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The story
As a so-called “Mercedes-trashing scandal” involving comedy duo Tunnels’ Noritake Kinashi stirs up controversy on social media, renewed attention is being paid to a junior comedian who had previously criticized Tunnels’ style, saying they were “only popular within the industry, not with the general public.” On 5ch, opinions were split — some compared him to his partner Takaaki Ishibashi, others reminisced about the duo’s peak years when “Minasan no Okage Desu” pulled huge ratings, and others pointed to his current popularity on TBS Radio.
Sep 3 (Thu), 18:55
A “Mercedes-trashing scandal” involving comedy duo Tunnels’ Noritake Kinashi and a fellow performer on his show is causing a stir on social media. Amid this, a junior comedian who once criticized Tunnels’ comedic style appears to be drawing renewed attention.
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Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Yeah, he's the guy who covers up how unfunny he is with bizarre stunts.
Go back to sleep.
Kinashi's already 64. He's made plenty of money over the years — losing work now wouldn't bother him one bit.
on TBS Radio
this buddy-buddy old guy
is hugely popular.
Popular within that tiny niche?
Barely anyone even listens to radio anymore.
He should charge in with an excavator like Yamazuka Ai (a musician known for wild, destructive performance stunts).
Weren't there members who ended up dying after that group disbanded…?
It's because everyone's now recognized as having human rights and a voice.
That's one of the upsides of social media, I guess.
Didn't Drifters, Sanma, and Takeshi do the same thing?
There was a sketch at the end of one of Shimura's shows that self-deprecatingly joked about ratings.
It was the same back then as it is now.
Any sensible adult at the time already frowned on Tunnels' show.
It's just that the kids and young people of that era have now grown into the age and values of the 'sensible adults' of that time.
If a kid today could actually watch that sketch, they'd be laughing at it.
All Japanese comedians are basically just playing to their own clique anyway.
Kobunsha is done for — even JJ magazine is gone now.
It's all pageview-chasing clickbait these days, pandering to 'the voice of the internet' for that adrenaline-dopamine hit.
They're probably not even using real reporters, just some random web writer.
Back then they seemed like genuinely skilled performers, kind of in the Ken Shimura mold.
This is from childhood memory so I could be off,
but Ishibashi came across as the wild, unpredictable one, and Kinashi as the calm, sensible one.
Somewhere along the way, though, Kinashi became the one who can't read the room at all — the reckless, out-of-control character.
That was an era when TV viewers all shared the same circle just by watching TV together.
It's just that the word 'insider' makes it sound smaller than it actually was.
Background and key points of this discussion
From the late 1980s into the ’90s, Tunnels simultaneously hosted flagship TBS programs — including “Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Desu” — and there was a stretch when they pulled high ratings on Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday alike. Much of the thread discussion centered on the gap between that “peak TV-era popularity” and how the act is received now, in an age of heightened compliance awareness. Some pointed out that bits which weren’t seen as problematic back then are now more likely to be criticized as “clique humor” or “picking on your own crew.” Since the original article’s body was abridged, this piece alone can’t pin down exactly which “junior comedian” made the critical remarks, and the thread itself saw pushback along the lines of “isn’t the person criticizing them just as clique-y?” — so no single consensus emerged.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Noritake Kinashi’s ‘Mercedes-Trashing Scandal’ Renews Attention on a Junior Comedian’s Past Critique That Tunnels Are ‘Only Popular Within the Industry, Not With the Public’.”
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