Worldwide Downtown News: Whoopee Cushions

Ah, the whoopee cushion. Always good for a quick, tasteless, joke.

This BBB (which is late. Sorry. ) comes from Downtown's show "Worldwide Downtown Headline News". The concept is very simple: Get some foreigners, put cheesy Japanese voice-overs on them, and commence with the funny.

In the form of a news show, Hamada and Matsumoto appear as panelists and are subjected to the stereotypical members of the panel.

Gilles (French name, pronounced like "Jheel". I had a friend with that name. Let's just say I had a hard time guessing the pronunciation from his name tag in elementary school) Besson plays our host, and he's got a deep profoundness for being corny. He plays the stereotypical "Trying-too-hard" foreigner, trying to crack quick jokes and puns. Unlike most shows where this type of character is pushed to the back except the the odd occasion, Gilles is in the role of power, as he controls the flow of the show.

Ghorchyan and Natalia are foils of each other, with Ghorchan being the fairly grumpy, purely logical one and Natalia being the "Live is lovely!", ever-sunny one, who looks on the bright side.

Almost every show starts with Gilles introducing a video of some sort, which generally features something incredibly corny being made into something amazing. Afterwards, Gilles asks everyone's opinions, and Ghorchan and Natalia disagree. Then Gilles usually starts the funny with Hamada and Matsumoto.

What I love is the way that sometimes the corny voice-overs that they place over the actors are actually what they are saying. For example, if you keep an eye on Natalia, you can see it when she says "I'll think about it"(kangaetoku wa), "Hi, Gilles!"

In this case, the video introduces a coffee shop where the owner pranks his customers. If they react in what he thinks is a funny manner, get food for free. If he keeps that up, he'll be out of business soon.



I'm keeping it short this week for the summary, as I've got a meeting tomorrow that I need to prepare for. However, let's see. . . As I'm trying to foster discussion on the BBBs, let's get a discussion started about this one. Hrm. Share with the world the best practical joke you've seen played (preferably one you experienced first-hand in real life, and not "i saw this funny vid on youtube of (X)") or the funniest promotion you've seen a store have!

I went to a pet store once, and they were giving away tiny (and I mean tiny) sacks of catnip of April 20 (4/20) if you brought your cat dressed up in a reggae outfit. Kinda stereotypical to reggae and Jamaica in general, being labeled as pot-smokers, but you could see the cats look at each dressed up, humiliated, thinking "Hang in there, brother. When we rise up. . . Oh, when we rise up. . .". Almost needless to say, this pet store was run by your stereotypical pot smokers.

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