CHANNEL SURF
The travel show “Sekai Itte Mitara Honto wa Konna Toko Datta” (“If You See the World This is What You Really Get”; Fuji TV, Mon., 10:30 p.m.) expands to an hour for a special on the Kingdom of Morocco, which has become very popular among female Japanese travelers for its colorful fashions.
The show attempts to reveal what a tourist destination is really like, as opposed to the image most people have of it. In this case, the program sends two film crews to cover two areas of Morocco for two weeks. One goes to Marrakech, the country’s traditional Berber capital near the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. The other visits the country’s largest city, Casablanca, which is also the largest port in North Africa. From there they travel east into the Sahara.
Japan’s TV producers have become so obsessed with the progeny of established stars that they’ve turned variety shows into de facto audition venues to find out if said progeny can deliver on the air. “Bakusho the Friday” (TBS, Fri., 7 p.m.), hosted by the comedy duo Bakusho Mondai, takes the opposite tack this week by visiting the homes of parents of showbiz personalities in a bid to dig up some dirt.
Former idol singer Toshihiko Tahara, whose own teenage daughter is now testing the waters as a TV personality, visits the childhood home of superstar impressionist Croquette in Kumamoto, where he meets not only Croquette’s parents, but also his sister, who has lately come into her own as a comedian. Then Chris Matsumura drops in on the parents of Don Konishi to find out how he became such an outspoken fashion critic.
Scalabo: You’re never too young to worry about baldness, and though falling hair isn’t mentioned in the new CMs for Scalabo “scalp care” shampoo, anyone sufficiently intrigued by the colorful spots to visit the product’s home page will learn plenty about the importance of keeping those follicles stimulated.
The ad is a tie-in with the new action movie “Eightranger,” featuring the seven members of boy band Kanjani8 as a superhero police force. Each member is given a shampoo formulated for a certain hair type and which matches his individual uniform color, but since there are only five shampoos in the line, that leaves two members without a product to pitch — and nothing to do.
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