Kids’ TV legend WHAT NOW FOR JANINE

Trailblazers Janine and husband Jason have entertained Kiwis from nappies to adulthood!

- Janine Morrell-Gunn (Ngāti Kahungunu)

Janine Morrell-Gunn (Ngāti Kahungunu) has worked in television for more than four decades. One of Aotearoa’s most accomplished producers, she tells the Weekly that “producing isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am”. Born and raised in Christchurch, Janine’s career began in 1985 when she joined TVNZ as a trainee, working on everything from Foreign Correspondent to Spot On. She’s been deployed around the country, including seven years as executive producer of TVNZ’s Children’s Unit. For the past 21 years, Janine and husband Jason Gunn have produced What Now? under their production company Whitebait Media.

I’m a proud working-class girl from the sixties and I remember when the first television arrived in our street. It was wheeled out of a truck and all the kids crowded around, our noses to the window of the house it went into. My family didn’t get our first TV until 1974 when Christchurch held the Commonwealth Games. Colour TV was new and it was beautiful.

I wanted to be either a missionary or a current affairs producer.

Being a missionary started when my sister and I were made to go to Sunday School. And even though we were christened Anglican, we went to the Presbyterian church because it was closest. Every Sunday, Dad would call from the bedroom, ‘Put in a good word for your father,’ then my sister and I would trot off, and I loved it. My first production was for Jesus. I called it The Joy Club and every week I'd fit eight kids into my bedroom, where I'd teach them stories from the Bible.

At Hornby High, my love of a cause saw me fall naturally into producing.