Last week, ABC premiered two "goofy" reality shows: Wipeout and I Survived a Japanese Game Show. Both have lots of potential, but only one seems to realize it. In short, Wipeout is awful. I could only bear to watch five minutes of it before turning it off. The main problem (among others): canned "play-by-play," which is clearly scripted in post production and is therefore dumb and annoying. The whole fun of a silly obstacle course should be the spontaneity of it all, but instead, Wipeout is dumbed down, thus proving that the producers have little or no faith that their subject can be amusing on its own. I know this is supposed to be a ripoff of MXC, but seriously, it's a piece of garbage.
On the other end of the spectrum is I Survived a Japanese Game Show, which is shaping up to be a great summer guilty pleasure. The show sort of plays out like The Gauntlet meets animé: two teams (the Yellow Penguins and Green Pandas) duke it out in a game show challenge, with the losing squad sending two members to an additional elimination challenge at the end of the episode. Along the way, there's plenty of funny yet fascinating cultural high jinks, and a spunky little housekeeper lady who's not unlike Japan's answer to Mrs. Beakley.
The first episode was hilarious, even if it was a bit uneven. However, last night's edition rose (just a tad) above the camp level as backstage drama flared. I actually found myself drawn into the story way more than I had expected. Don't get me wrong: this ain't high level stuff. But it's fun. My only critiques are the production similarities of Hell's Kitchen: same narration style, same interview style, same ambient music. I know the two shows share producers, but can we mix it up a bit? After all, if there's anything that reality TV has taught us, it's that we become more engaged when the characters do the exposition, not some disembodied voice (always a problem with Hell's Kitchen, in my humble opinion).
Nevertheless, in the clip above, one contestant, Meaghan, must act as a human claw and pluck stuffed pandas from a pile of balloons. Glorious exasperation ensues...
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ISAJGS is great! By the way, it's green monkeys (not pandas). And just a side note, Meaghan allegedly broke up Mario Lopez and his DWTS girlfriend. Plus she's hot and apparently sings (per the songs on her myspace page).
Yeah...I googled the heck outta her.
the funniest part was when they flash to the people in the control room laughing as the meaghan drops the panda
Yellow Penguins and Green Pandas? Are you sure you weren't watching Legends of the Hidden Temple?
Totally unrelated, but B-side, please chime in on this bizarre ARod-Madonna-Mrs. ARod-Lenny Kravitz love...square? Quadrangle?
Also, have been watching I Love the Millenium on VH1. The producers committed a serious oversight in not having you as one of the commentators.
This episode was the first one I watched, and I enjoyed it. The audience, Mamasan, the judge, all good tv in my opinion.
By the way, I just wanted to mention how much I love that you are writing about TV again. Your voice was missed.
The new gameshow looks like it will be hilarious. I'm trying to find what I consider, or what are rated as, the funniest blogs out there today. Yours does a great job with poking fun at pop culture.
My blog is http://underdogs.wordpress.com/
I've just started updating it again, mostly yarns about Yoda, the Hulk, Barack Obama, giant mutant squirrels, etc. Hopefully the humor will hit home, keep up the great work on this site.
This show bears no resemblance to Japanese game shows at all. It’s strongly conforming to American stereotypes of the Japanese and is more than a little racist.
The host of the show is actually a Japanese-American, who normally lives in the States. None of the real entertainment production companies in Japan have anything to do with this show.
I’ve lived in Japan and take it from me and the many who others who have and still do who are offended by this show.
A good critic of the show:
http://neojaponisme.com/2008/06/30/i-survived-american-tv/
One of my students in Japan walked out when we discussed the show in Japan. Thing is:
"Never would this air in Japan as they lead you to believe."
There ARE shows like this that openly make fun of foreigners, such as "Koko Ga Henna Nihonjin" ("Oh! Japanese People are Strange!" - Google it to decipher why that title is racist against non-Japanese people. Its a long story, perhaps). However, when I told my students "if you watch this, then you can then question your OWN media", this was still mixed with outright hostility by at least one (admittedly, weird) student of mine, a middle aged housewife.
Thing is, in Japan, Japanese culture, society, etc are often regarded as taboo subjects and rarely, if any, does the mainstream press or media ever offer criticism of the Japanese government, or culture etc. If it does exist, it is usually far removed from the outspokeness or investigative journalism styles that are in the west (and Im not saying that the west is best in that department either).
Merely offering this as a "have a look for yourselves" discussion point actually made some student/s upset, which, if I remember rightly, might also be due to the "victim mentality" of some Japanese, expecially as I think right now, the nationalists, conservatives etc are hawking on about "poor Japan" in WW2 on TV at the moment (although Im not 100% sure if they are right now. A student mentioned it briefly).
All too often Japanese revert to "poor us" and "non Japanese dont understand us", which isnt helped by the fact that Japanese schools don't promote and/or actively discourage debate about political or social issues. Thus, there is little or noone to discuss problems and so when something else, usually a "selfish" young Japanese with "crazy" ideas, or foreign media lambast something about Japan, it is suddenly "defense stations" by some, more conservative members when "under attack from the outside".
Im not saying the show was great. Mama san seems to be able to speak good English (listen to her intonation. Her Japanese voice seems forced). The host too is good at English and is hamming it up. The audience are obviously media students (where are the housewives and Japanese grannies saying "ehhhhhhhh?!!! that so frequent Japanese TV shows?) and the Japanese things even the losing team has to do are not really bad (in fact, HIS Travel offers similar things for foreigners to do on special tours of Japan).
Some of my students (the non-crazy kind) have commented "but we dont drink homemade green tea in the morning!",and I agreed.
However, some think its ok to depict foreigners as "silly" etc on Japanese TV and express amazement when foreigners like "natto" or can "use chopsticks" or even speak Japanese, and yet think nothing of this while saying "that TV show is bad and foreigners shouldn't be so ignorant about we Japanese".
I think the irony isnt lost here, is it?
As an American, I find this show offensive. Am I alone? We have had many silly shows but I don't remember any that picked one Nationality to focus the activities upon. There is a whole planet with many countries. Why just Americans? Are we easy prey?
what the eff happened tonight? Dan played like shit but is too much of a pussy to man up to his shitty play and go into the elimination round? someone needs to punch him in his vagina