After 37 years in the studio, What Now hit the road last year.

A man stands with his lone sheep just after 8am on a Sunday. Surrounded by children, many who are covered in foam, he explains what he's doing here – in this school, on a freezing morning, surrounded by loud kids, with a random sheep.

"It just has to poo in a square and whatever kid picked it wins."

Again, he is literally waiting to see the sheep deposit excrement onto a tarpaulin. We should have known. What else would the sheep be doing? We're at What Now. This is completely normal.

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After 37 years, last year the show decided it would spend 2018 on the road.

Floor manager Tarina Stephens says they wanted to bring the iconic children's programme to kids who would otherwise never be able to make it to Christchurch, where it was being filmed.

So, they destroyed the old studio. The steel beams were pried from their studio supports and moulded into a new, mobile set up.

JASON DORDAY/STUFF Ronnie Taulafo has been on What Now for about seven years.

Over their summer break, they built a control room inside a truck. It's all newly-recycled gear. For the past five years, NZ On Air has frozen What Now's funding at $3,189,000. Even without extra money, What Now plans – or at least it said it would try – to visit 40 towns in 40 weeks.

A few months into the redeveloped programme, I arrive at What Now's latest destination at the sparrow's fart on a typically borderline Auckland morning.

It's all well and good, I reckon, for What Now to move around the country. Kids can see it in the flesh, which is cool. But we all know what matters most. What matters, according to scientific research, is gunge.

GLENN MCCONNELL/STUFF A man stands with his sheep as What Now films in Auckland.

I am pleased to report there is plenty of it.

On all sides of the sheep, there is gunge. A policeman stumbles through the crowds, past a cat and into the sausage sizzle line, covered in gunge. Gunge is everywhere, and that's just what the audience has called for.

NZ On Air's children's survey has listed a few essential ingredients to make the perfect show. It must include: people cracking jokes, prizes, cool stuff - and gunge.

Luckily, those vital ingredients just happen to be the basic formula that's kept What Now going for all these years. Today is no different.

tvnz Many Kiwi kids grew up watching presenters Simon Barnett and Catherine McPherson.

The "cool stuff" comes in the form of musical appearances from the beat-boxing guy who dances outside Starbucks Queen St, and young pop singer Robinson. The gunge is self-evident. And, the prizes are won by excited kids calling in from all over the nation – an unexpectedly nostalgic part of this show, that hasn't changed despite newer, better technology.

When What Now started back in 1981, it aired on Saturday mornings, there was a lot less mess and it wasn't broadcast live until they'd tried it out for a few years.

JASON DORDAY/STUFF Mess is everywhere.

But the premise, even in those early days with host Steve Parr, was the same: hours of television on a weekend morning, with skits and segments for kids. It would be entertaining, informative and sometimes downright silly.

Rex Simpson was the man behind the concept, a TVNZ children's director who decided to break some new ground. What Now was the first show to air live phone-ins, a practise that never died.

Stuff.co.nz Ever wondered what happened to What Now's first presenter and the iconic Sale of the Century host Steve Parr? Well, we've tracked him down.

As the kid next to me rises to his feet in praise of the foam cannon raining down on him, I can't help but reminisce about just how little it has changed in recent years.

Until What Now hit the road, this bastion of New Zealand kids' television had remained more or less the same. There was the great return to Christchurch in 2004, as TVNZ started to close its Wellington operations. After that, a gorilla hosted the show for about five years.

JASON DORDAY/STUFF Tarina Stephens has worked on the show for 29 years.

That ape followed on from some of New Zealand's most well-known names. Hosts have gone on to do all sorts of new jobs; they're politicians, comedians and one of them is still a puppet.

Each generation of Kiwi kids can self-identify by their What Now host. There was Danny Watson and Michele A'Court, and then Catherine McPherson and Simon Barnett, with Fifi Colston doing crafts. Anthony Samuels, Jason Fa'afoi and Shavaughn Ruakere had a run.

