1994: Ivomec Music
September 3, 2021
By AHNZ
Ivomec is a long-standing product in New Zealand for treating “parasitic infestations with a well-established, broad-spectrum action.”
And maybe more.
Back in 1994 they gave us this ad campaign based on an earlier spoof of a musical fence in Country Calendar. This video is mentioned on NZ on Screen and Te Ara but they don’t supply a date. However, Te Ara’s url does suggest 15 February 1982 which sounds about right.
The most recent iteration was created by ‘Flight of the Conchords’ in 2009 to cap off the final scene of their American TV show.
Of course it’s all a joke. These sounds cannot be produced by plucking fences so there’s humor value in the farce that every rural family can recognise. The big joke pay-off though is at the expense of the silly city slickers who will be taken in by any of the incarnations of the musical fence joke, especially the original Country Calendar one. In c.1982 it will have been greatly cathartic to the rural New Zealander to be an insider on a joke at the expense of the new mainstream taking over the country. By making such people the target of a joke Country Calendar knew its audience.
New Zealand, to the early 80s, was largely composed of people who were farmers or had grown up the son of a farmer. Rural people know fencing and what fences can and cannot do. Everyone else was being pranked.
This was one of the last great jokes of the rural comedy genre because the rural/urban civil war had become too painful to joke about. Consider, for example, Bloody Friday (1978) as an indication of the farmers’ sensibility switch from comedy to drama.
The great jesters of these final years were John Clark and Murray Ball. Clark’s character Fred Dagg (image, right) left with him for Australia in 19771. Ball’s Footrot Flats had a newspaper run from 1976-942 and even the Footrot Flats Fun Park (1985-91) in Te Atatu, Auckland. Those rural comedy days are behind us now, especially on-screen. Rural comedy barely has a pulse and can only be found agricultural shows being dispensed by the likes of Andrew Lumsden/Te Radar and Jools and Lynda Topp (Ken & Ken.) The situation is dire. Jesse Griffin’s creation, Wilson Dixon, is hilarious but he had to go to rural America to find his subject because the Kiwi equivalent is all tapped out.
Making jokes about Kiwi farmers is like trying to make fun of the Taliban. Decades ago it was easy and funny. Today….it’s too tragic to even smile about.
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1 Ref. Wiki
2 Ref. Wiki
Ref. “TV ad for Ivomec. Soundtrack produced by Larry Killip, for DMB&B agency Auckland New Zealand 1994. Pictures by Flying Fish (correct me if I’m wrong!). Voice over Barry Saunders. Audio recorded at Lab Studios, sound of the fence was a sample taken of a unique one stringed instrument which still hangs in Bungalow Bills music shop, Khyber Pass rd Auckland.” – Larry Killip, Youtube
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