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Pop CultureJuly 19, 2024

The shocking truth about Mitre 10’s ‘Bring on the Weekend’ jingle

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There’s more to this Friday afternoon catch cry than meets the eye. Alex Casey reports.

Every now and then you come across a novel piece of information that shifts the parameters of your universe. It’s a feeling so thrilling, so expansive, so addictive, that there’s a whole genre of Spinoff story devoted to it. You won’t believe what the K in K Bars stands for. You won’t believe why wine biscuits are called wine biscuits. You won’t believe the secrets of the Canterbury logo. You won’t believe the truth about the Frosty Boy. 

In the wise words of a wise man, we must treasure these moments like a jewel. There are so few happy surprises left that unearthing a brand new fun fact these days is worth its weight in Trumpet chocolate tips (which also contain a fun fact in themselves). It’s been a long, dry, fun fact-free few months until my beloved, during his customary Friday afternoon flurry of memes about the pending weekend, sent me this life-changing Spotify link:

That’s right. For over a decade Mitre 10’s “BRING ON THE WEEKEND” has been a beloved catch cry for weekend lovers nationwide, but he had discovered that the phrase is in fact just ONE SINGLE LINE in an enormously good three minute 15 second FULL SONG containing a MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS about bringing on the weekend. We’re talking multiple verses, we’re talking an anthemic chorus, we’re talking one captivating hero’s journey to DIY discovery. 

Well it’s five o’clock on a Friday
Only one thing on my mind
I’m heading home, I’m outta here
Stick it where the sun don’t shine
All my girls are waiting
My spanner and my hammer too
And oh my little darling drill
She knows just what to do 

The song was written by veteran jingle legend Murray Grindlay, a man responsible for thousands of bangers including the Great Crunchie Train Robbery ad, Speight’s ‘Southern Man’ and “I’m the polar pop bear”. Grindlay didn’t even realise that the full ‘Bring on the weekend’ song had been uploaded to his Spotify account and was currently sitting at over 2000 listens. “I had to listen to it last night because I’d forgotten it,” he laughed. “But I liked it, it was cool.” 

Well I wake up Saturday morning
A little late, I had a beer with the boys
I can hardly wait to get my hands on
All my precious toys
‘What will I do first’ I’m thinking
To make a house a home
Then it’s decided for me
In my darling’s dulcet tones

Grindlay remembered getting this particular brief around 2009, with two creatives from advertising agency FCB visiting his Freeman’s Bay home – the kind of thing that happens when you’ve been writing jingles since the 1970s. “They just said, ‘we want a real New Zealand, good old sort of number eight wire thing’” he said. It was an open brief, but with one non-negotiable: “we want you to call it ‘bring on the weekend’.”

Ironically, Grindlay is so averse to the proud New Zealand tradition of home renovation that his own wife calls him “DIY free” at home. “I’m the world’s worst person at DIY, but I’m not too worried about it,” he said. “If I manage to get something right – only a simple thing, like changing a bulb or something – I’ve got this thing that I’ve invented called the DIY walk. It’s a swaggering sort of a walk, a sort of ‘look at this, how do you like that?’”

Despite his DIY deficiencies, Grindlay had no problem channelling a bloke fanging to hit the tools on a Friday. ‘Bring on the Weekend’ arrived fully formed during his first solo writing session – “I just started strumming and out it came,” he said. As did the “hard case” protagonist of the song. “It’s all about him getting home to all his tools and he’s deciding what to do… I had tremendous fun filling that blank piece of paper.” 

Was he really leaning into a borderline parody of the New Zealand male myth and DIY? “Oh yeah, totally.”

And so I take a coin out of my pocket
And I flip it in the air
Heads means ‘do’
And tails does too
Then a hand comes from nowhere
I look into my baby’s eyes
She’s got my coin and then
She said ‘I thought we might go shopping’
What?
‘… shopping at Mitre 10!’

“That’s the big moment of the last verse – he thinks he’s in trouble, but that’s a false alarm,” explained Grindlay. “And so then he comes storming in going ‘I love that woman so much!’”

Once the song was complete, he took it to the agency and played it for a room of 12 suits. “That was no mean feat, because that last ‘bring on the weekend’ part is quite high,” he said. “But they all applauded when I finished, so that was also a good sign.” 

The final version was sung by Pluto’s Milan Borich, who had a more suitable register for the final triumphant “BRING ON THE WEEKEND” sting that would punctuate Mitre 10 ads for years to come. “You never want your sting to be too ordinary, you know? I usually like to use blue notes for stings, unusual ones, and that’s what that one is too,” explained Grindlay. “It’s a classic blue note – de da da DEE DAA.” 

The note may be blue, but the energy and impact of ‘Bring on the Weekend’ remains quite the opposite. “It was a good one, it would definitely be in my top 20, maybe number 19,” said Grindlay. He was humbled to hear that early positive reviews from my colleagues at The Spinoff (largely summarised as “huge tune”) were rolling in, and that it was even getting added to the office Friday afternoon playlist.

There was only one question remaining: plans for the weekend? 

“Oh, watching the rugby.” 

No DIY? 

“None at all.”

Keep going!
Contenders, ready! Gladiators, ready! (Photo: TVNZ)
Contenders, ready! Gladiators, ready! (Photo: TVNZ)

Pop CultureJuly 19, 2024

What’s the biggest, baddest star of Gladiators doing in New Zealand?

