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What Now
Format	Children's
Starring	Serena Cooper, DJ Vinyl Richie, Charlie Panapa, Camilla the Gorilla, Tumehe Rongonui
Opening theme	Get Out Your Lazy Bed
Country of origin	New Zealand
Production
Camera setup	Multi-Camera
Running time	120 minutes (including promo breaks)
Broadcast
Original channel	TV One 1981-1989 TV2 1989-present
Picture format	PAL
Original run	1981 – present
External links
Official website
IMDb profile

What Now is a long running New Zealand children's program. It premiered in 1981. It is filmed before two live audiences, one in a studio in Christchurch and another via satellite from a different location each week. This is an effort to allow more children to participate in the show who would not have the opportunity to do so if it were filmed only in Christchurch.

The current show has cartoons such as Camp Lazlo and My Gym Partner's A Monkey and segments such as House Of Pain, Spy Rider, and Wot Da Baa. There are also weekly competitions. It has a group of people who answer the phones between the current hours of 8:00AM and 10:00AM and they have been given the name "Teleops". They are there to put the various children into competitions, and give them information.

What Now originally screened on Saturday mornings on TV 1 between 7:30AM and 10AM. Hosted by Steve Parr, he introduced segments covering morning keep-fit exercises, sketches involving recurring characters, such as complaining old man Clive Grumble, simple recipes by Alison Holst, trivia from Frank Flash, law and safety with Constable Keith and Sniff, interspersed with regular Cartoons. The intro song was the unmistakable Get Out Your Lazy Bed, by Matt Bianco.

When Steve Parr left the show after a couple of years, the format changed to Live broadcast, which allowed it to be more interactive. The hosts increased in number, usually to three, beginning with Danny Watson (from Spot On), Michelle Bracey, and Frank Flash (Alasdair Kincaid) was given a more central comedic manic role. When Michelle left the show, she was succeeded by similarly named Michele A'Court. Comedy sketches, interactive phone calls and competitions with the viewing audience, plus magazine-style segments going out and about, all became a more central part of the format.

The style remained this way for many years, as hosts evolved and were replaced, until today where the format now involves live audiences of crowds of children, but still is closely faithful with the core concept established early on.

Children tend to have fond memories of the hosts who they grew up with, when the show was aimed at their particular age range of 8 to 12 years old. Thus many think of What Now as being "best" when hosted by, for example, Anthony Samuels and Fiona Anderson, or Simon Barnett and Catherine McPherson.

Cartoons played on the show over the years included: Super Ted, Inspector Gadget, Thundercats, The Trap Door, and Pirates of Darkwater.

In 1989 the show moved to TV 2 and then in 1996 to Sunday mornings. An after school version of What Now also ran on TV 2 during the week between 1997 and 2002.

The show was moved to TVNZ's Avalon studios in Lower Hutt in the late nineties until it was moved back to Christchurch in 2004.

In 2003 the afternoon show was cancelled and replaced with the current childrens afternoon TV show Studio 2.

What Now previously released 'The What Now CD'. It contained songs such as Samantha Mumba's "Gotta Tell You" and K'Lee's "Broken Wings".

• Serena Cooper
• Charlie Panapa
• Camilla the Gorilla
• Tumehe Rongonui
• Red the Mailbot

• Steve Parr
• Alasdair Kincaid, A.K.A. Frank Flash and The Answer Guy
• Danny Watson
• Michelle Bracey
• Michele A'Court
• Steven Zanoski
• Catherine McPherson
• Simon Barnett
• Stacey Daniels
• Fiona Anderson
• Anthony Samuels
• Jason Faafoi
• Shavaughn Ruakere
• Danny Talbot
• Mike Carpenter (Props Boy)
• Carolyn Taylor
• Vicki Lyn
• Jason Gunn
• Thingee
• Darren Young
• Aaron
• Virginie Le Bruin
• Tamati Coffey
• DJ Vinyl Richie

• What Now Official Site
• What Now at IMDB.
• What Now 20th Anniversary Special at IMDB.
• Sparkle Friends Myspace page.