Harley=American cool.

I only worry that our mutual fetishing of each others cultures is going to ultimately kill the exchange.

Although if it’s about making the audience laugh by playing off of Japanese rules about politeness, I get it, but it wasn’t that funny for me, but wasn’t that the point of the piece? So it works as an illustration.

The rapist? Oh, THERAPIST! That makes sense.

But that`s not really the point. The US game show is presented with the pretense that those participating “could be you!!”
It`s part of their design – and clearly it works for US viewers.

Japanese game shows, on the other hand, never have that pretense. They`re designed to have celebrities participate – not “regular” people. The “prizes” they give out are pretty much never really given out – it`s just part of the show.
The game show celebrities of Japan are just that – celebrities who pretty much make their entire living appearing on game shows. They are usually on countless shows. They`re not minor celebrities who occasionally appear, or up and comers who use their connections to get on – they`re people who may appear on 5 shows a week for 10 or more years.

How is this possible? All my Japanese friends speak English and I don’t speak Japanese. The fact that they learned Japanese and want to be my friend and ask me questions about America all the time is pretty amazing. For a people who are rumored to be saddled with cultural superiority issues, they’re very interested in the US and Italy and France from all I’ve seen.

WHOA?!

Do you know that most contestants on US game shows, and this was basically 100% of the contestants on the Dating Game, are young actors in acting schools in Los Angeles? I saw Pee Wee Herman on the dating game as early as 1979. David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jorge Garcia from Lost, there are tons of actors who used their contacts in LA to get “screen time” on a game show.

Not true of Jeopardy of Family Feud, but definitely true of the basic game shows.

I was really taken aback by your statement and it shows how well the game shows mask that.

A-I-U = 1st 3 letters in the Japanese syllabary

In the past, NHK kid’s shows were typically taped on a big sound stage, with lots of pastel lighting on the rear cyc wall with big gobos (patterns) – I guess to save money on the staging. These days they use more constructed sets/props.

Again, what a bizarre example! It’s very well known that Coupling was a steal of the US tv series Friends. I mean, that’s basic common knowledge. When NBC licensed it for the US it was a huge joke on TV about how they stole Friends and then NBC is paying for it to come back.

This is under no circumstances a one way street. It reminds me of when I was in high school and I asked a Nigerian friend to tell me about the TV shows he watched at home and he was like, Kojak, Streets of San Francisco, Baretta, Planet of the Apes…

I still find Gintama extremely funny though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW6M8D41ZWU

Some of the humor that turns up in various anime series (e.g. FLCL, Final Fantasy Unlimited, Record of Lodoss War, etc.) feels very different from western humor, but it isn’t really the same as the bizarre stuff like Most Extreme Elimination muted… or is it?!

…Your haiku needs a bit of tweaking :-)

I was also watching some Mexican comedy on Univision or Telemundo recently, and thought “this is remarkably like ‘Benny Hill.’”

Ah, (back on topic!) and I can’t stand MXC, but don’t mind Ninja Warrior.

When you participate by watching you are passively giving assent and supporting the behavior. Which… is probably not so bad in wacky-Japanese-gameshow-#5, but horrible when applied to many American TV shows.