To say television has changed in Japan since the 1960s is like saying Godzilla is a lizard.  It's understating the case just a bit.  The Japanese TV producers have taken the absolute worst in American TV and pushed it to the limit.  You thought our TV was trash? Then you haven't been to Japan in a while.

Imagine the tastelessness of a Jerry Springer TV show, the weirdness of pro wrestling and the crass greediness of a daytime game show, with large doses of nudity thrown in.  Japanese TV  is a never-ending succession of human torture, fart jokes, big breasts (on Japanese women?!) and just plain grossouts .. but it's also hilarious.

Just a taste of what you're missing by living in the Land of the Big BX:

 

In this game show, a grandmother has to answer questions about pop culture in order to prevent her grandson from being catapulted into the air by a bungee machine.  Mama-san doesn't have a clue who Backstreet Boys are.  The audience gets to enjoy the man screaming "Grandma, Graaaandmaaaa!" and the old woman bowing in apology just before he is launched hundreds of feet.  This guy's clothes were torn off when he was sent into the air.

"Puroresu (pro wrestling) Fever!" - three or four skinny little Japanese 90 pound weaklings fighting hulking, foreign professional wrestlers, the loser getting thrown either onto an electrified plate or a mat covered in a very sticky glue.

A show called Super Jockey, hosted by the infamous Beat Takeshi, in which people with products to promote (usually beautiful women) play a game where they have to change into a skimpy bikini before a curtain drops which will reveal them if they haven't finished changing, and then they have to sit in scalding hot water.  For every second they manage to stay in the water, they are allowed to promote their product for one second!

The human star.  A brave man turns himself into a human star (?) for his children!!??  Just look at the terror on this guy's face!  Do they actually cook him to twelve million degrees Kelvin? You'll have to go to Japan to find out.

Four very brave men playing "Guess what's on your head!"- a game show in which contestants try to guess what type of insect or reptile is crawling around on the top of their heads.  The contraptions they are wearing are supposed to keep the creatures somewhat under control.  Somewhat!  Yes, that is a live scorpion on the right. Sooooo .. wanna play?

In this country where the men have kept the women subservient for a thousand years, this is a favorite. This is a male-female boxing bout.  In the left photo, the man in purple trunks (r) is going to show the woman (l) just who is the boss.  Andy Kaufmann!! Are you watching this??  In the right photo, the referee is pointing to the man on the floor and asking if he's knocked out.  "No!" the man replies, "it's just a substantial blink!"  The woman was a kick boxing champion!

"I feel like there's an ambulance driving through my body," says the young spokesmodel, as she imitates the sound of a siren in this commercial for the Japanese snack food Balance Date.  Why is her leg in the air?  What does the ambulance have to do with the snack?  Maybe something is lost in the translation, like .. anyone viewing it.

This is a kind of Japanese "Candid Camera" show, but the situations tend to be more bizarre and more dangerous.  Take this one.  This poor man is supposed to be going to a meeting and is told he will be walking down an empty street to get there.  He is suddenly confronted by a hundred screaming people who came at him as if they were running for their lives! The guy nearly had a heart attack!

"Pardon me madam.  Might I fondle your breast?"  The winners of a big bust contest appear on the Super Jockey show which airs on Saturday and Sunday afternoons! (My black bar, not theirs.) This is regular TV, not cable.

The loser of this game show had his body covered in butter and then licked clean by three dogs inside a cage!  The Marquis de Sade is alive and well in Tokyo.

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