Hi Japan. Are you… feeling all right?
Because you’re acting quite strange these days, friend. Actually — it’s been going on for some time now.
I won’t even get into the nastier stuff, involving saucer-eyed schoolgirls and tentacled space beasts. I’ll be charitable and assume that’s just a tiny, aberrational subset of your culture.
But why the obsession with scaring the bejeebers out of each other? Why the televised ritual humiliations, and the seeming eagerness to cause each other grave injury?
(Oh, and why are you scaring children, you colossal assbags?)
Don’t get me wrong. You have many excellent aspects to your culture, Japan. And even if you did nothing else until the end of time besides produce cartoon robot porn, you’d still be ahead, on balance, just for giving the world sushi.
But stop being dicks to each other, OK? (Even if a giant bird in the men’s room IS kind of hilarious.)
*
*
Then again, we have “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.”
Never mind, Japan. Sorry.
(Bill walks out of room backwards, bowing and scraping.)
33 responses so far ↓
1 Geena on Feb 2, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I just don’t think we’re in a position to judge. I mean, do they have COLLECTOR’S PLATES in Japan?
2 GregMcduck on Feb 2, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Remember when that one reporter did the same water-out-the-microphone trick on Tom Cruise? While the Japanese citizans laughed it, Tom Cruise laid what I believe is called the “smack-down”.
3 Tim on Feb 2, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Bill, the Japanese are simply carrying on the tradition of thousands of years ago, when the samurai warriors used to leap out of roadside thickets to terrorize small children and elderly women. Honorable men, those samurai.
Do you think we could organize a plan to send Tom Green over there, permanently? He’d fit right in with them, and we’d by rid of him.
4 Yanni on Feb 2, 2008 at 1:25 pm
And you have to consider the fact that since they have all those robots over there doing everything for them, the people of Japan need something to do…
5 R.A. Roth on Feb 2, 2008 at 1:34 pm
America is in no position to critique Japan’s taste in “Candid Camera”-esque prank humor. Heck, we invented it! But in all fairness, cigarette loads are an ancient Chinese prank exported to Europe by some stinking Italian or another, his name escapes me.
Randy
6 Onil on Feb 2, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Maybe it’s all the mercury in their fishcentric diet.
7 Shawn on Feb 2, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Giant birds and giant fake boulders, you mean.
8 MikeP on Feb 2, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Bet he learned that from LRH. Or Xenu. Hell, I don’t know how that whole thing is supposed to work. Nevermind.
9 MikeP on Feb 2, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Japan also brings use the miracle of canned bottled water. So they’ve got that going for them…
10 Rufus T. on Feb 2, 2008 at 3:45 pm
They are a great people Bill. They gave the world the joyous gift of “Invasion of the Neptune Men”.
11 Gristle McThornbody on Feb 2, 2008 at 5:13 pm
as a bunch of Japanese children said in some movie on some sci-fi puppet show…
“we like it very much!”
12 Barry on Feb 2, 2008 at 5:30 pm
When it comes right down to it, Tila Tequila isn’t even that attractive – she’s just far more likely than the average person to be naked at any given moment in time. I’d much rather watch the mindless hilarity of MXC (née Takeshi’s Castle) than the whiny Type-A’s-in-the-making on any of MTV’s programming.
13 ldt on Feb 2, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I kind of like the giant Indiana Jones rock. The USA needs to work that into it’s political debates some how.
14 Kenny8 on Feb 2, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Those people scare the whales out of the sea, and onto their dinner plates
15 Hugh on Feb 2, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Bill, are you only just now discovering Japan’s insanity? They have long been experts in this field.
I must, however, give them credit: The giant boulders and snowballs are a stroke of genius. Low-brow genius, but genius nonetheless.
16 Mr. Slick on Feb 2, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Bill the Japanese are a wise people, an honorable people and an INCREDIBLY UPTIGHT people! And it is for the latter that they created shows like MXC, to laugh at themselves doing stupid things dressed in stupid costumes; cause if they didn’t they would DIE!!
17 Tre on Feb 2, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Does the fact that I was rolling on the ground laughing at the fake boulder parts make me a bad person?
