Has anyone out here seen Spike-TV's "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge"? What has happened is a group of comedians in LA has taken video of the old Takeshi's Castle Game Show from Japan, and redubbed it with silly dialogue that is loaded with innuendo, toilet humor and double entendres.

Takeshi Kitano has been re-voiced as the serious commentator Vic Romano, a serious, sad-sack who's a recovering alcholic, divorced and is usually the voice of reason among the commentator team. His court jester has been re-voiced as Kenny Blankenship, a wise-ass guy with a lot of lust and plans to score babes. Hayato Tani's character General Lee has been re-voiced as the ever popular Captain Tenneal, who's a little conservative, has an opinion on everything and waves a mean $39.00 sword. The mustachioed field reporter is dubbed in a Maurice Chevalier Fake French accent as Guy LeDouche, who's always groping the women during post event interviews and getting rudely rejected in disgust.

Challengers have to compete in various events which have been renamed for double-entendre and potty humor effect. For example, events include the following:

The Log Drop-contestants have to run across a serious of rolling logs over a pond full of muddy water

Sinker and Floaters--contestants have to run across a series of stepping stones over a muddy pond. However, some will sink while some will hold the contestant's weight.

Nutbaggers--Contestants run up a hill wearing a foam rubber sack to slow their mobility while giant paper mach? acorns roll down the hill to knock them back down.

A lot of the humor comes from seeing the contestants fall in a spectacular fashion, sometimes getting seriously hurt in the process, while the silly dialogue filled with double entendres makes it even funnier to most viewers.

Silly dialogue done over old TV shows and movies is nothing new. Anyone who's ever seen Mystery Science Theatre 3000 knows this. However, some Asian Americans feel that this show is mocking Asian Americans and the Japanese despite the fact that the voiceovers tend to mostly mock various American stereotypes (i.e. Irish american drunks, Rednecks, Homeboys, etc.)

So, what thoughts do any of you at GoldSea have on this hit show for Spike-TV, which has been renewed for a second season?

From what you said Hank, I also recall another similar show that the Fox Network aired a summer ago but not surprisingly was cancelled. Or at least I have not heard from it. I beleive the name of the show to be Bonzai. Yet, I am not interested in those type of wacky gameshows from Japan.

Some friend of mine who wanted to figure out why he doesn't see those wacky games in Japanese television that those games lost much of their popularity. Although, I think some still exist. I suppose the games were a fad in the 1980s.

Getting back to the topic. After comparing Most Extreme... and the Fox take on it Bonzai, Bonzai was somewhat more tasteful. Sure, the ads and the hosts displayed some behavior of typical Japanese stereotypes but at least the translation were accurate and not totally fabricated. Plus, rather than some show displaying some Japanese contestests making fools of themselves, Bonzai had a number of non-asian contestants doing the same thing as their Japanese counterparts.

Hank, what do you expect? Most Extreme Elimination Challenge is on Spike TV. First Network for Men. I doubt it was catered to the needs of other non-white men. It sort of what would happen if the Man Show become its own channel.

As for a second season, MEEC certainly will have it. After all, they are using old footage from Castle Game Show.

I am curious to how long Takashi Castle Game Show lasted and how does its producers feel about licensing thier footage to Spike once they have a glimpse of MEEC. Or do they care at all how the speech is basterdized?

LZ:

MXC isn't represented as being a translation at all. It doesn't even pretend to me. Basically it's making fun of people falling and hurting themselves, with really silly and semicrude dialog.

As for Takeshi Kitano, he, the NHK Network and those who own the rights are being paid quite well for the use of their video. The license agreement is only for the video feed and not for the original dialog. In fact, if they were to run the original audio, translate it and/or subtitle it, they could be sued for violation of copyright/licensing. This has been directly stated by an Executive Producer of the show. Also, Takeshi Kitano is aware of what is being done with the video and the silly dialog. He apparently saw a couple of episodes with the wacky dialogue directly translated into Japanes for him (with the puns being explained) and he has found it very amusing.

Another thing to consider is that there are some Caucasians and Africans who've been seen on the show as well. In fact, usually two or three times a Season during the original Takeshi's Castle run, they would have an "All-Gaijin" episode, and also sometimes have a couples or an all-girl's episode. Video from some of these episodes of TK has been used to construct episodes of MXC.

Some more info: CBS/Viacom tried to do an Occidental version of this called "Storm the Castle" in 1992--complete with a European style fake castle instead of a Japanese style fake castle. However, it failed miserably because it was done with families and they reduced some of the difficulty in the challenges. The show (MXC) apparently has a large fan base, including a newsgroup with almost 3000 members, many of whom would love to have the opportunity to go on the show as Takeshi's castle if it were still being made, but with the silly dialogue.

Also, I disagree with your assessment of Spike-TV catering to only the White-male entertainment needs. It runs shows on it that appeal to all types. For example, "Ride with Funkmaster Flex" and the many of the custom Car shows it has appeal across a broad spectrum of ethnicities of people. A good number of those car shows have featured customizers of all races, with a good number of Asian Americans being shown with their custom cars, as well as some nice video of hot import/custom car show models. Furthermore, the executiveproducer of MXC who is credited (Peter Kaikko) and one of the head Executives of Spike-TV (Pei-lin Chou) are Asian American GUYS.

I'm not saying you could classify MXC as "Asian American Entertainment" here. What I'm saying is I don't think you could call it a "racist show" either.

They could have cut and paste the show together like Power Rangers or Robotech, so that it would have broader appeal to the American Audience.

But then again why isn't the iron chef cut and paste in this format.

Well that sucks. Didn't know that show was that old. Why do we get some of the asian flicks over here like a decade or so later? Anyhoo, Iron Chef makes my mouth water.

I think this show is f***ing hilarious. Just like any other media entertainment, you have a choice on whether to watch it or not. My only regret is why I did not think of the idea. I could be laughing all the way to the bank right now.

You just cant beat that shows Cheese factor.
I love it.

The show is pretty funny... if you get it, Japanes are I guess know to be as reserved as they come(middle class) and for sure they would never ever come up with the humour that is dubbed in, only whites could come up with that sort of stuff, not asians, bloody great stuff!!!

One of the shows featured Tony Hawke and some other famous female that I don't know. They shot it in Florida in English. The footage seemed very recent, like within the past year. I think that they are making new shows since the show is very popular now.