The comedian and writer takes us through her life in television, including the legacy of Flight of the Conchords and watching Breaking Bad with her grandfather.
Comedian Kura Turuwhenua came over-prepared for her first day in the writers room of Only in Aotearoa: Wāhine Edition. “My job was supposed to be just to bring in ideas for sketches and then bounce around with the other writers, but I was so nerd alert that I had fully fleshed out and written these sketches that I wanted to make,” she laughed. “Everyone else was like, ‘bruh, were we meant to do this?’”
One of the ideas she brought to the table was Tīkanga Police, a Police 10-7 inspired sketch following a new department of the New Zealand police formed as a result of te tiriti redresses. In episode one, the force investigates teens slapping each other with tortillas for social media clout. “You think Rua Kēnana ever slapped someone around with a piece of kai?” asks Officer Muggs. “Pae kare” (by golly).
Of all the sketches she wrote for the third season of Whakaata Māori’s local sketch series, Tikanga Police remains Turuwhenua’s favourite. “It was the one where I got to say the most about how I grew up and what I was raised believing as tika, or correct, and what is not tika,” she explains. “I thought it was so cool to turn them into a bit of an antihero, because they care more about tikanga more than they care about anything else.”
Only in Aotearoa: Wahine Edition is just the latest TV project that stand-up comedian and writer has been involved in. At just 22 years old, Turuwhenua has already worked on 7 Days, Friends Like Her and Spinal Destination, and is currently writing a “very, very secret” sitcom. Luckily, she was happy to share her life in TV, including the legacy of Flight of the Conchords and why she watches Breaking Bad with her grandfather.
My earliest TV memory is… I walked into my uncle and my cousins watching Nightmare on Elm Street on TV. I know there’s like a bajillion of them, so I’ve got no idea which one it was. Someone will know based on the following description, which was that the room was like a massive bug trap, and the floor was sticky and bright orange, and these massive cockroaches started walking towards the characters. That’s my first TV memory.
The show that I used to rush home to watch is… America’s Funniest Home Videos. Always the same thing – people falling over and having terrible things happen to them. It was awesome. Now the market is totally oversaturated because of the internet. I mean, you can watch people die. You don’t just see misfortune, you see mortality if you want to. Can’t do that on TV.
The TV moment that haunts me is… I remember this cooking show with this guy who made really otherworldly dining experiences. In this episode, he made a movie theatre where people could watch a movie and experience the smells and tastes coming from the film. But in the film, they were in this mediaeval alleyway in a marketplace selling like fish and it was disgusting, and there was a shot of someone vomiting. Then they cut back to this movie theatre, and they start serving all these dishes based on that scene. I swear I have never felt so untethered or unsettled than when I watched that moment on TV.
My earliest TV crush was… It has got to be Shego from Kim Possible. There’s just no going past her. She’s got her little neon green and black colour palette, and she’s so lesbian-coded.
My favourite NZ TV ad is… This was my favourite all the way through growing up, until I watched it recently and was like, “wow, this is incredibly dark”. It’s the one where they’re at the party, and the dude is swinging the kid around and then he goes flying into the cupboard. And when I was a kid, I thought it was the funniest I’ve ever seen in my life. But I rewatched it back, like a month ago, I was like, “wow, that is really something”.
My TV guilty pleasure is… Randomly, it’s Love Island Australia. The Australian way of being is a little bit more ratchet than New Zealanders, because they have a little bit more of a bimbo culture with the Botox girls and the ripped dudes. It’s just awesome to watch this weird human experiment about what happens when you put all the hot people in a box together.
My favourite TV character of all time is… I think it’s just because we watched it recently. But I cannot get Walter White out of my head. I’m watching Breaking Bad with my grandfather at the moment, which is quite an interesting pairing, and he’s just like “these people are terrible… please play the next episode.” But the writing nerd in me is so impressed to see what can happen when you get to fully flesh out a character. I feel like Walter White is what you can do when you get given everything to work with. He’s a wonderfully written, yet completely terrible, character.
The most stylish person on television is… My mate Courtney Dawson. Every time I see her, I’m like “wow, I wish that I had your clothes”. And sometimes I actually do take her clothes. I’m actually wearing her pants right now.
My favourite TV project I’ve ever worked on is… The Hui, which is quite random, because that’s journalism and not comedy. But it was my first job, and I was an edit assist, so I was captioning videos and chopping up little promo videos. I feel like that show meant the most to me because it had a real world impact on Māori people and it was actually telling their stories and current events. That’s the show that I am probably the proudest to have ever contributed to.
A TV project I wish I could have been involved in is… I would love to have worked on The Eric Andre show. It’s that, or Ziwe. With Eric Andre in particular, he’s so hectic, and he messes with his guests so much. I just wish I could be in the room to watch that process and also to be in the writers room to see how those ideas start on paper.
My most viral social media post is… It was a video I put out like a month or two ago about my name. I was just making a joke about how people always ask me if I have a shorter name I can give them, but the one I’ve given them already is the shorter name. On Instagram I think 28 million people watched it, and over a million people have liked it.
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The funniest TV show of all time is… Flight of the Conchords. Both seasons just hit and then they just didn’t make any more, which I think was perfect. They just captured everything that they did so well, and then gapped and got famous as and rich as. That show definitely shaped a lot of my comedy, but also New Zealand comedy as a whole.
My most controversial television opinion is… I adore bro’Town. Because I grew up watching it, I forgive it for all of its sins. That show has a special place in my heart, and honestly is one of the best shows that has ever come out of this country.
A show I will never watch, no matter how many people tell me to… Potentially Bridgerton, but then I’m also intrigued by it. The contrarian in me is just like “nah, you like it too much so I don’t like it” which is so unjustified. I have no reason to behave like that, it’s just who Kura Turuwhenua is.
The last thing I watched on TV was… Episode nine of Shōgun. It was great. I’m really sad to be at the end of it, because it is such a beautifully made show. I love that it’s all in Japanese, I love the level of detail in the sets and the costumes. My, my, my, it’s so good.