{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/6a7a3151c399196b515e6d40/6a96795ca0d547e25a7766e4?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"From Shorty Street videos to Celebrity Treasure Island | James Mustapic","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6a7a3151c399196b515e6d40/1788246600286-620ebd91-e35a-4bcf-8952-f888ec03b58c.jpeg?height=200","description":"<p>When James Mustapic's mum left for a trip to Europe, he started filming videos recapping Shortland Street's weirdest moments from her freezing Dunedin living room, meant purely to catch her up when she got home. She loved them, and so did some of the show's own cast, who started sharing the clips themselves. Host Vanessa Williams talks with the comedian, TV personality and Celebrity Treasure Island 2023 winner about that accidental start, after years of unwatched bedroom comedy videos beforehand, the discipline that turned it into a real career, and why, eight and a half years into the same Auckland flat, he's still a committed homebody. They also get into his nightly diary habit, nearly eleven years running, and why his new, bigger Auckland bedroom has him hunting down the bar heater he grew up with in Dunedin.</p><p><br></p><h2><strong>Highlights</strong></h2><ul><li>Growing up in a famously cold Dunedin house, he got by on an electric blanket and a glowing red bar heater long before the family got a heat pump.</li><li>James started filming Shortland Street recap videos from his mum Janet's Dunedin living room at 15, meant only to catch her up while she was travelling in Europe; before long, cast members from the show were sharing the videos themselves. Before that hit, there were years of unwatched comedy videos filmed from his bedroom, purely for practice, and that same bedroom is now, rather less glamorously, a bathroom.</li><li>He also won the New Zealand International Science Festival's Science Idol with a chemistry-themed parody of Justin Bieber's “Boyfriend”, about atoms bonding, beating his own teacher to take the prize.</li><li>In 2023, he won Celebrity Treasure Island and donated $100,000 to Gender Minorities Aotearoa, a charity run by and for trans people, sleeping under a hessian-sack shelter on bunk beds by the lake in Wanaka the whole time.</li><li>He's lived in the same Auckland flat for eight and a half years, calls himself a committed homebody who gets nervous about change, and has kept a nightly diary for almost eleven years to process each day before sleep.</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Guest bio</strong></p><p>James Mustapic is a celebrated New Zealand comedian, who began his career with the online underground sensation Shorty Street Scandal in 2014, and ventured into stand-up comedy in 2015. He is now well-known in New Zealand for his hit TVNZ+ series Abandonment Issues and James Mustapic His Mum a Man, as well as his web series Repressed Memories. He maintains a regular presence on the NZ comedy circuit and has appeared on numerous TV comedy panel shows, including Have You Been Paying Attention, 7 Days, and Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Host bio</strong></p><p>Vanessa Williams, General Manager - Customer, realestate.co.nz. Vanessa is one of New Zealand's most trusted voices on property, at home unpacking market data for industry audiences and translating it into practical guidance for everyday buyers and sellers. She regularly appears across national television, radio, print and digital media. Her commentary combines the extensive listings, search and market data held by realestate.co.nz.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Links</strong></p><p>•\tInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesmustapic</p><p>•\tTik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/discover/james-mustapic&nbsp;</p><p>•\tYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@james-mustapic</p><p><br></p>","author_name":"realestate.co.nz"}