Just finished No Laughing Hotel Men, and it's ****ing great. Next is policemen. Matsumoto is by far my favorite. Endo and Tanaka don't do a lot imo, except it's very lol when Tanaka gets scared.

There hasn't been much Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!! material being subbed lately. So, I thought I'd create a tangent for this thread.

Downtown hosted another show in the '90s: Downtown no Gottsu Ee Kanji. Gottsu Ee Kanji was a show in which Downtown gave younger comedians a chance to work with them, primarily in sketch comedy.

Five Rangers
These episodes have been linked before, but they're probably the most memorable from the show. Hamada players a villian (translated as 'Skeleton Mask') who is challenged by the Matsumoto-led Five Rangers. However, Hamada refuses to fight due to a reoccuring gag. The episodes parody a classic Japanese show, Gorenger.

Five Rangers, Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10
Episode 11
Episode 12
Episode 13


Here are other skits. They are almost always outrageous.

Downtown's Future- in 2014

Murder File: The Long-Armed-Bat-White-Flying-Squirrel

Confined Space Man

Christmas Eve

Oyassan!

Giant Hero

Sho-Ta!, Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Shortsighted Family

Threatening

Spawning

Is That Alright?

The Inn

Can't wait to watch these. In Japanese related news, I am climbing Mt. Fuji tomorrow

Anyone know if the "5 Rangers" sketches were partially improvised?

I've watched a lot of this stuff and I'm sure there's a fair amount of improvisation going on. In fact, I think a lot of these sketches don't actually have endings planned out (Confined Space Man). The performers keep going as long as the laughs keep coming. When the sketch loses steam, they simply end it.

In the later episodes of Five Rangers, I think Hamada may have been unaware of what costumes the rangers were going to appear in. He seems genuinely surprised a lot towards the end.

More from this show. The first link is especially awesome.

Kingdom of Nature

Violent Monkeys

Samurais

Lucky Striker

Dynasty,

Much appreciated, as always.

Since 1994, Downtown has hosted Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ, a music variety show. It's one of four shows Downtown is currently hosting.

Heyx3 episodes typically have a Japanese music star (but sometimes a foreigner) performing a recently released single, being interviewed, and often participating in some outlandish game. They games tend to be what gets uploaded and subbed.

One group that makes frequent appearances on this show and other variety shows (which seems to be a popular format in Japan) is Morning Musume. Morning Musume is an all female vocal and dancing group which has set sales records since forming in 1997. Their membership changes over time with older girls 'graduating' and new members winning auditions.

Here are some links to Morning Musume appearing on Heyx3.

The first set of links seems to be the third competition they participated in. But, it's probably the best to view first since Matsumoto owns the show completely in the second and third parts of the competition (2nd-4th links).

2002 Morning Musume Games: Team Matsumoto vs. Team Hamada, Part 1 (selecting teams, goldfish catching)
Part 2 (shaved ice eating)
Part 3 (shaved ice eating concludes, What are my feet touching?)
Part 4 (conclusion of feet touching)



The follwoing link has the 13 members of Morning Musume as one team against Downtown and other Japanese celebrities.

The competition consists of:
(1a) Ball tossing- eveybody throwing small balls into a basket-ball style net
(1b) Ball tossing- the game is changed so that one team randomly(?) has to toss high grade chesnuts (which have sharp spines)

Live performance of Morning Musme's new single 'Mr. Moonlight'

(2) Obstacle Course
(3) Strike-Cover-Jenken (rock-paper-scissors with a twist)
(4) Relay Race

This competition has a scene which went viral years ago.

Hamada Playing Strike-Cover-Jenken

2001 Morning Musume Games (52:56 Veoh link)


The third set appears to be the first competition. Unfortunatley, it's unsubbed and incomplete. However, all of this stuff is enjoyable without subs if you enjoyed the earlier links.

2000 Morning Musume Games, Part 1 of 7 (Introductions, 1st volleyball set)

Part 3 (3rd volley ball set begins)
Part 4 (3rd volleyball set concludes, tug-of-war complete)
Part 5 (Strike-Cover-Jenken begins)
Part 6 (Strike-Cover-Jenken concludes, Shooting Galery complete)


Parts 2 and 7 simply couldn't be found. I gathered that Part 7 was a relay race like in the 2001 games and that Downtown won.

These competitions aren't taken seriously, though both sides try to win. Downtown simply wants an entertaining show. The guests are there primarly to promote their product and themselves. As a result, there seems to be a tradition that the final competition gives whichever side is trailing a chance to make a comeback. In one extreme example on a different show, one team was beating the other 2-0. To give the trailing team a chance to win, the final round was decided to be worth 2,000,000,000,000 points.

The No Laughing series is so big that Downtown's show is now parodying it.

No Getting Aroused Grade School Students, Part 1

haha, this is hilarious.

No Getting Aroused Grade School Students, Part 2

I'm wondering when this was filmed, because they look a lot younger than they do now, though they mention the 'no laughing' series getting old. I wonder when/where I can watch this stuff locally, I'm sure it'd be funny even without subs.

The final part is up.

No Getting Aroused Grade School Students, Part 3

Here's shibatabread's new subbed 'free talk' by Downtown.

If I were an F1 racer


In some bad news, shibatabread's home was robbed.

http://www.shibatabread.com/

Jesus, that's awful news.

Also, it's good to see the fashion in mid-90's Japan was just as bad as it was over here.