Three Short Posts About Film

(Bonus link above!)

This Short Post: Super Happy Fun Monkey Bash
Super Happy Fun Monkey Bash is a compilation of bizarre Japanese T.V., comedy mostly, that I saw at the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival this past weekend.

I'm a guy who will not laugh if I feel it's expected of me - I laugh at my own jokes only if I didn't borrow them from someone else. Plus, I was well aware that Americans love to take things out of context. This goes doubly for all things Japanese, as Johnny explains in "Everything's Designed By Someone: Engrish Debunked" (anything I write Johnny has done earlier and funnier). So going in I wanted to have a good time, but I didn't want to be a dirty American.


That said, here's my thoughts on Japanese comedy as presented in Super Happy Monkey Fun:

1) It's funny.
2) The Japanese T.V. clips that were memes when I was in college were intended to be funny to the Japanese public as well.
3) Japanese T.V. has a lower budget than U.S. T.V. (as does everywhere else in the world).
4) Japanese T.V. has more nudity than U.S. T.V. (as does everywhere else in the world).
5) Japan is a truely post-modern society.
6) I don't understand why we don't steal from the Japanese like we steal from the British. A lot of the stuff in Super Happy Fun would be a quick port to the U.S. Many stealing opportunities are available:

If you want to steal joke by joke, you could steal this bit with Beat Takeshi and some other guy running around a giant dinner plate hiding in bowls of rice and hitting each other with giant chopsticks.

If you want to steal content, you could dub this great 15-minute show that closed out Monkey Fun, where a kid named Sally and her friends Taku, Bako and Kiki go to the department store to buy Sally a new mommy.

And if you wanted to steal a whole concept, you could steal this show that Super Happy set up as Pop Idol meets Make Me Laugh. Aspiring teen singers have to perform a song while ridiculous set-dressing is revealed and absurdly costumed extras do suggestive dances.

Get on it, Imperialist America! Isolationism is for pussies!