Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - We catch up with 'Newsboy' Jeremy Wells!

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

We chat to Jeremy Wells about not being welcomed back in a small NZ town, what young newsboy would say about being on 7 sharp, and how wild NZ TV used to be! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Jono and Ben podcast, hey that's us, brought to you by HelloFresh, the experts and tastes that Kiwis love. It's an honour to have the one and only Jeremy Wells with us, good morning. G'day Jono, how are you? We're doing well mate, it's always lovely to see your face. I must apologise, I must front foot this by saying I captured you in reception the other day and really got you down an AI hole. He's a punisher, get him started on AI. I an AI hole. He's a punisher. Get him started on AI. I'm sorry, Jeremy.

And you're such a lovely guy. You felt obliged to continue the conversation. I thought that was me punishing you. No, great, great. That's funny. Look, I love talking about AI. Jeez, that's the conversation du jour, isn't it? Well, it wouldn't have been a conversation in the 90s. No.

Wouldn't have been worried about AI in 1996. We'll take you back. Have a good news boy. Now, how young were you when you first started? Well, you must have been like 18, 19, wouldn't you? I think so. I think I was. I think maybe I was, I must have been 20.

What a dream gig at that age. It was a good gig, actually, looking back on it. But at the time, I just really wanted to go and hang out with my mates. So I was like, oh, God, I've got to go away again for a month. I really just want to hang out in my flat and you know do stuff do stuff sleep and cook a lot of time around an oven like i was listening to a great podcast between two beers and they were saying you were brought on as a researcher at first. Mikey's like, because you were reading the news for him on the radio,

and he was like, come on board as a researcher. Hardly a researcher. I think I was doing a Bachelor of Communications at the time. And so he's like, oh, do you want to be involved? I was like, absolutely. This is a great thing. So then I was doing some research, and then next thing you know, I was doing some kind of reports, and that was how it all started.

Because I remember watching you guys And wondering You'd always do these naughty things And I was like Do you get in trouble for that? Well, no Some people said Oh, you probably shouldn't have done that And we said

Oh, well, we just kind of got carried away And they went Oh, yuck There was so much money in TV in those days In those days Wild times Because obviously you did that And then you went and

The show sort of transformed into You two touring around the country as well On the sellout tours. It was actually, and originally it was a show called Rust in My Car. But I mean, the thing that we're most famous for, this gay gore piece that we did, was a complete accident. It really came off the back of the Miss New Zealand contest, 1998 Miss New Zealand contest at the Dunedin Workingmen's Club that we went to. We had a huge night. Nobody slept.

Next thing you know, we're being driven down to the southernmost point of the South Island slope point. And on the way, they just stopped by this trout that set up a shot. And I actually don't remember the bit. I have no memory of why we were saying what we were saying or anything like that.

And when it came to be edited, I was surprised. So you'd said Gore was the gay capital of New Zealand. Yeah. That's just to bring the audience up to speed. And Gore, they weren't happy at the time. No. But the mayor at the time, Mary Ogg, said, we are not the gay capital.

We are not. We're the country western capital or the brown track capital. But we are not. We are not gay. I think her quote was, there are no gay people in Gore. Different place. Different place. Different time, different... Yeah, we're glad we've all moved on.

We've done the studies. There's not one. Jeez. Not one. Meanwhile, Mike Puru is sitting there watching this. From gore. I'd better move out of gore. He's the head boy of gore high or whatever it's called.

And so that's the Havoc and Newsboy of the 90s. Then transitioning into the noughties, Eating Media Lunch had its own controversies as well. And I remember you got into the show Sensing Murder, which was about psychics and them sort of trying to solve crimes telepathically. And then the person came up to you, the psychic came up to you. Yeah, that's right. Deb Weber.

Not happy. No, she wasn't. Well, yeah, I think we called it sensing BS. And she, it was a very popular show, that. Yeah. Hugely popular show. But they always just seem to fall short when it came to actually finding the body. Or just finding out that final thing.

Oh, no, we've run out of time. Keep looking. Keep going. We've got more time. No, no, no, we've run out of time. Sorry. We'll have to move on to a new murder next week. So, and then, yeah, she didn't like it.

And then she came up to me. I think it was at the TV Awards. And she just said, hi, I'm Deb Weber. And I said, oh, no no i know who you are and then she just laid her she laid a kind of a really intense pash on me it was but it was it was a hate pash have you guys ever been i know i think i probably could have had her up on charges But anyway

I didn't But yeah it was this really I could just feel the hatred coming through her lips It was really intense But I say 90s 90s 90s for me For some reason I remember more of it than I do the 2000s

Jeremy Wells This has been a pleasure Thank you so much for coming in Thanks for having me