By LOUISA CLEAVE
In true public service style, TV2 threw itself a huge birthday party last weekend and invites New Zealanders to watch the celebrations tomorrow night.
The reason for last Sunday's soiree for 350 staff and former TV2 "stars" was the channel's quarter-century.
An invitation to viewers requests your company in front
of the box (bring your own champagne) tomorrow night at 7 pm on (where else?) TV2.
Rob Guest will be your host for the evening, guiding you through television highlights of the past 25 years and showing what a jolly good knees-up everyone had last weekend.
Happy Birthday 2 You is billed as a 90-minute "musical extravaganza", although there will be clips from shows which have, over the years, produced our own mini-Hollywood (and seat-fillers at many a theatre/comedy/music performance).
The show has been put together this week by Touchdown Productions, responsible for many of the TV2 shows of late, including Treasure Island, Whose House Is It Anyway? and Life On Tape.
Producer Darryl McEwen said tracking down 25 years of celebrities, including Chic Littlewood and Ray Woolf, proved an easy task. "They have all stayed in and around somewhere associated with the entertainment industry."
Their nostalgic journey was set to music, from Abba in 1975 to Robbie Williams in 2000.
The British performer, who arrives in town next week, did not make a guest appearance but that other well-known Williams chap, Mark, puts in an appearance, singing his Yesterday Was Just The Beginning Of My Life and other hits.
Also on the star-studded line-up were Peter Urlich from Th' Dudes, Jordan Luck and Rikki Morris.
"The idea was to load it all up with music for the night so the 350 guests who were there, and the television audience at home, felt it was a celebration and a party," said McEwen.
"It's very much a feelgood celebration. The whole idea of the show is there hasn't been a lot of entertainment television made in New Zealand recently, apart from the obvious one that no one talks about [McCormick Rips].
"In any of those live performances with TV shows, half of you is taking them to a party and the other half is taking them to the movies. The compromise is to get it just right so the audience at home feels part of it and that they're not watching a party."
