of Milk) is the reporter for this September 1984 piece on the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington. Flashdance (1983) is in the air and Lionel Ritchie hit 'Running with the Night' is the soundtrack, as the wannabes aim to impress the likes of Limbs director Mary Jane O'Reilly. The students include Taiaroa Royal and Fenella Bathfield. Bathfield would shortly find local fame as host of after school programmes 3:45 LIVE! and The Bugs Bunny Show. The report screened on long-running arts programme Kaleidoscope.

International chart-topper Kimbra Johnson did a lot of musical growing up in public. Twelve months after featuring on kids' TV show What Now?, and two years before her first Rockquest success, this NZ Music Commission piece offers a tantalising glimpse of her as a remarkably unselfconscious 12-year-old — working with schools' music mentor Chris Diprose at her Hamilton intermediate. She's already very comfortable with the recording process and considerably more advanced in her music making than some off-camera classmates, who provide an unseen Greek chorus.