Spectored

[den4]

Saw this on another forums board:

My favorite FG and performing "talent" taranto monkey, David Spector, was rated LAST--- the least favorite commentor on the TBS (ch6) "Sunday Japon." At 10:45 this morning (Jan 19) on this popular week-in-review program most of the jokes were that none of the other Japanese commentators wanted to rated lower than him----and surprise, the FG was rated last.

Now I am curious.....anybody know what's the real scoop on this guy, and where he came from, how he managed to get his butt into the geino circuit, and what's he up to now to get such a popular low vote among the gaijin tarentos?

den4

 

[thomas]

I once stumbled across a site devoted to him, I'm unable to track it. Found some info on him on otherJ-sites:

Born in 1954 in Chicago where he worked as DJ and editor for a magazine. It seems he worked with ABC before he moved to Japan in his twenties.



More resources on Debu Sepekuta

=> [plainhttp://www.aiming.co.jp/installations/dounyu_spector.html[/plain] (in Japanese)

Lol, sometimes we miss the most obvious...

=> http://www.davespector.com

DAVE SPECTOR has been a prominent fixture in the Japanese media for nearly 15 years. Originally sent to Japan as a segment producer for ABC's "Ripley's Believe It Or Not," Spector appeared as a lark on a popular noontime TV show, ultimately starting a new career. He can be seen daily as a commentator, guest and host of various television programs on all networks as well as appear in commercials. Recently, U.S. viewers of "The Tonight Show starring Jay Leno" saw Spector hosting four segments from the Nagano Olympics. Also in the U.S., Spector is frequently heard on radio stations from WABC to KABC, as well as numerous TV appearances as both guest and reporter. Spector is the most visible "gaijin tarento"(foreigner talent) on Japanese TV today and is recognized by virtually the entire population from 8 to 80.

 

[den4]

came across this bit o' info....
from a site with a dubious name....but anyway, the site had this info:

"Ok. Since I'm met Dave a few times and from what I have read about the guy in the late-great Tokyo Journal interview of him (circa 1989?) which is no longer online...

From my fading jiji memory, Dave came to Japan in 1981 on the JAW-TETSB Program (Just Another Wannabe --Teaching English to Scrape By)---which is to say he islike me and a lot of other FG here. He had some production experience and hell of a lot of ZUZUSHI---brazen chutzpa. Paraphrasing from memory what he described as his big start in Japanese TV in his Tokyo Journal interview:

"After working a couple of years a production go-for in Japanese---I just knew seeing those gaijin tarento monkeys on TV, I just puke. So I broke onto a TV set filming a talento monkey show and challenged them in my loudest fastest Japanese, 'I can do better'. And those bozos. hired me. I been working every since."

---------------------------

DAVID SPECTOR -- the unapproved BIO


Born: Chicago Northside, circa 1959ish

Appearance: 5ft 5in, 140 lbs soaking wet*,
blond-dyed BIG hair held firm with hard jell snot [it's as real as blond hair can be on a Jewish guy], blue contact lens in his brown eyes, always shoulder pads in his undershirt, bad teeth, left handed, and a BIG mouth.

See Dave and his sister Penny on his left noting her hair color.

Present home: In a Japanese TV interview two years ago, Dave showed that he lives in a trashed room in the Shinjuku Keiyo Plaza. He said has, "only lived in hotels for the past 20 years."

School: BA in LA, Hard Knocks Unv.;
PhD, Newport Asia Pacific University, Dr. Dave Spector
Television Celebrity & Journalist


Work: College/public access TV, he "claims" to have worked at Second City and National Lampoon (my friends at both places say, 'no f*king way').

Co-writer" for Airport '77 (1977) and co-author of the paperback AIRPORT '77. Pan, 1977, ("Now a major motion picture from Universal").

In a TV interview, Quote:
Dave Spector, who had landed in Japan as a segment producer for "Ripley's Believe it or Not".
The thing that Japanese have on their minds about Americans is that they're blond and blue-eyed and they're wearing sweatshirts and stuff like that. But of course, I'm not like that at all. I'm from Chicago originally and I decided to look more 'American'. I would change my hair a little bit, you know? And it looks very strange, you know, I feel weird when I go back to Los Angeles. People think I'm in a heavy metal group or something like that, and I also have like, you know, the blue contacts. And all of a sudden, 'Wow! Look how American he looks. We can use him much better now.'



BEST OF THE WORST Fox TV, 1991-92

GHOST SOUP(Japanese TV Drama, 1992) Cast: Ran Ran Suzuki, Dave Spector.
The Iwai version of "Christmas Miracle" -- a comical look at the strange events of one Christmas eve.

'Spector 21', 2000, See Spector do the Space Crab bikini dance photo Quote:
directed by Hideyuki Tanaka (starring: Dave Spector, Pierre Taki, Senri Yamazaki, Prof. Otsuki, Kiyoshi Beat, Shie Kohinata and others)
The future TV shopping program entitled 'Spector 21' has the lowest audience rating because it deals in worthless items like Space kitchen knife, Space crab and Space scourer. The MC Dave Spector's jokes are really boring and both the producer and director are worried about how to raise the audience rating.


