Cool & Strange Music Vol. 1: Japanese Sixties & Seventies TV Shows & Theme Music

(Secret surprise at very bottom of this post!)


Wow! Way cool! Japanese sixties and seventies TV and cool music! Retro world, here I come!

I stumbled on this a minute ago and my wife went crazy. She said that, "Oh! I love these shows! They would come on at night and those were shows for adults and not kids, so it was our bedtime. But we'd watch by peaking through the sliding doors as our parents watched in the living room!"


Funny, eh? Some things are the same all over the world.


Here's some that I found that look and sound really cool (or at least really sixties kitsch or campy). 

This looks like a classic... I can tell just by looking at this that it has superb script writing and acting....Anyone know what show this is?

Here's some that I found that look and sound really cool. I'll ask my wife for comments:

The first one makes me laugh. It's called "G-Men '75":

"G-Men '75" was a drama about, well, G-men. It ran from 1975 ~ 1982. The announcer says these folks were "Hard-boiled" (whatever that means!) My wife says that this drama made her heart "Doki-doki" (heart pound) because these guys were "so cool!"

Next up is the theme from Key Hunter (performed by the Tokyo Panorama Boys). This is definitely very cool and strange music:

What did I tell you? Is that a cool tune, or what? I love that! "Key Hunter" was a drama about international police and it ran from 1968 ~ 1973. 

Then, my wife tells me that the next really famous one was "Taiyo ni Hoero" (Howling at the Sun):

Wow! Taiyo ni Hoero ran for 14 years from 1972 to 1986. It was your typical police show... Well, I guess it can't be that typical, running for 14 years is amazing. 

OK, so let's really go down the rabbit hole. Remember The Guardman? No? Neither do I. But this looks pretty cool. Listen to the end because there are two tunes here:

God! I guess Tokyo traffic was bad even in the sixties! I like how all these police shows always have shot of all these cops walking along in a line. The Guardman ran from 1965 ~ 1971. It was a show about guys working for a private security company.

Sure seemed like the Japanese liked police shows!

Here's one with a really cool theme song. It's called "Hijyono License" (Rough translation: "License to Show No Mercy" or maybe "Cut-throat License"):

Hijyono License ran for seven years from 1973 ~ 1980 and was a spin-off from Key Hunter.

Finally, this last one is hilarious. It is called "Shonen Jet" (Young Jet). The music isn't all that cool but you can see what a creative director with little money but lots of ideas - mostly, er, "borrowed" - from American TV can do.

Cool (50cc) motorcycle, eh? Like the Zorro looking guy who is hanging out in the young girl-in-her-pajamas house!? Shonen Jet ran for 1.5 years from 1959 to 1960.

Hey! This stuff cracks me up! I like it a lot! This is going to become a regular series on this blog. I'm going to run this regularly until I find all the coolest sixties guitar themed songs I can.

Finally, may I brag? I think I am good to write this sort of thing as I used to be in some cheesy kid's dramas too in the eighties. No! Really! I was. This is me as Napoleon and Dracula in the popular eighties kid's program "Bishojokamen Poatorin." This particular episode was from 1989.

I also used to be in a bunch of other VERY embarrassing programs (much more embarrassing than even this one!) that, hopefully, will never ever see the light of day again!  

Have a great weekend!

Japanese TV Drama on for 38 Years Comes to an End?

Well, a milestone has been passed and another chapter in people's lives comes to a close. One of the longest running TV dramas in television history comes to a close here in Japan. 

San-nen B Gumi Kinpachi Sensei (3rd Grade, B Group, Mr. Kinpachi's class) that has been on for 38 years in Japan is coming to an end. 


Kyodo News announces:


The TV drama series "Sannen B-gumi Kimpachi Sensei," which deals with timely social issues through the lives of a public junior high school teacher and his students, will conclude this spring after airing intermittently for 32 years.


In the final episode, expected to be aired in late March, the main character, Kimpachi Sakamoto, will leaveSakura Junior High School as he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 60.


"I feel sadness and a sense of relief of taking a load off my mind at the same time," said Tetsuya Takeda,the 61-year-old actor who plays the role of Kimpachi.


The Tokyo Broadcasting System Television Inc. drama series started in October 1979, featuring then up-and-coming teen idols Masahiko Kondo, Toshihiko Tahara, and other young actors and actresses.


The stories based on scripts written by Mieko Osanai have sparked debate in Japanese society, raising issues such as teenage pregnancy, school violence, bullying and gender identity disorder among others.


The final episode of the first series aired in March 1980 secured an audience rating of 39.9 percent in theKanto region including Tokyo, but the long-running series has also been criticized for having fallen into a rut.


snip 


The final episode in March is expected to focus on the last several months of Kimpachi's career and the school life of his students who are nervous ahead of taking high school entrance exams



Actually, I think that this might be the longest running TV drama in television history that starred the same main actor, Tetsuya Takeda, for all the entire 38 years of its running. If anyone knows of a longer one please add it to the comments section.





The influence this program has had on Japanese society cannot be overstated. When my wife found out about the cancellation, she grew melancholy, and started reminiscing about how she watched that show with her family and how even one of her classmates appeared in one episode.


The show also was a launching pad for the careers of many famous Japanese stars.


Heck, I never watched the show, but I blogged once about a bunch of the funniest Japanese TV commercials that  I had ever seen. Watch those here. They are hilarious. Those were influenced and a parody of San-nen B Gumi Kinpachi Sensei. How many TV dramas have you heard of that were so popular that they spawned TV commercials parodies?


I can't think of any others.


While it has been announced that San-nen B Gumi Kinpachi Sensei is finished after all these years... And many people are sad about it. Do not fret too much. After all, whenever people graduate - especially  in Japan, they always have class reunions.


I'll bet you a half a bento that we will be seeing a class reunion of San-nen B Gumi Kinpachi Sensei within the next 5 to 10 years.... If TBS can survive that long.