Though I didn’t experience much of this on television when I was in Tokyo last summer, I’m a fan of these types of shows simply because, in person, the Japanese are much more subdued. The contestants in these shows - I don’t know where they come from. I think it’s like a Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing going on there: all straight-faced business aura during the day, and then at night the gloves come off and they go bananas.

This game show, known as something like “Human Treadmill Challenge” is spectacular.