 His greatest influences while growing up were the circus and comedy.Pinder lived next door to a "circus lot" as a child, where Bullens Circus and Ashtons Circus regularly performed.Although his household didn’t have a television set, they used to sit down to listen to the radio as a family; when "The Goon Show" began being broadcast in New Zealand as Pinder hit puberty, he was the perfect age to enjoy the new form of comedy that his parents loathed.