In the spotlight:

Jason Hoyte is an actor, comedian and voiceover artist who co-hosts Late Night Big Breakfast with Leigh Hart (TVNZ Duke, Sunday). The pair used to do a drive-time, weekday radio show together and have been on Screaming Reels and Moon TV. Hoyte was born in

Celebrity chat with Jason Hoyte.

You’re on a show called Are you a fan of late nights?

Well, funnily enough, I used to be a real night owl and I didn’t get up until very late in the morning. As I’ve got older, it’s completely reversed itself. So you know, I’m in bed quite early and I’m up quite early, but that’s also a prostate thing. I’m prone these days to the odd nana nap in the afternoon as well.

What about big breakfasts?

Well, that’s another strange thing. I am a fan of a big breakfast. I’m particularly partial to chicken livers in a brandy sauce. That’s one of my favourites. But I’m more of a spice-type guy. I like my hashbrowns, your mushies, your grilled tomatoes, your bacon and all that sort of stuff. I despise the whole idea of Bircher muesli and yoghurts.

is a parody of morning TV shows. Why does that genre lend itself to comedy?

There’s something vaguely ridiculous about a breakfast show. That’s not to say that we’re not big fans of breakfast shows. We love breakfast shows. But we just thought it was a great sort of vehicle for us to ... have our indoor-outdoor living sort of section.

We can have our cookery section, our out in the garden with Barry section. Also, of course, it’s a genre that people can relate to. And you know, a lot of people turn on in the morning to watch the breakfast show – except this one is on late at night.

The show is filmed in a furniture store. Have you had a chance to wander around the store? Do you have your eye on anything?

Well, to be honest with you, that’s why I agreed to do this series because my lounge suite is in need of an update. Leigh and the guys at Target said that they could fit me out with a fantastic Milano lounge suite, some fantastic footstools and things like that. I thought, ‘Well if you’re given an opportunity to do a bit of work and at the end of it you can refit your lounge furniture you’d be mad not to do it’.

So, basically, you’re not in it for the money. You’re in it for a new lounge suite.

Yeah, exactly. I don’t get paid anything. It’s purely furniture. We were able to get a lot of really lovely, nice throw cushions for our bed as well. So instead of having the regular five throw cushions on the bed, we now have about 15. It actually takes us about 20 minutes for us to de-cushion the bed before we can get into it.

You’ve done a lot of television work over the years. Can you remember what your first paid television job was?

It was an ad for Burton’s Creamy Ale. And the painful thing about that particular ad was that I got down to the final two for the main part and it was paying a fortune. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the part. But then they said to me – and there were only two of us – ‘Do you want to be an extra?’ I went, ‘Oh, well, I might as well. I’m pretty broke.’

You’re also a voiceover artist. Is that more lucrative than acting?

I used to survive on voiceover work predominantly for a long time. But it’s got less and less because more production companies and businesses are actually realising that they can do a little bit of that sort of stuff themselves, and so it’s not as profitable as it used to be. But having said that, I was doing radio every day, and so that sort of cut back on all the acting and voice work that I could do.

– The influenza pandemic spreads to Western Samoa, killing 7542 (about 20 per cent of the population) by the end of the year.

– Franklin D. Roosevelt is re-elected US President for a record fourth term, defeating Republican Thomas E. Dewey.

Richard Nixon, who was the incumbent Vice-President.

– The soap Days Of Our Lives premieres on US TV.

– British peer the Earl of Lucan disappears and is never seen again after his nanny is found murdered in London.

– John Key leads the National Party to

– Joe Cocker (above) hits number one in the UK charts with his version of The Beatles’ single With A Little Help From My Friends.

– Wes Craven’s horror film A Nightmare On Elm Street premieres in the United States.

– New Zealand fast bowler Richard Hadlee takes his best test cricket figures of 9-52 versus Australia at the Gabba in Brisbane.

– Evander Holyfield (below right) regains his WBA heavyweight title, knocking out Mike Tyson (left) in the 11th round in Las Vegas. In doing so, Holyfield became just the second boxer, after Muhammad Ali, to win a world heavyweight title three times.

– British TV comedy Absolutely Fabulous, starring Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, first screens on BBC.

– New Zealand batsman Martin Crowe plays his last day of test cricket in the drawn third test against India in Cuttack. He scored 15 in his last turn at bat.

NOVEMBER 13

– In the first Rugby League World Cup final, Great Britain beats France 16-12.

– Gunman David Gray begins shooting residents at Aramoana, near Dunedin.

– Michael Schumacher wins his first F1 World Drivers Championship by one point from Damon Hill after the pair collide on lap 35 of the Australian Grand Prix, the season-ending race.

– GoldenEye, the first film to star Pierce Brosnan as James Bond and Judi Dench as M, is released.