''Hey! Spring of Trivia'' is the name given by

Spike TV Paramount Network is an American basic cable television channel and the flagship property of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global, who operates it through the MTV Entertainment Group. The network's headquarters are locate ...

to the show , a Japanese

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

game show A game show (or gameshow) is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment where contestants compete in a game for rewards. The shows are typically directed by a game show host, host, who explains the rules of the program as well as commentating a ...

Fuji TV JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

Concept

''Trivia'' consists of a series of video segments that introduce and confirm the validity of unusual

trivia Trivia is information and data that are considered to be of little value. Modern usage of the term ''trivia'' dates to the 1960s, when college students introduced question-and-answer contests to their universities. A board game, ''Trivial Purs ...

. Past trivia has included exploding erasers, spiders affected by

caffeine Caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant of the methylxanthine chemical classification, class and is the most commonly consumed Psychoactive drug, psychoactive substance globally. It is mainly used for its eugeroic (wakefulness pr ...

, and insects that cannot be killed. Most of the trivia on the show is sent in by viewers. A celebrity panel of five judges (ten in special episodes) evaluate each video segment and votes on how interesting it is by pushing a every time they are astonished. ( is the Japanese

interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling, situation or reaction. It is a diverse category, with many different types, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curses (''da ...

for expressing genuine surprise, equivalent to a mix of the English interjections "Really?" and "Wow!".) The total of all "Hey"s collected during the presentation of the trivia (maximum of 20 per judge) is then used as the indicator for the degree of surprise of this trivia. For every "Hey" a piece of trivia gets, the trivia submitter receives 100

yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the euro. T ...

. Should it receive a perfect score of 100 Heys (200 in special episodes), the trivia submitter receives 100,000 yen (200,000 in special episodes). To date no piece of trivia has received 100 Heys. At some point in the show, there is a segment called . Viewers submit hypothetical questions intended to produce answers in the form of new trivia; "Trivia" then "go sto great lengths to answer them."

Tamori , known by his stage name (an anagram of his surname), is a Japanese television celebrity. Known for his trademark dark sunglasses, Tamori is one of the "big three" television comedians in Japan along with Takeshi Kitano (a.k.a. Beat Takesh ...

(referred to as "Chairman Tamori" in the English dubbed version) evaluates the Seed of Trivia by pulling a lever. The Seed of Trivia's grade is shown as a flower. is the highest of grades. Past examples of "Seed of Trivia" segments have included the fastest Japanese

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, sports team, university society, society, military unit, or brand, brand name. Mascots are als ...

s, the brand of

ramen is a Chinese noodle dish popularized in Japan. It includes served in several flavors of broth. Common flavors are soy sauce and miso, with typical toppings including , nori (dried seaweed), menma (bamboo shoots), and scallions. Ramen h ...

containing the greatest net noodle length per package, and which form of

barbecue Barbecue or barbeque (often shortened to BBQ worldwide; barbie or barby in Australia and New Zealand) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that employ live fire and smoke to coo ...

lions prefer most. As of 2005, there is a new segment called . This is where they take a trivia sent in by a viewer that turned out to be false and sink it in a sort of bog. Additionally, they say, "If you use this trivia, you might be called," and then they always show a cute girl ( Tamaki Ogawa) doing some date-like activity and saying, at the end of the segment. At the end of the show, host Norito Yashima gives out , a brain shaped trophy that has a melon bread inside that is in the shape of a brain, to the sender of the highest rated trivia. Co-host

Katsumi Takahashi is a common Japanese given name used by either sex. Written forms Katsumi can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: ;as a given name *克己, "overcome, self/oneself" *克巳, "overcome, sixth earthly branch" *克美, "over ...

gives out – a smaller version of The Golden Brain with the same shape but with no melon bread inside – to the sender of his favorite trivia (announced as "MFT - My Favorite Trivia"). In 2005, small color-appropriate banners were added to the awards, and in 2006, the awards began featuring a small analog clock.

History

''Trivia'' has been running in Japan since October 7, 2002, first as a low-budget program after midnight (with initially much more obscene and sexual trivia than afterwards). Its increasing cult status (the show obtained viewership ratings just above 5%) made Fuji TV shift the broadcast time to

prime time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

July 2, 2003. On November 4, 2004 Fuji TV announced that twenty six episodes of ''Trivia'' would be adapted for broadcast in the United States on the

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

network Spike TV (now

Paramount Network Paramount Network is an American basic cable television channel and the flagship property of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global, who operates it through the MTV Entertainment Group. The network's headquarters are located a ...

). The network began airing the slightly edited English dubbed version of the show on November 11, with the broadcast ending in May 2005. The editing included the removal of certain culturally specific trivia pieces such as those referring to Japanese history and actors. The shorter run time was made up for by adding trivia pieces from other episodes. Unlike Spike TV's other Japanese show '' MXC'', the English dialogue was mostly based on the original Japanese utterances and texts, although it was often exaggerated in a comical manner. Spike had planned to produce an American version of the show premiering in Spring 2005, but that version never materialized and the network decided against ordering more episodes of the English dub.

References

External links

Fuji TV's site

Spike TV's site
{{Spike (TV network) programming Spike (TV network) original programming Trivia 2002 Japanese television series debuts 2006 Japanese television series endings Japanese comedy television series Japanese game shows Fuji Television original programming

Concept

History

See also

References

External links