On Aug 30, 4:17*pm, Hackmatack > wrote:
> Cheryl > wrote:
> > On 8/30/2011 1:12 PM, ImStillMags wrote:
> >> On Aug 30, 9:37 am, > *wrote:
>
> >>> Despite trying really hard, the American version just can't seem to find
> >>> the same brainless ditzy starlet types that enlivened the Japanese show.
>
> >> I totally agree. * It doesn't translate into 'american' at all. * The
> >> US show's chairman is a cartoon character who is neither funny
> >> nor ditzy enough to be anything more than annoying. *IMHO
>
> > I think the original chairman was funny. *I assume the fact that his
> > voice wasn't dubbed was either a gimmick or a request. *Of course this is
> > based on just one viewing. And to Hack, the voice-over of the Japanese
> > actress judge was hysterical! High voice, little giggles.
>
> I did wonder whether the female English voice-overs (squeals, swoons,
> giggles, Marilyn-Monroe-like come-hither whispers) wasn't a complete
> misrepresentation of what was actually going on. But you have to admit that
> no female judge on that show, as opposed to the male judges, was anything
> but ornamental in intention.

You must not have watched very many episodes. There's a female judge
named Kishi Asako who has been referred to as the East German judge.
She's a middle aged woman, definitely not a bimbo, and not there for
girly ornamentation.

A TV station in Hawaii paid to have some of these episodes subtitled,
and they played on a local Japanese language station in the Bay Area
many years before FNC or The Cooking Channel started running the
dubbed versions. It's a lot more interesting to hear people speak -
the dubbing only uses two or three people to do everyone.

What would be really great would be to show the entire episode.
They're really 90 minutes, not 60.

Susan B.

On 9/2/2011 9:39 AM, sueb wrote:
> You must not have watched very many episodes. There's a female judge
> named Kishi Asako who has been referred to as the East German judge.
> She's a middle aged woman, definitely not a bimbo, and not there for
> girly ornamentation.
>
> A TV station in Hawaii paid to have some of these episodes subtitled,
> and they played on a local Japanese language station in the Bay Area
> many years before FNC or The Cooking Channel started running the
> dubbed versions. It's a lot more interesting to hear people speak -
> the dubbing only uses two or three people to do everyone.
>
> What would be really great would be to show the entire episode.
> They're really 90 minutes, not 60.
>
> Susan B.

That would be TV station KIKU. They are the Japanese programming station
in Hawaii. Over the last decade though, Korean programming has pretty
much taken over and K-dramas are all the rage. Everbody seems to watch
those. Not me - why the heck would I want to see a soap about mean
Korean mother-in-laws? If you had one of those you'd know what I mean. :-)

sueb > wrote:
> On Aug 30, 4:17 pm, Hackmatack > wrote:
>> Cheryl > wrote:
>>> On 8/30/2011 1:12 PM, ImStillMags wrote:
>>>> On Aug 30, 9:37 am, > wrote:
>>
>>>>> Despite trying really hard, the American version just can't seem to find
>>>>> the same brainless ditzy starlet types that enlivened the Japanese show.
>>
>>>> I totally agree. It doesn't translate into 'american' at all. The
>>>> US show's chairman is a cartoon character who is neither funny
>>>> nor ditzy enough to be anything more than annoying. IMHO
>>
>>> I think the original chairman was funny. I assume the fact that his
>>> voice wasn't dubbed was either a gimmick or a request. Of course this is
>>> based on just one viewing. And to Hack, the voice-over of the Japanese
>>> actress judge was hysterical! High voice, little giggles.
>>
>> I did wonder whether the female English voice-overs (squeals, swoons,
>> giggles, Marilyn-Monroe-like come-hither whispers) wasn't a complete
>> misrepresentation of what was actually going on. But you have to admit that
>> no female judge on that show, as opposed to the male judges, was anything
>> but ornamental in intention.
>
> You must not have watched very many episodes. There's a female judge
> named Kishi Asako who has been referred to as the East German judge.
> She's a middle aged woman, definitely not a bimbo, and not there for
> girly ornamentation.
>
> A TV station in Hawaii paid to have some of these episodes subtitled,
> and they played on a local Japanese language station in the Bay Area
> many years before FNC or The Cooking Channel started running the
> dubbed versions. It's a lot more interesting to hear people speak -
> the dubbing only uses two or three people to do everyone.
>
> What would be really great would be to show the entire episode.
> They're really 90 minutes, not 60.
>
> Susan B.

I'm glad to stand corrected. I watched most of the first run of these shows
on FNC when first broadcast, but certainly not all of them, and from what
you say it seems likely -- but hardly a surprise! -- that FNC cherry-picked
what aspects of the original they wanted to show.

sueb wrote:
> Hackmatack > wrote:
>
>> I did wonder whether the female English voice-overs (squeals, swoons,
>> giggles, Marilyn-Monroe-like come-hither whispers) wasn't a complete
>> misrepresentation of what was actually going on. But you have to admit that
>> no female judge on that show, as opposed to the male judges, was anything
>> but ornamental in intention.
>
> You must not have watched very many episodes. There's a female judge
> named Kishi Asako who has been referred to as the East German judge.
> She's a middle aged woman, definitely not a bimbo, and not there for
> girly ornamentation.

Wasn't Kishi Asako the one listed as "Fortune Teller"? One of my great
grandmothers was a fortune teller. The names my mother give to fortune
tellers are not as complimentary as bimbo. But having a fortune teller
as an expert judge definitely increases the Hollywood Squares comical
aspect of the show. Some of the other judges were former parliament
members who had failed to get reelected after some number of years.