Gaki Messes with Waitresses

Original airdate: 8/17/1997

For my first review, I just randomly picked a video in my arsenal, and decided to highlight and review it. I think that for a first video, this was a good choice. The title for today's episode is "回して、回して、一万円！” which means "Spin 'em, spin 'em, 10,000 yen!" The concept came from an observation that Matsumoto made two weeks earlier during one of Downtown's comedy talks. He said that if you go to a coffee shop, the waitress will come over and help you. However, if you say "Excuse me" as they are walking away, they pivot on the balls of their feet in place to come back. Today's episode was planned to shed some light on whether this is true or not.




In the opening, Yamazaki serves as the organizer for this little experiment and explains that it will be done in game form. The show has hidden cameras in two coffee shops. Cocorico and Downtown are to split into pairs chosen by pulling on rope ends. Each pair will try to get their waitresses to spin in place as much as they can in 20 minutes by only saying "Excuse me." Each time a waitress spins in place, 10,000 yen is added to the pot. After time is up, the team that made their waitress spin the most gets the whole pot.
The first team is the Hamada-Tanaka team. They get off to a rough start, not even getting one spin in place. However, if the game were to scare the living bajeebus out of the waitress, Hamada did just that. Note the "Holy crap, it's a gorilla!" look on the waitresses face whenever she sees him.



After about 12 minutes in, Tanaka and Hamada change seats, and Hamada lets Tanaka do the calling. Tanaka manages to get 3 points for the team in a row. (*throws on Tanaka Fan Club T-shirt and cheers wildly*) After they realize they are about 18 minutes in, they decide to ditch the premise of the game and dig into their food. Yamazaki, Endo and Matsumoto who are watching from a separate location don't find it interesting to watch them sit there and chow down, so they send Yamazaki to bring them back. Yamazaki rushes in and smacks Hamada hard on the back of the head.
Some of you may not know this, but disrespecting a senior (whether it be by age or by experience) is taken pretty seriously in Japanese society. Getting whacked on the back of the head by his inferior set Hamada off and he handles the matter gangsta-style. Yamazaki backs down and apologizes like a little beyotch. So, in total Hamada-Tanaka team scores 3 points.

After Hamada schools Yamazaki, it's Matsumoto-Endo team's turn to try. They do horribly to start. The waitress tended to finish what she was doing before the Matsumoto's timing is laughably horrible, as he starts asking the waitress to turn around while she's still at the table. So they have to resort to making the waitress show things from their display cabinets and repeated asking for things put back and to see other things. In a frenzy of failed spin attempts, Endo just resorts to calling the waitress over, and then having Matsumoto call, then alternating between the two of them. Even that doesn't work. So in their last few seconds, Matsumoto just shifts into manual and spins her with his hands.

Yamazaki stretches his rulings for the Matsumoto-Endo team based on pity, and the score winds up being tied 3-3. But since the rulings were less stretched, he awards the Hamada-Tanaka team with the win! *throws parade*

Talk-
Most episodes of Gaki no Tsukai have a talk portion, which is basically the comedic stylings of Downtown. It usually consists of a bin full of postcards being wheeled on stage and Hamada reading off questions to Matsumoto, but sometimes Matsumoto comes in with things that he'd like to discuss. If I had the time, I'd probably subtitle videos because it I think it would be really worth it. But I'll just provide some translation on some of the funnier parts here to save room. (This post is already big o.o)
During the talk, the first post card that was pulled said "When the rain suddenly stops, the umbrella you are no longer using gets in the way. Please show me a cool way to hold it when that happens." Matsumoto explains that an umbrella is only an umbrella after it's opened. Otherwise it's in its "pre-umbrella" stage. Therefore the way to hold an umbrella is to hold it opened. Matsumoto strutting around the stage in "Singing in the Rain" fashion then followed.


In proving how not cool that is, they did a test-run and showed that you'd hit everyone walking down the street. Matsumoto's rebuttal: "Well it would be okay if everyone had theirs open. You open yours." Then the battle of "You open yours!" vs. "No, just close yours!" began. Things like this are a very small piece of the magic of this show.

The last part of the episode was one that I almost forgot about completely. While taking a photo the week before, the video cameras picked up a voice saying "...downtown..." when the camera shutters closed. Scary, I can somewhat hear it too. o.O

Rating- Overall, I gave this episode 5-stars. If you haven't seen it, please refer to my rating guide.
The concept was original and fairly interesting to me, having worked in fast food during high school and early college. It really goes to show the determination of the Japanese workforce. They either weren't phased by being called back to the table every 10 seconds or they did a great job of hiding it. I know I would have been annoyed.
Yamazaki getting manhandled will pretty much give any episode at least a 4-star rating, but the talk alone is a good one. Rewatching this made me realize how unaccustomed I am to seeing Matsumoto with hair. XD
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My Ranking System

As I went through (and still am) going through my horde of Gaki episodes, I decided to through them all in a spreadsheet, and give a brief description of the episode and a rating for the episode as a whole.
After talking to some of my friends about my cataloging efforts, I realized that my rating system makes NO SENSE, at least to them. My scale is from 1 to 10 stars, with 1 being the worst rating. Normal people would then s However, as to not confuse you, the reader, I shall explain with a rubric.


