Susunu! Denpa Shōnen

Susume! Denpa Shōnen
Genre Reality show
Country of origin Japan
Release
Original network Nihon TV
Original release January 11, 1998 – September 29, 2002

Susunu! Denpa Shōnen (進ぬ!電波少年) is a Japanese reality TV show which aired from January 11, 1998 to September 29, 2002 on the Nihon TV network, and online from October 2009.

Description

The title is a pun. The predecessor of the show was called Susume Denpa Shōnen (lit. Forward! Signal Youth). To depict that the show indeed moved forward, one of the characters of the title was made longer by changing the "me" () to "nu" (), approximately meaning Do not advance! Signal Youth.

The show is known for the extreme situations the participants were placed in. It gained high ratings, and spawned a sister show, Raiha Shōnen (雷波少年), and was controversial due to the sadistic challenges and rule changes made by the television producers if they felt the participants were doing too well. The show also received criticism for some of the show segments being staged [1]

The participants were usually unknown comedians who were ready to do anything to get famous. Upon application, they were chosen randomly, and were not told what the objective of their challenge was. Some of the challengers became more or less famous, while some remained relatively unknown.

The program's initial cancellation was related to a government crackdown on "torture"-themed shows,[2] but has seen a revival on the World Wide Web from October 2009 on the streaming website Number Two Nihon Television (第2日本テレビ). Its first new "challenger" for the webcast was comedian Yoshio Kojima.[3]

Major challenges

In the four-year course of the original program, participants completed about 20 challenges.

Amongst the best known are

See also

External links

References

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