Japanese tv is totally bizarre

DJ Ozma and dancers bare it all (NSFW)
ETA: New link since the other was erased

So over New Year's, it's a big thing to watch this music show called kohaku, which I did with this one family. Eventually we were flipping between 3 shows - kohaku, a K1 kickboxing match, and this comedy show called basically "You're not allowed to laugh." The whole thing reminded me of the hilarity that is Japanese tv.

First, kohaku. Leave alone the whole premise of the show basically being a 3 hour long karaoke contest with pop singers, but this one guy took the cake - he pulled a Janet Jackson!! Watch the video and you'll see, but he had 20 female dancers looking rather (pleasingly) unpresentable
on publicly funded tv while he flew around wearing a blonde afro wig and some shorts with little else.

Then there was the comedy show with an absolutely brilliant premise: they do crazy stuff in an attempt to make the 4 or so hosts (they're on rotation) laugh, but if the hosts laugh then they get beat with a stick or shot in the ass with darts or something. The whole time they're sitting there stifling laughter and biting their lips, and then screaming in writhing agony as they bend over and take their beatings like the 100-lb. featherweight girly men that they are. Brilliant!

So tonight I turn on the tv to kill some time, and there's this show on with Takeshi Beat, of Takeshi's castle/MXC Challenge (on Spike TV) fame. So they had this section that was the standard true or false quiz with a twist. You had to either go to the big circle (maru) or the big x (batsu), at which point they shot fake missles at the loser group and set off some explosions to send them all flying. They even had a whole backstory accompanied by a video where there was a US satellite hovering above Japan they had on rent from the US government with full Bush approval to shoot strategical missles directly at the targets. There was a CG satellite animation for the shooting, and they had this fake Bush they talked to with simultaneous translation that talked about how he loved Japanese tv and used to watch it back in Texas as governor. There was another section where they had them hooked up to reverse bungie cords and shot people into the air, which of course knocked all their clothes off as they screamed in terror. After that, I watched them strap people to the front of giant trucks and drive them around through explosions and stuff, then douse them in paint so they could run them into a soft wall and make imprints.

So yeah, Japanese tv is totally random... there's a whole system of what they call "talent", which is rather ironic considering most of them are quite untalented. They're very, very good at acting like total buffoons and making total asses of themselves though, and it's often totally hilarious. Like, totally and stuff. Anyway, you basically watch different shows with the same "tarento" on rotation just in different situations. This explains why they have to come up with such random scenarios to keep everyone entertained!

And with that, I shall leave you with some good clips of Japanese tv. Enjoy!

Waratte ha ikenai!
Waratte ha ikenai! - gym class