Japanese Comedy at its best! (Takeshi's Castle)

Member Name: CokaCola

Product:	Takeshi's Castle
Date:	05/02/09 (13 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny!

Disadvantages: Old, no new episodes being made as far as I know.

Takeshi's Castle is a game show that airs on Challenege in the United Kingdom, but is popular world wide. It is based in Japan, and the idea basically is that an army of maybe 140 contestants begin and go through several physical challenges which eliminate the vast majority, until the end of the show where there is a final challenge. Although the UK version is dubbed, and there is never any real mention of prize money, I believe that the original Japanese version awarded One Million Yen to the winner.

The primary purpose of Takeshi's castle is not one of any intelligence, or technique - people watch it simply to laugh. It is to be honest rather hilarious seeing these random Japanese People balancing on bridges, falling into rivers and running into fixed doors. At the end of every challenge, Craig Charles the narrator goes over his favourite clip, which is always hilarious. Infact, on the subject of Craig Charles, he does an absoloutely fantastic job at narrating this programme and really makes it entertaining. For those of you that do not know Craig Charles, I believe he also presented Robot Wars?

Some of my favourite Challenges include a ball bridge, where the contestant must catch a ball, fired from a canon, whilst navigating to the end of a particularly precarious wooden slatted "bridge". 95% of people do not manage it, but it's so funny when they cling on for dear life, then fall.

Another good one is the revolving surf boards, where the contestant must jump off a surfboard onto a platform, then jump back onto a moving surfboard. Again, most people fail.

The final showdown may have 6 remaining contestants, each one drives around in a kind of cart type vehicle in a ring. They have a water canon, and the idea is to break a paper disk on the front of the General's vehicle. He is highly skilled however, and almost almost breaks the discs of all the contestants first, meaning that normally there is no winner.

I highly recommend this for laughs! It may be old, but it will never cease to amuse as far as I'm concerned.

Summary: I promise you'll be in stitches!