Weekend Rewind: NZ's Real 1970s TV

Screening all through the late 1970s (and into the 80s) was the much-loved travelling game show <i>Top Town</i>.

TV3’s new drama Westside is set in the 1970s. But what was really on our TV screens back in the decade of flares and fondues? NZ On Screen Content Director Irene Gardiner takes a look back.

People who lived through the 1970s will no doubt have mixed feelings about the fact that the decade is now long enough ago for us to have a period drama set there. TV3's Outrageous Fortune prequel Westside opened in 1974 on Sunday night, and will move through the later 70s as the series progresses.

So, prompted by the fact that we now have a modern day TV show set in the 1970s, let's take a look back at what New Zealanders were actually watching at the time.

In 1974, Alistair Riddell and Space Waltz made people watching the New Faces section of the usually fairly tame Studio One talent show sit up and take notice. From the first blast of "watch out young love" it was pretty obvious these glam rockers were just a little bit different.

Here's Out on the Street by Space Waltz

A year on from the long hair and satin trousers of Space Waltz, the costuming was a little more average 1970s as our first TV soap opera Close to Home debuted. The series began in May 1975, and ran two nights a week. Middle New Zealand found its mirror in the life and times of Wellington's Hearte clan. This first episode sees the family gathering for Pop Hearte's 78th birthday.

Watch Close to Home - Episode One here:

By 1976, we had a slightly edgier local drama series on our screens, Moynihan, starring Ian Mune as a union organiser. The series was our first international co-production (with the ABC in Australia) and won TV awards for both the series and Mune's performance. Check out Leo Moynihan's orange mini and very 70s leather jacket.

View Moynihan here:

Screening all through the late 1970s (and into the 80s) was the much-loved travelling game show Top Town. This 1977 final, presented by Howard Morrison and radio host Paddy O'Donnell, features short shorts, jockettes, greasy poles, and "beautiful scorer" Theresa, who is "busting out all over" - oh dear, different times...

Watch the Top Town 1977 Final here:

Moving into 1978 now, and our drama producers decided to have a go at something rather more urban for the first time - Radio Waves, set in an Auckland commercial radio station, and featuring excellent afro hair-dos from stars Andy Anderson and Alan Dale (his TV debut).

You can see Radio Waves here:

The final episode of Westside is set in 1979, and by then things were changing a bit as the turn of the decade neared. Mi-Sex burst onto the scene with their (then) high-tech looking music video for Computer Games, taking lead singer Steve Gilpin a long way from his middle-of-the-road singing beginnings. The song was a huge hit for Mi-Sex, reaching number one in Australia, two in Canada and five in NZ.

Watch the music video for Computer Games here: