It's June, 2000, on TV2's live sports/comedy show, Sportscafe. The camera zooms in on host, Ric Salizzo, who looks worried. He seems lost for words, and the camera pans across to panellists Lana Coc-Kroft and Graeme Hill.
Uh-oh. Coc-Kroft's face is ashen. Hill is making a valiant attempt to smile, but managing only a wonky grimace. Finally, the camera rests on the source of the problem.
Marc Ellis. Eyes half closed and mouth half open, face pink and puffy, Ellis is struggling to form simple sentences. The former All Black turned TV personality is hopelessly drunk on live television.
A few days later, Ellis claims he was only acting drunk. Now, eight years later, he admits he was pissed as a chook.
"I'd been out to a dinner, and a couple of mates had stitched me up," he says with a sigh. "Ric was really angry about it at the time, but he got over it. After all, I was only doing what I always do.
Sportscafe was like a sit-com. Everyone had their roles, and mine was to infuriate Ric and ruin his show. I hope nothing will have changed when the show starts up again."
Yes. Sportscafe is coming back to TV2 after a three-year absence, with the usual suspects back in place. The show ran for 10 seasons between 1996 and 2005, first on Sky TV, then switching to TV2 in 2003.
It is, unsurprisingly, the disastrous shows that Ellis remembers most fondly.
"If you get a good guest who likes having the piss taken out of them, the whole thing's too easy," he says.
"I loved the shows where it was almost unwatchable, with awkward pauses and monosyllabic guests and jokes falling flat and Ric in the background getting angry over how appalling it was. Those ones were real highlights for me. The train wrecks are priceless, especially on live TV, because if you cock things up, there's nothing you can do about it.
"It's easy for me, though, of course, because I'm all care, no responsibility. I'm just being paid to turn up, have a few beers and take the piss out of Ric, which is something I'd gladly do for free."
Ellis polarises people. To some, he's a plonker, the eternally immature figurehead for the boys-behaving-badly brigade. To others, he's a top bloke, and precisely the kind of silver-tongued bullshit artist they'd love to have a beer or three with.
Many sports fans respect him as a tough, able player who has been an All Black and a Warrior. To those not interested in sport, Ellis is a clown, a prankster, a cheeky wee monkey.
He may be 36, happily married, intelligent, articulate, an astute businessman, but he's still prepared to have a few beers and behave like a first-year varsity student, stripping down to his boxers at sporting events, knocking things over at his own book launch, getting chucked out of restaurants after one too many.
His quick wit and ready grin make him a natural on the telly, and he's the mastermind behind many of Sportscafe's most memorable stunts.
In 1999, he rode a bicycle downhill at 70km/h while wearing a hollowed-out pumpkin for a helmet. In 2003, he encouraged streaking at rugby matches, offering a $1000 reward for each security guard that a streaker managed to evade, increasing this to $2000 for women, because "people prefer female streakers".
Ellis also instigated National Nude Day, inviting viewers to send in videos of their naked pranks. There was no shortage of takers. Clips were aired of men attending their local bar nude, shearing sheep nude, indulging in a spot of nude fishing.
A team of Greymouth firefighters put out a fire on air, wearing boots and g-strings. Gore policeman Paul Kennedy appeared wearing a police hat, boots and g-string, writing out a traffic infringement ticket for a naked man riding a Harley. Kennedy faced disciplinary charges as a result.
In August, 2005, Ellis faced disciplinary charges of his own when he was fined $300 for possessing five pills of the class-B drug ecstasy.
In November last year he was back in the news after a publicity stunt in which he detonated 600kg of explosives on Rangitoto Island nature reserve, much to the distress of environmental groups.
Such antics only increased his rebel appeal to some viewers, but there are others who believe the kind of boozy, blokey, sport-obsessed, "on ya, maaate" humour Ellis represents is disappointingly old-fashioned.
In 2006, a team of academics at Waikato University wrote a paper entitled Sports Comedy Shows and New Lad Culture in New Zealand: The Sportscafe Guide To Masculinity. Sportscafe was berated for celebrating sexism, crass locker room humour and physical violence.
Using irony as a cover for very traditional male values, the show was seen to reinforce the idea that sport was the domain of men, that violence on and off the field was funny, that non-macho men were pansies and that the most appropriate response to female athletes was to trivialise their achievements and subject them to sexual innuendo.
Ellis thinks this is hilarious. "Yes, yes, that kind of comment is all very clever, but middle New Zealand couldn't care less. People want to have a laugh without worrying too much about what they find funny. Did Sportcafe cover more blokes' stuff than women's stuff? Probably, but that's what most of our audience wants to see. Besides, our show doesn't pretend to be hugely thought-provoking.
"The purpose of Sportscafe is just to have a laugh and to celebrate the week that was in sport. People love the show because we're completely non-PC and we aren't afraid to piss off the people who deserve to be pissed off.
"Academics can write what they like in their little articles. We couldn't give a shit about what they think. We're in it to have fun, mate, and that's what we intend to do."
*Sportscafe, TV2, Wednesday, 9.30pm.
See Also
"Persepolis" (PG-13), a coming-of-age tale that begins during the Islamic Revolution, with the voices of Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve. The film, directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, was nominated for a best-animated-feature Oscar.
"Charlie Bartlett" (R), Jon Poll's teen comedy starring Anton Yelchin as the self-appointed psychiatrist of his new high school.
"10,000 B.C." (PG-13), a prehistoric epic starring Steven Strait and some woolly mammoths. Directed by Roland Emmerich.
