This show may have made a thread somewhere else, but I dont have the time to check right now. On account of laughing at this (and posting from work):
“Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende, a Japanese show in which contestants suffer more and more outrageous tortures without being able to utter a sound.”
Does anyone know how long this show has been going and if it’s popular in Japan?
I only got half way through (slappy bit) before I had to quit. Recommend it for a chuckle.
Right, best get my head down.
Hehehe, mad people. I must say, they haven’t got the “silent” bit 100% yet, but they seem to be having fun.
Of a sort. :eek:
I’ll give it a look when I get home from work. My co-worker has heard of it, but doesn’t remember too much about it, so it could be an old show.
Japan still has a lot of variety shows run by comedians, a lot of aspiring comedians that are willing to do just about anything for a shot at fame, a comedy tradition that relies heavily on slapstick, puns and silly costumes, and a general tradition of ‘if I’m senior to you, I own your butt’. Put all these together and you get a pretty much endless stream of shows that are pretty similar to the one described in the OP.
It may have been on for a while, but I don’t think could be called wildly popular. Anyway, I’ll check it out tonight.
By the way, on any Japanese variety or game show, the ‘contestants’ are almost always other TV/music/sports/modeling performers or wannabe apprentice performers (in the studio: 99.5%, outdoors: 90%, ime). With a few exceptions, viewers don’t seem too interested in watching ‘regular folks’ compete in contests or answer questions. When “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” came here, it went to an all-celebrity format after a few months (except that the winnings became part of the performer’s own rather meager earnings, rather than going to charity), on the grounds of “who wants to watch a bunch of nobodies?” Personally, I think the facts that a) the talent agencies get a share of the money if the winner is one of their people but nothing if it’s a regular schmoe, and b) the performers rarely made it to the big-money questions, may have had something to do with it.
Ok, I just got a chance to watch it. I don’t recognize the show, but I know several of the people in it. The bald Japanese guy and the guy who does the nose-hair pulling are Matsumoto and Hamada, better known as Downtown, one of the most senior active comedy teams (and by far the wealthiest. The two of them own the contracts of a lot of younger talents), so it’s probably one of their many shows (as soon as one ends, a new one starts up within a month or two).
The big black guy is Dutch K-1 fighter Ernesto Hoost. Hamada’s got some huge cojones to yank out one of his nose hairs.
Judging by the appearance of Hamada & Matsumoto, as well as when Hoost was popular, this was probably on the air in the late 90’s
Appreciate the info Sub. Hopefully I’ll get to watch the rest of it at some point 