On June 4 1976, Gordon Dryden hosted Abraham Ordia — president of the African Supreme Council of Sport — for a public forum on New Zealand’s sporting ties with apartheid South Africa, which would result in an Olympic boycott by African countries the following month. The debate erupted into what the Auckland Star called  “a diabolic confrontation between Māori and Pākeha”, with Dryden frequently pleading for civility. Weightlifter Precious McKenzie, MP Richard Prebble, activist Syd Jackson and Donna Awatere-Huata are among those in the audience, making their feelings known.

In 1979 entertainer Ray Woolf went from co-hosting Two for One to his own chat show. This wide-ranging 'best of' episode from the end of the first season takes in bloopers, the victims of the Amityville Horror, Doctor Who Jon Pertwee,  Gomer Pyle Jim Nabors, Norman Gunston, Alan Whicker, Frankie Howerd, Derek Nimmo, Diana Dors, Austin Mitchell, poet Pam Ayres, humorist Erma Bombeck and singer Billy Daniels — plus Kiwis Ricky May, Ian Fraser (on piano), Tina Cross, Selwyn Toogood and Precious McKenzie. Woolf, was judged 1979 TV Light Entertainer of the year.

This TVNZ doco chronicles New Zealand’s participation in 18 Empire and Commonwealth Games — beginning at Hamilton, Canada in 1930 when a Kiwi team of 18 participated in four sports. A cavalcade of gold medallists (including Yvette Williams, Dick Tayler, Anna Simcic and Neroli Fairhall) recall their glory days at the event which was set up to be “merrier and less stern” than The Olympics. Special emphasis is placed on the three New Zealand-hosted Games: at Auckland in 1950 and 1990, and Christchurch in 1974 (which hastened the local arrival of colour television).

For a small country from the edge of the world, achievements on the Olympic stage are badges — silver fern-on-black — of national pride: precious moments where we gained notice (even if it was Mum’s anthem playing on the dais). This legacy collection draws on archive footage, some rarely seen, to celebrate the stories behind Kiwis going for gold.

In 1986 New Zealand applied the celebrity choir approach to promote Team NZ’s first tilt at the America’s Cup, with a host of musicians, broadcasters, sportspeople raising their voices in unison. The singers include Bunny Walters, Suzanne Day and Suzanne Prentice, plus Barry Crump, Roger Gascoigne, Precious McKenzie and Ian Ferguson. The 1987 challenge failed and All of Us remained a one-off; but one of its contributors, Dave Dobbyn, later put a lock on the Team NZ anthem with his own song ‘Loyal’.