On The Ladder host Brodie Kane takes a walk down television memory lane, from a nightmare news interview to never getting over Food in a Minute.
You may remember Brodie Kane from such TVNZ stalwarts as One News, Breakfast and Fair Go. Kane has had a storied life on television as a roving reporter and do-it-all kind-of gal, whether that means sipping wine in a live cross from the Marlborough Sounds for her final Breakfast segment, or coming second place on Dancing With The Stars. These days, Kane is better known as the prolific podcast host behind The Girls Uninterrupted and Kiwi Yarns, but recently she’s brought her presenting powers back to television with the launch of On the Ladder with Kiwibank.
The series airs on Sunday nights on Three and looks at the unique ways New Zealanders are entering the country’s competitive housing market without the typical nuclear family dynamic. For Kane, who has bought homes with her mum on two occasions, getting involved with the show was a “no-brainer.” “I know firsthand how impossible it is, as someone that’s on their own or not in a traditional [dynamic], to get on the ladder,” Kane says.
She and her mum, Jo, bought a home together in Auckland earlier this year, after living together in Waiuku Beach house following her parents’ separation. “For a long time, buying a house was sold to you as something you have to do with your husband, or you have to do it this way, or you have to do it that way,” Kane says. “People look at it like it is scary, and people also look at it as if it’s almost like a life sentence.”
The series will see Kane meet a bunch of New Zealanders, friends and family, who are exploring a new wave of home co-ownership. You can even do it as a 30-something moving back in with their olds, if you look at the bright side of things – Jo loves folding the laundry. And most importantly, you’re too old for them to dictate what you can and can’t watch on TV anymore. Before On the Ladder with Kiwibank’s launch earlier this month, Kane took us on a trip down television memory lane with a plea for the return of Allyson Gofton, a nightmare interview with a couple of walnuts and why she’ll never watch Modern Family.
The TV show I rushed home from school to watch was… What Now. That was everything, wasn’t it? You’d get home, make your two minute noodles and be like, “let’s go”. When I was watching it, you had three hours of it on Sunday and then after school, and it was filmed in Christchurch, so we were always waiting for our school to get called up. Eventually we did get called up for it, and that was the pinnacle of fucking life for a primary school kid. I got my pants filled with gunge … The only slightly embarrassing thing is that someone found the footage a year or so ago, and a hole [in my pants] burst in the front, and it looked like I was peeing.
My earliest TV crush was… It was a tie between Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Devon Sawa. I remember having JTT – that was his nickname – and Devon posters that you used to get out of a magazine, and they would go up on the wall. Then I think they got replaced with Leonardo DiCaprio.
The TV moment from my own career that haunts me… This is quite a deep cut: I was doing that dreaded thing that you have to do as a journalist, and interviewing some close family of someone who died in a car crash. I was interviewing a husband and wife, and they were sitting on the concrete steps outside their house. The man had on a pair of stubbies, and possibly not any underwear because about three questions into the interview, I realised his nuts were resting outside of his shorts and on the concrete. Just a couple of walnuts, and I had to keep interviewing him about his family member that had died. That would be it, I’d say.
The TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… Do you think Food in a Minute counts? Allyson Gofton, she would actually pump out Food in a Minute. She had 60 seconds before the news, and what was so epic about it, in my opinion, was having one of the greatest jingles. Like, the song is epic. They should bring it back.
My TV guilty pleasure is… Below Deck. Our amazing Aesha Scott is the best, she’s a rock star, so I love all of her seasons. But I also love how you can come home from a really busy or really heavy day, and you can put it on and it just takes you there. You can be deeply hungover or lying in your own puke and it’ll get you through that as well.
The most stylish people on television are… Peaky fookin’ Blinders. That was some cool fashion.
My proudest TV moment is… Getting second on Dancing With the Stars. Dancing to Tina Turner’s ‘Proud Mary’ and looking sexy as all hell in a teeny, tiny dress with backup dancers, and having the absolute time of my life.
The show I wish I was involved with is… I would have loved to have been on Game of Thrones. I don’t know what I would have been, but I imagine it would be fascinating.
My most controversial TV opinion is… One Day was so shit. It was so long, not a good love story, poorly done and it was a waste of my time and I hated every minute of it. The worst thing is that I was about four episodes into it and talking about how shit it was, and Clint Randell was like, “oh my God, you’ve got to stick with it”. It was miserable the whole way through. My other take is that we’re making too many shows that should just be movies. One that’s just come out that I really enjoyed – Nobody Wants This – is a fucking movie in episode form. I mean, it still hooked me, but One Day is still the most overrated love story out there.
The show I’ll never watch, no matter how many people tell me to is… I’ve never watched Modern Family, and I don’t think I would like it. Obviously, Friends was a massive part of my growing up, but shows like 30 Rock, Big Bang Theory … What’s the one with the kid? Malcolm in the Middle? None of those really got me. It must be a nostalgia thing for some people.
The last thing I watched on TV was… I’m in the middle of watching The Jinx on Neon. It’s really good, it’s a doco about a wife that goes missing and the husband is the suspect, and that’s all I can say.
On the Ladder with Brodie Kane is available to stream on ThreeNow.