Tokyo Breakfast is a 2000 independent live action comedy short film (5:50 min. running time) by Propaganda Films and created by former MTV producers Mike Maguire and creative Tom Kuntz. The spoof sitcom was a commentary on a fad where a family in Japan were adopting the hip hop lifestyle as depicted in music videos. The film is a parody of the Japanese perception of day-to-day doings of an American family, with an emphasis on the emulation of a perceived black culture. Characters use the term "nigga" with unusual regularity and familiarity. The actors speak in heavily accented English, peppered with American English idioms, and salaryman-style business English. The film appeared in the 2001 Ohio Film Festival and also spread as an Internet phenomenon. Incidentally, the news program the family is watching in the kitchen, "News 23", is actually aired in the evening in Japan on the Tokyo Broadcasting System - not in the morning, as the episode suggests.
|