Ippai C C Lemon
http://www.japander.com/
This is a web site that shows J TV ads staring western stars pitching Japanese products to Japanese folks. Many of the ads are a bit old, but are still interesting…Madonna pushing booze, Spike Lee pushing a Mazda hatchback….Most of the ads have the stars speaking in English but a few have the stars speaking a couple words in Japanese.
http://www.japander.com/japander/simpson.htm
But my favorite is the Simpsons ads for CC Lemon, a lemon soft drink. The Simpsons are not terribly popular in Japan…they are only shown on Satellite TV and one would think that a great deal of the humor would not translate well, both due to cultural context (How many J folks are going to get Roy Cohn jokes? How many Americans actually get those jokes in the first place?) and I don’t think irony and sarcasm fit well in the basic Japanese mindset. I can only imagine how this was handled-Bart and Lisa are commenting on a cartoon on flag burning that’s a take off of School House Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill”
Bart: What the hell is this?
Lisa: It's one of those campy "70's" throwbacks that appeals to Generation "X"ers.
Bart: We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks a little.
But since Homer is pretty dumb, the base humor gets through in any language. And that is what is highlighted in these ads....and now that I think about it, the US butterfinger commericals were similar in this way as well.
This is a web site that shows J TV ads staring western stars pitching Japanese products to Japanese folks. Many of the ads are a bit old, but are still interesting…Madonna pushing booze, Spike Lee pushing a Mazda hatchback….Most of the ads have the stars speaking in English but a few have the stars speaking a couple words in Japanese.
http://www.japander.com/japander/simpson.htm
But my favorite is the Simpsons ads for CC Lemon, a lemon soft drink. The Simpsons are not terribly popular in Japan…they are only shown on Satellite TV and one would think that a great deal of the humor would not translate well, both due to cultural context (How many J folks are going to get Roy Cohn jokes? How many Americans actually get those jokes in the first place?) and I don’t think irony and sarcasm fit well in the basic Japanese mindset. I can only imagine how this was handled-Bart and Lisa are commenting on a cartoon on flag burning that’s a take off of School House Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill”
Bart: What the hell is this?
Lisa: It's one of those campy "70's" throwbacks that appeals to Generation "X"ers.
Bart: We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks a little.
But since Homer is pretty dumb, the base humor gets through in any language. And that is what is highlighted in these ads....and now that I think about it, the US butterfinger commericals were similar in this way as well.
posted by O.G. at 12:46 PM
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