United Travel Getaway - Clarke Gayford and Hayley Holt in Lake Wakitipu
This excerpt from the United Travel-sponsored travel show features presenter Clarke Gayford showing viewers around the Blanket Bay luxury lodge, on the shores of Lake Wakatipu near Queenstown. Gayford is joined by champion snowboarder (and Dancing with the Stars dancer) Hayley Holt for some heli-snowboarding, followed by an après ski spa and beer. For snow fans, the item features spectacular backcountry boarding runs. United Travel Getaway screened on Prime Television in 2007.
Short Sportz - 1991 'Best Of'
Hosted by Phil Keoghan not long before he left for the US, Short Sportz was a TV3 sports show encouraging kids to get involved in sports. Keoghan (later to win fame as host of Amazing Race) often kitted up himself Paper Lion-style: here he takes base against Black Sox pitches and cycles with future ironman champion Cameron Brown. This 1991 ‘best of’ show is notable for a segment presented by a rising Wainuiomata league star who’s just been signed by Newcastle Knights: Tana Umaga. Umaga’s NRL career was short-lived, and he went on to become an All Black legend.
That's Fairly Interesting - Phil Keoghan Montage
This wryly-titled 80s show was a homegrown take on US show That’s Incredible!, with the spectacular stunts and supernatural happenings of the original replaced with more downbeat kiwiana kitsch subjects. This excerpt from an end of season review looks at highlights from presenter Phil Keoghan’s contribution. The future Amazing Race host tries a spaghetti eating competition (post-bungy jumping), giraffe feeding, land sailing, snowboarding, male cheerleading, cow pat tossing and a cowboy up challenge. TFI was the first series from production company Communicado.
Keoghan’s Heroes
Phil Keoghan’s pre-Amazing Race screen education included profiling Kiwi adventure sport thrillseekers in a series of short vignettes for TV3’s Mobil Sport. Scored to a sampler of early 90s pop music, these clips focus mostly on rad airborne acrobats: a ‘para-bungee’, the then-new sport of skysurfing, riding atop a Tiger Moth, Phil losing the sponsor’s product flying with veteran fighter pilot Bryan Cox, plus surfing down sand dunes on snowboards. Keoghan later took the Keoghan’s Heroes concept to Canada and the United States (including a slot on CBS news).
Hayley Holt
Hayley Holt's CV showcases her eclectic skill set. The Aucklander has been a professional snowboarder and ballroom dancer, a Green Party candidate, the winner of 2007's Treasure Island: Pirates of the Pacific, and a co-host of both Breakfast and political show Back Benches. Holt appeared on sports programme The Crowd Goes Wild on and off over eight years, and was a dancer and judge on New Zealand's Dancing With The Stars. In 2017, Holt stood unsuccessfully for the Green Party in the Helensville seat. The following year she replaced Hilary Barry on Breakfast, after Barry moved to Seven Sharp.
Rachael Blampied
Rachael Blampied’s screen roles range from war heroine to unhinged surgeon. Northland-raised Blampied graduated in acting from Unitec in 2006. She found fame on Shortland Street in 2011 as Doctor Bree Hamilton, the disturbed and manipulative sister of Beth Allen's character. In 2013 Blampied starred as Nancy Wake, the Kiwi-born hero of the French Resistance, in TV's Nancy Wake: The White Mouse. She has also acted in The Almighty Johnsons, Dirty Laundry and the NZ edition of Underbelly. For Outward Bound satire Darryl, the passionate snowboarder went outdoors to play a hard-nosed human resources manager.