Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Jason Gunn the energetic Kiwi entertainer and TV host extraordinaire!

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

We chat to Jason Gunn about The infamous Thingee eye incident and his favourite decade! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hits, with the Jono and Ben podcast. Cheers to Dilma, making the world a better tea. Hey! There he is. There he is. Oh, so nice to talk to you. How are you? Been too long.

Been too long. Last time we ran into you was at the WorkSafe SightSafe Awards, awarding safety in the construction industry. And I tell you what, I was most impressed with your knowledge of overall safety. And things were safe. No one got injured? I don't think anyone got injured that night, but you were incredible that night because you spoke for like an hour, and to be honest, we were like,

oh, an hour by yourself, that's tough going. And you were just incredible. You had everyone captivated, telling your story, the emotional things you'd been through, and also great life advice as well it was amazing to watch oh bless you every now and then i just check out the back to see if you did not off but i say we've thought about it at the start let's be honest but no you kept us captivated this week we're on the radio and uh well clearly you know that now first thing out of the way uh and we're debating 90s versus noughties, you know, the better decade. Oh, shivers.

Wow. Because Son of a Gun, take it back, or Son of a Gun and Jace TV, I mean, that would have been through the 90s, right? Exactly. Yep, the launch of Jace. Yeah, absolutely. I remember I'd get home from school and you had a really cool, colourful, stripy T-shirt.

Yeah. Back then, I think fashion was more forgiving. You know, so you remember the striped shirt and the colourful shirt. Oh, vividly. I tried to get my mum to buy it. I was like, I want the same T-shirt as Jason Gunn. And I tried to get her to buy me one. It was a Reebok one from memory.

Look at you. My God. I don't know why it stuck with me. It was a Reebok one. Yeah. It was getting freaky. Because you would have been very young doing a TV show

back then. Did you kind of like, in a lot of ways, learn on the job? I'm not going to lie. So four gorgeous children now that I have, they're all doing great.

But every now and then, if I think they're getting a little bit too big for their boots, I remind them that their father at 18 had a television show with his name in it and none of you have that.

18? It's a lot to live up to. 18, mate. Straight out of school. Megan, who we work with, she's really nervous about talking to you today. No, it's not Megan. I grew up watching you

and you, to me, are like a real New Zealand celeb. Oh, stop. You know I don't believe in that word, Megan. No, no. But still, that's very kind of you. Well, you know, let's be honest. They were good, simpler days, weren't they? We gathered around a screen, and there wasn't as much going on.

I couldn't lose my audience to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. We lost a few good kids to the young and the restless. I'm not going to lie. And Mesh. Damn you Hawkeyes. You mentioned in your talk that we saw the other night that you always wanted to be that friendly, welcoming face when you

came home from school and you were that for so many kids. I always say to people when you talk to everyone, you talk to no one. So I always really tried to think about who's that one really special kid that I could go, hey, how are you doing? It's good to see you. And, you know, I'd really just try and talk to that one kid because there were a lot of one kids out there

who didn't have the love and the support and didn't have the self-belief. So I thought if I could just possibly connect with that one kid and on a bad day, try and turn it into a good day. And the most humbling thing over all the years has been the number of beautiful people who have grown up and said to me, hey, Jase, I just want to say, mate, they weren't all good days that I had growing up, but thanks for being there. And I just think the most beautiful thing, and I never take that for granted, and it's very humbling.

Let's not forget also about the wonderful Thingy, who, you know, for many, many years was right beside you as well. And you have mentioned this on our show before, but for people that haven't heard it, the eye-popping-out incident that everyone remembers wasn't actually on TV. It was from a blooper that you ended up releasing later, right? Yeah.

Many things happened in the making of the Son of a Gun show that really should not see the light of day, you know? And so you're like, okay, but it was prerecorded, so we could go back and do it again. So when Thingy's Eye popped out, we thought, yeah, no, that could terrify a child. We'll do that again. And then we did it again. And then about six months later, someone said, hey, no, that could terrify a child. We'll do that again.

And then we did it again. And then about six months later, someone said, hey, you know, the start of the end of television, we're making a bloopers show. And we thought, okay, you could have that blooper. Like, I don't think that's going to go anywhere. So that went on the bloopers show. YouTube came out soon after. And then Jeremy Wells had a show, Media Lunch that he put out and on the opening titles of that

he included thingies eye popping out and then everyone just remembered it as I remember thingies eye popping out but then I've spent the rest of my time going liar! and that's not actually what happened. Jason, okay

all of this being said and done, 90s or noughties, what are you going to put your good name behind? I'm going to go 90s. I'm going to go 90s because it was kind to me and so I can't turn my back on it. And I think the noughties started well, but I don't know. The wheels have fallen off. The wheels have fallen off, exactly.

So the 90s were kind to me. I'll be kind to the 90s. Let's lock in 90s. There we go. Always lovely to hear your voice. We love catching up with you. Thanks so much for your time. Love what you guys do and the difference you guys make.

Thanks, team.