The bizarre story of the Kiwibank sheep that conquered the world
Toby Manhire speaks to Hayden Donnell about the saga of Buck the sheep, and to Lyric Waiwiri-Smith about the case for making political party campaign buses mandatory.
20 Oct 2026
More about the episode
Advertising campaigns are meant to capture the popular imagination, just not like this. A bank called Kiwi, a green sheep called Buck and giddy humans combined over recent days to create a strange fable for our times. Hayden Donnell joins Toby to walk us through the story that went from a pocket of the internet, via his post for the Spinoff (headline: “Kiwibank is desperately trying to stop people saying they want to f*** its sheep mascot”) and all the way to the John Oliver show.
Plus: Lyric Waiwiri-Smith steps off the big pink bus to lay down the gauntlet in How Good, asking should huge campaign vehicles in fact be obligatory?
At Large with Toby Manhire is produced by Te Aihe Butler, Zoe Madden-Smith and The Spinoff.
