In the days before 24-hour television, there was Goodnight Kiwi, a short animation from Sam Harvey that bade viewers goodnight once the day's broadcasting ended. Each night the plucky Kiwi shut up shop at the TV station, put out the milk, and caught the lift up to sleep in a satellite dish with The Cat. For a generation of kids, Goodnight Kiwi became a much-loved symbol of staying up well past your bedtime. Viewers never questioned why our nocturnal national icon was going to bed at night, or sharing a bed with a cat. The tune is an arrangement of Māori lullaby 'Hine e Hine'.
I hope you can see it
Lovely..where else but Aotearoa/New Zealand would you see such gentle humour
ReplyDeleteI think it is priceless.
ReplyDeleteIt seems from another age. Children these days are probably just shouted at, to get off their phones!
ReplyDeleteI know which I prefer.
Deleteoh I use to love watching it. Without my parents knowing when I was about 12 I use to stay up after they'd gone to bed to watch radio with pictures then sunday horrors and then the kiwi.
ReplyDeleteI am sure lots of children would have done the same.
DeleteI doubt that its creators realized how profound it is but it perhaps serves as a model for a world seemingly more focused on differences that the myriad similarities than unite us all. And the music is quite lovely.
ReplyDelete