Lincoln

So, I haven't spoken much about Japanese culture for a while, so I thought I'd tell you about my favourite Japanese comedy show, Lincoln.

Lincoln is basically a Japanese Variety/Comedy show fronted by famous comedy duo, Downtown, and 7 other comedians. Each week the show either follows one theme (maybe one of the members birthday's) or several smaller installements (last weeks show had a 20 minute feature on whether chosen comedians were using CGI in stunts or not...and yes it is way funnier than it sounds!).

Lincoln is easy for a Gaijin like myself to understand because the humour is universal (although sometimes Shiori needs to translate) and physical. For example, the group went to Universal Studios Japan for one of the group's birthday. They made him dress up in a ridiculous outfit and had him perform in the parade. Another funny episode is when they mimicked Michael Jackson and "rented" an electronics store for an hour (of course Jackson had all night). They all dressed up in different incarnations of Jackson (funny in itself) and then proceeded to go shopping. The twist was at the end they had a choice of two cards; one card meant that the show would pay and other meant they had to pay themselves.

Anyway the video is the opening credits (from the guys who worked on the Animatrix) and here is the link from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_%28variety_show%29