Sometimes it is fun to see how people from one country are depicted by the popular media in another country.
Click here is see a video of a Japanese TV anime that shows how super-cool Japanese guys deal with a bigger and stronger black American and his Japanese girlfriend.
Now click here to see an old Saturday Night Live skit about a Japanese game show, starring Mike Myers (Austin Powers).
Big thanks to Richard Chmura.
It’s a lot less gibberishy than you might expect from a bunch of characters (minus Farley) who had to do the entire skit phonetically. I actually thought it was quite funny and not too off the mark.
I agree. Not a bad job considering.
The vid is already down, but this was one of my favorite sketches so I remember it well. Farley was great at playing befuddled and the rest of the cast did a great job handling a language that (obviously) none of them speak. Considering the season it came from, this was one of the best sketches they did all year.
There was another, must more hostile sketch a few years earlier though. In response to Yoshio Sakurauchi’s infamous “Americans are lazy” comments in 1992, SNL did a sketch that was supposed to be a Japanese panel/news show (think McLaughlin Group). That sketch was done in English using forced Japanese accents, and the panelists (Phil Hartman was among them) took turns making fun of Americans and the host (played by Mike Myers, as in above vid) exclaimed how funny and true everything they said was.
Thanks for the heads up on the video, feitclub.
Maybe Mike reads, JAPUNDIT. . .
Anyway, I put up a link to another site where you can enjoy the skit.
I tried to find a vid of the earlier sketch, but I guess it’s too obscure/not funny enough. Anyway, it was called “The Arakawa Group” and it aired on February 8, 1992.
http://snl.jt.org/ep.php?i=199202081