Goodnight Kiwi
Today is the first day of summer yet of all the days, today seems to have had less sunshine hours than all the other non summer days of last week. It’s always the way isn’t it! But nothing could take the warmth out of the announcement that after a 14 year absence, the iconic New Zealand television character the Goodnight Kiwi and the cat would be returning to the screen.
If you’re an ex-pat kiwi living anyway else on planet earth and you remember the little guy, I’m betting you’re going to be feeling warm and fuzzy just from the memory of him right now. Him and the Cat that is. “The Goodnight Kiwi” later also called TV Kiwi, is a character in an animated short that had been used to signal the end of nightly broadcasts on Television New Zealand channels.
The animation was originally played out before close-down on Television One and Television Two between 1981 with its last screening on 19 October 1994 before TV2 began 24-hr broadcasting. This animation returned on 6 September 2007 for use on TVNZ 6 when the channel ends transmission at midnight.
THE ANIMATION
The one minute long animation begins with Goodnight Kiwi and the Cat in the master control room, he shuts down the screens, starts an audio cassette playing an instrumental arrangement of the traditional Māori lullaby Hine e Hine or sometimes God Save the Queen. He then walks through the studio while the Cat jumps and pulls faces into a camera.
Kiwi turns out the lights, puts a milk bottle on the porch and locks the door while the cat heads upstairs to the studio roof. The Kiwi follows and rides an elevator to the top of a transmission mast. At the top, Kiwi covers himself in blankets (in which the cat was already curled up) and goes to sleep in a satellite dish with the Cat lying on his stomach. The short closes with the words: “Goodnight from Television New Zealand.
There was a slight variation of the ending, with the TVNZ channel ident and the announcer fading down the volume to announce “and it’s goodnight from Channel . .” (this being directly followed by the channel number e.g. “and it’s goodnight from Channel 2”). An alternate version of the Goodnight Kiwi clip was used by South Pacific Television somewhere between 1976 and 1980 and saw the Goodnight Kiwi and his companion living in a television camera.
At the end of the clip, the kiwi would close the side flaps on the camera and then the South Pacific Television logo would appear as the music faded out. During transmission breakdowns, a still picture of the Goodnight Kiwi was often used, in poses including one of sweeping the floor and accidentally pulling out a power cord. The characters are regarded as part of the New Zealand broadcasting culture. TVNZ children’s presenter Olly Ohlson used the name TV Kiwi for the character and occasionally performed a song ‘The T. V. K. I. W. I.’ on his afternoon show After School.
Clips from, and references to, the Goodnight Kiwi occasionally appear in locally produced television, including an advertisement for the Retirement Commission’s website Sorted.org.nz, in which a list of New Zealand’s favourite logos appear in a group therapy session.
OVER THE YEARS
TVNZ has had so many requests for their return over the years that the decision was made to bring them out of retirement in time to deliver Christmas and holiday seasons greetings. While the animation and the theme music have been kept very true to the original, both have been slightly modernised for their introduction to a whole new generation of New Zealanders.
THE KIWI AND THE CAT
Animator Tim Hunt, of Diddley Squatt.com Ltd, was asked to hand draw the new version in 2D, just like the old one so the style would be instantly recognisable. There are three scenarios in the new series, one is a Christmas tree scene, the other a night time scene reminiscent of the old transmission closedown sequence, and the last one is a holiday season sequence.
TVNZ has managed to locate many of the team who worked on the original design and who are now scattered all over the world, to let them know the Kiwi and the Cat are back on air. Anthony Stones, who was Head of Design at the time and is now in Oxford, England, says he is amazed and delighted that the Kiwi and the Cat should still be remembered.” We’re not amazed but like Anthony Stones we’re really delighted too.