Contenders, ready! Gladiators, ready! (Photo: TVNZ)
Contenders, ready! Gladiators, ready! (Photo: TVNZ)

As the revival of Gladiators lands on TVNZ+, we meet the star of the original 90s series who now calls Aotearoa home.

This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here.

During the 90s, there was no more exciting show on television than Gladiators. It was the fast-paced, high energy British series that saw everyday people take on “superhuman” athletes in a series of brutal and bonkers physical challenges. These brave contenders hung in the air, raced up steep walls and ran through gauntlets in a desperate attempt to prove their physical prowess against the all-powerful gladiators. It was frenetic, it was fierce. It was literally survival of the fittest.

Thirty years later, Gladiators is back, and it’s as much of a cheesy delight as it ever was. This is pure, unbridled entertainment with more muscles than you can shake a pugil stick at, and somehow, the revival feels both fresh and nostalgic. Nearly 10 million British viewers watched the 2024 series, making the show the BBC’s biggest entertainment hit in years.

Nobody knows the power of Gladiators better than Michael van Wijk, aka Wolf, the biggest and baddest star of the original series. Having emigrated to New Zealand nearly two decades ago, van Wijk was busy cooking a hearty meal when I called him to reminisce about his time on one of Britain’s biggest ever TV shows. What exactly does a gladiator eat for lunch? “Chicken, eggs, every vegetable going,” he tells me, his voice warm and friendly and nothing like the scary Wolfman who used to growl at that nice Scottish referee on the TV.

Wolf (centre) is told off by Gladiators referee John Anderson and host John Fashanu (Image: YouTube)

In the early 90s, van Wijk was working in a health club when a client suggested he apply for a new TV show based on the popular series American Gladiators. Having already missed the closing date for applications, van Wijk simply sent in a poster of himself from the cover of computer game Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior. It did the trick. After competing against 800 others in a series of intense fitness trials (“I won every event, except one I came second in”), van Wijk was one of 12 athletes chosen to be Britain’s first ever television gladiators.

At 39, van Wijk was the oldest of the bunch. While his younger colleagues embraced powerful gladiatorial names like Amazon, Vulcan, Cobra and Panther, van Wijk was determined that Wolf would be the show’s big, bad villain. “I thought, what can I do to stand out among these very talented, good looking people? I’ve got to make my character so strong that they’ve got no choice but to keep bringing it back.”

Initially, the producers were reluctant for the gladiators to have a negative image, but playing the pantomime villain worked a treat for van Wijk. From the very first episode, Wolf trash-talked his competition, broke all the rules and threw tantrum after tantrum, and the crowd couldn’t get enough. They booed his bad behaviour and roared when he was disqualified, giving him a hearty thumbs down with their giant foam fingers. Beneath his terrifying demeanour, van Wijk was delighted. “The result [of the game] was irrelevant. If they were entertained, then they enjoyed themselves.”

There’s no doubt that Wolf’s unpredictable antics helped to make Gladiators a huge hit. Premiering in October 1992, the family-friendly show quickly became appointment viewing every Saturday night in Britain, and at its peak, pulled in an impressive 14 million viewers each week. In an era where there were only four TV channels to choose from, Gladiators was everywhere: action figures, books, CDs and cassettes, T-shirts, collectibles, board games, a children’s TV spinoff and even commemorative clocks.

Wolf (centre) with the cast of Gladiators (Photo: Supplied)

It all meant instant fame for van Wijk, who suddenly couldn’t walk across the street without being mobbed by Gladiators fans. “If I went to the shopping mall, there were hundreds of people who recognised me,” he recalls. That recognition followed him around the world, even during a holiday to Aotearoa. “I went into a gym to buy some protein bars, and a guy said ‘oh, hi Wolf’. I thought, ‘how do you know who I am?’ The show was on here, and I didn’t realise.”

10,000 frenzied fans filled the Gladiator arena for every live show, and Wolf never missed an episode during the show’s eight year run. Even when van Wijk was injured, Gladiator producers wanted him out in the stadium, knowing that people had come especially to see Wolf eat the referee’s yellow card or throw his helmet at the camera or wind up the crowd. It was a role van Wijk was happy to play. “You’re the main character,” he says. “The others just had to accept it. The baddie is number one, because people love a baddie.”

Wolf (right) fights it out with the pugil stick (Image: YouTube)

Gladiators ended in 2000, although Wolf returned to the lair in 2008 for a special Gladiators Legends revival. After he packed his lycra leotard away for good, van Wijk took another holiday to New Zealand with his family and decided to stay. He went on to open a series of gyms in Auckland, as well as a Chipmunks Playground, the original gladiatorial arena for preschoolers.

Wolf’s legacy lives on in the Gladiators revival, with new gladiator Viper channeling Wolf’s iconic villain energy. As for van Wijk? Despite no longer having Wolf’s trademark long hair, he’s still recognised in Britain (“the minute I get off the plane,” he chuckles) and the photos on his Instagram suggests the 71-year-old would still thrash any contender in a pugil stick challenge. “Just because the series stopped, doesn’t mean I stopped being an athlete,” van Wijk tells me as we end our chat. I believe him, of course. Who would argue with the big bad Wolf?

Gladiators screens on Thursdays at 7.30pm on TVNZ2 and streams on TVNZ+.

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