NZ’s first sitcom about the odd-couple friendship between an English-born schoolteacher and a Māori, based on the play Ground Level, written by Craig Harrison and produced by Radio NZ in 1974 (which won the J.C. Reid Award in the same year). A novel was released in 1981.
Joe - Stephen Gledhill
Koro - Rawiri Paratene
Maria - Dallas Beckett
Sharon - Mary Rose Tempest
Assistant Director - John Seebold
Producer/Director John Whitell
Season One
High Society (19/4/1977)
Joe and Karo are invited to a party; Koro's home made wine causes strife. "They can't take the brown man's fire-water."
Maria - Dallas Beckett
Sharon - Mary Rose Tempest
Assistant Director - John Seebold
Producer/Director John Whitell
Dinner (26/4/1977)
A competition between Joe and Koro to see who can cook the best meal for their girlfriends causes some unpleasantness and a lot of damage. You need a hammer to prepare Maori food?
Decoration (3/5/1977)
Attempts to repair the damage to their girlfriends flat result in confrontations between Joe and Koro and the great Kiwi Home Handyman tradition.
Contusions (10/5/1977)
If joe seems happy and pleasant could he be suffering from a concussion? If he isn't, some home decoration with Koro might bring on the symptoms.
Hospital (17/5/1977)
Joe is suffering in hospital and Koro comes to cheer him up.
Ambition (24/5/1977)
Koro argues his way out of a job, and is then pursued by an admirer. Joe offers advice which goes astray.
Economy (31/5/1977)
Economic problems force Joe and Koro to set out on an exploration of a new supermarket.
Brotherhood (7/6/1977)
Koro's dilemma is that he has no money and no job.
Mrs Pollock - Dorethy McKegg
Fredo - Sue Scott
Series Two
A Pom and a Maori - an odd couple. Joe and Koro, from the successful play Ground Level, struggle, laugh and look at life.
Sue - Alannah O'Sullivan
Series Editor - Rosemary McLeod.
Producer - John Whitwell
Scorpio Rising (4/8/1978)
Koro calls on the tricks of his maori heritage in a scheme to get rich, and Joe becomes convinced that there's more to ribal magic than meets the eye. But hold on a minute - since when was white man's fire water part of those ancient rituals?
Written by Rosemary McLeod
Director - Mark DeFriest
Paddington Does a Wheelie (11/8/1978)
Joe‘s doing well in New Zealand. He even has a native houseboy - or so he's told the folks at home. The houseboy has some relatives, too. And they have some quaint native customs.
Written by Bob Leaman
You Always Hurt the One you Love (18/8/1978)
Joe sees a bit of culture as the way to a girl's heart and incidentally, to promotion at work. But. girls just aren't what
they used to he.
Written by Roger Hall
Too Old to Rock (25/8/1978)
All Māoris can sing, and everyone knows that where you get a pop star, you get groupies. So Koro is broken-hearted when Joe muscles in on his group, But Joe's career is suspiciously short-lived
Written by John Banas
Jane Austen Eat Your Heart Out (1/9/1978)
Secret agent Wiremu strikes deep into the heart ot the European drug-smuggling world, and gets more women than hot dinners. Wiremu is surprisingly like Kora, and Karo is convinced that he's giving birth to a best-seller. It's just as well Joe knows what literature is.
Written by Craig Harrison
Off the Shelf (8/9/1978)
The charms of sophisticated, older women of the world are preying on Joe's mind - or rather, he's having few opportunities to prey on them. Koro's girlfriend feels younger women have something to offer, to. She offers in in no uncertain terms.
Written by Hamish Keith
Novel
Joe Chapman, after completing his three year contract teaching English Lit. at Auckland University, returns to his native Yorkshire, by way of India, where he visits the Taj Mahal; Israel, where love smites him; and Italy, where disasters beset him. He is accompanied by Koro, a wide-eyed but sardonic young Māori who has just won five thousand dollars in a lottery. The adventures of Joe and Koro, which were made into a successful TV series, are as rollicking and as funny as ever.
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