At 2pm every day this week, The Spinoff will be counting down 100 local television moments of the decade. Today, moments 80-81. 

Previously: The 100 NZ TV moments of the decade, #100 – #81

80) Behind Jeff’s Eyes, 2018

The first season of the Great Kiwi Bake Off was notable for many charming things (the hosts, the judges, the vibe), and two chilling ones: each of Jeff’s piercing blue eyes. They seemed a colour found no one else on earth, blazing out from our televisions into our souls. Until, suddenly, they were just normal… / Duncan Greive

79) Man gets up and leaves Firstline, 2012

A classic news blooper for the ages and, just when you think it’s over, he loudly drops his mic pack. Bellissima. / Alex Casey

78) Iyia Liu gets a butt lift, 2019

It is a sequence that will be forever seared into my memory from the first season of TVNZ’s Boss Babes. Iyia Liu, influencer and #girlboss entrepreneur, having her butt cheeks violently pumped with her own fat to give her the Instagram curves of her dreams. A harrowing look behind the influencer curtain and the twisted reality of body image for young women in the Instagram age. Never forget the bloodied full-body pad she had to lie on in her hotel room. Never seen anything like it before, hope I never have to see anything like it again. / AC

77) Infomercial queen Suzanne Paul uses a vacuum to lift a car off the ground, 2018 

“Like God’s creation of Adam, Suzanne connects the electrical cords. The power is unleashed, the crane begins to lift, and the two-tonne SUV moves slowly off the ground. The suction holds. Suzanne Paul is defying gravity. “Look at that!” she screams. “It’s actually working!”” / Tara Ward

76) C-U-N-T magnets on Shortland Street

They stand for charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent and maybe an art department team quietly revolting against their Ferndale overlords. / Sam Brooks

75) Oprah bombs Te Kāea news, 2015

Just the world’s biggest TV star casually interrupting a live broadcast, no big deal. / TW

74) Abstain for the game 

Sean Fitzpatrick driving around in a giant fist, asking New Zealanders to refrain from fucking for the All Blacks… Can’t see how that became a problem for Telecom. / DG

73) Target’s hidden cameras catch a carpet cleaner doing the opposite of cleaning, 2012

Somehow I managed to escape watching this horror show until the end of the decade, and I’m not sure I’ll recover for another 10 years. Target’s hidden camera trials were well known for checking up on dodgy tradies, but this particular episode will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. Absolute filth, and I’m not talking about the carpets. Read the whole horrifying story here. / TW

72) Dogs driving cars on Campbell Live

We will have more on Campbell Live later in the week, but it is important to remember this seminal moment for canines nationwide, and equally important to remember that these dogs are better drivers than I am. / AC

71) Harper 2 fuckity boo, 2019

No explanation needed. / AC

70) The strangest live cross of the decade

Paul Henry and Jesse Peach at the 2014 APRA Silver Scrolls was one of the more bizarre things to have happened on television in the 2010s, “a shambolic piece of meta-reporting, unintentionally revealing the dark truth that sometimes no one involved in a piece of television is remotely invested in the outcome”. / DG

69) Surreal Chanui ads, 2017

They have since moved on to more sophisticated pastures (biscuits), but it is important to remember a time when the Chanui ads were bizarrely homespun and severely discombobulating to a humble person blobbing out on their humble couch. “Can we just all agree straight away: the Chanui ads are really fucking weird,” Lucy Zee wrote for us in 2017. “Basically it’s just a guy telling us to buy his tea and about three people seemingly held at gunpoint telling the camera why they love the tea so much.” / AC

68) The Briscoes Lady does Running Man live on Breakfast, 2016

Name a more iconic trio: The Briscoes Lady, Running Man, Rawdon Christie. Nobody remembers what the Running Man phenomenon was all about, but anything that makes The Briscoes Lady dance like there’s a Half Price Midnight Madness Sale on is fine by me. / AC

67) My kingdom for a cheesecutter hat

Theatre! On the telly! Who would think this would make a decade-end moment? But thanks to Pop-Up Globe founder Miles Gregory and his ubiquitous cheesecutter hat, and Penny Ashton giving him the riot act about using #metoo imagery to promote an all-male version of Measure for Measure, we got one. It was such an explosive moment (propelled by an article on this very site) that it managed to change the company’s hiring procedure for the better – 50/50 gender split casting from now on. / SB

66) Westside takes on the Springbok tour  

One of the assets of Westside, especially compared to Outrageous Fortune, is that it could be a window into history and a way to dramatize it without going the whole telly-feature road about it. Westside pulled it off, giving us not only a window into the Springbok Tour, but giving a kaleidoscope of views split across race, gender and class. It’s one of the peaks of the show, and the whole Westside franchise, and near justifies the prequel’s existence.

65) Pam Corkery calls a reporter a “puffed up little shit” during the election campaign, 2014

That’s us told, then. / TW

64) Anika does Helen Clark impression to Helen Clark

Anika Moa is the interviewer of the decade (televised, Kim Hill still rules over the radio waves with an iron glare and a smoker’s voice). Nowhere is this more obvious than when she did a Helen Clark impression, just the right blend of on-point and wildly over-the-top, right to the former prime minister’s face. She’s irreverent, but she knows her shit well enough to nail them to the wall, and most importantly, she’s damn funny. / SB

63) Bieber L&P, 2014 

“Just as Alicia launches into a treatise about it being a ginger-beerish lemon concoction, the shit hitteth the fanneth. Bieber twists open the shaken bottle of L&P and it sprays up hill and down dale – on his t-shirt, his jeans, his dog tags, the couch, the floor. He shoots up to his feet and holds it at arm’s length like a violently spewing baby. He’s pissed.” / AC

62) This incredible guy on Police 10/7, TVNZ2

I revisit this beautiful bird of the night every time that I am feeling down, and it works every single time. What if I pulled a bag of meth out? What if indeed. / AC

61) Lionel Skeggins returns to Shortland Street 

They said it would never happen. They said it wasn’t really him. I know what I saw, but only one man knows the truth. Do you know the muffin man? / TW