1972: Play School
November 27, 2021
By AHNZ
Play School first aired in New Zealand on TVNZ from 22 March, 1972, and ran all the way up to 1990. It was a show for Generation X and early Millennials. The format was heavily based on the British show of the same name including the suit of toys props which were: Big Ted, Little Ted, Manu, Jemima, and Humpty.
The heredity of Manu the Maori doll is interesting. She started out as a white British doll named Hamble, a lower-class and downtrodden totem. The British succeeded this doll with a little brown doll named Poppy while in New Zealand she became a brown Maori doll named Manu. Meanwhile, in Australia, Hamble lasted on to 1993 before being succeeded, it seems, by an Asian doll and her name is Meeka.
Australian Play School is still being produced today but the BBC version was cancelled in 1988. Finding out that Play School was never just ours, never just a New Zealand ‘Kiwiana’ was, for me, just about as confronting as finding out the same of Weetbix. On a more optimistic point of view it does make us one big inter-connected Commonwealth of 3 nations that shared something.
Given the company of Play School in 1990 it was for the best that it disbanded. During the wrap party for the end of Play School some drunken individuals desecrated one of Little Ted’s incarnations by blowing off his head with an explosive. A disgraceful way to treat a beloved icon of New Zealand children for 18 years and a betrayal of trust on the part of everyone present. Headless Little Ted is the only figure missing from the collection fit for display at the Museum of New Zealand. However, apparently there’s another incarnation of Little Ted at large that never made it to the museum1.
Build It Up
I watched this clip live when I was very little, “Build it up, build it up, build it high. Build it up, up, up into the sky.” As a grown up I’ve passed it on to other little kids in my care without them having a clue where it came from. I could only have given my word that it came from ‘Play School’ (1980) until New Zealand on Screen came along and published the video.
As it turns out, the lyrics are claimed by Abigail Jane Cotton and Anna Ruth Scantlebury. If TVNZ were ripping off someone’s intellectual property back in 1980 it wouldn’t be a great surprise. School Journal did that to Rudyard Kipling in 1915 and were discovered. Our Government has never had much respect for property rights.
Barry and Jacqui were *my* Play School presenters and probably first attachment to anybody on TV. (Later, I also remember Rawiri Paratene doing a bit involving puddles made out of blue paper. I was impressed as a little kid that Rawiri commented that the 2D paper puddles must be very shallow, thus allowing me to hold on to my Suspension of Disbelief.)
Build it up,
Build it up,
Build it high.
Build it up, up, up,
into the sky.
Build it up,
Build it up,
Build it higher.
Build it up, up, up into the sky.
Now if you get the construction feeling,
You can build a castle right up to the ceiling.
And if you think that building is fun,
You can build a castle right up to the sun.
Jacqui became a MHR in 2005 for the National Party. Apparently fellow MP Simon Bridges said something mean in proximity to my old Play School presenter in 2016.
Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean says she was surprised and disappointed a conversation she had with now former party leader Judith Collins some weeks ago was this week used by Ms Collins to dismiss and demote Tauranga MP Simon Bridges.” – ‘Not my intention’: Dean disappointed by Collins’ move against Bridges, ODT (November, 2021)
Someone built it up, built it up, built it up into the sky and now, in 2021, it’s big enough to turn Jacqui and Simon’s, and their friend Judith’s, party into a real mess!
Incidentally, Rawiri’s daughter, Marama Davidson, is also in Parliament alongside Jacqui Dean. More about that in a future post covering Nga Tamatoa.
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Ref. NZH&H, Facebook (2019)
Ref. Play School – Presenter Compilation, NZ on Screen
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