Set in a future where teen gangs control the streets, The Tribe became a global hit at the turn of the millenium. In this second episode, the group have to decide whether they trust Lex enough to let him into the safety of the shopping mall. Lex appears out to prove that he is the resident alpha male, especially after the arrival of Bray (Dwayne Cameron), who has a surprise to spring. For the first season, a group of young people read each script in order to check that The Tribe provided what creator Raymond Thompson called "an accurate interpretation of children's ideas". 

In this documentary, writer and satirist Peter Hawes crosses the Bombay Hills border in his Morris van to record his take on mid 1980s Auckland. Pocked with as many puns as Auckland has volcanic craters, Hawes' profile is a sprawling, breezy look at New Zealand's largest city: from a Chase Corporation high rise to shearing sheep in Cornwall Park; from Eden Park to Bastion Point. Interviews (with politicians, sportspeople, gossip columnists, strip club fashion designers) are mixed with skits covering jogging, bridge building, shipwrecks, multiculturalism and sewers.

Every story in this popular TV2 reality show saw warring neighbours each give their side of a border dispute, before a well-known local tried to mediate. In this first season episode the affray is over Parakai willow trees, accused of blocking sun and busting sewer pipes (narrator Bill Kerton calls them the "herbaceous equivalent of herpes"). The mediator is Helensville MP John Key. Struggling to sit on the fence, and amid accusations of racism, the future Prime Minister is unable to forge a driveway détente: "sometimes people just don’t want to see eye to eye".

This short film, made for the second season of Loading Docs, goes beneath a manhole cover to explore a secret history of Auckland’s Queen Street. Waihorotiu is a quest down from the skyscraper canopy of New Zealand’s largest city to find traces of Waihorotiu — an ancient waterway situated under the concrete. Archive material and animation explore the awa's history, from tangiwha lair (the water of Horotiu) to fetid canal and brick sewer severed from its natural source. The film was directed by Frances Haszard and Louis Olsen; Pita Turei narrates.

In this National Film Unit-produced 'documentary' a circus sets up at the beach. Made for the Ministry of Works to stir debate about the use of coastal land, director Michael Reeves' wiggy treatment of the subject situates the film in the 'frustrated auteur meets sober commission' NFU tradition. Ringmaster Ian Mune is a seaside Willy Wonka canvassing claims to the coast. Demands of development, recreation, and housing are dramatised — including a bizarre look at stranger danger in suburbia, and a graphic illustration of the risks of off-mains sewage treatment.

This cheese-themed episode from the second series of the animated show is musically narrated by Kiwi cartoon icons Ches And Dale (both voiced by Outrageous Fortune’s Frank Whitten). The duo join Stanley and Mary-Jane on a pipe into Drainworld, where they battle Dr Drain’s plans to use cheese to convert an army of rats to his evil plans. Created by Jim Mora (Mucking In) and Brent Chambers of Flux Animation, the first series marked New Zealand TV’s first international animation co-production; the second season of Staines Down Drains was produced by Flux for TVNZ. 

This first episode of the animated series for kids follows germaphobic Stanley and feisty Mary-Jane down a plughole into ‘Drainworld’. There they help a plethora of slimy mutated creatures battle the evil Dr Drain. Created by Jim Mora (Mucking In) and Flux Animation's Brent Chambers, Staines was NZ’s first official animation international co-production (with Australian studio Flying Bark). The 26 episode series debuted on Australia’s Seven in late 2006, on TV2 in early 2007, and sold globally. It opens with the award-winning theme tune composed by Australian Michael Lira.

During his last session on air, a veteran radio announcer finds himself on a quest through the streets and sewers. His mission: to retrieve a special record, in time to play it for a devoted listener. Signing Off was made by Nightmare Productions, a team of Dunedin filmmakers. The success of this comic adventure helped lead to Scarfies, the feature debut of Nightmare team member, director Robert Sarkies (Two Little Boys, Out of the Blue). A big seller overseas, Signing Off won awards at film festivals from Dresden to Montreal. 

In this two-part Lookout documentary from 1983, critic Hamish Keith explores how New Zealanders have housed themselves over the 20th Century. This first part builds to 1935: it begins in Auckland War Memorial Museum, with Keith asking how Kiwis would represent themselves if they were curators in the future. He presents the state house as the paramount Kiwi icon, and examines the journey from Victorian slums and Queen Street sewers to villas, bungalows and suburbia; plus the impact on housing of cars, consumerism, influenza, war, depression, and new ideas in town planning.