Carolyn Taylor hosted alongside Tamati Coffey for a while, and Jason Gunn, whose wife now runs the company now responsible for producing this battler of a television show, popped up from time to time.

NZ ON SCREEN Thingee, Jason Gunn's trusty sidekick, is a former What Now host.

Janine Morrell-Gunn owned children's television company Whitebait TV for years, before eventually taking over What Now at the end of 2003. As Whitebait looked to make its mark, her husband returned to the show he'd presented 10 years earlier as a producer, writer, director and an occasional cameo actor.

With the 4am starts and weekend sacrifice, those What Now hosts have normally stayed for between three to five years. Yet, of the current batch, Ronnie Taulafo has been with the show for seven years.

STUFF Jason Gunn and Janine Morrell-Gunn run Whitebait Studios.

He is What Now for most of the current viewers. He's been there every Sunday morning for as long as most of this audience can remember.

Although What Now has managed to stay mostly the same despite its new location(s), their travels find a new audience each week.

The show's team of 28 arrive at a school on Saturday as visitors on the local kids' land. That's lead to some rather interesting moments, for Taulafo especially.

JASON DORDAY/STUFF What Now is made thanks to three trucks, two trailers, a satellite van and a golf cart.

In between scenes he's battling through waves of three to 10-year-olds who grapple for his attention. Some of them literally grab the hem of his dress (yes, he's in wedding dress) as floor manager Stephens yells in his ear: "30 seconds!" But he doesn't lose his smile. He eggs them on.

"The adrenaline is pumping every Sunday," he says after the show, while keeping the American accent he put on for the live recording. He never stops. He certainly shows no sign of throwing in the towel.

Martin Hunter Former What Now stars Tamati Coffey, Stacey Morrison, Richie Mills, Danny Watson and Alistair Kincaid (aka Frank Flash).

Some of his colleagues suggest he may have stopped ageing in his mid-20s. Others say he shows signs of hyperactivity. But, compared to Stephens, Taulafo's fresh on the What Now scene. She says he simply "can't stop" and that's what makes him a brilliant children's presenter.

"He won't stop until he's connected with every kid and the last one is being dragged home, it's amazing," she says.

JASON DORDAY/STUFF What Now is on the road, visiting kids across Aotearoa.

To impress Stephens is a feat in itself. She's been working at the show since the days of Simon Barnett in 1989, and she's never walked out without some sort of gunge, foam or egg splattered on her face.

And again, today is not different.

With a crown of foam between her dreads, Stephens claims she's emerged "pretty clean". In the early years she'd try to stay out of it, but that was seen only as a challenge to squirt her with fish guts.

"This is controlled chaos," she says. It's always going to get messy.

And that, really, is what it's always been about.

JASON DORDAY/STUFF Eight people sit in a cosy truck live-editing and producing the two hour show.

The newer hosts, Erin Wells - who joined the cast as they hit the road - and Chris Kirk are posing for pictures and being shown around the school as foam cannons and sheep are packed away.

There are three trucks, two trailers, a satellite van and even a golf cart parked up, next to sausage sizzles and a baking fundraiser. While the glitz of studio television may be gone – there used to be turntables, mail robots, prize machines and multi-storey obstacle courses – Stephens says the community aspect is "giving the show new life". And, as the local cat slugs its way between the crowds and up to the production truck, you can see why.

It's a very Kiwi show, with a very slick operation. They're tasked with putting out two hours of live television at a new location every week. Then, they're doing that outdoors with animals, kids and whatever else the nation throws at them.

JASON DORDAY/STUFF What Now is touring schools for its Sunday morning live shows.

Just a few months into their new show, host Chris Kirk says they've already seen a lot.

"The definition of weird on What Now has become very, well, non-existent," he reckons.

"There's nothing weird anymore on What Now, that's what we've been about for the past 37 years - crazy is the norm."