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The story
Late on the night of October 2, 2026, actor Horibe Keisuke posted a photo on his own X account showing the members of the “Dover Strait Swim Team,” the beloved segment from the Nippon TV variety show “Ucchan Nanchan’s Urinari!!” Marking the 28-year milestone since the show went off the air, the reunion set off a wave of posts on 5ch fondly recalling familiar faces like Uchimura Teruyoshi, Udo Suzuki, Hamaguchi Yu, and Chiaki. At the same time, some younger users admitted “I don’t recognize most of these people,” sparking a string of replies filling each other in on the backgrounds of era members like Kamio Yone and Fujii Takahiko. Posters also tried to identify figures in the photo and expressed surprise at just how far Horibe’s acting career has come.
Uchimura Teruyoshi’s “Dover Strait Swim Team” Reunites After 28 Years — Group Photo Sparks Joyful Reactions
Actor and TV personality Horibe Keisuke updated his X account late on the night of the 2nd.
He posted a photo of the members of “Dover Strait Swim Team,” the popular segment within the former Nippon TV variety show “Ucchan Nanchan’s Urinari!!”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
That's just ignorance for you
Kamio Yone, a former pro women's tennis player who was actually quite strong
Fujii Takahiko, former star male announcer at NTV
Horibe Keisuke, who used to be in the comedy duo K2 with Katsumata
They're actually pretty famous people, you know
Chiaki's turned into such a cute grandma
Couldn't stand her back when she was all edgy, but I can forgive her now
so now he's a writer, right?
He acts too — he's even in this year's NHK Taiga drama
he's a go-to guy for movies now
He's great at playing nervous types or stiff, buttoned-up roles
That was during music TV's all-time biggest bubble era, after all — Mステ (Music Station) was huge, so Urinari went all-out with lavish stuff to compete
Who's the guy on the far left in the second photo?
Horibe's post has a tag reading "#Shinomiya Koji" — googled it and apparently he was an NTV employee, the director of Urinari back then
He's right there, far right in the back row
He looks like the comedian Tsuchida
That was a different group, the one affiliated with Nanbara
That's because it started as a segment within "Ninkimono de Iko"
He wore that weird eye mask, remember
Yeah, I bet.
Wait, they rode a boat instead of swimming? lol
I was shocked to see him show up as a villain in a Sentai series
he probably never imagined it himself back when he was out there swimming
Apparently he used to be in a duo called K2 with Katsumata Shuwa back in the day, but I never once saw them perform
funny enough, none of the Black ones showed up
Isn't it Pocket Biscuits, not White Biscuits?
that'd get you nothing but complaints today
Even though it was staged
Nah, even back then this wasn't normal.
The man behind it, Tsuchiya Toshio, just didn't manage budgets or care what the sponsors thought — he did whatever he wanted.
Makes sense, since he's the same guy who made Denpa Shonen.
Background and Talking Points
“Urinari” was a variety show that aired on Nippon TV in the late 1990s, known for its gutsy, “no fakery” approach built around hands-on physical stunts. “Dover Strait Swim Team” was its signature segment, notable for mixing professional comedians like Uchimura Teruyoshi, Udo Suzuki, and Hamaguchi Yu with unconventional recruits such as former pro women’s tennis player Kamio Yone and network announcer Fujii Takahiko. Around the same time, “Pocket Biscuits,” a group born out of the show’s segments, was also scoring hits in the music world — a sign of just how much cultural clout variety TV carried alongside music programs back then. The thread revealed a clear generational split: longtime fans eagerly identified people in the photo one by one, while quite a few younger posters admitted “I don’t recognize most of these people.” The way Horibe Keisuke later built a respected acting career playing villains and stern, no-nonsense characters stands as a good example of just how far a career can stretch for someone who got their start on a sketch-comedy show. Note: an unverified post hinting at friction between cast members appeared in the thread, but since it couldn’t be substantiated, it isn’t covered in this article.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Entertainment & Sports News+) thread “[Entertainment] Uchimura Teruyoshi, Urinari’s “Dover Strait Swim Team” Reunites After 28 Years! Group Photo Sparks Joyful Reactions.”
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