A friend in Tokyo sent me this article today from the Japan Times. Could there ever be a foreign TV talent here like Dave Spector? Is Jeff or Chocolate or Timmy or Igor in his league yet? Could there be a Spector here someday or is there already one? Maybe Richard Hartzell is our Spector…
DAVE SPECTOR
One-man media airs his views
By MARK SCHREIBER
Special to The Japan Times
It’s 10 a.m. Sunday, and TBS TV’s “Sunday Japon” show is getting under way. American entertainer Dave Spector, a regular panelist, shares the stage with a former porn actress, a South Korean journalist and a member of the Japanese parliament. After an hour of exchanging ripostes with the others on major international and domestic news events, Spector takes center stage and introduces Hollywood’s latest cinema offerings. By noon he’s in a nearby restaurant unwinding with friends.
Certainly the most visible of the gaijin tarento [foreign TV stars] as foreign celebrities on Japanese television are termed – Spector appears on eight or nine TV shows a week. This is, however, only his most visible activity. He is also a regular contributor to tabloid newspapers and weekly magazines, he is often the keynote speaker at conferences – and he has published 10 books in Japanese.
A Chicago native, Spector was born May 5, 1954. He met his Japanese wife, Kyoko, in the United States and they were married in 1981. Two years later, he found himself posted to Japan as a producer for ABC TV’s zany “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” program. Spector’s quick mind, and even faster tongue, have forced even his most outspoken critics to concede that his ability to ad lib and crack jokes in rapid-fire, idiomatic Japanese is nothing short of phenomenal.
You are forgetting all the stars at Studio Classroom, a group whose greatest talent seems to be able to perfectly recreate the fashions and hairdos of 1983, at least that’s what it seems like in their MRT ads.
Besides the possibility of me dabbling in TV, none of the foreign celebrity stars will ever be in the same league as foreign stars in Japan. But I honor their committment to keep plugging away, even though the foreigner-with-an-accent act is a little goofy once you start pushing 35.
Flicka, what kind of dabbling do you do, have you done? Was it fun, interesting?
Not for me, I can’t speak the lingo. But curious has it was for you? More on tap?
Couldn’t there be a Dave Spector here one day, if
the TV honchos wanted one?
a star was born, maybe someone like Jeff or Igor, who talk the talk and walk the walk?
the money was right?
I think it would be great for Taiwan. Actually, Japan has about 5 popular foreign talents on TV daily. Then again, there are more Westerners there, and Japan is a more Westernized country, media-wise.
My experience is limited to a shoddy Kid Castle commercial nearly 12 years ago and an embarrasing children’s show that was rightfully cancelled after 3 months about 7 years ago. The pay was bad and I never expected everyone at my supposedly serious day job to see me on TV, but everyone did and it took forever for people to stop coming up to me singing the stupid show’s goofy theme song.
[quote=“formosa”]Couldn’t there be a Dave Spector here one day, if
the TV honchos wanted one?
a star was born, maybe someone like Jeff or Igor, who talk the talk and walk the walk?
the money was right?
I think it would be great for Taiwan. Actually, Japan has about 5 popular foreign talents on TV daily. Then again, there are more Westerners there, and Japan is a more Westernized country, media-wise.[/quote]
OK, I was being a pessimist, but anything’s possible. But look at the US stars who got their start in Germany, for instance. Some have made it big, like Donna Summer, while some made it big for about 5 minutes, like Snap or La Bouche, but a lot of foreign celebs in Taiwan have been plugging away for more than a decade and they haven’t landed anything that’s distributed outside of Taiwan. (Although I understand Jeff is known in the mainland, but I look at him as more of a smart businessman than an entertainer.) Does anyone remember – both Chocolate and Samantha K have put out albums.
Speaking of the Studio Classroom gig, is that thing really just a front for recruiting innocent Taiwanese into Christianity’s neverending fold? I saw lots of ads in their magazines for Bible rallies and Bible study groups and I even heard a Studio Classroom interview one day, that was on the radio on a Sunday, that purported to be an English lesson, but it was all just a long interview with Taiwanese lady who found God (read their God) after her mother died.
Just curious. are the staff and stars at Studio Classroom, inclduing the head honcho Doris, registered here as missionaries or as teachers or as media workers? I heard from a friend that most of the staff are missionaries who come here to share their religion with poor, unloved (by Jesus,k that is) Taiwan.
So is it really Studio Classroom or is really Sit Up For Jesus, Kiddies!
Their TV shows are great! And no mention of God on TV at all. But the mags and radio do.
Have you noticed that the names they use in the dialogues are always biblical names? Luke, Abraham, Sarah, Mary, Timothy, John, James, Rebecca, etc. Not that these aren’t common names, it’s just that there are a fair amount of non-biblical names out there too. Maybe things have changed now. I haven’t picked up a copy of Studio Classroom in years.
