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The story
A video thread about “Takeshi Gundan” popped up on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyou board and drew a wave of comments. Sparked by footage of the group risking life and limb on 1980s shows like “Genki ga Deru TV,” commenters got nostalgic about just how reckless variety shows used to be. Alongside remarks like “the Showa era clearly had zero concept of risk management,” posters kept bringing up specific old episodes — Hiromi’s burn stunt, Suidobashi Hakase’s fall, Takada Junji’s high-speed run on the Shuto Expressway, and more. Others were less charitable, arguing “the Gundan guys just aren’t funny at talking, so physical stunts were all they had” — leaving opinions on the segments pretty divided.
What people said
I always assumed he took a nasty burn to the face, that's why I pictured him looking like that. Turns out it was actually on his back.
He's the one who pitched the idea in the first place and still came out ahead.
The one where Sakura Kinzo burst into tears?
Anyone with real talent wouldn't bother joining Takeshi Gundan in the first place.
They can't do anything but this because they're not actually funny.
Man, Nagai Minako looks so young there.
What's great about Owarai Ultra Quiz is that the rehearsals weren't run by an AD (assistant director) but by the actual director in charge of that segment. That's exactly why they could push the talent right up to the edge. Flip it around, though — it means the director had to go through something even crazier than what the comedians did, and only then would they let the talent do something a notch safer than that.
So they were basically all like Nasu D (the TV personality famous for extreme survival stunts)?
Like Re: #28 said, maybe it's because the guy who came up with the idea stopped testing it on himself, and then just kept escalating trying to one-up it?
Even if you scrapped the compliance rules, TV stations don't have the budget to pull off stuff like this anymore anyway.
Way funnier than today's comedians, who aren't even funny but act all smug and full of themselves.
Seriously, what's with that smug attitude lately? There's no way that's winning anyone new fans.
I think it's because the generation that grew up watching this stuff went on to make shows themselves, without knowing where to draw the line.
There wasn't even a karaoke box in front of Omori Station back then, right? I always figured he must've been singing at some snack bar lol
When Suidobashi Hakase came flying out of that giant dice tumbling down the snowy slope, I genuinely thought he'd died.
Wasn't that the one where the producer or someone actually got arrested?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Takeshi Gundan is a group of young comedians who idolized Beat Takeshi and took on physically dangerous stunts on TV, mainly through the 1980s. One of their signature shows, “Genki ga Deru TV,” was known for its extreme, audience-participation-style segments. The thread split between two camps: those nostalgic for the “energy and fun” of old-school variety TV, and those taking a harsher view, arguing the performers “only did physical stunts because they couldn’t get laughs through talk.” Calls to scrap compliance rules altogether were met with pushback too, with some pointing out that “today’s TV stations don’t even have the budget to pull this kind of thing off anymore.” One point worth clarifying: commenters noted that directors reportedly tested the dangerous stunts themselves under harsher conditions before having the talent perform a comparatively safer version — suggesting the escalation wasn’t as unregulated or reckless as it might look. The thread also touched on how accident risks became more apparent once the Heisei era began, leading to tighter restrictions, though no specific accidents were pinned down in detail.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyou board) thread “[Video] Takeshi Gundan, the guys who almost got killed by TV more times than you can count lolololololol.”
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