NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Entertainment

<i>Rebecca Barry:</i> Snow joke on festive box

By Rebecca Barry Hill,
13 Dec, 2006 03:30 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

KEY POINTS:

Now before we all go getting wrapped up in the commercial nature of Christmas, let us take a moment to reflect on something meaningful: Christmas television.

Do TV programmers go on holiday before or after Christmas? You can use that rhetorical question as the prize in your cracker.
Now let us bow our heads and look at the line-up leading up to Jesus' big day (I've got him a Tickle Me Elmo).

Lots of movies, of course, many with snow. If you feel like taking that theme one step further there's a riveting doco on Christmas Eve called Pine or Pohutakawa (TV One, 5pm). "We're not really 'Dreaming of a White Christmas!" says the promo.

Wanna bet? Heaps of us are planning on going away at this time of year. Me no afford so me dream. So why the documentaries about crashing planes? In the past two weeks I have watched, mesmerised, a blow-by-blow account of a 737 having its ceiling ripped off over Hawaii in 1988. Thanks Prime. Then on Monday it was an equally morbid doco on TV One about the Ethiopian airliner that crashed into the sea after it was hijacked and ran out of fuel. In 1996. I find flying scary enough as it is with the lid on. So why screen them now? (And why the hell did I watch them?)

My theory is that the TV programmers have in-laws with a fear of flying but they're not convinced that will stop them from dropping in unannounced at Christmas. "Perhaps if I put on this freaky and very-lifelike-apart-from-the-bad-acting re-enactment of a plane crashing, they won't come up from Christchurch after all."

There's also, predictably, a large number of cooking shows on TV One: Nigella's Christmas Kitchen, Peta Mathias' A Taste of Christmas, Rick Stein's Food Heroes' Christmas. Guess they haven't heard of Foodrunner. And it probably explains all the diet shows (see X-Weighted, TV2, 7.30pm, Thursday week).

There are also some truly barmy pre-Christmas nibbles on offer. Prime has a Mythbusters Christmas Special of the northern hemisphere kind (think killer icicles and naked vs clothed snowmen). And how about the joy-crushing gem that is Target on Monday (TV3, 7.30pm), where they put a six-year-old actor and a hidden camera on Santa's knee to get the truth? Enough already, he's real!

Speaking of oldies, and this has nothing to do with Christmas, The West Wing is really starting to show its age. Jimmy Smits is finally the president-elect and he's about to deal with his first international crisis. But unlike the rest of us in late 2006, he doesn't laugh when he says "Kazakhstan".

Yep, on the big day, the idea is that most of us will be too busy trying on our new fluoro green g-strings to watch TV. We know it never pans out that way. You run out of things to say to the cousins you haven't seen since last Christmas. Your sister gives you something you're pretty sure you gave your sister last year. The turkey runs away so your mum insists on catching another one.

So, TV. Aside from what you'd expect to see on the box - and let's not forget Queenie's big-ups to the birthday boy at 6.50pm - TV One has Blackadder, Father Ted and a show about Vikings. TV2 has Muppets singing Christmas carols (no, Christmas in the Park was last week) followed by Pollyanna and Seabiscuit (the one about the racehorse).

TV3's Outrageous Fortune ends a cracker year with a two-hour Christmas special on Boxing Day. But the highlight is surely Triangle TV's Christmas marathon, featuring Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, one of the baddest movies of all time.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Lifestyle

Just 30 minutes a day of ‘Japanese walking’ may help you get in shape

Premium
Lifestyle

I gave up pasta for a month – this is what it does for your health

Lifestyle

NZ bodycare founder Tanné Snowden: 'Living with endometriosis doesn't mean you're broken'


Sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Premium
Premium
Just 30 minutes a day of ‘Japanese walking’ may help you get in shape
Lifestyle

Just 30 minutes a day of ‘Japanese walking’ may help you get in shape

Interval walking training is getting renewed attention online. Here's why.

15 Jul 06:00 PM
Premium
Premium
I gave up pasta for a month – this is what it does for your health
Lifestyle

I gave up pasta for a month – this is what it does for your health

15 Jul 06:00 AM
NZ bodycare founder Tanné Snowden: 'Living with endometriosis doesn't mean you're broken'
Lifestyle

NZ bodycare founder Tanné Snowden: 'Living with endometriosis doesn't mean you're broken'

15 Jul 02:00 AM


Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
Sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

01 Jul 04:58 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP