Wazoo TV Commercials - Funny Japanese TV Commercials

My good friend and partner in video and cinema, Ken Nishikawa, recently finished several TV commercials for an online ticketing service in Japan called Wazoo.jp.

George Williams (top) Sheena Rogers (bottom)

I directed the commercials and camera work was by Ken Nishikawa and we both edited them together with Ken doing all the hard work and me sleeping on the sofa.


The commercials are all in Japanese (duh! This is Japan) but hopefully you can enjoy them.


The first one is a play on words and makes fun of game shows.


The main character, George Williams, says, 
"What is the best thing for your life's prosperity?"
"Cheese?"
"Kazu?" (meaning King Kazu a famous soccer player)
"Mazu?" (meaning Mazui - tastes bad)
"Wazoo!"

Starring, in order: George Williams, Wray Rogers. Michio Hashimoto, Sheena Rogers

The second in the series is a parody of a very famous 80's TV commercial. In the original TV commercial, Japanese businessmen used a stop smoking aid called "Paipo." Here is the original commercial:

The first guy holds up the Paipo and says, "With this I stopped smoking." The second guy does and says the same thing. The third guy holds up his pinky finger and says, "With this, I quit my job." In Japan, holding up a pinky finger means "having a girlfriend" or "woman." The joke is that it insinuates he is married and was having an affair at work so he was forced to quit (by his wife or boss, we don't know).


Here is our commercial parody:

We parody the same commercial, but, at the end, the third gentlemen holds up three fingers like a "W" meaning Wazoo. And he says, "With this I made an event!"  Wazoo is an D.I.Y. online social media ticketing service for events and allows regular people to sell advanced tickets for all their events, get-togethers, and seminars without having to pay outrageous sums to the standard ticket agencies. It also allows for companies to do data mining so that they can research their users. See Wazoo's site here: http://www.wazoo.jp/ (Sorry Japanese only for now). 


There's a few more commercials in the series. I hope to have some more perhaps later this year or next year. Making TV commercials is fun.


NOTE: The first TV commercial began running on the TV Tokyo network on Feb. 1, 2012. The Paipo parody was, unfortunately, banned because of political correctness as the stations said some women's group complained that the upright pinky finger is discriminatory to women.

Rant: What I Dislike About Many Greens and Environmentalists - Understanding Human Motivations

Let me start off by saying that we need to protect the environment. We need to keep the beaches, rivers, lakes and land clean. We need to take care of ourselves and our earth for our children and their children and their children's children. But we also need to wake up and see what is really important in our lives.

Snowing like crazy in Tokyo... Global warming, don't you know?

Now to the point: I'm really fed up with self-righteous militant and nearly militant Greens and Environmentalists. I am sick and tired of their ignorant and ill considered ideas. I am really disgusted by their "holier than thou" attitude and thinking that they are always right and you are always wrong. They are just as bad as religious zealots: I don't mind someone having their religion and their beliefs. Great! Do as they wish. But do not try to push these beliefs on me or other people. I really don't like their abrasive and antagonistic attitudes.


I also wonder just how stupid these people can be. On one hand they will complain about the government being completely corrupt and in bed with big business when it comes to things like nuclear accidents and BP oil spills... Or banking corruption and the destruction of the working class... Yet, on the other hand, they want the government to tax us so that they can take care of the environment? Astounding!


This is a government, in Japan's case for exapmple, that can't even handle the bookkeeping properly and now has the country on the ledge of bankruptcy and people want to give them more money!? That would be like handing care of your household finances to a crack addict and expecting that he will take care of things properly. 


Today it is snowing and it is snowing hard. This is at least the sixth time this year it has snowed in Tokyo. This is the hardest and deepest snow I have ever seen here. In the 27 years I have been here it has never snowed more than twice in any winter. Most winters it doesn't snow at all; and if it does, the snow melts immediately upon hitting the ground. But this is at least six times in one year! To illustrate the rarity of this more, just one month ago, on Jan. 24, it snowed more than 4 cm in Tokyo and that was the most snow in 6 years. Today's snow is much more than that!  

Thousands of people have died in Europe, almost 100 in Japan, because of this winters cold and snow... It is the coldest winter in nearly 30 years... But is it a fluke? Nope. Just two years ago, they said the winter of 2009 ~ 2010 was devastatingly cold. This year, 2012, is the death of the Global Warming Cult. R.I.P.


The rule of thumb is that if there is a crisis and the government comes along and says, "pay us more money and we'll take care of it for you." Then a wise person (and I do mean wise and intelligent experienced and thoughtful person) would automatically become suspicious. Trust me. Over 3 decades in the mass media and many years as a station news director makes me much more of an expert on that than any university professor.


Trust that everything you see or hear is told to you by someone who has a motivation for it. If it is on TV or media or in publications, then you can pretty much be safe in assuming that there is a strong profit motivation. If it comes from any government or quasi-government source (that includes your government, the UN, the IPCC, etc.) then you can be 100% sure there is a profit motivation. Motivation is the key word. If you do not understand this simple concept then educate yourself right now with this short video. It's a simple course in Praxeology, the science of understanding the purposeful behavior of human beings:  

Yesterday I posted about some Japanese kids terrorizing some monkeys in a zoo. In Japan, this didn't make national news. Please refer to: Kids Acting Like Animals Have to Apologize to Animals:


It also shows a good thing about Japan: Even though these kids were drinking underage and throwing fireworks, nobody claims that stricter laws need to be made for firework sales or alcohol sales.

Everyone knows that these kids were just causing trouble. People in Japan generally don't think about passing laws to try to make people into good human beings.


My point was that, in the west, people are confused with the role of government and personal responsibility. One intelligent reader also pointed out that, had this been in the west, it would have hit national news with an outpouring of sympathy for these animals and a public outcry for severe punishment meted out:


If this happened in the UK or US, the response would have been tremendous, and out of all proportion compared to the effects.


Since the animals were at a zoo, and therefore famous; the sentencing would be much more severe for the perpetrators, because the media would drum up the war chant of “murder the marauders who caused mayhem to the monkeys!” Plus in our modern era, what else is there in life, but to become famous? To be blunt, how else could a judge or attorney become famous, but to listen to the mob, and give them what they want?

In a similar city, there would probably be hundreds of poor homeless people that nobody cares about, and who would've wound up eating out of rubbish skips, and sleeping under bridges...


The militant Greens will gladly destroy people, property, business and lives to save the earth... They wouldn't lift a finger to save a human life. Here's an example: When making a program satire of the entire Global Warming Debate (being neither pro nor con) in 2007, an irate listener called the broadcast station and threatened to, 


"Come down to the broadcast station and set it on fire and kill everyone inside!"


I laughed and told him that,


"Please come along and try. I will be waiting for you alongside the local police and the fire department."


We never heard from him again. That was in Tokyo. Like I said, this has been one of the coldest winters in a long time... I wonder if he is still thinking about running around and setting buildings on fire? If he is, it's probably just to stay warm.


There are many, far too many of these militant (may I say frickin' crazy) people running around. They will violently protest the killing of 600 non-endangered species of dolphins in Japan (because, as the reader commented they are "famous" - and animals are "cute") but I don't see them protesting their own countries involvement with US and NATO bombing and the starvation tactics and killing of millions of Iraqi people and children...


Or for another example, there are people who are taking dog and cat food to the Fukushima disaster area to feed strays. I don't get it. There's 400,000 people there with lives shattered. Thousands of children have lost parents and siblings. Tens of thousands are still live in temporary shelters and these people are spending their time helping stray animals? 


If you think that organizations like PETA do a good job, think again. Read this:
PETA kills more than 95% of all animals in its care.


Where are these twisted people's priorities? (Watch the video again: Money).


I am not pleased about this killing of pets or dolphins either, but instead of going and fighting about that, I have, for example, thousands of children with incurable diseases like deadly cancer that need help in my back yard right now. Pardon me for having twisted priorities but I think I'll spend my time helping handicapped and crippled and terminally ill kids... I can't stop people from feeding the animals or pigeons in the park, but I have to wonder where their priorities are.  

If you are going to talk the talk, walk the walk...

People have got to start thinking with their analytical minds, if they have any left. There was a time, several years ago, I was having a discussion with an extremely confused German friend. He insisted that,


"We need the government to make rules outlawing guns."


I completely disagreed. He then added,


"If the government doesn't make laws outlawing guns, then crazy and dangerous people will have guns!"


"You mean, like they do now?" I retorted.


If you believe that guns cause crimes and murders then you must believe that cameras cause child pornography. 


Personally, I don't think so. (By the way, Canada has many more guns per capita than the USA and does not have a gun murder problem so don't tell me that the USA problem is because of guns.)


Like, I said, people need to open their eyes and stop taking the propaganda they hear and see as gospel truth... 


The best thing would be for people to start thinking for themselves. But that might be asking for too much.


NOTE: It warms my heart to see other writers who think along the same lines as I do. Here's one of my favorites with an article that just came out. His name is James Delingpole: Why I am so rude to Warmists

Here's a TV report about today's snow:

Kids Acting Like Animals Have to Apologize to Animals

A bunch of screwed up kids decide that they were going to raise hell at a zoo and threw a bunch of fireworks into a Monkey pen for laughs. Totally a cruelty to animals case here.

"Oh! Kids these days! They are hopeless!"

They got busted and as part of their punishment, they were required to apologize to the monkeys.


Japan Today Reports:

Five youths have apologized to the director of Kyoto Zoo after admitting to breaking into the premises early one morning in January and throwing fireworks at the zoo's monkeys. As part of their punishment, the five were ordered to apologize to the monkeys and clean their enclosure, according to a Fuji TV report.

Police say the group, all 18 years of age, consisted of high school students, construction workers and beauticians. According to police, the group had been drinking alcohol before they illegally entered the zoo on Jan 3 and threw lit fireworks into the monkey enclosure, Fuji reported. 

I wonder who translated in monkey language or do these kid's who act like savages not need translations services? But, then again, who am I to talk? I don't remember terrorizing animals when I was drunk, but do remember raising hell... 


It also shows a good thing about Japan: Even though these kids were drinking underage and throwing fireworks, nobody claims that stricter laws need to be made for firework sales or alcohol sales.


Everyone knows that these kids were just causing trouble. People in Japan generally don't think about passing laws to try to make people into good human beings.

Hysterical & Hysterically Funny Maps of Nuclear Radiation and Danger Zones in Japan

I just read some reports saying that Tokyo was so radioactively contaminated that it needed to be evacuated - all 30 million plus of us who live here. That alarmed me so I got out my handy dandy Geiger counter and measured the background radiation here in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo. It was basically the same it always has been. And completely within safe levels. (To see the current levels look that the top of this blog for link.)

If you want to read this outlandish reporting, you can. It is here. But I will quote this report at length:

(San Francisco) Widely known Physicist Dr Paolo Scampa, the publisher of the EU AIPRI Blog and an eminent chemical physicist, announced today his latest calculations of deadly radioactivity in Tokyo itself.  Both the nuclear regulatory and media responses have been missing in action.

.....

The Tokyo suburbs are about 100 miles or 160 km South of the six destroyed, deteriorating and badly leaking nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Station for Nuclear Reactors.

Dr Scampa stated:

“An absorbed dose of 2,94 microSievert/hour at 1 meter of soil means an average deposit of 9,065E5 Bq/m2 of Cs137 -0,661 MeV-. This amount for 1 meter is in fact situated between a maximum deposit of  5,439E6 Bq/m2 for low energy gamma rays from radioactive elements such as U238 (0,0495 MeV) and a minimum deposit of  2,176E5 Bq/m2 of very energetic gamma rays from radioactive elements such as Co60 (2,55 MeV). This dose corresponds to 25 times the maximum permissible “artificial” hour dose (0,114 microSievert/h-1) and 5 times the maximum permissible total – natural and artificial – hour dose (0,571 microSievert/h-1). [1]” Dr. Scampa. [End Quote]

This is a tragedy of huge proportions. There are 30 Plus Million People in Greater Tokyo. It is brought home personally to each person who sees the work of Fukushima Diary by Mochizuki.

There are thousands of US troops stationed with their families in Japan. American politicians must remove all US Troops and dependents from Japan immediately.

You might notice that Dr. Scampa's statement is about dangerous levels of radiation. This I don't argue; those dosages are dangerous. My only question is where in Dr. Scampa's statement does he say something like, "Tokyo is experiencing currently dangerous levels of radiation"? He doesn't. This is typical of the wild unsubstantiated claims being made in some circles. 


May I ask that the facts be given and then relevant information also be given? I don't see how a dissertation on dangerous radiation levels - something I can learn in a book - can be directly related to facts on the ground here in Tokyo by what I have read in this article. This reminds me of the claims about a year ago that the "Top 1/3 of Japan is uninhabitable for decades." 


This sort of panicky reporting is still going on... Fear mongering and completely baseless.


But how do the Japanese see it the nuclear problem? Here is a bunch of excellent, funny and cynical maps that have been making the rounds on the Internet here in Japan amongst the Japanese.


This is from the Testosterone Pit: Nuclear Contamination as Seen by Japanese Humor

After an endless stream of horrid reports on the tragedy of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, and the hotspots that are cropping up in odd places, and food scares, and even contaminated grasshoppers, we’re ready for something ... lighter. This has been circulating in the Japanese internet community for months, has garnered countless comments, and a lot of nodding, agreement, and knowing smiles. Though it’s not based on science or statistics, and certainly not on any polls, it represents, in the eyes of many Japanese, a larger tongue-in-cheek truth.

Note: the areas seen as contaminated are marked in red.

Thanks to Zerohedge and Testosterone Pit

Andy and Sarah// Engaged