Insane Ronald McDonald in Japan (video)

I seriously pondered whether or not I would ever understand Japanese Humor....for months. I could never ever see it the way I'm sure people on that wave length see it...Japanese People....and who knows what type of people find this funny in Japan...is it hip, young, mainstream,old, etc.......

Then I watched the Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job....it just clicked.

I honestly feel closer to whatever subsection of Japanese culture this appeals to....I love it

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#7 posted by heide , February 8, 2008 5:23 PM

As if McD's is not scary enough

This one scares me more though.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz19mF65F5k

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#8 posted by Takuan , February 8, 2008 5:25 PM

I always liked this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YQmkDDCyXQ

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#9 posted by darrell

, February 8, 2008 5:35 PM

In Japan they call him "Donald McDonald". That weirds me out.

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#10 posted by Fritz Bogott , February 8, 2008 6:02 PM

clown disguise => fear

clown mascot => I am not the demo

you are the demo => fear

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#11 posted by AwesomeRobot , February 8, 2008 6:20 PM

@erotic crab

It's actually the McRoll.

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#12 posted by lautaylo , February 8, 2008 7:18 PM

WTFBBQ? Watching that made me feel like Dave in 2001 bearing witness to the infinity of the universe. Pretty catchy song, though.

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#13 posted by phlavor , February 8, 2008 7:35 PM

Yep. That's about the level of cardio needed to burn off a Big Mac.

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#14 posted by BlackBanana , February 8, 2008 8:22 PM

Can't sleep, clown will eat me.

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#15 posted by Chocolatey Shatner , February 8, 2008 8:50 PM

I was hearing this crazy backwards sounding music in the background of this video, and I was like "Mugatu wants me to kill the prime minister of Malaysia!" Then I remembered I was also listening to Pandora. Crisis averted.

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#16 posted by Mnemesis , February 8, 2008 9:45 PM

Can't you read? This is a MASHUP. It's not, in fact, a Japanese Commercial. Commercials in Japan are not 5 minutes long. And while often bizarre, they are not drug induced seizures.
Seriously, I am sick of this twisted fascination with Japan.
Please, just stop and think. Japan is not Wackyland, it's not some bizarro other dimension full of insane Aliens. It's just another country. Some things are different, but not nearly as different as many of you seem so desperate to think.

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#17 posted by Antinous , February 8, 2008 9:51 PM

Henna gaijin.

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#18 posted by Takuan , February 8, 2008 10:01 PM

hai, sugoi henna da yo

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#19 posted by Not a Doktor , February 8, 2008 10:30 PM

Why so SEEERIOUS?

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#20 posted by Jesse in Japan , February 8, 2008 10:37 PM

For some reason, they call him Donald McDonald in Japan.

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#21 posted by nate_freewheel , February 8, 2008 10:42 PM

put it on mute and play some aphex twins

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#22 posted by Spikeles , February 8, 2008 11:31 PM

I think i just lost some braincells after watching that..

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#23 posted by morehumanthanhuman , February 8, 2008 11:46 PM

$ gcc segfault.c -g -o segfault
segfault.c: In function ‘main’:
segfault.c:4: error: assignment of read-only location

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#24 posted by DrSchnauzer , February 9, 2008 12:40 AM

This must be the most annoying music ever!
I need help now!
Help me!
:)

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#25 posted by zombiefodder

, February 9, 2008 12:46 AM

There is always Miss McDonald.

This is my favorite of her many photos.

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#26 posted by Kid

, February 9, 2008 1:18 AM

This and the horse cooking mushroom video combined are enough to give me nightmares for the rest of the week.

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#27 posted by Kyle Armbruster , February 9, 2008 2:39 AM

@#16

Thank you. You saved me the trouble.

I live here. It's a country. There are people here. It's mostly not very strange at all.

I think a lot of the fascination is just a kind of dunderheaded ethnocentrism. Here's this country, second-biggest economy, thoroughly developed, and yet they aren't white and have a different character set. Seriously. I think that's it.

