Jason Gunn - Early Career

Early Career

Jason Gunn started his focus in the Broadcasting industry as a student in the 80's at Christchurch Polytechnic New Zealand Broadcasting School in Christchurch, New Zealand as a radio student before studying Television Broadcasting he then left becoming the most successful applicant in the NZBS history.

Gunn is best known for being "the face of children's television" during the late 1980s and 1990s. Gunn cites many of his presenting skills from being able to pick them up in the first few months at Avalon from the experienced children's TV crew and presenters around him. He hosted 'After School' (1989) and co-hosted The Son of a Gunn Show (1992–1995) and Jase TV (1992) with his sidekick Thingee, a grey puppet with bulbous eyes. Jason and Thingee also starred in Jase and Thingees Big Adventure, a straight-to-video kids movie based on The Son of a Gunn Show. Thingee infamously lost an eye during one Son of a Gunn broadcast, though given the show was pre-recorded there is argument that it never appeared on the actual show but only in a blooper reel. Thingee returned to his home planet on an episode of What Now?.

After the end of Son of a Gunn in 1995, Gunn began to expand his demographic, hosting performance showcase McDonald's Young Entertainers, and the show Small Talk, in which contestants guess how children will answer questions.