Jason Gunn (born 26 December 1968) is a New Zealand television personality. He is now best known as the main host of the hit New Zealand entertainment television show, Dancing with the Stars, Wheel of Fortune, and The Rich List.
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Gunn is best known for being "the face of children's television" during the late 1980s and 1990s. He hosted After School (1989) and co-hosted The Son of a Gunn Show (1992–1995) and Jase TV (1992) with his sidekick Thingee a grey puppet with bulbous eyes. Jason and Thingee also starred in Jase and Thingees Big Adventure, a straight-to-video kids movie based on The Son of a Gunn Show. Thingee infamously lost an eye during one Son of a Gunn broadcast, before returning to his home planet on an episode of What Now?
After the end of Son of a Gunn in 1995, Gunn began to expand his demographic, hosting performance showcase McDonald's Young Entertainers, and the show Small Talk, in which contestants guess how children will answer questions.
When The Son of a Gunn Show finished (due to TVNZ moving their children's television operations to Wellington), Jason became a radio announcer for More FM. Between 1997 and 1999 he hosted a variety show, McDonald's Young Entertainers, and at one stage was the voice for a New Zealand pre-school character, Bumble.
Jason is the co-host of the Classic Hits FM Breakfast show in Christchurch.[1]
More recently, Jason has hosted the 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 seasons of Dancing with the Stars. He hosts game show, The Rich List, weekly on TVNZ channel TV1.
Jason is a patron of the National Youth Theatre Company of New Zealand NYTC
He also runs a production and facilities company, Whitebait-TV, in Christchurch with his wife, Janine Morrell-Gunn, for which he writes, directs and produces for television, including children's show, What Now and oversees the production of television commercials.[2]
Jason gunn hosted the One new year countdown on 10:30pm 31 December 2009 - 12:01am 1 January 2010