I blew my big chance way back 16 years ago, during my first year in Taiwan. I was asked to play the role of a lecherous foreigner in a skit on one of those Saturday-night prime-time variety shows – someone from an agency called the school where I was studying Chinese to ask them to find a suitable Chinese-speaking foreigner, and they thought I’d be just the ticket for it. The scene of the skit was a traditional Chinese family reunion to celebrate the return of the family scion from his studies abroad. I had to act as the young man’s foreign friend who he brought back with him for a visit and who disrupted everything and outraged everyone by making lascivious overtures to all the female relatives in attendance (including the grand old matriarch in her bath chair, inevitably played by a well known male comedian). Yes, it was a classic piece of tasteless foreigner stereotyping, guaranteed to suit the prejudices of and be lapped up by the audience. (I recall they also had a pretty local starlet with her skin darkened and draped in a skimpy tigerskin costume to represent another of his foreign friends – I’m sure you can well imagine it!) But I considered it harmless enough and a bit of a lark, something colourful to write home about, so I went along and hammed it up as required. Originally, they had wanted me to memorize and spiel out some complicated doggerel verse that they thrust at me during the rehearsal – it was peppered with characters to be accidentally-on-purpose pronounced in the wrong tone and thus suggest supposedly hilarious double entendres, but my Chinese was far too weak for such demands, and I couldn’t make head or tail of its meaning, let alone remember and repeat it as required. So they gave up on that, and left me to more or less ad lib as I went along. It was an enjoyable experience, I thought my performance fitted the bill very nicely, and I rather hoped they’d invite me back to do some more – but I never did hear from them again. My inability to master those lines must have badly disappointed the show’s producers. If only my Chinese had been better then, perhaps I could have launched an exciting TV career, and become an earlier version of Jeff.
Anyway, that little episode paid another kind of dividend in a rather unexpected way. The show was put in the can to be aired a few weeks later. At the time I was living in a taofang and didn’t have my own TV. Of course I wanted to see my performance, so after discussing options with the luscious 19-year-old girl I was dating, we decided the best thing would be to check into a short-time hotel for a couple of hours to watch it on TV. When we booked the room and stressed that it must be equipped with a TV, the hotel receptionist must have assumed that we wanted to watch porn films to accompany our anticipated frolicking – they could never for a moment have imagined the true and truly “innocent” purpose of our two-hour stay in their hotel. And as our relationship had up till then remained quite chaste (young Taiwanese xiaojies were different in those days), I had absolutely no ulterior motives or lustful intentions in taking her to the hotel room. However, when she saw the guy beside her comporting with all those stars on the small screen, she got more excited than I did, and when it was over she had worked herself up into such a frenzy that she melted into my arms and all but begged me to make love to her. I couldn’t resist her passionate entreaties (well, okay, I didn’t really try very hard), and when we checked out of the hotel, we left the bedsheets not only in the condition that the hotel staff would have expected to see, but also with rather large bloody patches that I hope didn’t bring down too many curses on my head. Ah, the amazing aphrodosiac effect of stardom! Such a pity that it was and will likely always remain my one and only taste of it during this lifetime.
[quote=“formosa”]Just curious. are the staff and stars at Studio Classroom, inclduing the head honcho Doris, registered here as missionaries or as teachers or as media workers? I heard from a friend that most of the staff are missionaries who come here to share their religion with poor, unloved (by Jesus,k that is) Taiwan.
So is it really Studio Classroom or is really Sit Up For Jesus, Kiddies!
Their TV shows are great! And no mention of God on TV at all. But the mags and radio do.
Anybody know.?[/quote]
They do seem to have a higher-concentration of foreigners working for them than other English-teaching outfits. I would assume it is all missionary visas, since Taiwan seems to have open arms to Christian missionaries. Otherwise, I don’t understand how they could get work permits for them all–teaching and performing at the same time? Could it be “Sit Up for Jesus” is a clever formula that gives them access to a generous supply of white actors and teachers? Do they get special tax breaks that regular bushibans might not qualify for? Does anyone know?
I love their ads. I especially love the one with the chick that looks like a lesbian handywoman.
And speaking of ads, right now, there’s this cool advert on TV, every 10p minutes or so, featuring 8 foreigners dressed up as jail criminals in black white striped uniforms, for some cellphone or electronics outfit. can’t understand what they are saying, but very funny, and each felon is unique. Who are these guys? A new hip hop group in town from overseas or just the usual suspects? Spin and 45?
don’t be shy, Flicka. Ask him for his signature and then find out how the ad got made, how they were recruited or discovered, and how much did they get? Dish, dish!
OK, I’ll try to if I see him. Maybe I can also check out the size of his equipment and our quest to dominate Taiwan’s foreign celebrity gossip scene will be complete. Hopefully it doesn’t look like a tube of chapstick like another foreign celebrity I’ve seen – and I ain’t talking about Chocolate.
I was thinking along those same lines, Flicka. The equipment, boss, the equipment! Monsanta or Spalding or BMG?
In cases like this ad, do the actors get paid a flat fee, just once, like maybe NT$10,000 per day, for the shoot … or do they get paid an extra fee each time the CF airs? That would be cool, because this commercial has been on a 24/7 rotation day after day. These guys can quit their day jobs now!
I just found out that I’d been the star of a Dongsen TV news spot sticking my ugly mug in the camera and saying “Fuck it’s cold” a few days ago. Apparently they took out the “fuck”, and they didn’t even pay me!