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An American Japanese Game Show: What Took So Long?
Japanese game shows have been satirized by a variety of long-running American television shows such as "The Simpsons" and "Saturday Night Live." Americans found these parodies to be amusing despite little knowledge of actual Japanese game shows. Finally, ABC decided to take advantage of this form of popular culture by airing "I Survived a Japanese Game Show." So, what took so long?
"I Survived" premiered June 24th. This "reality" game show started with ten contestants and will conclude with the lone survivor being rewarded with a quarter of a million American dollars. The show is filmed in front of live audience with a Japanese host who speaks both in English and Japanese. The audience is very active and loud-they have noise makers that come in a variety of forms.
(Visit the ABC website to see clips of the show at: http://abc.go.com/primetime/isurvivedajapanesegameshow/index.)
Japanese game shows, in general, involve contestants performing a number of silly stunts wherein audience members and the show's host mock the participants; especially the losers. The primary difference between Japanese game shows and American game shows in best summarized from a clip of "The Simpsons" episode, "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo" (first air date - May 16, 1999).
In this Simpsons episode, the Simpson family has quickly spent all their travel money during a visit to Tokyo. They reason that the best way to raise money for a flight back to Springfield is to participate in a Japanese game show. The host explains to them that American game shows reward knowledge, while Japanese game shows punish ignorance.
(Visit this site to see a clip of "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo": http://nerdnirvana.org/2007/05/06/the-simpsons-japanese-game-show/)
Years before "The Simpsons" provided us with an animated look at Japanese game shows, "Saturday Night Live" aired a parody featuring Mike Meyers as the host and Chris Farley as a contestant. In both cases, most viewers understood the humor of these skits even though they had not viewed an actual Japanese game show.
(Visit this site to view the SNL skit: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/chris-farley/videos/1636602)
"I Survived" maintains a commitment to actual Japanese game shows while incorporating the reality TV tradition of providing a "behind the scenes" look at the contestants. If you are into reality TV you have witnessed this formula repeatedly. This formula also includes two teams, in this case the Green Monkeys and the Yellow Penguins, competing against one another. The losing team is then forced to pit two team members against one another in an elimination bout.
"I Survived" also incorporates a premise that it is educating us, the viewing audience, on Japanese culture. For example, the winners of the July 8 episode were rewarded with a VIP trip to the famous Tokyo fish market. The losers, meanwhile, were forced to work in a Japanese rice field. Proper Japanese etiquette (e.g., how to hold a tea cup while drinking authentic traditional Japanese green tea) is taught via the "house mother" of the contestants.
As far as reality TV shows are concerned, "I Survived" offers nothing new. However, many people are undoubtedly tuning in to "I Survived" because of the relative unique form of comedy that Japanese game shows provide. The show is inane and involves humiliating contestants and relies on the stereotypical use of language as a form of entertainment.
As "I Survived" and other summer reality shows such as "Wipeout" reveal, many people enjoy this form of humor. For now, sayonara!
