Duty Free TV

G4 is running a new foreign TV block called "Duty Free TV" which includes Ninja Warrior, Unbeatable Banzuke, and Super Big Product Fun Show. Here are my reviews.

Ninja Warrior: I. Love. This. Show. It's my favorite thing on TV right now, and maybe my favorite thing ever, and maybe I'm just experiencing major writers' strike fatigue. Since I started watching the show, all I want to do is go to Japan. It's ridiculous how much I like this show, and I admit that it isn't normal. It's an awesome 4-stage obstacle course showcasing feats of strength, speed, agility, and endurance. Oh, and the screaming Japanese announcer that I mentioned in a previous post.

Unbeatable Banzuke: I've only seen this one a few times. It's like Ninja Warrior in that it has regular people competing to overcome super hard obstacles. But the show only has one obstacle at a time, not an entire obstacle course, so it's much less exciting. The obstacles are cool, but it's tedious to watch 30 people in a row take 7 steps, then fall off the same thing. Maybe it will grow on me if I see a few more episodes and some better obstacles.

Super Big Product Fun Show: This show has a 15 minute run time like Adult Swim shows do. One thing that sucks about this show is that, unlike Adult Swim shows, they put a commercial break in the middle of the 15 minutes. Unfortunately, that's not the only thing about this show that sucks. It's done like MXC, taking footage from Japanese game shows, mixing them together with a pair of frame-story hosts from another show, and making up their own English translations. The setup is that all the weird things they get from game shows are some kind of product they're reviewing. For example, a clip showed a man being put into a Space Bag, having food (?) dumped on him and then being sealed in the bag and having the air sucked out. SBPFS said it was a bag to put your drunk friends in so they couldn't puke on stuff. Like MXC, it's full of dirty jokes and puns. Unlike MXC, it sucks and it isn't funny. At all. To put it in perspective, I was talking to a student last week who happened to watch the same episode I did the night before. He said that it was retarded and he didn't finish watching it. An 8th GRADE BOY said this show was too moronic to watch for an entire 15 MINUTES.

In the past G4 has shown Banzai, a British-Japanese show involving ridiculous betting opportunities (like which drag queen is actually a woman, or which of two businessmen will put his foot in a shoe with dog poo in it), but so far, I haven't seen it in the "Duty Free" lineup. They should put it in there. It's far funnier, more entertaining, and smarter than SBPFS, dog poo included.

To sum up...
Ninja Warrior: crazy awesome
Unbeatable Banzuke: meh.
Super Big Product Fun Show: to borrow a line from Ben...DUMB!