The Emerald City

It was a beautiful day yesterday and thanks to an awesome afternoon out in the sun, eating Jelly Tips, being blinded by the surf and talking Sport Drinks and Mello Yello with my workmates, I've been reminiscing non stop about being Kiwi Kid in the 70s and 80s. Everything was "choice", summers never ended and you could entertain yourself for hours, roller skating around the school grounds with your Mellow Yellow in your hand, playing elastics in the front yard in your blue towelling stubbies with white piping and generally and hanging out for Christmas and the exciting pile of presents under the wooden Christmas tree, then Easter so you could go to the Easter show and buy candy floss and sno cones and later, buy a Cadbury Creme Egg, and try to get goo all down your chin like the girl in the ad. And when your crate of Sport drink arrived each month, you'd always drink your favourites first, and give the ones you didn't like to your friends!

I vividly remember taking our first video player out of the box (it was bigger than me) and the first video I watched on it (Bed knobs and Broomsticks - it's lovely bobbing along, bobbing along on the bottom of the beautiful briney sea), followed by The Gnome Mobile (the gnome mobile, the gnome mobile, bobbing along in the gnome mobile!) and the Witch Mountain movies (I looked like Tia - so I was choice)!

Then, there was the longest drink in town, which for me was always a vanilla or lime milkshake (never was a chocolate gal) which my mum used to get for me at a little cafeteria in Takapuna beach. There was the ferry building in downtown Auckland which had a fireman's pole and a slide, Grundy's in Surfer's Paradise (where I excelled at bopping things on the head), holidays at Waingaro Hot Springs (balancing on the log) or Awakeri Hot Springs (to this day I swear I saw a UFO there, and not the sewing kind_! Then surprise weekends away in Rotorua, where my parents would pick me up from school early on Friday and we'd drive down in the mini or the ford, and let's not forget the Footrot Flats theme park with the world's dodgiest roller coaster.

I was a geek even back then and knew the words to Star Wars off by heart, had all the Star Wars read alongs (and many others, I could read from 3) and an ewok on my bed at all times. As I got older I expanded my movie horizons to include anything with Chevy Chase in it (my absolute favourites being Foul Play and Caddy Shack) and probably too many movies with Bill Murray. Han was always my first love though.

I've searched youTube and managed to find an old Mello Yello ad, some footage of Telethon '88 (check out Lisa Gibbons and Thingy!), and my absolute favourite ever NZ song, Sweet Lovers, by the Holiday Makers. There's also a bit of calssic Billy T and Patea Maori Club, some Mockers, some Dave & Herbs and even - a room that echoes (around and around and around with its own sound...)! The L&P ads are fairly recent, but they describe exactly what life was like... I'm trying to track down the rest of them and will post them as soon as I do!

OK, the Cadbury ad shown here is not really from my childhood (more like early 20s), but I love this particular ad (watch out for the bum wiggle and you'll know why)...

Some L&P ads





Mello Yello Ad (the girl in the black bikini)



Just Juice vs. Coconut




Cadbury Ad




Peking Man - Room That Echoes



Dave Dobbyn & Herbs - Slice of Heaven (Footrot Flats! Yusss)



The Mockers - Forever Tuesday Morning



Netherworld Dancing Toys - For Today



Patea Maori Club - Poi E



Holiday Makers - Sweet Lovers



Telethon '88 Higlights (set to Sweet Lovers!)




Billy T James - Te News



Billy T James - Where'd I get my bag? (Lands for Bags of course!)