Matt Heath takes us through his hectic life in television, including the local actor that left his dad starstruck, ‘come burger’ and the time he saw Chandler Bing in a bookshop. 

Matt Heath is undoubtedly the only person on Earth to ever talk about the cult comedy series Back of the Y and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in the very same sentence. “A lot of people never got that we were taking the piss out of bogans,” he says of the 2001 late night series. “And actually, I think we all became what we were parodying for a while there. It’s like as Nietzsche said: ‘battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster’.” 

That mix of low culture and highbrow philosophy informed Heath’s new book A Life Less Punishing: 13 Ways To Love the Life You’ve Got. While he admits that some of his casual Radio Hauraki audience might be cynical about the fact that he’s written a self-help book, the two years he spent writing and researching have given him plenty of tools to cope. “Even if people think I’m lame, that’s fine. I’ve actually got a chapter on how to stop worrying about that.”

While there’s plenty of expert interviews and thorough research in the book, Heath also weaves in anecdotes from his own colourful television career, including heckling the premiere of his own film The Devil Dared Me To from the audience in Berlin. “There’s a story where I humiliated myself in front of Hilary Barry that people might enjoy,” he laughs. “There’s also a lot of stories that we had to drop because it was all from a very specific time.” 

On that note, we asked Heath to dredge up even more of his favourite television memories, including a near death experience in a monkey suit and seeing Chandler Bing at a bookshop. 

My earliest TV memory is… The Greatest American Hero was my first TV obsession. It’s about this guy who gets an alien superhero suit, but he immediately loses the instruction manual. And so the whole time for the series, he’s just flying into walls and he never works out how to use the suit. I made myself a little Greatest American Hero suit to wear to school, which attracted the attention of bullies. That was a good time.

The show that I would rush home from school to watch was… I was a huge fan of After School with Olly Ohlson. There was a show on there called Fang Face that was a massive ripoff of Scooby Doo about a werewolf called Lord Fangsworth who would turn into a werewolf even if he saw a picture of the moon. Olly Ohlson used to write songs for all the shows, and he wrote one for Fang Face that he would play on his guitar. Seems crazy now. 

The TV moment that haunts me is… I was a burning monkey on a show called Balls of Steel in London. I was on fire, but my headgear got knocked all the way around so I couldn’t see through the eyes of the monkey suit to find my way to the extinguishing pool. And so I was just running around the studio, but no one could see that I was in trouble because I was just jumping around with my arms waving and acting like a monkey. The burn time was getting pretty freaking sore when I finally got tackled by the stunt coordinator into the extinguishing pool. That was a pretty terrifying moment. 

My earliest TV crush was… There was this British sitcom called Me and My Girl, about this guy whose wife died and he was trying to bring up his daughter called Sam. I was very keen on Sam. It had a great theme tune too. I was very theme tune based when I was a kid. 

The NZ TV ad I can’t stop thinking about is… Cadbury Creme Egg ‘Don’t Get Caught’, that was a fantastic jingle. Especially because it changes key right in the middle, very good. 

My TV guilty pleasure is… Friends. I was so angry at it for the longest time because I thought it was a Seinfeld ripoff. And then I noticed that even while I was hating it, I was watching it. And then I just kept watching it, and then I realised that I kind of liked it. I saw Matthew Perry in a Barnes and Noble in Los Angeles once. He was taller than I thought and he was buying a pile of books. I said “that’s a lot of books” and he said “it sure is”.

My favourite TV moment of all time is… When Jim Hickey said “the bad weather is gone burger, and the good weather is come burger.” It was so odd, what was he doing getting into come burgers? I love when people cock up on live TV and realise they’ve said something weird but have to keep moving on with their lives. 

My favourite TV character of all time is… Leon Black from Curb Your Enthusiasm, J.B. Smoove. It’s just such a fucking brilliant character. The second he joined Curb Your Enthusiasm the show just became brilliant. There is no better combo than him and Larry David.

The most stylish person on television is… I thought Fallout was such a great show, so I’m gonna say Lucy from Fallout in the blue and gold 33 outfit. If I was a kid, I think I’d like to wear that outfit with the utility belt and the jumpsuit. I think it’s pretty stylish. 

My favourite Taskmaster NZ task was… When we had to make time travel. I built an ancient Roman trebuchet, and made a Roman outfit with a broom on my head. I think I came last on that one, but it was still fun to build that huge trebuchet. 

My favourite TV project I’ve ever worked on is… Taskmaster was the most fun I’ve ever had. We’ve still got a WhatsApp group called The Five Friends because we got on so well. We were just texting today, even though it’s been years since we did the show. The days when I was teamed up with Urzila were some of the funniest times, where I would literally have sore ribs from laughing so hard. It was just incredible – I would have paid to be on that show. 

The TV show I wish I could have been involved in is… The Brokenwood Mysteries, for a couple of reasons. Number one is that it is my dad’s favourite show, so he’d be stoked. I also just really like those murder mystery type shows. Jason Hoyte was on Brokenwood Mysteries and when he met my dad, it was the most starstruck my dad had ever been in his life. 

My most watched TV show of all time is… I will never stop rewatching Community. It’s such a great show and me and my kids really bonded over it. If we can never decide what to watch, we will always just pick a favourite episode of Community, like ‘The Asscrack Bandit’ or something. 

My most controversial TV opinion is… Jim is kind of a bully on The Office US. He’s a bit of an asshole, especially when they are really hassling Andy. His pranks are pretty fucked up, it’s actually bordering on psychopathic what he’s up to, torturing Dwight like that. 

A show I will never watch, no matter how many people say I should is… Married at First Sight, because I know so many people who have wasted huge chunks of their lives watching it. I was talking to a friend yesterday who reckons he’s lost 27 hours to Married at First Sight. I love reality TV but I’m too easily sucked into it.

The last TV project I worked on… I’ve got this animation company and we make kids TV shows, so the last one would be Welcome to Cardboard City season four for TVNZ. 

The last thing I watched on TV is… This is kind of cheating, but over the weekend me and my youngest son watched all the new Planet the Apes movies to build up to the latest one. So that was pretty epic, it was old school sleeping on the couch while we watched them all. A very intense and ape-focussed weekend. 

A Life Less Punishing: 13 Ways To Love the Life You’ve Got by Matt Heath is available in bookstores nationwide now.