The Taskmaster NZ and Seven Sharp host takes us through his colourful life in television.

Jeremy Wells has lived a thousand lives in television, from Havoc’s spiky-haired sidekick Newsboy, to the straight-faced anchor of Eating Media Lunch, to sharing the cosy Seven Sharp couch with Hilary Barry. All this, and yet he says sitting in the Taskmaster NZ chair is one of the hardest television jobs he’s ever had. “I love doing it, but after it’s all over, I am always slightly relieved,” he says. “Every year, I think, can I even remember how to do this?” 

Much like many of the tasks on the show itself, Wells says his role on Taskmasters NZ is surprisingly complicated and has a lot of moving parts. “I’ve got to judge people, which is not actually my natural state – I really don’t want to judge people if I can avoid it,” he says. “Plus you’ve always got to keep the show moving, and you’ve also got to be listening and waiting for the comedy and trying to add stuff. So let’s just say it’s not a very relaxing experience.” 

But when the stress passes, Wells delights in seeing the chaos unfurl. “It’s remarkable. One of the most amazing bits is how five brains can attack exactly the same task in five completely different ways,” he says. “You can’t have any kind of ego going into Taskmaster. I’ve watched so many people go from thinking that they’re gonna go brilliantly on the show to realising that they haven’t at all. I think it is a really interesting study of the human condition.” 

TFW studying the human condition

As for the latest season of Taskmaster NZ, which premieres Monday 18 August on TVNZ2, Wells says there is a lot to look forward to. “Every season there’s always a mad, glad, sad and bad. And I think I would probably put Jack Ansett into that ‘mad’ category,” he says. “Jack establishes a really interesting relationship with Jackie Van Beek, who really took him under her wing and tried to help guide him through life, which was really quite beautiful.”

But Wells also assures it won’t be all smooth sailing for the new cast of comedians. “There are definitely relationships that form and rifts that emerge – especially inside the team tasks,” he teases. “I’ve actually never seen so much in-fighting in teams before in a Taskmaster season, so that’s something to look out for.” While we wait with bated breath for the drama to unfold, Wells completed a task of his own: taking us through his own life in television.

My earliest TV memory is… I remember being about four years old on a holiday at Mount Maunganui with my family. I was playing cricket in the backyard with my brother, and there was a one day international cricket game on the TV at the same time. It was the game where Trevor Chappell bowled underarm to Brian McKechnie when New Zealand needed six to win off the last ball, at the MCG in February, 1981. That is my first TV memory. It got me interested in cricket, it got me interested in television, and I remember it so vividly.

The show I would rush home from school to watch was… I watched After School, like everybody else, then graduated to 3.45 Live. The Dukes of Hazzard loomed large over my childhood, as well as Knight Rider, The A Team – anything featuring a vehicle. In those days, no one had a video recorder, so you could write in to this show called I Like That One: 2 and Mark Leishman would play a clip from your favourite show that you wanted replayed. I loved that, I loved Superstars of Wrestling, I loved the Dame Edna Experience, McPhail & Gadsby was great. Fry & Laurie, Brass Eye, Holmes, Landmarks. Where do I stop? I think I watched every single television show that there ever was, up until about 1994. 

My earliest TV crush was… Probably Linda Carter, who was Wonder Woman. And then I became interested in a show called Charles in Charge and a girl called Jamie. And then there was a show called Who’s the Boss? that had Tony Danza in it, and a girl called Samantha. Then there was Cheryl Roberts, Jack the Snake Roberts’ wife from WWE. There’s been a lot.

My first time on television was… In 1997 on a show called Havoc, which was on MTV. My job was sitting on the couch making Soda Streams for people, which is probably the best job I’ve ever had on TV. I remember trying to say some line about being the Barry Holland of youth television, which I’d thought of earlier that day and I thought was really funny. But it’s not a funny line at all. No one knew who Barry Holland was and then, because I’d obviously thought about it too much, I delivered it really poorly.