Because people just guess at what is said and written, it seems strange, but after staying here for awhile, when I go back to the US for a visit or whatever, I realize that our commercials, etc. are every bit as bizarre; we just have seen the various fashions and trends that led up to them.

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#28 posted by Chang

, February 9, 2008 3:33 AM

Butoh has gotten sooooo commercial.

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#29 posted by mrsomuch , February 9, 2008 4:21 AM

make the bad man stop. I can never be drunk enough to make that ok.

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#30 posted by mastercontroller , February 9, 2008 5:48 AM

I come home from a third shift to this?

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#31 posted by Pipenta , February 9, 2008 6:23 AM

There are some commercials, such as the ones with giant furries in the form of raccoons with plush-covered testicles the size of basketballs, that are just plain weird to those of us in the states. There's some kind of cultural skew where this stuff does seem weird and funny to us.

But I am sure there is plenty in our culture that leaves a good number of the Japanese with their jaws in their laps and shaking their heads. Heck, there's plenty that flabberghasts those of us who live here: Star Wars themed weddings, Tupperware parties, cat shows...

Laughing at commercial is not the same thing as mocking a Shinto ritual. These are commercials, for pity's sake. It is the goofy fads that we are enjoying, ours and other peoples. Isn't that just fun?

Pop culture is goofy. And this isn't a tea ceremony, it is bubble tea.

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#32 posted by leriseux , February 9, 2008 6:56 AM

And I'm awake. No coffee needed this morning. Cheers

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#33 posted by Carlos

, February 9, 2008 7:38 AM

@25 Zombiefodder -- Now THAT'S disturbing. Excellent find.

This mashup is okay, but it's got nothing on the iconic Kikkoman commercial:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/kikkoman-e

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#34 posted by ployntabs , February 9, 2008 7:44 AM

I'm having a seizure.
Glad I watched it all though. I like forcing my mind to into unnatural states without using drugs...unless I have to.

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#35 posted by ararat , February 9, 2008 8:29 AM

after seeing this video the Scientology mythology starts making sense

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#36 posted by Spatch , February 9, 2008 9:45 AM

Dear god, it's a five-minute-long blipvert.

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#37 posted by peces , February 9, 2008 10:30 AM

Agree with Pipenta (31). I don't think this was created to mock Japanese culture in any way; it's just a silly bit of video mash-up. I've seen plenty of things like this involving American culture that are way more stupifying.

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#38 posted by peces , February 9, 2008 10:33 AM

not that McDonald's isn't American culture, but you get my drift...

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#39 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2008 10:41 AM

Never thought I'd see the day when something Touhou-related made its way to Boingboing.

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#40 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2008 11:50 AM

Thought that was weird. Check this out, from Sweden with love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uU70MFVHmU

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#41 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2008 1:20 PM

After seeing this AND the horse-head dude I could really use a unicorn chaser...

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#42 posted by Anonymous , February 9, 2008 1:23 PM

In the "seizure inducing mash-up" genre, I prefer this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=InZNBcJTmWs

Cheers ... daveB from Oakland

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#43 posted by malcolmkass , February 9, 2008 2:11 PM

#16 and #27

Sorry, weird is weird, and if the Japanese like weird crap, good for them. Just like 1+1=2 anywhere. Blaming it on ethnocentrism, how weak.

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#44 posted by Takuan , February 9, 2008 2:54 PM

Guess I'll have to keep quiet and lay low if so many people find this little video "weird"

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#45 posted by Various Cool dot Com , February 9, 2008 3:19 PM

Cory we miss you. Xeni and Mark are holding down the fort, albeit barely.

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#46 posted by thegonzalez , February 9, 2008 4:38 PM

This put me in a fantastic mood.

What fun!

lolinternet

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#47 posted by MonkeyTacos , February 9, 2008 4:50 PM

Indeed, LOL INTERNETS.

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#48 posted by Scypher

, February 9, 2008 6:22 PM

Ho boy. Just because it's from Japan doesn't mean it's representative of Japanese humor.

This is representative of 2ch humor. If you don't know what that is, then you shouldn't be surprised if you don't "get" this video. It's like a casual blogger trying to understand /b/.

