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The story
The ‘destruction comedy’ bit that Tunnels and Beat Takeshi used to regularly pull off on TV — smashing a co-star’s personal belongings — became a topic on the Nandemo Jikkyō G board, where posters debated whether it’s still funny watching it today. On 5ch, some described generational and comedian-specific differences in how it lands, with comments like “It was funny when I was young, but it just irritates me now that I’m older” and “When Takeshi smashed up that car, he was trying to get laughs with his own physical comedy too.” Others pushed back with negative takes like “It all comes down to how the person whose stuff got broken reacts” and “The idea of treating things carelessly doesn’t sit right with today’s values,” making for a debate where opinions split on what’s actually funny about it.
What people said
Apparently you get more pissed off about it as you age.
Just irritating.
Sounds like you got bullied in school
You're probably some old geezer
Ishibashi's the one who broke it, so that's fine
Between the two, Takeshi's version feels like he's also trying to get laughs through his own physical comedy
No way that's true. I guess more people these days just can't tell the line between TV and reality
You liked the Homo Oda Homoo character? (a now-controversial gay-stereotype comedy character from their show)
that's long past its expiration date too
No idea
Was there really a segment like that?
If it were Ichimatsu, that'd be hilarious
Even funnier if he actually lost his temper over it
What actually gets under my skin is treating things carelessly.
I guess it's funny to Showa-era people raised on mass production and mass consumption, but in the Reiwa era, taking care of your stuff and reusing it is just the norm.
That's exactly why breaking it is funny — the humor is in watching something precious get lost
That's basically the end state of a declining nation right there
You'd normally expect them to fire back with a comeback, right? What's with all this "holding it in" or "about to snap" stuff
But society these days has louder victim voices
and I guess back then there were a lot of repressed people who had no outlet to vent, unlike now with social media
Still, people haven't stopped enjoying watching someone like "Mii-chan" suffer misfortune though
Sorry, that came out as a weird ramble
Good morning
I know, same to you
Nah, you can tell by the generation
That goes for every one of those people acting all high-and-mighty doing "comedy" on social media or radio
That's on both the ones doing it and the amateurs copying it
The moment a comedian makes an amateur think "I want to try that too," that's the comedian's fault
Everyone watched it, but what was actually funny about it?
I only watched because everyone else was watching
That one's more like a game the audience at home can play along with too
Plus every once in a while you'd get an outrageous episode like the Katsumata one that was genuinely funny
They probably can't stand watching what looks like rich people just horsing around with each other anymore
It's not comedians so much as the TV industry as a whole that's stuck with low morals
An industry where casting-couch deals and sexual abuse scandals still keep coming up is the real abnormality
I watched it just so I'd have something to talk about with people, but it was boring and honestly rough to sit through
Shows like Mecha-Ike were the kind you'd talk about with friends on Monday, but with Kuwazugirai it was more like guessing along in the moment with whoever you were watching with
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The “destruction comedy” bits performed by Tunnels and Beat Takeshi were a staple of extreme, body-on-the-line humor in 1980s-90s variety shows, and at the time, the sight of a co-star genuinely being put in a bind was itself accepted as the whole spectacle. In the thread, many pointed out that the core of the humor wasn’t the performer doing the breaking but “the reaction of the person whose stuff got broken,” and there was broad agreement that the impression it left depended heavily on that reaction. The main point of contention was generational: a gap emerged between today’s sensibility — more conscious of taking care of belongings, and one where social media makes it easier for less powerful voices to be heard — and the era’s sensibility, when these bits were simply consumed as “something happening on TV.” Worth noting: the specific segment names and incidents cited here come from posters’ memories, and the accuracy of the details hasn’t been verified.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyō G) thread “What’s actually funny about Tunnels’ go-to bit of destroying people’s personal belongings?“
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