A TV moment that haunts me is… We did a sex worker special on Havoc after sex work had been decriminalised in New Zealand. We interviewed a whole lot of people from the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective and then Mike and I thought “well, if we’re doing a special, we probably need to have sex with a sex worker.” So we got the live eye from TVNZ news, we went into a brothel, and I made love to a prostitute with a camera on the side of a cricket helmet, and Mikey was in the live eye, guiding me through.

Unfortunately my mum, who was the manager of the New Zealand netball team at the time, was on camp with the team. One of the girls said “why don’t we watch your son’s programme?” And she said “oh, probably not a good idea” but they all went “no, come on, come on, let’s all watch it.” So my mum sat down and watched that episode with the New Zealand netball team. To this day, she’s never talked to me about it – the netball team told me about it. I’d say that’s probably one of my most embarrassing moments.

Havoc and Newsboy

My favourite Eating Media Lunch moment is… The things that stick in my memory are the prank calls that we did. Targeting Target was in the first episode that we ever did, and Ed Cake’s performance as one of the technicians that were putting the cameras in was just superb. I think Anal Mana was quite a funny concept, and that was something that actually got mentioned in parliament. Wayne Mapp, who was [National’s spokesperson for “political correctness eradication”] at the time, asked a question to the house about it, but it was all obviously all made up. I’m proud of that. 

The best thing about Seven Sharp is… Getting out and about shooting stories. We’re lucky that we can do stories on sport, stories on characters from regional New Zealand, stories about musicians – we can do anything. It’s kind of the last broad infotainment show left that has a big audience, and I love that. I’m proud of the breadth of the country that we cover, we do a lot of stories from Southland, Northland and parts of Taranaki, all these places that people aren’t really shooting television at the moment. I think we represent the entire country, and there are stories there for the majority of New Zealanders, and I’m really proud of that. 

My favourite New Zealand TV ad is…  I was a massive TV watcher, so obviously I was a huge ad watcher. Ads that stick in my mind? The Spray and Wipe commercials: “Got a call from Mr. Fryer, bringing round the buyer, the kitchen looked a fright from the little do last night.” I’m a big fan of Eggbert the expert, who’s a pretty eggy bloke. I loved the Supergroove Munchos ad, which featured Mal Meninga in this really weird cameo. And the sum of essentially all of Murray Grindlay’s jingles, from “Cats prefer Chef” to “Mobil Man”. There was also the ad they used to run on TVNZ that used to encourage you to be a better person – “try it now, do it more, things you’ve never done before.” There was another ad that just said “girls can do anything” and that was a good one too. Where have those ads gone?

Mo problems on the Seven Sharp couch

A TV show I wish I had been involved in is… I wish I came up with a concept for Border Patrol, because that sucker has been going for over 20-odd years now. It’s the same story every single week – there’s a package that’s suspicious, what’s it going to be? Brilliant storytelling. It’s a cash cow for whoever the hell is making it: turn up to the border place, film some stuff, and what a superb show it is. I wish I had come up with that concept. It was so obvious. God, I was making shit satirical comedy and meanwhile, that glaringly obvious idea was just sitting there, looking everyone in the face. 

My controversial TV opinion is… I reckon modern, successful broadcast television should be watchable with the sound down. I think about something like Deal or No Deal in the afternoon – I love that show, I’ll watch it quite happily, but I have never, ever heard it before. The Chase? I’ve never heard it. Country Calendar works too because the images are so beautiful. Moving Houses with Andy Ellis is a great sound-down show. Andy Ellis is amazing with the sound down. 

A TV show I will never watch, no matter how many people say I should is… I’m funny on shows with one-word titles. I didn’t watch Seinfeld for about three years because I thought the name was stupid. I didn’t watch that show Lost because the name annoyed me so much. I just don’t want to watch anything called Lost. I mean, it’s ironic because now I work on a show called Seven Sharp, which is one of the worst-named shows in the world. 

The last thing I watched on television was… I watched two episodes of Outrageous last night. I’m really enjoying that. I love a period drama, and I’m fascinated by the Mitford sisters who are really interesting, weird people.

Taskmaster NZ returns to TVNZ2 and TVNZ+ on Monday August 18.