Japanese TV (especially their game shows and reality shows) is notorious for airing some pretty bizarre and cruel stunts. Here are two good examples of that. These videos come from a candid-camera style show. I don't know it's name. In
the first video an outdoor porta potty is equipped with a hydraulic lift that, ten seconds after the door is shut, lifts the bewildered occupant high into the air. And as
NetNewsAsia points out, "for many people, ten seconds is evidently more than enough time to get down to the job at hand."
In
the second video a massaging chair at a ski resort is rigged to send the occupant flying backwards through a trapdoor into the snow. The prank is then updated to make the chair jet-powered. Now its terrified occupants are sent blasting at top speed down the ski slope in a runaway chair.
If these pranks were done in America, I can't imagine someone not getting sued. Assuming, that is, that the pranks haven't been staged (i.e. that the victims aren't really actors). I think there's a good probability that they are. The Japanese have a term for staged events on shows like this:
Yarase. Yarase is so common over there that many viewers just assume that most of the weird stuff they see on TV is fake.
Comments
I don't know about the others...the older guy looked pretty pissed off. And I felt sorry for the guy whose towel got caught in the door.
They all ended up dunked way out in the water, and some of them were women quite clearly with their pants still down.
Yup, I'd say they're paid actors, or the Japanese have a sense of humour and duty that goes beyond normal comprehension.
"It's staggering how quickly people are to push their own agendas rather than actually discuss the topic at hand.
Posted by Charybdis in Hell on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 01:51 PM"
That would make them a lot smarter than viewers in North America.
Their responses do look genuine, but i'm leaning toward staged. Just too extreme a prank to pull on ppl off the street, and the ski chair looks quite dangerous as well.
The prank itself - or all those people sitting naked on the same leather/vinyl chair - ewwww.
If it were real the backlash would be unbelievable. I imagine few of those ejected would move until a helicopter airlifted them to a hospital, where their lawyers would be waiting to CLEAN UP. The Japanese have a saying, and they use it daily: FUZAKERUNA ^_^