18 Bill Corbett on Feb 2, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Not to mention the Hitler Building….
19 Bill Corbett on Feb 2, 2008 at 9:00 pm
True, it’s not exactly news, Hugh. But for a while I thought it might be a generational phase. Nope, seems this is who they are.
(And I confess to guffawing heartily at the giant spheres. As you say, low-brow genius is still genius. Scaring the crap out of people — and kids! — by jumping out at them? Not s’much.)
20 Botchinator on Feb 2, 2008 at 9:26 pm
But, but…PRINCE OF SPACE!!!
Which way?
Though, i’d say those pranks aren’t nearly as messed up as some of the stuff they show on “Country Fried Home Videos”.
Oh look, that bear is attacking, thats funny LOL.
Though, i will admit, Japan has porn shops in gas stations, thats as cool as it is weird. You never know when you’re going to want to add that double ended robotic dildo to your collection, and its really convenient if you can nab one while you’re filling up.
21 Mephisto the Great on Feb 2, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I’m not sure why we’re surprised at Japan’s ability to sneak up and scare the crap out of people.
Pearl Harbor anyone?
22 Mr. Slick on Feb 2, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Were they responsible for that crappy movie too?! Those bastards!
23 Rufus T. on Feb 3, 2008 at 12:24 am
Indeed. It was one of the world’s most treasured structures. That and the Mussolini petting zoo of course.
24 Kleenex on Feb 3, 2008 at 1:55 am
Oh man, the emu in the men’s room. That’s hilarious. You could make a series out of that alone. I also enjoyed the elderly woman around 1:50 who looked a lot like Roger Ebert.
25 Chris T. on Feb 3, 2008 at 5:02 am
I suppose… *in a way* they’re responsible for that movie, but in a very roundabout way.
26 Bill Corbett on Feb 3, 2008 at 8:17 am
“I’m not sure why we’re surprised at Japan’s ability to sneak up and scare the crap out of people.
Pearl Harbor anyone?”
Pearl Harbor was just a big beat version of Japanese prank shows.
27 Bill Corbett on Feb 3, 2008 at 8:18 am
Oops, typo. Should be:
“big beta version”
Didn’t mean to imply that Pearl Harbor was a dance mix.
28 Erichw5 on Feb 3, 2008 at 10:32 am
without Japan we would not have the delicious turtle meat of Gamera. Oh and Metal Gear but it tastes like Metal.
29 Adam W. on Feb 3, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Bill, you have yet to indulge in the Japanese hilarity. Punch “Gaki no Tsukai” into any video search engine and you will experience the Japanese love for public humiliation and punishment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l407Jv-n00
The show usually consists of contestants trying not to laugh, and getting punished if they do. The library episode is hilarious.
Here is another game where the hosts attempt to both choke to death and induce a heartattack simultaneously by forcing contestants to eat on a treadmill. If they fail, they are dumped into painfully hot water and broiled like lobsters. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgjEgOzhc8s
30 Mystok on Feb 4, 2008 at 8:12 am
It must be all the background radiation from those Godzilla attacks.
One question, how do the Japanese rebuild cities so fast. The kaiju seems to demolish Tokyo every two years, but it gets rebuild completely in between attacks.
31 MarkAndrew on Feb 4, 2008 at 9:56 am
Personally, I blame being stuck on an island for some of their national insanity. I mean look at any island culture and you start seeing some pretty strange things.
Like cricket, or surfing, or a staggering number of unwed mothers. And don’t get me started with what apparently happens to the sheep in New Zealand.
I’m telling you, island life is weird life.
32 Mephisto on Feb 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Bill, I prefer the “big beat” version. My grandfather was there, and they did the “big beat” on us to be sure.
Glad there wasn’t a laugh track, though. That would have been…awkward.
Laugh track on “Pearl Harbor” the movie? Mandatory.
33 Lackey Q. Henchman on Feb 8, 2008 at 2:03 am
I think Mr. Slick has a point – the Japanese are simply so uptight, if they didn’t do shows like this to really cut loose, they’d simply drop dead
And besides, it’s at least more entertaining than the Planet’s Funniest Animals