Play School (New Zealand TV series) facts for kids

Play School was a New Zealand educational television show for children. It was based on the British Play School show.

Program Synopsis

It was first broadcast in New Zealand on Tuesday 22 March 1972 and series one and two continued to be broadcast twice weekly, Tuesday and Thursday at approx. 4.30pm. It was originally filmed at AKTV2's Shortland Street studios in Auckland, and in later years, at what was then TVNZ's Dunedin Studio being screened twice a day at around 10am and then 2:30pm. The last series screened on television in 1990.

The show was provided by the BBC in "kitset" form. They supplied scripts and also short filmed items for showing "through the windows".

The show starred five toys, which are famously nostalgic for New Zealanders who watched the program as children. They are:

• Big Ted: A traditional-style golden coloured teddy bear
• Little Ted: Identical to Big Ted, but much smaller
• Manu: A very human-looking plastic doll with Māori features, such as dark skin and hair
• Jemima: A rag doll with orange woollen hair
• Humpty: A round green fabric toy resembling Humpty Dumpty.

Today, Big Ted, Manu, Jemima, and Humpty are part of a collection at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, New Zealand. The museum also has a large collection of clothing and props from the show. Little Ted's head was blown up by the film crew after the completion of the final series and can be seen at the Otago Settlers Museum in Dunedin. The original clock from the series was discovered at a library in Invercargill in August 2009.

In 2005, TV2 started to screen the Australian version of Play School. It features New Zealand presenter Jay Laga'aia who has been on the show since 2000, though the Australian version is significantly different from the New Zealand version, which was similar to the British format of the seventies and eighties.

Cast

The founding presenters were Waric Slyfield and Janet Milne. They presented most of the programmes made in the first year of production (1972), with some presented by Ken Rea and Val Lamond. Waric and Janet were joined the following year by Jan Johnston, Ray Woolf and Elizabeth Rogers.

Pianists included Ossie Cheesman and Jonathan Cohen.

Other presenters included :

• Timothy Bartlett
• Gabriel Alston
• Ian Kingsford-Smith
• Jeremy Brownbrook (née Brookes)
• Barry Dorking
• Kristen Gillespie
• Theresa Healey
• Jacqui Dean (née Hay)
• John Mann
• Jayashree Panjabi
• Kathryn (sp?) Rawlings
• Ian Taylor
• Pauline Nitis
• Rawiri Paratene
• Mike Rehu
• Tania Robin
• Laughan Stockham (sp?)
• Russell Smith
• Marcus Turner
• Eilish Moran

Musicians

• Russell Sheppard
• Ian (Eli) Gray-Smith
• Neville Copeland
• Graeme Perkins
• Murray Wood (deceased in CTV building, Canterbury Earthquake)