1 star - A video rated with a one will be incredibly rare, especially for a show like Gaki no Tsukai. A one-star video is physically painful to watch, has no entertainment value and would generally make me want to assassinate whoever made the show.

2-4 star - A two-star video is fairly boring. It's nothing more than a waste of a few minutes. It's one of those things makes you wonder if your time was better spent. A four-star video is fairly entertaining, but still could use some improvement or generally did not quite meet up to the potential of the premise for the show.

5-7 star - These are the good videos. A five-star show will have you laughing and/or make you think the whole way through. The premise is well thought out, and executed well. Seven-star videos are rolling on the floor hilarious, and are generally what dreams are made of. It's what people would describe as "excellent."

So at this point, you may be thinking "Wait... Seven-stars is excellent? What about the other three levels above that? Shouldn't 'excellent' be about a 9 or so?" Not to me. In essence, my scale runs from 1 to 7, with anything above that going somewhere into the "epic" and "ZomgThatWasJustTooAmazing.WhyHasn'tMyHeadExplodedYet?" territory. Hopefully now that makes some sense to you. It'll start making more sense once I actually start reviewing videos, hopefully. Just thought I'd straighten that out beforehand. Episode reviews on the way!
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Blog is now open for business!

So, I'm sitting here in a dorm room clear across the country from where I live, on December 15. Today just happens to be my birthday. With no close friends here for me to give me gifts, I decided to give myself a gift: the gift of blog!

I've decided to share with the world abroad, my love for the popular Japanese variety show "Gaki No Tsukai Ya Arahende." The show was started by the famous Japanese comedy duo, Downtown, and later added comedians Housei Yamazaki and duo Cocorico as regulars. The show's been on the air since 1989, and for good reason. It still remains a very popular show to this day.

I've amassed quite a collection of episodes, and have watched them all for the most part. So I figured that I might as well chronicle them and let anyone who wants to share their thoughts do so.

For those among you readers who don't know the cast, here's a quick rundown:



This here is Matsumoto Hitoshi. It's technically Hitoshi Matsumoto by western standards as Hitoshi is his given game and Matsumoto is his family name. For the sake of continuity with the show and not confusing people, I'm going to just leave it in the traditional Japanese order. ...Anyways, Matsumoto is one half of the comedy group, Downtown. He plays the "boke" which is the stooge. He wins over the crowd with his exuberance and almost naive sense of humor and generally just wins at life. Also, he's got one of the most infectious laughs I've ever heard on a human being.
Next up, Hamada Masatoshi, the other half of Downtown. He plays the "tsukkomi" which serves as the straight man. It's his job to point out idiocy, usually by the Matsumoto, in the funniest way possible. However, as the show has progressed, audiences have learned many things about him and his personality. For example, he gets mad pretty easily and generally resorts to violence and/or yelling when irritated. He's also often teased for having big lips, and also for looking like a gorilla. (Please note that I chose this picture of him in one of his more monkey-like looks.)


Third up to bat is Yamazaki Housei. He's the only member on the show who isn't part of a comedy duo. You, as a reader, will find that more often than not, I will take little interest in the actions of Yamazaki except when he's getting beaten up, insulted, or dressed in drag. I don't know why that is, but it just is. Of course there are times when I care, but most of the time I feel like he's trying too hard.

This dude here is Endo Shouzo. He plays the tsukkomi for the duo Cocorico. He's known around Japan for being one of the sexier male comedians. I haven't seen many of Cocorico's performances, but he could play a good boke since he's known for not being the brightest bulb in the box. Now that I think of it, he was one of the reasons why I started actually watching the show.

Although Endo is one of the reasons I started watching the show, here's the reason I keep watching the show. This here is Tanaka Naoki, Cocorico's boke. He's the tallest of the members by a few inches and fairly skinny. He writes most of Cocorico's material, and he's got a very subtle style of humor. That's the kind of humor I like. It's almost no wonder why I idolize the subtle style of Tanaka, and couldn't care less about the more obvious style of Yamazaki. Also, please note that as a reader you may see me paying generally too much attention to this guy. Sorry if this creeps you out.

I'll get this blog started up soon enough. I hereby christen this blog ready to sail! *breaks wine bottle on side of laptop* *watches wine get all over the keys* OH NO~ES!
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