Will Americans fall for Japanese-style game shows?
Apparently, Americans have at least one major quality in common with the Japanese: a willingness to fall down dramatically on camera, preferably into muddy water. When the creators of "Fear Factor" started casting "Wipeout" - a new slapstick contest with a clear kinship to Tokyo game show fare - they had no trouble attracting contestants. Ditto the producers of "I Survived a Japanese Game Show."
When both shows premiere on ABC tonight, they'll be a test of whether mainstream viewers are quite so willing to watch. But executives hope that, in a summer filled with dancing contests and sitcom reruns, there will be a hefty interest in people falling down.
"It felt like big, clear, mass entertainment," said John Saade, ABC's senior vice president for alternative series, specials, and late night. "Which is the hardest thing to do, in a fractionalized landscape."
If American quiz shows and reality contests have long borrowed liberally from Europe - with serious music, futuristic sets, and snarky judges - the colorful, absurdly goofy obstacle-course-style game shows of Japan repre sent a different sort of TV.
"They're a big believer in rules and regulations and laws. During the workday, everybody is straight-ahead, very proper," said Arthur Smith, the executive producer of "I Survived a Japanese Game Show." "Their game shows are this great release."
Whether they're the best representation of Japanese culture is another question; there are faint rumblings in the blogosphere about whether "Japanese Game Show" will perpetuate Asian stereotypes. Smith says the show strives to be authentic, and used Japanese producers, directors, and hosts to create its course.
"Our purpose wasn't to make fun of anything," Smith said. "It was just to play it straight ahead . . . the humor is mostly from the Americans being fish out of water."
Japanese game shows are, indeed, a broad sort, as seen on YouTube clips and on "MXC," the cable cult hit that ran from 2003 to 2007 on Spike. (Reruns still air.) That show, whose title is short for "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge," took episodes of a real Japanese contest called "Takeshi's Castle," which put its contestants through such trials as running uphill dodging foam boulders, leaping on top of giant dominoes, or hopping on a platform while dressed as a nut. Producers added a snarky voice-over and sound effects to make the falls seem even more painful, said Paul Abeyta, the "MXC" creator and head writer.
Abeyta said he figured "Takeshi's Castle" itself could never have been produced for American TV: The sets seemed too expensively elaborate, the liability too great.
"It's no-holds-barred TV," he said. "They take such risks and find the most unusual things funny. . . . Which tells me that either they're crazy or they're incredibly good-natured and just love having fun."
Smith, who also executive produces the Fox shows "Hell's Kitchen" and "Kitchen Nightmares," said his own show was born when ABC optioned a Scandinavian show called "Big in Japan," and asked his team to revise the concept for American TV.
Producers advertised for contestants in stealth, Smith said, using buzzwords like, "Ready for an adventure?" and "Exciting new network primetime reality show." When cast members arrived in Los Angeles, they were put on a plane to Tokyo and told they would be contestants on a newly created game show called "Majide" - in English, "You Got to be Crazy."
The result, Smith said, is a show within a show, as contestants fall down like true Japanese contestants while learning the ins and outs of Japanese culture. (ABC did not provide advance copies of the show, or of "Wipeout.") In each episode, the winning team gets a reward, such as a tour of a Tokyo spa. The losing team faces a Japan-theme punishment, such as working in a rice field or pulling a rickshaw.
Matt Kunitz, the executive producer of "Wipeout," said his own show is "90 percent 'Fear Factor'-inspired, 10 percent Japanese game show," and was designed as a less-gross sequel to his long-running NBC hit. The course is filled with absurd obstacles, pretested to ensure a 90 percent failure rate. In each episode, a field of 24 contestants will be winnowed down to four, who head to an obstacle course that's even more extreme.
"It was surprisingly easy to sell," said Kunitz, who said ABC agreed to air the series within hours of his pitch. "I never thought of ABC as being a risk-taker, and this is a little bit of a risky show. But I think they saw a family show."
Saade, the ABC senior vice president, said he thinks extreme slapstick has universal appeal. The network has been airing endless promotions for "Wipeout," using a clip in which contestants try to jump across a course of enormous red rubber balls. Nobody makes it.
"The feedback we get from everyone is, 'I want to run that course,' " Saade said. He's even mapped out a scenario, in his head, for mastering the challenge.
"I've seriously taken the fantasy to the point where I've worked out the scene," he said.
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. 