Godzwilla versus Japanese Comedians

We all knew this day would come.

So Japanese comedians are actually quite different than their American counterparts. Our typical image of the comedian is a someone on stage with a mic for 20-30 minutes, telling jokes, maybe a little "character" play. Someone like Steven Colbert has his super-conservative impression, Dane Cook has that "I'm not funny" thing going for him, and Bernie Mac...ok, even I'm not making fun of a dead guy. It's all good.

But our comedians are at least...y'know, funny?

Japanese comedians are on stage for 2-3 minutes and typically have a tired routine they'll do over and over and over. They're not comedians because they literally have a hundred variations on the same joke. That brings me to Edo Harumi.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=PGiQQ5EmgGo

...So I can't upload the actual video to the blog. Just click a link, it won't kill you. I'd have to code for like...4 minutes to get a video going. Nag nag nag...

Edo Harumi is famous for giving the "thumbs up" gesture and saying "Gooo" ("Good" for the 95% of you that didn't click the link) to the result of hysteric laughter from Japanese people. They think its clever even though I've only been here a month or two and I've seen it 10 or 11 times on tv.

Then, maybe worse, you have Nezumi-senpai. You may actually have heard of him, and if you have, you've heard the truth. He really IS that bad of a singer.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=3u8QGgQSFiM

In Japan, Nezumi-senpai is what you call a "Singa-Comidia" (Singer-Comedian). His humor, like Weird Al or Jonathon Coulton, comes from his music...and his ridiculous fashion choices. But mostly the music. In the link there you'll see that after the halfway mark, the entire song is the word "Po" over and over again. Popopopopopopo-KILLMEHAVEMERCY-popopopopopopopo...

The humor comes from being surprised at how many Po's he can fit into the song. Even though we've all see his song a few times on tv (with Po-counters...204 Po's total), everyone laughs when he pauses and sings the "unexpected" Po's.

Worse than all of this, it's actually rare to see the comedians do their routines. If you see them on tv, it's likely they are actually just doing guest roles on tv game shows. And yes, tv game shows WILL get their own blog entry, you'd best believe it. But for now, just know that Japanese game shows are essentially 3 contestants and 30 (not an exaggeration) "famous" people. Usually they're comedians. Or famous people with careers in the can. Or, much more likely, each person is a bit of both.

Godzwilla versus Japanese Hacks...*cough*..."Comedians"?
The winner: "Popopopopopopopo-"*gunshot sound*.....Godzwilla, if my dream of actually doing this comes true.