Goodnight Kiwi (found New Zealand TV animated sequences; 1975-1980)

From The Lost Media Wiki
Revision as of 17:50, 24 August 2016 by Bun39 (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search
Goodnight Kiwi 1978.jpg

A photo taken from a October 17, 1978 telecast of the Goodnight Kiwi.

Status: Lost


During the 1980s and 1990s, New Zealand television stations One and TV2 would sign off every night with a cartoon of a kiwi (New Zealand's national bird) signing off a TV station, turning off his console, exiting the studio and going to sleep in the television station's satellite dish. However, the sign off's history goes further back to the mid-1970s, before One and TV2 would become a part of TVNZ. Sometime around 1975, TV2 management had noticed that Australian TV station ATN-7 had been signing off with a cartoon of a kangaroo putting her baby to bed every night. Amazed at the uniqueness of the sign off, management decided to hire then 53-year-old Sam Harvey, a former Disney animator, to animate a cartoon of a kiwi doing something similar to its Australian counterpart.

The initial version of the Goodnight Kiwi premiered on TV2 sometime in 1975. In this version, the kiwi was a director. Instead of going to sleep in a satellite dish, the kiwi gets out of his chair, races his cat to a power switch, cuts the power to the studio, and presumably heads off to bed. This version was only used for a year, until TV2 changed its name to South Pacific Television.

When TV2 changed to South Pacific Television in 1976, a new version of the Goodnight Kiwi cartoon was animated. This time, the kiwi was far smaller, and the cat was nowhere to be seen. In this version, the kiwi dusts his television camera, then proceeds to go inside the camera, set his alarm clock, and go to sleep in it. This version was used on South Pacific Television all the way up to 1980.

In February 1980, South Pacific Television would once again revert to TV2, which meant the cartoon had to be updated once again. However, unlike the previous two version, One would also pick up the cartoon to be used for their sign-off. This is the most well-known version of the cartoon, and is available on YouTube. Many VHS recordings of the sign-off have been uploaded to YouTube, and TVNZ themselves have uploaded a copy to their On Demand service.

However, the other two versions of this sign-off are not as fortunate. No full versions of either of these versions have been made publicly available since their discontinuations in 1976 and 1980 respectively. Clips of the initial TV2 version of the sign-off appeared in an October 1994 episode of news show Holmes, as well as the 2008 C4 special, Rocked the Nation 2: Top 100 Pop Culture Stories. Clips of the South Pacific Television version of the sign-off also appeared in said Holmes episode.

The likeliness of a fan-recording of the first version of the Goodnight Kiwi is less than likely, as VHS and Betamax would not be released until the late-1970s, and the U-Matic was a rather costly recorder that the average joe couldn't afford. However, a black and white photograph taken from a television set of a 1978 airing of the South Pacific Television version of the cartoon has surfaced online, and the Televison New Zealand Archive at Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision lists that they have a 16 mm copy of the sign-off. As of August 2016, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision also holds a 16 mm copy of the original 1975 TV2 sign off as well.

In early-August 2015, Lost Media Wiki user bun39 filed a public request form for a copy of the South Pacific Television version of the sign-off. Several days later, he received an email from Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision stating that they were not authorized to make any copies or publicly release their copy in any way due to the fact that TVNZ still holds the copyright for the sign-off.

In late-August 2016, bun39 sent another request to Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision about receiving copies of the Kiwi. Several days later, Ngā Taonga responded with details on how to contact TVNZ to license and acquire archival footage. bun39 is currently undergoing the process of contacting TVNZ directly about acquiring the TV2 and South Pacific Television versions of the sign-off.