Iron Chef--US version, 2001, Japanese color commentator, Dave Spector

Present gig: Spector is listed as a stringer for ABC TV on his regular appearance on the "Sunday Japon" TBS 10:0Oam (ch6)

_________________more info_________________________

*Dave does not look like this Dave Spector or this guy that offers, " My resume photo. I look like Dave Spector, an American who lives in Japan."

More Spector interview quotes from an educational video called "The Japanese Version", :
Quote:
"Gaijin Tarentos
As embodied by Kent Gilbert and Dave Spector, both profiled in "The Japanese Version", the concept of the gaijin tarento, or "foreign talent", has no real equivalent in the United States. These are men, American-born, whose fluency in Japanese and ability to fit themselves into a perceived stereotype of American behavior have yielded them lucrative TV careers in Japan as professional Americans. Gilbert, the clean-cut Utah man, and Spector, the artificially blonde energetic urbanite, are often presented as "typical Americans", and their opinions sought on a variety of subjects that they do not necessarily have any expertise in. There are two or three more gaijin tarento on TV, including a Sri Lankan and an American bodybuilder, and their friendly demeanor helps soften the edges of what many Japanese think is an aggressive American culture. They are domesticated, tamed "pandas", reassuring to the home viewer. Perhaps this is an essential process in a culture which is essentially non-confrontational.



Quote:
[Dave Spector: Making foreigners cuter takes away the threat of foreigners being more powerful, or having more know-how, or more sophistication. So definitely, they use that in a way to make themselves more comfortable. So I've done things on Japanese TV that are totally silly, or ridiculous. I mean like jumping rope with French poodles. Doing things like the lowest Bozo, circus kind of stuff. But it doesn't bother me at all. A lot of times the foreigners on TV, models and what-not, are compared to pandas. They use that term here--pandas-- because they're cuddly, you can go and have fun with them, and throw a marshmallow and that's about it. And you don't get involved any more deeper than that. But...since I'm making half a million dollars a year, I'm very happy to be a panda. I'd be a much lower animal. I'd be like a sloth, or something, or a hedgehog, you know, for that money. So it doesn't bother me at all.
[Narrator]: It was one thing to cut the foreigner down to acceptable size on TV. But the Japanese know that America is not a nation filled with pandas.

 

[thomas]

His CIA file can't be more comprehensive that that...

One Japanese commenting on Mr. Sepukuta on a web site: "Unfortunately, we cannot get rid of him anymore!"

 

[Musashi]

The funny thing is he really does where freaky sweatshirts and pullovers. He can be really apalling, especially in that Kyoto noontime waido show thing...

 

[den4]

once saw him in one of those dokkiri camera shows (J-version of candid camera) where they stuck him in a geisha setting and the ladies stuffed him into a closet where they put the futons to hide him as a group of yakuza types came lumbering into the same room...and the situation went downhill, as they focused on his reaction with a hidden camera from different angles, until the main oyabun (mafia boss) opened up the closet to find him inside, scaring the livin' gaijin daylights out of him.....
I dunno....some of them dokkiri camera shows do go to the extremes a bit....but it was funny all the same...

 

[budd]

*logs back in*

this is a pretty good topic! i think the only reason this thread is so small is because of the small amount of Jpn programming we get here... people in this section probably don't know who he is
thanks for posting! want to reread

 

[den4]

speaking of dokkiri camera, they did another one with Kent Gilbert (Thomas, any info on him?), another self-styled celebrity tarento who speaks fairly good nihongo and always gives his advice to J-folks wanting to understand the US of A.....

In Kent's situation, they had him go to a sushi restaurant that didn't have prices listed anywhere. Yes, they have some places like that...
Anyway, in these unlisted pricing establishments, the owner of the shop (also known as the Master) dictates the prices (not really sure how, but I believe it's just based on his feeling at the time by looking at each customer)
So Kent eats a few dishes of sushi and as he's eating, he watches as some customers finish up and go to pay. Then the Master starts saying, "Ok...three dishes, that'll be 200,000yen." (approx $2000 at the time the particular show was made) and another customer he says had 6 dishes so "That'll be 750,000yen." And each customer pulls out wads of 10,000yen notes and hands it to the Master...
Needless to say, Kent nearly chokes on his last dish, and he starts counting his plates, and you can see the concerned look on his face, as he realizes he doesn't have that much cash on him...
When Kent asks the Master if he takes a kaado (or credit card), the Master shakes his head and says Cash only.
He borrows the shop phone and calls his friend up to borrow some cash until he can get to an ATM machine. Just as he's sweating bullets trying to explain to the Master he is waiting for a friend to show up with some cash, the J-equivalent of Allen Funt(sp?) appears and says he's been had on Dokkiri Camera.....


ah, some j-tv shows are really hilarious....

 

[Zenigata]

There are two or three more gaijin tarento on TV, including a Sri Lankan

He goes by the name of Anton Wicky (not his real name, which would be way too long and unreadable for the Japanese). I went once to hear him in a theater, and I have to tell that the guy was really amusing.

 

[Davey]

The only youtube video I could find is this one.