The Death of TV

I’ve recently gotten some really bad news regarding two shows I watch regularly. The worst is the cancellation of UCHIMURA PRODUCE (Monday nights at 23:15 on TV Asahi). The whole thing started back in the Spring, when it came to light that Uchimura (host of the show, and one half of the comedy duo Un-chan Nan-chan) was dating the female on-air assistant, also a newscaster on the same channel. The thing is, the newscaster was still married to one of TV Asahi’s top producers (although they were separated), and all this caused quite the stir in the still very-much male dominated Japanese world. She was quickly removed from the Uchimura show, as well as her news program, but UCHIMURA PRODUCE was spared. Well, it seems that the producer still has it in for Uchimura, and they’re finally getting the ax in September. It’s really too bad since the show, which features regular appearances by tons of hilarious comedians, like Ryo Fukawa, T.I.M. and Summers, in improv style situations that get me rolling on the floor most of the time. The other bad news is for another wacky comedy show, ONE NIGHT ROCK’N’ROLL (Wednesday nights at 22:00 on Fuji TV), which I’ve mentioned quite a few times already. They first got in trouble a few weeks ago when they had a sketch where they had the face of the Tigers baseball team’s manager in a toilet (which was flushed – the Japanese take their baseball very seriously). Then, last week, they had a sketch where they were force-feeding some milk powder to someone, and now that company that makes the powder (you could see the brand) is none too happy. At first I was afraid (and expecting) that the show would also get cancelled, but it seems that they’ll instead have to retinker the show a bit. Let’s hope they don’t water down things too much. I want my Gorie and Todoroki-san as wild and wacky as I’m used to getting them.