Japanese comedians celebrating Obama’s victory

In a recent column of Televiews by Wm. Penn for the Daily Yomiuri, Penn recently wrote about the various comedians on variety shows celebrating Barack Obama’s win for the US presidency.  Here is an excerpt from Wm. Penn’s article:

What effect will a Barack Obama presidency have on Japan? Puzzled TV pundits and commentators have been tossing that question about all week, but there is one comedian out there who understands exactly what is about to happen.

The Obama win could be the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for struggling comic Nocchi (Nozomu Sato), Japan’s leading Obama impersonator. There is really no resemblance, but then again, Nocchi certainly looks more like him than his real-life distant cousin Dick Cheney does. Sato is a member of the comedy duo known as Dangerous. His sidekick, Kazuhiro Yasuda, sometimes dresses up as a Secret Service agent in dark sunglasses.

The new Wednesday night variety show Contract with the Devil (7:56 p.m., TBS) offered Nocchi a trip to the United States to meet Obama. The basic premise of the program is simple: Sign on the dotted line and the show will offer its full support for your project. But if you fail to achieve results, there will be a penalty. On the latest show, for example, the challenger needed to catch a shoplifter or fork over 600,000 yen for a surveillance camera.

In Nocchi’s case, he was supposed to accomplish his daunting task by using the old “aponashi” (no appointment, just make yourself a nuisance) style made famous by Kunihiro Matsumura of the variety show classic Denpa Shonen. Matsumaru’s greatest accomplishment was shaking the hand of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Last week, as the world greeted the election of a new U.S. president, Contract with the Devil celebrated Obama’s election with the tale of Nocchi’s amazing U.S. adventure. There he was, charging into Chicago, running amok on city streets yelling “Obama” without any honorific attached. No “san,” no Mr., no Senator. My first response was to search for the nearest remote control escape route. But, when Nocchi finally calmed down and unpacked a few basic honorifics from his suitcase, he was almost affable.

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