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#49 posted by bour3

, February 9, 2008 7:06 PM

Goodness, this pistol barrel tastes weird.

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#50 posted by Takuan , February 9, 2008 7:13 PM

try some McDonalds "Secret Sauce"

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#51 posted by Mnemesis , February 9, 2008 9:07 PM

@ #31 and 43, my problem isn't that this is mocking Japanese culture, or anything of the sort.

My problem is that this video, presented on BoingBoing as a Japanese commercial, and eliciting comments like #6 or #4 HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JAPANESE CULTURE. This is a video made by one person remixing lots of different Japanese commercials and a song from a video game. Most Japanese people, on seeing this video, would almost certainly react exactly the same as most Americans.

My problem is that the presentation of this video simply perpetuates the stereotype of "Those Japanese are sooooo crazy." This is clearly evident in the comments so far received. This is also evident in nearly every post on Japan on this Website.

Seriously, this stuff has as much to do with the reality of Japan as Eraserhead has to do with the reality of the U.S.

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#52 posted by ZzmeeY , February 10, 2008 5:52 AM

Ha! It's no wonder that the number of suicides in Japan is higher than in other countries.
There's enough to see their Ronald McDonald ))

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#53 posted by Wickedashtray , February 10, 2008 7:06 AM

....blink.....blink.............

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#54 posted by Overnight Lows , February 10, 2008 7:18 AM

mmm...makes me want hamburgers!

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#55 posted by Bootsy , February 10, 2008 3:48 PM

I am a video editor and man, I find these 'crazy remix' videos irritating and exhausting. I think it's wonderful that so many people can cut stuff together and reach a wide audience, but these people who discover "Hey! I can use this video software to make somebody dance like a marionette!" are just... ah, why should I care. I just won't watch them. Sigh. I think the first one I noticed was the "Tom Cruise going crazy on Oprah's sofa" thing. I guess I finger-painted once too, and now I can draw. Okay, I'm over it.

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#56 posted by Monoped , February 10, 2008 3:56 PM

I can has Crystal Meth?

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#57 posted by jbang , February 10, 2008 6:23 PM

#51 MNEMESIS: Uh, is it being presented as an ad?

It's "crazy Japanese Ronald" with "link to more ad mash-ups"

At no point did BB comment on the cah-rah-naziess of Japanses commercial culture or otherwise, I felt it was being presented as "here's a demented mash-up of an ad, fyi the dudes japanese"

Read the fucking article (all 10 words of it) before getting ya panties all bunched up.

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#58 posted by jbang , February 10, 2008 6:25 PM

Let me amend that - Xeni is not even saying "he's japanese" she's saying "Ronald is in Japan"...which he is, no?

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#59 posted by vjinterkosmos , February 11, 2008 2:56 AM

#21: Aphex Twin: Laughable Butane Bob

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zo3rkqezKMw

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#60 posted by sproingboing , February 11, 2008 7:50 AM

@#57
Regardless of whether or not the wording is accurate ("Insane Ronald *in* Japan"--with it's description as a mash up at the bottom)I think NMESIS' point is well taken: look at comments
4,6,31,43, which automatically assume it's an actual commercial, and the other comments that indicate that this is somehow representative of Japanese sensibility.

The point is, that this crap wouldn't have been posted at all as an entry on BB if were made by some Joe Schmoe American--it would've been overlooked. It's posted here bc it seems to somehow fit the imagination of "the weird Japanese."

@TAKUAN
you'd sound more japanese if you said, "ah, sugoi hen da yo," or "hai, chotto hen des ne."

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#61 posted by Hokkaido Hillbilly

, February 13, 2008 7:53 PM

What was even better was when Makku started the "I'm lovin' it" campaign here and didn't realize what it sounded like w/ a katakana accent. *grin*

I do have to agree w/ a lot of you though....calling him Donald is just flat out 不自然でおかしい.

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#62 posted by Takuan , February 13, 2008 8:08 PM

you mean I didn't sound drunk?